Are We all Doomed?

This is the link to the artical I read.
http://ithp.org/articles/violentvideogames.html

The point that this article is trying to relay to us is that violent video games directly affect you negatively. This article covers this issue and does try to answer some questions that I thought of immediately when read the headline. Like is there a difference between movies and video games because movies are set in a more realistic world? Some people believe that they can be good for you like eye hand coordination.

 He squashes both of those thoughts I had. The first he uses three bullet points in how video games are worse than movies and TV.  He does however in the three points only use one study done and that only is to answer or cover just that idea. In his final statement about that question uses the words “empirical evidence” to support his statements and references that study. The second thought I had was referenced directly. He even says and offers references to studies done that say they can help eye hand coordination. However that is answered only after he has pointed and made statement that to the contrary that over a hundred and thirty studies say that it directly increases aggressive behaviors and decreases helping behaviors and feelings of empathy. A well placed answer with empirical evidence to support his thoughts.

After that I was hooked into wanting to know what he had to say because he stopped both thoughts I had. It gave me the idea that he was going to give a clear answer to that question, a question that is in the media all the time and really is in the back of  my mind having five children of my own.

So only after he has stopped some of the doubt does he get to the answer of his first statement. He poses it into a question formation of basically why do you doubt my theory. He again puts it into a bullet point format and use question answer format. All answers are direct to the point and uses again empirical evidences by quoting studies that support that answer. He even throws into one of his answers a visual bar graph to make it pleasing to the eyes of how his answer is right. Which I feel was there only to convince that visual sense we have.

Then to close his theory he does in one sentence try to down grade “some” social scientists and “non-expert” media.  He finishes that with statement of “vast majority” believing in his theory and again references studies done to support that.

I was able to find all of his references very easily through Google search by copying and pasting the reference he gave all most all of them came up with in the first 5 listings under the search and I was even able to find the actual papers that were written from those studies.

In all it was very convincing because of a well thought out format of answering questions with his ideas and quoting empirical evidence to support his answers. It even made me think of getting rid of my game system games that are violet. But it was a fleeting thought and is gone now. LOL

my pop culture tour

This is a link to a video that explains some ways pop culture has effected my life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ERw8BW21wk&feature=plcp

I defiantly recognized how in different areas in my life are effected by pop culture. From Medicine to entertainment to physical outlets and also society in general in how I deal with other people.  My views are toward getting away from the norm but its very difficult in the American culture to not be influenced by PC. I have seen that in my life I have picked up mixed cultures from all the states I’ve lived in which in turn gives me I feel a little more insight to the differences in culture that America has.

gamification

After having watched this video twice I picked up one thing that he said that leads me to believe that this could work. He said “Different choices have different outcomes and we control the choices we make” this idea I think is the truth block that he builds this ides from. One of the things that make us different from all other mammals is that we have the ability to think that are actions for the most part are not instinctual. What is it that we think for? It is to make that choice, which our thoughts lead us to. Every choice we make no matter if it’s right or wrong we have gained more information to base choices off of the next time. But how do you reward a student if they are starting to head down the wrong path to lead them back towards the direction the need to go. That will be the hard part of this idea and you would need to change your curriculum or point scale. Especially if the class is an internet based class where you don’t always have the option to sit down and give them the additional time that they need to direct them back. There are also time constraints that need to be considered. One last idea was that if I can’t figure out the answer to a game I sometimes just put it away and it gathers dust until I feel the desire to pull it back out. If there isn’t usually visible to the student or gamer progression we tend to just feel bored and do something else. For the most part I do like this idea and its been fun so far.

Pop culture or trend?

I’ve said in the past that pop culture is a trend I want to try to explain what I meant by that. People say that pop culture is just that “culture that pops up at the drop of a hat and then goes way just as fast”.

What is pop culture truly? Is it not us as humans making decisions without immediate consequences? Pop culture distracts us from focusing on what’s important to us as a whole.  “This movie is really good you should go see it” or “his or her music is the greatest you should listen to it” these statements are to us evidence that we can make a decision off of that for the most part doesn’t seem to come with any immediate negative side effects. Even with drugs for the most part the first use is not fatal so you have the good without the bad. Even if the bad does happen it’s only ourselves, our choice doesn’t affect others.  

How about texting it’s ok right now because we don’t see immediate consequences. We get to chose what kind of phone we text from and who we can text too without having face to face interactions that might end up bad for us. When there maybe long term side effects that we can’t see right now. Logic may say that we are training ourselves to not know how to physically interact with each other. Like let’s say for instance when we text to someone that we are angry or mad with them we can say what we like. But if you’re at school and then are thrown into a confrontation with a friend over a boyfriend or girlfriend cursing at them can lead to a physical confrontation because we don’t truly know how to act socially. That is just a thought that’s been passed around over the last few years because of children killing children.

We as humans want to show how human we are. This is one thing I have gotten from the class I’m taking, we unlike other mammals have the ability to rationalize and think and ignore what is instinctual. To steal from a pop culture movie, we have the right and ability to choose. (Even if our choices truly in the long run mean absolutely nothing to the growth or better of our society)

lets just live in the grey a little more each day and see were that gets us

Well today I again walked away from class with a head full of thoughts and no one to really sit down face to face with and talk about it. I am looking at pop culture and I see fully that pop culture in the American society is not really pop culture that pop culture is really a trend. I am fighting for words on how I want to explain myself. I was recently reading a book called “How We Decide”. It’s a book that has thrown a lot of ideas out there but hasn’t really given me any answers.

 Just in that statement I just made tells everything that is wrong in our culture today. We won’t make any decisions in our culture without evidence. In social science we search for empirical evidence. We search for answers to hard questions but in searching we tend to get stuck. What formed our country? Was it not a handful of men seeking for something better and even though if we looked at empirical evidence in today’s culture we would have said they were mad? But they made a decision. If we look at change in our world change was made through decisions. You make a decision follow through with it and if it worked out for the best we did it if it didn’t we would just not do that again and try something else.

 As a child you can tell him or her a thousand times not to touch or it will burn. That child will never learn what burn is until it actually happens. In this book he uses the example of football players and how they have to make snap decisions and he rolls out a bunch of theoretical evidence and tries to explain how a football player might make his decision. I see it as every quarterback that throws a football is in reality just making a decision. It’s as simple as that and nothing else. You really only hear about the really good decision or the really bad ones. Not that every decision is just them saying here it goes nothing. There is no factual evidence that it was a going to be a good or bad throw not until the ball was already thrown.

 He uses the decision that Wagner Dodge made as an example and again points to theoretical evidence that sways you this way or that way. As to how he came up with that snap decision to start his own fire to save his life. With so many variables to a forest fire and nature no man can make a snap judgment that he new was going to be right. He just did it.  We only contemplate his decision making skills because he survived he himself said he was lifted off the ground from the fire he could have died even though he did what he did. No one looks at did he distract from the other jumpers from getting to the top by stopping them for those ever few seconds they had. Remember some actually did make it to the top. I don’t want to take from what he did. Because of his snap decision hundreds maybe thousands of firefighter’s lives have and will be saved.

 Our culture in itself has stopped people from making just that “life saving decisions” because of the chance that our decision may just fail. We criticize our president in the media everyday about how he has made bad decisions in his life and that in turn makes him second guess his decisions and tries to search for evidence good or bad to help his decision. And then before you know it time is up. Time that is crucial to a whole society is up before he can follow through with the idea. Same with doctors, scientists, dentists, engineers etc...

Samuri 7 or 7 Samuri

Is there nothing in our culture that is Black or White anymore!?