Target (Australia) drops GTA V due to depictions of violence against women

This guy thinks he can psycho-analyze someone over the internet. Quick, let's make him our leader.

 

There's no psycho-analysis, as that would actually involve something to "analyze". You made a series of baseless assertions and hardline accusations towards others.

 

I'm bored. What else is on.

 

And that is another way.

 

Once you explain what you're taking about, maybe somebody will start talking to you.

 

You've already provided all the words required to taint your opinions, so I don't have to.
Nobody is interested in having some fanatic Abrahamic Alex Jones type on their side, so I'm certainly not going to try to woo you onto mine.

 

Never mind, the more words you write the less sense you make.

 

I could have made less sense.
I could have accused everyone who doesn't agree with me of "living in the Matrix" and then ranted about Atheism.
Great job keeping on topic, as always, selmo.

 

You could have. But then you'd just be a big, fat copycat.

No, you're far worse.

I at least try to tackle the topic with my own (gasp) unique perspective. You are just trying to tackle me.

Which is flattering. For one of us.

Do go on with your "this is the last word" attempts at pith, we're on schedule for a "I've got better things to do" right about now, better not disappoint.

 

Shhhh... Don't spoil it! I quite enjoy watching him dispense pseudo-intellectual advise to everyone in the forum when he's one of the least qualified people here to give it.

"You're welcome, Internet" - HAH! Awesome.

 

Least qualified here? That's a stretch.

Edit: But it's nice to know I have a fan base, even if it's just one person who loves to watch.

 

So, in closing...

Stores can do what they want. A lot of people think this is comparable to censorship, which is dumb because you can still get the product... just go to a different store.

People think Target is making a mistake, or helping give Rockstar free publicity... but that's also dumb, because Target isn't trying to ban GTA. It's just trying to tell it's shoppers that it's a family friendly place to shop. Which is the real story, with Target coming out with a good image.

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Off topic summary:

GTA shouldn't be a thing. But it is. It is, because people like to rebel against moral authority. If no moral authority exists, it must be created so it can be rebelled against... like in this thread, apparently now I am a bible thumper. Hmm, who knew. It's just what people do. Especially, though, rabid atheists or anyone who's been burned by religion.

In a way, GTA probably provides an outlet for people. I guess that's cool. A deeper issue is why do people find killing cops and banging hookers to be cathartic?

But, that's a bridge too far for the internet crowd.

 

Oh wise one, we are all humbled by your pretense.

 

Unless I missed something, I'm pretty sure the only person who brought up the bible, or atheism is you.

 

...but wait, isn't that statement pretentious?

 

Discussions of morality always attract atheists.

Source: 15 years of arguin' on the internet.

 

Violence against woman!? How dare they. If it was just violence against worthless men, then that would be fine /sarcasm /face-palm

 

Maybe because mostly women shop there?

Someone go get Ony to explain how I'm stupid again, I'm not seeing it.

 

Agreed. Also stating that in every religion, killing is bad. I could name multiple that endorse conditional killing and even a few that endorse chaotic and random killing.

How did atheism come into this?

 

I never said you were stupid and I don't think you are. I do think you have an overly inflated opinion of yourself, but to me that's just funny, not stupid. And by the way, just because I don't think you're stupid, don't assume that to mean I think you're smart.

 

To be fair, I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't love themselves, so for me it's all positive.

 

Loving yourself is a wonderful thing indeed. Worshiping yourself is a different story. But hey, what do I know? You just keep on being you.

 

Here's my view:

-The game has a right to have that kind of content.
-Companies have a right to not sell it for any reason.
-People have a right to support or not support said companies decisions.
-"Violence against women" is a loaded term that implies the violence is worse than normal, which is anti-equality.
-People have the right to use the stupid term above, I just discourage it.
-GTA IMO ought to have some hookers that pull out a gun and defend themselves as I'm sure real hookers would.
-Anyone who thinks that video games like this make people violent in real life have the burden of proof, show evidence.
-Anyone who does not agree with any of the above points is wrong.

 

When people use the term "violence against women", what they are generally talking about is "male violence against women". When they talk about "violence against men", what they are generally talking about is "male violence against men".

The real discussion should be more about why are males so F***ing violent, and not so much about who they are violent towards. But that's a discussion that requires more than just a silver bullet shot into whatever video game is popular at the time. That requires people to be open minded and ask themselves, really ask themselves, why? Why are men so violent? You're not willing to have that discussion, though, because every time it comes up, in whatever form it comes up in, you brush it off. You find some easy way to push it aside and ignore it. Lately, you find some way to blame the entire conversation on those damned feminists.

I'm not a feminist, and I sort of hate to say that because yes I absolutely believe in women's rights, but the term has become extremist and loaded and distorted more and more every day, so I reject it. I want equality for all. The problem is that the feminists seem to be the only ones who want to shine a light into that dark cellar of male violence and find out what the f*ck is up. So they bring it up regarding violence towards women. You know what, though? At least someone is bringing it up. A lot of good it's doing though, when the only response some of you have to the discussion is "well there's violence against men too!" as if that somehow dismisses the entire subject. Next! Move along! Nothing to see here. Yeah, no sh*t, there's violence against men. When are you guys going to bring it up and talk about it?

From the US Department of Justice Official Report on Homicide Statistics 1990-2008 (also includes 2009-2010 overall) (and thanks to Wikipedia for the breakdown):

Offenders

• Males committed the vast majority of homicides in the United States at that time, representing 90% of the total number of offenders.
• Young adult black males had the highest homicide offending rate compared to offenders in other racial and sex categories.
• White females of all ages had the lowest offending rates of any racial or age groups.
• The overall offending rates for both males and females have declined since 1990.
• Of children under age 5 killed by a parent, the rate for biological fathers was slightly higher than for biological mothers.
• However, of children under 5 killed by someone other than their parent, 80% were killed by males.

Victims

• Victimization rates for both males and females have been relatively stable since 2000.
• Males were more likely to be murder victims (76.8%).
• Females were most likely to be victims of domestic homicides (63.7%) and sex-related homicides (81.7%)
• Males were most likely to be victims of drug- (90.5%) and gang-related homicides (94.6%).

Aside from all the guys killing people (of all genders - hey, equality!), you'll notice in those stats that the number of domestic and sex-related homicides committed by males against females is way up there. Some countries, like Australia, take sex-related crimes very seriously, and that is why this story of GTAV and Target is all about Australia and their values. Not the US. The US has a very different set of values indeed.

I know some of you will say "well I'm not violent," as if, again, that somehow negates the entire argument. It doesn't.

So yeah, let's talk about male violence, and not just "violence against females". Let's have that discussion. You keep bringing it up, so you must want to discuss it. Let's bring some equality to the table. Enough with the term "violence against women." Let's talk about why males are so violent against everyone.

 

Because men have always had to historically be violent else their women and children are brutally murdered or worse?

We're built for violence. Most often men are the victims of extreme violence and more often they're the perpetrator, it's how it is and it will always be until someone manages to solve all the world problems(and even then, some of us will still revert to our primal instincts).

 

"The real discussion should be more about why are males so F***ing violent"

Because of genetics. It's nature. Both men and women provided for and protected their families throughout the past, but women tended to nurture and keep watch over children. Men on the other hand were the hunters. We evolved in an environment where we needed to kill to eat, kill to defend ourselves, kill to eliminate competition for resources, killing was how we solved problems, and men are the problem solvers, thus men are usually the killers. Killing is built into our operating system.

Fortunately we are intelligent enough to generally realize that killing has serious implications. Note that women do kill also, they tend to use different methods. As far as which gender kills more, I would assume it's males.

Back to my quote:

""Violence against women" is a loaded term that implies the violence is worse than normal, which is anti-equality."

My point stands. Just because men are more likely to kill, does not mean that it is more wrong when a man murders a woman, than when a man kills another man. Both are equally wrong. It doesn't matter what gender is more likely to kill, we are one species, which gender evolved with the role to kill, is arbitrary, this is a human problem, not a problem that can be put on one gender as being at fault, that would be childish.

 

Since this cannot possibly get more off-topic and the mods haven't locked the thread yet... I might as well join in

@Ony would you mind sharing your beliefs on why men are violent?

 

I think the problem is that men are encouraged to be violent.

Think about men signing up to be drafted into war should the need arise, when they apply for a College/University. Women, on the other hand, were considered as "not required for a Draft".

I think there are a variety of reasons as to why men are statistically more violent, and a lot of it has to do with tradition and how males and females are encouraged to be like as adults, from a young age by their parents. It's basically traditional mindsets having an influence on growing youths.

I'm actually a pansy and dislike violence. Not necessarily because I'm weak, but because I don't like the idea of hurting people. Even so, other guys may consider me weak and wont take me seriously thanks to what their parents have taught them. There are also those women that are brought up to think that guys like me are the type they should stay away from because I won't be able to protect them when it counts. Not saying that every family's parents do this, but a lot do and it has lasting effects on kids growing up, such as the choices people make in terms of friends they should have or people they should love.

 

So we have a nature argument and a nurture argument. Someone should be along shortly to offer a hybrid theory

 

Well technically we are still talking about GTA V being removed from store shelves in Australia and why, or why not, we feel that is an appropriate response to a complaint.

I don't have any strongly held beliefs on that. I was hoping the guys could fill us in. So far, so good. If I had to come up with something I suppose I would be the one to lean towards the hybrid theory you mentioned above.

 

To be honest I don't really know what I want to say. The nature/nurture debate has been trodden a million times by people much better informed than us and they haven't produced any simple answers.

In any case here are some of my thoughts.
I think right now there is too much focus on cultural factors. I can see why that's happened though. Discussions around biology have a bad history and they smell of excuse-making. But there is a difference between explaining something and attributing blame. Evolutionary psychology can serve as a useful role in telling us why things are the way they are without diverting moral responsibility away from individuals. It also gives us a psychological framework to think about how changes can be made, something that many sociological theories do not give.

Can we make men as peaceful as women? No. Not without removing the machinery. Do we want to? In some ways yes, but it's not as simple as "make love not war". The more we study the mind and social interactions, and the more we evolve our social conscience, the better we become at working with what we have to achieve the society we want. But we absolutely do not know what kind of society we want. Sure, we can devise all kinds of theoretical societies, but none of those can exist in this world, since they do not account for contingencies. "Do not lie" is the kind of rule that only a hypothetical society could employ. What if I have to lie to save a friend? What if I have to lie to...? Etc.

Change isn't going to happen by degendering our kids toys or telling men their masculinity is 'wrong'. It happens the way it already been happening throughout history - lots and lots of discussion and thinking followed by small but meaningful steps of progress.

As for GTA, I don't really know. Arguing that is 'obviously' shouldn't exist is silly. People want to make it, people want to fund making it, and people want to buy it. There is nothing 'obvious' about denying that. The best way forward is not to say "look at how bad our society is" but something like "Here are some well thought out reasons why we should/not do X". Should target pull GTAV? They are entitled to for sure. But in my opinion, if they believe it is truly wrong, then pulling it is not enough. After all they profited from it, and they (illegally?) marketed and sold it to kids. They should really donate those profits to a charity of some kind.

I have no real 'conclusion', except that I want to see more reasoned arguments and less 'well obviously...' styled rants. I'm looking at you @Misterselmo!

 

I'd also like to see less circular reasoning.

~edit: not going to name names.

 

Circular arguments are stupid, I agree. In conclusion, the earth is flat.

 

I just want to throw some ideas outs there.

I've been asked to play GTA V with more girls than I have males. They enjoy the crap out of running over hooker, drug dealers, ugly people, regular people. They enjoy blowing crap up just as much as males do.

Why is male vs female violence so condemned, yet male vs male violence is the norm? It seems like all these big "equality" groups only lobby when it'll favor the women, which is great....to a point. Before you get your pitch forks let me explain that statement. I've not found ONE woman equality group that has lobbied for the requirement of females to enroll in the draft, not one has lobbied for equal rights in the court on the matter of the possession of children in a divorce case, not one has lobbied for equal alimony rights. Please, I'd so support any women equality group that actually worked towards EQUALITY and not just the advancement of women. I want women to have exactly the same rights, I really do. But you can't just cherry pick the ones you want and dance around all the negative ones.

If you want to be treated equally, don't act like you should be immune to things that is perfectly fine with males. Ehmm, violence in GTA 5.

 

Discussion isn't always about the answers. You can enjoy the discussion for the sake of discussion, too.

Great point. The most I've played GTA in years is with my girldfriend, at her suggestion.

 

@R.Lindsay - "The nature/nurture debate has been trodden a million times by people much better informed than us"

Better informed than you. Just remember that, you cannot speak for us all, because you do not know us all. You especially do not know me, that I can absolutely verify, because I don't know you. So, broad baseless assumptions aside...

@Ony - Males are more violent... Why, why, why?

Good question. You can do the whole "the world may never know" endless debate thing, and cry out (as R.Lindsay does) for "well reasoned arguments", which I guess means any argument that makes no attempt at any end or conclusion. More of a polite suggestion than an argument... but anyway. Since I'm an informed person with strong opinions, I'll do what I'm naturally expected to do and attempt to answer this question. The folks in the peanut gallery can chime in later and be virtually ignored, as usual. *clears throat*

Males are not necessarily more violent. This may come as a big shock because you have statistics. You know, lies, damned lies and then statistics. They aren't less violent, either, mind you, than girls. Boys, by nature, are little fluffy teddy bears... I had three brothers growing up, I've known more than my fair share of guys who spend their whole lives timidly apologizing, taking whatever they're offered, etc. I've seen girls go batshit crazy and just wreak havoc, as well. So why do males end up being more violent than women as they reach young adulthood?

It's convoluted and it takes a while to arrive at, but it all has to do with reproduction. I'll spare you "the talk" but you, at the very least, must be aware of the notion of dominant/submissive roles. Even in same-sex pairings there are generally a dominant and a submissive role partner. There are exceptions, of course, because humans are extremely complex... but in general, that's how it goes, just like in general, men are more violent than women. The dominant role is an extremely complex one in itself, in that it often appears to be abusive and it can quickly become abusive... however, it can also be protective. And more often, the dominant role is one of self-sacrifice and protection of the submissive at all costs. This probably all seems foreign if you're a westerner, because we've whitewashed a lot of gender roles from our societies but we've failed to wash them out of our psychological framework.

Women are simply predisposed to despise men who appear to be "weak", because a "weak" man can neither provide nor protect adequately for his offspring.

So men must prove that they are not "weak". They must prove that they are "strong" if they wish to have any chance at reproducing. This might mean being a competitive shark and taking a #1 sales position at work, or this might mean a large, brutish individual beating the snot out of a guy for slapping his female on the rear end. Proving strength is just a part of what it is to be male. And proving this strength can take some pretty twisted, dangerous left turns.

Women appreciate men of exceptional strength. Twilight? That's all you, ladies. A lightning fast immortal made of stone (who's apparently great in bed... and can get his mate pregnant in a single attempt )... there's no denying how this stuff works, I just marvel at how people are baffled by it.

I submit that it is much the same as how girls get suckered in to dirty dancing jobs, unhealthy relationships, etc. to feel self esteem and be admired for their beauty... their reproductive qualities, in a way, as the submissive role partner. It makes my head spin, and it's uncomfortable to think about, but a lot of women end up in these abusive situations and it's not just by pure accident. Some women fight to get to these squalid conditions and then they fight to stay in them, so that's the other side of the coin, if you will.

An MMA fighter is the equivalent of his porn star girlfriend.

It's an ugly manifestation of a larger, underlying trend that we really have lost touch with. It's not all that confusing when taken in a broader context. In this regard, what we would call "more primitive societies" actually have a better handle on understanding this behavior than we do.

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Now make sure that you explain, in great detail, just how wrong I am. Provide no counter argument, focus on me.