On the Subject of "Muslim Massacre"

[Cait M. R.]

So today at TIGSource, an independent gaming forum full of developers, I run into a thread by the guy called Sigvatr, who created a controversial game called Muslim Massacre. The game, apparently, was decent enough. Nothing special, but not particularly horrible (from a gameplay standpoint, I personally find the subject matter pretty abhorrent). I haven't played it myself.

Anyway, the thread is entitled "Looking Back on Muslim Massacre". I was reading through, and the creator was such an enormous dickhead. I won't bother to reproduce his excuses here, but they basically boiled down to those "Discordians" that wanted on RFD, saying "nigger" to "remove the greyfaced taint" on the word.

"I'm a free thinker, durhurhur, watch me wave my metaphorical cock around and show off how much of a badass I am," in other words.

Anyway, TIGSource is a pretty nonconfrontational place. And i posted a rant, so I'll probably be banned, or at least suspended for this, but that doesn't particularly bug me. Backstory over: I'm going to link to the thread in question, and then reproduce my rant here.

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=6705.0

"

If people get upset, it's hard not to feel that they somehow deserve to be trolled.

Just like Mipey said: things going on in games are usually horrible. To me it's really scary that people get upset by this game but not by other games (mostly). If people think this is bad, but not other games, does that mean that they think everything going on in other games is A-OK?

I agree with this. Like I said when the game was first released, I found that it said more about videogames than it did about terrorism or racism. Even if Sigvatr rejects that interpretation it's still there.

This Is The Correct Moralcycle.

I find gamers to be horrible, horrible people who I personally dislike associating with. There's something disturbing about "HAHA I SET THAT GUY ON FIRE LOOK AT HIM RUNNING AND SCREAMING AND FLAILING," fictional character in a computer game or no. As games get more realistic, I begin to think killing people in games will no longer be a viable option for me, even reluctantly. As for those people who find hacking other human beings to bits enjoyable, even in a game... well, they scare me already. I avoid that sort of thing whenever possible and don't play games focused on it very often, exceptions given particularly to stuff too far over the top for anyone to take seriously.

Generally speaking, I guess I just find it more difficult to feel comfortable with a psychopath, whether or not they're only a psychopath in a game. I'm probably in the minority here, though.

Threadjack over.

Never played Muslim Massacre, but it seems like whatever the game is like, the creator has a serious ego problem. The sort of ego that belongs to a person who would, you know, make a game about a sensitive subject, seeing it as little more than a chance to swing his metaphorical dick around and show off how much of a badass free-thinker he is. Oh, and then laugh at the people who he KNEW would get upset about it.

Then; and this is the kicker, folks; rub this in the faces of the few people optimistic enough to assume he's not a terrible human being and had some kind of philosophical reason for making it, as opposed to at least making an ATTEMPT to hide that he made a huge dick-move. I suppose he gets points for honesty, if nothing else. Of course, this hypothetical person doesn't exist, and for this I am glad because I would hate to learn that I am a part of the same species as someone so self-absorbed as to treat other human beings as their own personal punching bags.

Before the "haha you got trolled" responses come in, this has nothing to do with the fact that the game consists of killing muslims. It has to do with the creator's reasons for making the game, which are pretty disgusting, in my honest opinion.

And before I turn my back on this thread forever, I'd like to note that until I ran into this, I thought -I- was an awful human being. I guess I have to start re-examining my spot in the monkey-hierarchy of the world.

That is all."

[Cramulus]

I think the best way to frame this particular kind of activism is that it is an intensifier of thought. It seeks to create exactly the reaction you had, yes? If the author is concerned with anti-muslim sentiment, he has made an anti-muslim game so bad that it will create an anti-anti-muslim resistance to it. The problem, as you said, is that he ends up throwing out the baby with the bathwater by participating in the same rhetoric he is hoping to defeat.

Other organizations have done this much better - like the Barbie Liberation Front.

[Cait M. R.]

I donn't like the subject matter of the game, but it isn't what prompted the rant.

What prompted the rant was being so full of himself that I mistook him for a fractal.

[Template]

What prompted the rant was being so full of himself that I mistook him for a fractal.

[hooplala]

I find gamers to be horrible, horrible people who I personally dislike associating with. There's something disturbing about "HAHA I SET THAT GUY ON FIRE LOOK AT HIM RUNNING AND SCREAMING AND FLAILING," fictional character in a computer game or no. As games get more realistic, I begin to think killing people in games will no longer be a viable option for me, even reluctantly. As for those people who find hacking other human beings to bits enjoyable, even in a game... well, they scare me already.

Balls.  Fake violence is actually life affirming, not the other way around.

FUN FACT: nobody has ever read a Raymond Chandler book and gone out pretending to be Philip Marlowe.  It doesn't happen.  People who are going to kill tons of people and chop them up were ALREADY CRAZY, and didn't need the help of pop entertainment.

So don't worry about unnecessary bullshit for no reason.

[Arafelis]

There is a small but noteworthy segment of the population who claims Jedi as their religion on census forms.

Use of guns in inner-city gangs climbed steeply during the 1980s, during an era in which gangs/gangsters in movies were portrayed as using guns (Scarface et al).  (Prior to this, knives, chains, and baseball bats were the dominant portrayal in movies for 'gang weapons.')

Many gamers who have played the GTA series of games have jokingly commented on how, after playing the game for long periods of time, they have noticed themselves driving more unsafely (running stop signs, being slow to stop at traffic lights, etc).

FUN FACT: nobody has ever read a Raymond Chandler book and gone out pretending to be Philip Marlowe.  It doesn't happen.

And toxoplasma gondii doesn't force someone to drive to the pound and adopt twelve cats.  So what?

[Cait M. R.]

Hoopla, don't get me wrong. I'm not Jack Thompson here. I'm not going to say violent video games are murder simulators and ask for them to be banned by the government post-haste. I played Quake 3, I'm making a multiplayer FPS with my dev team. I want to play that one Wii game, MadWorld. Have you seen videos of that? (If not, go look them up on youtube. They are the most awesome thing ever.) Personally, I think videogame violence is a good way to let out one's frustration harmlessly.

It's more just a general "goddamn those people creep me the hell out" sort of thing. I don't know. There's just something about people who can laugh till they shit themselves over dismembering someone, even just a digital someone... It just makes me want to avoid that person. It has nothing to do with the likelihood of them going axe crazy.

(To be fair, some might argue that they're all already axe crazy, but those people are shitheads.)

And Arafelis just reinforces Hoopla's sentiment that some people are fucking batshit to begin with. Who is this guy, anyway? He seems awfully stupid.

[hooplala]

There is a small but noteworthy segment of the population who claims Jedi as their religion on census forms.

Use of guns in inner-city gangs climbed steeply during the 1980s, during an era in which gangs/gangsters in movies were portrayed as using guns (Scarface et al).  (Prior to this, knives, chains, and baseball bats were the dominant portrayal in movies for 'gang weapons.')

Many gamers who have played the GTA series of games have jokingly commented on how, after playing the game for long periods of time, they have noticed themselves driving more unsafely (running stop signs, being slow to stop at traffic lights, etc).

FUN FACT: nobody has ever read a Raymond Chandler book and gone out pretending to be Philip Marlowe.  It doesn't happen.

And toxoplasma gondii doesn't force someone to drive to the pound and adopt twelve cats.  So what?

Exactly, so what?  Not sure what kind of point you were trying to make with that.  Any of it really,  since correlation does't imply causation.

People may dress as Jedis and state that as their religion on forms but the fact is they don't go around breaking up fights with their lightsabers.  And if you find a case where someone did, it's irrelevant since that person is clearly in some sort of state of derangement and would have done something equally whacko without Star Wars.  You can't plan for crazy.

[hooplala]

Hoopla, don't get me wrong. I'm not Jack Thompson here. I'm not going to say violent video games are murder simulators and ask for them to be banned by the government post-haste. I played Quake 3, I'm making a multiplayer FPS with my dev team. I want to play that one Wii game, MadWorld. Have you seen videos of that? (If not, go look them up on youtube. They are the most awesome thing ever.) Personally, I think videogame violence is a good way to let out one's frustration harmlessly.

It's more just a general "goddamn those people creep me the hell out" sort of thing. I don't know. There's just something about people who can laugh till they shit themselves over dismembering someone, even just a digital someone... It just makes me want to avoid that person. It has nothing to do with the likelihood of them going axe crazy.

(To be fair, some might argue that they're all already axe crazy, but those people are shitheads.)

And Arafelis just reinforces Hoopla's sentiment that some people are fucking batshit to begin with. Who is this guy, anyway? He seems awfully stupid.

I dunno, you're free to hang around whomever you want or avoid whomever you want... but I happen to giggle like a ninny after fucking a prossie in GTA and then snuffing her, but I believe I'm a very decent human.  Fuck, I once found a sluggish fly outside in November one year and brought it inside because I felt bad for it.  The idea of actually hurting someone is not something I think about, but inside the game... well that's a different story.

[Arafelis]

Exactly, so what?  Not sure what kind of point you were trying to make with that.

Toxoplasma gondii is a multi-species parasite that inhabits the brain and muscle tissue of its hosts, and has been linked to "cat-owning behavior" in humans (docility, weakened social cue-reading, etc) and recklessness in rodents.  It only undergoes sexual reproduction in felines.  The effects of the parasite are pretty much unnoticeable in the short term for any given individual; it's very interesting, however, as a statistical aggregate.

The fact that toxoplasma gondii doesn't actually cause rabid cat-acquiring behavior in humans is irrelevant to that point, just as the fact that few or no people suffer delusional breaks with reality and claim to be Philip Marlowe is irrelevant to the idea of media's effects on the population.

Any of it really,  since correlation does't imply causation.

No, correlation implies correlation.  There is a correlation between media and behavior.  The causative factor of that correlation remains unclear, but dismissing the options (just because some people have exaggerated them to the point of ludicrousness) is irresponsible.  It's on exactly the same footing as the whole sagan-foundation-predicting-nuclear-winter-by-early-2000s-was-wrong-so-global-warming-is-a-hoax chain of thought that's made the rounds on the Web.

People may dress as Jedis and state that as their religion on forms but the fact is they don't go around breaking up fights with their lightsabers.  And if you find a case where someone did, it's irrelevant...

You see absolutely nothing wrong with the logical structure of this argument?

[Cait M. R.]

People may dress as Jedis and state that as their religion on forms but the fact is they don't go around breaking up fights with their lightsabers.  And if you find a case where someone did, it's irrelevant...

You see absolutely nothing wrong with the logical structure of this argument?

WAY TO GO TAKING THINGS OUT OF CONTEXT, PAL.

Not everyone can be assed wording everything they say with the same care and diligence of the mega-human you clearly are.

The logic is sound, the way it was stated says to you that it wasn't. How about, to get it through your fucking skull, I reword it for you.

Crazy people are far, far, far more likely to do crazy things than non-crazy people. Therefore, it is safe to assume that when a crazy thing is done,the person responsible is crazy.

EDITED FOR CLARITY IN CASE I GET YELLED AT BY SOMEONE WHO CAN'T DO SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS PARSING INFORMAL LANGUAGE

[Arafelis]

Crazy people are far, far, far more likely to do crazy things than non-crazy people. Therefore, it is safe to assume that when a crazy thing is done,the person responsible is crazy.

That seems irrelevant to the falsifiability problem I was objecting to.  It also walks right into the 'correlation is not causation' statement Hoopla brought up, bangs its nose, and falls over... so I find it unlikely that that is what s/he meant.

[hooplala]

No, that was pretty much what I meant.

I don't see anything wrong with the logic in that bisected argument because a single case doesn't negate the general rule.  Or, maybe it does to you, you're starting to remind me of the cat that sat on the hot stove.

I won't believe that the media affects the behavior of non-mentally ill citizens until I see some very strong evidence for it.  I'm sort of outlandish like that.

[Sepia]

Game is boring but gets plus points for honesty.

[Arafelis]

I won't believe that the media affects the behavior of non-mentally ill citizens until I see some very strong evidence for it.  I'm sort of outlandish like that.

My concern is that you seem to be setting the bar too high.  Your proposed cases are basically schizoid breaks; the effects of environment are much more subtle and gradual than that.