Posted by alexandra_k on August 24, 2018, at 21:23:56
In reply to Re: personal diary correction, posted by alexandra_k on August 24, 2018, at 20:02:48
i worry about television and computer games...
i know, people have been saying for a while that people don't seem to have a sense of ethics / morality anymore, but they really do seem to be... devolving.
the space guy said something about how we can't get peace right on earth, why would we think we would get it right in space. to do with how on earth we don't stop and help people in need (we are more likely to take pot shots at them in the name of 'you aren't supposed to be there'). why would we think astronauts would be bound to help other astronauts in danger?
partly it is about things going from the few to the masses...
in the beginning of television... it was more civilised, in a way. books, too. when it was hard to produce such things. when only a select few were able to produce such things... the quality of the things was better than... well... significanatly better than the average now. though i suppose there are a greater diversity of really great things now. if you can find them... amongst the rubble...
things like game of thrones and the 500 and so on... teach people a warped sense of morality. a warped sense of what like if `really like' for people at a time / age when they are vulnerable and impressionable and looking for people to emulate as their heroes. they market these things as 'morally gray' and cognitively developed, sophisticated, and so on... but they are barbarians with only a superficial grasp... they walk themselves right into morally problematic things. this idea to teach people that basically this is how people behave. everybody is culpable. to present this as the sophisticated view. to condone the culpability (if everyone is culpable, nobody is culpable). to sell the idea that everyone is playing the same game of trying to screw everyone else over and if you don't take the opportouniteis you fine you are going ot be stomped all over.
computer games...
worse...
themes are becoming worse. canibalism and so on.... there was a controversy over some aspects or elements of grand theft auto. some of the morally dubious things you could do. whether there was a correlation or interaction between doing these sorts of morally dubious things in computer games and doing these sorts of morally dubious things in real life.
the idea, usually, was 'it's only a game - it's all a victimless crime'. only... in the real world... people justify their actions as victimless, too. still and again: no harm to persons or people.
the notion of persons or people is precarious.
there is something Aristotelian about cultivating a character.
desensitisation to violence.
but more than violence, now. normalising imprisonment and torture and canibalism and so on...
i think fascinations / inclinations towards such things do tell you important things about people.
i wonder, sometimes, if these games are produced to enable people to assess precisely that.
i hope they are used to promote good... in some way... somehow... that some good comes of such things...
i have no faith in government...
not the branches of it i've seen, at any rate.
i guess that's the thing really, isn't it.
there are persons somewhere - right???
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1100563
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20180816/msgs/1100597.html