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A Modest Kickstarter Proposal
In multiple domains, there is a reasonably strong consensus within the zeitgeist that negative mood affiliated media does not correlate to negative behavior. In fact, the opposite is often claimed, that proliferation of such media provides a substitute for the negative behavior, actually reducing it. Casual Ducking pulls up hundreds of articles, many in academic works, arguing that pornography (even aggressive/violent pornography) substitutes for real-world sexual assault, that generally violent video games substitute for real-world violent behavior, that fake child porn (or just sufficiently cheap, legal, and easy to access child porn) substitutes for real-world sexual abuse of children. Many people make these arguments and attach their real names and institutional affiliations to them.
On the other hand, casual Ducking for games where one is a school shooter doesn't elicit any similar list of names/affiliations calling for such a substitute. Instead, it appears to have been kinda-sorta tried and mostly just shut down. What accounts for the difference? Is there a theoretical argument for why it should have a different effect? Is there some sort of data which could be marshaled against the thesis? I don't have solid numbers for the actual cost of school shootings, but I have to imagine that if someone could set up a kickstarter (or whatever platform you'd need to use to not have the effort immediately banned by the platform) to create a school shooter video game, and if said game could provide even a weak substitute, it would be an incredibly efficient use of EA contributions.
This thought arose from watching the bodycam video of the heroic police officers that was posted below. It reminded me of actual first person shooters that I played back when I was young. In addition, the discussion of whether the shooter had a poor strategy for a loadout was interesting. Some blamed (or, um, I guess praised) FPSs for having a typical mechanic where you can carry multiple weapons essentially "for free". Would it make a difference if the video game was tailored to give players the wrong idea about what would be effective in such a situation? Or should it (and FPSs in general) move to being a more realistic simulation?
Finally, what was actually my first thought on the matter was a response to people praising the officers (especially in comparison to Uvalde). Pointing out that their behavior is something that society has strong and important reasons to encourage. I actually thought first, "What if you made a game that let you take on that persona, rushing into danger to save children at great risk to yourself?" But then, I ran into a conundrum. Would this version of the game actually encourage such behavior? Or would it substitute away from such behavior? "Yeah, I get the rush of going headlong into danger to save innocents plenty at home; no need to actually go out and do that in the real world"?
This reminds me when the christchurch shooting happened. I saw the go-pro footage on 4chan. I was absolutely chilled to the bone about how similar it looked to any FPS game I had played all throughout middle and high school. I had always scoffed at the idea that video games had any real psychological similarity to real violence, but actually watching a mass shooting through the eyes of the shooter felt equal parts horrific and familiar.
Ever since I've had this nagging feeling that maybe we had been a little to hasty in overlooking the effects of video game violence on developing minds. Regardless of the multiple studies that have found the opposite conclusions, every time i play an FPS I get these weird flashbacks to watching the Christchurch and later, buffalo shootings. They are remarkably similar. Is it merely a coincidence that school shootings saw a rise with the proliferation of FPS games? It's a meme to talk about Doom in connection with the columbine shootings, but I can't get over this suspicion that maybe we were a little too hasty to dismiss these concerns in hindsight.
Many people have the thought while driving
This is not a dangerous or concerning thought to have. It's just idle daydreaming, it doesn't mean that driving to work is a gateway to incels attacking people with a van.
If somebody has the motive to kill others for pleasure, everything else about them may still be relatable, but that doesn't matter. If you don't share in the motive, the relatability is superficial. If you do share in the motive... unfamiliarity with guns and cars is a very flimsy obstacle to obtaining the destruction you want. If you're willing to die for it, killing a lot of people is an option all us have.
Ironically I think that one of the stronger bits of evidnce that we might actually be living in an "overly feminized" or "safteized" society is that the call of the void, the martyrs spark, or whatever you want to call it, is treated as this weird outlier rather than something that the average dude will have to deal with on a daily basis.
Probably it's downstream of the absence of male-only spaces. Most men realize, correctly, that you don't want to mention these things around women.
The psychiatric term is "intrusive thoughts" and Harvard estimates six million Americans have them; pop psychiatry sites seem to claim "everyone" has them, and I suspect the latter is at least closer to correct (at least lifetime). I'd be willing to bet women have such thoughts too but they're different in character.
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