That's really cool! The best games out there are those which either let you explore or make you think. :)

Well, I don't know one single case in which it was a woman that caused a mass shooting. When the perpetrator isn't shot dead bty the police or doesn't commit suicide himself and can be detained for interrogation there is a pattern in the kind of things they spew: racism, misogyny, feeling like an outcast and thinking they know better than anyone else. Guess what? I'm a man. And I don't really find Anita's tweets all that offensive. Sure they seem to be jumping to conclussions in a very unscientific way, but it's a freakin' tweet, it has a limit of chatacters that can be written. But does she place the blame in being biologically or psychologically, physically or mentally, of the male gender? NO, SHE DOESN'T. She is placing the blame on how certain cultures implant certain unhealthy ideas about masculinity, things that even harm men and can indeed harm people around them and that includes women. Like I said, many of these pretty-much-exclusively-male-mass shooters, when interrogated or when looking at their "letters" and videos before the attack, show themselves as people who feel entitled to having sex with a woman and when they feel rejected they act like this. And yeah, they sometimes are too exposed to media that may not be the best for their weak minds not to start acting crazy. Maybe even more so in some societies than others.

It isn't like I (I don't know about Anita) am asking to ban or censor anything. But maybe we both are trying to act non-protective, unlike fanboys who seem to think that "videogames are a way of life, a religion, a nationality, something to protect from outsiders and their scrutiny". Videogames are a cultural media and also a business. They have people behind, and these people AS ALL PEOPLE DO, EVEN YOU GUYS, have agendas, political views, economic interests... Everyone of us has a right to scrutinize games, which are also social constructions, and not agree with what a particular game means, etc.

Do you know what my favourite videogame series is? It's GTA. Do you know what I think of "Hatred"? Disgust. "Oh, but that's hypocritical, GTA is so violent!". No it's not. There's a lot more to GTA, and it can all be enjoyed in a healthy way by a perfectly healthy person. GTA is about commiting lucrative crime, it's based on a very big genre of fiction which was particularly popular in cinema, it's very humorous parodying every aspect of american culture, has enormous scenarios which reward exploration, has great soundtracks which everyone can enjoy, a gameplay that encourages both planning and improvisation with systems that simulate every aspect of open world urban action... "Hatred" seems to me like a very simple game that a few people may enjoy ironically but I fear too many people may enjoy unironically. The internal monologue in the trailer spews what sounded to me like a very childish, "illuminated" and arguably white-supremacist-like and that was even before I read the rumors that there were neo-nazis among the makers of the game.

People are also comparing this to Postal. Isn't that a series of games which wasn't ever very good but gained a cult following for getting away with ultra-violence because "hey, you can play the whole game non-violently, even if it will be slow and boring"? How is a game in which you just mow down "hordes" of harmless citizens with seemingly no lethal opposition similar in any way to Portal or GTA?

Now tell us how you really feel. :)

In my humble opinion, games are just a distraction so we don't see the ultimate truth that lies ahead. The minute the light goes out, we'll be eaten by a grue.

While I understand the reasoning behind her tweets, I'm blaming three things in this case :

- Ideologically : "Culture of violence" would be a better choice of words rather than "patriarchy" which puts the blame on men while denying the right of women of being violent too. It just narrows the scale of her point of view and can lead to assumptions such as : "if a woman is innerly violent that's because she's been brainwashed by patriarchy". Now if someone really believes that all women are nice and gentle creatures, I'll just smile ironically ;)

- Practically : As Europeans, we can clearly see the effect of different gun control laws between us and the US. The cases of mass shootings are really rare in Europe (only one in Belgium in 30 years for example). It's much more harder to kill people with knifes, etc rather than with a pistol. It reminds me of the ex-girlfriend of a co-worker wo came at work with an axe to kill him : we jumped on her, disarmed her and the case was closed (only one guy was injured). Imagine the same if she came with a handgun...

- Choice of media : Twitter is shitty for debates and that's a good example of how one reasoning looks more like a political slogan than a valuable tought. Damn, even the two of us have written 10x more than her ;) Twitter is only cool for PR and should stay so...

Sorry for paraphrasing, but that somewhat sums it up. I think even over a thousand years ago there was violence in every culture. While technology may advance, the human condition never changes. We've found ways to hurt others more efficiently.

Gun control can be like abstinence from sex, if you choose not to own one, you're probably going to go stark raving mad with an ax. There's an old saying though, never bring a knife to a gun fight, the mad-man in New York who attacked four rookie police officers (I wonder if they thought it was a hazing) with a hatchet was met with bullets.

As far as media goes, there's good news and there's bad news. I like hearing about the good stuff, however, FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doom) and celebrity dirty laundry don't really pillow my sails.

Agreed. She's only one step away from becoming as morbid as the Westboro Baptist Church.

Here's an interesting quote from the book, When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away With Murder by Patricia Pearson
"Women commit the majority of child homicides in the United States, a greater share of physical child abuse, an equal rate of sibling violence and assaults on the elderly, about a quarter of child sexual abuse, an overwhelming share of the killing of newborns, and a fair preponderance of spousal assaults."

Male: School shooter. Female: Baby killer. I'll call it a push...

This is probably one of those old "Fifteen Minutes of Fame" moments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_minutes_of_fame).

I had one once, but it was in stadium-seated classroom. I sat all the way in the back and when lecture was over, I tried to take a shortcut climbing over the seats. I got my foot wedged between then and shortly after my face was hitting the floor, everyone who was leaving class was looking at me and clapping their hands.

I picked myself up and took a bow. :)

Sound like the description of a politician. Try to find a topic that moves people, generate controversy and repeat the "I'm the good guy" mantra as often as possible. Gain attention and followers.

I still am and always will be surprised that in the US people have this attitude. Guns aren't like any other tool suitable as a weapon. It's both technically and psychologically something completely different. And I'm sure that many of the shooters who had no trouble gunning people down still wouldn't have been mentally capable of actually slaughtering others with a melee weapon, not to mention physically. Just pointing at someone and ending his life with the pull of a trigger is NOT the same thing as swinging or thrusting an object into a human body. It can also be confirmed the other way around: many murderers who are the exact opposite of mass shooters, who are perfectly confident, physically strong and where the killing of others is not just an extension of their own suicide (which is what most of these school shootings are), have no interest in using guns and knowingly choose melee weapons or poison etc. because those give them a specific kind of sensation that guns don't.

She CAN be wrong about what causes this violence. But if she honestly believes that there is a correlation between a culture that glamorizes violence and that tells boys or men that solving problems with violence, with a gun is solving problems "like a real man"... then how is it "her agenda" to try and have people "realize this conclusion" she's got to (and I repeat, she may be wrong, but that's how she sees it) if it saves lives. I'd have gun control, I'd have my way in my country, if I thought it was the safe way, the way we got less killings or zero killings. How would that be "an agenda"? There's such a thing like gun manufacturers, people who want guns sold because it's their business. There's such a thing is as fearmongerers, and they aren't necesarilly people who want to cause an alarm about a problem that doesn't exist, but people who want social insecurity to be the state of things so that they can sell you a solution (and guess what, the solution that they sell you is a lot of times a gun, arming yourself, when it's not renouncing to a lot of your rights to privacy, association...). There is not such a thing as a "manufacturer of not-guns" (well, there are lots of manufacturers of things that are not guns XD), so how would wanting more gun control and opinion-makers that don't tell people violence and machismo are the right way to go... translate into an economic gain? Can you call that an agenda?

The point you are missing is obviously:
Men: Pressure from the patriarchy.
Women: Hormones.

Girls will be girls. So it's okay. :P

FTFY.

And no, I don't think it's funny.

That's because of the fucking patriarchy! It's all men's fault! Women only do this because of oppressive men! Men are the real child killers!

Well... I guess that's what Anita would say :/