Neela no one is trying to make the claim that Violent Video Games cause people to be more violent, at least that I've seen. Simply said though, there are cases to watch out for. Just because Marijuana is not nearly as dangerous as it's protrayed does not make it harmless. Violent Video Games will not cause prolonged aggressive behavior, as studies have proven, however people who spend their time watching a screen ripping people apart may not necessarily have the skills needed to determine the difference. In fact, any time before the age of five children can't differentiate what they see on TV as different from the real world. Likewise children under five exposed to violence a lot may have questionable attitudes concerning ethics.

Anyway, again I state the topic of video games was only a lead in to a deeper argument which was ignored.

Neela- I may be a kid, but I've played pong too. O.o

DoomedOne- Yes, you are right. At least about everything except that nobody is trying to claim that video games cause violence. Certainly none of us have, but out in the real world, there is at least Jack Thompson. So, nobody sane is trying to say that video games cause violence.
Yes, there is a correlation between my brother's stance on life and his habits. I've noticed it, and just from what I said, you noticed it too. Pretty obvious. Yet he doesn't know why I shake my head when he says things like that. I've explained it to him, and he thinks that he is in the majority group of the population in most areas. Almost frightening, really. Maybe I should sleep with my eyes open from now on, in case I piss him off...
Maybe what you said about T.V. is the key to this. I'm not saying he should be like me, but what he is is almost frightening. I grew up watching Barney and Sesame Street, since that's pretty much all the kid's shows that were on when I was little. He grew up watching Power Rangers, action movies, violent cartoons and grade-b horror flicks.
And you were absolutely right about my topic. I. Was. Flamed. Even the long time forum goers disagreed with me, which was fine and what I expected. However, the ammount of people who simply disreguarded my idea of out hand with statements like, "no. u suck. go play tetris," was a little frightening. Well, you got it. Want some kind of prize?

Aki- Yeah, that's pretty much my attitude as well.

And back to the riginal question, and trying to steer the discussion back to what DoomedOne was asking originally-

That is a good question. Philosophers could debate this point forever with no conclusion. Logic supports both sides, as well as more emotional reasons.
Yes, morals in videogames:
Logic: Of course. We can't prove the world itself isn't real. How is a dreamworld different? How do we know we don't have it backwards, and the "real" world is the dream, and the "dream" world is real?
No, moral standards in videogames should differ from morals in real life:
Logic: Is every person who plays Halo/Counterstrike/etcetera a murderer? A dream is a dream, fantasy is fantasy.

My answer is:
Yes, we should hold ourselves to the same morals as we do in real life. THis is a list of the morals I can think of that I hold in real life. It isn't a list of morals that everyone should have, as different faiths and such believe different things.
Morals:
-Don't kill except in self defense or if killing is necesary for survival, or if it will prevent an immediate cruel fate. (example of last one: In a series of books by Robert Newcomb, The Chronicles of Blood and Stone, the main character, Prince Tristan,is forced to behead his father, King Nicolaus. Enemy troops have surrounded and defeated them all, and have given him an ultimatum. Kill his father quickly and painlessly, or they will torture him to death.)
-Don't do something to a person unless they want it done. (rape, leaving a person alive but connected to tubes when they have told you that they would rather die than live like that)
-Be respectful to everyone, until such a time as they do something to cause you to lose respect for them. Do not make people earn your respect, rather, give it to them freely, and then take it back if they do something you cannot or will not condone.
-Be respectful towards other people's beliefs, do not tell them, "No, you are wrong. The truth is_____."
-Help others when they need help.
-Do not spurn or shun others for having a different set of morals than you, unless this is simply a person with no morals, or who enjoys doing things that are wrong by almost any set of morals. (murder, rape, ect...)
-Do not disrespect others for not being as good as you are at something, rather, help them. Do not get angry at someone for being better than you at something, rather, learn from them.
-Do not lie, except for little white lies. (No, you're not balding. No you're not fat.)
That's all I can think of for now, maybe I'll think of others later.

No, I don't think I could.

I do want to apologize DoomedOne.. I did get a bit off topic on my rant. Please forgive as I had just walked away from a similar argument with a coworker just prior to reading this thread and I think it just sort of spilled over into here.

No it's okay, it has been touched, and you did bring up a good point and phrase an argument better than I could.

Kindred- Yeah, everyone has their own morals. You seem to me like an INFP. It tends to be the INFPs and INTJs that try to have clear principles. It's hard, like trying to describe what life is in scientific terms, to be able to phrase exactly what your ethics are. Mine are similar, I have mannerisms that get in the way but like many people I have spent a lot of my life trying to figure it out, and ethics is one bug chunk of "it."

I respect acting however, but whenever I play a character who's different from myself (take Wred from WoH) who's also technically a villain, I make him extremely human and relatable. Wred has been haunted with guilt for like five years because his betrayed his legionnaires. He despises himself and everyone who rules him. He just wants to break free, but he also feels he chose his path, and can't turn away. As a writer, I love picking apart people's systems of ethics and seeing where they differ from my own. I'm one of those guys that just wants to smack Wred in the face and tell him today is the first day of the rest of his life, bu alas, I'm not there.

Trigun was great at that, as each character was sort of an ideologue, and I see the main characterization between Vash, Wolfwood, Legato and Knives. You could use as much logic against Vash's means to accomplish his goals, and Vash could probably never argue against it, nor even try. It's like me trying to explain to Channler that Peace is possible, I couldn't find the words. However, he would wear his smile and do what he needed to do anyway, despite criticism he couldn't fight back against.

I could say I agree with your ethics or what problems I see with them except that ethics is a life journey, you can't figure out what your ethics are by picking and choosing them out of the bible or by being conditioned by authority, you have to seek them out.

Same thing will go for my oblivion character with differing ethics. I really want to do the thieves guild and assassins guild because they seem really interesting. I plan to do them at first and start with a character who's a pretty horrible person, then once i finish them I'm going to go through a 180 and change my ways.

INFP? INTJ? I take it these are personality types? And yes, actually, I was digging through some old posts and I noted that you seem to think fairly similar to me, only you articulate your thoughts differently. Been a while since I've done a real personality test, but I vaguely remember seeing something like that.
I have seen Trigun, and I have to agree with you there. It is one of the better animes out there. I think the best of them tend to do a lot of morals and moralistic stuff.
When I write or roleplay, the characters are always realistic. They just have realistic morals, will betray them realistically, try to hold to them in a predictable way. As far as writing goes, I am good at three things:
1. Character developement, personality and stuff like that.
2. (Kind of ties in with 1) Inner drama scenes.
3. Action scenes.
I'm not so great at dialouge, but I'm working on it.

A few of the ethics I listed came not so much from my own behavior as from others. I know a lot of people who act certain ways and I think, "I'd never do something like that." For example, today, a girl in my school was telling me that she was Wiccan. She was explaining a little about it to me and another kid. Well, she was explaining about the Tarot cards, and how they work (reading the future) and the kid says, "Cool! Can I see them?" She tries to explain why nobody else can touch them. I help out here, because she's kind of at a loss for words. I say something along the lines of, "Tarot cards work by getting used to your soul, your spiritual energy, and if someone else uses them, it kind of messes them up and messes up your progress with them." I'm not Wiccan but I know a little about it. The girl agrees with what I said, and offers to read the kids future for him. As soon as nobodies looking, he grabs her Tarot cards and starts looking at them. Btw, she predicted he'll die within a week. Interestingly enough, I know a little bit about palm reading (I know which line is which and that's about it) and his lifeline ends in the middle of his hand. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

You are right that ethics is a life journey. I merely attempted to define the ones I was fairly sure of and I did say I probably missed some.

And yeah, roleplaying the bad guy can be fun sometimes, as long as you know WHY you are doing what you are doing. Ex: (from penny arcade)
Guy #1: What are you doing?
Guy #2: Killing this guy with an ice spell.
Guy #1: Why?
Guy #2: Because he's immune to fire.

People like that bug me.

I will also probably roleplay a "darker" character who does the "eviler" quests some time. However, he'll have a reason to be evil.
FYI, most of the time I try not to play characters with really "dark" pasts, especially in roleplays. While it is fun sometimes, everyone does it, and that makes it boring.

You dug up my old posts? Uh oh. (Knows what it's like to run for an office.)

By the way, I definitely think you're an INFP (yes it's a myers-briggs personality type) because A. You have distinct principles; B. You probably consider yourself a hero of your own story in a way, like you actions hold to a greater purpose; C. You're good at translating, not languages but forms of expression. If someone says something extremely technical, INFPs are good at interpreting it in a way other people can understand. I do that, too. I wrote an essay about Vash's unsaid words, in the perspective of being a logical thinker actually able to explain ethics in Vash's position. The INFP part comes in on being able to explain what vash himself can't quite find the words for.

Now see, I always consider my characters so of as just people. Even if I want to them to do horrible acts, I always create some justification for them I can relate to. I never start off with the act and then follow up with the justification either. I actually try to process the thoughts through my character's head and think of what he'd do.

This post has been edited by DoomedOne: Oct 14 2005, 03:19 AM

Nah. I was looking on some of the topics, seeing if there was any discussions I had anything meaningful to say on, and I happened across them. I didn't actually dig them up, erosion brought them to me.

A. Yes, I suppose I do.
B. I wouldn't have thought of that, but I suppose, on reflection, your right.
C. Hmmm.... Yeah, I do seem to be able to understand people pretty well. (Translating their form of thought into one I can understand)
And I have a question. By "echnical" did you mean ethical?
I don't write essays much, but I do think about stuff.

Yeah, that sounds like how I write. I tried to write a novel on several occasions, but I always ran into problems. First of all, I ended up skipping ahead too fast. I was 10 years ahead beore I finished the first page. That was a few years ago. More recently, I tried writing a novel on my computer, and my computer would always catch a virus or have a windows error or delete my work in some other way. My computer works well, but inconsistantly.

This post has been edited by Kindred Spirit: Oct 14 2005, 02:51 AM

<-----------------king of typoes.

Ah, I see. Well, that's better than those people who don't even try to use english correctly. You know, the people who would have typed this same response like this:

ah, i c. bettr thn thos ppl wh dont ty t use englis corecty. u no, teh pepl who typ lik dis.

HA, HA! Oh, and don't bother decoding it, it says more or less the same as above.

Oh yeah, I forgot. I told you you'd get a prize for guessing what happened on my thread. Here, linky. It's a decent site I found with funny personality tests, as well as other jokes and stuff.

My brother threw a temper tantrum the other day because I beat him at Halo 2. Without using "unfair weapons" such as rocket launchers, sniper rifles, or shotguns. No wonder my Xbox is broken, he doesn that every time he loses a game, he throws the controllers and slams his fists on the ground and stuff like that. He loses a lot. Maybe we should get padded controllers.