(no subject)
So, I've been neglecting LJ (my laptop is still at the repair shop, but I can - finally - go pick it up on Friday). I'm doing well, a fuller update perhaps later, but first I have to procrastinate. Let's talk about the news.
There was this reasonably gruesome murder here in Belgium a few days ago (guy walked into a daycare centre and started stabbing little children), and the airwaves are all awash with it, as you might expect. There is a lot to say about this case, but on this occasion I'd like to limit myself to only two brief comments:
- There is some clamouring to re-introduce the death penalty, like it's going to do anything except satisfy people's bloodlust. First of all, psychotic episodes aren't usually deterred by punishment, no matter how severe. Secondly, no matter how gruesome his crimes, everything points to the murderer having very serious mental issues, requiring several long years of very serious therapy. Punishing him for this would be rather unjust. Be glad that he is mentally ill - if a completely sane person committed these actions, they would be many times more horrible, no?
- Another thing that's popping up is the old 'video game connection theory'. Paraphrasing one pundit: "A lawyer told me that he noticed more and more young murderers are addicted to violent video games. We should, as a society, ask ourselves some very serious questions about this." It can never be said enough: 'correlation does not imply causation'. Literally millions of games, often very violent ones, are sold around the world, and literally millions play them regularly. They are also becoming ever more popular: gaming has become a mainstream thing. It would be very strange indeed if among those millions, there would not be a few murderers. It would be equally weird if gaming was not becoming more popular among murderers - since it's becoming more popular among young men in general, and most murderers are young men. If every gamer was a killer, or even every one gamer in ten, it would be a very empty planet.
I was going to talk about Israel as well, but it's really too complicated an issue for my attention span at the moment. Let me skip through the clutter and summarise: no side has the moral highground, and I am getting irked by newspapers working the sensationalist 'oh hey dead babies'-angle rather than actually analysing the whole situation. Or in the case of more high-brow papers, the 'oh hey disproportionality'-angle.
There was this reasonably gruesome murder here in Belgium a few days ago (guy walked into a daycare centre and started stabbing little children), and the airwaves are all awash with it, as you might expect. There is a lot to say about this case, but on this occasion I'd like to limit myself to only two brief comments:
- There is some clamouring to re-introduce the death penalty, like it's going to do anything except satisfy people's bloodlust. First of all, psychotic episodes aren't usually deterred by punishment, no matter how severe. Secondly, no matter how gruesome his crimes, everything points to the murderer having very serious mental issues, requiring several long years of very serious therapy. Punishing him for this would be rather unjust. Be glad that he is mentally ill - if a completely sane person committed these actions, they would be many times more horrible, no?
- Another thing that's popping up is the old 'video game connection theory'. Paraphrasing one pundit: "A lawyer told me that he noticed more and more young murderers are addicted to violent video games. We should, as a society, ask ourselves some very serious questions about this." It can never be said enough: 'correlation does not imply causation'. Literally millions of games, often very violent ones, are sold around the world, and literally millions play them regularly. They are also becoming ever more popular: gaming has become a mainstream thing. It would be very strange indeed if among those millions, there would not be a few murderers. It would be equally weird if gaming was not becoming more popular among murderers - since it's becoming more popular among young men in general, and most murderers are young men. If every gamer was a killer, or even every one gamer in ten, it would be a very empty planet.
I was going to talk about Israel as well, but it's really too complicated an issue for my attention span at the moment. Let me skip through the clutter and summarise: no side has the moral highground, and I am getting irked by newspapers working the sensationalist 'oh hey dead babies'-angle rather than actually analysing the whole situation. Or in the case of more high-brow papers, the 'oh hey disproportionality'-angle.