The problem with listening to the terminally stupid

It takes a particularly stupid and callous type of person to try and take advantage of the misery of others. Take this for example:

The Australian Christian Lobby managing director Jim Wallace criticised O’Connor over his remarks and said that if even a few deranged minds could be “taken over the edge by an obsession with violent games” then the game should be banned.

“The studied indifference of this killer to the suffering he was inflicting, his obvious dehumanising of his victims and the evil methodical nature of the killings have all the marks of games scenarios,” said Wallace.

“How can we allow the profits of the games industry and selfishness of games libertarians to place our increasingly dysfunctional society at further risk? Even if this prohibition were to save only one tragedy like this each twenty years it would be worth it.”

Asked in a phone interview whether he was specifically asking for a ban on Modern Warfare 2, Wallace said he did not want to single out a specific title as he did not know how many other violent games Breivik played.

“We need to look at each game on its merit and where the violence is excessive or gratuitous then we need to ban them,” he said.

Full story here with additional stupid comments.

I have not commented online about the tragedy in Norway for a reason: I don’t know all the background or the evidence. Not only that but anyone from around here knows what it’s like when people make ill-informed comments about a sad situation. I’ll just quote someone that understood so much about the failings of of the terminally stupid. Excuse the paraphrasing:

“[The terminally stupid] still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people ‘over the Internet.’ They don’t bother to mention when criminals use the telephone or the M4, or discuss their dastardly plans ‘over a cup of tea,’ though each of these was new and controversial in their day.” – Douglas Adams

Banning games would have made no more difference in Norway than the banning of Christianity or fertiliser.

2 thoughts on “The problem with listening to the terminally stupid

  1. judy

    Regarding the effect that war games have on people, has a study ever been done on obsessive card game players who ruin lives and friends by gambling. What amazes me is the assumption that the narrow minded attitude of people “to ban it” or kill and maim when we all know the Christian belief is “thou shalt not kill “.

    1. pete Post author

      The problem with people like Wallace is that scientific research means nothing to them. They have all the “right” answers in an old book.

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