Violent video games(Like CF?) are reportedly almost as dangerous as smoking.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071128/tc_nm/media_violence_tech_dc


Thoughts?

To some extent the facts are irrelevant - all that matters is the interpretation of those facts. Valg's post is a good example and its partially what I've been saying about smoking for years (I'll explain this in a moment). Do violent people probably watch violent media? Sure. Does that cause their violence or does violence cause their desire to watch the media? I have no idea but in this case the research sought to prove the latter and thus that's what they believed they proved. In reality they've proven nothing.

When I mention that in regards to smoking I note that if you have a heart attack and you are a smoker - your smoking created that heart attack and the common spin or implication is that you would not have had that heart attack if you did not smoke. Obviously that is misleading, given the frequency of heart attacks and given the risk factors for smoking being often similiar to the risk factors for heart disease (minorities, poverty, etc). Furthermore you almost never see the actual numbers or statistics shown about smoking - instead you see relative statistics often shown. Such as "You're twice as likely", even when twice as likely might mean 2 out of 1000 instead of 1 out of 1000 (fake numbers, but the point remains). Its not wrong, per se, what they say about smoking but it is purposefully overstated for effect.

That being said, I could care less if smoking is bad for me or not. I quit because I don't like the psychological impact of being addicted to something. I do think people tend to spend too much emphasis trying to look more pretty and live longer and not enough emphasis being productive in this life - but that's another thread entirely.

When I mention that in regards to smoking I note that if you have a heart attack and you are a smoker - your smoking created that heart attack and the common spin or implication is that you would not have had that heart attack if you did not smoke.

No reputable medical study would get away with that. You always have a control cohort, and report the increase in a symptom. The sole exception is in the case where withholding treatment would be inhumane (i.e., for a condition with a known ~100% death rate, and the patient's consent), at which point you explain the dire need, and then you can take credit for each survivor. None of the major studies on smoking showing a causal link betwen smoking and heart failure can or do use that angle.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

"Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States. Each year, more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. In fact, one in every five deaths in the United States is smoking related."

Well, that's amazing given that 25% of people in America smoke. So apparently if you die and you're a smoker, there's near 100% chance smoking is what killed you. Not a heart attack you would've had anyway, etc.

There were 450,000 heart attacks in 2004. 20% were "due to smoking". That happens to coincide with how many people smoke in this country. Are you still going to suggest this is the delta? Because mathematically it doesn't add up.

CDC statistics reported 6000 pancreatic cancer incidents that were "smoking related". There were a total of 31,000 deaths that year to pancreatic cancer. It just happens to work out be 1 in 5, or 20%, roughly similiar to the distribution of smokers to the population.

Etc, if you go through the numbers, almost all of them have eerily similiar results.

I'm not saying the studies that show a link are wrong or "cheating" at all. I'm saying the statistics used in the propaganda put out are well, propagandized.

I wasn't disputing that there is a causal link between smoking and lung cancer or smoking and heart attack, the analogy I was drawing is that when people seek to prove something they inevitably do. When there's an agenda on the table, it mucks up the impartiality of the results.

In terms of smoking, its just like I said - they overstate the statistics for propaganda reasons.

>"Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of
>premature death in the United States. Each year, more than
>400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. In fact, one in
>every five deaths in the United States is smoking related."
>
>Well, that's amazing given that 25% of people in America
>smoke. So apparently if you die and you're a smoker, there's
>near 100% chance smoking is what killed you. Not a heart
>attack you would've had anyway, etc.
>

It is accurate that approx 25% of Americans are current smokers but the above quote does not directly relate current smokers to smoking related deaths. "Smoking related" is a broader classification encompassing those that smoke as well as those that have previously smoked. It is possible to have a smoking related death years after an individual has quit smoking. As a whole greater the 40% of the American population has, does, or will smoke in their lifetime.

I am uncertain in the context of this quote but it is also possible that smoking related deaths includes some estimated number of deaths related to second hand smoke. This would effectively increase the % of the population that might experience a smoking related death as well. The point is, it is important to know what a statistic states before trying to compare it to other statistics.

I do agree that statistics used to argue for one position over another in almost any context are often misleading and should be viewed with a certain level of skepticism though.

It is similiar to an article I read about Wynn Resorts in October. The article, from Bloomberg, stated that Wynn Profits were down 75% and went on to more or less rail the stock.

In reality, the year prior to that, they had sold a right-to-build in Macau for around $500M. In other words, there was a one-time purchase year earlier and their actual quarterly earnings, year over year, were up about 30%.

Is what Bloomberg said technically true? Sure. But its meaningless misleading sensationalism to state it that way, because the context of the numbers would indicate to any real investor that it was meaningless (when you do a fair value assessment of a security you're supposed to strip out one time earnings and losses and amortize them over a number of years from which they derive, so you'd smooth that out over a 5 year period say rather than calculate your ratios based on it 'as is').

You see a lot of that in the media. The studies themselves are almost meaningless because not many people have access to or bother to read the studies. The net effect is based on how the media reports those studies. That's why I mentioned the facts themselves don't matter because when we see those facts we immediately draw a conclusion based on those facts. And when those facts are presented in such a way to infer an incorrect conclusion, its deceitful and misleading.

Edit:

I'll add that I first noticed this in regards to smoking when I tried to figure out what my odds were of getting lung cancer. Its actually quite the effort to try to figure that out because its hard to find straight answers of what my likelihood is of getting certain afflictions by adding smoking into the mix. Its easy to find things like "You're twice as likely" or "On average it reduces your life expectancy by X number of days" or whatever, but trying to find out what the actual odds are requires a lot of digging. Basically, I've learned that whenever I hear phrases that are relative statistics as opposed to actual odds, that I need to further reality check those numbers and try to find where those numbers came from because the fog of spin is tough to get through. They don't want to say something like you have 1 out of 100 odds or 1 out of 8 smokers get lung cancer, instead they say things like "you're 4x as likely to get it as a non-smoker" because it makes it sound more grave than it actually is.

The facts themselves do matter, its the reporting by the general media that could be done better to provide a clearer picture up front. In the above story it would be interesting to see if it was reported a year earlier that they had large profits from the one time sale, not that this changes the current article only that the bad reporting goes both ways. In general people owe it to themselves to consider what they read, hear, etc, critically and not be blindly led by what is fed to them. I do not feel sorry for anyone who makes poor decisions based on news blurbs inparticular without any additional effort to verify the truth or the underlying realities of such information.

Being a smoker increases the risk of acute myocardial infarction (MI, heart attack) by 2.87x, after age/sex adjustment. (99% confidence limits: 2.58-3.19.) Source is the INTERHEART study, 14820 healthy control subjects and 15152 first-MI patients, published 2004 in Lancet. Basic summary here: http://www.theheart.org/article/155691.do

I'm not sure what your numbers are, since they're all unsourced, but if you're claiming that smoking isn't a sizable risk factor for heart disease, you really should have a sit-down with your personal physician.

There were 450,000 heart attacks in 2004. 20% were "due to smoking". That happens to coincide with how many people smoke in this country. Are you still going to suggest this is the delta? Because mathematically it doesn't add up.

I don't know your source, but I'm guessing that they're saying smoking caused 90,000 heart attacks over and above the baseline (360,000 if no one smoked). Non-smokers have heart attacks at a given rate. Smokers have them more often.

There's nothing remotely odd about that math as presented.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

The numbers I presented were from the CDC. Your link requires you to pay to read it.

Edit: And how do you suggest that math isn't odd? 1/5th of the heart attacks were smokers. Roughly 1/5th of the population smokes. That doesn't sound very damning to me.

Edit: And how do you suggest that math isn't odd? 1/5th of the heart attacks were smokers. Roughly 1/5th of the population smokes. That doesn't sound very damning to me.

Your claim was that 20% of the heart attacks were "due to smoking". Not every heart attack that a smoker has is attributed to smoking. You figure out how many heart attacks smokers would have if smoking had no impact, and attribute the excess to the smoking.

Example, using made-up numbers:
1000 corpses. 800 from non-smokers, 200 from smokers.

Heart attack risk in non-smoker: 1/10.
Heart attack risk in non-smoker: 1/4.

Heart attacks (non-smokers): 80. (1/10 of 800)
Heart attacks (smokers, not smoking-related): 20. (1/10 of 200)
Heart attacks (smokers, smoking-related): 30. (1/4 of 200, minus the expected baseline of 20.)

Total heart attacks: 130.
Percentage of heart attacks due to smoking: 30/130: ~23%.

(The RL math is futher complicated by the fact that smokers might avoid heart attacks simply by dying to lung cancer or emphysema first. For example, if heroin caused prostate cancer, you might not see it, simply because heroin users don't often live long enough to die of prostate cancer.)

Not for nothing, but arguing that smoking doesn't shorten your lifespan is more than slightly odd. This isn't exactly a controversial subject among doctors. I don't get where you're going with this.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Here's our basic disconnect:

Not for nothing, but arguing that smoking doesn't shorten your lifespan...

I'm not arguing that, I was pointing out that the numbers didn't look incredibly damning at face value. What I am arguing, in general, is that the numbers reported are propagandized to make some things sound more severe than they are. For instance, you won't see "you have a 7% of having a heart attack as a smoker", you'll see "you have 2.3x more likely chance".

While accurate, depending on what you're talking about, it may not be meaningful.

Edit:

To give you an example, they talk about second hand smoke with one of these relative comparisons. Relative comparisons are important but only in the context of your overall likelihood. Consider the following statement, which is entirely made up:

I've had sex with 1 blonde and 30 brunettes. Therefore, if your sister is a brunette, its 3000% more likely that I've slept with her than if she were blonde (let's pretend for a moment there is an equal split between blondes and brunettes). By presenting it that way, I'm obfuscating how incredibly low the chances of me having had sex with your sister by random coincidence, out of all the women on earth, is.

I'm just using that as an example, I'm not inferring your chance of having lung cancer is slim to non-existent. I'm saying there is a lot of propaganda around the way it is presented in the name of sensationalism. They will say to you that you are 4x more likely to get lung cancer as a smoker than a non-smoker. What they won't say is that roughly translates to 1 in 8, or 12.5% chance. If you look at it as 1 in 8, you might think your odds are fair that you won't get lung cancer. So they won't present it that way.

Now at this junction, you can disagree with what I'm saying if you want. You can say you haven't noticed it or whatever. But do me a favor and don't pretend like you don't understand what the argument I'm making is.

"But do me a favor and don't pretend like you don't understand what the argument I'm making is."

Honestly, I assumed you were thinking of something less trivial.

One of the claims presented was that smoking triples the risk of a heart attack, which is the leading cause of death in the world, and by far the leading cause of death in the United States.

Calling that finding "propagandized" and "sensationalism" because it's given as a ratio instead of an absolute risk is a little ridiculous. It's not like they're talking about the risk of being eaten by sharks or something.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>"Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of
>premature death in the United States. Each year, more than
>400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. In fact, one in
>every five deaths in the United States is smoking related."
>
>Well, that's amazing given that 25% of people in America
>smoke. So apparently if you die and you're a smoker, there's
>near 100% chance smoking is what killed you. Not a heart
>attack you would've had anyway, etc.

Let's assume that your both figures are correctly. 20% of the smoking deaths were due to smoking and 25% of Americans smoke. Let's count the corpses. S for smoker deaths, D is for non-smoker deaths. Let us assume that there are X americans, who without smoking have a chance of death that is Y. Let us assume that smoking increases the amount of deaths with a multiplier Z. T means total deaths. We have a statement, which claims that 20 % of American deaths are smoking-related. This means that

T = XY + F = 1.25*XY,

where F is deaths directly caused by smoking. In the study, we're going to have target groups that consist of smokers and non-smokers. For smoker deaths, we get:

S = 0.25*XYZ

For non-smoker deaths, we get

D = 0.75*XY

For total deaths, we get:

T = D + S = 1.25*XY

By placing D and S, we get

0.25*XYZ + 0.75*XY = 1.25*XY

By dividing both sides with XY and subtracting 0.75 from both sides, we get

0.25*Z = 0.5 => Z = 2.

This means that the risk of death as a smoker is twice the normal risk. Thus, 50% of the smoker deaths are smoking-related.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with this.

My point was more that every single stat boils down to 20-25%, which seems odd. I wasn't trying to say it is impossible for it to really work out that way, I was pointing out that remarkable coincidence.

Without having the exact breakdown we can't know, obviously.

"Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer,"

WTF? Is he saying that... exposure to violent electronic media has the 2nd largest effect on public health? Or on aggression? Is aggression the #2? How in the hell could this guy even hope to make an accurate and understandable comparison/analogy between "violent electronic media" and cigarette smoking?

Also, what do they mean by "aggression"? Committing acts of violence? Yelling at someone who cuts you off while driving? Anger problems? Way too vague for "scientific" results.

AM I TAKING CRAZY PILLS HERE?!?!?!? NO, I"M AGGRESSIVE. MORE BLOOD MORE BLOOD MORE BLOOD MORE BLOOD

Short version: Violence bad, but probably not as bad as advertised. Boobies probably harmless. Society should recalibrate what is "child-suitable", worrying more about the former and less about the latter.

1) At least in the article, they don't show causation, only correlation. One could argue that children who are predisposed to violence are more attracted to violent media. That theory would also predict a link between exposure to media and propensity for violence, but would imply a very different course of action-- you would continue to produce violent media and keep an eye out for people who seem especially drawn to it. Viokent media would be like a future-murderer-detector.

1B) If your child is watching more than 3 hours of TV a day (average, per the article), there's probably some other problems at work there. One could also argue that children who are bored enough to be watching tons of TV will eventually turn to more "extreme" TV just out of boredom, or that children who are watching television unsupervised are more likely to end up watching ultra-violent shows. In either of those cases, the causative link is parental neglect causing violent behavior.

2) It continually boggles me that (at least in the US), you can show reasonably graphic violence on prime time network television, but none of the following:

- A topless woman.
- A person of either gender naked from the waist down, not doing anything sexual.
- Two men kissing. (For whatever reason, two women kissing is controversial but happens.)
- Several profane words.
- Several non-profane words, notably "vagina". Oprah is apparently reduced to saying "Va-jay-jay". This non-word makes the lady of the house get murderous.
- Someone giving the middle finger. (Is this still blurred out?)

I'm not sure what the fundies see as a "worst case scenario" if children saw all of the above. You could say the nudity taboo is to discourage promiscuity, but you can show barely-dressed maximum-attractiveness people going at it under a strategically-placed blanket scrap, but you can't show a shlumpy naked person sitting on their couch doing nothing.

3) If forced to guess, I'd probably guess that there's some (lesser) causation between violent media and propensity for violence, particularly in young children. I've been an advocate for a while of CF including an "18 and older" disclaimer under the skull, even given the difficulty of establishing identity of the Internet. (At the very least, it would be very easy for a parent to determine if the game was recommended.) (I also admit that I thought of doing it as more of a marketing device to adults, though I really don't think CF is a good game for minors for several reasons.)

4) In general, I'm in favor of the current voluntary rating systems, but the actual ratings choices tend to boggle me. Again, shooting and stabbing people probably gets you a middling rating, but boobies puts you straight to AO and off the shelves of most retailers. I'd be fine with highly violent video games moving towards "You must be 18 to purchase.", and letting parents make the decision from there, even though most parents are bad parents.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

This do boggle me a bit yes, being a european and all. Over here partial or full nudity get a 15 years rating, which is a fair deal. If its uncovered straight up sex involved it get a 18 year rating straight up, but this is also fair. Cussing and such isnt frowned upon at all, its actually almost expected in the 15 years rating bracket. We are a bit harder on violence than the US though, making us pretty much opposite to the US in this department.

>Short version: Violence bad,

I don't really disagree with anything you said, but I'm going to take this opportunity to offer a somewhat controversial position to spur conversation:

Violence isn't necessarily bad. Sometimes it's even a good solution to a problem, though usually that kind of problem is admittedly in response to someone else's use of violence.

Sure, no one wants a killing spree in the mall. That degree of violence is bad.

Competition is in some sense a quality inherent to all creatures. To some degree society is built around channeling that drive to more constructive pursuits, and up to a point, it works. What you can't do is to try to surpress or deny that drive -- the attempt will either be ineffective, or the drive will still come out in weird ways. For an analogy, consider how effective it is to tell teenagers and priests to practice abstinence.

I think back to when I was in grade school. Boys got in fights with each other now and again -- your stereotypical playground brawls or fistfight after school on the hill -- but grudges didn't last a long time and people mostly got along without ostracizing anyone.

In subcultures where that kind of mild violence is forbidden, people still fight in their ways, but it's with social cruelty or some other device instead of fists, and I'm not sure these methods inflict less lasting harm or don't encourage ultimately larger violence.

I think you want to teach kids that guns aren't the way to solve most problems, but I don't think you can successfully teach them that violence is never the way. It's just too anathema to the nature of the human animal.

>I think back to when I was in grade school. Boys got in
>fights with each other now and again -- your stereotypical
>playground brawls or fistfight after school on the hill -- but
>grudges didn't last a long time and people mostly got along
>without ostracizing anyone.
>
>In subcultures where that kind of mild violence is forbidden,
>people still fight in their ways, but it's with social cruelty
>or some other device instead of fists, and I'm not sure these
>methods inflict less lasting harm or don't encourage
>ultimately larger violence.

This goes with some research I have seen (that I don't have access to anymore). Little girls are actually more violent than little boys toward their peers if you take into account social violence and passive aggression.

If someone has access to PsychInfo, search for Nicki Crick. Here's a little thingie on some of her research: http://cehd.umn.edu/Pubs/ResearchWorks/Crick.html

I think the thing that is missing is accountablility. Yes, sometimes the only way is with violence. Yes, sometimes you need to use that gun in your drawer to protect yourself. But I think it is teaching kids that they will be held accountable for their actions is what is missing. Violence on TV may give new ideas to young people, but if they have been taught accountablility, they will think much longer and harder before they ever act on these new ideas.

If my child ever came home and told me they got into a fight, and I found out it was for helping out someone that was being bullied, I would back them up. But, I would not dispute a detention or suspension. I may agree with what he did, but he still has to take responsibilty for his actions.

Too me, it almost seems like parents feel like they were unjustly punished for so much when they were younger, that it must be happening to their children now. "My son would never do that!" or "How dare you say such things about my angel!" If parents would just make their children more accountable for their own actions, the world would start getting back on the right track.

It was an analogy that went like: Graphic violence is to aggression what smoking is to lung cancer. As in risk factor of similar magnitude to entirely different thing. Personally, I believe that it is true as it makes sense.

In a society, where there are no violent movies, video games and TV series, the youth would not learn the model for the violent behaviour from the video games, movies and TV series. Therefore, they aren't as likely to behave aggressively. However, the violent behaviour can be learned from other contexts as well.

Some people say that violent video games and other similar media are used to quench an aptitude for aggression (aka to blow off steam).

This certainly wont work for smoking though. :p