Are the entertainment industries the unofficial advertising department of the illegal drug industry?

[UnSubRocky]

Burton, L., Westen, D., and Kowalski, R., "Psychology 2nd Australian and New Zealand Edition", 2009, John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

"The prevalence and forms of aggression vary considerably across cultures. Among technologically developed countries, the United States has the highest rates of aggression. Indeed, violence has overtaken communicable diseases as the leading cause of death among the young and the murder rate in some major US cities dwarfs the annual number of murders in all of Canada. In Canada, roughly 600 people a year die from homicides, compared to 17,000 in the United States. Taking into account the larger population in the United States, the murder rate in Canada (1.85 per 100,000) is about one third that of the United States....
Cross-cultural data have demonstrated that much of the difference in murder rates is attributable to the ready availability of firearms in the United States...
Across and within societies, cultural differences play an important role in violence and aggression....
Estimating the long-term effects of television violence on behaviour is very difficult because people who are aggressive tend to seek out aggressive programs... Experimental data show that in the short run, children and adolescents are in fact more likely to behave aggressively immediately after viewing violent television shows, particularly if they are provoked.... The data are less conclusive for long-term effects.... A tendency of certain people to behave in certain ways under certain conditions - rather than a general phenomenon". (pages 738 to 744). Paraphrased.

Again a bunch of hoo-ha about aggression. My third cup of coffee is almost over. And I am nearly about to go through a hypoglycemia transition. I could imagine my "hangry" will kick in before I am done writing up this topic.

[UnSubRocky]

Kassin, S., "Psychology - Fourth edition", 2004, Pearson Education, Inc.

"Didn't you assume that exposure to TV violence causes aggression?... Correlation does not prove causation. It is important to know and understand this rule... Sure, it's possible that media violence triggers aggression. But based solely on the observation that these two variables go hand in hand, it is also possible that the casual arrow points in the opposite direction - that children who are aggressive are naturally drawn to violent TV shows. Or perhaps both variables - watching violent shows and aggressive behaviour - are caused by a third factor, such as the absence of involved parents at home". (page 26 to 27).

So aggressive people are attracted to aggressive TV shows. Which leads me to the question of what would an aggressive person do if they were not watching an aggressive TV show? Maybe out and about acting aggressive in public? And perhaps the distraction of television is what helps reduce the alternatives of being out and creating trouble. I could imagine streets filled with bored, aggressive motorists would not be good for traffic. I could imagine aggressive employees would not be good for productivity unless the job calls for it. And aggressive shoppers? As long as they are aggressively spending money and helping the economy prosper, an aggressive approach to staff member interactions is not necessary.

[UnSubRocky]

I now know why it is that I have held these beliefs for a long time about believing that media violence reduces real-life violence.

"The first recorded description of this "cartharsis hypotheis" occurred more than one thousand years ago, in Aristotle's "Poetics". He taught that viewing tragic plays gave people emotional release (katharsis) from negative feelings such as pity and fear. The tragic hero in a Greek drama did not just grow old and retire -- he often suffered a violent demise. By watching the characters in the play experience tragic events, the viewer's own negative feelings were presumably purged and cleansed. This emotional cleaning was believed to benefit both the individual and society". page 378. (Source: Nier, J., "Taking Sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in social psychology", 2005, McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.)

I must have read up on Aristotle, Plato and others like-minded that helped me formulate this view applicable to modern media violence arguments.

[UnSubRocky]

Page 111 and 112 of Goldstein's "Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience" talks about how playing video games helps concentration levels.

[Bogan]

USR wrote

I have not put up any "whacky thesis" in this forum topic. It has been a tried and tested concept that entertainment keeps people occupied and away from causing trouble.

It is hardly "tried and tested" if these "results" fly in the face of all the "tried and tested" research done by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Institute for Mental Health, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, does it. What you have is an opinion written by a single psychologist who's claim is not supported by his own professional organisations.

What part of the AMA's report "The link between media violence and real life violence ( has been proven by science over and over again." did you not understand? What part of the American Psychological Associations statement " There is absolutely no doupt, that the increased level of TV viewing, is correlated to the increasing acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behaviour........Children's exposure to violence in mass media, can have harmfull lifelong effects." , did you not understand?

USR quote

What would low IQ, poorly socialised people do when they are bored? They might have more time to do the right thing and be useful to society. Or they might get caught up in their own boredom and go out and create trouble. We have already seen the effects that when "Home and Away" premiered in England, juvenile delinquency dropped by a considerable margin. Why? Because teens were indoors watching an hour of the show each weekday. Say what you will about television viewing and sedentary effects on health. But, when someone is distracted from creating trouble, trouble is avoided. I actually find it troubling that you think a bored, low IQ, socially troubled person would be less likely to be out committing problems if they were not distracted by media entertainment.

You are still attempting to validate a wacky premise opposed by the USA's leading psychological and medical professional associations. This was completely refuted by the US Surgeon General's 1972 report, TELEVISION AND GROWING UP: THE IMPACT OF TELEVISED VIOLENCE.

I am constantly amazed at the ability of my debate opponents to seize upon some flimsy bits of flotsam to keep their sinking argument afloat. Five of the leading psychological and medical associations who have conducted many years of scientific research on the effects of media violence on real life violence, and you just airily dismiss everything they say? Instead, you seize upon a single report written by some psychologist, who is either a paid shill, or a wild eyed ideologue, to support your view?

USR quote

I forgot to mention in the previous paragraph that I have looked up the 1971 Surgeon General's report about the impact of televised violence. I have it in another tab that I will keep for the next few days. I will do a search through the pdf for words like "aggression". I spotted that early. All I could do was roll my eyes. I am currently having a large coffee as I type this post. Coffee causes people to be more aggressive because of the caffeine content. But, it does not cause violence. Or antisocial behaviour. Heck, I might even say that coffee drinking is a social activity. But, in the meantime, I might do a search for words like "violence" and "desensitise"/"desensitize" and read through their respective paragraphs. Have you got a few more keywords that I can search for, just so I know the specifics of your argument? I am not going to read the whole 174 pages, because I feel like I read this nearly 20 years ago. And I concluded that short-term aggression does not cumulatively build to a point of antisocial behaviour.

You are attempting to equate the mild physiological effects of coffee, which you claim increases aggression (never heard that one before) to the increases in very serious aggression caused by the entertainment media which leads to serious criminal behaviour. That is like equating an apple with an orange.

USR quote

My teenage years were through the 1990s -- 1992 to 1999. I recall going through my first year of high school, the seniors were the last of the ratbag group of students that experienced the drug problems of the late 1980s. By the time I was a senior, our year level was considered the best year 12s of all time. Why would that be the case when the censorship of media was more relaxed in 1996 compared to 1990? I do not expect an answer when the paragraph is based on an anecdote that I cannot prove happened in my experience.

You are using a variation of the old premise, "It didn't affect me, so it can not affect anyone." This time you are using your own classmates to make assumptions about entire student bodies of entire nations. Statisticians will tell you that you can not draw wide inferences from small examples. In addition, mature young people are for more likely to see entertainment violence as an entertaining fantasy, as opposed to poorly socialised, immature, young men who may have psychological problems.

USR quote

I would have thought that someone making the assertion that crime rates are rising would at least provide a link. But, seeing that I am asserting that crime rates are falling, I need to prove my point. I have read statistics twenty years ago that state that crime rates are falling. Assault rates were rising back then. But, recently, assault rates were on a considerable decline -- according to recent statistics. I will see if I can refind that government website.

I provided the information that my statistics came from Dr Lucy Sullivan's book, RISING CRIME IN AUSTRALIA. Here is the link. Rising Crime in Australia - The Centre for Independent Studies (cis.org.au)

USR quote

The shooting scene in the movie depicted Jim fantasizing about taking his frustrations out on other classmates and a teacher. The reality is that he fantasized the scene and not lived it.

All movies are fantasies. But if the entertainment industries keep producing movies which portray role model stars like Leonardo di Caprio getting back at bullies at his school by shooting them, and the fantasy class applauds his actions. Then while most students are mature enough to see it as the fantasy it is, other, poorly socialised young boys with low IQ's, and possibly psychological problems, will see it as a script for how to get the applause and approval of his classmates. An approval he wants more than anything.

USR quote

Awesome. And whilst parents and teachers (I do not count religious leaders) do their bit to teach right from wrong, they are not overruled by the value system of the celebrities. Celebrities are not putting food on the table or paying the bills of the children under the care of adults. Children understand this. And even if there is a concerted effort by the entertainment industry to change so that the role models are all respectable people, it will not shift the child's attitude to adopt a different attitude when their parents and teachers are out there doing one thing or the other with their lives.

Wrong again. The identity of a young child is inextricably linked to their families. But by adolescence they begin to forge their own identities as individuals. To adopt this new identity, means forging a new set of values and attitudes, and they actively seek to adopt them from high profile, successful, older role models. But the immature role models provided by the entertainment industry, show our children what it is like to be an adult who never grows up, and who has the money to indulge in every petulant ,childish, and immature fantasy, that any adolescent can ever dream up. It also puts it into the minds of kids that their parents are fools and their advice should be disregarded. If a neighbour next door to your house told your kids that you and your wife were fools, and that their parents advice to them should be disregarded, I am sure you would be very angry at that. But here the entertainment industries do exactly the same thing, and you defend their right to do it? Ama-a-a-azing.

USR quote

From the start of this topic to your last reply, you have offered criminals to add "media influence" as an excuse for their behaviour.

I have never claimed it was a legal excuse at all. But I have explained that people are not born knowing right from wrong. Those concepts have to be programmed into them. And they are. That is called 'socialisation." But we had better be careful with what values we are programming our kids with. You can not expect parents and teachers to instil pro social values, while the entertainment industries do the exact opposite and tell kids that (like Liam Gallagher of OASIS that "taking drugs is just like having a cup of tea". Or, acting like a pop star imbecile doing all sorts of stupid things is funny, dropping bricks off highway overpasses onto cars is funny, calling women "hoes" and treating females like they are just meat for sex is the mark of a cool dude, solving problems with guns is what Real Men do, and belonging to a violent youth crime gang is trendy. Because if society allows that to happen, it can hardly complain when the least bright and the least socialised adopt the social values, attitudes, and behaviours our new entertainment industries manufactured culture is telling them that they should aspire to do.

USR quote

Now, let it be known that people who are drunk or who are on drugs and then go out and commit crimes cannot mitigate or exonerate themselves from their criminal acts.

They can't. But if you think that people who drink or take drugs should not drive cars, your culture must tell them that, and keep telling them that. If everybody, parents, teachers, religious leaders, pop stars, celebrities, movie stars, and the role models provided by society tell children that drinking and driving is stupid, and only idiots do it, then that will greatly reduce the incidence of drink driving. But if the responsible half of society tells kids that drink driving is bad, and the irresponsible half, (who the kids look up to as parental control wanes) tell them that drink driving is fun and cool, then drink driving rates will increase.

Now, substitute "drink driving" with "illegal drugs" and you should be able to see the connection? You can not tell young people that taking illegal drugs is wrong, and then allow a media culture to portray drug taking behaviour as normal and cool, and not expect drug rates to rise. The former manager of the Beatles, Sir George Martin, challenged record bosses not to sign up recording artists who admitted to using drugs. As leaders of the young, he said, pop musicians in the entire recording industry, had a responsibility to send a strong message that drug taking was unacceptable.

"What's more important," he challanged,"the future of the country, the future of it's youth, or the bottom line?" The recording industry emphatically endorsed the bottom line. New Musical Express editor Steve Sutherland was quite forthright, he openly declared,"All the best music in the last 50 years was made under the influence of drugs.".

Nobody is really sure whether pop stars today are musicians dabbling in drugs or drug addicts dabbling in music. But whatever they are, they are presented to young people as spokespersons for their generation. These spokespersons hardly portray shining examples to our youth of sober, responsible, adult behaviour. LED ZEPPELIN achieved notoriety for trashing hotel rooms wherever they went. In the Continental Hyatt House hotel on Los Angeles famous "Sunset Strip", LED ZEPPELIN band members, stood on the hotel balcony and dropped drinks from the hotel mini bar onto the parked cars below. Other pranks by ZEPPELIN, included racing motorbikes up and down hallways and gluing hotel furniture to the ceiling. ZEPPELIN began a trend which other pop groups scrambled to follow. AEROSMITH had to go one better by throwing entire TV sets off balconies. Keith Moon regularly turned off hotel TV sets, by the simple expedient of throwing a bottle of drink through the screen. Moon became so notorious for totally wrecking hotel rooms, that it has been reported that every Holiday Inn establishment in the world has his photograph. He was finally banned for life, when he drove a stolen Lincoln Continental into the swimming pool of the Holiday Inn, in Flint, Michigan.

While some of this behaviour can be explained by the need of pop stars to outdo each other, and also by the premise, that all publicity is good publicity. There is no doubt that some of it is caused by a GOD COMPLEX. Here we have immature young men, who are wealthy beyong the dreams of avarice, chauffered around in limousines, pursued by hordes of adoring young girls, and who think that they are little tin Gods.

USR wrote

That is a dangerous tactic to suggest that people are subconsciously influenced into committing crimes and antisocial behaviour.

It is not dangerous to examine why crime is rising. It is dangerous when you get told the reason, and you want to ignore it because it is in your own interests to ignore it. People are not born with moral values. You have to teach kids right from wrong. The kids then internalise these concepts as fully accepted emotional responses, and act out simulated situations as "play." People do not go around in a state of rational concentration. People have the ability to think rationally, but they depend much more on their emotional programming for day to day tasks. They have internalised the correct emotional responses to a range of situations provided by their parents and the role models provided by society. People who can act correctly in a range of very different social situations are called "emotionally mature."

USR quote

And because you keep telling me that I am claiming that because it does not affect me, that does not mean it does not affect other people, I have to deny you have any credibility. People usually stick to a societal standard.

What is the societal standard? Most parents plead with their kids not to take illegal drugs. Then along comes the pop music industry which tells kids, at a time in their life when they are seeking guidance for how to be an adult outside of their parents value system, that drug taking is normal and fun. Parents, teachers and religious leaders teach young men to respect young women. Then along comes the pop music industry which tells young men that girls are just meat for sex. Parents advise their young daughters to act modestly, then Britney Spears shows schoolgirls how to act and dress like whores. Parents, teachers, and religious leaders tell young men that violence using firearms is criminal and wrong. Then along comes the pop music industry in which pop stars appear in violent video's dancing with street gangs holding sawn off shotguns, pistols, and assault rifles, singing "songs" with murderous lyrics.

USR quote

It is why we see large variations in wealth inside a region. Otherwise, why do we have people succeed in life and other people fail if you are so sure that the media is sending people into failure?

The people most affected by the deluge of anti social ideas being programmed into them, are poorly socialised young males, usually with low to very low IQ, who are life's losers because they are not smart enough to compete in a technologically advanced world. So, along comes the entertainment industry which manufactures a fantasy world for them where the normal rules of society, which produce respect and admiration for an individual, are reversed. The young man learns that he can be respected and admired if he commits violent or stupid, attention seeking acts, or he takes every drug known to exist, or he treats females like dirt and whacks them around, or he kills people who he has a problem with.

USR quote

I would suggest that when the cartoons are depicting the children as smart and the parents are fools, the idea behind this is that children should develop some confidence to question whether their parents and other adults are doing the right thing. My own father would hit on my female friends (including my girlfriends) which lead me to hide my relationships from him. I got to my twenties before my father got to meet one of my girlfriends. And by that time, I had independent social and financial movement in my life that I could tell my father to get lost. That is disrespect for my father -- and quite justified.]Children are not going to disrespect their parents simply because they saw another character treat their parents with disrespect.

Whatever problems you had with your father, encouraging children to think that their parents are fools is not appreciated by parents, who are trying to instil pro social values into their kids. It just makes their vital job a lot harder. The family is the primary socialisation means of every society and children's respect for their parents must be reinforced by our culture, not denigrated by the idiots and rich media barons, who have usurped the culture of their people and treat it like a plaything. And you support them?

USR quote

Crime rates are not on the way up. If you bothered watching news reports of protestors, the participants are very, very sensitive to matters that led them to take up a protest movement. That suggests that conflict is what they want to avoid.

Rubbish. I have been involved in two protest movements, opposition to conscription and the Vietnam war, and opposition to John Howard's gun buyback. In both cases the protest movements were very law abiding and kept to whatever conditions the NSW Police imposed.

Today, violent young people, who think they know everything, glue themselves to roadways to stop peak hour traffic in support of their causes. They set up towers over train lines and block train traffic. They climb onto industrial structures using rock climbing gear in order to put the police to as much trouble as possible to get publicity. A bunch of Muslim protesters smashed the historical stained glass windows of one of Australia's oldest churches in Sydney, to protest the fact that Nike had stitched a pattern on a new line of shoes which in Arabic, looked like "Allah." Right wing speakers at universities get 'cancelled" and jostled if they dare to speak. Pauline Hanson has had wine poured over her at a dinner function, and had other protestors throw bags of urine at her and her supporters.

USR quote

Having not read the book, I was not aware that this was the ending the "The Running Man" novel. I had the feeling that you truly believed what you wrote in that earlier post. That is why I investigated to see if there was something that I missed for that movie that was not available on when I saw 50% of that stupid movie. I could not recall watching the end of the movie. So, I watched the ending online. No such luck about "Ben" committing suicide by plane bombing in the movie. It was depicted in the novel, according to sources.

As for the 9/11 hijackers alleged to be inspired by "The Running Man" ending, why not just reference "Tora! Tora! Tora!" as inspiration? Or the actual Pearl Harbor plane bombings? The Bush Administration had people admitting that there was likely a hijacking situation about to take place that year (surprise, surprise) in 2001. Surely, it is not innovative thinking to plane bomb some place in an act of terrorism. Those guys in 1993 truck bombed WTC1 without needing any inspiration from entertainment media. These terrorists are not out to do acts of terrorism because of some "the tv man told me to do it". They are out to enact change for their people. From what I understand of the 9/11 attack, the terrorists were employed to plane bomb certain targets so that the world would panic and drive up oil prices.

You sure are labouring a minor point.

USR quote

Western culture is changing because Western societies are permitting non-Western immigration.

Yes. We are importing people from other countries which have much more violent cultures than ours. At the same time we are allowing the entertainment industries to make our culture as violent as the foreign cultures we are importing.

USR quote

But, that is a different topic. Smoking rates have halved in the last 30 years.

Smoking rates have halved because cigarette advertising is banned. Yet we allow the entertainment industries, especially the pop music industry, to become the unofficial advertising arm of the illegal drug industry. And then we wonder why drug usage keeps rising?[/quote]

USR quote

But, you avoided my issue with Serling. You said that he would rather have made a stagecoach drama with John Wayne starring. You would rather have a racist, misogynistic guy like Wayne make an anti-Native American movie ahead of a movie about countering a terrorism incident at an airport.

And you avoided my issue. Which was, that movies can inspire criminal behaviour, so movie producers should be very careful what they provide as "entertainment."

In Sydney, a young man has been convicted of murder, which he committed immediately after watching the violent rape scene in ONCE WERE WARRIORS. While watching the video with a young female friend at home, he repeatedly re-ran the rape scene. He then attempted to rape the young woman. He stabbed to death a young male friend who had heard her screams and came to her aid.

In the 1995 movie MONEY TRAIN, muggers rob the ticket booth of a train station after throwing liquid fuel upon the cashier manning the booth. They then throw a lighted match on her, setting her ablaze. You guessed it, in December of that year, two morons copied the incident in New York, and a rail cashier was burned to death.

In 1979, a movie about violent youth gangs THE WARRIORS, was screened throughout the US. Theatre managers noted that entire youth gangs, in full gang regalia, trooped into the movies en masse to watch the show. When the movie was over, they then trooped right out again. Once outside, they started stabbing, bashing and shooting each other. Dozens were injured and three young men were killed.

USR quote

The reality of the world is that we live in a complex social structured society where there is no defined good guy/bad guy dichotomy. There are a set of various laws that people can live by at their own expense. People who break the laws have no one but themselves to blame. I hate to tell you this, having known about security issues at airports for years, that the more security measures they have at airports, the more people get caught.

The more that the culture of a nation reinforces pro social values and condemns anti social values, the less crime that nation will have. The opposite also holds true. That is why some countries and communities are relatively non violent, and others are very violent. The problem is, that people like your good self would rather hold their breath and turn blue, than understand that simple concept.

[Bogan]

USR quote

"The prevalence and forms of aggression vary considerably across cultures.

Exactly what I have been saying all along. Although, it has been very hard to hammer this simple concept into your overly thick cranium. Some cultures are creditably non violent, some violent, and some very violent. Western cultures were once creditably non violent, but are becoming more violent because we have allowed our creditably non violent culture to change. The driver of culture today is the entertainment industries and the immigration lobby.

USR quote

Among technologically developed countries, the United States has the highest rates of aggression. Indeed, violence has overtaken communicable diseases as the leading cause of death among the young and the murder rate in some major US cities dwarfs the annual number of murders in all of Canada. In Canada, roughly 600 people a year die from homicides, compared to 17,000 in the United States. Taking into account the larger population in the United States, the murder rate in Canada (1.85 per 100,000) is about one third that of the United States....

The homicide rates in the USA vary very markedly from state to state. Largely rural US states with low dysfunctional minority infestation have the same homicide rates as Canada. It is the cities with their high rates dysfunctional minority populations of people with low IQ and a genetic predisposition to violent behaviour, which are the problem. These are the same people who's culture is reflected in their music and their preference for other forms of violent media. Add guns, and you have a homicide rates of 200 or more per 100,000 people among young urban black Africans and Chicano's.

[Bogan]

USR quote

Kassin, S., "Psychology - Fourth edition", 2004, Pearson Education, Inc.

"Didn't you assume that exposure to TV violence causes aggression?... Correlation does not prove causation. It is important to know and understand this rule... Sure, it's possible that media violence triggers aggression. But based solely on the observation that these two variables go hand in hand, it is also possible that the casual arrow points in the opposite direction - that children who are aggressive are naturally drawn to violent TV shows. Or perhaps both variables - watching violent shows and aggressive behaviour - are caused by a third factor, such as the absence of involved parents at home". (page 26 to 27).

To paraphrase the American Psychological Association's 1996 report, "The link between media violence and real life violence has been proven by science over and over again."

USR quote

So aggressive people are attracted to aggressive TV shows. Which leads me to the question of what would an aggressive person do if they were not watching an aggressive TV show? Maybe out and about acting aggressive in public? And perhaps the distraction of television is what helps reduce the alternatives of being out and creating trouble. I could imagine streets filled with bored, aggressive motorists would not be good for traffic. I could imagine aggressive employees would not be good for productivity unless the job calls for it. And aggressive shoppers? As long as they are aggressively spending money and helping the economy prosper, an aggressive approach to staff member interactions is not necessary.

Your premise that TV shows reduce violence by keeping criminals entertained has been completely refuted by science. Probably the most important study on this subject being the US Surgeon General's 1972 report, TELEVISION AND GROWING UP: THE IMPACT OF TELEVISED VIOLENCE. Would you like me to post up the story behind this report, and it's findings, again?

[UnSubRocky]

It is hardly "tried and tested" if these "results" fly in the face of all the "tried and tested" research done by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Institute for Mental Health, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, does it. What you have is an opinion written by a single psychologist who's claim is not supported by his own professional organisations.

What part of the AMA's report "The link between media violence and real life violence ( has been proven by science over and over again." did you not understand? What part of the American Psychological Associations statement " There is absolutely no doupt, that the increased level of TV viewing, is correlated to the increasing acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behaviour........Children's exposure to violence in mass media, can have harmfull lifelong effects." , did you not understand?

The parts of the reports I have a problem with have to do with studies declaring that there is a link between watching tv and increased aggression. The problem is not that I think that it is wrong. The problem is that I find it irrelevant to the issue about whether it increases the likelihood of someone committing criminality. All violence is aggression. But not all aggression is violence. Out of the dozens of aggressive acts I have committed today, none have been violent. And that would be the case for about just about every person alive for just about every day. I have absolutely no problem with the AMA declaring that "increased level of TV viewing is correlated with increasing acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behaviour".

The first part of that statement is obvious. When you see something objectionable on television, you have an emotional reaction to what you are viewing. But, over time, either through repeat viewing of the same thing, or through watching similar content, you develop coping mechanisms so that your mindset is able to explain the situation rationally.

The second part of the statement is known because we have all experienced watching television many times. Watching objectionable content leads us to think about how this might or might not affect us if such things happened in our lives. Over time, you become less and less concerned about how the objectionable content will affect your life as you have developed a matured coping mechanism. Actually, I think I have a book hidden around the house somewhere that could explain coping mechanisms better.

You are still attempting to validate a wacky premise opposed by the USA's leading psychological and medical professional associations. This was completely refuted by the US Surgeon General's 1972 report, TELEVISION AND GROWING UP: THE IMPACT OF TELEVISED VIOLENCE.

I am constantly amazed at the ability of my debate opponents to seize upon some flimsy bits of flotsam to keep their sinking argument afloat. Five of the leading psychological and medical associations who have conducted many years of scientific research on the effects of media violence on real life violence, and you just airily dismiss everything they say? Instead, you seize upon a single report written by some psychologist, who is either a paid shill, or a wild eyed ideologue, to support your view?

The 1971 report is hardly a good guide to use in the age of mass media 50 years later. I still have the pdf of that report loaded in one of my tabs on this computer and I intend to read the majority of the report in the next few days. But, from what I have read so far, nothing written in that report has taken my interest and explained to me how the media is conditioning people's personalities to become counterproductive.

In fact, if you want to keep relying on the argument that you feel more aggressive after watching tv, you might as well give up and lose the argument with dignity. You feel more aggressive the moment you get up in the morning. And you get feelings of aggression every time you do an activity.

You are attempting to equate the mild physiological effects of coffee, which you claim increases aggression (never heard that one before) to the increases in very serious aggression caused by the entertainment media which leads to serious criminal behaviour. That is like equating an apple with an orange.

For the record, you are claiming that coffee does not make people feel more aggressive? At the very least, the stimulant of caffeine would wake someone up and lead to elevated levels of focus. And all I have to do to show that the country is not experiencing an increase in serious criminal behaviour is to post up crime rate statistics from the last 30 years. That, despite the fact that mass media is practically ubiquitous in the contemporary era compared to 1992, is why I argue that the media is not conditioning people to be antisocial.

You are using a variation of the old premise, "It didn't affect me, so it can not affect anyone." This time you are using your own classmates to make assumptions about entire student bodies of entire nations. Statisticians will tell you that you can not draw wide inferences from small examples. In addition, mature young people are for more likely to see entertainment violence as an entertaining fantasy, as opposed to poorly socialised, immature, young men who may have psychological problems.

I am using the example of how in Australia only 2% of people get assaulted every year. That is not to say that 2% of Australians getting physically assaulted every year is not a problem. But it is to say that 98% of people are not getting assaulted (or reporting an assault) each year. If your argument had any credibility, censors in Australia would have by now seized every copy of objectionable books, movies, newspaper articles and whatever else deemed harmful. And that figure of 2% of Australians getting assaulted might fall to 1.95% -- which is a considerable amount given that would be 20,000+ fewer assaults, if my math is correct. So far, the only media outlet that agrees with this premise is Facebook.

I provided the information that my statistics came from Dr Lucy Sullivan's book, RISING CRIME IN AUSTRALIA. Here is the link. Rising Crime in Australia - The Centre for Independent Studies (cis.org.au)

Thank you. I can add that to my reading list. You will be rid of me for a few weeks at this rate.

All movies are fantasies. But if the entertainment industries keep producing movies which portray role model stars like Leonardo di Caprio getting back at bullies at his school by shooting them, and the fantasy class applauds his actions. Then while most students are mature enough to see it as the fantasy it is, other, poorly socialised young boys with low IQ's, and possibly psychological problems, will see it as a script for how to get the applause and approval of his classmates. An approval he wants more than anything.

With the announcement of Olivia Newton John's death, "Grease" was aired on television that night. I could imagine that this broadcast of the movie was a fitting tribute to Newton-John. But, at the other end of the scale, if the news announced another school shooting and the channel later broadcast "Basketball Diaries" as a tribute to the shooting victims, you would imagine that there would be protests galore. People would phone in and complain that the deaths of students were used to promote a movie. But then there would be the likes of you saying that "The Basketball Diaries" brainwashed the gunman into committing the atrocity, kind of missing the point of the outrage. But, it would never come to a point where you could say that it was because the gunman had access to firearms.

Have you ever watched "The Basketball Diaries"? There is a fierce anti-drug and anti-gun message that builds through to the concluding stages of the movie. And because Jim Carroll (the author of the 1978 book) had a heroin addiction in his teenage years, you could possibly imagine that him being clean of his addiction has led to him writing his memoir in a bid to discourage people from using heroin. If you could not see that the movie's message, of wasted years due to drug addiction, is so glaringly apparent, then I think you are talking from ignorance.

Wrong again. The identity of a young child is inextricably linked to their families. But by adolescence they begin to forge their own identities as individuals. To adopt this new identity, means forging a new set of values and attitudes, and they actively seek to adopt them from high profile, successful, older role models. But the immature role models provided by the entertainment industry, show our children what it is like to be an adult who never grows up, and who has the money to indulge in every petulant ,childish, and immature fantasy, that any adolescent can ever dream up. It also puts it into the minds of kids that their parents are fools and their advice should be disregarded. If a neighbour next door to your house told your kids that you and your wife were fools, and that their parents advice to them should be disregarded, I am sure you would be very angry at that. But here the entertainment industries do exactly the same thing, and you defend their right to do it? Ama-a-a-azing.

I have no recollection of having said that entertainment industries have the right to give bad advice. In fact, there is a legal responsibility by the entertainment industry to not give bad advice to anyone. The only tv show that I can think up right now that depicts the parents as fools is the mockumentary "Modern Family". The father "Phil" is an out-of-sorts foolish type person. The mother "Claire" is a manic obsessive compulsive with a drinking problem. Having watched that series to season 9, I end up having a superiority complex, having seen how unlikeable the characters would be in a real life situation. Funny show, though. And although the parents are depicted as somewhat oversensitive fools and the children as misunderstood teens, there is nothing to suggest that the show is encouraging teens (and pre-teens) audiences to rebel against their parents' ideals.

Give me an example of a show that does.

I have never claimed it was a legal excuse at all. But I have explained that people are not born knowing right from wrong. Those concepts have to be programmed into them. And they are. That is called 'socialisation." But we had better be careful with what values we are programming our kids with. You can not expect parents and teachers to instil pro social values, while the entertainment industries do the exact opposite and tell kids that (like Liam Gallagher of OASIS that "taking drugs is just like having a cup of tea". Or, acting like a pop star imbecile doing all sorts of stupid things is funny, dropping bricks off highway overpasses onto cars is funny, calling women "hoes" and treating females like they are just meat for sex is the mark of a cool dude, solving problems with guns is what Real Men do, and belonging to a violent youth crime gang is trendy. Because if society allows that to happen, it can hardly complain when the least bright and the least socialised adopt the social values, attitudes, and behaviours our new entertainment industries manufactured culture is telling them that they should aspire to do.

You are actually encouraging people to use "the influence of the entertainment media" as reasoning for bad behaviour, right up to the point of being the determining factor in mass shootings. You are now saying that it was never a legal excuse. And that there is where you lose the argument. If you kept with the "diminished capacity" angle, you might have had a better claim. The other part of your argument is to imply that criminals were not going to be as antisocial as what landed them in custody, had they been doing something instead of viewing entertainment media. I do not know how many ways I can explain the "idle hands" reasoning, but ignoring it will not make it go away. Bogan, what would the poorly socialised, low-IQ, antisocial criminals have done if they were not subjected to viewing entertainment media in all its forms?

A joke that my father told me was that he often wondered what his parents did before they got their first television. He asked his 6 brothers and sisters, and they did not know either. *bah-dap ching!*

Sorry, that was a poor segue.

USR quote

Now, let it be known that people who are drunk or who are on drugs and then go out and commit crimes cannot mitigate or exonerate themselves from their criminal acts.

They can't. But if you think that people who drink or take drugs should not drive cars, your culture must tell them that, and keep telling them that. If everybody, parents, teachers, religious leaders, pop stars, celebrities, movie stars, and the role models provided by society tell children that drinking and driving is stupid, and only idiots do it, then that will greatly reduce the incidence of drink driving. But if the responsible half of society tells kids that drink driving is bad, and the irresponsible half, (who the kids look up to as parental control wanes) tell them that drink driving is fun and cool, then drink driving rates will increase.

I think you place too much emphasis on celebrities and their influence. Celebrities have done public announcements appealing to people not to take drugs. Celebrities have also been pictured in mug shots or paparazzi photos being drugged out of their minds and looking very unfashionable. People still take drugs. No matter how you discourage drugs, cigarettes or alcohol, people will still ignore the warnings and do what they want if they wanted to do it. Not all people stop at "stop" signs. If a celebrity is out encouraging people to drink, take drugs and drive impaired, that would be the very definition of soliciting criminal activity. He or she should be arrested.

Now, substitute "drink driving" with "illegal drugs" and you should be able to see the connection? You can not tell young people that taking illegal drugs is wrong, and then allow a media culture to portray drug taking behaviour as normal and cool, and not expect drug rates to rise.

The law says that you are not supposed to have drugs. And although you can not be charged for being high on drugs, you can get arrested for impaired driving. And I have yet to find one celebrity that looked "cool" taking drugs. Every one of those celebrities I have seen that are high on some kind of drug have looked ridiculous. Your paragraph detailing the reckless behaviour by celebrities just proves my point. Admittedly, I had not heard of any of these stories you speak of relating to the celebrities. But if any of these stories are true (given that I do not follow any of these bands), it would suggest that the celebrities felt that they were untouchable. Fans are likely to not remember their idols for the bad things that they do. Rather, they remember them for the good. Keith Moon's antics seem to be the result of his alcoholism. And I would not be surprised that he drank and took drugs as a result of his diagnosed ADHD. Having a cousin who has ADHD, I know how uncontrollable they can become without medication. But, the only medication I have read Moon to have taken was what he was using to get off alcohol -- clomethiazole. He had 10 times the safe amount of clomethiazole in his system when he died at age 32 years. Not very glamourous, was he? Keith Moon was a walking advertisement for a campaign against alcohol and drug abuse. I bet people would more likely quit alcohol and drugs because of how Moon behaved on them. Others would not even try to engage in drug use if they figured out the effects of prolonged usage.

While some of this behaviour can be explained by the need of pop stars to outdo each other, and also by the premise, that all publicity is good publicity. There is no doubt that some of it is caused by a GOD COMPLEX. Here we have immature young men, who are wealthy beyong the dreams of avarice, chauffered around in limousines, pursued by hordes of adoring young girls, and who think that they are little tin Gods.

That is your opinion, and it seems quite plausible. But, I think a further explanation is that they have a demanding career where their time off gives them the opportunity to vent quite seriously. However, the price of these excesses come in the form of a loss of their health. How many celebrities have you read about that look glamourous after indulging in drugs? The only well liked celebrities that have indulged in drugs are the ones who have been detoxed and clean from drugs for many years. Robert Downey jnr. happened to be an example of a celebrity, gaoled for drug related activity, but cleaned up and achieved A-list status. Macauley Culkin was a boy who had it all as one of the richest children in the world. He got hooked on heroin and his life and career were practically almost over. Having cleaned up his life, after quitting his addiction. And he is on the rebound.

Basically, there is nothing enticing about drug use among celebrities that would help the drug dealers get more 'customers' with the general population.

It is not dangerous to examine why crime is rising. It is dangerous when you get told the reason, and you want to ignore it because it is in your own interests to ignore it. People are not born with moral values. You have to teach kids right from wrong. The kids then internalise these concepts as fully accepted emotional responses, and act out simulated situations as "play." People do not go around in a state of rational concentration. People have the ability to think rationally, but they depend much more on their emotional programming for day to day tasks. They have internalised the correct emotional responses to a range of situations provided by their parents and the role models provided by society. People who can act correctly in a range of very different social situations are called "emotionally mature."

Surgeons and emergency room doctors (as well as nurses) are desensitised to nearly all manner of horrors that get put before them. Veteran emergency services personnel have probably seen situations that would have the general public in hysterics. Yet, hospital staff and emergency services personnel have to put aside their feelings and focus on the job at hand. If your contention that seeing something objectionable in media coverage would raise the aggression of people and/or raise the level of antisocial behaviour, we would never have a reliable emergency service. Doctors would break down in hysterics treating some patient with a severe injury. Police would not be able to cope seeing a suicide victim. Ambulance drivers would not be capable of driving the patient to a hospital after witnessing a casualty from a traffic crash. It all comes down to being desensitised to expect the unexpected. And having relatives and friends in all areas of emergency services (and aged care), I know that they deal with grief-inducing situations with professionalism because they have the coping mechanism to overcome being traumatised.

What is the societal standard? Most parents plead with their kids not to take illegal drugs.

Most parents with drug-addicted teens (and adult children) might plead the case against illegal drugs. But, if you are trying to state that getting access to drugs is easy, it is not. I had the experience of a dealer live across the road from me. He moved on from the area, years ago. Then, as I am told, he passed on. But, I do recall the fights in the street, with junkies trying to get back at those that ripped them off. Having first hand account of witnessing the effects of drug use, simply walking across the road to get drugs is impeded by the knowledge that I will end up sick, broke, in gaol, or dead from an overdose or getting murdered.

The people most affected by the deluge of anti social ideas being programmed into them, are poorly socialised young males, usually with low to very low IQ, who are life's losers because they are not smart enough to compete in a technologically advanced world. So, along comes the entertainment industry which manufactures a fantasy world for them where the normal rules of society, which produce respect and admiration for an individual, are reversed. The young man learns that he can be respected and admired if he commits violent or stupid, attention seeking acts, or he takes every drug known to exist, or he treats females like dirt and whacks them around, or he kills people who he has a problem with.

You are repeating yourself over and over on this point. You are still wrong. And I do not think you have been witness to poorly socialised young males, who have led a loser's life. If you had, you would have a completely different opinion. That is why I think you are perilously wrong. I happen to have known of a narcissistic loser who was a failure at nearly everything he did. The only competency he held was in computer programming. And I doubt that he was much more than above-average competency in that regard. But, his failures in life were pretty consistent. It was revealed that his primary motivation in life was a constant need not to accept criticism and rejection. Hence the "narcissistic personality disorder" he was diagnosed. I think "genuine psychopath" was an apt conclusion to make about him, too.

And much like your case about this topic, he too wanted to deflect his problems onto other people. He has tried to steal identities, including mine, he has committed various felonies. In one of the more minor matters, he asked a 14 years old girl if he could impregnate her. And when witnesses yelled at him, he opted to say "Oh, no, I do not mean right now. When she is older", as if completely missing the point of the reprimand. What gets me irritated is that he has also latched on to the idea that he could get away with his behaviour problems if he just deflects the issue away from himself. And "the tv man told me to do it" excuse did pop up from time to time. No amount of restrictions would have changed him away from being a desperate loser. Antipsychotic medication did him little to no help. When you cannot reason with these selfish arseholes, you cannot offer up grasping at straws reasoning that the media made them do it.

Whatever problems you had with your father, encouraging children to think that their parents are fools is not appreciated by parents, who are trying to instil pro social values into their kids. It just makes their vital job a lot harder. The family is the primary socialisation means of every society and children's respect for their parents must be reinforced by our culture, not denigrated by the idiots and rich media barons, who have usurped the culture of their people and treat it like a plaything. And you support them?

Given that I have not done much as a father other than seeing my girls grow up in the care of their mother, I cannot really comment. But, I have yet to come across a family situation where the children are running rampant antiauthoritarian because of their media viewing. It was always about a lack of discipline from the parents. And a lack of discipline was what was missing in my eldest daughter's life. When my daughter announced that her mother had given birth to another daughter, my daughter told me "Mum had a little girl. She is beautiful", I responded with "Yes, and she is about to graduate high school soon, too", you would not believe the turn around in her life.

Rubbish. I have been involved in two protest movements, opposition to conscription and the Vietnam war, and opposition to John Howard's gun buyback. In both cases the protest movements were very law abiding and kept to whatever conditions the NSW Police imposed.

And when those violent protesters stopped their protests against Nike, Pauline Hanson, the environment, etc., do they go home and keep on being violent? Or have they made their point at the time they were trying to make one during the protest? I recall the John Howard gun buyback protest to be somewhat threatening. Twenty-six years is a long time to remember, so I could be wrong. And I cannot find video footage of the protest to refresh my memory of the event. And I do recall seeing footage of conscription protests for the Vietnam War. Again, I would have to prove my point. But that can come at another day. Then there is the possibility that you were at non-violent protests. When people protested police brutality in the United States, in 2020, the majority of the protests were non-violent. But, the media focus on looting and actual violent protests skewed the perception that protests were violent. So, there is that possibility that would make me wrong on that account.

Yes. We are importing people from other countries which have much more violent cultures than ours. At the same time we are allowing the entertainment industries to make our culture as violent as the foreign cultures we are importing.

The rate of criminality is still dropping. Even if we account for violent cultures being imported into Australia as the reason for fluctuating crime rates, there is a downward trend in crime rates.

And you avoided my issue. Which was, that movies can inspire criminal behaviour, so movie producers should be very careful what they provide as "entertainment."

In Sydney, a young man has been convicted of murder, which he committed immediately after watching the violent rape scene in ONCE WERE WARRIORS. While watching the video with a young female friend at home, he repeatedly re-ran the rape scene. He then attempted to rape the young woman. He stabbed to death a young male friend who had heard her screams and came to her aid.

I watched that rape scene in that movie a long time ago. Millions of people watched that movie, including that rape scene. I would bet that there were perhaps thousands of rapists or people who became rapists among those who watched that movie. But, not because they watched that movie. Are you seriously trying to tell me that the convicted murderer was not going to rape that female and stab the would-be rescuer, had he not watched that movie (over and over with one rape scene)? And why do you think that guy replayed the rape scene over and over? Could it be something to do with getting sexually stimulated so that he could engage in a rape? I mean, he could have picked up a set of binoculars and watched a netball game featuring young ladies playing, for all we know he could be child predator inclined. With that in mind, we don't ban children playing sport, just in case there are perverts around. We identify and ban the perverts. If anything, you are a master of deflection. What is next on your agenda? Promotion of cooking shows, so that people don't forget to eat and starve to death?

In the 1995 movie MONEY TRAIN, muggers rob the ticket booth of a train station after throwing liquid fuel upon the cashier manning the booth.

In 1979, a movie about violent youth gangs THE WARRIORS, was screened throughout the US. Theatre managers noted that entire youth gangs, in full gang regalia,

In 1995, two people murdered a cashier via immolation. In 1979, gangs of youths walked into a theatre to watch a movie about gangs of youths. They walk out and start fighting. Given that you are just trying to match an act of violence with the modus operandi of a similar incident, I gather that you have a fully thought out alternative to what these thugs would have done had these movies not existed? Because I doubt that anyone willing enough to torture people to death or stab other gang members would have any kind of social value to their lives. They are not going around collecting for charity, working long work hours in a job that benefits society, or even being useful members of society in whatever they are qualified to do. Therefore, the unenviable problem you have to explain (at least to yourself) is what were they going to do if "Money Train" or "The Warriors" were not featured in theatre? For a movie runtime (plus previews) of about 2 hours per movie, these people were not out committing crimes. But, had those movies not existed (nor if any antisocial-themed movie existed), what would all low IQ, poorly socialised people have done with those spare hours of their weeks? Obviously, there is no correct answer, seeing that we cannot formulate an alternate timeline in such complexity.

The more that the culture of a nation reinforces pro social values and condemns anti social values, the less crime that nation will have. The opposite also holds true. That is why some countries and communities are relatively non violent, and others are very violent. The problem is, that people like your good self would rather hold their breath and turn blue, than understand that simple concept.

Going through the list of countries with strict censorship, they are also countries that have high rates of violence. Australia features in the low-level censorship countries. Therefore, I contend that less censorship brings about a safer society.

[UnSubRocky]

*test*

[Jasin]

For sure.
The Media is the biggest Drug pusher in America.