Censorship, how much is too much?

[gwprod12]

Wildcat: I guess I just havent been clear. You've never once made a sensible, rational argument. Everything you've ever said in response to someone else has been conflated, inflamatory, irrational nonsense that doesnt bear any resemblance to thought process.

 

Your normal response to argument has been randomish strings of gobbledigook arranged in a pattern that you call reason.

 

My comment was meant in that spirit. When someone who clearly doesnt believe in any sort of logical process starts expounding apon something that's actual science, it rings very hollow.

 

Killbot: Thank you for trying to explain that a: "study indicates that" etc and so forth. A study doesnt: "Prove" such and such. Indication doesnt mean anything in a scientific sense. For instance. One might find that women who have abortions are 3 times more likely to have a parent who likes chocolate than women who havent had abortions. Yay. So what?

[wildcat69410]

Wildcat: I guess I just havent been clear. You've never once made a sensible, rational argument. Everything you've ever said in response to someone else has been conflated, inflamatory, irrational nonsense that doesnt bear any resemblance to thought process.

 

Really? I make rational arguments, you just choose to not respond to them. As for inflamatory remarks, I suppose I must be so inflamatory in comparison to you, who attempt to downsize my arguments based upon my religious beliefs. Each of my arguments follows a logical process, which highlights the issues involved, and then counters them.

 

Your normal response to argument has been randomish strings of gobbledigook arranged in a pattern that you call reason.

 

My comment was meant in that spirit. When someone who clearly doesnt believe in any sort of logical process starts expounding apon something that's actual science, it rings very hollow.

 

How so? My remarks are very straightforward, and are indeed logical. The only ones here that believe my posts to be illogical appear to be you and Killbot, not exacly the two most reasonable people on this board. The other intelligent posters disagree with me, but at least analyze my rational thoughts and try to show me the falsities.

 

I believe in logical processes quite clearly, when logical processes are a necessary part of analyzing a point and argument. If you want to attack my religious beliefs based on the fact that they don't follow logic, then go for it. There's a reason it's called faith. But when you want to argue a different point, don't stick to the same old {censored} that you seem to expound upon, try to stick to the topic, and not go off on tangents.

 

Killbot: Thank you for trying to explain that a: "study indicates that" etc and so forth. A study doesnt: "Prove" such and such. Indication doesnt mean anything in a scientific sense. For instance. One might find that women who have abortions are 3 times more likely to have a parent who likes chocolate than women who havent had abortions. Yay. So what?

 

Exactly, it indicates something. That's a hell of a lot more evidence than either you or Killbot has provided for your point of view. All I've heard is, "Well I believe this is true, and I'm just going to ignore your little study". What the hell does your opinion have to do with science and censorship? Nothing. So why the heck are you trying to treat your biased opinion as fact?

 

I would simply appreciate it if when I show an indication shown and found in many similar studies, that you actually take it for what its worth. It may not be a controlled scientific experiment, but it does indeed show a strong indication towards my point. In the very least, it outweighs the load of {censored} you're trying to show on your end of the spectrum.

[gwprod12]

No one is saying it's not evidence. You're saying it's proof. It's not.

 

Your irrationality comes from the fact that you see proof and disproof where neither exists.

 

EDIT: Good little article explaining the difference betweeen correlation and causation: http://www.albany.edu/~ron/papers/TV-Viole...McClamrock.html (on topic)

[lord_muad_dib]

if my son starts to use drugs or becomes violent it's not because of the tv, but mostly due bad friendship around him or because he got bad relationships with us (the parents), more, the parents are completely stupid ok? it's stupid to say that tv pushes to "the dark side".

i'll tell you a story. some years ago i heard a news on tv: "a 14 years old boy wanted to do something like MacGyver... handed a bomb(or ssomething like that anyway).. the bomb exploded in his hand... and the boy lost the hand". now... where's the problem here?

 

1 parents are so stupid to leave something that dangerous so easy to be taken

2 the boy's frendship pushed him to take the bomb and use it (bad friendship)

3 boy's parents never watched tv with him and never said to him that's all finction.... not true life

 

ok?

[gwprod12]

Absolutely. The study that was referenced indicates that children who watch 4 hours of TV per day tend to be more violent as adults. However, it's a falacy to assume that the relation between TV watching and Violence is causative. More likely both have the same root cause. That is what should be studied.

[killbot1000]

Absolutely. The study that was referenced indicates that children who watch 4 hours of TV per day tend to be more violent as adults. However, it's a falacy to assume that the relation between TV watching and Violence is causative. More likely both have the same root cause. That is what should be studied.

 

Exactly, its not that watching 4 hours or more of tv will CAUSE a kid to be violent, but that a violent kid LIKES to watch 4 hours of tv a day, and we need to figure out WHY that is, it doesnt end at the tv.

[wildcat69410]

No one is saying it's not evidence. You're saying it's proof. It's not.

 

Your irrationality comes from the fact that you see proof and disproof where neither exists.

 

EDIT: Good little article explaining the difference betweeen correlation and causation: http://www.albany.edu/~ron/papers/TV-Viole...McClamrock.html (on topic)

 

My point is that my evidence generally outweighs yours. There are more than this study, most of which point to this conclusion. Therefore, there are mutliple correlations between Television and violence. I agree that it shouldn't be taken to such a serious level, but it outweighs what you've produced asofar.

 

if my son starts to use drugs or becomes violent it's not because of the tv, but mostly due bad friendship around him or because he got bad relationships with us (the parents), more, the parents are completely stupid ok? it's stupid to say that tv pushes to "the dark side".

i'll tell you a story. some years ago i heard a news on tv: "a 14 years old boy wanted to do something like MacGyver... handed a bomb(or ssomething like that anyway).. the bomb exploded in his hand... and the boy lost the hand". now... where's the problem here?

 

1 parents are so stupid to leave something that dangerous so easy to be taken

2 the boy's frendship pushed him to take the bomb and use it (bad friendship)

3 boy's parents never watched tv with him and never said to him that's all finction.... not true life

 

ok?

 

Whenever you produce a completely random event like that, then of course you're going to have a zero correlation between TV and Violence. What is generally meant here is that the more Violence a child sees, the more likely they are to be accustomed to it later as adults. When a person is accustomed to this violence, then they have a less of a problem reproducing it. I'm not talking about reproducing specific scenes from MacGyver, or horror movies, I'm talking about the general violent tendencies.

 

Absolutely. The study that was referenced indicates that children who watch 4 hours of TV per day tend to be more violent as adults. However, it's a falacy to assume that the relation between TV watching and Violence is causative. More likely both have the same root cause. That is what should be studied.

 

It can be considered a Fallacy by itself, however when combined with other evidence which shows a strong correlation between witnessing violence/experiencing violence to committing it, and take into account the amount of violence that can be found on 4 hours of TV, we can make a fairly strong link between the violence on TV and the violence later in life. Although other causes can come into play at certain points, it's important to keep in mind those two correlations.

 

The root cause is generally irrelevant. What actually is the source for the violent tendencies isn't necessarily as important as the desensitization to the violent acts that allows a person to commit a violent act. We all have violent tendencies, what's more important is the moral fiber/reason that we do not act upon those tendencies. Television can provide a fairly strong correlation that bridges that gap.

 

Exactly, its not that watching 4 hours or more of tv will CAUSE a kid to be violent, but that a violent kid LIKES to watch 4 hours of tv a day, and we need to figure out WHY that is, it doesnt end at the tv.

 

Now that's a logical Fallacy. Just because a kid is violent, doesn't mean that they will watch TV. There isn't even a correlation between that.

[killbot1000]

My point is that my evidence generally outweighs yours. There are more than this study, most of which point to this conclusion. Therefore, there are mutliple correlations between Television and violence. I agree that it shouldn't be taken to such a serious level, but it outweighs what you've produced asofar.

Whenever you produce a completely random event like that, then of course you're going to have a zero correlation between TV and Violence. What is generally meant here is that the more Violence a child sees, the more likely they are to be accustomed to it later as adults. When a person is accustomed to this violence, then they have a less of a problem reproducing it. I'm not talking about reproducing specific scenes from MacGyver, or horror movies, I'm talking about the general violent tendencies.

It can be considered a Fallacy by itself, however when combined with other evidence which shows a strong correlation between witnessing violence/experiencing violence to committing it, and take into account the amount of violence that can be found on 4 hours of TV, we can make a fairly strong link between the violence on TV and the violence later in life. Although other causes can come into play at certain points, it's important to keep in mind those two correlations.

 

The root cause is generally irrelevant. What actually is the source for the violent tendencies isn't necessarily as important as the desensitization to the violent acts that allows a person to commit a violent act. We all have violent tendencies, what's more important is the moral fiber/reason that we do not act upon those tendencies. Television can provide a fairly strong correlation that bridges that gap.

Now that's a logical Fallacy. Just because a kid is violent, doesn't mean that they will watch TV. There isn't even a correlation between that.

 

But you dont understand what im saying. The violence related to the 4 hours of tv a day IS the corallation. Thats what im trying to get you to see, its only a corraletion, and if you take a phsychology 101 class, you know that you CANNOT DRAW CONCLUSIONS FROM CORRALATIONS. END OF STORY. People are just dumbf***s and look at a corralation and automatically assume that it has a cause/effect relationship, which it USUALLY DOESNT. That "link" as you put it is only a corralation, nothing more. You have not proved your point.

 

Also, why dont we look at it this way, even if TV really is the cause of all our problems (which im pretty sure it isnt), we know that TV is not going away, no matter what we do, so why dont we try to figure out a way to let people deal with their problems, so that they dont commit these violent acts, jI think thats a reasonable thing to do. I know that if I had a kid and they had violent tendancies (whether they watched tv or not) I would do everything in my power to help them. And I think thats what we need to be looking at, honestly.

[gwprod12]

I love the "the cause is irrelevant" line. Instead of determining the reason for an illness, we should just drill holes in people's heads to release the demons.

 

When looking for a solution to a problem (violence), we should be looking for the cause of that violence, not some convenient scapegoat.

[killbot1000]

I love the "the cause is irrelevant" line. Instead of determining the reason for an illness, we should just drill holes in people's heads to release the demons.

 

When looking for a solution to a problem (violence), we should be looking for the cause of that violence, not some convenient scapegoat.

 

Exactly

[wildcat69410]

But you dont understand what im saying. The violence related to the 4 hours of tv a day IS the corallation. Thats what im trying to get you to see, its only a corraletion, and if you take a phsychology 101 class, you know that you CANNOT DRAW CONCLUSIONS FROM CORRALATIONS. END OF STORY. People are just dumbf***s and look at a corralation and automatically assume that it has a cause/effect relationship, which it USUALLY DOESNT. That "link" as you put it is only a corralation, nothing more. You have not proved your point.

 

And how exactly have you? You've just taken a correlation, thrown your own "cause effect relationship" in, and then just automatically assumes that it's right, when in reality, you have absolutely no logical proof to any of it. If you read my post closely, I referred to it as being a correlation. However, I mentioned that in combination with other evidence, such as violence desensitization and the good probability of a child producing a violent act after witnessing one, we can get to a fairly decent conclusion.

 

Also, why dont we look at it this way, even if TV really is the cause of all our problems (which im pretty sure it isnt), we know that TV is not going away, no matter what we do, so why dont we try to figure out a way to let people deal with their problems, so that they dont commit these violent acts, jI think thats a reasonable thing to do. I know that if I had a kid and they had violent tendancies (whether they watched tv or not) I would do everything in my power to help them. And I think thats what we need to be looking at, honestly.

 

Exactly, so why don't we just censor TV? That's pretty simple, nips the source in the bud, takes care of everything. It's commonly known that one of the Freudian Human Instincts is violence. However my point is that TV, and the witnessing of violence desensitizes people to the point where they act on those violent tendencies. That's the problem. You help them by preventing them from seeing violent TV. When they realize that the violence is a bad thing, and they're not desensitized to it, then they're less likely to commit a violent crime in the future.

 

I love the "the cause is irrelevant" line. Instead of determining the reason for an illness, we should just drill holes in people's heads to release the demons.

 

When looking for a solution to a problem (violence), we should be looking for the cause of that violence, not some convenient scapegoat.

 

Like I said above, Violence is a human instinct. The cause is human instinct. Funny how Killbot agrees with you, AFTER he criticizes me for Psych 101. Anyway, what the problem is isn't the cause of the violence, but what releases the violence. What makes these usually harmless violent tendencies become violent acts. If we look back into crime records in the years before the TV and violent broadcasting we'll find far less violent acts committed. If it is human nature to be violent, then what is keeping these people from not going to their instincts? One reason is the lack of violent programming on TV.

[gwprod12]

I know it's hard to understand, but no one's jumping to conclusions but you. A study isnt fact, and it's barely evidence. It could be completely true, or it could be completely false. That information isnt part of a study or statistical analysis.

 

You jump right on someone saying "you cant prove you're right by making some unfounded statement", but no one is making an unfounded statement, just expressing skepticism of a study that doesnt seem to correlate causative functions. It could easily be completely factual. I just dont buy it. The fact that you do buy it doesnt mean it's fact. Just as my (educated) belief in the theories of organic evolution doesnt make them fact, and your belief that organic evolution is nonsense doesnt disprove it.

 

On a side note, I was watching a show about villains. The commentator stated the statistics on villains. In movies produced since the fourties, 27% of villains were female, but only 23% were male. A logical person would see that statistic and know that it's incorrect in some way. Can you tell how it's possibly incorrect?

 

The point I'm making is that statistics and studies are useful tools in creating a hypothesis. They arent useful for testing that hypothesis.

 

EDIT: The idea that violence on TV causes people to be violent in real life (for whatever reason) is an interesting hypothesis. Unfortunately, that's all it is. No experiment has ever been performed (for obvious reasons) that would leave evidence that this hypothesis is concrete.

 

*Another perfectly reasonable hypothesis that explains the same data is that children with parents who leave them to their own devices for most of their lives tend to have TV-watching children and tend to create adults with little sense of connection or respect for the social contract.

 

In keeping with the tradition of blaming the TV for violence, there is also another group of people who are disproportionately violent. Black People. It has been suggested many times by many people that black people are inherently violent and criminalistic, and that their behavior stems for the most part from their heritage.

 

*Most people believe that Black People as a whole, through socioeconomic pressures, tend toward financial instability and lack of connection to society, thus causing violence and other criminalistic behavior.

 

None of these hypotheses is proven in any way, and there's no evidence for any of them. You like yours and I like mine (marked with an asterisk)

[killbot1000]

Seriously, im not drawing conclusions, all im saying is that you CANT draw conclusions, If there is no proof of a cause/effect relationship between tv and violence, then so far as Im concerned there is NO cause/effect relationship between tv and violence. So therefore, I act on what I think, which is that there is no effect, therefore, try to push legislation in that direction.

 

 

if you dont see what I mean, I point back to you the example of people that wear hats are more likely to get skin cancer. Now do you think theres a cause /effect relationship there? Because if you do, ill stab you in the face with a soldering iron (jk)

[quixos]

i respect studies and statistics, but where there is smoke, there is often fire. common sense is often wrong, but in the case of that 4 hours of t.v. = more violence thing above i have an idea it's true.

 

4 hours of t.v., 4 hours of being babysat by your sister in a crackhouse, 4 hours of distraction from hunger, a day! that's a big chunk of time spent not learning to communicate effectively with ease, leaving one disadvantaged and confused in social situations, unable to negotiate at a high level for the things they need . that has to cause frustration, fear and anxiety, and those emotions are a cause of violence and all sorts of negative behavior.

 

don't censor my adult t.v!, don't censor anything! it's not what's playing on t.v. or written in a book that leads to anti-social thoughts or behaviors. it's the time spent apart from positive role models and meaningful social interaction that creates high-school matrix gunslingers, wife beaters, and genocidal followers of Nietzsche.

 

data and ideas don't kill people, sociopaths kill people. and more of the same, etc, etc.

 

by the way...

as a kid, i wasn't allowed to watch 4 hours of t.v. a week! i felt really deprived. had drag my friends away from their t.v.s to play outside every single day, or read, or go exploring. i learned to talk my way into, or out of, almost anything, and am considered energetically mellow.

...sounds like a strange personals ad.

 

edited, i agree with your arguments gwprod12, i'm just talking from my gut. and, i was probably still editing my post as you composed yours. just so you know, after reading a post of mine, come back and read it again in it's 5th version about 10 minutes later. i'm an editing fool.

[gwprod12]

see, there ya go. it could have anything whatsoever to do with the time spent, the content, the time not spent doing social activities, etc etc etc etc etc etc. That's why it's completely useless as proof of point. It allows you to construct a hypothesis, which is either testable, or not. It doesnt do the testing (the study)

[oregano]

i think the stupidest form of censorship is the banning of books

books are banned because they include words like: damn or hell in them

thats just ridiculous

[wildcat69410]

i think the stupidest form of censorship is the banning of books

books are banned because they include words like: damn or hell in them

thats just ridiculous

 

Censorship of Literature is something I am against myself. However, just out of curiosity, what books are banned due to words like damn or hell? I don't believe they ban books for that...

[jgrimes80]

@wildcat

 

Everyone of these books were banned in the USA (education) at sometime in the 90's... the mere fact they were hindered constitutional rights. I don't know about you, but I've read a {censored} load of these titles; some of which I have no idea why they were banned. For an interesting read, there is a book entitled Banned in the USA by Herbert Foerstel

 

Impressions Edited by Jack Booth et al.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

The Witches by Roald Dahl

Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite

Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

Blubber by Judy Blume

Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl

Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam

A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck

Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman

Christine by Stephen King

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Fallen Angels by Walter Myers

The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman

Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder

Night Chills by Dean Koontz

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks

The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder

My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Cujo by Stephen King

The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs

On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

Grendel by John Champlin Gardner

I Have to Go by Robert Munsch

Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

The Pigman by Paul Zindel

My House by Nikki Giovanni

Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz

[aqualeviathan]

Little Red Riding Hood?!

[wildcat69410]

jgrimes

 

First off, those examples are based upon individual libraries banning individual books due to parental complaint, not a nationwide Government edicted banning. The majority of book censorship in the United States is due to groups of overly protective parents who feel that the availability of certain books to young readers isn't good, so therefore the book shouldn't be available. I myself strongly DISAGREE with this.

 

However, on the larger picture, the very few books that have been banned on a national level have been very very small, and they were not banned in any way shape or form due to the language content within them. Generally speaking, books are banned (although they shouldn't be) based on their ideals and the general message they are trying to get across.

 

For example, locally a group of parents last year tried to get their school to quit teaching To Kill a Mockingbird at school, due to its often racial discriminatory message found in several places throughout the book. Thankfully, it was quickly struck down as simply the stupides thing ever (I'm dead serious here), and so they ended up reading it anyway.

 

Long story short, book censorship bad (and they're censored for ideals not language), but yet television censorship imo is rational.

[jgrimes80]

censorship is censorship... it doesn't matter who's doing the censoring...

big gov. or small gov. the end result is the same. (rights remanded)

 

My teacher was nearly fired for teaching us Night by ??? because it was banned... something about jews being rounded up, prisoned, and executed/worked to death rang anger for some. (I remember it was a great novel too)

[killbot1000]

Seriously, censorship really isnt that important, theres just certain things that people dont like so they try to make laws so that they dont have to see those things, its really dumb actually, its like shielding yourself from the world, instead of adapting to it, gah...

[gwprod12]

Recently, there was a news story about a woman who had successfully complained to her education board and gotten a specific book banned, for it's "unacceptable" content.

 

That book was Fahrenheit 451.

[wildcat69410]

Censorship may be censorship, but we must remember who is doing the censoring. If it is the censoring by the Government, then we have a serious problem here. But if a private institution, or even a public institution makes a decision upon whether to ban a book or not it's their business! If an educational system does not want to teach Night (I think that's a Wiesel book), then they have right not to teach it. It's in now way prohibiting the sale of the book, is it? So the free speech of the book is still being allowed. Only in the case of broad government banning is free speech violated.

 

Fahrenheit 451 is one of those classic books that I believe everyone should read, no matter what it's content. I don't agree with book censoring, but I do agree with light television censoring. Fahrenheit will always have its conflicts, ironically enough, but it's not as serious as a problem as its being portrayed here.