Free and accessible abortions, better technical/apprentice education, harsher penalties for firearm-involved crimes.

There, I just solved the crime problem. Where's my pony?

Add "legalize and tax" all drugs to that statement. That reduces the prison population by half.

LOL @ Scary tag

NewportBarGuy: Add "legalize and tax" all drugs to that statement. That reduces the prison population by half.

And increases healthcare for everyone due to a severe increase in the number of hospitalizations due to overdose/drug related accidents/violence, and a generation or two of addicts.

I think I like the author's way better. Fewer people injured that way.

/legalize pot

I never saw any of the Hostel or Saw movies. Does that mean I'm actually just repressing my desire to dismember my coworkers with a chainsaw?

Cinatyte: I never saw any of the Hostel or Saw movies. Does that mean I'm actually just repressing my desire to dismember my coworkers with a chainsaw?

You should look into getting that checked out.

/they rent them at home depot
//just saying

Adam Sandler make Sam want to kiiiiillllll!

It's kind of like the myth that porn will lead men to be more sexually active and aggressive towards women when the opposite is true.

In Water Boy 2, I want to see Vicki Valencourt's Vagina.

more Adam Sandler movies? than we'd have more loud idiots running around. i think i'd rather the quiet homicidal maniacs, they never seem to bother me......

I used to work in the south side of Chicago. A lot of violent crime goes on in that area. I highly doubt the thugs that mug/murder students every couple weeks on the Univ. of Chicago campus are doing less than they otherwise would because of all the trips to the multiplex they make on their Fri/Sat nights to see movies like Hannibal on opening night.

not.

Panem et Circensus all over again, sigh...
/should be more concerned with H.R. 1955

I like how they treat violence as an epidemic, like people are getting thrown out of their cars at every street corner and an entire clip of 7.62mm unloaded in their beanbag from a bored 11 year old in the process. That's before he speeds your $100K Mercedes into an FBI roadblock at full throttle, obtaining a 6 star wanted lvl.

Trinilos: And increases healthcare for everyone due to a severe increase in the number of hospitalizations due to overdose/drug related accidents/violence, and a generation or two of addicts.

extremely doubtful.

In the first place, most people can function better and for a longer time with a heroin addiction than alcoholism. Overdoses are almost always caused because the black market makes obtaining a known dose very difficult.

Yes, there would be more use of hard drugs if legalized, but no increase in overall addiction rates since people deterred by illegality will turn to alcohol or prescription drug abuse.

There are many well researched books on the subject, I suggest you read some.

NewportBarGuy: Add "legalize and tax" all drugs to that statement. That reduces the prison population by half.

I respectfully disagree. If you're talking about the U.S., we don't need any more taxes. The government squanders plenty of our money as is. Fark them getting even more to find things to waste it on. That's like giving more candy to an out-of-control 5-year-old.

Legalize; do not tax. But by all means, legalize at least some drugs. Marijuana first.

/doesn't touch the stuff
//yeah, really
///any more

Ummm.. what about the people watching these movies at home on DVD with their drugs and alcohol readily at hand and probably the stupid friends that would say 'Hey, we should try that!' beside them as well?

'Hey y'all - look at this! I can shoot a can off Billy Bob Joe's head at a mile off! Oops, better get the wood chipper, we's got some cleanin' up to do.

Plus I don't get why Adam Sandler movies equal gore/violence?? That comment seemed tacked on the end without explanation. Sure that kind of movie is brain-drainingly stupid, but they are a new brand of slapstick. The Adam Sandler movies I remember (Big Daddy, Happy Gilmore etc...) are like modern-era Three Stooges or the Honeymooners. These movies don't approach the classic feeling of those tv series but similar lowbrow humor relating to the time they were made in for the 'everyman' who can laugh at himself and not be too offended by things people actually do in everyday life. The censors are more lenient nowadays as well, although some surprisingly 'vulgar' things got into both of those series as well in the name of physical comedy ;)

Genji: I like how they treat violence as an epidemic, like people are getting thrown out of their cars at every street corner

It IS an epidemic in some neighborhoods. If anything, violent movies only prevent crime where people can afford to watch movies at all -- primarily, white neighborhoods. I don't think the crackheads in the 'hood could care less what the local theatre is showing.

Martial Law FTW! Sammo Hung would turn this thing around.

Ow My Balls: In Water Boy 2, I want to see Vicki Valencourt's Vagina.

Seconded.

davidshi123: I used to work in the south side of Chicago. A lot of violent crime goes on in that area.

Well it is the baddest part of town.

approves

If you guys want to think about something that sounds completely retarded, but will probably work, here it is in two words:

Virtual Reality

Direct neural interface into some sort of sophisticated simulation device will allow people to experience any sort of situation that they want to. Want to rape and kill your neighbors 14 year old daughter? No problem - just program it into the simulator. Want to sky-dive naked with the Olsen twins? Simulator! Ad infinitum.

Of course, I doubt something like this would actually lower all types of crime (especially things like robbery - that will only disappear when we are basically without material needs), but it would most likely reduce a lot of violence. Basically people are almost always two things: apathetic and lazy.

Why spend the effort to actually go out and try to find a victim to rape or murder, when you can just play Virtual Rape 3D on your VR device in the comfort of your own home. Sure there will always be some sick bastards that will do whatever they can when they think they have a moment of opportunity, but I'd be more than willing to bet that being plugged into a device where you can literally do anything that you can imagine, would be so enthralling that most people would rather do that than get up to take a crap.

Of course, this might end up being the downfall of humanity eventually as we all waste away in isolation hooked up to mind altering machines, but hey - you win some you lose some.

It's all in how violence is portrayed. If (as is the case in many movies today) violence is glorified, and thugs, rapists, etc. are the "heros", then people will try to emulate what they're seeing. If, on the other hand, bad guys are clearly bad guys and come to a sticky end, and the good guys only use a necessary amount of violence and aren't shown to enjoy it, then people aren't likely to emulate what they're seeing.

Certain things, such as child beating / rape, shouldn't be shown at all.

j0ndas

I thought Grand Theft Auto should play once.
The next time it's played a blue screen says
"Sorry, you're still in prison from the last game."

Meh. It makes sense to me. In prison, they give alot of the offenders porn and the sexual assualt rate goes down. Really; your cell mate isn't looking so good after jerking off to a picture of an actual woman. And besides, you already spent your spunk.

The same with violent movies and video games. You spend so much time in this virtual world of highly glorified, gory violence without any of the consequences that are so bothersome in the real world and at the end of it, your violent urges are sated for awhile and besides you're tired.

After all, you've just spent upwards of 12 hours being immersed in this thing. Who wouldn't be tired? And man, some cheetos and mountain dew would be alot awesomer than some ultraviolence right around now. Besides, you already pwnzorred all the biatches.

NewportBarGuy: Add "legalize and tax" all drugs to that statement. That reduces the prison population by half.

Not ALL drugs, for reasons already stated by other posters. But yeah, legalize the weed, and the stuff you said about abortions, education, and gun punishment all would work. The crime problem (while it can never be totally fixed, there will always be criminals), can be easily reduced, if only the government would grow a pair and do something about it.

So, according to this logic, if a person watches porn they won't get horny or want sex, right?

What I don't get is how the fact the Violent crime appears to go down when these movies are playing means that the criminals are the ones watching the movies...Maybe its the victims? Maybe the criminals are still doing what they do but the people they would have attacked are safe in a theater... I don't see that the data they are giving us really means anything, they are just crunching numbers and then putting the face on it that they want.

I am an academic economist, so I am getting a kick out of these replies.

Actually, I get an even bigger kick out of the three decades of "fact" spewed out by psychologists and sociologists about the effects of visual media on behavior. They bring a relatively small group of college sophomores into a lab in some building on a campus, do a series of highly artificial and contrived experiments, take a few measurements of dubious value, and then make sweeping generalizations about how everyone behaves in real life. What total crap.

Of course, since their claims are convenient the feminists, left-wing nanny-staters and Jesus nuts, questioning them is academic suicide. You can't tell a feminist or a creationist that their ideology might not stand up to objective scientific scrutiny - they not only refuse to listen, but will go on a crusade to destroy you.

Thank God for the economists who look at ACTUAL DATA ABOUT ACTUAL behavior in order to draw conclusions. May Steve Levitt, who is a REALLY good guy, have a long, happy and fulfilling career and life.

Btw, a very similar finding has been revealed about porn and rape; i.e., that they are SUBSTITUTES, not COMPLEMENTS. It is so inconvenient when reality has a bias against your theology.

Richard Saunders: So, according to this logic, if a person watches porn they won't get horny or want sex, right?

Not if you jack/jill off to it.

lumiere: Panem et Circensus all over again, sigh...
/should be more concerned with H.R. 1955

The Romans knew a thing or two about pacifying the masses. Where do you think the Mafia comes from? :p

TwistedFark: Richard Saunders: So, according to this logic, if a person watches porn they won't get horny or want sex, right?

Not if you jack/jill off to it.

If it is jacking "off," shouldn't it be jilling "on?"

Jes askin'

Please no more Adam Sandler movies...

This article is full of FAIL.

IT seems like a few economicists just thought "well if people are doing something, that means they're not committing crimes. HURRRAY WE SO SMART!!"

First of all. No one goes to the movies anymore. They can go to their alcohol-filled homes and beat their wife right after they watch Thelma and Louise. Everyone and their mom has a DVD player.

Secondly, no mention of interactive entertainment.

Third theres no longterm look, thats economicists for you, capitualizing on short term data...

theres an old joke about a couple of economicists hanging out in a bar and grill.


Economicists #1 gets a slice of cake, the last of slice of cake in the resteraunt. Econmicist #1 asks #2 if he wants to split or have a piece of the cake.

#2 Is hungry but says naw dont worry about anyway

#1 asks him why is this the case

#2 says he isnt worried because he is confident that his demand will create additional supply of cake.

/rimshot
/runs

bronyaur1: Of course, since their claims are convenient the feminists, left-wing nanny-staters and Jesus nuts, questioning them is academic suicide.

Yep, because we all know how much respect academia has for the Jesus nuts. I am glad to see that as an academic economist you are keeping the decade long tradition of sweeping generalizations and ignorant thought processes alive and well.

larsinio: This article is full of FAIL.

IT seems like a few economicists just thought "well if people are doing something, that means they're not committing crimes. HURRRAY WE SO SMART!!"

First of all. No one goes to the movies anymore. They can go to their alcohol-filled homes and beat their wife right after they watch Thelma and Louise. Everyone and their mom has a DVD player.

Secondly, no mention of interactive entertainment.

Third theres no longterm look, thats economicists for you, capitualizing on short term data...

theres an old joke about a couple of economicists hanging out in a bar and grill.


Economicists #1 gets a slice of cake, the last of slice of cake in the resteraunt. Econmicist #1 asks #2 if he wants to split or have a piece of the cake.

#2 Is hungry but says naw dont worry about anyway

#1 asks him why is this the case

#2 says he isnt worried because he is confident that his demand will create additional supply of cake.

/rimshot
/runs


First thing Scooter, is that you might consider learning how to spell before you make your brilliant pronouncements.

Second, you might want to check a fact or two before showering us with your insights. There were 1.42 billion North American movie admissions in 2007. That's flat compared to 2006, but not exactly "nobody." Do you think most of these were in Mexico and Canada?

Third, it could be worthwhile to actually look at the paper in question. You can check out a Sept 15 version of the paper here:

Link (new window). It is sort of a large pdf file.

If you even so much as read the paper's abstract, you will notice that the authors' main point is to challenge experimentally-derived claims of other disciplines; specifically, that there IS a short-term surge in actual violence in response to seeing violent movies. Furthermore, even the abstract points out that this effect is NOT all about doing something else - violence drops in the midnight to 6am period, too. Generalizing this behavioral change to home DVD or other media is logical, but they don't make this claim.

As you think you are. Not as smart. You.

DaSwankOne: bronyaur1: Of course, since their claims are convenient the feminists, left-wing nanny-staters and Jesus nuts, questioning them is academic suicide.

Yep, because we all know how much respect academia has for the Jesus nuts. I am glad to see that as an academic economist you are keeping the decade long tradition of sweeping generalizations and ignorant thought processes alive and well.

So you are saying that feminists, left-wing nanny-staters (which, btw, describes too many of my academic colleagues) and Jesus nuts DON'T like the psychologists and sociologists claims that media violence leads to actual violence?

I would be happy to submit my sweeping generalizations and ignorant thought processes against those of any Jesus nut, any day.

bronyaur1: So you are saying that feminists, left-wing nanny-staters (which, btw, describes too many of my academic colleagues) and Jesus nuts DON'T like the psychologists and sociologists claims that media violence leads to actual violence?

You are the one saying that academics are creating data for Jesus Nuts. I really don't see why you are criticizing me. I am not the one that claims to be different than the irresponsible sociologist and then claims that academic researchers are swayed by the opinion of Jesus nuts. Broad stokes FTW.

Adam Sandler still makes movies?

DaSwankOne

I think that you missed my point. I am not saying that psychologists and sociologists are swayed by and intentionally creating research to support Jesus nuttery. Quite to the contrary - as you point out, academe generally despises religious simpletons.

Instead, I am saying that the claims of many psychologists and sociologists regarding media exposure and behavior - which I characterize as the result of highly-flawed methodology - just happen to be convenient for the Jesus nuts, as well as for nanny-staters and feminists. Consequently, there is a lot of knee-jerk opposition to academic research that questions those claims. The usual approach is to attack the person doing the study, and to try to discredit them personally. I have nothing but disdain for those that choose ad hominem over scientific arguments.

It is my opinion that the way that the economists address these questions is superior to the way that the psychologists and sociologists do. The answers that economists have found so far do NOT support the feminist, nanny-state or Jesus nut axioms on such matters. If it did, I would agree with them on these issues. For example, I am convinced by Levitt's work showing the relationship between abortion and violent crime. This puts me at odds with the Jesus nuts, but is all nicey-nice with the feminist position.

I don't choose my positions on issues based on a comparison to any brand of en toto political or religious ideology. Rather, I prefer to consider each issue independently - I don't need someone else's orthodoxy to tell me what to believe.

Interestingly, if you RTFA, one of the study's authors is a Jesus nut. Props to him for having the mental fortitude to publish research proving the opposite of his own hypothesis. You don't see enough of that in either science or religion these days (witness the 99%-predictable biases in the studies cited in any gun thread.)

My favorite Stupid Psychologist Trick is when they test kids for aggressive behavior after playing Grand Theft Auto. The control is always a cohort of kids who've been playing quietly with jigsaw puzzles or experimenting with Nyquil, never a cohort of kids running around outside playing "Cowboys and Indians." Come up with some valid controls for your studies, guys, and I'll consider the idea that media violence programs kids to become serial murderers. Until then STFU and find something else to whine about, like maybe the evening news.

FTFA
Instead of fueling up at bars and then roaming around looking for trouble, potential criminals pass the prime hours for mayhem eating popcorn and watching celluloid villains slay in their stead.

In other words, don't ever go to the farking movie theatre.

SuperLJ: FTFA
Instead of fueling up at bars and then roaming around looking for trouble, potential criminals pass the prime hours for mayhem eating popcorn and watching celluloid villains slay in their stead.

In other words, don't ever go to the farking movie theatre.

Oh don't worry. The two extra scoops of jackasses, morans, and social farktards that cram themselves into the theaters and then talk and text for the entire movie have more than cured me of my cinemaddiction. Now, I wait for the damn DVD, no matter how badly I want to see the movie.

/rude farks have ruined every single one of my last 8 theatre-going experiences
//I'm just not going to do it anymore
///I quit. I quit, I quit, I quit. I quit.

This is the exact same reason people shouldn't try so hard to restrict video games. Every teenage kid playing a video game is one not potentially roaming the streets getting in trouble. For you dads out there, it is also one less boy out there trying to get your daughter pregnant on a Friday night.

This argument can be extrapolated to argue in favor of some forms of what is considered "kiddie porn" as well. Naked pubescent girls... yum yum!!

Bangkapi: This argument can be extrapolated to argue in favor of some forms of what is considered "kiddie porn" as well. Naked pubescent girls... yum yum!!

Nom nom nom nom nom

Bangkapi: This argument can be extrapolated to argue in favor of some forms of what is considered "kiddie porn" as well. Naked pubescent girls... yum yum!!

Why don't you have a seat right over here...

Bangkapi: This argument can be extrapolated to argue in favor of some forms of what is considered "kiddie porn" as well. Naked pubescent girls... yum yum!!

Maybe it can, maybe it can't. It is possible that pedophiles have different mechanisms and motivations than rapists and muggers.

mooseyfate /rude farks have ruined every single one of my last 8 theatre-going experiences

Bad enough in Portland, OR. I can only imagine what it's like to go to a theater in New Orleans. <shudder>