this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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[CW: violence/gore]. As the title suggests, is there a left case to be made against ultra-violence in video games? I'm thinking mostly about MK11 and MK1 fatalities, as opposed to less gratuitous and less hyper-realistic violence--in Dark Souls or something. Whenever this topic is brought up, other factors usually take up the oxygen in the room: People might immediately think of family-values conservatives, such as the Media Research Center, who act like wet-blankets towards entertainment. Or we think of nerdy Joe Lieberman, who showed the 1993 Sub-Zero spine fatality to Congress (lol). There was Hillary Clinton who decried the Grand Theft Auto franchise, and the host of rightwing politicians who blamed Doom for the Columbine shooting (clearly as a way to absolve gun legislation from any culpability). So this is what I mean when I say that the conversation on video-game violence has been ceded entirely to these dudes, as opposed to something left spaces can discuss without sounding like squares or censors. This came to mind after I was reading about the video game designer who developed PTSD after working on Mortal Kombat 11. His dreams became excruciatingly violent, and his day-to-day was interacting with coworkers studying medical anatomy and watching videos of slaughtered animals. That can't be good for anyone. I guess what I'm asking is: should leftists see this as harmless fun, or something problematic? And, will photo-realistic Fatalities exist in the communist future?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

i have largely cut myself off from such media as well, only this is a new thing for me. I worry that some of the things I have seen through films, television, video games, etc, over my lifetime will haunt me forever! I worry that I will age and remember random horrific scenes from a movie or something, and forget that it isn't a real memory of my own.

Ever since I stopped...I've come to develop the opinion that the world will never be free until they cease poisoning our brains from cradle to grave...it's disgusting what capitalism has done with the help of media technology. we wonder why our friends and family are absolutely helpless in the face of modern media. it has warped all our brains, imo, and I wish that I had had the sense to try what you did earlier on.