Chris Trottier

u/atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org
470 posts · 41 comments

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@holdenweb@freeradical.zone @videogames@piefed.social When I play FPS games, I don’t think “I want to murder someone.” I think “I’m playing something creative and meaningful.”

That isn’t unique to me. Millions of people play shooters every day without it ever translating into real-world violence. If games were truly the cause, we’d see epidemic levels of violence everywhere they’re popular—yet countries with high gaming rates often have lower gun violence than the U.S.

It’s also no different than playing Clue, where you literally act out a murder mystery. Further, FPS games are less grisly than slasher movies like Saw or Texas Chainsaw Massacre, both of which portray violence with far more graphic realism.

And even if we wanted to, we can’t sit around monitoring everyone’s psychology to see who’s playing what or feeling what. That’s neither realistic nor effective.

What we can do is focus on what the evidence actually shows drives gun violence: easy access to real firearms. Research is consistent and unambiguous—gun availability correlates directly with gun deaths.

So pixelated guns? They’re a scapegoat. Actual guns are the problem.

@holdenweb@freeradical.zone @videogames@piefed.social Decades of research say the same thing: video games do not cause gun violence. The APA itself states there’s no causal link:

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2020/03/violent-video-games-behavior

What does drive gun violence? Access to guns. A landmark meta-analysis shows firearm availability doubles the risk of homicide:

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M13-1301

So worry less about pixelated weapons. The danger isn’t on a screen—it’s in the real-world guns we’ve chosen to surround ourselves with.

@akamran@indieweb.social @recordpics@piefed.social What makes Drums & Wires post-punk instead of straight-up punk comes down to approach. Punk was raw speed and attitude—bash it out, three chords, leave scorched earth. XTC, by contrast, twisted that energy into something more angular and cerebral.

The rhythms are jittery and off-kilter, the guitars slice instead of bludgeon, and there’s a weird pop intelligence humming under everything. You can hear them experimenting with space, texture, and even funk grooves—things many punks would have sneered at.

That said, labels are arbitrary anyway. Call it punk, post-punk, new wave, or just XTC. The important part is that Drums & Wires still sounds sharp enough to cut your speakers in half.

@Christopher@mastodon.coffee @movies@piefed.social Did you actually read my review? Because that's not the case at all. I love no budget movies. In fact, there's a lot of great noir films out there with no budget.

The biggest problem is the plot. You don't need a big budget to have a decent plot.

Hell, one of the actresses in this film, Dralla Aierken, made a zero budget film -- clocked at 23 minutes -- which was excellent. She understands how to write a script. The fellow who wrote this movie does not.