Confirmation Bias and Video Games

I've always loved video games. My earliest memories are of sitting in my living room, playing Mario Party 2 with my sisters or watching my oldest sister play Zelda on our Nintendo 64. With this in mind, it's pretty understandable that I'm passionate about the topic of video games and violence.

There are hundreds of studies on this topic, majority of them claiming that playing violent video games leads to aggression. "Okay," you might say. "They're scientific studies, so you can't possibly argue that they're incorrect or biased."

But let's take a closer look at one of these studies. I'll use this article by researchers at University Pierre Mendès-France, Ohio Statue University, and VU University in the Netherlands.  

Let's start with the very first sentence of the article. 

"It is well known that violent video games increase aggression..." 

Obviously, this is very scientific and helps establish credibility because well known facts are always accurate. Everyone knows that the direction that toilets flush depends on the hemisphere, cracking your knuckles leads to arthritis, Twinkies have an indefinite shelf life, and the average person swallows 8 spiders per year. 

In all seriousness though, this immediately set off alarm bells. You can already tell that the study is only looking for data to prove what they think instead of looking at the results as a whole to determine if there actually is a link. It's confirmation bias, pure and simple. It seems like people are using video games as a scapegoat to distract us from the real causes of violence.

What do you think about the issue of violence in video games? 

50 Shades of... wait, they're making a movie?!?

A few months ago, someone told me that 50 Shades of Grey was being made into a movie. The whole idea seemed so utterly ridiculous that I thought that they were joking. Alas, I was mistaken.

Google Trends can be really interesting to look at sometimes (it's also helpful for when I want to peek out from the rock I live under and check out the latest political scandal). I looked at it a few days ago, and was somewhat confused as to why '50 shades of gray' was the most searched topic that day. Then I looked at the attached article. 

I did a bit of a double take.

How the hell are they going to made 50 Shades of Grey into a movie? It's book porn erotic literature. And it's poorly written book porn erotic literature at that. How did the actors even audition? Did they just walk into a room and take off their pants?

While I could make a list about 20 pages long about all the reasons this book is awful, there's one big thing about it that confuses me.

Why are so many women suddenly attracted to overly-controlling and somewhat creepy fictional men? Double points if they have serious anger issues and are all around jerks! First, there was Edward Cullen from Twilight. Just like what seems like every other girl on the planet, I went through the Twilight phase. Oh, how I swooned when Edward revealed that he had been climbing through Bella's window to watch her sleep for the past 3 months. How I sighed when he told her how desperately he wanted to slaughter her, how her blood smelled like sweet ambrosia to his cold, white, and godlike nose.  

And now there's Christian Grey. I'm not going to go into too much detail, partly because I only managed to skim about 5 pages of the book before I started laughing, and partly because majority of his character development happens during sex scenes. But just by reading the back of the book, you can tell he's going to be another Edward Cullen.

Tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control? Sounds like my kind of man!

Much Ado About Chess (which is apparently misogynistic by the way)

Disclaimer: This post isn't intended to offend anyone in any way.  It's a bit of a satire, really.

There's no denying that sexism is a very real issue. Even today, women make 77 cents for every dollar that men make. It's utterly ingrained in our society, and I don't exactly see it ceasing to become an issue anytime soon. That said, some people seriously need to stop making everything an issue of gender.

I was idly browsing tumblr when I found this charming little text post:

You can see the rest of her rant here

According to vag-of-honor (which is a lovely username, by the way), chess is oppressive to women. The objective of the game is clearly to reinforce the idea that women are considered less than men. Never mind that the queen is pretty much the most powerful piece on the board! Its innability to jump over other pieces proves that women aren't allowed to advance in society! WE ARE BEING REPRESSED BY THE PATRIARCHY!!!!!!

That's nice and all. Really, it is. But it doesn't make any sense. Women are weak? Misogony! Women are strong? Misogony! The National Chess Federation still supports chess? Misogony! Feminism isn't the issue. Feminism is awesome. The issue is people that take it way too far, making a mockery of the actual cause. It's eerily reminiscent of a Monty Python scene.

Let's say that vag-of-honor's interpretation of the misogynistic nature of chess is 100% accurate. So what now? Is the next step to ban the game? Should we ban Jenga next? 

Hi, NSA employee!

As a self proclaimed Harry Potter fanatic, I'm ashamed to say that I've only seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part One once.  So last night, while I was procrastinating starting my homework, I decided to remedy this.  

The movie started off just how I remembered it.  Hedwig dies, George loses his ear, there is a huge amount of sexual tension between Harry and Ginny, and everyone's life pretty much sucks.  Oh yeah, and Rufus Scrimgeour, the Minister of Magic, delivers some not-so-shocking news: the Ministry has fallen.  A few minutes later, there is a short montage of clips and images detailing the state of said ministry.  One clip in particular caught my eye.  Pius Thicknesse, the new minister, also a Death Eater, is standing in the Ministry of Magic atrium delivering a speech while people run screaming around him. In a voice laden with double meaning, he says the following:

"You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide." 

This got me thinking about the whole NSA scandal.  Ever since Edward Snowden revealed how easy it is for the government to access our personal information, more and more information has come to light uncovering how little privacy we actually have.  What started as an ability to read all our emails and access all our phone calls has quickly evolved into the use of software that collects every single thing we do on the internet and the circumvention of many methods of encryption, which is what what websites like Paypal and Facebook use to protect all of your personal information.

Some people really don't care about the NSA and their snooping.  "Why should I care?" they ask.  "I don't do anything online that requires hiding."  The strange thing is that these same people value their privacy just as much as everyone else.  If someone just walked into their house and started reading their mail, looking at all their family photo albums, and writing down their credit card numbers, they would be furious.

I must admit that there are some reasonable justifications for looking a bit closer at our internet activities.  Preventing terrorism is, for obvious reasons, really really important.  But using this as an excuse for infringing on our privacy is not okay.