Does violent entertainment have a relation with violent criminal acts?

The question is as simple as that.

Are you saying you just want a yes/no answer and no further discussion?

I guess the other option didn't go through. It was a yes, no or not sure. Further discussion is also good.

No, it doesn't, at least that's not the intent. Violent entertainment should be a way of being able to relate to feelings or just something to listen to, play or watch. It's not meant to be acted out in real life. People who do sh*t like they're in GTA IV are just whack jobs anyway. People who are already violent will commit violent acts regardless of a media outlet. Those who commit violent acts because of some form of media cannot truly distinguish fantasy from reality.

That's my opinion anyway.

You said "...have a relation with..." instead of for example"...directly cause without capacity to resist for all individuals...".

Your question is in such broad language that all it requires is anyone to even remotely conciously or subconciously, directly or indirectly, be motivated to in ANY sense to affect violent criminal acts and the answer is 'yes'.

So @ShadowFox1001,

Even if someone is a 'whackjob' looking to do criminal activity initially regardless of GTAIV, if he gets an idea for a type of criminal activity, it IS an example as Agentsix put it of "a relation with".

Now if Agentsix wants to be more specific and chage the question to "Does violent video game content necessarily force everyone to commit violent acts", we can argue that.

Or Agentsix, you can change it to something in the middle.

Are we talking about, forcing, motivating, persuading, tempting?

Are we talking about everyone, someone, anyone?

Are we saying ONLY violent entertainment, are we also talking about other violent media, like war footage, etc.

It has a relation.

EDIT: Made a couple corrections to this post to clarify.

Only normal people will not react violently in front of violent entertainment. Only clucked up individuals or those that have suffered some kind of mental damage MIGHT react violently.

I should just dig up every time we've ever had this trite conversation and paste everything I've ever said on it, but I won't.

I'm going to say yes, because there are people in the world so stupid, they'd let movies/video games influence them to do harm to another human.

If I'm over arguing this you don't need to respond, but I often find myself bothered when people call others "stupid" because it seems like they are not fully embracing what may lead one to behave a certain way.

Do you not agree that although violence is part of our animal nature, its reinforcement by violent media leads us to either contemplate its usefulness more and/or act contrary to the types of empathetic reinforcement we get from other more 'positive' media, systems, etc. that it can influence the mind without the individual being stupid, but rather less naturally or culturally empathetic, a psychological condition given to the individual, but not asked for by the individual?

It should also be human nature to know that it is wrong to cause harm to others. It is not human nature to take life from the innocent. To think (or do) otherwise... still comes off as stupid to me.

The way that I see it, it is neither human nature to take life nor not take life from the innocent by default equally. Rather it is a variable function of many things including emapthy as well agression and all other instinctual as well as cultural motivations.

In that sense it may be human nature for the majority of us (who do have and were conditioned with substantial empathy) to not take life from the innocent.

But in that sense it would be human nature for the minority of us (who have minimal natural empathy, nor the cultural reinforcement of empathy) to function based primarily on the other systems we do have which include natural aggression even to the point of otherwise unchecked violence.

That doesn't change the fact that it is still a stupid act.

Look, no one is going to OPT for stupidity... but even still, there is no way you can simplify or makes sense that letting entertainment such as movies and video games affect you in such a way to commit such acts.

And I'm not saying they are f*cking retards. I'm saying they are stupid. They could be smart in math... but not in common sense. Not being able to determine that what they see in entertainment is not way they should act in public is just plain unintelligent.

And for that... they are stupid.

YES! violent criminal acts are commited for the purposes of entertainment and therefore are one and the same.
case solved.
^_____^

[spoiler]After just watching Vantage Point on DVD, which was very violent and somewhat disturbing, I put the TV on and their is a story on 60 minutes about how these Marines killed a bunch of innocent civilians in Iraq. The I flip through the channels and on a 'caught on tape' show, they actually show some guy shoot his ex-wife to death. Several other channels showed movies heavy with gunfire, then their were 2 guys beating the crap out of each other in a full contact cage battle, and then finally, a commercial for water of all things used an action movie like water gun fight. Call me old, but I'm starting to get a little sick of it.[/spoiler]