Tired: Videogames cause crime because they desensitize the player to simulated violence without actual danger or repercussions
Wired: Videogames cause crime because they reinforce the ideology that, if a system does not have foolproof mechanisms for making it impossible for you to do a thing, then that constitutes permission from the owners of the system. and thus, the conclusion that whatever you succeed in doing is by definition not against the rules, but is just an exploitable loophole in those rules. (Also, the only crime it causes is check fraud.)
…yes, this is mostly a joke. And yes, it is about the Infinite Money Glitch.
…but really, I feel as if this is more of just a symptom of a longstanding problem, which probably predates both TikTok and videogames.
namely, the assumption that something being “against the law” makes it either “impossible,” or “comically easy to stop anyone who’s doing it, by just Reporting It To The Authorities”
the whole ideology behind “you’re overreacting. no way is your boss actually discriminating against you. that would be illegal! aaaaand if they really are, Just Go To HR and it’ll stop.”
I mean. I am very aware of the ineffectiveness of most law enforcement
(and also its deadly effectiveness, sometimes, in committing and getting away with the kind of remorseless violence that people like to claim videogames cause)
and I think I’m probably pro-abolition of police
but I also recognize that such abolition would require a whole lot of complex planning, to arrange a replacement system which would both 1. carry out the various truly necessary tasks which are expected but rarely actually gotten from current law enforcement, and 2. stop the current bastard cops, once fired, from continuing their senseless violence just for the fun of it.
and such a system would have to be carefully watched to make sure that, given such power, it didn’t become just as corrupt as the police force it replaced.
And yet… in this world of simplistic understanding of the legal system… whenever I see someone advocating for the abolition of police forces, it’s hard to tell if their thought process contains similar complex concerns about planning…
or if they haven’t given it much conscious thought at all, and on a subconscious level they’re just thinking, “we don’t need police to stop people doing illegal things! Those things won’t happen, because they’re against the law!”