Getting From A to B

People often have a habit of finding some tenuous link between;

A. Something They Don’t Like, and

B. Something Bad

Then claiming that this link is direct proof that A causes B.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about yet, have a look at some of these examples and think of where you’ve seen them in the news.

A             (causes)               B

Violent Video Games      Mass Murder

Being Muslim                  Terrorism

Alcohol                            Violence

Speeding Drivers             Road Fatalities  

Being a Minority             Crime

Cleavage                          Natural Disasters

Bath Salts                        Psychotic Episodes

And so on.

The people who see any conclusive link between these concepts are idiots and I’m about to do something they seem to struggle to do; back up my assertions.

You see, when some hack journalist or social (NotARealJob) commentator makes a claim like “Atheism has caused the breakdown of family values” they usually present some wealthy, holy, upper-middle-class family with pearly white smiles and a white picket fence and a perfect happy life (until 5 years from now their son finds out he’s gay and mum develops a fondness for gin at breakfast/Pablo the gardener). Then they juxtapose the Family St. Smug against whatever retarded caveman that couldn’t be bothered finishing evolving they can find and wave $20 at to talk about how they don’t believe in the great sky fairy and they have no idea where their children are but probably should go find them so he can beat them some more. “There!” they cry with self-righteous glee, “we have evidence of our claims! Anyone who doubts us is a dirty liar!”

Wrong! What you have done there is the equivalent of stating that ‘all cars must be red or else they turn into wild animals and kill people’ and backed it up with “this is a car, it is red, what a nice non-murdering car. Over here is a hungry grizzly bear, let’s poke it and see what happens.” Sadly this line of logic hasn’t made it into mainstream media yet, though I eagerly await the entertaining carnage. You have to wonder why no one asks “but this car is blue... why hasn’t it killed anyone?”

That’s the problem with the tenuous thread of these journalistic g-strings. The thin strands of a link are barely there (and may smell like ass, depending on how far you want to push an analogy). They find one piece of evidence explaining a link and assume that’s all they need.

During my time at university I found myself actually turning up to a class regularly and paying attention (probably because it was a morning lecture and the campus tavern didn’t open til 11am). The class was criminology and during a lecture on female criminals the lecturer posed a question regarding the tiny percentage of the national prison population that is made up of women: “These women are criminals, why aren’t more women criminals?” The question wasn’t ‘what made these women in jail?’ we know that, they committed a crime and got caught. Why haven’t more women committed crimes? They obviously have the capability, men commit crimes in greater numbers, why aren’t women doing their fair share?

This sort of logic can be applied to tearing strips off the above examples. If some guy in Norway goes on a killing rampage and you find a copy of Call of Duty in his Xbox, there must be a connection! The video games made him do it! What’s that next to it? A bible? No, ignore that, I’m sure it’s nothing. We’re talking about evil video games here!

Ok, if violent video games are the cause of mass murders, then we’re in a lot of trouble. Call of Duty: Black Ops has sold something like 18 million copies around the world. That’s 18 million shooting rampages that could start up at any second purely based on that ONE video game, saying nothing of the thousands of other games out there training your little darlings to give the neighbours a shotgun-colonic.

1 in 18 million, that’s pretty good odds when you consider your odds of being struck by lightning are about 1 in 2 million (dying in a car crash: 1 in 5,000. Have fun driving to work tomorrow). If someone told you the odds of dying in a plane crash were 1 in 18 million, I don’t think you’d cancel your Hawaiian holiday.

But the news needs to sell something, so they have to go with the minority story. No newspaper ever made front page news out of “Millions Survive Day On Roads” or “Thousands Of Youths Enjoy Night Out Without Getting Into Fights”. So we continue to see stories suggesting that a minority event has caused utter devastation and will do so again soon. IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! *stay tuned, buy more stuff*

You’re smarter than this, you know when you see a news report stating that speed was the cause of a car accident that there were other factors too. Road condition, tyres, weather, driver attention, brakes, and a hundred other variables that all went into play to rid the world of another BRAT.

You have to ask is the mantra of “Speed Kills” is entirely accurate. I’ve driven exceedingly fast and somehow I’m not dead. I know a lot of people in the same supercharged boat. You’d be better off suggesting that roads kill since so many car accidents happen on the road.

So now you know; alcohol doesn’t cause violence, tits don’t cause earthquakes, speeding doesn’t kill, violent video games aren’t responsible for shooting rampages and the media likes to make stories sound scary.

-Worst Guy Ever

(Homework: Consider the link between Ed Hardy/Tapout shirts and being a douche... odds are... 1:1?)