[MUD-Dev] Moral / legal responsibility of games

[Koster]

From: Sasha Hart

> Saw this on Reuters:
 
>   "A study of the last 27 Super Bowl Sundays concluded that the
>   highway death rate jumped 70 percent in the first hour after the
>   big game and remained high over the next few hours.
 
>   The increase was particularly dramatic in states with the losing
>   team, where the death rate was 147 percent higher than the
>   Sundays before and after the championship.
   
>   The only exception was in states with the winning team, where
>   highway death rates did not rise, according to Donald
>   Redelmeier, the chief author of the study."
 
> The researchers were speculating that it was because sympathizers
> with the losing team were distracted, but didn't actually know why
> it was. Perhaps the losing team was drinking harder or driving
> more aggressively.
 
> In any case - could that just be the price of having a game people
> REALLY care about?

Have you ever read about the Micronesian suicide epidemic? Or about
airplane and car crash statistics in the wake of news about car
crashes?

After a fatal car accident involving a 23 year old white male, the
general incidence of car crashes rises. In fact, the general
incidence of FATAL car crashes rises. Most specifically, the
incidence of fatal car crashes involving 23 year old white males
rises. Speculation is that these "accidents" are actually suicides
to some degree, because the fatality rate for these "imitative"
crashes is in fact dramatically higher than the norm.

Media do have an influence, but it seems to be largely because we
are lemmings.

ObOnTopic: publicize only those things which you want your
playerbase to imitate.

-Raph

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