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Originally Posted by Thor
I'm curious, if there was today a version as realistic as the Holodeck on Star Trek available and people could experience any and all fantasies through those, do you think we would have less violence, less sexual crimes, etc?
I'm honestly not sure, but I wonder if disturbed people have an outlet if they would still need it to be done in real life.
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I doubt it would have any difference either way.
If it had, we probably woulda seen some difference already as there are tons of outlets we have that were not available years before. Video games, movies, music, shoot, activities like paintball even.
Sick people are going to want to try regardless of what they see or do, good or bad I'm guessing. You occasionally hear of someone getting an idea from something sick like this, but if it wasn't a video game, it'd be something else. People claimed they got ideas from Marquis du Sade writings years ago. People have had places to get sick ideas since we could communicate with each other in ways more complicated than grunts.
Really the only thing that does tend to push people down paths like that is real life experiences of tragedy and violence. Like war, abuse, etc. It's these real world things that we should pay more attention to.
I think sometimes activities in the vein of GTA or violent music lyrics might give a well adjusted person an opportunity to blow off steam, but I don't think it's really going to matter one way or another to a person who is already thinking about those things. It's just what they gravitate towards. I don't think it helps them or spurs them on.
Of course there will always be outlier cases, but I've never seen any statistics that would prove that outlets like this are harmful or helpful.