23 ms·

A violently true depiction of what war really is

627 points by sberder 15y ago

Sakes 15y ago
Wow, awesome read. If this guy consulted on a video game I would never play it. Mowing down Russian civilians in the game MW2 was more than F'd up enough for me.
- dlikhten 15y ago
  If they want to make a video game depict war... Have a bad guy escape through some civilians, you shoot after him. Then after coming closer find a parent/child dead with another child screaming over his/her family's body. That would be a scene that makes people remember what war really is. But war games are not about war. They are about shooting things and feeling justified about it.
  - smacktoward 15y ago
    Indeed. War games are about war in much the same way Whack-A-Mole is about groundskeeping.
  - Splines 15y ago
    I'd be very interested to know if it's even possible to create a game where you genuinly feel remorse for killing an innocent person while chasing "the bad guy". Many games have innocent bystanders, and there is a spectrum of consequence, from none (GTA), to inconvenience (Oblivion), to an instant game-over (Ghost Recon). In any case, I've never felt bad, since it's just a game. Can a game elevate the characters to a point where you feel, even for a moment, real loss? I don't think it's very easy, if even possible.
    - gnosis 15y ago
      "Can a game elevate the characters to a point where you feel, even for a moment, real loss? I don't think it's very easy, if even possible." I've read reports of gamers crying when they had to kill the companion cube in Portal. Gamers can and do form quite intense attachments to game characters, and I think they can and do feel genuine loss upon some of these characters' deaths. However, the problem with many video games (and movies, and much other media) is that "the enemy" is usually just a faceless, almost less than human cardboard cutout that you're often either manipulated to feel glad to get rid of or indifferent over having killed. It need not be that way, but it often if not almost always is.
    - Jach 15y ago
      Even just a small reminder that "you might want to consider the moral consequences of what you've been doing" is beyond what most games do. It doesn't necessarily require branching consequence paths and other silly mechanics, it doesn't require building up an attachment to the fictional character, just a small reminder that makes the player think about something in a broader context instead of focusing on the action. Of course game content around these things is fine, it's just not usually done that well. One thing that stood out for me while I was playing Lord of the Rings Online (noting that the LotR universe is a very black-and-white-morals one) was a bounty hunter quest line where I made money killing some wanted thugs. This led to a bounty poster on me: "For the death of Jachad, Hunter of no account, Cuthbert Sprunt offers two gold pieces. This Elf has come to Evendim and caused nothing but trouble. Just ask Mrs. Idden where her boy Andy is, or the widow Tripper why her son Will is missing a brother! If you think you've been wronged in this, Jachad, "bounty-hunter," then you come talk to Mr. Sprunt at the Sparring Circle. We'll sort it out, fair-like." Of course the game quickly reminds you that Sprunt is a low-life villain, and I subsequently defeated him (though he lived since he gave up in the fight). But it was one of the few times the game ever questions the morality of player's actions, and even though it was incredibly brief it stood out for that reason.
- anonymous 15y ago
  > If this guy consulted on a video game I would never play it. I found Operation Flashpoint to be quite enjoyable.
nonce43 15y ago
The Onion has its own take on the difference between real war and video game war: an "ultra-realistic" war game featuring endless paperwork, awaiting orders, and repairing trucks: http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-game-features-awaiti,14382/ http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-... (I don't mean to trivialize war by this, and I should point out that The Onion is satirical.)
- GFischer 15y ago
  I read a post by a Marine once that said that a realistic war game would simulate guard duty by staring at a black screen for hours, and then send a minute flash of light several hours into the game when you're numb and tired. Reminds me of the description of the game Desert Bus... http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/152110- http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/152110-
- roqetman 15y ago
  Ahh, good times... not. I clocked over 6000 hours guard duty during my military time; a game based on my experience would be a few minutes of action and hours of boredom.
huhtenberg 15y ago
I can't imagine how it is for a person like W to try and live a "normal life" after he leaves the war zone. And if he'd want to to begin with.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- majelix 15y ago
  There's a lot of bullshit in Hurt Locker, but the scenes where he's grocery shopping aren't.
mattdeboard 15y ago
As a former Marine infantryman, and a former Marine PR idiot, I think his numbers are off but a lot of the concepts are right, with a caveat. It's not sociopathy of the organic sort. It's the kind of detachment from prolonged exposure to extreme, unmitigated stress. So don't take this article as justification to feel like there's something mentally wrong with people who join a combat arms unit.
- phaus 15y ago
  I understand very well that you yourself don't think that one has to be a sociopath to become an infantryman, but that is exactly what the author is claiming in this article. That's why so many former military guys (such as myself) think that this article is idiotic. There are definitely a disproportionate amount of people who return from war with psychological issues, but sociopaths are pretty rare. Many people who have been in combat have a difficult time relating to the rest of the world, but it doesn't make them psychopaths. There are probably a few people who choose to become military contractors because they are sick individuals that enjoy killing their fellow man, but I suspect that the majority of the people who go that route do so because they leave the military without any marketable skills and find it hard to pass up the six-figure incomes that are offered to military contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq. Just to clarify a bit, I don't disagree with his assessment of the video game / movie industry, just his statements about soldiers being sadistic killing machines without a sense of morality.
  - anigbrowl 15y ago
    There are probably a few people who choose to become military contractors because they are sick individuals that enjoy killing their fellow man 'Sociopath' has become unfortunately loaded word. I certainly don't think of a serial killer or sadist when I see that term, but rather someone who is emotionally and socially detached from their surroundings, out of ongoing necessity as much as anything else. It's callous indifference as opposed to cruelty, just as people who work on industrial farms and in slaughterhouses are acclimatized to their rather unpleasant jobs, as opposed to hating animals or glorifying in their suffering. The sociopathy described here is the mindset of 'nothing personal/just business' taken to its logical conclusion: one might say that the US has a comparative economic advantage in the projection of military power, this military contractor is essentially one of many service workers to whom we (as society) have outsourced some of our morally unpleasant tasks.
roboneal 15y ago
Being ex-military and not a sociopath -- he lost me when he said that the "vast majority of us are straight up sociopaths" We constantly made decisions that increased the risk to ourselves while trying to minimize the risk to civilians. That is not a mindset of a sociopath.
- gruseom 15y ago
  In your experience, what determines the degree to which a unit will uphold such standards vs. degenerating into what the OP calls "sociopaths"? Is it a matter of training? leadership? character?
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Hmm. As I read the article, it seemed like the author was alternating between suggesting that experience was what turned people that way ("he was the FNG [ed: fucking new guy] that got blown up because he was incompetent, who left the fight before it turned him into one of us."), and suggesting that there is something else at play ("only roughly 20% of combat troops ever get PTSD – when if you think about it, it should affect everyone that ever sees combat."). I read it as him carefully suggesting that the career self-selects for sociopathic tendencies.
    - gruseom 15y ago
      Yeah, but I'm asking about roboneal's personal experience, not the article. Edit: what bothers me about the article is that it seems unlikely that a true sociopath would describe himself in these terms.
      - dinkumthinkum 15y ago
        Well, the author says he is not an academic so I think we can freely assume he may not necessarily mean sociopath as how it may or may not be understood by psychologists or the DSM-IV. I think he refers more to apathy.
    - 15y ago
Tossrock 15y ago
Whoa, I know the guy who runs this website, along with several of the authors. He actually just launched it a few days ago, primarily for the Penny Arcade forum readers. Small internet.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  You ought to let him know that it seems to be down right now: http://i.imgur.com/FnZYn.png http://i.imgur.com/FnZYn.png
  - karlnp 15y ago
    I'm doing what I can, but given my limited means cloud storage, better hosting, and the like are unavailable to me. The site is cached & is still up - CloudFront is just throttling bandwidth, as far as I can tell. Recommendations would be appreciated.
cpursley 15y ago
I can't imagine how anyone enjoys games like these unless they really are sociopaths. War is when young men go die for the old men's mistakes and kill a lot of women in children in the process.
- icebraining 15y ago
  What games? MW and the like, or the hypothetical game he was describing?
  - cpursley 15y ago
    Any type of game where you shoot another human being is F*d up. The hypothetical scenario where you can accidentally kill innocents does not justify the game.
    - cobrausn 15y ago
      The game does not have to 'justify' itself to you, or anyone. It is what it is - a virtual world where human conflict drives the story and the mechanics, and the goal is entertainment. And if people like playing games where other humans are enemy, what does that tell you about people? Maybe you have not noticed, but violence is part of human nature, and our creative works (of all kinds) have used this because, for better or for worse, it mirrors us. If you don't like the reflection, don't look. I don't suppose you think any book where humans kill humans is also 'F*d up'? What about movies? Or is it only acceptable when they provide moral overtones you agree with?
      - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
        >And if people like playing games where other humans are enemy, what does that tell you about people? // I've played such games a little but never thought of the people I was playing with as the enemy. The people you play with are your friends normally aren't they?
        15y ago
jakeonthemove 15y ago
Street fights and other violent encounters are the same. There is no honor, no right way to fight and nothing good comes out of it except you surviving. It's nothing like video games - martial arts won't help (well, beyond helping keep you in shape), a bullet will kill you in a horrible, slow way (dying instantly means you're lucky) or leave you with a disability for life, a simple knife slash will leave you in a hospital for a long time and a simple hit with fist can dislocate your jaw, which is really terrible (you can't eat, can't speak, your face is swollen, you drool all the time). Sadly, kids don't seem to understand, and most people laugh when I tell them the best strategy is RRF - Reason (give them the wallet, try to solve it with words), Run (as fast as you can and don't look back), Fight (only if all else fails, and fight as if your life depends on it)...
- angrycoder 15y ago
  >martial arts won't help This is patently false and completely ridiculous. Someone who is trained to take and give a hit will always have a significantly better chance in a fight.
  - Nitramp 15y ago
    How so? All I ever heard from people who did serious martial arts is that an attacker with a weapon will always be in advantage, and an attacker with no moral qualms even more so. Your karate won't help you much if someone attacks you with a knife, or a shattered bottle.
    - apsurd 15y ago
      I guess I understand what you are trying to say, but you can't seriously think you, with a knife in hand, are going to kick an unarmed Bruce Lee's ass? (using Bruce Lee because he is internationally famous, but assume I mean any world-renowned, elite trained multi-dimensional fighter) The person still needs to be trained how to use a knife in combat. Have you ever stabbed anybody? (I haven't) but it seems obvious that it would be a lot harder than you'd think. (what is the proper grip? how do you thrust, how not to break your wrist, obviously can't go lunging blindly because if you miss your momentum carries you to a defenseless position... lot's of things going on here)
skeltoac 15y ago
"the vast majority of us are straight up sociopaths" Society can't function without socially acceptable outlets for this and other anti-social behaviors. That is the best justification I have found for a long list of things that don't seem to make sense in an enlightened society. What would the world be like if we didn't have the Army and NFL? A lot of people would find new, more chaotic outlets for their aggression.
- munin 15y ago
  I think fewer people would have a problem with this if the outlet for sociopathic aggression didn't involve detonating women and children
  - skeltoac 15y ago
    Few people will like this, too, including myself, but the truth is that as long as they aren't "our" women and children... I'm kissing my hard-earned 198 away here by speaking truth. Hate the truth, not the speaker.
    - philwelch 15y ago
      One thing I vividly remember from the Iraq war was how much everyone seemed to care about a couple thousand US casualties, and how little everyone seemed to care about a hundred thousand Iraqi casualties.
      - lotharbot 15y ago
        One thing I remember is how accurate the US casualty number was -- we had names and hometowns for every US casualty, and usually a cause of death. In some sense, this is to be expected, as we have records of everyone who gets shipped out, and most have at least some family or friends who awaited their return. We weren't even sure how many Iraqis had died, nor how they died. Some of the more common estimates of Iraqi deaths vary by a factor of ten or more. Records in Iraq are spotty, at best. Most Iraqis don't have a great deal of family and friends in the US, so we don't feel their loss in quite the same way.
Cushman 15y ago
Reminds me of my father (who was in the Airborne) looking over my shoulder playing the training in America's Army. "That's pretty realistic. Do they have a level where you have to go knock on somebody's door and tell them their son was killed in a training exercise?" That said, I feel like this article, like the censors, gives video games much too much credit. Glorification of violence is everywhere in our culture and fiction; I'd imagine at least 95% of gamers understand intuitively that the games they play bear very slight likeness at best to the reality of war (although probably more in the sense that they might be killed themselves rather than that they might kill others.) After all, one of the things (multiplayer) video games do teach you is that combat is seriously dangerous. Pop out of cover for one second and you can get shot in the head, bam, you're dead. In a game, that means respawning; nobody seriously believes that's how it works in real life. In that sense, I have to think that these games, as unrealistic as they are, are still the most realistic fictional depiction of war you can experience-- and the lessons you learn are much more valuable than those of, say, comic books. Which is not to say that we don't have a bit of a violence problem in our culture (though I'm on the side of Steven Pinker in thinking that our violence problem is probably better than it ever has been). But the problem is not the kids running around playing cops and robbers. The problem is the kids who never properly learn the distinction between playing and hitting-- and worst of all, those who learn it by the maxim that "If you hit your brother, I'll hit you even harder." That's what we should be talking about.
- Homunculiheaded 15y ago
  I actually think a bigger problem is not the fear of violence leaving the screen and coming into daily life, but that we increasingly see violence as 'that things that happens behind a screen, its pretty entertaining'. I have no data to back this up, but the general population certainly seems to be more 'meh' about US military actions abroad. I think your father's reaction was responding to the issue that you've trivialized and turned into a game something that should be horrific, or at least unpleasant. It reminds me of a piece on NPR about family members of the victims of homicide. One person pointed out that it's common fun to host "murder mystery parties" but nobody would ever think of hosting a "rape mystery party". Similarly Grand Theft Auto is fine, but Rapelay is highly controversial. Obviously part of the reason we're less sensitive to some types of violence is because we have less violence (I think many people have a friend that was raped, but very few have a friend who was murdered). However, even if this detachment comes from an increase in non-violence there are still effects of increasingly conflating violence with entertainment.
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
I am very tempted to flag this. the sociopath thing really rubs me the wrong way -- there are logical flaws with using that label. War is a part of society. If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. Having said that, it's a great first-person account of what real combat is like, at least for this one guy. I am concerned the effect on HN discussion will be negative. Hopefully I'm wrong. The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. With a draft and mandatory conscription, everybody had the common experience of serving and perhaps doing really bad things in the line of duty. As it is now, the vast majority of civilians have absolutely no idea what military service is like, as the author points out. In this lack of context everybody becomes really impressionable. Not only can the military manipulate public opinion through selective release of information, other soldiers like this one can also. When the majority of people don't have context, they'll believe anything. This is why you couldn't get away with writing a really negative article about WWII right after the war. It wasn't that somehow the war wasn't terribly horrible, it was that the average Joe reading it would immediately say something like "yeah, but that's not the way it was for most people" or "you think that's bad? I remember when..." We don't have that kind of audience now. Once again, as the author points out, most of the readers only know cartoon violence and have never even hunted an animal. So people are left substituting other experiences and trying to draw rough analogies. The one thing I know for sure is that different people in different units can have vastly different impressions of a conflict. In my mind, this article would have been better with less "I'm the sane one and the other soldiers are crazy" and more "Here's another view" I would also note that it has become fashionable for authors to say they have all sorts of combat experience when they don't. I'm sure this author isn't one of those people, but I've learned over time to be suspicious of people who wear the grisly warrior mantle as a way to get around my critical thinking skills. This area is just really difficult to discuss, especially when it's about an ongoing operation.
- dfc 15y ago
  Why are you "sure this author isn't one of those people"?
  - phaus 15y ago
itmag 15y ago
As a personal development junkie, I find war to be very problematic (well duh). Killing people is just so... unenlightened. Then again, I find the warrior ethos or what you might call the male Warrior archetype to be of great interest. It's pretty obvious that this is something that the modern world very much lacks, at least we don't have any formal initiation rites for it (going to Marine boot camp might qualify though). For more reading, check out this book: http://www.masculinity-movies.com/articles/king-warrior-magician-lover http://www.masculinity-movies.com/articles/king-warrior-magi...
- angersock 15y ago
  "Killing people is just so... unenlightened." Care to elaborate? As far as I know, war practiced at the societal level is usually not for personal development.
- jules 15y ago
  If it weren't so elaborate I would be convinced that that website is a joke.
toadi 15y ago
like playing these games. But it's a game... I thaiboks also and like it. But would never be a soldier in any army. Can't kill people of do any of this shit. Except if there was immediate threat for my family....
JS_startup 15y ago
I like one point in particular that he touched on. That is, the military's careful manipulation of the media and public perception and the lens through which we view military personnel. I know I'm supposed to laud infantrymen as brave and patriotic (which is why I'd never voice this in public), but frankly..nearly every frontline veteran I've ever met seems like an uneducated, violent and scary thug. I know that's basically what you have to be to fight on the frontlines, but the disparity between public opinion and reality is shocking.
- bdunbar 15y ago
  but frankly..nearly every frontline veteran I've ever met seems like an uneducated, violent and scary thug. I never went to war, but I was a rifleman in the Marines, spent eight years there. One thing I've noticed about me, and other guys like me, is that you'd never know on first acquaintance that I was a Marine. Commonly heard: But you don't look/act like a Marine! I suspect you've met more so-called 'frontline veterans' than you think.
  - PakG1 15y ago
    Are you saying that the frontline changes people? Or something else? Just trying to clearly understand your meaning there.
    - bdunbar 15y ago
      Of course being in the service changes people - going to war even more so. I'm saying that not every grunt is a coarse thug. We leave the service, get a job, get an education, get a life. We leave the soldier behind, is what I'm saying.
  - cglace 15y ago
    I spent a lot of time near Beaufort, SC on a nearby island after college. All the marines from Parris Island would go to downtown Beaufort on the weekends. Most of the marines were dicks looking for a fight. Some were cool but I remember thinking they were the exception not the rule.
dfc 15y ago
How common is it for someone in the UK to drop out of school at 16?
- philwelch 15y ago
  From what little I know about the UK school system, there's actually a natural stopping point at 16 after the GCSE. Between 16 and 18 one would study for "A-levels", or not as the case may be.
run4yourlives 15y ago
I suggest anyone intrigued by this pick up a copy of LCol. Paul Grossman's work: On Killing.
lukifer 15y ago
I have a cousin coming of age who's downright excited to join the military and become a sniper. I have little doubt that war video games are partly responsible for that. Now, I don't think violent games are inherently bad, and relatively few people playing them will actually sign up to go blow up insurgents in the desert. But there is a significant difference between Modern Warfare and Hitman, Doom, GTA, etc.: most other violent games are either clearly fictionalized, or you knowingly play a villain. While a few nutcases might emulate the game, no reasonable person, not even most children, will draw the conclusion that the game activity is normal, real or justified. But wars really happen, and they are seldom sexy or heroic. Even if you accomplish the most kick-ass mission ever, you probably lost friends in the process. Any soldier anywhere would happily give up their medals and glory if it meant the fallen got to go home to their families. War is hell. While I would never advocate any form of censorship, selling video games that hides this reality is socially irresponsible.
- gnosis 15y ago
  Many violent video games are, in effect, murder simulators. I wonder how much more realistic they'd have to get before most people who gladly play them now would object to them. In many games you can already hear the screams of the victims and even the victims pleading for their lives, and see quite a bit of gore as the murder is carried out. However, you can't yet feel your hands around someone's throat, feel the blood pumping in their veins as you slowly squeeze their throat until they die. You can't feel their warm blood spurt out of their bodies or feel the knife plunge in. It's probably just a matter of time until improvements in virtual reality do let you experience just that. You will be able to more effectively feel just what it's like to kill somebody. Would you object to those sorts of games? Would they even still be games at that point? What effect do you think such realistic experiences of simulated murder have on the players?
rhaphazard 15y ago
I don't have first-hand, or even second-hand experience of war. I can only go by what I read in articles like this. But logically, the author is making a lot of sense. Any apathy or desensitization to killing is either a result of social conditioning (sociopathy) or a psychological predisposition (psychopathy). There are of course other ways this could come about, and the author's 80% figure is probably an over-estimation, but I think the proliferation of military contractors really increases the chances that what the author says is true. I wonder if there has ever been a study that tries to figure out how prevalent these kind of issues are. Kids are going to have a hard time unlearning the fake reality presented to them by video games.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
bootload 15y ago
"... your lead guy gets blown up and you spend the next hour or so casevac’ing [ed note: casualty evacuating] him ..." that's CASVAC. Correct pronunciation. A portmanteau or joining of "CASualty" and "EVACuation". The difference b/w MEDIVAC and CASEVAC? The former is by medical vehicle, the later ad-hoc.
dasil003 15y ago
He hasn't really convinced me he's a sociopath. More like he's suffering from PTSD and coping with it by acting out sociopathic tendencies. I mean obviously I don't have the first clue, but I ask myself would a real sociopath write something like this?
winter_blue 15y ago
Violent video games & media must be banned. It should be treated like child pornography. A federal law prohibiting the dissemination of such material and people who develop or make such games and movies should be given the same punishment those filming child pornography receive. I personally recommend a minimum of 10 years. The social and psychological corruption of society must come to an end. I know many of you will not agree with my opinion, but I think you don't understand how bad an impact blatant violence in games and media has on people.
- viraptor 15y ago
  Where does the violence start? Modern warfare? AA? CS? What about fantasy like World of Warcraft? If hitting someone with a giant hammer ok, if you don't see the blood? Then what about car racing? If you can crash the car, do you assume people will think about the guy inside who has shards of glass inside his skull now? Is that violent? What if you don't see it? And animal cruelty? Is the frogger with cars running over the main character violent, or not? What about the games which depict whole wars but need only your imagination to add 2 and 2 together and realise that in chess you aim to kill as many soldiers of the opponent as possible (some skilled and specialised, half of them just cannon fodder - it's ok to sacrifice those), until the king is left alone and captured by the enemy... Actually it's hard to find games which do not imply violence in one way or another. Even cards symbolise opposing kingdoms on them. Even Go happens around life, death and taking liberties...
ObjectiveSub 15y ago
On a similar note: I recently watched the movie "Act of Valor". I had no idea it was one big propaganda piece before I got in. As soon as the movie started I thought "Yep, here we go. 110 minutes of pure army PR". What I thought was more interesting were the comments on the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. You can check them out for yourself here: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/act_of_valor/ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/act_of_valor/ It is a shit movie; no doubt about it. What I find interesting are the comments on the reviews that the critics gave. Critics of course correctly pointed out how this movie is basically an advertisement paid for by the Navy. However, any critic that dared to give a bad review or even mention the word "propaganda" was attacked by countless posters that were shouting how he is a "damned liberal" and how the soldiers "die for [him] everyday to protect [his] freedom". I do not understand the glorification of soldiers and I probably never will. War is a horrible, horrible thing. Soldiers are professional killers. As Voltaire said: "All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets" There is no glory or honor in war (more specifically the current situation in Afghanistan/Iraq). The soldier sure as hell did not die for you. He most likely died protecting his comrades that he has been living with for the last 4 years. The soldier probably doesn't even give a shit about you. The Army is not defending America's "way of life". Terrorists do not hate you because of your "freedoms". As a Canadian, I really don't understand why my opinion is so frowned upon in the US.
- doktrin 15y ago
  This is a sentiment I also have had a hard time sharing and even understanding. The adulation and worship of the military that has risen in recent years is a strange bird indeed. It's essentially unpatriotic to not consider every single service member a "hero", or fail to thank them for their service. It doesn't make sense to put the military on an unrealistic and imaginary pedestal.
philwelch 15y ago
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." --Wittgenstein That's my reaction to most of these 182 comments. I grew up with a combat veteran, and between listening to his stories and reading those of many other vets, including the OP, the only thing that's clear to me is that there are as many ways of coping with combat as there are combat veterans. Instead of arguing about whether or not people are sociopaths, go listen to few veterans sometime.
unknsldr 15y ago
I am an experienced soldier with combat experience in several corners of the world. I have a distinguished service record. The only units I've ever known are Special Forces units. I've operated in several tiers of the community. I was medically discharged following injuries sustained in combat operations. You deserve a better account than M provides. Please understand some detail must be left out. I am not an academic any more than M or his psychologist. It's important to include the psychologist that asserts violent personality disorder outside of the DSM. There are a lot of guys like M floating around special operations (the community) but perhaps many of you do not understand the community. The special operations umbrella is pretty large depending on how you classify. To simplify, there are several degrees (tiers) divided by purpose and specialization. The degrees might look like a pyramid if you represented them by the number of soldiers in each. M would be near the bottom of a special operations pyramid, meaning he's a highly proficient infantryman, probably supporting a higher unit. A good guess for M would be Ranger Battalion. He mentions Special Forces (Green Beret), which is at least branch consistent. M wouldn't make it at a higher level of the community. The community would correct the matter if he did. In special operations, psych evaluations are routine. There are evaluations for aptitude and there are evaluations for disposition. If you are a sociopath by clinical standards, you will not climb the pyramid. You will be told that this is why you were denied ascension. At lower levels of the pyramid, a clever man can influence the evaluation but not considerably so. At higher levels, the evaluations are much harder to 'game' because they are conducted over time in a range of dynamic scenarios. The higher tiers need a pool of exceptional candidates to use as a baseline. In a class of elite SOF operators, the higher tiers are looking for standouts. Those standouts are further evaluated. M never made it that far, which is why he thinks there are no heroes. I'll only discuss the lower tier to address M's depiction. It differs considerably at higher tiers. One of the many problems with M's depiction is the misrepresentation of the community. An FNG is much more common in a line unit than in a proper special operations element (furthering my suspicion that M came from a support element). There are no FNGs in the community. Each SOF operator, regardless the branch, spent 18-24 months in a pipeline training specifically for special operations costing the government more than $1 million per candidate. If they complete the training, they go to a team a 'cherry'. They need real world experience as an operator and they need advanced training beyond their generalized training. This does not mean walking point in a mine field. This means developing the training plans for the rest of the team, coordinating cross training with the senior members, and accounting for equipment. The entire experience prepares the cherry for the demands of sustained operations far from the flag pole (built up bases) during a deployment. The cherry is one of maybe 15 men who are going to be fending for themselves throughout the deployment. The sensation is nothing like sex but your first fire fight is a lot like losing your virginity. You'll always remember. The adrenaline dumps. Your senses heighten and you become acutely aware of your 'anchors'. Cheek, pad of your trigger finger, your shoulder pocket (where your long gun is firmly tucked) or maybe your elbows. Whatever your problem points were during exercises. Between engagements are lulls, mag changes. You move. You communicate. You decisively engage yet you hardly think. Hours go by before the engagement is over. You feel exhilaration. Consider the state you are in emotionally, chemically. And at this moment you have your first coherent thought in hours. What do you think about? Does it suggest anything about you? I wish I felt something for the people we expired in my first fire fight. I didn't. This isn't sociopathy. This is pragmatism. We are all going to die. In that moment, the person most likely to die is my adversary. My training is superior. My firepower is superior. I have the strategic advantage. In order to achieve success in the objective that brought me to the patch of earth I meet my adversary, I must first know that one of use will expire- the one that is least present. You accept mortality so that you can control your emotions during the engagement. Why fear death when you can elude it? At the conclusion of the fire fight, you don't have time to think. The end of the fire fight is not the end of the day. Are there any casualties? Do you have all of your equipment? You have to establish communications with command. They may have guidance for follow on actions. They may have intel of a quick reactionary force descending upon your location. The avenues of approach and egress from your location may have been rigged to blow while you were engaged. Command mind know a better route for exfil. There remains a tremendous amount of work before you'll be in a position to reflect. It could be hours. You'll probably sleep first. When you wake up, the feeling is gone. You remember the exhilaration. You remember the triumph. In my first deployment, this was the routine every other day for three weeks before we were pulled from the area to decompress. My thoughts were, "keep calm" My emotions would only ever cloud my judgment and performance. It was crystal clear to me that they were useless in a war zone, including malice. The situations that I have encountered have been horrific. I would not propose that we expose the youth to these horrors. Help us all if we ever go down such a road. We should focus on effective management of a crisis. For me it is perspective. For others it might be something else. Nothing could have prepared me for my first fire fight. That, like losing your virginity, is something you must experience to ever really understand. The rest of the horrors of war are handled through live tissue training. If you understand basic medicine and tissue trauma, you'll be able to stomach what you'll see along the way. To suggest that video games should more realistically depict war is to suggest that we should practice applying a condom to a dildo rather than a cucumber. It doesn't prepare anyone to lose their virginity but it does increase the comfort with going down that road. Teach children stronger critical thinking skills and you'll prepare them to avert more conflict in the first place. Failing that, you'll prepare them to handle the horrors of the conflict.
atc 15y ago
This is one of countless ways the military carefully shapes the public opinion of the troops. It’s a shameless PR exercise. One of our guys got a Military Cross (a medal for bravery) awarded after he got shot in the bum and continued to fight. His platoon was isolated on a rooftop with no escape for hours, and there was literally nothing else he could do but fight. This does not make him a hero. It makes him a soldier with a sore bum. Kinda sobering.
wallawe 15y ago
I have a friend in the special forces who has changed as a person completely since his first deployment. The last time we hung out, we went to a casual bar for a drink. He brought his pistol everywhere he went now out of paranoia. He spoke in jealousy of the British mercenaries who were allowed to kill anyone without permission. "I wish we could do that," he said. I was honestly baffled. It truly is amazing how much war can change someone. He lives and loves to kill now. He says there is no better rush in the world.
a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
I think we make too much of video games and movies. They don't make us violent. We're already violent. That's why we buy them. "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
facorreia 15y ago
With all that said, games like "Brothers in Arms" helped me experience, to a degree, the sacrifices brave men made.
MasterScrat 15y ago
Off topic, but it's really annoying when the actual content of a page represents 1/5 of its length and the rest are comments. The scrollbar is made to give you a hint of how much of the article is left. This completely defeats this purpose.

627 points by sberder 15y ago

Sakes 15y ago

Wow, awesome read. If this guy consulted on a video game I would never play it. Mowing down Russian civilians in the game MW2 was more than F'd up enough for me.

dlikhten 15y ago
If they want to make a video game depict war... Have a bad guy escape through some civilians, you shoot after him. Then after coming closer find a parent/child dead with another child screaming over his/her family's body. That would be a scene that makes people remember what war really is. But war games are not about war. They are about shooting things and feeling justified about it.
- smacktoward 15y ago
  Indeed. War games are about war in much the same way Whack-A-Mole is about groundskeeping.
- Splines 15y ago
  I'd be very interested to know if it's even possible to create a game where you genuinly feel remorse for killing an innocent person while chasing "the bad guy". Many games have innocent bystanders, and there is a spectrum of consequence, from none (GTA), to inconvenience (Oblivion), to an instant game-over (Ghost Recon). In any case, I've never felt bad, since it's just a game. Can a game elevate the characters to a point where you feel, even for a moment, real loss? I don't think it's very easy, if even possible.
  - gnosis 15y ago
    "Can a game elevate the characters to a point where you feel, even for a moment, real loss? I don't think it's very easy, if even possible." I've read reports of gamers crying when they had to kill the companion cube in Portal. Gamers can and do form quite intense attachments to game characters, and I think they can and do feel genuine loss upon some of these characters' deaths. However, the problem with many video games (and movies, and much other media) is that "the enemy" is usually just a faceless, almost less than human cardboard cutout that you're often either manipulated to feel glad to get rid of or indifferent over having killed. It need not be that way, but it often if not almost always is.
  - Jach 15y ago
    Even just a small reminder that "you might want to consider the moral consequences of what you've been doing" is beyond what most games do. It doesn't necessarily require branching consequence paths and other silly mechanics, it doesn't require building up an attachment to the fictional character, just a small reminder that makes the player think about something in a broader context instead of focusing on the action. Of course game content around these things is fine, it's just not usually done that well. One thing that stood out for me while I was playing Lord of the Rings Online (noting that the LotR universe is a very black-and-white-morals one) was a bounty hunter quest line where I made money killing some wanted thugs. This led to a bounty poster on me: "For the death of Jachad, Hunter of no account, Cuthbert Sprunt offers two gold pieces. This Elf has come to Evendim and caused nothing but trouble. Just ask Mrs. Idden where her boy Andy is, or the widow Tripper why her son Will is missing a brother! If you think you've been wronged in this, Jachad, "bounty-hunter," then you come talk to Mr. Sprunt at the Sparring Circle. We'll sort it out, fair-like." Of course the game quickly reminds you that Sprunt is a low-life villain, and I subsequently defeated him (though he lived since he gave up in the fight). But it was one of the few times the game ever questions the morality of player's actions, and even though it was incredibly brief it stood out for that reason.
anonymous 15y ago
> If this guy consulted on a video game I would never play it. I found Operation Flashpoint to be quite enjoyable.

nonce43 15y ago

The Onion has its own take on the difference between real war and video game war: an "ultra-realistic" war game featuring endless paperwork, awaiting orders, and repairing trucks: http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-game-features-awaiti,14382/ http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-... (I don't mean to trivialize war by this, and I should point out that The Onion is satirical.)

GFischer 15y ago
I read a post by a Marine once that said that a realistic war game would simulate guard duty by staring at a black screen for hours, and then send a minute flash of light several hours into the game when you're numb and tired. Reminds me of the description of the game Desert Bus... http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/152110- http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/152110-
roqetman 15y ago
Ahh, good times... not. I clocked over 6000 hours guard duty during my military time; a game based on my experience would be a few minutes of action and hours of boredom.

huhtenberg 15y ago

I can't imagine how it is for a person like W to try and live a "normal life" after he leaves the war zone. And if he'd want to to begin with.

deleted 15y ago
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majelix 15y ago
There's a lot of bullshit in Hurt Locker, but the scenes where he's grocery shopping aren't.

mattdeboard 15y ago

As a former Marine infantryman, and a former Marine PR idiot, I think his numbers are off but a lot of the concepts are right, with a caveat. It's not sociopathy of the organic sort. It's the kind of detachment from prolonged exposure to extreme, unmitigated stress. So don't take this article as justification to feel like there's something mentally wrong with people who join a combat arms unit.

phaus 15y ago
I understand very well that you yourself don't think that one has to be a sociopath to become an infantryman, but that is exactly what the author is claiming in this article. That's why so many former military guys (such as myself) think that this article is idiotic. There are definitely a disproportionate amount of people who return from war with psychological issues, but sociopaths are pretty rare. Many people who have been in combat have a difficult time relating to the rest of the world, but it doesn't make them psychopaths. There are probably a few people who choose to become military contractors because they are sick individuals that enjoy killing their fellow man, but I suspect that the majority of the people who go that route do so because they leave the military without any marketable skills and find it hard to pass up the six-figure incomes that are offered to military contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq. Just to clarify a bit, I don't disagree with his assessment of the video game / movie industry, just his statements about soldiers being sadistic killing machines without a sense of morality.
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  There are probably a few people who choose to become military contractors because they are sick individuals that enjoy killing their fellow man 'Sociopath' has become unfortunately loaded word. I certainly don't think of a serial killer or sadist when I see that term, but rather someone who is emotionally and socially detached from their surroundings, out of ongoing necessity as much as anything else. It's callous indifference as opposed to cruelty, just as people who work on industrial farms and in slaughterhouses are acclimatized to their rather unpleasant jobs, as opposed to hating animals or glorifying in their suffering. The sociopathy described here is the mindset of 'nothing personal/just business' taken to its logical conclusion: one might say that the US has a comparative economic advantage in the projection of military power, this military contractor is essentially one of many service workers to whom we (as society) have outsourced some of our morally unpleasant tasks.

roboneal 15y ago

Being ex-military and not a sociopath -- he lost me when he said that the "vast majority of us are straight up sociopaths" We constantly made decisions that increased the risk to ourselves while trying to minimize the risk to civilians. That is not a mindset of a sociopath.

gruseom 15y ago
In your experience, what determines the degree to which a unit will uphold such standards vs. degenerating into what the OP calls "sociopaths"? Is it a matter of training? leadership? character?
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Hmm. As I read the article, it seemed like the author was alternating between suggesting that experience was what turned people that way ("he was the FNG [ed: fucking new guy] that got blown up because he was incompetent, who left the fight before it turned him into one of us."), and suggesting that there is something else at play ("only roughly 20% of combat troops ever get PTSD – when if you think about it, it should affect everyone that ever sees combat."). I read it as him carefully suggesting that the career self-selects for sociopathic tendencies.
  - gruseom 15y ago
    Yeah, but I'm asking about roboneal's personal experience, not the article. Edit: what bothers me about the article is that it seems unlikely that a true sociopath would describe himself in these terms.
    - dinkumthinkum 15y ago
      Well, the author says he is not an academic so I think we can freely assume he may not necessarily mean sociopath as how it may or may not be understood by psychologists or the DSM-IV. I think he refers more to apathy.
  - 15y ago

Tossrock 15y ago

Whoa, I know the guy who runs this website, along with several of the authors. He actually just launched it a few days ago, primarily for the Penny Arcade forum readers. Small internet.

pavel_lishin 15y ago
You ought to let him know that it seems to be down right now: http://i.imgur.com/FnZYn.png http://i.imgur.com/FnZYn.png
- karlnp 15y ago
  I'm doing what I can, but given my limited means cloud storage, better hosting, and the like are unavailable to me. The site is cached & is still up - CloudFront is just throttling bandwidth, as far as I can tell. Recommendations would be appreciated.

cpursley 15y ago

I can't imagine how anyone enjoys games like these unless they really are sociopaths. War is when young men go die for the old men's mistakes and kill a lot of women in children in the process.

icebraining 15y ago
What games? MW and the like, or the hypothetical game he was describing?
- cpursley 15y ago
  Any type of game where you shoot another human being is F*d up. The hypothetical scenario where you can accidentally kill innocents does not justify the game.
  - cobrausn 15y ago
    The game does not have to 'justify' itself to you, or anyone. It is what it is - a virtual world where human conflict drives the story and the mechanics, and the goal is entertainment. And if people like playing games where other humans are enemy, what does that tell you about people? Maybe you have not noticed, but violence is part of human nature, and our creative works (of all kinds) have used this because, for better or for worse, it mirrors us. If you don't like the reflection, don't look. I don't suppose you think any book where humans kill humans is also 'F*d up'? What about movies? Or is it only acceptable when they provide moral overtones you agree with?
    - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
      >And if people like playing games where other humans are enemy, what does that tell you about people? // I've played such games a little but never thought of the people I was playing with as the enemy. The people you play with are your friends normally aren't they?
      - 15y ago

jakeonthemove 15y ago

Street fights and other violent encounters are the same. There is no honor, no right way to fight and nothing good comes out of it except you surviving. It's nothing like video games - martial arts won't help (well, beyond helping keep you in shape), a bullet will kill you in a horrible, slow way (dying instantly means you're lucky) or leave you with a disability for life, a simple knife slash will leave you in a hospital for a long time and a simple hit with fist can dislocate your jaw, which is really terrible (you can't eat, can't speak, your face is swollen, you drool all the time). Sadly, kids don't seem to understand, and most people laugh when I tell them the best strategy is RRF - Reason (give them the wallet, try to solve it with words), Run (as fast as you can and don't look back), Fight (only if all else fails, and fight as if your life depends on it)...

angrycoder 15y ago
>martial arts won't help This is patently false and completely ridiculous. Someone who is trained to take and give a hit will always have a significantly better chance in a fight.
- Nitramp 15y ago
  How so? All I ever heard from people who did serious martial arts is that an attacker with a weapon will always be in advantage, and an attacker with no moral qualms even more so. Your karate won't help you much if someone attacks you with a knife, or a shattered bottle.
  - apsurd 15y ago
    I guess I understand what you are trying to say, but you can't seriously think you, with a knife in hand, are going to kick an unarmed Bruce Lee's ass? (using Bruce Lee because he is internationally famous, but assume I mean any world-renowned, elite trained multi-dimensional fighter) The person still needs to be trained how to use a knife in combat. Have you ever stabbed anybody? (I haven't) but it seems obvious that it would be a lot harder than you'd think. (what is the proper grip? how do you thrust, how not to break your wrist, obviously can't go lunging blindly because if you miss your momentum carries you to a defenseless position... lot's of things going on here)

skeltoac 15y ago

"the vast majority of us are straight up sociopaths" Society can't function without socially acceptable outlets for this and other anti-social behaviors. That is the best justification I have found for a long list of things that don't seem to make sense in an enlightened society. What would the world be like if we didn't have the Army and NFL? A lot of people would find new, more chaotic outlets for their aggression.

munin 15y ago
I think fewer people would have a problem with this if the outlet for sociopathic aggression didn't involve detonating women and children
- skeltoac 15y ago
  Few people will like this, too, including myself, but the truth is that as long as they aren't "our" women and children... I'm kissing my hard-earned 198 away here by speaking truth. Hate the truth, not the speaker.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    One thing I vividly remember from the Iraq war was how much everyone seemed to care about a couple thousand US casualties, and how little everyone seemed to care about a hundred thousand Iraqi casualties.
    - lotharbot 15y ago
      One thing I remember is how accurate the US casualty number was -- we had names and hometowns for every US casualty, and usually a cause of death. In some sense, this is to be expected, as we have records of everyone who gets shipped out, and most have at least some family or friends who awaited their return. We weren't even sure how many Iraqis had died, nor how they died. Some of the more common estimates of Iraqi deaths vary by a factor of ten or more. Records in Iraq are spotty, at best. Most Iraqis don't have a great deal of family and friends in the US, so we don't feel their loss in quite the same way.

Cushman 15y ago

Reminds me of my father (who was in the Airborne) looking over my shoulder playing the training in America's Army. "That's pretty realistic. Do they have a level where you have to go knock on somebody's door and tell them their son was killed in a training exercise?" That said, I feel like this article, like the censors, gives video games much too much credit. Glorification of violence is everywhere in our culture and fiction; I'd imagine at least 95% of gamers understand intuitively that the games they play bear very slight likeness at best to the reality of war (although probably more in the sense that they might be killed themselves rather than that they might kill others.) After all, one of the things (multiplayer) video games do teach you is that combat is seriously dangerous. Pop out of cover for one second and you can get shot in the head, bam, you're dead. In a game, that means respawning; nobody seriously believes that's how it works in real life. In that sense, I have to think that these games, as unrealistic as they are, are still the most realistic fictional depiction of war you can experience-- and the lessons you learn are much more valuable than those of, say, comic books. Which is not to say that we don't have a bit of a violence problem in our culture (though I'm on the side of Steven Pinker in thinking that our violence problem is probably better than it ever has been). But the problem is not the kids running around playing cops and robbers. The problem is the kids who never properly learn the distinction between playing and hitting-- and worst of all, those who learn it by the maxim that "If you hit your brother, I'll hit you even harder." That's what we should be talking about.

Homunculiheaded 15y ago
I actually think a bigger problem is not the fear of violence leaving the screen and coming into daily life, but that we increasingly see violence as 'that things that happens behind a screen, its pretty entertaining'. I have no data to back this up, but the general population certainly seems to be more 'meh' about US military actions abroad. I think your father's reaction was responding to the issue that you've trivialized and turned into a game something that should be horrific, or at least unpleasant. It reminds me of a piece on NPR about family members of the victims of homicide. One person pointed out that it's common fun to host "murder mystery parties" but nobody would ever think of hosting a "rape mystery party". Similarly Grand Theft Auto is fine, but Rapelay is highly controversial. Obviously part of the reason we're less sensitive to some types of violence is because we have less violence (I think many people have a friend that was raped, but very few have a friend who was murdered). However, even if this detachment comes from an increase in non-violence there are still effects of increasingly conflating violence with entertainment.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

I am very tempted to flag this. the sociopath thing really rubs me the wrong way -- there are logical flaws with using that label. War is a part of society. If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. Having said that, it's a great first-person account of what real combat is like, at least for this one guy. I am concerned the effect on HN discussion will be negative. Hopefully I'm wrong. The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. With a draft and mandatory conscription, everybody had the common experience of serving and perhaps doing really bad things in the line of duty. As it is now, the vast majority of civilians have absolutely no idea what military service is like, as the author points out. In this lack of context everybody becomes really impressionable. Not only can the military manipulate public opinion through selective release of information, other soldiers like this one can also. When the majority of people don't have context, they'll believe anything. This is why you couldn't get away with writing a really negative article about WWII right after the war. It wasn't that somehow the war wasn't terribly horrible, it was that the average Joe reading it would immediately say something like "yeah, but that's not the way it was for most people" or "you think that's bad? I remember when..." We don't have that kind of audience now. Once again, as the author points out, most of the readers only know cartoon violence and have never even hunted an animal. So people are left substituting other experiences and trying to draw rough analogies. The one thing I know for sure is that different people in different units can have vastly different impressions of a conflict. In my mind, this article would have been better with less "I'm the sane one and the other soldiers are crazy" and more "Here's another view" I would also note that it has become fashionable for authors to say they have all sorts of combat experience when they don't. I'm sure this author isn't one of those people, but I've learned over time to be suspicious of people who wear the grisly warrior mantle as a way to get around my critical thinking skills. This area is just really difficult to discuss, especially when it's about an ongoing operation.

dfc 15y ago
Why are you "sure this author isn't one of those people"?
- phaus 15y ago

itmag 15y ago

As a personal development junkie, I find war to be very problematic (well duh). Killing people is just so... unenlightened. Then again, I find the warrior ethos or what you might call the male Warrior archetype to be of great interest. It's pretty obvious that this is something that the modern world very much lacks, at least we don't have any formal initiation rites for it (going to Marine boot camp might qualify though). For more reading, check out this book: http://www.masculinity-movies.com/articles/king-warrior-magician-lover http://www.masculinity-movies.com/articles/king-warrior-magi...

angersock 15y ago
"Killing people is just so... unenlightened." Care to elaborate? As far as I know, war practiced at the societal level is usually not for personal development.
jules 15y ago
If it weren't so elaborate I would be convinced that that website is a joke.

toadi 15y ago

like playing these games. But it's a game... I thaiboks also and like it. But would never be a soldier in any army. Can't kill people of do any of this shit. Except if there was immediate threat for my family....

JS_startup 15y ago

I like one point in particular that he touched on. That is, the military's careful manipulation of the media and public perception and the lens through which we view military personnel. I know I'm supposed to laud infantrymen as brave and patriotic (which is why I'd never voice this in public), but frankly..nearly every frontline veteran I've ever met seems like an uneducated, violent and scary thug. I know that's basically what you have to be to fight on the frontlines, but the disparity between public opinion and reality is shocking.

bdunbar 15y ago
but frankly..nearly every frontline veteran I've ever met seems like an uneducated, violent and scary thug. I never went to war, but I was a rifleman in the Marines, spent eight years there. One thing I've noticed about me, and other guys like me, is that you'd never know on first acquaintance that I was a Marine. Commonly heard: But you don't look/act like a Marine! I suspect you've met more so-called 'frontline veterans' than you think.
- PakG1 15y ago
  Are you saying that the frontline changes people? Or something else? Just trying to clearly understand your meaning there.
  - bdunbar 15y ago
    Of course being in the service changes people - going to war even more so. I'm saying that not every grunt is a coarse thug. We leave the service, get a job, get an education, get a life. We leave the soldier behind, is what I'm saying.
- cglace 15y ago
  I spent a lot of time near Beaufort, SC on a nearby island after college. All the marines from Parris Island would go to downtown Beaufort on the weekends. Most of the marines were dicks looking for a fight. Some were cool but I remember thinking they were the exception not the rule.

dfc 15y ago

How common is it for someone in the UK to drop out of school at 16?

philwelch 15y ago
From what little I know about the UK school system, there's actually a natural stopping point at 16 after the GCSE. Between 16 and 18 one would study for "A-levels", or not as the case may be.

run4yourlives 15y ago

I suggest anyone intrigued by this pick up a copy of LCol. Paul Grossman's work: On Killing.

lukifer 15y ago

I have a cousin coming of age who's downright excited to join the military and become a sniper. I have little doubt that war video games are partly responsible for that. Now, I don't think violent games are inherently bad, and relatively few people playing them will actually sign up to go blow up insurgents in the desert. But there is a significant difference between Modern Warfare and Hitman, Doom, GTA, etc.: most other violent games are either clearly fictionalized, or you knowingly play a villain. While a few nutcases might emulate the game, no reasonable person, not even most children, will draw the conclusion that the game activity is normal, real or justified. But wars really happen, and they are seldom sexy or heroic. Even if you accomplish the most kick-ass mission ever, you probably lost friends in the process. Any soldier anywhere would happily give up their medals and glory if it meant the fallen got to go home to their families. War is hell. While I would never advocate any form of censorship, selling video games that hides this reality is socially irresponsible.

gnosis 15y ago
Many violent video games are, in effect, murder simulators. I wonder how much more realistic they'd have to get before most people who gladly play them now would object to them. In many games you can already hear the screams of the victims and even the victims pleading for their lives, and see quite a bit of gore as the murder is carried out. However, you can't yet feel your hands around someone's throat, feel the blood pumping in their veins as you slowly squeeze their throat until they die. You can't feel their warm blood spurt out of their bodies or feel the knife plunge in. It's probably just a matter of time until improvements in virtual reality do let you experience just that. You will be able to more effectively feel just what it's like to kill somebody. Would you object to those sorts of games? Would they even still be games at that point? What effect do you think such realistic experiences of simulated murder have on the players?

rhaphazard 15y ago

I don't have first-hand, or even second-hand experience of war. I can only go by what I read in articles like this. But logically, the author is making a lot of sense. Any apathy or desensitization to killing is either a result of social conditioning (sociopathy) or a psychological predisposition (psychopathy). There are of course other ways this could come about, and the author's 80% figure is probably an over-estimation, but I think the proliferation of military contractors really increases the chances that what the author says is true. I wonder if there has ever been a study that tries to figure out how prevalent these kind of issues are. Kids are going to have a hard time unlearning the fake reality presented to them by video games.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

bootload 15y ago

"... your lead guy gets blown up and you spend the next hour or so casevac’ing [ed note: casualty evacuating] him ..." that's CASVAC. Correct pronunciation. A portmanteau or joining of "CASualty" and "EVACuation". The difference b/w MEDIVAC and CASEVAC? The former is by medical vehicle, the later ad-hoc.

dasil003 15y ago

He hasn't really convinced me he's a sociopath. More like he's suffering from PTSD and coping with it by acting out sociopathic tendencies. I mean obviously I don't have the first clue, but I ask myself would a real sociopath write something like this?

winter_blue 15y ago

Violent video games & media must be banned. It should be treated like child pornography. A federal law prohibiting the dissemination of such material and people who develop or make such games and movies should be given the same punishment those filming child pornography receive. I personally recommend a minimum of 10 years. The social and psychological corruption of society must come to an end. I know many of you will not agree with my opinion, but I think you don't understand how bad an impact blatant violence in games and media has on people.

viraptor 15y ago
Where does the violence start? Modern warfare? AA? CS? What about fantasy like World of Warcraft? If hitting someone with a giant hammer ok, if you don't see the blood? Then what about car racing? If you can crash the car, do you assume people will think about the guy inside who has shards of glass inside his skull now? Is that violent? What if you don't see it? And animal cruelty? Is the frogger with cars running over the main character violent, or not? What about the games which depict whole wars but need only your imagination to add 2 and 2 together and realise that in chess you aim to kill as many soldiers of the opponent as possible (some skilled and specialised, half of them just cannon fodder - it's ok to sacrifice those), until the king is left alone and captured by the enemy... Actually it's hard to find games which do not imply violence in one way or another. Even cards symbolise opposing kingdoms on them. Even Go happens around life, death and taking liberties...

ObjectiveSub 15y ago

On a similar note: I recently watched the movie "Act of Valor". I had no idea it was one big propaganda piece before I got in. As soon as the movie started I thought "Yep, here we go. 110 minutes of pure army PR". What I thought was more interesting were the comments on the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. You can check them out for yourself here: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/act_of_valor/ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/act_of_valor/ It is a shit movie; no doubt about it. What I find interesting are the comments on the reviews that the critics gave. Critics of course correctly pointed out how this movie is basically an advertisement paid for by the Navy. However, any critic that dared to give a bad review or even mention the word "propaganda" was attacked by countless posters that were shouting how he is a "damned liberal" and how the soldiers "die for [him] everyday to protect [his] freedom". I do not understand the glorification of soldiers and I probably never will. War is a horrible, horrible thing. Soldiers are professional killers. As Voltaire said: "All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets" There is no glory or honor in war (more specifically the current situation in Afghanistan/Iraq). The soldier sure as hell did not die for you. He most likely died protecting his comrades that he has been living with for the last 4 years. The soldier probably doesn't even give a shit about you. The Army is not defending America's "way of life". Terrorists do not hate you because of your "freedoms". As a Canadian, I really don't understand why my opinion is so frowned upon in the US.

doktrin 15y ago
This is a sentiment I also have had a hard time sharing and even understanding. The adulation and worship of the military that has risen in recent years is a strange bird indeed. It's essentially unpatriotic to not consider every single service member a "hero", or fail to thank them for their service. It doesn't make sense to put the military on an unrealistic and imaginary pedestal.

philwelch 15y ago

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." --Wittgenstein That's my reaction to most of these 182 comments. I grew up with a combat veteran, and between listening to his stories and reading those of many other vets, including the OP, the only thing that's clear to me is that there are as many ways of coping with combat as there are combat veterans. Instead of arguing about whether or not people are sociopaths, go listen to few veterans sometime.

unknsldr 15y ago

I am an experienced soldier with combat experience in several corners of the world. I have a distinguished service record. The only units I've ever known are Special Forces units. I've operated in several tiers of the community. I was medically discharged following injuries sustained in combat operations. You deserve a better account than M provides. Please understand some detail must be left out. I am not an academic any more than M or his psychologist. It's important to include the psychologist that asserts violent personality disorder outside of the DSM. There are a lot of guys like M floating around special operations (the community) but perhaps many of you do not understand the community. The special operations umbrella is pretty large depending on how you classify. To simplify, there are several degrees (tiers) divided by purpose and specialization. The degrees might look like a pyramid if you represented them by the number of soldiers in each. M would be near the bottom of a special operations pyramid, meaning he's a highly proficient infantryman, probably supporting a higher unit. A good guess for M would be Ranger Battalion. He mentions Special Forces (Green Beret), which is at least branch consistent. M wouldn't make it at a higher level of the community. The community would correct the matter if he did. In special operations, psych evaluations are routine. There are evaluations for aptitude and there are evaluations for disposition. If you are a sociopath by clinical standards, you will not climb the pyramid. You will be told that this is why you were denied ascension. At lower levels of the pyramid, a clever man can influence the evaluation but not considerably so. At higher levels, the evaluations are much harder to 'game' because they are conducted over time in a range of dynamic scenarios. The higher tiers need a pool of exceptional candidates to use as a baseline. In a class of elite SOF operators, the higher tiers are looking for standouts. Those standouts are further evaluated. M never made it that far, which is why he thinks there are no heroes. I'll only discuss the lower tier to address M's depiction. It differs considerably at higher tiers. One of the many problems with M's depiction is the misrepresentation of the community. An FNG is much more common in a line unit than in a proper special operations element (furthering my suspicion that M came from a support element). There are no FNGs in the community. Each SOF operator, regardless the branch, spent 18-24 months in a pipeline training specifically for special operations costing the government more than $1 million per candidate. If they complete the training, they go to a team a 'cherry'. They need real world experience as an operator and they need advanced training beyond their generalized training. This does not mean walking point in a mine field. This means developing the training plans for the rest of the team, coordinating cross training with the senior members, and accounting for equipment. The entire experience prepares the cherry for the demands of sustained operations far from the flag pole (built up bases) during a deployment. The cherry is one of maybe 15 men who are going to be fending for themselves throughout the deployment. The sensation is nothing like sex but your first fire fight is a lot like losing your virginity. You'll always remember. The adrenaline dumps. Your senses heighten and you become acutely aware of your 'anchors'. Cheek, pad of your trigger finger, your shoulder pocket (where your long gun is firmly tucked) or maybe your elbows. Whatever your problem points were during exercises. Between engagements are lulls, mag changes. You move. You communicate. You decisively engage yet you hardly think. Hours go by before the engagement is over. You feel exhilaration. Consider the state you are in emotionally, chemically. And at this moment you have your first coherent thought in hours. What do you think about? Does it suggest anything about you? I wish I felt something for the people we expired in my first fire fight. I didn't. This isn't sociopathy. This is pragmatism. We are all going to die. In that moment, the person most likely to die is my adversary. My training is superior. My firepower is superior. I have the strategic advantage. In order to achieve success in the objective that brought me to the patch of earth I meet my adversary, I must first know that one of use will expire- the one that is least present. You accept mortality so that you can control your emotions during the engagement. Why fear death when you can elude it? At the conclusion of the fire fight, you don't have time to think. The end of the fire fight is not the end of the day. Are there any casualties? Do you have all of your equipment? You have to establish communications with command. They may have guidance for follow on actions. They may have intel of a quick reactionary force descending upon your location. The avenues of approach and egress from your location may have been rigged to blow while you were engaged. Command mind know a better route for exfil. There remains a tremendous amount of work before you'll be in a position to reflect. It could be hours. You'll probably sleep first. When you wake up, the feeling is gone. You remember the exhilaration. You remember the triumph. In my first deployment, this was the routine every other day for three weeks before we were pulled from the area to decompress. My thoughts were, "keep calm" My emotions would only ever cloud my judgment and performance. It was crystal clear to me that they were useless in a war zone, including malice. The situations that I have encountered have been horrific. I would not propose that we expose the youth to these horrors. Help us all if we ever go down such a road. We should focus on effective management of a crisis. For me it is perspective. For others it might be something else. Nothing could have prepared me for my first fire fight. That, like losing your virginity, is something you must experience to ever really understand. The rest of the horrors of war are handled through live tissue training. If you understand basic medicine and tissue trauma, you'll be able to stomach what you'll see along the way. To suggest that video games should more realistically depict war is to suggest that we should practice applying a condom to a dildo rather than a cucumber. It doesn't prepare anyone to lose their virginity but it does increase the comfort with going down that road. Teach children stronger critical thinking skills and you'll prepare them to avert more conflict in the first place. Failing that, you'll prepare them to handle the horrors of the conflict.

atc 15y ago

This is one of countless ways the military carefully shapes the public opinion of the troops. It’s a shameless PR exercise. One of our guys got a Military Cross (a medal for bravery) awarded after he got shot in the bum and continued to fight. His platoon was isolated on a rooftop with no escape for hours, and there was literally nothing else he could do but fight. This does not make him a hero. It makes him a soldier with a sore bum. Kinda sobering.

wallawe 15y ago

I have a friend in the special forces who has changed as a person completely since his first deployment. The last time we hung out, we went to a casual bar for a drink. He brought his pistol everywhere he went now out of paranoia. He spoke in jealousy of the British mercenaries who were allowed to kill anyone without permission. "I wish we could do that," he said. I was honestly baffled. It truly is amazing how much war can change someone. He lives and loves to kill now. He says there is no better rush in the world.

a_a_r_o_n 15y ago

I think we make too much of video games and movies. They don't make us violent. We're already violent. That's why we buy them. "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

facorreia 15y ago

With all that said, games like "Brothers in Arms" helped me experience, to a degree, the sacrifices brave men made.

MasterScrat 15y ago

Off topic, but it's really annoying when the actual content of a page represents 1/5 of its length and the rest are comments. The scrollbar is made to give you a hint of how much of the article is left. This completely defeats this purpose.