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A violently true depiction of what war really is

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Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#251

Post by bdunbar »

gnosis wrote: post #181
bdunbar wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former 0311. After I EASd I realized that a _lot_ of perfectly normal behavior in the service is downright _weird_ in the civilian world. It was perfectly normal to make my rack (bed), tuck those hospital corners in, get the folds just so ... then sleep on top of the made bed, wrapped in a poncho liner or a comforter from the PX. Because you save time and hassle in the morning. Toss the blanket in the wall-locker, ti…

"After I EASd I realized that a _lot_ of perfectly normal behavior in the service is downright _weird_ in the civilian world. ... I think about some of the stuff I thought was funny, some of the things I did when I was 20, and I'm appalled." This is part of the brilliance of the military: they mostly use young people who are still maturing and often don't know any better and brainwash them in to doing their bidding.…

Older, more experienced people are not so easily used.

Meh. You can manipulate anyone - it just takes different triggers to manipulate an older more cynical person.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#252

Post by philwelch »

vacri wrote: post #246
philwelch wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there was still a civilized Greek culture that formed the backbone of Alexander's organization and army, even if all the conquests weren't assimilated into the same civilization.

"Yes, of course. It came to existence when Ghengis Khan united nomadic tribes" The original poster posited that Ghengis Khan's activities birthed the society. Alexander's activities did nothing like this - the society was already there, and greek culture was fairly widespread to begin with, though perhaps not in the direction of the Indus. When Alexander died, the Greeks didn't fade away to become background players…

I'm going back farther than that--to gizmo's contention that civilized societies don't engage in warfare. spindrift made the counterpoint that "only civilized societies can...engage in organized warfare", to which Genghis Khan may or may not be a counterexample, but Alexander's Greece is every bit as much of a counterexample to gizmo's argument.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#253

Post by phaus »

otisfunkmeyer wrote: post #131
Cushman wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is certainly a propaganda campaign being run to encourage Americans to support war. It is being run by powerful people with vested political and financial interests who spend millions of dollars to project their message across all forms of news media. If you think video games are anything more than a sideshow to this, you're delusional.

I don't think it's delusional at all. It is long known that if you can indoctrinate children at an early age (bonus points if you make it fun) that their beliefs will often have been shaped without them knowing it. For instance, framing Iran as bad guys without giving it much thought--it just seems "self-evident" somehow...

The use of Iran as the enemy in a video game is not due to the fact that Dice is being manipulated behind the scenes by the government in an effort to breed a legion of living robots. This idea is in fact delusional.

When you look at the history of entertainment, from novels to video games, the most memorable content gives us something that is plausible and realistic, allowing us to relate better to the experience. This is why the political enemies of the United States are often featured in games, movies, novels, etc... Because they are currently extremely unfriendly to our country, it seems far more realistic that we may end up in a conflict with them in the future.

The most successful shooters are often the ones that follow this principle. The people who play them aren't a bunch of xenophobic, extremist, right-wing fascists, they are ordinary people who like the games for their realistic graphics and engaging stories.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#254

Post by jahmed »

philwelch wrote: post #240
jahmed wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the day there used to be serious social stigma to colored people using the same drinking fountains as white people. Nationalism is just as bad as racism. People are people. Black and white are just the same as people from Country A and Country B. I dont want to go fight people whos only problem is me trying to kill them.

I think the better comparison is tax evasion; you're cheating the system to get out of paying your fair share.

Well its not really tax evasion if I move to another country to live under a more advantageous tax scheme. Voting with your feet and all that.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#256

Post by gaius »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #50
Nitramp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Low-level, trained MMA fighters would wreck a street brawling toughman 10/10 times. If they rush the MMA fighter with a broken bottle, they'd get slammed to the floor on their own velocity and the MMA fighter would twist around, take their back, grab and arm, get their legs around it pull. Good luck fighting with a broken arm. We saw it play out recently. Remember Kimbo Slice? If you don't, he used to post videos of…

While the MMA fighter is going for side control, what's he planning to do about his attacker's 5 mates?

This is how a pub fight does down: you go to the gents, and a bunch of guys pile in after you. None of them can fight on a martial arts sense but it doesn't matter, there's no room anyway for fancy high kicks. They drag you to the floor and stomp on you 'til you stop moving. Then they go back into the bar, calmly finish their drinks, and quietly leave.

The true martial artist sense trouble brewing, phones a taxi to come right to the front door of the pub, and gets straight into it.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#257

Post by WettowelReactor »

PakG1 wrote: post #171
cobrausn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I could tell from my time in the service, your view of your situation is highly dependent upon who you are serving with. I'm willing to bet it is highly likely that the group this supposed sociopath served with had no such compulsions. Without proper oversight, I could easily see a group mindset of this kind developing. As such, I'm willing to bet he thinks all soldiers are like him, when the reality is tha…

There's data about a lot of gang members entering the service these days and receiving a lot of military training, but then taking that training back to the gang (as well as smuggling some weapons). If it's reliable data, I wonder if the number of sociopaths in the military could be growing, if it's also possible that gang members have a higher probability of being sociopaths. A lot of conditionals there, I know.

Having run several arms rooms in my day I find it hard to believe that weapons are being smuggled out. The accountability (down to the individual bullets) and multiple layers of oversight at all units are probably the only time I have seen government control done right.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#258

Post by WettowelReactor »

cobrausn wrote: post #20
roboneal wrote: post #7

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.

From what I could tell from my time in the service, your view of your situation is highly dependent upon who you are serving with. I'm willing to bet it is highly likely that the group this supposed sociopath served with had no such compulsions. Without proper oversight, I could easily see a group mindset of this kind developing. As such, I'm willing to bet he thinks all soldiers are like him, when the reality is tha…

I wonder how much of the articles view is biased due to being a PMC. My experience in the actual army are more like cobrausn than the authors.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#259

Post by muhfuhkuh »

gaius wrote: post #256
muhfuhkuh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low-level, trained MMA fighters would wreck a street brawling toughman 10/10 times. If they rush the MMA fighter with a broken bottle, they'd get slammed to the floor on their own velocity and the MMA fighter would twist around, take their back, grab and arm, get their legs around it pull. Good luck fighting with a broken arm. We saw it play out recently. Remember Kimbo Slice? If you don't, he used to post videos of…

While the MMA fighter is going for side control, what's he planning to do about his attacker's 5 mates? This is how a pub fight does down: you go to the gents, and a bunch of guys pile in after you. None of them can fight on a martial arts sense but it doesn't matter, there's no room anyway for fancy high kicks. They drag you to the floor and stomp on you 'til you stop moving. Then they go back into the bar, calmly f…

I have never seen gang street bar fights in my life. I've seen guys jump another to rob/intimidate one person, but they'd do that to anyone just randomly walking through their hood. That's not a street fight, that's criminal scum. Where are you that dudes are ganging up on one guy?

And, why is it always in hypotheticals that the trained guy is going to sit there doing katas and flowery BS belt presentation moves? I can't think of a martial art that doesn't practice (at one level or another) dirty, close-quarters, and stick-n-move fighting. You can always tell a skilled fighter vs drunken haymakers, which looks alot like this:

http://youtu.be/yZL-cxhw0w0

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#260

Post by run4yourlives »

wycx wrote: post #248
run4yourlives wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in other words: PTSD. His numbers are off because his "80%" of sociopaths are more like 2% according to real studies. The rest more than likely are dealing with managing their own PTSD symptoms.

Grossman's book is at least 10 years old. Selection processes may have been optimised over the intervening time to increase the 2-5%. After all, sociopaths can stay in combat zones much longer and will not suffer PTSD.

I await your citation.

Grossman's work is pretty much the most complete examination of the topic ever conducted. But like I said, I'd be happy to look at newer research.

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