Call of Apathy

Interesting article linked on reddit on war and the false reality depicted in games.

http://www.mediumdifficulty.com/2012...

I can't be bothered to read that. War. *yawn*

Edit: Kidding aside that was an interesting read.

Let me give you an example. I was in Iraq in 2007. Over a 3-month period, we saw some of the bloodiest fighting since the invasion, losing more than ten men and killing hundreds of insurgents. A reporter for a very well-known men’s lifestyle magazine visited us to learn about our experiences. About halfway through his escort, an officer from the military media centre tells him that he is not allowed to speak to us anymore. He has to use stories taken from a non-combat unit earlier that day. It turned out that the officer was appalled at the jovial nature of our recollections; the story in which a vehicle commander sawed two men in half with a mounted machinegun because they were on their phones “dicking” us made him balk in particular.

The journalist took some pictures of us because we looked “warry” and lo and behold, 2 months later, the magazine has an article about some medic that helps local civilians accompanied by pictures of infantrymen in full gear.

The military historian John Keegan talks in one of his books about attending a regimental dinner one time. He's sitting next to one officer after they've passed around the port, who turns to him and tells him that killing people never bothered him at all.

If I remember it correctly, Keegan's point was that not every soldier is a golden-hearted Galahad who deeply hates war. Some professional soldiers do the job because they're good at it and enjoy being in an environment with a high level of camaraderie where the usual social conventions of civil life are absent. They are a world to themselves in many cultures.

Funkenpants wrote:

The military historian John Keegan talks in one of his books about attending a regimental dinner one time. He's sitting next to one officer after they've passed around the port, who turns to him and tells him that killing people never bothered him at all.

If I remember it correctly, Keegan's point was that not every soldier is a golden-hearted Galahad who deeply hates war. Some professional soldiers do the job because they're good at it and enjoy being in an environment with a high level of camaraderie where the usual social conventions of civil life are absent. They are a world to themselves in many cultures.

That describes my best friend to an absolute f***ing T. 9 years in the USMC in some very, very scary roles. He got hurt and got discharged. He hates civilian life with a passion. I mean, he appreciates being home and safe and everything else. But he wishes he was still in some desert with a bunch of guys whose first name might as well be "Fa**ot", lifting weights, and being trained to do stuff that most people would be terrified to do.

The account sounds about right. I'd suggest that a substantial fraction of the population at large are just "complete bastards," who have an inherently limited ability to empathize with the suffering of their fellow man. It's a useful enough trait to have in medicine, anyway.

That's the person you want next to you when the fecal matter hits the atmospheric impeller.

Robear wrote:

That's the person you want next to you when the fecal matter hits the atmospheric impeller.

Only if you aren't a liability.

I can see the appeal, if you like murd... fine *killing people, then military life might seem perfect, you get to kill people, don't get in trouble for it like you would at home and get paid to do it. Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?

Great article. I wonder if it's real or fictional, but that's really beside the point. I would love to see a realistic war game that tackles the brutality of war, the game equivalent of something like Full Metal Jacket. Of course, this doesn't mean I don't think other types of war games should stop existing full stop. I appreciate the multiplayer sport aspect of CoD/BF, the tactical fidelity of ArmA. But like the author, I'm suspicious, if not exasperated, of the soldier-glorifying of modern warfare games. Not that I don't believe soldiers haven't earned any respect, but those games—thinking specifically of the PR talk around the last Medal of Honor—are disingenuous when they say they want to portray the soldiers realistically, but avoid the politics or the horror of war. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

Marketability, censorship, and entertainment are all beside the point too. This game needs to be made because it will valuable as a creative work. And one day/year/decade, it will be. And I know I've banged this drum before, so I'll wait quietly.

rosenhane wrote:

I can see the appeal, if you like murd... fine *killing people, then military life might seem perfect, you get to kill people, don't get in trouble for it like you would at home and get paid to do it. Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?

Depends on the direction you're looking at it from. I'd assume the military doesn't want soldiers who just want to kill people. Maybe "sociopath" is an asset, but it can't be a sufficient condition; and they could probably train their recruits to be like that anyway. I'd imagine (or hope) militaries value qualities like teamwork, ability to follow orders, multitask and prioritize, and problem-solving above "likes to kill". A plain old psychopath would be more of a liability to his own unit than anyone else, would be my feeling.

Gravey wrote:

Depends on the direction you're looking at it from. I'd assume the military doesn't want soldiers who just want to kill people. Maybe "sociopath" is an asset, but it can't be a sufficient condition; and they could probably train their recruits to be like that anyway. I'd imagine (or hope) militaries value qualities like teamwork, ability to follow orders, multitask and prioritize, and problem-solving above "likes to kill". A plain old psychopath would be more of a liability to his own unit than anyone else, would be my feeling.

I used to think so until a long time member of the Green Beret community (the dissident philosophers of the US military if there ever were any) told me that the military actually seems to promote psychopathic behavior so long as it doesn't interfere with the mission too much. He said that his own chain of command largely tolerated atrocities like desecrating the dead so long as no one was stupid enough to take pictures.

Paleocon wrote:
Gravey wrote:

Depends on the direction you're looking at it from. I'd assume the military doesn't want soldiers who just want to kill people. Maybe "sociopath" is an asset, but it can't be a sufficient condition; and they could probably train their recruits to be like that anyway. I'd imagine (or hope) militaries value qualities like teamwork, ability to follow orders, multitask and prioritize, and problem-solving above "likes to kill". A plain old psychopath would be more of a liability to his own unit than anyone else, would be my feeling.

I used to think so until a long time member of the Green Beret community (the dissident philosophers of the US military if there ever were any) told me that the military actually seems to promote psychopathic behavior so long as it doesn't interfere with the mission too much. He said that his own chain of command largely tolerated atrocities like desecrating the dead so long as no one was stupid enough to take pictures.

And I can believe it. But now you're asking me to square my ardent pacifism with my feeling that a state needs to be able to protect itself by force and with the possibility that that protection might be provided by insane war criminals to a man. And that's just too much for me on a Friday afternoon.

Good article. I think you need to separate the tough talk, the gallows humor and the outward appearance of nonchalance about extreme violence from what people are actually feeling. As an Army vet, I've met far more people who see this kind of behavior as a coping mechanism than true sociopaths who love killing for the sake of killing. Enough combat and even the nicest boy next door is going to come back a bit twisted.

There is a huge, huge gap between enjoying killing and being okay with killing. If you really enjoy taking human life, you are mentally sick. If you have weighed it, and understand that you might have to take a life in order to protect something dear to you - a value, your own life, the lives of others, etc, then you aren't some kind of murderer when you must kill. The mere fact that many of our soldiers have extreme guilt about killing people is a sign that they aren't brainwashed or sociopaths.

The capacity to commit lethal violence in strictly sanctioned circumstances isn't something freakish. It's something that is needed in humanity in at least some percentage of the population.

Yes, some crazy people slip through, I'm sure. But the vets I've met who have had to kill don't brag about it and they don't belittle it either. It was a traumatic event that was necessary if they wished to survive and accomplish the goals they were there to do. If you are interested in this kind of stuff, read On Combat or On Killing by Dave Grossman. I don't agree with all his stuff (his theories about video games stretch pretty far) but I'd say he's tapped in pretty damn well to the Warrior mentality and why/how soldiers are able to kill and not necessarily be broken up about it.

As far as the gallows humor goes, you'll find it in any discipline where people are routinely forced to deal with awful things. I think part of it is a coping mechanism, and part of it is that once stuff like that is normal, your brain just adjusts. Once, at a suicide, I found myself giggling (inside!) because the dead guy looked like one of the head-bobbing techno zombies from Shaun of the Dead. I mean, iPod, earphones, knit cap, hoodie, etc. Pale white with purple bags, lethal wound in the chest. He looked legitimately like a zombie. I obviously said nothing at the time. The overall scene was f***ing terrible. The kid just felt like school was too much, I guess. He parked in front of his dorm, and shot himself in the chest. I stood there for almost an hour, holding up a plastic tarp to screen the body from the dorm windows, so he could have at least some privacy while we did the investigation. That's super sad stuff. Even with 27,000 students, I feel a little responsible every time one kills themself.

But that stuff becomes so normal that inside, I was thinking of Shaun of the Dead. I also couldn't stop wondering what song, and what part of that song, he was listening to when he pulled the trigger.

If my brain can process a very minor trauma like that so efficiently by observing the weird among the horrible, imagine how much stronger that becomes in a very high level trauma, like a multi-hour gun battle where you may be killed at any second, and you are seeing people die frequently and very violently.

So don't judge service people by their response. I certainly think we need to hold some standards up like the ethical treatment of human bodies, etc. But unless you have been in a situation like that, you really don't understand how far your brain will go to make "sense" of it.

My buddy told me that a fairly common practice is to position the dead such that they appear to be engaging in homosexual sex.

Considering this, it makes you wonder if these violent protests over the koran burning are just the tip of the iceberg of resentment.

InspectorFowler:

FWIW, my brain never needed to adjust; or perhaps it merely adjusted at such a young age that I don't remember anything else. Nakedness does not affect me unless I let it; and neither bodies, death, or body parts inspire anything other than mild disinterest. They're just objects to me like anything else.

I feel the truth of what the author is saying in myself, and I see it in others as well, though the trait is by no means universal. The death of random strangers simply means nothing to me in and of itself. I know many people who are of like mind in my profession.

Paleocon wrote:

My buddy told me that a fairly common practice is to position the dead such that they appear to be engaging in homosexual sex.

Considering this, it makes you wonder if these violent protests over the koran burning are just the tip of the iceberg of resentment.

My dad's a Vietnam vet and he's told me that it wasn't unusual to see guys lop off fingers, ears and even heads. Different units would desecrate bodies in slightly different ways as a "calling card." Of course, the NVA and Vietcong were known to do even more horrible thngs like castrating American bodies.

His attitude towards this was "only a Marine would be stupid enough to actually video tape it and put it on the internet." Keep in mind we're both former Army, and the only branch that we can make fun of for being meatheads is the Marines.

jdzappa wrote:

My dad's a Vietnam vet and he's told me that it wasn't unusual to see guys lop off fingers, ears and even heads. Different units would desecrate bodies in slightly different ways as a "calling card." Of course, the NVA and Vietcong were known to do even more horrible thngs like castrating American bodies.

His attitude towards this was "only a Marine would be stupid enough to actually video tape it and put it on the internet." Keep in mind we're both former Army, and the only branch that we can make fun of for being meatheads is the Marines.

Yeah, but seriously, they get in trouble the most. When I told my buddy about those Marines who got caught pissing on those bodies his response was, "They'll be fine." I told him that the Pentagon had bothered identifying them by name, so I pretty much figure their military careers are over. He seemed pretty shocked, because in his experience that was par for the course. That's disappointing to me, but I can't really control what Marines 12,000 miles away do.

One day he finds a YouTube video and says, "Here, check this out."

It's just Marines wearing their armor. One runs at the guy wearing the armor, jumps up in the air and kicks the armor-wearer in the chest with both feet in an effort to knock him down. My buddy laughs and goes, "Yeah, that's how we used to kill the time. Stuff like that."

I sleep more soundly every night knowing that the USMC is protecting me and not some country that hates the US. But that is a hell of a lot of testosterone in one place. The age has a lot to do with it, too. We expect a ton of professionalism from these 19 year olds in some areas, it's not surprising that they have issues in others. I think if 19 year old Fowler had endured a 2 hour firefight without losing his cool too much, that would come out in other areas, and I don't think I'd care what some fat campus cop in Colorado thought about it.

I get that outward expressions don't necessarily reflect inward feelings, but it strikes me as troubling that so many feel that the correct response to killing is to feel calm and justified.

Justifiable homicide is still homicide. It is morally, theologically and psychologically right to grieve over killing of any sort, even on accident.

InspectorFowler wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

My dad's a Vietnam vet and he's told me that it wasn't unusual to see guys lop off fingers, ears and even heads. Different units would desecrate bodies in slightly different ways as a "calling card." Of course, the NVA and Vietcong were known to do even more horrible thngs like castrating American bodies.

His attitude towards this was "only a Marine would be stupid enough to actually video tape it and put it on the internet." Keep in mind we're both former Army, and the only branch that we can make fun of for being meatheads is the Marines.

Yeah, but seriously, they get in trouble the most. When I told my buddy about those Marines who got caught pissing on those bodies his response was, "They'll be fine." I told him that the Pentagon had bothered identifying them by name, so I pretty much figure their military careers are over. He seemed pretty shocked, because in his experience that was par for the course. That's disappointing to me, but I can't really control what Marines 12,000 miles away do.

One day he finds a YouTube video and says, "Here, check this out."

It's just Marines wearing their armor. One runs at the guy wearing the armor, jumps up in the air and kicks the armor-wearer in the chest with both feet in an effort to knock him down. My buddy laughs and goes, "Yeah, that's how we used to kill the time. Stuff like that."

I sleep more soundly every night knowing that the USMC is protecting me and not some country that hates the US. But that is a hell of a lot of testosterone in one place. The age has a lot to do with it, too. We expect a ton of professionalism from these 19 year olds in some areas, it's not surprising that they have issues in others. I think if 19 year old Fowler had endured a 2 hour firefight without losing his cool too much, that would come out in other areas, and I don't think I'd care what some fat campus cop in Colorado thought about it.

Apparently in Iraq, some of the guys in our reserve unit had a game they played. They would stand about five feet away from each other. Then, each of them would chuck a rock at the other as hard as he could. Loser was the first guy to give up. Soldiers make their own fun.

What resonated with me in that article was more about the way soldiers are portrayed in games vs. how it actually is. Holding a rifle at ready is difficult. It's very difficult while clad in 40 pounds of armor and a helmet, stumbling down a street and trying not to wander away from your squad. While most people could hold up a rifle for 5 minutes or so, they probably couldn't hit anything with it at the end of that time. If they were ever able to do so in the first place. It's why I've stopped being really bothered by modern military shooters. It bears as much resemblance to combat as Mario does to plumbing.

I generally look at modern military shooters as a grown up form of playing army when you're a kid.

It's a kind of hero worship rolled in with a competitive game element, and in general has no more reality than kids yelling, "BANG BANG! I SHOT YOU!"

It's just a way of having fun. It's like SWAT 3 and 4 - for all their "realism" they were not very good approximations of what cops actually do, but they made you feel like you were in a police action movie. If playing Battlefield makes me feel like I'm in Blackhawk Down 2, then I'm okay with it.

You know, I'm wondering if a modern shooter that offered renegade/paragon options like Mass Effect or where you could kill children like Dragon Age or Bioshock would be commercially viable. Something tells me this kind of game would be demonized by the press and probably be a commercial failure. But it could be interesting if there were hard choices involved in killing civilians (for example, do you fire on civilians being used as human shields, knowing full well that if you don't your buddy is going to die?)

jdzappa wrote:

You know, I'm wondering if a modern shooter that offered renegade/paragon options like Mass Effect or where you could kill children like Dragon Age or Bioshock would be commercially viable. Something tells me this kind of game would be demonized by the press and probably be a commercial failure. But it could be interesting if there were hard choices involved in killing civilians (for example, do you fire on civilians being used as human shields, knowing full well that if you don't your buddy is going to die?)

This... seems like a hell of a concept for an indie game.

Kannon wrote:

seems like a hell of a concept for an indie game.

We need a Six Days In Fallujah Kickstarter.