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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (211789)	12/16/2012 11:36:53 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 544264

They are talking about those games right now on This Week.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (211789)	12/16/2012 12:39:19 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 544264

Rat, re: [video games] might be deconditioning or desensitizing kids towards violence. They almost certainly are. Either that or the army has it all wrong. I'm sure you're aware of the studies that found that many soldiers were not shooting at the enemy at all, or were shooting but aiming away from enemy soldiers during our wars. The percentages were astoundingly high considering that these were soldiers whose own lives were at risk. The army concluded that they had to break down the resistance most of us had to killing another human being and the way they did it was to create simulations where the soldier "killed" a lifelike dummy. It worked and the percentages of those who wouldn't "kill" went down. I still remember charging a dummy with a rifle and a bayonet, yelling "kill, kill, kill" with a bunch of other basic training guys. It seemed a dumb thing to do but I guess they had their reasons. Now, with video games that are frighteningly lifelike, depicting "enemy" soldiers who explode into bloody messes at the touch of your controller, can anyone say that we're not breaking down the barriers most of us have to killing another human being? And, with sick minds, who knows what kinds of fantasies we're creating? Maybe we need a video game where the guy gets blown up and then we have to deal with his grieving mother, father, daughter, son, wife etc., seeing their tears, their questions of "why", their attempts to put a life back together. I wonder who'd buy that video? Masochists? g. Ed