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Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 1 2007, 01:27 AM

I spent all of yesterday playing an abandonware title, Electronic Arts' SEAL Team from 1989. It's a wonderful game for 1989 which in my opinion has developed a lot of wonderful aspects of simulationist squad level game play which have not been well carried over today. SEAL Team isn't as sophisticated in its treatment of things that have been done increasingly well these days, like differentiating between the utility of being prone, crouched, or standing (in SEAL Team prone is basically always the best and running upright is always suicidal), or in the detailed mechanics of weapons (somehow there are no tactical reloads in SEAL Team!!!), but the wonderful aspect of this game is the flexibility with which you can call in air support or boat support for your team.

Unlike most games today which are basically about the skill of the gamer to defeat the bots SEAL Team constrains player effectiveness based on character skill. There's no way to aim better as a player and kill the enemy faster; the effectiveness of your rifle is based entirely on your character's effectiveness. If your team ends up in a dangerous situation the constructive solution is to call in your support units to help you out, which is a lot more realistic than a Physad-style miracle player killing 30 VC with ultra 100 meter headshots on one M16 mag while under heavy fire. (cough cough, Delta Force Black Hawk Down) The issues become then friendly fire, distant enemy alertness levels, and the length of time it takes for your air support to arrive. I appreciate that as something which isn't well done necessarily today.

Anyway, as I was playing this game while trying to maximize my score I began to wonder if I wasn't by default somehow role-playing a sociopathic pointman. This was my second time playing through the game and I had been trying to maximize my score. Accordingly, in addition to completing the mission objectives, I exposed the virtual SEAL Team to a lot of extra risk by stalking around the map and attempting to kill each and every enemy present. Even if I had injured team members I still engaged in this behavior; I risked losing the characters if they were killed but I didn't care about that very much since my goal was to get the highest body count possible.

If you think about it in terms of role playing anyone who plays a realism-themed or simulationist game that deals with combat would be portraying a sociopath. In real life a person who gets into a firefight could experience a long term mental trauma from the experience, like post traumatic stress disorder. From the perspective of the player controlling FPS hero, though, they're not real people and pants-wetting situations involving grenades exploding everywhere, team members dying and severed limbs splattering to the ground (thank you, Soldier of Fortune II) leads neither to fear, nor anger, nor even a strong emotional experience of any kind. It's all...mildly amusing. Imagine a possible conversation inside a FPS game:

Private: "Oh my god, Jones is dead! He's in two pieces. Oh god, sarge, I heard him moaning until he stopped, but we were under fire, I couldn't do anything...."

FPS hero sarge: "Hmm, I only got 34 headshots out of 40 shots fired. What a bother."

Private: "We've got men down! What should we do?"

FPS hero: "I need your sniper ammo." *kills private, takes his ammo*


I suppose that if somebody were to choose to roleplay someone who doesn't register pain (he probably needs to feel it but literally doesn't care) and who had a sociopathic delusion that he was the hero of a realistic FPS game in a table top role playing game it would be a really weird experience at the gaming table. It might not be a successful character in the long term due to lack of good team playing, but I'll bet that it would be really weird to see.

Posted by: Ravor Jul 1 2007, 02:40 AM

Well I seem to recall reading on Dumpshock where someone had played a character who honestly thought he was playing a full-VR game by using a Pain Editor and BTLs to simulate his "real life" away from the game.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 1 2007, 03:21 AM

Posted by: Ravor Jul 1 2007, 04:33 PM

Well you have to remember that I'm going purely off my failing memory of something I read once, but if I recall correctly the other characters were in on the guy's secret and had to invent excuses as to why he couldn't just go out and test his new gun on the first bystander that walked by, ect. (I think they told him that the game tracked non-combatant deaths and deducted points or something.)

I don't remember the poster saying anything about the OOC interactions, although I imagine that they'd be a little "odd" in most groups, although not as "odd" as when people start wondering if one of their own is a secret Furry based off him always getting animal like biomods done to his characters. (After we found out what was really going on we kicked the freak out of our group.)

Posted by: Fix-it Jul 1 2007, 04:46 PM

Yes.

but the reason we have games is so we don't need to be sociopaths by default.

Posted by: Critias Jul 1 2007, 04:55 PM

What?

I thought they were for practice.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 1 2007, 10:42 PM

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 1 2007, 10:44 PM

Posted by: Critias Jul 1 2007, 10:50 PM

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 1 2007, 10:55 PM

Posted by: Critias Jul 1 2007, 11:01 PM

Because other people already have their names plastered all over other shit, and he wanted to be famous for something?

Posted by: Ravor Jul 1 2007, 11:27 PM

Posted by: hyzmarca Jul 2 2007, 08:23 AM

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 2 2007, 02:58 PM

*laugh*

Advertisements have power to shape attitudes precisely because no one really believes they have such power. We're free-willed one and all, so where does an electronic message get off telling us how to think? If the United States army recruitment website starts hosting custom-designed videogames (which don't gain you points by getting all your teammates killed btw), surely that's just because they're trying to make the site cooler?

Posted by: Ravor Jul 2 2007, 03:35 PM

My eyes! Oh dear God my eyes are bleeding after researching your reference.


But to answer your question, no I walked in on him having sex, and it wasn't with another human.

Posted by: Fix-it Jul 2 2007, 06:31 PM

Jack Thompson is in it for the money.

video game publishers have a lot of money. he just has to drum up enough support for a class-action suite, and then he takes percentage.

the problem is he's a moron, and goes about finding support in very foolish ways. that backfire in his face, and no one really cares about.

Posted by: hyzmarca Jul 2 2007, 06:37 PM

He isn't just in it for the money. He appears to be both an egotistical jackass and a hardcore God-Hates-Fags Christian who wants to impose his brand of family values onto the entire world and destroy anyone and anything that disagrees with him or upsets is sense of universal order.

Incidentally, he was Pwned by Janet Reno in 1975 when he asked her to define her sexual orientation and she allegedly replied “I’m only interested in virile men. That’s why I’m not attracted to you.� He then tried to get her arrested for the incident.
Go Janet Reno Go!

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jul 2 2007, 06:39 PM

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 2 2007, 07:15 PM

Posted by: Critias Jul 2 2007, 07:22 PM

"We prefer the term 'interspecies erotica.'"
--Clerks II

Posted by: hyzmarca Jul 2 2007, 09:13 PM

While I do happily defend the rights of all individuals to engage in interspecies love or not as they see fit, I am going to attempt to get this back on track.

To address the original issue, I see most video game heroes, even those in highly simulationist games, as being like the heroes of 80s action movies. They're always cool under pressure, because they have to be. They've been trained to complete the mission no matter how horrible they're feeling about the brutal deaths of their friends and they're going to be far better psychologically while they are in the field then they will be when they are off of it. Some, like John McClain, will have trouble relating to their families once back, leading to an inevitable estrangement and divorce. Others, like Lethal Weapon 1's Riggs, will have nothing left to live for but their painful memories and make out with their service pistols every night while contemplating whether or not to go all the way. Some, like Rambo, will drift from town to town without any family to anchor them, and eventually be arrested for shooting a corrupt sheriff's deputy.
But, while they are fighting, they are the best at what they do. Calm, cool, collected, unflinching, witty and quipy.

Posted by: Ravor Jul 2 2007, 09:35 PM

I'm sorry, but while I consider myself fairly understanding when it comes to people's sexual drives I draw the line at same species and informed consent. (If/when there are other species with human like intellence then I'll have to review the issue but until then that is where I stand, rightly or wrongly.)

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 2 2007, 09:38 PM

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 3 2007, 12:03 AM

Posted by: Backgammon Jul 3 2007, 02:27 AM

There was an article about Jack Thompson in a Rolling Stones I picked up once.

His son gets picked on A LOT at school. Other kids dun like his daddy much.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Jul 3 2007, 03:56 AM

I must say that I'm very impressed at the breadth of the topics you've covered so far. That being said, the topics covered really have nothing to do with the site or Gaming in general except by a very loose stretch of the imagination, so please bring it back within the scope of the site. This isn't a Lounge.

Posted by: Critias Jul 3 2007, 04:39 AM

Okay, dad.

The reason "role playing" in most shooter games tends to be fairly shallow is because, well, the emphasis on such games is on the shooting, not the role playing. I don't fire up my PS2 for some Rainbow Six because I really really like it when Dieter and Price say "On the way, sir!" or "In formation!" or "Roger that, demo up." I play it because I enjoy playing with an HK G36 and shooting terrorists right in their ugly faces. Also, it's a guilt-free and consequence-free game session (as long as it's not a hostage you waste) -- so, yes. When some prick was just shooting at me and my team, and then he throws his gun down, drops to his knees, and laces his fingers behind his head? I politely thank him for holding so still, quick-swap to my handgun, and pop one into his brainpan. It's faster than holding down the "secure prisoner" button and cuffing him, and I've got places to go.

In shooters where a genuine effort is made to make you actually feel something towards the non-players -- Road to Hill 40 in particular stands out here, and to a lesser extent the Call of Duty games, and even HALO (a little bit) -- there's a bit less of the just plain shoot 'em up goin' on. You're a little less likely to just be a cold, uncaring, shooting machine...maybe. You might think twice before sending your guys out from cover (in order to draw fire for you), but it's still not really an RPG game, y'know? Even in the Ghost Recon games, where every character gains XP and gets better at their murderous profession, I still mostly care about them because I can hop from body to body and turn each one into a killing machine from time to time. It's not really the character interaction that people buy these games for. Unless by "character interaction" you mean "how another character interacts with my bullets, and occasionally my grenades."

There are RPGs out there built on shooter platforms/engines (Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, for instance), that play...well...like RPGs, instead of shooters. But for the most part, if you're playing a first person game, expect to only really care about one person. It's your character the engine is built around, and that's just how the games play themselves out.

Which is why you don't necessarily "role play" that way when you sit down for a game of Shadowrun or something... unless you're out to make that sort of character.

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 3 2007, 06:45 AM

Which is a bit like saying that for all SR tabletop games except for those few players specifically out to make that sort of character, anything beyond a framework upon which to hang quantified skills and attributes is unnecessary detail -- personality included.

Posted by: Critias Jul 3 2007, 07:16 AM

Your sentence isn't making sense to me. I recognize all the words, and they make sense to me individuals, but strung together in the order you've put them I'm drawing a blank. It's formatted very strangely.

Are you saying personality ISN'T necessary in a game where people AREN'T playing shallow, First Person Shooter flavored, sociopaths (or, rather, are you saying I'm saying that)? Because, as written, that's what I come up with -- but it only makes Bizzaro-sense, instead of Superman-sense.

Can you clarify the sentiment behind your last post, please?

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 3 2007, 07:21 AM

Just rephrasing your last paragraph, Critias.

Posted by: Critias Jul 3 2007, 07:52 AM

The last paragraph is specifically in reference to the fact that most first person games are very first-person centric ("for the most part, if you're playing a first person game, expect to only to only really care about one person"), mentioned in the text immediately previous to it.

And then I said that's why most people don't role play like they're in a first person shooter game, for that reason... unless they're specifically trying to make a sociopath.

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 3 2007, 01:47 PM

That was understood.

Maybe I should have added that I did context that paragraph, within the post as a whole yes, but also within the kinds of PCs I've been seeing advocated at Dumpshock as being appropriate to roleplay; along with what is considered appropriate levels of negotiation and other interaction. (I'll admit, the easy assumption that a bullet in the face was appropriate for a non-betraying months-long PC teammate shook me.) Apparently most players at Dumpshock are out to make precisely that kind of character, complete with the first-person centric view -- to the point that some are in utter shock and believe the GM is being entirely unfair when the gameworld does otherwise.

Posted by: Hocus Pocus Jul 14 2007, 11:52 PM

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 15 2007, 03:33 AM

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 15 2007, 06:00 AM

And yet people don't change.

All the rest is -- only information.

Posted by: Fix-it Jul 21 2007, 04:04 AM

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=18331

that thread made me go "WTF" in the biggest way. it was locked before I could note that genocide doesn't depend on what race is the target.

Yes. games do lead to sociopathic tendencies. you just have to fight them.

Posted by: Ravor Jul 21 2007, 07:56 AM

Well personally I tend to assume that the "Kill Whitey" thread and it's ilk aren't really meant to be serious, just as I assume that most of the "creepy gamer stories" are urban legends.

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 21 2007, 09:22 AM

You will have seen my link there. Human beings are capable of extremes across a wide spectrum. The less we think one part of that spectrum can't possibly apply to us, the easier it is to slip toward that end, unnoticing.

Attitudes have changed, and like a cresting wave the direction of those attitudes is pointed first http://www.helium.com/tm/313219/world-passing-through-troublous.

That it also happens to be the youngest demographics which have been most exposed, proportionate to their whole life, to an increasingly AR form of videogame which abstracts life, death, and even killing into escapist fantasy may be an incidental reinforcement, or even pure coincidence.

Then again, it may not.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 21 2007, 01:36 PM

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 21 2007, 02:47 PM

I did. You're right. That's what comes of mentally trying to translate out of a language with a natural double-negative, with far too little sleep.

Thanks for the catch.

Posted by: Ravor Jul 21 2007, 04:16 PM

Yeah, I read the links, and even agree that sure, in principle and the right situation it's possible for any group of people to decide that it's a good idea to start a genocide.

However, especially by your last argument I'm reminded of the fact that every generation has said that "kids these day are the worse ever" and that "things have never been this bad".

So no, coming from someone who grew up watching violent movies since I was old enough to sit propped up on my parent's lap and who was addicted to the Doom and Diablo Series, not to mention loves Grand Theft Auto and it's clones to this day (Much to my wife's chargine I might add, she hates GTA.) I'm afraid that I have to disagree, "AR" doesn't turn you into a sociopath anymore then rock-n-roll, jazz, or DnD does.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 21 2007, 04:31 PM

I can also toss my anecdote into the ring to say that the extent of my use of these things that supposedly dissociate us from others has had a direct (not inverse!) correlation with my degree of socialization.

~J

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 21 2007, 10:28 PM

Posted by: Ravor Jul 21 2007, 10:46 PM

Both and neither, all at the same time.

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 21 2007, 10:54 PM

Physical skills, or mental attitude toward killing?

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 22 2007, 01:31 AM

Posted by: Critias Jul 22 2007, 02:31 PM

I'd say it has less to do with Nintendos and Playstations and more to do with society in general's sweeping, mindless, knee-jerk, damning of any sort of violence or masculinity.

Everyone likes to bemoan how violent video games are (and music, and tv, and movies, and comic books), though, and they become a scapegoat. There's a horrific over-reaction to real life violence as a result. A bunch of teenagers can spend all day playing Manhunt and GTA:3 and fighting games against one another one line, and their parents are content to continue to ignore their children and throw money at them so the kids can amuse themselves instead of demanding honest parental attention...

...Then two kids get in a shoving match in a middle school hallway, and they get arrested for assault and kicked out of school.

Neither kid knows how to really fight. Neither kid has a genuinely safe outlet for their aggression. Neither kid can just let off steam by getting in a few swings at another kid after school, go home with a bloody nose, and then be pals a few days (or hours) later.

We've hit such a ridiculous level of PC-never-do-anything-that-could-possibly-damage-anyone-else bullshit that I heard about a kid getting in trouble a few weeks ago for high fiving someone. It was an unappreciated and unwanted physical contact, so the kid's in legal trouble, now.

You can't take someone from a society like that -- a situation where an unwanted HIGH FIVE will get you arrested -- and then just shove a gun into their hands and call them a "warrior" with a straight face. There's a certain level of aggression that needs to be encouraged in anyone who's going to be a soldier, and that same aggression is (oh noes violent video games! notwithstanding) damned routinely by the soccer moms running our country. The military of any nation is, by nature and at it's core, an organized group of people dedicated to killing others and breaking their things. There's lots of fancy ranks and kinder terms and pleasant symbolism about tradition and honor and duty that tries to make it clear we're the good guys, but at heart that's what a military is and what a military does. Period.

I know one community in Colorado that's passed around petitions against a memorial statue for a young man there that died in the Gulf a few years ago. They don't like the statue because he's holding a rifle, and it's too close to a school, and oh what about Columbine and think of the children and what horrible imagery. I'm not making this up. People are protesting a statue to honor a fallen young man from their community because he's a soldier carrying a rifle.

You can't raise someone in a world like that, you can't grow up and hear your parents complaining about that horrible, violent, statue (honoring a fallen soldier) -- and then make an easy mental transition to carrying that rifle yourself.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 22 2007, 02:48 PM

Well, I can see valid arguments against memorials to soldiers—arguments that I'm pretty sure most people don't have the intestinal fortitude to make even to themselves, unfortunately—but the fact that the statue is holding a rifle isn't one. As you say, the business of a soldier is violence, or at least enabling violence (for the non-combat troops)—the fact that all of that is suddenly focused into a particular object with symbolic value (the rifle) doesn't change anything.

(Just for clarification, the intestinal fortitude comment wasn't about people whose world views can justify violence—that's a different view, and one that can be held consistently (though it rarely is, but that's the case for every view I've found thus far that is even remotely popular). It's about the people who superficially embrace nonviolence without bothering to do the introspection required to determine whether one is willing to apply that ideal, even in theory, to very personal situations—or, in this case, who apparently believe that violence is something for "somebody else" to do, without thinking about how exactly to decide who "somebody else" is or what the consequences of that end up being.)

~J

Posted by: Ravor Jul 22 2007, 03:00 PM

Or to put a more positive spin on the viewpoint Kagetenshi seems to be refering to, some people believe that a hammer is the best tool to drive a nail, but would use a screwdriver to turn a screw instead.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 22 2007, 03:12 PM

There is a large set of possible self-consistent viewpoints. Unfortunately, in my experience, the members of that set still remain rare in real life as compared to the members of the set of inconsistent and poorly-thought-out viewpoints. By objecting to the statue of the gun but not to the statue of the soldier, or to the real soldier in the first place, the viewpoint under discussion appears to come from the latter set.

~J

Posted by: Ravor Jul 22 2007, 03:34 PM

Sure, however the problem that I've found with self-consistent philophies is "every-problem-starts-looking-like-a-nail" syndrone turns them into a joke when you try to expand them into the world at large.

As for the people objecting to the rifle instead of the soldier, you know as well as I do that it isn't really the firearm they are objecting to, but it isn't PC to come out against anything else.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 22 2007, 03:56 PM

I'm really not seeing your argument against self-consistent philosophies. Could you give me an example of the kind of problem you mean?

~J

Posted by: Critias Jul 22 2007, 03:58 PM

Basically, I think all the "video games lead to sociopathic behavior" arguments -- just like all the old D&D ones, and the rock music ones, and the rap music ones -- rely on the person in question to have a serious mental breakdown, and then revert to the behavior "trained" into them by whatever facet of pop culture is being blamed this week.

Someone that murders their parents and kills themselves didn't do it because of D&D. They did it by being a crazy ass, and D&D turned into their excuse. Kids that go on active shooter rampages at schools don't do it because of Doom or Rainbow Six. They do it by being a crazy ass that snaps, and then sees acting out as a valid alternative to another day of school. That "vampire cult" in Florida (or was it Georgia?) a couple years ago that killed a few families and stuff had less to do with Vampire: The Masquerade than it did with peer pressure, weak personalities being led around by strong ones, and other assorted crazy-ass symptoms.

But in each case, it's not the act itself the media wants to blame (or even the actor), but the prop. I saw a few articles just in recent weeks where D&D online or "teh intrawebs" are being blamed for a few very disturbing, very severe, cases of child endangerment, malnourishment, and even an outright "oops the baby starved to death" case. In each of them, the headline of the article (which is all 90% of people read) has been sure to mention that it's the distraction's fault, and not the shitty parent's. Nevermind that the same fuckwit could've been amused by a shiney, jangly, set of keys being dangled in front of their face or ignored their baby to death over daytime television...it's trendy to blame something instead of someone, for just about every crime anyone commits nowadays.

Posted by: Aku Jul 22 2007, 04:04 PM

Posted by: bibliophile20 Jul 22 2007, 04:47 PM

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 22 2007, 04:58 PM

I'd object to the simplistic portrayal of people as "crazy ass"—there's usually a lot more going into these things, sometimes including environmental factors that would destabilize most people. That said, since the entire point of my objection is that it's dangerous to stop asking "why" too quickly, it applies even more to the practice of finding a vaguely-related hobby and labeling it the cause.

~J

Posted by: Aku Jul 22 2007, 05:01 PM

i agree with Kage, i think. Everytime someone points to something someone did and say "the videogames made them do it!" i can point to a lot more people and say "well, then why didnt the do it?"

Secondly, if "violent" video games make people violent, why the hell do my hours and hours of playing madden and NHL hockey games not make me a fragging badass athlete?

(please, avoid the pun "Because you're playing the video game and not the real one")

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Jul 22 2007, 05:03 PM

Posted by: Ravor Jul 22 2007, 05:08 PM

The short answer is to watch the "talking heads" that appear on political "news"shows and host talk radio and then try to apply their professed beliefs to the world at large.

Posted by: Aku Jul 22 2007, 05:10 PM

ya know, i now life in the south, i wonder, what the people who object to statues of fallen soldiers, think of people flying the confederate flag, like they do down here?....


i personally find it incrediably disrespectful, but i cant touch on way. I'd think it's because it's no longer a "nation" that exists. I dont have the same feelings towards people of various descents of europe, or anywhere else, flying their "homelands" flag.

I wonder what my feelings would be if we say, took over canada, and the canadians still flew their national flag under the american flag...


(not to say i think we should attack canada, just a theoretical idea)

Posted by: Critias Jul 22 2007, 05:11 PM

Posted by: Fortune Jul 22 2007, 05:27 PM

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 22 2007, 05:40 PM

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Jul 22 2007, 08:07 PM

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 22 2007, 08:13 PM

Maine declared war on them, so I figure that's enough justification for me.

~J

Posted by: Sterling Jul 22 2007, 08:46 PM

I think the OP is onto something, but it's not impossible to roleplay in a FPS.

I often offer two hostages for a Steyr Aug in Counterstrike. Often I'll even trade them for a bucket of KFC. As a counter terrorist I'll explain that I have to rescue the hostages because 'one of them owes me five bucks' or 'he's my brother-in-law.' I don't know if I'm helping the case here or not.

But there's one genre of game that's even more sociopathic, and that's the RTS. When you command units that are small and slightly cartoonish, you don't really value them as troops under your command, they're just an investment of resources. So you're viewing them like a typical CEO, then. I doubt anyone thinks "crap, Johnson bought it in that assault on the zerg/GLA/orc base, and he was two weeks from getting out. He had a wife and four kids, too. What a shame. War, war never changes..."

Hell, some crank out units to send to the grinder just to keep the enemy busy for a few minutes, or because there's a unit cap and they want to replace the older, less useful units with newer upgraded ones.

I think the FPSes that aren't as sociopathic are the ones that give you the options of either killing all or using other methods (stealth, different routes, non lethal methods) of subduing or bypassing enemies.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 22 2007, 08:58 PM

The question is, is a RTT game like Myth more or less sociopathic? After all, each individual member of your fighting force is an important component of your individual strength, but you also need to make the deliberate and conscious choice to send one of them out into that field of Wights if your bowmen or fir'bolg are overwhelmed.

Plus, there's the Dwarves…

~J

Posted by: Critias Jul 22 2007, 09:01 PM

Sometimes I take prisoners when the terrorists in Rainbow Six drop to their knees and put their hands behind their head. It's dangerous, and requires approaching them and standing still for several seconds while you hold down the button, but it's the right thing to do to an opponent who has surrendered.

Sometimes I have ammo to spare, though, and I remember they're not uniformed combatants and as such aren't covered by the Geneva Convention, etc. So instead I give 'em two to the chest and one to the head, and call it a day.

Posted by: nezumi Jul 24 2007, 03:35 AM

When I play RTSes I always try to minimize troop losses Except when I'm playing as the zerg. In that case, I go with the hive mentality and assume that all the little zerglings happily give up their lives for the wellbeing of the hive. But playing the humans in Warcraft? I almost spend more time bringing back wounded troops to heal them up than I do actually fighting, and when I can't heal, I 'retire' them to backwater watch posts where they're unlikely to see action.

Maybe I'm just a big softie...

Posted by: hyzmarca Jul 24 2007, 04:30 PM

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 24 2007, 08:31 PM

Not touching the celebrating soldiers v. celebrating war part of this discussion: it's not relevant, and is potentially heated enough to completely derail this thread.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 24 2007, 09:49 PM

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 24 2007, 10:44 PM

I think that every action involves choice: even if that choice is as simple as to do anything to make it stop hurting.

Our choices can be influenced by others, but they cannot be made for us by others.

Posted by: Angelone Jul 24 2007, 10:51 PM

The military now has the EST (Engagment skills trainer) which uses realistic weapons with recoil, weight, and magazine reloads. There are a bunch of scenarios, such as zeroing, qualifing, shoot don't shoot, and wartime. Some of them are fairly immersive, but no matter how real it seems you still know it's a game. So yeah, video games can be used to train soldiers.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 24 2007, 11:14 PM

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 24 2007, 11:44 PM

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 25 2007, 01:15 AM

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 25 2007, 01:36 AM

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 25 2007, 02:13 AM

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 25 2007, 02:47 AM

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 25 2007, 03:42 AM

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 25 2007, 04:08 AM

It's not actually as circular as it looks. I'm pretty tired right now, but let's see if I can boil it down:

Postulate A: the structure (in the sense of matter/energy—things what use the four fundamental forces) of humans are governed by the same laws that govern all large matter (where "large" means "full-atom-sized and larger"—non-quantum scales).

Statement 0: A → the physical structure of humans is deterministic

Postulate B: there is no component of humans that is outside the structure in A, no "unobservable soul".

Statement 1: ( S0 ∧ B ) → all processes of humans are deterministic based on their current states and their inputs, also interpretable as the current global state.

Statement 2: S1 → state x which transitions to state y given input a will always transition to state y when given input a

Statement 3: S2 → ( the ability to produce an arbitrary state and an arbitrary input → the ability to produce an arbitrary result state in the set of possible result states )

∴ given sufficient control of the human state and input, arbitrary results can be produced.

I'll expand on this in the morning—is there any of that you have a counterargument to?

Also note that everything here is explicitly dependent on current scientific theory. It is not meant to stand against fundamental discoveries counter to prevailing theory. However, it is constructed with, to my knowledge, the best evidence we have available—therefore, I reject arguments of the form "but we might be wrong about foo" lacking evidence that we are in fact wrong about foo.

~J

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 25 2007, 05:00 AM

I'm tired too, and I really don't yet know how much time I will have available tomorrow.

For now, I'll just point out that any purely deterministic view of human physiology as it relates to human behaviour necessarily negates personal responsibility.

Posted by: Crusher Bob Jul 25 2007, 08:46 AM

It may philosophically negate human responsibility, but not ‘usefully’ negate it. So the question can be rephrased, “Does the meme of personal responsibility alter the behavior of the recipients? If so, in what ways?�

For an interesting comparison:

The mathematically perfect 6 sided die would have a probability of producing any given result exactly 1/6th of the time. Given a well made die, it is possible to have a very good simulator of a mathematically perfect die (i.e. it will pass an arbitrarily large chi-squared test). Now here’s the interesting bit: The face of the die that ends up on top is determined solely by the physical forces acting upon the die when it is rolled (i.e. the result should be completely deterministic). So how is the die able to produce a very accurate model of a random process while being a deterministic physical body?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 25 2007, 10:57 AM

Posted by: mfb Jul 25 2007, 12:00 PM

discussing absolute determinism seems moot, to me. if human behavior is deterministic, then the discussion itself is not a discussion at all--it's just everyone saying what they were already going to say. nothing means anything. the only useful viewpoint is the assumption of free will, because the existence of free will means that choices are actually choices, and therefore are important.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 25 2007, 12:23 PM

Right. I covered that earlier. However, absolute determinism does provide a useful framework for which to argue for smaller forms of determinism--the idea that it is possible to decide something for someone, or to force them to decide it, or whatever you want to call it. In turn, this is just a useful framework for discussing the idea that one can end up with a state and a set of inputs such that one will decide something (in the same way that entropy will not decrease, or that masses will exert forces on one another), with that something being a specific, repeatable something.

The complexities of the human state and the range of possible inputs mean that a single factor is unlikely to by itself force a certain transition, but the idea I'm trying to get across is that it isn't unreasonable to say that {set of inputs} made {person in given state} {transition to specific new state}, or in other words, do something, and that in such cases the use of the word "choice" is at best meaningless and at worst outright deceptive.

~J

Posted by: Critias Jul 25 2007, 12:48 PM

I think that it is unreasonable to say "{set of inputs} made {person} do {action}," if that same set of inputs doesn't have that same affect on the overwhelming majority of people subjected to the same inputs.

Which is kind of the subject of the thread. Closer to it than "do humans have free will at all?" at least.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 25 2007, 01:25 PM

Well, there's a reason I said {person in a given state}. The issue then becomes how widely {state} can vary while still producing {action} given {inputs}, and how you can produce the important parts of {state}, particularly in other people.

I'm not sure I agree with what you just said in general, actually, but what I'd propose instead as the argument is "{subset of inputs} is likely not equal to {set of inputs}, thus the proposal that {subset of inputs} caused {person in given state} to do {action}, while still possible, is unproven". How unproven is a matter of how large {set of inputs} - ({set of known irrelevant inputs} U {subset of inputs}) is.

At the current time, most any argument in the form of "x made me do y", with the possible exception of x = "society" or something that's really a placeholder for a gigantic set of inputs, pretty obviously has a large set of unconsidered inputs.

~J

Posted by: mfb Jul 25 2007, 01:29 PM

yeah, if a given input only forces a small subset of the populace to perform a certain action, then it's not fair to say that the input is to blame for the action. the situation which puts the person into the subset is to blame.

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 25 2007, 01:52 PM

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 25 2007, 01:53 PM

Posted by: Talia Invierno Jul 25 2007, 02:01 PM

... one more.

One of the possible counters to determinism is a-temporality: time/space/society as a unified, organic whole rather than a linearly-trapped string of cause-effect. (Sapient "meaning of life" still optional.)

Just because our consciousness cannot usually perceive our environment this way does not mean it does not exist.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 25 2007, 02:04 PM

I'm really not sure what you mean--if you mean removing time as an input by folding it into the set of states, that's quite doable and doesn't change anything (and certainly doesn't counter determinism!).

I'm also going to have to reject the argument of the form "the fact that we don't observe x doesn't mean it doesn't exist"--it's true, but not informative (see Invisible Pink Unicorn or her Chosen Son, the Flying Spaghetti Monster). Unless evidence can be presented for it or it can be demonstrated to have predictive value, there's no point in considering it.

~J

Posted by: hyzmarca Jul 25 2007, 05:19 PM

Posted by: mfb Jul 25 2007, 07:59 PM

the discussion is still moot, even if you assume it contributes to the great tapestry of humanity or whatever. with absolute determinism, the contents of a contribution to the system have no greater or lesser value than the contents of any other contribution. the time spent discussing absolute determinism could be just as well spent, from a tapestry-of-humanity point of view, discussing whether or not J Lo's gigantic ass is hot.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 25 2007, 08:07 PM

Absolute determinism doesn't mean you can't apply different values to different actions, it just means you can't take different actions based on that value applied, or for that matter have chosen to apply different values if you applied some to begin with.

With absolute determinism, the time spent discussing absolute determinism might be more valuable than discussing whether or not J-Lo's gigantic ass is hot, or it might be less, but what we're going to do isn't going to change based on valuation. It's sorta like making valuations of what you did yesterday--whatever valuation you came up with, what you did yesterday isn't going to change.

~J

Posted by: the_dunner Jul 25 2007, 09:39 PM

Interesting discussion aside, this no longer has any bearing on gaming. Please steer it back on track, or we'll have no choice but to close the thread.

Posted by: Talia Invierno Aug 2 2007, 03:58 AM

[not worth it]

Posted by: Kagetenshi Aug 2 2007, 10:52 AM

PMs?

~J

Posted by: Fix-it Aug 8 2007, 08:55 PM

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/current_issue/grossman.html

again on the original topic. no way in hell am I reading all that to see what tangent you guys are on.