Just watched an interesting TV program and thought someone might be interested.

http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites...ty/killing.html

Basically it was looking at how few people are actually capable of killing, even during war and given that it seems to be a feature of SR characters it made me wonder what that says about us...

Next week they're supposed to feature how the military actually changed the statistics and made modern soldiers more capable of killing. Without wanting to pre-empt, what does everyone think would be done over the next 60 years?

(I originally only watched the thing because a friend was featuring in the combat training segment - I actually know very few people who've had any combat training at all and only a couple who've actually been in service so my experience on this matter is minimal.)

I've heard similar theories regarding the US Civil War and other scenarios.

I think it has to be done, given the trend of downsizing troops. Otherwise you have a smaller body of troops, incapable of absorbing losses and proving ineffectual on the battlefield.

In terms of long-term impact on society -- I think we're already moving in that regard without a directed military program.

A number of theories have been advanced regarding the de-sensitizing of people to violence and gore through news and recreational media. Anyone remember the furor over "Doom" and other FPS? Columbine spurred interest in teen fascination with shooters like "Time Crisis" that are very close to combat trainers.

-Siege

de-sensitivity.

Actual combat training in the Marines included carrying real gear that had sound generators/capacitiors called Miles-gear. Allows you to run around in real terrain and take targets much like Laser-tag. Next step IMHO should be Splat-ball, or even better since they already make real replicas of modern weaponry, 'Airsoft'.
In this fashion you would feel the impact of the hit, as well as carry the exact weaponry on a training course.

MILES seems to be a little better than paintballing or Airsofting, as it is more realistic in several regards. Paintballs and airsofts both have funny flight characteristics, and sound even less real than the "blank" round that triggers the infrared laser on the MILES system.

Additionally, MILES is significantly more versatile, as it can model multiple ammunition types, and incorporate vehicles.

Regardless, all three are fun as hell.

Diesel, Agreed. I was thinking that in the future (over the next 60 years), paintballing or Airsofting could be changed to address those issues that u stated. The other thing I ran into is that it wasn't always accurate, as you are trying to hit a sensor harness attached to moving person, or strap-packed onto the side of a vehicle. But I completely agree all three are outrageously fun.

Maybe in 60 years there might really be soldiers wondering why their mates aren't "respawning" after a battle.

Once simulations reach that level of realism, do you think they'd really want the training to be that realistic? Would they put all the blood and gore in there, or would the official army simulations still be rather sterile?

Heh, like Enders Game but right down to the footsoldiers. They might all be expecting to be yelled at by thier commander for screwing up when, in fact, they really are dying this time.

What is the system the FBI and such use? It uses real rounds, but instead of lead it is a paint pellet. They have all kinds of weapons that use it and they are standard weapons. The same MP5 used in a raid the week before is now being used in a training Hogans Alley. They sound real as hell and hit like a truck, just non-lethal. The police services using it have said the gun acts in the same way as if it was a lead round.

the main thing the military's done is focus on treating soldiers after they experience combat--watching for signs of PTSS, reacting correctly when it shows up, offering counselling, etcetera. the base 'problem' is that, psychologically, humans are not built for killing each other. the only real way to make a human feel okay about killing other humans is to make him believe at some level that the people he's killing aren't real--they're just differently-shaped targets to be knocked down. the problem, of course, is that it can eventually become difficult to hold that dichtotomy in mind; at some point, the soldier begins to realize that there's no real difference between an enemy soldier and the mailman. alternatively, or concurrently, the stress of holding that dichtotomy together might cause the soldier's mind to break down in myriad other ways.

so, yes, the military might have effective ways of turning people into killing machines, by 2060--likely, there are effective ways to do it now. the problem is turning that switch off, when it's time to go home.

http://blackjack.dumpshock.com/stuff/WEAP6.htm

Scroll down to the bottom, "Thrill Kill Link".

Speaks for itself, I'd say.

That's an interesting idea -- it's difficult to condition someone to "kill acceptable targets only" as opposed to "kill indifferently" or perhaps "kill indiscriminately."

I wonder if that's relatively recent phenomenon versus the default human condition.

-Siege

"Soldiers are given inhuman orders everyday. That's why there are soldiers."

Show your SR knowledge: tell me which novel that line is from. Extra NERPS if you can tell me who said it.

Meh. We could do with less people anyway. Especially the people who play the GTA series.

~J

Despite what you see on the tube, killing a bloke isn't that easy. I don't have first hand experience but I've talked to a few that have. They all said the cliche bit about the first one being the hardest and then it gets easier. But I don't know if thats bluster or not.

Either way, I think you have to believe that you had no choice. "him or me." That sort of thing. I dunno. Not really qualified for that sort of debate, I guess.

kevyn, is that quote from "just compensation?"

Frag:

And organized religion breeds lunatics, serial killers and cult suicides on the scale of Jim Jones or maybe the next David Koresh.

I think most of us could disagree with your DnD and my religious parallels.

However, I will refer you to the thread where the "short, pudgy gamer geek is discussing 2x2 covering formation or leap-frogging with the Marine" as a perfect example of how role-playing games can influence situational thinking and certainly most of us look at things in different perspectives from the mainstream. (The Seattle Aztech story in particular gave me giggles.)

It might be more accurate to say that FPS give an outlet to people predisposed to acting in a violent fashion and possibly reinforces the outlet, much like cultists turn to the Christian Bible as a justification for theirs.

But whether not everyone has the inner "wait, killing is bad...but this is only a game" realization. I'm going to assume you, as a DnD player, haven't been holding your games in storm drains lately -- I haven't been plotting my latest SR caper over beers at my local tavern either.

I'll have to see if I can find that article -- it was a note that recent classes of recruits in the US Army were exhibiting better initial marksmanship scores than classes past.

-Siege

Not really...

Depends on the game -- PC/console games? Probably not.

"Time Crisis" and similar reactive shooter games?

-Siege

I'd say PC/Console games certainly don't. I suppose that, to a very small extent RL shooting uses the same type of hand-eye coordination that is used in mouse- and pad-shooting. But I'm pretty sure no amount of playing Doom (or Counter-Strike, or even America's Army:Ops) will make you a better shot IRL.

Reactive shooter games with those light-guns (or whatever they're called) certainly help a bit. They teach you to keep looking through your sites or, if you're good enough, to know where your pistol is pointing even if you don't look through the sites. They also teach how to aim extremely quickly with such a handgun.

MILES and similar systems are better than any paintball or airsoft games or most simulations because there you have the weapon you would have in actual combat, and it acts mostly like it would with live fire. Someone with only Time Crisis experience will be in for quite a culture shock when s/he suddenly has to deal with the *BANG* and the recoil. And MILES in actual terrain has many other edges over simulations too. Only in the richest countries will the simulations be good and numerable enough to do most of the training for most of the grunts with.

Now that's odd -- aikido, insofar as I am aware, doesn't incorporate bone/joint breaks.

Locks and holds, yes, but not actual breaking techniques.

I'll have to dive back into my reference material.

-Siege

Actually, most ranges will rent handguns if you feel the need to experiment.

I strongly recommend you not stick your fingers in front of a barrel, just in case it doesn't need reloading quite yet.

-Siege

Basically they show you the hold to start out-if the person keeps moving you just put more pressure on it and -SNAP- if you've seen a Steven Segal film, most of what he does with his hands is akido, so instead of a big jerk bad actor, think a petite brunette and that's Snow Fox.

It's like basic judo- a hip throw dumps someone on the floor. As you get more advanced you learn throw the person,and as the body goes one way, you pull the arm in the other.

Hello, I'm new...what up and all...

I recently had chance to go out shooting with a friend, and fired a couple clips worth of 9mm, and 25 rounds...yep, a 25, weird little tiny pistol that looked like it was going to fall apart every time we shot it...in fact, after every shot, you had to push the slide back into place with your thumb...very unnerving...

I'd have to say the similarities between my years of playing time crisis and about an hour of firing off a real gun are almost nill...for one, the weights are way different, which doesn't sound like a lot until you fire the real thing...that and the recoil is beyond different...the slide on the time crisis game will barely jerk my hand up, but the first shot from that 9 and i had to completely resight...that and i noticed the 9 seemed to kick a little to the right, but that might have been just the gun i was using...

Anyways, I think light-guns are fun, and are an introduction to the concept of shooting, but not close enough to really do much...

As far as the desensitizing thing goes...I think a lot of people would be suprised both ways...I can see a lot of people saying they would never kill someone actually doing it with the right circumstance...regretting it, and being seriously disturbed by it, but still doing it...and I think a lot of people who don't think it would be a big deal to kill someone doing it, and being a lot more bothered by it than they thought they would...I've never killed anyone, or had any true combat experience beyond getting jumped a few times...but I've seen a guy get shot, and things go through your head a lot differently than they do when you see someone get shot on tv...

games like time crisis and whatnot won't help so much with actual marksmanship, but playing them might possibly give you a slight edge when it comes to actual firefights.

it's like this: when people are shooting at you, it's not possible to think clearly. the forebrain--the part that does self-awareness and higher forms of thought--simply shuts down, and hands things off to the midbrain. the midbrain is the part that handles body control and basic survival--if you look at the midbrain of a human, and the midbrain of any other mammal, you'd be hard-pressed to tell which was which (except for size, of course).

now, the midbrain draws its actions from reflex and trained reflex. trained reflex, as the phrase implies, comes from training. before world war 2, as has been noted elsewhere in this thread, most militaries trained with traditional bullseye targets. however, studies conducted after ww2 indicated that only 20% or soldiers were firing at exposed enemy soldiers, when they fired their weapons. the problem, basically, was that the midbrain had been trained to shoot at bullseyes--but on the battlefield, all it saw were humans, ergo, trained reflex didn't kick in.

after ww2, armies began changing over to the pop-up, human-shaped targets we use today. a study similar to the one conducted after ww2 indicated that 90% of the US soldiers in viet nam fired their weapons at exposed enemy soldiers.

so, yeah. light gun games train your mid-brain to fire at human-shaped targets when you're being shot at. honestly, though, that's like blindfolding someone and handing them a weapon so that they can get used to the recoil--sure, adjusting to recoil is important, but training for that is useless without training the other skills you need to fire your weapon correctly.

In Aikido the basics consist of throws, locks and incapacitating techniques. As u progress u learn to use your opponents momentum against them to further your locks, holds, throws ect. As u progress these throws, holds etc. becom more damaging as u force your opponent into disparraging posoitions, ie a lock becomes a dislocated shoulder, broken forearm/ wrist, dislocation of the kneecap or forceable breakage of bones through throws and holds. Aikido is self-defense art that becomes more aggressive the more u learn. It also is the art of using your opponents own force/momentum against them, hence its Defensive stance. Also everything moves in a circular pattern in Aikido and its base technique is Ti chi.

I used to love Area 51 machines I'd pay for both guns and go Akimbo, and actually got good at it. I think you can take SOME of the stuff from light gun games as being useful in terms of accuracy of pointing the gun, but dealing with recoil is something different. With most FPS's these days, all the weapons have realistic(or close) recoil, which gives you an idea of what you might have to do with a real weapon to work with it. combined, I think they could make for a fairly efficient trainer of sorts for the firing range, but nothing will ever be as accurate as a pop up target firing range, or running in the field with MILES or equivelant.

What upsets me is that Air Force training is still weak, and their military intelligence qouta is about to drop. I mean in our week of Field Training we fired our M-16's at body shaped sillouette paper targets tacked to a board, with the worst reject weapons for "trainees", and we only did that 1 day, the rest of the time we did Field Exercises involving using flashlights strapped to inert weapons and would "flash" kill our trainers who were Air Force SpecOps. Totally unfair Then with the whole new "we want to be unique so we're going to wear Blue BDU's" it's making me really question how smart that is, what are Blue BDU's going to camoflage you against? the air? just plain stupid [/rant] I was a Junior or Senior when Columbine happened, and I couldn't believe they were blaming doom, heck, doom was an OLD game by that point and there were far more gruesome games out. Everybody have to convict the games of ruthless crimes of stupidity. When it's the teenagers mental health that's the problem. Pure and simple those kids and most other people who go nuts and kill people, can't cope with something in their life, and need help.

I had a friend who came back from Army Airborne Ranger Training, and initially he definitely acted as if they didn't turn off his kill switch, kept going on about how he would assess everyone around him and devise the fastest way to eliminate them if they became hostile. It was a little unnerving. I'm sure when you have to kill for a living, to defend your country, it definitely changes you. I agree with the dichotomy example. I think that's real close to what really happens in the minds of soldiers.

Rule #4: Dress professionally, conduct yourself in a proffessional manner and be prepared to kill those you meet.
Something like that, it's been 11 1/2 years since I served.
It took me 2 years of civy living to "switch Off" so to speak. My wife used to catch me squaring people up when we where in public places (like Bars, Hence why I stopped going to them. It's much easier now).
Rule #5: Never under estimate anyone. Even the smallest/tallest of people can be dangerous in their own right, And their is always someone better than you.

at best, the 'recoil' in an FPS game will show you what recoil looks like from the view of the game designers--basically, that the gun goes upwards when you pull the trigger. that's about as useful as reading a book on martial arts, without ever doing any actual practice--i suppose it would technically be inaccurate to say it doesn't help at all, but it certainly doesn't help to any noticable degree.

As a member of the Air Forces Security Forces field (rapidly becoming the Air Forces ground troops) I can fully atest to what Shadowphoenix said. Even the tech school training I recieved was just for weapon familirty and basic tactics.

As a side note, there are other shadowrun players here in Omaha, who knew.

hey, a fellow Awful Offutt survivor! I think SF is probably the only job there where you might actually escape the grasp of permanency there Anyway, I got out a while ago(about 2 years now.) if you're interested and are available on Saturdays maybe we could hook up. I run games Sat from about 7-8pm til I get tired of GM'ing My play group is currently at 3 players and I run.
PM me if you're interested. how long you been in town? just curious how long I've missed one of the few SR players in this barrens

[edit]Others already said it better re: Aikido and breakin' stuff. [/edit]