and you’ve said many times here before that you will only follow rules if they are enforced. you will do nothing unless somebody forces you to stop or go. red light… green light… repeat.
That’s right, because otherwise, it’s not a rule. It’s a guideline.
might makes right
totalitarian books
can’t control yourself
endless list of the kind of posts you have
Ah yes, little Jacob being frozen out… You’ve had hundreds of opportunities to make your ethical case, and you have. Now you want to distance yourself from it, that’s fine. But as I said, you might think people here are fools, but you would be underestimating them greatly.
I’m here with like minded peace proponents at an Institute that promotes peace and trade. The real question is, if that is the mission of LvMI, why are you here every day?
On the contrary, I just applied the marketing argument you posted in another thread today. It’s your own ideas I am referring to.
There is no “the market”. How you can be here, and claim to be reading material, and still not understand that the market is not a zero sum game, an entity or a movement but a mechanism or pattern is beyond me.
This is collectivism at it’s best. It’s a rejection of praxeology, reason and individualism. Again, why are you here if you don’t hold any of those ideas in high esteem? Why do you not apply them if you do?
This is simply assertion, something that would look good as a movie slogan. You’ve proven nothing, because America has not stopped being at war since Korea. On the contrary, when America is at war, the state seeks to create an endless supply of soldiers who are tabula rasa in the heart and mind. These games are excellent tools for that.
Brilliant. I am done with Narcissus. This is what he wants. Attention. Every day, the “look at Jacob Bloom show, now playing on the Mises.org community”
thank God somebody else sees this too!
good day sir[:)]
I’m not trying to distance myself from my ethical argument. I’m saying that you’re labeling me in order to make what I’m saying appear marginal and/or indicative of a psychological disorder. You’re doing this to invalidate my point of view.
The market may be a pattern or a whatever but it does illustrate its preferences by actively selecting certain products and actively deselecting others. That’s why David Friedman’s game doesn’t sell and why MW2 and Fallout 3 sell huge; they reflect market preferences.
Does marketing play a huge role in the market? I think so. But I fail to see how or where the military is doing its advertising for these games. The games are advertised as fun diversions and distractions. Not as some way of exercising patriotism and/or nationalism.
Now, if you’re going to tell me that the military is brainwashing people into playing violent games and that the market’s preferences for said games is not authentic, why do you assume that any market preferences are authentic and not just a manifestation of brainwashing in some other way?
In other words, why do you always give the market credit except when it comes to selecting violent games?
Alright, whatever. I need to go work out anyways.
Anyway, back to the original topic…Yes, I think the government knows what it’s doing in making tanks feel like video games (the air force is even worse, from what I understand.) Given that people like the video games, and play them, most people have learned to turn off certain feelings when playing the games. The kid who plays one of these games isn’t generally bloodthirsty (if he is, by the way, the game might be providing a necessary outlet - otherwise he might become a criminal, or even a cop), but, on the contrary, knows it isn’t real. But then what happens when you put him in front of a comptuer with the precise feel of a video game and have him bombing real cities? He’s used to the format, and it’s easier for him to adjust.
Now, why are the games popular? I think it’s hard to deny that going back a few thousand years, people survived who behaved a certain way, so it’s not surprising that pleasure centers are activated by that kind of behavior. Our society has found ways to stimulate that center without killing anyone, and that’s a good thing. On the other hand, people can be trained to avoid such behaviors - it’s called morality. It is, I think, an ethical duty to desist from such behavior, even if doing so puts you in danger yourself, else civilization cannot exist. Now we’re finding “harmless” ways to stimulate that center - but maybe that stimulus isn’t always enough, so yes, it’s dangerous. But it’s not that simple. We didn’t train ourselves for thousands of years not to behave that way, then all of a sudden video games said it’s ok. Rather, we have always believed in exceptions, we’ve always found ways to immorally indulge our desire to kill, saying for instance “Well, Roman society matters, but barbarians can be killed at will.” The video games are a symptom. Has it become more marked recently? Absolutely.
Well there are games which actually have military advisers and the Army put out a game in which you go through basic training and all the schools. I forget the name. It will probably come to me though. I think that males are biologically susceptible to violent games. In every society, males undergo a journey to manhood that usually involves some kind of test in battle. We are prone to prove our worth and value by our abilities. That is why you get more 18 year olds in the army rather then 30 year olds. The older you become the less likely you are to join some form of militarized unit or engage in military like behavior. It is very strange because in a way we seek to find ourselves and yet the military seeks to destroy the individual ego.
Edit: The game is called “America’s Army”
It already came out. It was basically like counterstrike except instead of CT vs T both teams see the other as terrorists.
Seconded.
http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2005/01/top-jobs-wardynski.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America’s_Army
Woops!
Wow, one game.
Not to mention the fact that people liked it. I never even heard of this game but apparently it got good marks from critics.
So the point still stands that there was a market for it. Is everyone who enjoys playing this game a sociopath like me?
America’s army =/= Modern Warfare 2. Your point is absolutely pathetic. In order to prove me wrong, you have to prove that the United States military is a driving force behind most of the games like Counterstrike, Halo, Call of Duty, etc., one little-known game (I’ve never once heard of America’s Army before even though I am pretty well-versed in the contemporary first-person shooters) will not.
Yeah, one game, several iterations. Presumably because there’s a market for it.
Seriously, I’ve been playing multiplayer FPS since Goldeneye on 64 and I honestly never heard of this game until now.
The reason that they feel like video games is due to the fact that it is depersonalized. Modern warfare, especially in NATO, relies on something very akin to an economy of scale due to their heavy use of capital, which separates the soldier from his target resulting in a depersonalization of warfare. Furthermore, the capital being used (e.g. tanks and aircrafts) require controls resulting in a very much video-gamized feel since the soldier is controlling the capital to kill indirectly.
Honestly, you need to prove that the military is designing weapons to feel like video games. As the old adage goes, correlation does not equal causation.