153: The Anatomy of Violence
- Thread starter Robert B. Marks
- Start date
Very good article, provides a very well balanced view on the subject. I also apreciate that you are following up on your article, more contributers should do that.
Erin is indeed informed and intelligent, and her points are better researched than yours and make more sense than yours. Indeed, I'm bookmarking this exchange as an example of how to totally dismantle a bad essay. I leave you with some advice: when you're in a hole, sir, stop digging! ;-)
Let's make a basic list of the things a soldier needs to kill in a combat situation.
desensitization
agression training
practical skills training
proper context
imperative
how soldiers are desensitized has already been discusses; sufficed to say that while videogames may have an effect similar to this to some degree, they do not specifically TARGET this end result, thus any effect of desensitization is minor and negligible at best. Personnel have spent their entire careers developing programs which desensitize human beings to killing in a combat situation; it's not something a videogame developer just lucks into.
Agression training
This is basically the training that produces agression in soldiers in combat situations, and is not to be confused with skills training or desensitization. This is the psychological mindset which teaches a soldier to put their own preservation of life aside before an objective. Certainly videogames, whose violence is impersonal and abstract, do not serve as agression training. This is the primary argument of videogame detractors, and it has no basis in fact at all.
Practical skills training
I.e., how to fire a gun. Needless to say, Halo 2 does not translate to literal marksmanship abilities.
Proper context
This is why the desensitization obtained from videogames is minor by comparison to military regimented protocols: context. If I am in a military training situation, shooting at humanoid targets, I will be open to applicable effects. Playing a videogame, I am not looking - consciously or subconsciously - to be made open to killing. Going through the motions of desensitization training is not the same as ENGAGING in desensitization training. While I may have 100% confidence and lack of hesitation to blow away a target without a second's thought on screen, this doesn't mean that even with a gun, the knowledge to use it, and the context I would be able to. Again: the military has devoted a great deal of time to developing an understanding of the psychological effects and causes of desensitization. To say that a videogame could cause a similar effect to the same degree is ridiculous.
And of course, imperative is the most important factor in a killing, and can override even a lack of all the rest. Namely, a man may have the context for killing, the skills to do so, agression and desensitization training, and yet without the imperative to kill - the desire to, either by command or because it will serve a goal, protect oneself, an interest, etc - he will not do it if he is sane. On the other hand, a great imperative to kill can completely overpower the fact that one has no proper knowledge of how to do so.
I think it is safe and reasonable to say that videogames have no effect on a person's contextual imperative to commit a murder, unless that person was a gamer and the context was being placed alone in a room with Jack Thompson.
desensitization
agression training
practical skills training
proper context
imperative
how soldiers are desensitized has already been discusses; sufficed to say that while videogames may have an effect similar to this to some degree, they do not specifically TARGET this end result, thus any effect of desensitization is minor and negligible at best. Personnel have spent their entire careers developing programs which desensitize human beings to killing in a combat situation; it's not something a videogame developer just lucks into.
Agression training
This is basically the training that produces agression in soldiers in combat situations, and is not to be confused with skills training or desensitization. This is the psychological mindset which teaches a soldier to put their own preservation of life aside before an objective. Certainly videogames, whose violence is impersonal and abstract, do not serve as agression training. This is the primary argument of videogame detractors, and it has no basis in fact at all.
Practical skills training
I.e., how to fire a gun. Needless to say, Halo 2 does not translate to literal marksmanship abilities.
Proper context
This is why the desensitization obtained from videogames is minor by comparison to military regimented protocols: context. If I am in a military training situation, shooting at humanoid targets, I will be open to applicable effects. Playing a videogame, I am not looking - consciously or subconsciously - to be made open to killing. Going through the motions of desensitization training is not the same as ENGAGING in desensitization training. While I may have 100% confidence and lack of hesitation to blow away a target without a second's thought on screen, this doesn't mean that even with a gun, the knowledge to use it, and the context I would be able to. Again: the military has devoted a great deal of time to developing an understanding of the psychological effects and causes of desensitization. To say that a videogame could cause a similar effect to the same degree is ridiculous.
And of course, imperative is the most important factor in a killing, and can override even a lack of all the rest. Namely, a man may have the context for killing, the skills to do so, agression and desensitization training, and yet without the imperative to kill - the desire to, either by command or because it will serve a goal, protect oneself, an interest, etc - he will not do it if he is sane. On the other hand, a great imperative to kill can completely overpower the fact that one has no proper knowledge of how to do so.
I think it is safe and reasonable to say that videogames have no effect on a person's contextual imperative to commit a murder, unless that person was a gamer and the context was being placed alone in a room with Jack Thompson.
Teknoarcanist: You've raised some very interesting points, and I hope a lot of people read your post. The degree to which a computer game could condition us is one of those questions that I think needs further examination. I think it can happen - the case of the police officer handing the gun back to the criminal shows that you can accidentally train your brain to do something unexpected, so conditioning can slip in there.
The big problem here is that, as far as I can tell, we just don't have any way of getting a good, solid measurement of this. If you think about it, if we have been conditioned to react a certain way in combat, the place where this will manifest is, well, in combat. And the average gamer isn't likely to end up there in the worst of times. The people who will end up there are military (who are already trained), police (who have also received training of some sort), and criminals (who, if they're in a gunfight with the police, are likely not stable enough to be a good example). About the only place I can think of where you could measure this is in self defense cases, and we are blessed with a low enough violent crime rate that a sample there might not be representative.
So we've got a hot-button issue without precise figures in the theory, and without a good way of measuring empirically on the practical side - and, since it doesn't extend past how we react in crisis situations, tells us pretty much nothing about how video game violence impacts our daily lives (which is a bigger and possibly more nebulous field, but Michael A. Mohammed has written a far more informed article about that than I could have, and I would strongly recommend that everybody read it before the next Escapist issue arrives and blows us all off the front page). So, until somebody figures out how to measure this, all we've got is theories.
Best regards,
Robert Marks
The big problem here is that, as far as I can tell, we just don't have any way of getting a good, solid measurement of this. If you think about it, if we have been conditioned to react a certain way in combat, the place where this will manifest is, well, in combat. And the average gamer isn't likely to end up there in the worst of times. The people who will end up there are military (who are already trained), police (who have also received training of some sort), and criminals (who, if they're in a gunfight with the police, are likely not stable enough to be a good example). About the only place I can think of where you could measure this is in self defense cases, and we are blessed with a low enough violent crime rate that a sample there might not be representative.
So we've got a hot-button issue without precise figures in the theory, and without a good way of measuring empirically on the practical side - and, since it doesn't extend past how we react in crisis situations, tells us pretty much nothing about how video game violence impacts our daily lives (which is a bigger and possibly more nebulous field, but Michael A. Mohammed has written a far more informed article about that than I could have, and I would strongly recommend that everybody read it before the next Escapist issue arrives and blows us all off the front page). So, until somebody figures out how to measure this, all we've got is theories.
Best regards,
Robert Marks
By the way, everybody, I've been thinking about this, and I really wanted to apologize for my behaviour over pages two and three in this thread. Unfortunately, there are some things that can get a knee-jerk reaction from me, and one of those was hit. As a result, my conduct did fall below the professional standard I try to meet, and I helped to lower, rather than raise, the level of discussion.
I am very sorry about that, and I shan't let it happen again.
Best regards to all,
Robert Marks
I am very sorry about that, and I shan't let it happen again.
Best regards to all,
Robert Marks
Very well written article, and all of it true. I actually remember the factoid about only 15% percent of soldiers firing at the enemy of their own will. Nice to hear this brought into relationship with the topic of video games.
It's also important to realize that it's not just violence that can condition us, but the illusion of realism itself. If I play FPSs a lot, I may eventually feel like I can pick up a rifle and actually DO the things I do in the game (especially if I have a strong imagination). This even if only at a subconscious level. It's important for people to maintain a firm grip on reality and understand that there is a huge difference between taking out targets with an M4 in-game, and picking up an M4 and firing at a human being in real life. If we begin to lose that connection to reality, picking up a gun and shooting people in real life may not seem all that much different.
It's also important to realize that it's not just violence that can condition us, but the illusion of realism itself. If I play FPSs a lot, I may eventually feel like I can pick up a rifle and actually DO the things I do in the game (especially if I have a strong imagination). This even if only at a subconscious level. It's important for people to maintain a firm grip on reality and understand that there is a huge difference between taking out targets with an M4 in-game, and picking up an M4 and firing at a human being in real life. If we begin to lose that connection to reality, picking up a gun and shooting people in real life may not seem all that much different.
Meh, I do airsoft. So if something is teaching me to pull the trigger it's that, though that probably applies to aiming and firing in battle situations. Most people, about 95% (if I recall) don't actually fire to kill the enemy during their first battle situations even when in war (during the goddamn Normandy the number was even higher, 98% or so).
But if person like me, has gotten into the memory and "muscle memory" the action of taking aim and pulling the trigger at a human being (be that only small blastic pellets), I'd figure people with that much experience already are more likely to kill.
That doesn't mean I'm likely to go on rampage though in fact, I'd feel horrible accidentally firing a BB gun at unproperly protected person (nor do I like the idea at firing at birds or squirrels in case I hurt them)... Truth to be told, couple times when it has been unclear whether another guy is in the game or in the enemy team, I've ceased to fire, missing a perfect shot.
So perhaps I wouldn't not be ready made warrior, since actually most guys like to fancy themselves capable of killing in certain situations, despite what the statistics show.
And it's actually that what defeats the idea of "teaching to murder" in games. Mentally balanced and healthy individual isn't prone to kill. Violence might be coded into us, but killing your own species is actually against the nature our genes give us. Good point was, that almost no mammal usually kills it's opponent of same species or won to go as far as fighting physically, as our instincts tell animals as well us only to intimidate and not take any possible fights farther when the other surrenders. Actually gonig as far as killing the other goes against the nature of normal individual.
This makes sense considering the statistics. It's the psychopaths that have no qualms with it, and for rest of us (if we are in our right mind), killing is something that actually requires huge amount of fighting against out own human/animal nature... Even after overcoming that, you won't feel good about it.
So it seems pretty stupid to claim any normal person will become so detentized to violence by games that he becomes a thrill killer. Killing takes heck of a lot more than that.
But if person like me, has gotten into the memory and "muscle memory" the action of taking aim and pulling the trigger at a human being (be that only small blastic pellets), I'd figure people with that much experience already are more likely to kill.
That doesn't mean I'm likely to go on rampage though in fact, I'd feel horrible accidentally firing a BB gun at unproperly protected person (nor do I like the idea at firing at birds or squirrels in case I hurt them)... Truth to be told, couple times when it has been unclear whether another guy is in the game or in the enemy team, I've ceased to fire, missing a perfect shot.
So perhaps I wouldn't not be ready made warrior, since actually most guys like to fancy themselves capable of killing in certain situations, despite what the statistics show.
And it's actually that what defeats the idea of "teaching to murder" in games. Mentally balanced and healthy individual isn't prone to kill. Violence might be coded into us, but killing your own species is actually against the nature our genes give us. Good point was, that almost no mammal usually kills it's opponent of same species or won to go as far as fighting physically, as our instincts tell animals as well us only to intimidate and not take any possible fights farther when the other surrenders. Actually gonig as far as killing the other goes against the nature of normal individual.
This makes sense considering the statistics. It's the psychopaths that have no qualms with it, and for rest of us (if we are in our right mind), killing is something that actually requires huge amount of fighting against out own human/animal nature... Even after overcoming that, you won't feel good about it.
So it seems pretty stupid to claim any normal person will become so detentized to violence by games that he becomes a thrill killer. Killing takes heck of a lot more than that.
One thing that has been bothering me about the article, which Axeli brought into focus for me, was the example of the officer handing a weapon back to a criminal after disarming him, because that was the way he was trained. That is actually a serious problem in any combat training, the muscle memory must be correct. Train the way you will fight, is the way my sensei used to put it. That's what happened in the case of the officer, muscle memory took over. The problem with using that as an example of desensitization and possible hazard from violent video games is, the muscle memories for FPS playing is completely different from any muscle memories you would get from shooting a real gun. There is literally no similarity at all. You are using different movements, in a different posture, with different feedback.
I don't care how much you play FPS, the first time you pull the trigger on a real gun, you are going to be shocked. The sound will be louder than you ever dreamed, the recoil more painful, the posture more uncomfortable. That's why so many people develop flinches right from the start. Firing a weapon, especially for the first time, can be scary as hell. Like Axeli suggests, something like airsoft or paintball is far more dangerous in this context. That's a lot closer to the real thing than any FPS ever made. The muscle memory and the reflexes being trained are at least similar to real shooting. That's not to say I believe there is any real danger with those hobbies either, but at least for them, the argument might make a little sense.
I don't care how much you play FPS, the first time you pull the trigger on a real gun, you are going to be shocked. The sound will be louder than you ever dreamed, the recoil more painful, the posture more uncomfortable. That's why so many people develop flinches right from the start. Firing a weapon, especially for the first time, can be scary as hell. Like Axeli suggests, something like airsoft or paintball is far more dangerous in this context. That's a lot closer to the real thing than any FPS ever made. The muscle memory and the reflexes being trained are at least similar to real shooting. That's not to say I believe there is any real danger with those hobbies either, but at least for them, the argument might make a little sense.
Speaking as someone who owns both a gun and a billion videogames, I doubt it. While the game may tell us that violence is the best problem solver, any sane human being will use killing as an absolute last resort. Besides, using a gun in a videogame is completely unlike using one in real life. In a game, you tap a button with your thumb and the gun is reloaded, back to shooting. In real life, you find cover, hit the "eject clip" button (probably have to pull the thing out yourself, you ARE in a hurry), drop the empty mag, grab a new one off your belt or whatever, put the clip in the gun, pull the slide back, and NOW you can continue shooting. This is all assuming you don't make a single mistake despite the situation being serious enough to merit the use of a gun in the first place.L.B. Jeffries said:
In short, even if video games do teach us to use violence, they aren't teaching us how to go about using it.
Royas and 666th: It is an interesting question here - is it muscle memory, or middle brain training (or are they both one and the same)? There's an example that got cut early on in the pre-final draft stage before I sent it in to the Escapist for their editor to have his go (the first draft was around 2,500 words, the final draft I handed in was around 2,000 words, and the published article was around 1,500 words - that being said, the first draft had a lot of fluff, and the shorter lengths were a great improvement). Basically, it was about calling 911.
There's this old dumb [insert stereotype here] joke that goes "What's the number for 911?" When I was reading up on combat stress, I found out that the joke is actually a reality quite often, and with very smart people. What happens is that somebody gets seriously hurt, the person next to them's body goes into "survival mode" from the stress, the logical brain shuts down, and the mammalian brain doesn't know how to dial 911. So, it's very important to spend a bit of time practicing dialing 911 on a de-activated telephone, just so that you know how to do it. I really hated leaving that part out, particularly since it's advice that could save a life or two. Unfortunately, there was no way to add it back in and still have the paragraphs flow properly.
That being said, I think you're both right that there's no way a violent video game of any sort can teach you how to use a gun. You've got to pick it up and use it. I've heard some rumours that playing first person shooters can increase one's accuracy when shooting once you do know how to fire a gun, but I've never heard of anybody putting it to the test, so that one has to count under the "unverified rumour" category. I've played a few FPS games, and I can barely hit the side of a barn without a properly ranged telescopic sight. Now, I'm no fanatic when it comes to FPSes, so perhaps I didn't get something that a more regular player might have, but my own experiences didn't really support the improved marksmanship idea.
You're absolutely right, Royas, about what firing a gun is like for the very first time. What led me to writing this article was research about my great grandfather, who served in the Imperial Russian cavalry in WW1. I'm trying to write a book reconstructing his experiences, so I was researching how people react under combat stress (hence Grossman's On Combat), and I wanted to know what it was like to fire the sort of rifle my great grandfather would have fired. Happily, one of my military friends has a WW1 Mosin Nagant carbine rifle, and he was kind enough to let me try firing a few shots out of it. Another military friend was kind enough to let me learn how to fire a rifle in the first place with his .22.
For those reading this post who don't know anything about rifles, a .22, from what I understand, has trouble doing any damage after about 150 meters (please don't take my word for that, though). A Mosin Nagant, on the other hand, can blow somebody's head off at 1,500 meters. So, my only previous experience being a .22, my friend with the Nagant warned me that it was going to have a lot of kick, and it was very loud. I lined up the target, and pulled the trigger.
The loudest sound in the universe went off beside my head while at the same time the rifle butt decided that it really wanted to be about three feet behind me, and my shoulder was a minor technicality. My friends were laughing at the look on my face for about five solid minutes. It was actually a bit surprising, though, just how fast I got used to it. By the time we did some tactical shooting (the paper silhouette barbed wire guy had a really bad day, although we had to work to make that happen), it wasn't bad at all.
Really, I think the military conditioning argument can't be extended beyond mindset, and even there, it can't be extended beyond mindset in similar circumstances to the game you're playing. I don't think there's any way you can convincingly argue that it would do anything more than make it more acceptable to your middle brain to pull the trigger on another human being when you're fighting for your life. Anything past that has to be a stretch.
(On a personal note, I really do hope that in the end, some researcher somewhere is able to provide good, solid evidence that the conditioning argument from my article is wrong. Even if it is just conditioning that could only kick in once one is in a life or death crisis, and even if that might also make us mentally harder to victimize, the thought that we have been partially brainwashed by accident is a really horrifying one.)
There's this old dumb [insert stereotype here] joke that goes "What's the number for 911?" When I was reading up on combat stress, I found out that the joke is actually a reality quite often, and with very smart people. What happens is that somebody gets seriously hurt, the person next to them's body goes into "survival mode" from the stress, the logical brain shuts down, and the mammalian brain doesn't know how to dial 911. So, it's very important to spend a bit of time practicing dialing 911 on a de-activated telephone, just so that you know how to do it. I really hated leaving that part out, particularly since it's advice that could save a life or two. Unfortunately, there was no way to add it back in and still have the paragraphs flow properly.
That being said, I think you're both right that there's no way a violent video game of any sort can teach you how to use a gun. You've got to pick it up and use it. I've heard some rumours that playing first person shooters can increase one's accuracy when shooting once you do know how to fire a gun, but I've never heard of anybody putting it to the test, so that one has to count under the "unverified rumour" category. I've played a few FPS games, and I can barely hit the side of a barn without a properly ranged telescopic sight. Now, I'm no fanatic when it comes to FPSes, so perhaps I didn't get something that a more regular player might have, but my own experiences didn't really support the improved marksmanship idea.
You're absolutely right, Royas, about what firing a gun is like for the very first time. What led me to writing this article was research about my great grandfather, who served in the Imperial Russian cavalry in WW1. I'm trying to write a book reconstructing his experiences, so I was researching how people react under combat stress (hence Grossman's On Combat), and I wanted to know what it was like to fire the sort of rifle my great grandfather would have fired. Happily, one of my military friends has a WW1 Mosin Nagant carbine rifle, and he was kind enough to let me try firing a few shots out of it. Another military friend was kind enough to let me learn how to fire a rifle in the first place with his .22.
For those reading this post who don't know anything about rifles, a .22, from what I understand, has trouble doing any damage after about 150 meters (please don't take my word for that, though). A Mosin Nagant, on the other hand, can blow somebody's head off at 1,500 meters. So, my only previous experience being a .22, my friend with the Nagant warned me that it was going to have a lot of kick, and it was very loud. I lined up the target, and pulled the trigger.
The loudest sound in the universe went off beside my head while at the same time the rifle butt decided that it really wanted to be about three feet behind me, and my shoulder was a minor technicality. My friends were laughing at the look on my face for about five solid minutes. It was actually a bit surprising, though, just how fast I got used to it. By the time we did some tactical shooting (the paper silhouette barbed wire guy had a really bad day, although we had to work to make that happen), it wasn't bad at all.
Really, I think the military conditioning argument can't be extended beyond mindset, and even there, it can't be extended beyond mindset in similar circumstances to the game you're playing. I don't think there's any way you can convincingly argue that it would do anything more than make it more acceptable to your middle brain to pull the trigger on another human being when you're fighting for your life. Anything past that has to be a stretch.
(On a personal note, I really do hope that in the end, some researcher somewhere is able to provide good, solid evidence that the conditioning argument from my article is wrong. Even if it is just conditioning that could only kick in once one is in a life or death crisis, and even if that might also make us mentally harder to victimize, the thought that we have been partially brainwashed by accident is a really horrifying one.)
I hate to say it, but the training argument is overreached. It boils down to technology and racism. Principally, the guns in WWI had a much shorter range and it was necessary to wait until you could see the enemy clearly (wait until you can see the whites of their eyes men) before firing to ensure hitting them. These days, rifles are much more accurate and easier to fire at a distance, and at this point, soldiers aren't shooting at a "person" while in combat. The troops are shooting at a silhouette. Secondly, WWII was the last war were American troops were fighting Caucasians. Despite how calloused and cynical this makes me sound, it is much easier to shoot at somebody who doesn't look like you than somebody who does. Every major conflict in the past half decade in American military history has been against Asians, Hispanics, or Middle-Easterners. We aren't fighting against blond-haired blue eyed people any more and that small visual difference helps override the reality of taking another human's life.
Now I'm not trying to defend the desensitization to gore that video games can produce. But I am saying that our culture is just to incredibly large and obtuse for any facet of an medium to have an effect as pervasive as the author of the article can claim. The largest contribution to a child's demeanor is the child's parents. Of course, I could be wrong about all this; I haven't played many psychoanalysis games.
Now I'm not trying to defend the desensitization to gore that video games can produce. But I am saying that our culture is just to incredibly large and obtuse for any facet of an medium to have an effect as pervasive as the author of the article can claim. The largest contribution to a child's demeanor is the child's parents. Of course, I could be wrong about all this; I haven't played many psychoanalysis games.
RockKillsKid: Um, I'm sorry, but that's really not true. First off, the rifles from WW1 were also used in WW2, and many of those could get a kill shot from around 1,000 meters away and up. It was the muskets from the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Wars that required you to wait until you could see the whites of their eyes.
(Trust me on this - my field of research is the First World War, and I've fired both the Russian and German WW1 rifles.)
Second, American military personnel did serve in Bosnia, which was a European war against white guys. A very brutal war at that.
Finally, the racism argument doesn't hold water. From what I can gather, Marshall first started noticing this trend in the Pacific, which was a war against the Japanese. Aside from which, in this day and age, skin colour doesn't mean a whole lot to anybody but white supremecists.
The one place where I would buy the technology argument is in regards to the assault rifle, which does not require you to slide a bolt every time you fire, and is easier to use. That being said, being low on ammunition would have a dampening effect regardless of what gun you have, and Marshall's trend was worrisome enough that he did write a book on it (and considering that his actual work was oral history, this means he went outside of his field to do it). So I think that while the shift to the assault rifle could have an impact here, I don't think that impact goes far enough to explain all of it.
Best regards,
Robert Marks
(Trust me on this - my field of research is the First World War, and I've fired both the Russian and German WW1 rifles.)
Second, American military personnel did serve in Bosnia, which was a European war against white guys. A very brutal war at that.
Finally, the racism argument doesn't hold water. From what I can gather, Marshall first started noticing this trend in the Pacific, which was a war against the Japanese. Aside from which, in this day and age, skin colour doesn't mean a whole lot to anybody but white supremecists.
The one place where I would buy the technology argument is in regards to the assault rifle, which does not require you to slide a bolt every time you fire, and is easier to use. That being said, being low on ammunition would have a dampening effect regardless of what gun you have, and Marshall's trend was worrisome enough that he did write a book on it (and considering that his actual work was oral history, this means he went outside of his field to do it). So I think that while the shift to the assault rifle could have an impact here, I don't think that impact goes far enough to explain all of it.
Best regards,
Robert Marks
RockKillsKid, I'm going to have to disagree with you here. I'm not going to get into the racial issue, that's another discussion that requires it's own thread, or threads. Range, though... WWI rifles had excellent range, similar to what we have in today's hunting rifles. At that stage of the game, combat rifles were still using long barrels and full sized rifle cartridges, as opposed to today's assault rifles which are shorter and use cut down rifle cartridges. Even the rifled muskets of the civil war era were lethal in skilled hands at many hundreds of yards. I shoot a cap and ball rifled musket (I have a cousin who used to make Pennsylvania long rifles) occasionally, and I can consistently hit a head sized target at over 150 yards. That's with minimal experience with that sort of weapon. Even today's lowly .22 is potentially deadly at over a mile (hitting accurately with it at that range isn't really possible, but the actual bullet can still kill at that range).
And Robert, going from a .22 to a Nagant would be a shock to anyone. My first firearm I shot was a 12ga shotgun, and earth shattering doesn't begin to describe the experience. I actually dropped the weapon, which is what my father expected. That's why it was a single barrel shotgun, it's pretty safe to drop after it is discharged. After that, he let me use the .22 to actually learn to shoot. I really don't think that FPS improves your accuracy at all, except in that it would possibly improve eye to hand coordination. I shot competitively for years, and I really don't think anything improves your shooting, except actually shooting.
Muscle memory, reflexes, middle brain... I think we are using different names for the same thing. All I know is that when the fecal matter hits the rotary impeller, your body will do what it's been conditioned to do. That's why anyone who carries a weapon IRL should carry it the same way all the time, and practice drawing and readying the weapon correctly again and again and again... you can't practice your draw often enough. Do it thousands of times and your body will take care of the details while your higher brain tries to get it's stuff together in an attack. Same thing goes for any other motion carried out under stress, like hitting a baseball, driving a car or even just crossing the street.
And Robert, going from a .22 to a Nagant would be a shock to anyone. My first firearm I shot was a 12ga shotgun, and earth shattering doesn't begin to describe the experience. I actually dropped the weapon, which is what my father expected. That's why it was a single barrel shotgun, it's pretty safe to drop after it is discharged. After that, he let me use the .22 to actually learn to shoot. I really don't think that FPS improves your accuracy at all, except in that it would possibly improve eye to hand coordination. I shot competitively for years, and I really don't think anything improves your shooting, except actually shooting.
Muscle memory, reflexes, middle brain... I think we are using different names for the same thing. All I know is that when the fecal matter hits the rotary impeller, your body will do what it's been conditioned to do. That's why anyone who carries a weapon IRL should carry it the same way all the time, and practice drawing and readying the weapon correctly again and again and again... you can't practice your draw often enough. Do it thousands of times and your body will take care of the details while your higher brain tries to get it's stuff together in an attack. Same thing goes for any other motion carried out under stress, like hitting a baseball, driving a car or even just crossing the street.
For those who are interested, I've printed the "director's cut" of this article under its original name on my Livejournal (http://garwulf.livejournal.com/ ) - the link is http://garwulf.livejournal.com/38455.html
Among other things, there is a thought on the implications of this issue that was left out of the Escapist version, and the words "killer" and "murderer" are no longer used interchangeably (unfortunately, that is something that originally came up in the editing process, and I was too busy to catch it before it was published - mea culpa).
Please don't get me wrong - the Escapist version was very good, and I am quite proud of it. But, this "director's cut" version offers a couple of new things, and a slightly different focus - I think (and hope) it makes for interesting additional reading.
I hope everybody enjoys it.
Among other things, there is a thought on the implications of this issue that was left out of the Escapist version, and the words "killer" and "murderer" are no longer used interchangeably (unfortunately, that is something that originally came up in the editing process, and I was too busy to catch it before it was published - mea culpa).
Please don't get me wrong - the Escapist version was very good, and I am quite proud of it. But, this "director's cut" version offers a couple of new things, and a slightly different focus - I think (and hope) it makes for interesting additional reading.
I hope everybody enjoys it.
Interesting article, and very well balanced.
I'm not sure if this was pointed out or not, but while the player can pretty much blast away to their heart's content in Modern Warfare 2- there is one particular mission where shooting civilians is penalised and loses you the mission.
As infuriating as it was at the time (the enemy combatants are not wearing uniforms), this article makes me rather grateful for it.
I'm not sure if this was pointed out or not, but while the player can pretty much blast away to their heart's content in Modern Warfare 2- there is one particular mission where shooting civilians is penalised and loses you the mission.
As infuriating as it was at the time (the enemy combatants are not wearing uniforms), this article makes me rather grateful for it.
