Army Reports Success Luring Recruits With Videogames
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
I don't know, if kids as young as 13 went there, imagine the amount of influence the recruiters could've had over their future aspirations.WrongSprite said:
If it worked, then I feel a more than a little sickened. It's almost like some sick satire, except nothing's funny here. If they genuinely had success, then a load of kids are gonna go marching off to war thinking that they're gonna just walk in, shoot a load of bad guys, and come home a hero, when alot of them aren't gonna come home at all, and those who do will be traumatized by the fact that shooting someone isn't as much fun when you know you just ended another human's real life.
I'm not against the military (not even the American one), but I don't think luring 13 year old kids is a fair recruitment practice. And the fact that it worked shows how impressionable some people are. And besides, hasn't anybody seen the adverts on some other gaming sites? Some say things like "Want to do it for real?" or similar. If it didn't work they wouldn't do it.
To reiterate, I'm not against people joining the military, but I don't approve of such unfair recruitment practices.
To reiterate, I'm not against people joining the military, but I don't approve of such unfair recruitment practices.
Recruiters have, since the job title was created and probably even earlier, used all kinds of nasty tricks to con people into joining the military. In this country there's supposedly limits to what they can say, though they often go beyond them (and is the military really going to go out of its way to punish them for doing so, with low recruitment and complete authority?). I've known people in the military who were flat out lied-to by their recruiters, but once you join there's nothing you can do, and unless some local new channel busts the recruiter and the bad PR outweighs the benefit of keeping the lying recruiter on board, things will continue.
But the nice thing about video games like this is that they allow the military to lie without saying anything. Those video games are lies. Even the most graphic and visceral game is nothing like real war--obviously, since nobody would ever want to be in a real war for entertainment purposes. In a war game you're never at risk, never in pain, never have to go through the brutal physical psychological conditioning, never have to spend months doing absolutely nothing in a blazing hot desert, never covered in gore that you have to smell for the entire rest of the day, etc.
We all know this on an intellectual level. We all know war is hell. But we don't really KNOW that, in the sense that we don't realize just how terrible life can be, unless we've actually experienced it. And if you start kids playing these games at age 13, they will have far more experience with the fun video game version of war than with anything even approximating real war. If you have 5 years of fun associated with the military, and occasional crap from your parents about how "it's not really like that, and you don't understand war for real," which do you think is going to have the greater influence on your perception of things? And then, when they're 17, the military will offer them a sweet deal--good pay, benefits, money for college, etc. And they will have to make that decision at a very stupid time in their life with a grossly distorted view of the world.
For some people, the military works out wonderfully. They get their lives sorted out, they do something that they can feel proud about, and they get opportunities that they never would have had anywhere else. But going to war can really screw a person up. It is a hell that someone endures so that those back home don't have to, and in that sense it is a very noble sacrifice that so many have made. Soldiers deserve to know the truth about what they're going to be asked to do. By offering free war-themed video games, the military is trying to, to at least some degree, trick kids into thinking that going to war is somehow FUN. They are endorsing a fantasy version of the military. And they're paying for it with tax money!
I understand that military recruitment is down, and that there is a lot of pressure to get new people in there to fight the wars. But I think this is misleading and unethical. It should not be allowed. Unless we are in a situation where the entire country is at risk of invasion, if you cannot get enough people to freely volunteer, knowing the risks and knowing the truth, then you have no business fighting the war. Period.
But the nice thing about video games like this is that they allow the military to lie without saying anything. Those video games are lies. Even the most graphic and visceral game is nothing like real war--obviously, since nobody would ever want to be in a real war for entertainment purposes. In a war game you're never at risk, never in pain, never have to go through the brutal physical psychological conditioning, never have to spend months doing absolutely nothing in a blazing hot desert, never covered in gore that you have to smell for the entire rest of the day, etc.
We all know this on an intellectual level. We all know war is hell. But we don't really KNOW that, in the sense that we don't realize just how terrible life can be, unless we've actually experienced it. And if you start kids playing these games at age 13, they will have far more experience with the fun video game version of war than with anything even approximating real war. If you have 5 years of fun associated with the military, and occasional crap from your parents about how "it's not really like that, and you don't understand war for real," which do you think is going to have the greater influence on your perception of things? And then, when they're 17, the military will offer them a sweet deal--good pay, benefits, money for college, etc. And they will have to make that decision at a very stupid time in their life with a grossly distorted view of the world.
For some people, the military works out wonderfully. They get their lives sorted out, they do something that they can feel proud about, and they get opportunities that they never would have had anywhere else. But going to war can really screw a person up. It is a hell that someone endures so that those back home don't have to, and in that sense it is a very noble sacrifice that so many have made. Soldiers deserve to know the truth about what they're going to be asked to do. By offering free war-themed video games, the military is trying to, to at least some degree, trick kids into thinking that going to war is somehow FUN. They are endorsing a fantasy version of the military. And they're paying for it with tax money!
I understand that military recruitment is down, and that there is a lot of pressure to get new people in there to fight the wars. But I think this is misleading and unethical. It should not be allowed. Unless we are in a situation where the entire country is at risk of invasion, if you cannot get enough people to freely volunteer, knowing the risks and knowing the truth, then you have no business fighting the war. Period.
I can see why people are upset cuz it could lure stupid kids into thinking war is like a videogame but, anybody with more than 5 braincells can go play a stupid game and go home. No ones forcing them to sign up. Jeez, the armys desperate
JaredXE said:
Firstly, almost nobody really understands that they can die at any time, least of all teenagers. That's why the military likes to recruit them in the first place. You don't really develop the concept of mortality until quite a bit later in life. And almost no 17 year old American kids have any concept of what it means to sign a contract that voids many of your rights and binds you to service for at least 8 years. I came very close to joining the Navy when I was 17. If I had, I would just been finishing up last year. More has happened in that time than I could have possibly imagined, and while I can never know for sure whether I would have had a better experience by joining the Navy or not, the point is that I had no idea at the time I would have had to make that decision. A few might be mature enough to fully comprehend the decision, but most of the people I know in the military have told me that it was nothing like they were told.
Secondly, it is very unsettling that you almost seem to say that, because they risk dying themselves, we LET people in the military kill people legally. I hope you don't think that's some sort of reward? Killing another human being is one of the more traumatizing things a person can do. I pray that I am never forced to kill someone, and am grateful that soldiers have volunteered to take that terrible task upon themselves.
Finally, I cannot fathom somebody actually wanting someone else to die, someone who hasn't done anything to hurt you and someone who is actually risking their life to protect you. If a person signed up for the military because they thought it would be like a video game, it is a terrible tragedy that someone's perspective on the world could be so skewed. I don't think it's a mark of genetic inferiority! What does having a screwed up world view have to do with your genes? Even the smartest person in the world will think that everyone is rich and happy if the only people they ever see are rich and happy. This is without a doubt one of the stranger times I've seen the eugenics argument used!
I'm not against the concept of having a military or even joining one in general. Too bad there's almost no need for war. Very little of any current-day war is heroics. The war raging on in the Middle East is fueled by money and oil, not by the government wanting to go in and clean house and make everything shiny again. I do not want to go abroad and end the lives of others so people can make money while sitting in spinny chairs made of leather and cheating on their spouses.
At the end of Of Mice and Men (spoiler alert but we all had to read it anyway and I refuse to use spoiler tags), George kills Lennie. Bam, right in the back of the head, and it's not out of stress over trying to take care of a retarded oaf. It's a sacrifice. Unless you are viciously intent on killing someone, doing so is a gigantic sacrifice of yourself. The war right now is full of this sort of sacrifice, but it's for little to no good reason.
Yes, the military is in fact trying to lure kids into service with video games. There is no doubt about that in my mind. The less informed you are, the more likely you are to believe that war is like an egoshooter. Even in you are dim, you probably can compromise the vision a bit in your brain about how you will probably actually die, but I definitely know people who are going to sign up to become a cog in the machine without taking into consideration all of the horrors, thinking more about the slim chance that they will emerge from a pile of dead bodies with some sort of plot-continuing MacGuffin and become a hero just like that. They aren't thinking, "Maybe this is all just for making rich people richer and stupid people less alive."
If the military's recruitment agenda was trying to be truthful, a more realistic approach would be to try to recruit kids with games like Silent Hill or Penumbra, because it's a world of horror out there. I'm certainly not joining the military in order to face horrors with little to no moral compensation.
At the end of Of Mice and Men (spoiler alert but we all had to read it anyway and I refuse to use spoiler tags), George kills Lennie. Bam, right in the back of the head, and it's not out of stress over trying to take care of a retarded oaf. It's a sacrifice. Unless you are viciously intent on killing someone, doing so is a gigantic sacrifice of yourself. The war right now is full of this sort of sacrifice, but it's for little to no good reason.
Yes, the military is in fact trying to lure kids into service with video games. There is no doubt about that in my mind. The less informed you are, the more likely you are to believe that war is like an egoshooter. Even in you are dim, you probably can compromise the vision a bit in your brain about how you will probably actually die, but I definitely know people who are going to sign up to become a cog in the machine without taking into consideration all of the horrors, thinking more about the slim chance that they will emerge from a pile of dead bodies with some sort of plot-continuing MacGuffin and become a hero just like that. They aren't thinking, "Maybe this is all just for making rich people richer and stupid people less alive."
If the military's recruitment agenda was trying to be truthful, a more realistic approach would be to try to recruit kids with games like Silent Hill or Penumbra, because it's a world of horror out there. I'm certainly not joining the military in order to face horrors with little to no moral compensation.
I think he means he doesn't want that sort of idiot to have kids because then that idiot will be raising those kids to probably believe the same thing.Helmutye said:
1. Protesters worry to damn much
2. At least the Army is getting smarter with attracting potential recruits
3. Its not tricking them if they actually think that's what combat is like
4. Holy shit the US army is getting smarter?
2. At least the Army is getting smarter with attracting potential recruits
3. Its not tricking them if they actually think that's what combat is like
4. Holy shit the US army is getting smarter?
Nor do you get regenerating health, pick up ammo by walking over it, able to sprint while hauling around two Machine guns, air-support after getting a set number of kills, or any of the other things out into Call of Duty to make the games fun. War is not a game. I have no problem with war games, but trying to sell real war like that is just wrong.enzilewulf said:
You know, I hear some people saying that the army was just trying to get kids inside so they could lay their recruitment rap on them. But I'll bring up the last point of the article -- the fact that they only used war themed games is suspect. Just think of how many people ran out and bought a guitar (or conversely stole their father's) after playing Guitar Hero for a few weeks. When you present a bunch of impressionable teenagers with a glamorous, idealized world with which they are relatively unfamiliar and subsequently tell them, for all intents and purposes, "you can do it too!", they tend to get a little ahead of themselves. I'm speaking from experience here.
Now, I'm not saying I think the army would be so underhanded as to idealize their role in society or in any way use propaganda techniques such that potential recruits must respond more emotionally than rationally [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlzdZqSVbJ4], but I'm saying that if it was me who was doing that, this would be something I'd do.
Now, I'm not saying I think the army would be so underhanded as to idealize their role in society or in any way use propaganda techniques such that potential recruits must respond more emotionally than rationally [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlzdZqSVbJ4], but I'm saying that if it was me who was doing that, this would be something I'd do.
I have a buddy in the army. And yes hes a gamer, but hes never cited video games as a motivation. In fact video games have less of an effect on him since he joined. He just plays them for fun, and doesn't get frustrated with them anymore.
i guess that is true, and my area of the country we are known for having a shit ton of different restaraunts and fast food place..(oddly enough we are not that fat of a place, you see a fat person for every 10-12 skinny people) so my choices are a bit varied but i tend to get most of the same things from the same places unless im feeling generous to myself..so yeah i guess i see your point, i took it a bit too literal when i first read itJumplion said:
