Dave Grossman: First-Person Shooter Videogames Should be Banned

January 4 | Katechon

[Katechon]

The first juvenile mass-murder happened for the FIRST TIME in recorded human history in the late 1970s, in California. In 500 years of gun-powder combat, not once had a juvenile committed multiple homicide. We had a couple in the 1980s, and now it's out of control. So what happened?

It's Pavlog Dog, said Lt. Col. Lt. Col. Grossman: our youth is being conditioned from childhood by videogames to be "First-Person Shooters, (FPS) and to associate killing, human death and suffering with reward and pleasure.

Videogames are not "games"; they are mass-murder simulators, Grossman says.

Our kids are being wired from childhood by hyper-violent and realistic video games to be brainless killers, precognitively loaded to be potential murderers. And if videogames are training them to be killers, the movies and many TV shows are the propaganda machines of the gang-bangers.

In videogames, kids are being rewarded to kill, but without any of the benefits coming from the disciplinary training of the Army. And this rewarding response to killing another (virtual) human being deactivates our innate resistance to murdering.

Everyone is born with a deep resistance to killing any member of one’s own species; and this resistance is a key factor in combat.

Most participants in close combat are “frightened out of their wits,” says Grossman. But proper operant conditioning reliably influences the midbrain processing of a frightened human being.

Fire drills condition terrified school children to respond properly during a fire. Conditioning in flight simulators enables frightened pilots to respond reflexively to emergency situations.

Once the bullets start flying, combattants stop thinking with the forebrain (cerebrum) and start thinking with the primitive midbrain. The limbic system and the hypotalamus are in action while killing; whilst the rational brain is deactivated. But even the midbrain processing powerfully resists to the killing of one’s own species; it's a survival mechanism preventing a species from destroying itself.

To overcome this innate resistance to killing other human beings, the military and law enforcement communities have developped operantly conditioned devices using killing simulators in training. Turning killing into a conditionned response.

By the middle of the XXth century, the Human Resources Research Office (HumRRO) of the US Army pioneered a revolution in combat training. This paradigmatic shift would lead warriors firing at bullseye targets to warriors firing at man-shaped pop-up targets that fall when hit.

Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall observed that only 15 to 20 percent of the individual riflemen in World War II fired their weapons at an exposed enemy soldier. When left to their own devices, 80 percent of the combatants appear to have been unable or unwilling to kill.

But murder simulators produced a dramatic increase in participation in killing. More effective tactical and mechanical mechanisms were developped to enable or force combatants to overcome their resistance to killing.

The application and perfection of conditioning techniques increased the rate of fire to approximately 55 percent in Korea and around 95 percent in Vietnam, says Grossman.

The military’s marksmanship training program, with its pop-up targets, constitutes an highly effective operant conditioning.

Military behaviorists found out how to overcome our innate resistance to murder; they brought way up the percentage of killers among the platoons by incorporating reactive training with humanoid pop-up silhouettes.

Now the video industry has kids playing video games for hours at a time, blasting away at humanoid targets which explode in blood and gore when you shoot them.

In First-Person Shooter videogames, you pull the trigger and the human explodes in high-def blood and gore in front of you. And you do it again and again and again, while eating chips, drinking pop and smelling your girlfriend's perfume. This reconditions the kids to be ready to pull any actual trigger on any living human. Those videogames should be BANNED, restricted to military and law enforcement training.

[Katechon]

“Your contention is that animals don’t want to kill each other naturally. You said that. “

No, the discussion was about the existence or not of a natural resistance among the members of one’s species to kill another.

There is, according to Grossman:

“In conflict situations this primitive, midbrain processing can be observed in the existence of a powerful resistance to killing one’s own kind. Animals with antlers and horns slam together in a relatively harmless head-to-head fashion, and piranha fight their own kind with flicks of the tail, but against any other species these creatures unleash their horns and teeth without restraint. This is an ESSENTIAL SURVIVAL MECHANISM which prevents a species from destroying itself during territorial and mating rituals.”

[tang-soo]

For what it's worth, you've likely heard this story On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs. It was written by the same Dave Grossman.

By LTC (RET) Dave Grossman, author of "On Killing."

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always,even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997

One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:

"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.

"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed

Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.

But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."

Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.

Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero?

Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.

There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.

Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs.

Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents. -- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke

Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.

If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

For example, many officers carry their weapons in church.? They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs.? Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones.

I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break, one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down fourteen people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw himself on the boy's body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?"

Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.

Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"

It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up.

Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth.

Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling."

Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level.

And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself...

"Baa."

This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth.

[Repeat Offender]

I’ve said many rabbis hold Cain to be the son of satan; I did not say it was written in the Bible. What is wrong with you?

Nothing. You made a statement of "fact" that humans were programmed not to kill one another. I stated from Scripture this wasn't true.

Trying to refute Scripture by using "some rabbis" hold beliefs in something and then backing away from it when called out is about as effective as saying a genie came out of a lamp and said blah blah blah. I can't prove a negative. I can't prove it didn't happen........but I can show you where it would be inaccurate by Scripture and therefore worthless to your argument.

You built a strawman based on "some rabbis." I showed again where it was Scripturally wrong. "Some rabbis" and strawmen will not help you win this debate.

[JRandomFreeper]

“In conflict situations this primitive, midbrain processing can be observed in the existence of a powerful resistance to killing one’s own kind.

Grossman is flat-out wrong.

First thing a male lion does when taking over a pride is kill the lion cubs. Because he didn't father them.

Every single time.

It's documented.

I've watched squirrels kill other squirrels.

He's just frigging wrong.

/johnny

[Katechon]

“Tin and yarn are of little recompense for human life. Killing for the sake of being “honored” in the name of parades, medals, and “honour” would be no different than killing in the name of “high score” on a video game. Do not seek reward amongst men.”

I gotcha. Hounours and parades and medals are of secondary importance in contrast to the protection of country. My point was that a military knows why he’s killing during war: to protect God and country. The honours are part of a rituals aimed at reintegrating the warriors within civil society: to thank them, to reiterate that they did GOOD, even though they killed. Grossman says this part is very important, so that the warriors don’t feel guilty or bad about having killed.

Regarding the “ ‘reward and pleasure’ in avenging the death of a comrade.” Is it not secondary? Isn’t the application of Justice the primary force in play here? I don’t know, I’m asking.

[Norm Lenhart]

And sharks. With frikkin’ lazer beams on their foreheads....;)

I admire your patience in dealing with the mentally disabled Johnny.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

We have a toxic culture - no question about it. Realizing it is easy. What to do about it is hard.

[Katechon]

“If a video game corrupts one to kill, then it isn’t that hard to believe killing will corrupt one to kill more.”

Again, it’s about the lack of responsibility, of dealing with the consequences. When someone murders in real life (ain’t the same as killing, as you know), there are potentially very grave consequences in real life. Not so in the FPS videogames, quite the opposite in fact; there are rewards.

[11Bush]

Sir,

I have not bothered to login for months, but that is the best post I have seen in a coons age.

Thank you.

[Katechon]

Ok, let’s assume it’s wrong.

What about the Ten Commandments, and all the cultural conditionning against murdering then?

Grossman’s point would still stand: FPS deactivate the resistance to killings one human that has been informed since the Ten Commandments (at the very least) and in other codes as well (such as hummurabi’s).

[Norm Lenhart]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_5blaQLJWg

Must be a hollywood SFX movie. We were assured this does not happen.

Ol’ Jaques will be shocked to learn that Sharks have a natural resistance to killing their own kind. Like Lions.

[JRandomFreeper]

Animals with antlers and horns slam together in a relatively harmless head-to-head fashion,

I just saw that. Next time you are in Canada, ask if anyone has seen moose horns attached to skeletons, locked in battle to the death. I've seen those when I was in Alaska.

And bovine bulls? I had to take one to slaughter because the crazy angus broke his hip when the 3 of them were slugging it out. I shared a pasture with 3 bulls for about a year. Then there were 2.

Your Disney view of the world doesn't work.

Not for mammals, not for birds (watch chickens, sometime, for a year or two), not fish, certainly not for reptiles.

/johnny

[Katechon]

Thanks tang-soo. I fear however you are being a bit harsh on the sheeps (abject?). Sheeps are sheeps; and some of them are awesome as sheeps.

“I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin’s egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. “
— D. G.

[Katechon]

I never “tried” “to refute Scripture.”

I was just quoting rabbis saying Cain was the son of satan. I never argued it was true. It was not the point nor the context; the context was the reality of evil in this world.

[JRandomFreeper]

FPS deactivate the resistance to killings one human that has been informed since the Ten Commandments

FPS can't de-activate something that was never activated.

Communists have pushed to keep the Ten Commandments away from people that turn into mass murderers. They reap what they sow.

If they aren't being taught the 10 commandments, there's nothing there to de-activate.

Very bad logic and form. You lose face.

/johnny

[Katechon]

Again, those are not ‘my’ “views,” but Grossman’s.

[Katechon]

Come on. I know the socialists throw God away, as do the muslims.

But that does not mean there are powerful cultural forces that inhibits us to kill other humans.

[Katechon]

does not mean there are no* powerful cultural forces that inhibits us to kill other humans — there are: such as the Ten Commandments. Among other codes.

[Katechon]

Grossman was refering to our midbrain, hence to MAMMALIEN. Are sharks mammalien? No. So your point is moot.

[JRandomFreeper]

Again, those are not ‘my’ “views,” but Grossman’s.

Then why do you attempt to support them? Once again. I must say, you lose face.

/johnny