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Dave Grossman: First-Person Shooter Videogames Should be Banned
January 4 | Katechon

Posted on 01/04/2013 5:43:51 PM PST by Katechon

Dave Grossman

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.

first person shooters

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.

bullseyes

Image 1602

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.

turn the tv off


TOPICS: Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: banglist; massacres; newtown; sandyhook; shooting; vanity; videogames; violence
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To: JRandomFreeper

I do. From the North of Thailand to the Mountains of British Columbia.

why?


61 posted on 01/04/2013 6:21:20 PM PST by Katechon
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To: Katechon
So what do you suggest?

I suggest the government leave me and mine the hell alone, and the rest of gun-owning America, before they start a civil war and cause hundreds of thousands to die.

What about the FACT that those FPS videogames function as MASS-MURDER TRAINING, simulator, rewiring the brain to over-come our native resistance to kill our own species?

We NEED to kill some of our own species! If a man comes after me or my family with a gun or weapon with the intent to harm, I WILL kill him! And I have a God-given right to do so.

People like you need to get real. Banning video games is not going to stop violent criminals. APPLIED VIOLENCE will stop them. If you've never been threatened with real violence, you have NO IDEA what I'm talking about.

62 posted on 01/04/2013 6:21:42 PM PST by backwoods-engineer ("Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the gov officials committing it." -- K. Hoffmann)
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To: Norm Lenhart
Yeah. First thing a male lion does when taking over a pride is to kill all the cubs that aren't his.

This bozo has no clue, and just wants to curb American freedoms.

/johnny

63 posted on 01/04/2013 6:21:51 PM PST by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Mr. Silverback

No they are not rare

He’s not talking only about massacres in gun-free zones — such as schools.

But also the insane violence among kids in many cities and suburbs — especially black areas: about 30 young black men die everyday by way of violence, amid the drug gangs, serving their druglords.

That’s why Grossman says: GANGS ARE THE FUTURE.


64 posted on 01/04/2013 6:24:37 PM PST by Katechon
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To: Katechon
Because you've never observed nature. Intraspecies killing is common.

Male lions taking over a pride will kill lion cubs that aren't theirs. Male squirrels will kill other male squirrels over territory. Mother hampsters eat their babies.

Life ain't a frigging Disney movie.

/johnny

65 posted on 01/04/2013 6:25:54 PM PST by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Katechon
BTW, your reference to operant conditioning techniques used to train soldiers to shoot tyrannical agressors in combat in Korea and Vietnam as "murder simulators"...

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.

...is vomit-inducing and you should be ashamed. My friends who fought in Korea and Vietnam were not murderers, they were soldiers and Marines.

66 posted on 01/04/2013 6:26:23 PM PST by Mr. Silverback (Don't worry about the cliff. We're going to all land on some rich guy's wallet.)
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To: Katechon
but about a trans-individual phenomenon.

And RIGHT THERE is the whole problem with our country right now. Justice properly deals with INDIVIDUALS not groups. Because groups don't have morality; individuals so. In any group that does evil, some are going to be the leaders, some are the followers, and some are just hangers-on who are there because they had nothing else to do. Each must be judged individually because only then JUSTICE be done.

Group "rights", group "justice", group "entitlements", that is the whole reason America is screwed. Our country was founded on the INDIVIDUAL and his choices, not the group.

Whenever anything is "banned" because of what a few persons does, a group is being judged because of an individual. And that in itself is unjust.

67 posted on 01/04/2013 6:27:04 PM PST by backwoods-engineer ("Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the gov officials committing it." -- K. Hoffmann)
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To: eclecticEel

Excellent point.


68 posted on 01/04/2013 6:27:34 PM PST by Mr. Silverback (Don't worry about the cliff. We're going to all land on some rich guy's wallet.)
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To: Katechon

idiocy. They are just games.


69 posted on 01/04/2013 6:28:00 PM PST by RIghtwardHo
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To: Katechon
What about the FACT that those FPS videogames function as MASS-MURDER TRAINING, simulator, rewiring the brain to over-come our native resistance to kill our own species?

What about the "FACT" that the first remotely realistic-looking FPS games were Castle Wolfenstein in 1992, and Doom in 1993?

Yet 1992-1993 is PRECISELY when the high murder rates of the late 70s through the 80s began steeply DROPPING?

Shouldn't the reverse have happened?

70 posted on 01/04/2013 6:28:31 PM PST by Strategerist
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To: JRandomFreeper

HA! The lion was my first thought as well ;)

And we know the Shark is very compassionate to his species. Any feeding frenzy proves that.

And rats are just little black balls of love to other rats.

Consider the most peaceful of all Gods creatures. The Wolverine...Never known to kill ANYTHING, let alone another one in a territory dispute.

Every day more libs infest FR Johnny. It’s getting closer to quittin’ time.


71 posted on 01/04/2013 6:28:42 PM PST by Norm Lenhart
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To: Katechon
Define massacre. How many killed at one time, in one place, and state a boundry on time allowed for your definition of massacre.

/johnny

72 posted on 01/04/2013 6:28:42 PM PST by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Bryanw92

Make sure those cots don’t have pillows. I bet they’re dangerous somehow.


73 posted on 01/04/2013 6:28:52 PM PST by Mr. Silverback (Don't worry about the cliff. We're going to all land on some rich guy's wallet.)
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To: backwoods-engineer

Listen, I am not Dave Grossman. I am playing his advocate here in order to discuss his thesis.

I fully agree on killing in the name of overthrowing a tyranny — it is OUR DUTY to resist and counter-revolutionize a tyranny — and in the name of self-defense.

Second, those FPS games are military techniques applied to transform a normal being into a brainless killer, a sociopath. That’s the issue here.

The cultural, behavorial production of SOCIOPATHS. It has NOTHING to do with self-defense and the duty to overthrow a tyranny.


74 posted on 01/04/2013 6:28:52 PM PST by Katechon
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To: Katechon
Second, those FPS games are military techniques applied to transform a normal being into a brainless killer, a sociopath. That’s the issue here.

Prove that. You made a flat statement. Prove it.

There are tens of millions in the US that play FPS games that AREN'T brainless killers and sociopaths.

/johnny

75 posted on 01/04/2013 6:31:54 PM PST by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Strategerist

There are many explanations:

— the murder rate dropped because of the legalization of abortion (which I am not an advocate of): 20 years laters, all the father-less unwanted babies by evil mothers were not there to kill.

— the progress of medecine: many things that were lethal decades ago can be cured now.


76 posted on 01/04/2013 6:32:33 PM PST by Katechon
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To: Katechon

You need to look up Category Error. Cuz you HaZ it.


77 posted on 01/04/2013 6:32:33 PM PST by Norm Lenhart
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To: RIghtwardHo
idiocy. They are just games.

A wholly separate issue is that it would be completely impossible to ban FPS games (just as it would be impossible to ban internet porn), and after a "ban" kids would be playing them just as much.

You could get rid of the console games - but FPS shooters would just move back to PCs, and kids would just be downloading and sharing over the internet even bloodier games written or modded by hackers from Russia, etc.

78 posted on 01/04/2013 6:33:08 PM PST by Strategerist
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To: Katechon
Ban those calling for bans.

I'm almost 35 years old. My video game collection 20 years ago - same age as these shooters - had Wolfenstein and then Doom. Later Duke Nukem 3d, Quake, and Tom Clancy. I don't play a lot of games anymore, but I have Mass Effect there as well - another shooter.

I own plenty of guns as well. I have never drawn my gun on another person.

79 posted on 01/04/2013 6:33:44 PM PST by Darren McCarty (If most people were more than keyboard warriors, we might have won the election)
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To: JRandomFreeper

He didn’t touch it in Post 38. Doubt he will here either.


80 posted on 01/04/2013 6:34:17 PM PST by Norm Lenhart
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