Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

US Military Builds MMO Earth Simulator

Posted by michael on from the one-is-not-enough dept.

transient writes "BBC reports that the US military is creating a second Earth with help from There. At the moment, only Kuwait City has been modeled, but the ultimate goal is to model the entire Earth using existing terrain data and a super-accurate physics model. While combat will be part of the game, 'the emphasis in the artificial Earth will be on human interaction rather than conflicts involving lots of military hardware.'"

63 of 525 comments (clear)

  1. Choose your weapon... by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Which do you think will win the War on Terror--guns or minds?

    It makes sense that they'd do this. After all, there have to be a few people at the Pentagon who understand that you can't make people stop hating you at gunpoint, and that they'd do well to have a simulator that allows them to get a feel for the social environments where terrorist organizations have the best luck in recruiting. The more they understand the role society plays in terrorism, the better they'll be able to counteract it.

    Break recruitment, and you're dealing with a handful of international criminals rather than a terrorist network.

    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

    1. Re:Choose your weapon... by segment · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The more they understand the role society plays in terrorism, the better they'll be able to counteract it Firstly my two cents... You have Santa who controls the presents delivered around the world for millions of kids, and then ... Osama who controls the world's terrorists? Give me a break.

      You're forgetting that it would not be in the military's best interest to live in a Utopia because the world would not need armed forces. Aside from that, when it comes to the US military, put your filtered Americanized book down and learn the truth for once. If you look at the majority of conflicts in this world, you would know the US played a major role through clandestine actions. Take the cold war for example. The United States engaged Russia to implode. Certainly their researchers had to have known about the nuclear factor that would come out of it concerning a splinter of countries with nukes. It would be moronic to think the collapse of the Soviet Union would make their arms disappear. So what do we have now, nukes on the black market. Irrelevant here, but you should know the role of the MIC (mil. ind, complex) a bit better from an outside perspective before you believe that the army is doing this in order for all of us to sing "I'd like to teach the world to sing...".

      The ambitious project aims to help the US Army plan future conflicts which are unlikely to involve set-piece battles and instead be smaller in scale. Translation, lets simulate different combat scenarios here, so we'll know how to fight/kill (INSERT YOUR TERM HERE), when the time is appropriate.

      --
      MoFscker
    2. Re:Choose your weapon... by BillFarber · · Score: 5, Flamebait
      As somebody who has worked in the Pentagon and with the policy makers (though not one myself), here is a big FUCK YOU to you and your total lack of knowledge as well as to the mods who gave you an insightful. I was in that building during the Clinton admin and the current Bush admin, and it is FULL of people doing their absolute best to protect you and the United States no matter who is in the White House. You may disagree with the admin, or the way the people in the Pentagon do things, but 99% have the best interests of the U.S. in mind.

      How dare you sit at your keyboard and accuse them of being "shadow employees of weapons dealers".

      I say again, FUCK YOU

    3. Re:Choose your weapon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
      you can't make people stop hating you at gunpoint

      Like hell you can't - it's all too easy to make someone stop hating you at gunpoint. Just pull the trigger. It ain't pretty, it ain't nice, it's hard to do thoroughly, but it works despite protests over its obvious brutality.

      And remember that Osama bin Laden comes from a family of billionaires, and Mohammed Atta's father is a millionaire.

      "Violence never settles anything" is such a dumbass, incorrect cliche. Ask the ancient Carthaginians if violence ever settled anything. But only ask after the Romans are through destroying their city, salting the earth, and putting the entire population into slavery. That "violence" sure settled that the Europe and the Mediterranean basin area would evolve from Latin roots instead of Phoenician ones.

      Ask the six million Jews that Hitler gassed if violence ever settled anything. They're dead. That's pretty damn settled, now isn't it?

      If "violence never settled anything", people wouldn't use it!!!!. And it sure as shit get used all the damn time.

      Hiding from the real world because you don't like it isn't going to make it better.

    4. Re:Choose your weapon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If they can't understand the real people, what makes you think the programmers are going to understand them well enough to recreate them?

    5. Re:Choose your weapon... by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Awww, c'mon. What of the sudden rash of Chechen suicide widows? Y'know, the wives of the guys who had their brains splattered all over the place by the Russians. They should've killed them at the time, too.

      ...and the children, as too many of them would grow up and want to do nothing more than avenge their parents' deaths...

      And the brothers and sisters...

      And the best man from their wedding...

      And their drinking buddies...

      Hold up a sec--you're gonna need another clip or two.

      --

      Obliteracy: Words with explosions

    6. Re:Choose your weapon... by dave420-2 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Any idiot can kill someone - it takes brains and dedication to talk someone over.

      If the US is fighting for democracy and justice, it has to play by the rules, otherwise its demonstrating a massive love for hypocrisy. Killing people because some people were killed is only going to make things worse. By your logic, there would be peace in the middle east by now.

      Just because it's easy, doesn't make it right. Your argument is very immature, and short-sighted.

      This "war on terrorism" is more than people fighting people, but ideas fighting ideas. You can't shoot an idea.

    7. Re:Choose your weapon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > you can't make people stop hating you at gunpoint

      Like hell you can't - it's all too easy to make someone stop hating you at gunpoint. Just pull the trigger. It ain't pretty, it ain't nice, it's hard to do thoroughly, but it works despite protests over its obvious brutality.

      Different issue. You can stop someone hating you by killing them, but for every person you kill, more will begin to hate you. The only way to stop people, in the plural, hating you, using violence, is to kill everyone who doesn't support your policy of mass murder. That's not going to do much for the future of the human race.

      That's why the "war on terror" will never be won with military power. Even the evil terrorist bastards you kill were the parents, siblings, or children of someone who will hate you for killing them. And for every evil terrorist bastard we've killed recently, they've also killed or wounded dozens of innocents: how much love do you think they're going to have for us for that?

    8. Re:Choose your weapon... by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Ask the six million Jews that Hitler gassed if violence ever settled anything. They're dead. That's pretty damn settled, now isn't it?

      Why yes, indeed it did settle that matter. In fact, I can't recall hearing about a single bit of pain, suffering or conflict related to Judaism since. No, I can't think of a single person, family, nation, or Holocaust survivor who feels that things weren't settled by Hitler's actions. Not one, anywhere.

      Of course, had Hitler managed to completely wipe out the Jewish race and faith, then yes, there wouldn't be an Arab-Israeli conflict today. Total genocide does make for neat, tidy endings, doesn't it? Unless, of course, you have spineless sympathizers who fail to see the necessity of eradicating those who are at odds with you.

      If "violence never settled anything", people wouldn't use it!!!!. And it sure as shit get used all the damn time.

      If violence settles things, why the hell do we keep coming back to it? You'd think violence would have settled our differences centuries ago. What happened--was it an outbreak of accursed peace or something?

      Violence only succeeds when you completely eradicate your opposition. If you don't, all it does is breed hatred amongst the survivors. Unless you track down and kill every last person who opposes your will, you're going to have to deal with those who hate you because you've destroyed their lives and families. Is this what you're advocating--the wholesale slaughter of every terrorist, their families, and all those who cared about them? Think you can keep up the pace?

      I invite you to register for a free Slashdot account. Even a pseudonym lends credence to one's comments.

      --

      Obliteracy: Words with explosions

    9. Re:Choose your weapon... by siphoncolder · · Score: 4, Interesting

      These are actually 2 very good arguments. The parent to this poster (the AC) posts that violence DOES work, and he's right - but only to an extent. His point about the Romans & Carthaginians is very apt, and proves the point exactly - that violence solved the dispute, but that's because it was COMPLETE AND UTTER destruction of not just a subset of people, but an entire culture. They didn't just take out the military - they took out civilians, too. With a passion, they took out men, women, children, the elderly - no mercy for anyone. That's how that was solved.

      That's the problem: the US & other like-minded states lack the lack of heart & conscience to do what the Romans did. They're not into genocide, they're not into complete and utter violent domination of cultures. That's what they stand for - everyone getting along, and removing those who don't want to get along.

      As the parent rightly mentions, you can't just kill the one person - you have to kill them all. I'll go out on a limb here and say that we will never see the entire Middle East wiped out of existence by any military force.

      The approach of working smarter and not harder fits better with the goals set out in search of a free world. Bullets work, but since we don't want to do that anymore and because we really probably CAN'T, this might be a better approach.

      --
      i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
    10. Re:Choose your weapon... by the_mad_poster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yea, and we know there's never any backlash or circular problem as a result. After all, it's not like the muslims started, no the christians started! No, you started it! Nuh uh, you started it!

      Yea, of course not, this violence hasn't been going back and forth between Western and Middle Eastern cultures for the last millenium, no. Each time violence erupted, it sure settled things.

      There are two reasons you're not a social scientist: 1) You have no clue how psychology, social anthropology, etc. contribute to the collective behavior of a society and 2) you're an idiot who's confusing settlement between two individuals and entire societies. Go ahead - argue that you can just nuke entire societies out of existence. I dare you.

      --
      Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
    11. Re:Choose your weapon... by voss · · Score: 4, Informative

      You got the quote wrong...

      The correct quote is "violence never solves anything".

      Violence may wipe people off the face of the earth but it does not solve problems. Sure rome destroyed carthage but their politics never let them have
      long-term peace and the cost of their military might eventually bankrupted them.

      While the Republic of Venice did fight some wars their politics allowed them to find solutions that were much less costly than wars. Venice as a small state still lasted over a thousand years from the height of byzantium to the coming of Napoleon.

    12. Re:Choose your weapon... by Wellspring · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Blame America school of foreign policy isn't terribly accurate. More importantly, from an American policy-maker's point of view, who cares? If everything that goes wrong is our fault anyway, then we might as well pursue our national interest like everyone else.

      Blame America is based on a unique variant of American exceptionalism: that we're uniquely evil-- that China, or the USSR, or Syria have no control over their own destinies becasue it's all Our Fault. History was pretty bleak before we came along; I like to think we've had a good impact overall, but we're not omnipotent.

      The civil war in Sudan had nothing to do with us, or the violence in Rwanda, or the Kurd separatism in Turkey. Where we have been involved (Afghanistan, the Korean Penninsula, Taiwan, Eastern Europe) there is a good defense to be mounted.

      Either way, the idea that the military creates global chaos so that it can justify its own funding is ill-conceived claptrap. Why not prop up the Soviet Union to keep the Cold War going?

      War and chaos and death is a reality of the human condition. Even if all weapons were somehow destroyed, people would get boards with nails in them and start the whole thing over. The US military is trying to think of clever, weird ways to approach conflict to make it more decisive and with fewer dead innocents. Three cheers for that.

    13. Re:Choose your weapon... by brennan73 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Right. So, good luck talking al Qaeda over - I'm sure you'll be able to convince them, through logic and reason, that Sharia isn't really a good system of government, and that women should have full rights as citizens. Oh, and that there isn't a worldwide conspiracy of Jews plotting against them.

      Not every conflict demands a gun, but nor can every conflict be settled by a friendly conversation over tea. His argument may be immature and short-sighted, but yours is breathtakingly naive and at least as dangerous as that of the shoot-firsters.

    14. Re:Choose your weapon... by rsborg · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Blame America is based on a unique variant of American exceptionalism: that we're uniquely evil-- that China, or the USSR, or Syria have no control over their own destinies becasue it's all Our Fault.

      Pardon me, but that's bullshit. Blame America says we're uniquely evil simply because we're uniquely powerful. What other country has significant numbers of armed forces around the world? What other country spends anywhere NEAR as much as the US does? What other country effectively controls the worlds oil supply (either economically or militarily)? What other country has more nukes than the rest of the world combined (and then claims that other countries don't have the right to pursue nuclear technology)? The US is the ONLY remianing superpower.

      And I hope you remember what they say about power and corruption...

      --
      Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
    15. Re:Choose your weapon... by darkonc · · Score: 4, Insightful
      How dare you sit at your keyboard and accuse them of being "shadow employees of weapons dealers".

      Even the employees of weapons dealers can have the best of intentions.

      I'd expect that most (or at least many) of the people who work in the pentagon have the best of intentions, but they've gown up in an environment where might makes right and they have the most might. It's not generally the best crucible for peacemakers.

      To paraphrase Einstein:
      The thinking it took to get us into this mess is not the same thinking that it's going to get us out of it.

      The leaders paradox is that the kinds of people who are willing to fight for power tend to be precisely the kinds of people that you don't want in power.

      --
      Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
    16. Re:Choose your weapon... by tassii · · Score: 3, Insightful
      The point here that everyone seems to be missing (including the US Gov) is that terrorists fall into 3 basic categories:
      1. The Sheep: These are those who are lead around by the noses and don't know any better. An example of this would be people that actually believe the 71 virgins crap (which was created by the man who institutionalized the concept of the Assassin) and the extremist "schools" that teach hate to children. The Sheep tend to be illiterate.
      2. The Desparate: These are those who have lost all, real or imagined, and have nothing to lose. They are ideal for recruitment as suicide bombers.
      3. The Manipulative: These are those who take #1 and #2 and manipulate them for their own power. Osama is a good example. He and his lieutenants manipulate the passages of the Koran to suit their needs and objectives, tricking the Sheep and the Desperate to carry out attacks.
      Violence will only solve #3. It will not solve #1 or #2. Only education and active peace will fix that.
      --
      "I drank what?" - Socrates
  2. Gigantic Quake server by Mick+Ohrberg · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh MAN, imagine the MASSIVE deathmatch games you could play! Or even better - BF1942!

    --

    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

    1. Re:Gigantic Quake server by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

      Quake? I want to watch people's faces when the system announces that North Korea has launched a zergling rush.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  3. Deep Thought by Black+Rabbit · · Score: 5, Funny

    Isn't this the flipside of building the Earth 2 to solve the Great Question of Life, The Universe and Everything, for which the answer is 42?

    1. Re:Deep Thought by Speare · · Score: 4, Funny
      Not exactly-- Earth2 was just a replacement for the first Earth computer. The Earth we're standing on is the computer which was commissioned by the mice and predicted by Deep Thought to solve the Great Question. The Golgafrinchans crashed into it after boot-up and knocked the computation a bit early on, but the Vogons destroyed Earth (er, wioll haven destroy it*) five minutes before the Question could be retrieved.

      (ref. vis. Dr. Dan Streetmentioner)

      --
      [ .sig file not found ]
    2. Re:Deep Thought by zx75 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not quite... it just means that our process just made a recursive call to itself.

      I wonder what the stopping condition is? And I sure as heck don't want to be around when the garbage collector comes to destroy our objects because the reference broke.

      --
      This is not a sig.
  4. Why do we need another Earth ? by dapyx · · Score: 3, Funny

    BBC reports that the US military is creating a second Earth The first one already got blown up by the Vogons?

    --
    I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
  5. Oh crap by LNO · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hope they don't model my apartment, or else anyone can login and find out where I've hidden my porn.

  6. i wonder the level of detail by millahtime · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder if they will simulate in extreme detail. Like all the nude beaches in Europe or the Playboy mansion. If terrorists attack the Playboy Mansion during a party they have to know how to handle that. If so, I wonder if they are taking resumes.

    --
    Evolution or ID?
  7. The Sims by parawing742 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now if they would just make the earth data available as a plug-in for The Sims, I would never have to leave my computer again!

    1. Re:The Sims by mangu · · Score: 3, Funny

      If you put your computer by the door, can't they just slide the pizza under the door? And drill a hole in the door where they can deliver the Mountain Dew.

    2. Re:The Sims by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Someone really ought to merge The Sims with Battlefield 1942.

      Meet new people! Pimp out the neighbohr's teenage daughter! Strafe your boss' car! Curse each day about not respawning next to your car and watching your son drive of with it instead! WOOT! And you gain valuable military experience as well!

      --
      Hate me!
  8. Psychological impact by Space+cowboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If as they mention, soldiers will be ultimately trained using this system, it's inevitable that commanders and people not-on-the-ground will start to treat the theatre-of-operations more like a game - that's just how humans are wired. I'm not sure that blurring the distinction between war and games is really such a good idea...

    War is terrible. Games are fun. Ne'er the two should meet. IMHO.

    Simon.

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
    1. Re:Psychological impact by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Informative

      Already combat training takes on gaming aspect with tools like the MILES, the classic sandbox and tools like Major H's Tac-Ops

      http://www.battlefront.com/products/tacops4/taco ps 4.html

      "TacOps 4 is the commercial version of "TacOpsCav 4", an officially issued standard training device of the US Army. It is a simulation of contemporary and near-future tactical, ground, combat between United States (Army and Marine), Canadian, New Zealand/Australian and German forces versus various opposing forces (OPFOR), simulating the Former Soviet Union, China, North Korea etc. Various civilian units and paramilitary forces are also included."

      Gaming doesn't blur the distinction anymore than the training to take orders and it's "Us vs. Them" does for a soldier.

      Since 1942 the US Army has trained at Ft. Irwin in wargames. Commanders already see the theatre of operations as a game, thats how they deal with the massive amounts of people, equipment and casualties they will deal with. At the lower level, situtations have been gamed for hundreds of years and numerical values have been established to units, ships and fortifications have been in use since at least the 1750s.

    2. Re:Psychological impact by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Informative
      The first few paragraphs are interesting :-) I've seen some of the s/w the military in the UK was using about 10 years ago when I used to work in the Defence division of Logica. The quality was simply awful. I don't doubt it's MILES better now (pun intended :-) but that doesn't negate that I consider it a problem...

      Gaming doesn't blur the distinction anymore than the training to take orders and it's "Us vs. Them" does for a soldier.


      I disagree. If you join up, you know the risks involved. There are many reasons for someone to join the armed forces, but fundamentally everyone knows the deal. You do as you're told. You might get killed. You might have to kill others. That's no real problem for a human - the veneer of civilisation is a very thin one, and we can easily regress into the 'kill or be killed', 'fight or flight' primitive responses. No problems there.

      If however, you start to present these lethal environments as a game, you're making a flank attack on the soldier's psyche. You're saying "this isn't real", when it patently is. You're lowering the barriers for doing things that even soldiers do not do. ("Shall we waste the villagers ?", "Sure why not, let's see what happens"). People do things in games that they would never countenance in real life, even in real-life battle, even if it's simply to see what the programmers have in store for you if you do...

      Your last paragraph is talking about game-theory. I have no problem with viewing a conflict using game-theory - this is a mathematical model to count losses and victories, a way to count the cost; I'm all-for ways to count the cost.

      Using game-theory is very different from treating war as a game, one is a deplorable attitude, the other is responsible accounting. Troops die in war, and you may sacrifice company A so that B,C,D all get through. Fine, this is war. Sorry they died, but it was necessary. Unless you have a cost model, you can't even say it was necessary...

      Simon.
      --
      Physicists get Hadrons!
    3. Re:Psychological impact by DarkSarin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      no, I disagree. The gp is correct.

      I personally think that one of the best treatises on the matter is Ender's Game. In case you aren't familiar with the idea, Ender is trained in the latest military action/theory using a simulation, but what he isn't told is that the simulation is really just a control interface to give REAL soldier's orders.

      The idea is that Ender would not have won the battle the way he did if he had known it wasn't a game (because there were sacrifices no one would really make that had to be made to win). Yes, I realize that it's *just* a book, sci-fi at that, but the social commentary is interesting, useful, and very important. Card did a wonderful job of making a very important concept accessible to pretty much anyone--war CAN be NECESSARY, but sometimes the sacrifices we make in war are very difficult.

      I have seen some comments on this discussion that are very anti-war. I agree with the sentiment that when possible, war should be avoided. I disagree, however, with the concept that war is so evil that we should never fight one. To those who feel that war is NEVER justified, I have to say that I respect your willingness to believe such a high ideal, but I don't believe that you really accept the implications of that statement.

      You see, if you state that war is never justified (because violence is wrong), what about personal defense? Are you justified in defending your own person? If you are, then what about you and say, five of your friends. If you are all attacked, should you defend yourselves? Yes? Then what is the difference between this and a battle or war? All war is, is someone attacking another person, and that person choosing to defend themselves. (Yes, I realize that it gets much more complicated than that, but I am talking about basic premises here).

      Personally, I feel that you must either say that no one should defend themselves from attack (thus suffering rape, murder, theft, etc without argument) and war is never justified, OR you must accept that there are times when personal defense is justified, and therefore war (being NATIONAL DEFENSE) can be justified.

      All that said, I did not serve in the military because I felt that I was not properly suited to the military mindset. (read: I don't like taking orders!)

      mod me up, mod me down, I'd rather you replied intelligently.

      --
      "We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
    4. Re:Psychological impact by swillden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      War is terrible. Games are fun. Ne'er the two should meet.

      To achieve that you're going to have to turn the clock back to pre-history and start fixing it there. Games have always been about war, whether individual or group conflict, and military training has always been done with games. The essence of any good game is conflict, and warfare is obviously conflict taken to its most extreme level. In that sense war is the best game ever invented, unlimited conflict between people who are intelligent and supremely focused.

      I'm not trying to glorify war, because it truly is terrible, but there is a fundamental connection between war and games, which are really a microcosm of war.

      For this reason, soldiers have always used wargames to prepare for war. Whether it's wrestling, footraces and javelin-throwing, jousting, field maneuvers against an OPFOR or computerized versions of any of the above, the only way to really prepare for war is to practice, and although individual fighting skills can be practiced to some degree without actually creating a contest, learning how to fight effectively requires the enactment of battles. Real battles are too expensive, of course, so soldiers use games which to the participants become almost as engrossing as a real war would be.

      War and gaming are intimately related in another way as well. To some extent, good commanders have to be able to treat real war as though it were a game. Good commanders must really, truly care about the individual men they command, both because that caring creates loyalty that is critical to unit integrity and because commanders who don't care tend to waste their men. On the other hand, a good commander must also be able to view the conflict abstractly, like a game, so that they can expend their men's lives when necessary. Overly cautious generals kill more of their own men than overly aggressive generals. The best commanders in history are those who've been able to achieve a remarkable balance between caution and audacity while simultaneously inspiring their men to do things that no sane person should be able to do.

      The subtext of your comment, though is "I don't want the soldiers and their commanders to think war is fun, because then they'll want to go to war all of the time". I understand where you're coming from, but that notion makes no sense, either.

      In the first place, soldiers always understand better than anyone else exactly what the cost of war is, and the field commanders are up to their elbows in it. The rear echelon element also gets a good second-hand taste of it, plus they were all field commanders at one time and had plenty of years to think about, if not experience, the horror. All good soldiers are interested in going to war to test themselves, to find out if they're really up to the challenge, but given a choice between going to war and resolving issues peacefully, they'll choose not to fight.

      But soldiers don't get that choice, at least not in any country I'd want to live in. They are asked for their professional opinions about what may or may not be achievable, but the the decision as to whether or not to go is in the hands of civilians, most of whom do *not* have the same understanding of war.

      In summary: If you want to make sure that the military can achieve victory in the shortest possible time and with the least possible damage, let them play the games and get prepared. If you want to make sure that they never have to go to war, keep the *civilians* away from the wargames so that they don't get hooked on the fun of war.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  9. First of a kind? by thehe · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will this make the US the first dual-world superpower in history?

  10. peeved by DarkHelmet · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm so glad to be living in the US, just to know that my tax dollars go towards making a version of The Sims on crack.

    But the part that pisses me off is that they won't let me pl

    --
    /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
  11. Huh.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    And yet, even with this technology, nothing will beat ACTUAL, REAL experience of the REAL world. No amount of virtual training will compensate for complete lack of awareness of the rest of the world. This is, IMO, the wrong thing to do at this point. We should be giving money and influence for the diplomatic corps so more people actually WANT to do the job.

    If you don't understand another culture, talk to people who do. The gov't ignores those people, and just decides that it will decide things with an imaginary, "faith-based" approach. It doesn't work, guys!

  12. Virtual Wars? by p_millipede · · Score: 5, Funny
    Now all we need to do is convince the world's military, terrorists, militia's etc. (anyone who might be interested) to hold all their confilicts in this virtual world and just let the outcome of virtual wars be accepted as if it had really happened (minus the loss of life).

    Obviously, we'd need to make sure the Americans aren't using cheats. Just imagine the standard procedure before entering combat. Press tilde, type 'AmericaRulesOK 1' followed by '/god', '/allweapons' and '/allammo'

    1. Re:Virtual Wars? by nukem1999 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      let the outcome of virtual wars be accepted as if it had really happened (minus the loss of life)

      If both sides were trusting and trustworthy enough to follow those rules, there wouldn't be a need for war in the first place.

  13. Re:So... by gabec · · Score: 4, Funny
    Right-o. And they're keeping the servers on the ... (dun dun dun...) thirteenth floor.

  14. BBC huh by millahtime · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This may a little off subject but why does the BBC report first about the US Militarys earth simulator?

    --
    Evolution or ID?
    1. Re:BBC huh by mpk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hoo, looks like someone's spouting what they've been fed by right-wing commentators..

      It's on the verge of libellous to suggest that the BBC is deliberately and routinely biased against the US. I presume that you've never analysed the news coverage which is presented to you in any kind of critical way, or you'd figure out that "loving to trash the US" means something completely different to "reports both sides of a story rather than automatically following some kind of uncritical "Whoop, go US! U-S-A! We rule!" stance. The latter stance is the point of view of the Fox Newses of this world.

      Bias is in the eye of the beholder. During the Iraq war the BBC was angrily accused of bias by both anti-war activists and pro-war folk like the government. If you're being accused of bias by people on both sides of an argument, you're doing pretty well.

      The recent hoohah that led to the resignation of both the Chairman and Director-General of the Beeb resulted from one point in a live discussion between a presenter and a journalist that was broadcast at 0607 one morning and never repeated. That point was found to be untrue (heh, well, technically untrue) and top people in the BBC resigned. Doesn't sound like systematic bias to me.

      (What moderator decided the post I'm replying to was "Insightful"? Yeesh.. if unsubstantiated regurgitated sniping counts as insight..)

  15. The question is.... by Rican · · Score: 5, Funny

    Would I be able to "create" myself as a Wood Elf Druid chick even though I'm a 250lbs guy in real life?

    --
    Rican

    Want a free iPod?

  16. Why bother. by glen · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why spend all that money?

    We already know the answer is 42.

  17. Neal Stephenson connection... by RareHeintz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does this bring to mind, for anyone else, that nifty piece of software Hiro had in Snow Crash ? I mean, of course, the model of Earth updated in real-time with satellite imaging data, etc...

    Eerie.

    OK,
    - B

    --
    http://www.bradheintz.com/
    - updated
    1. Re:Neal Stephenson connection... by jafuser · · Score: 4, Interesting
      That's the first thing I thought too...
      From Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
      There is something new: A globe about the size of a grapefruit, a perfectly detailed rendition of Planet Earth, hanging in space at arm's length in front of his eyes. Hiro has heard about this but never seen it. It is a piece of CIC software called, simply, Earth. It is the user interface that CIC uses to keep track of every bit of spatial information that it owns - all the maps, weather data, architectural plans, and satellite surveillance stuff.

      --
      Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
  18. Grand Theft auto... by millahtime · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wonder if they can give the detail of Grand Theft auto. They I could play dropped down in Iraq going after Sadam and Bin Laden. I could steal a tank and run them over. Maybe get some Iraq hookers. Grand Theft Auto Iraq.

    --
    Evolution or ID?
  19. Now we know how it began... by ScottGant · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Morpheus said that he didn't know what year it was, but some time early in the 21st century the war with the machines takes place...at least now we know how the Matrix is started.

    Ok, that was an obvious observation. But they're making an online world that mirrors our own world. It reminds me some years back when I went to Siggraph in Chicago and Virtual Reality was the "next big thing". Someone showed a demo on a virtual world where you could walk in, pick up a book and flip through it. Someone remarked wouldn't it be cheaper just to buy a book...

    So wouldn't it be cheaper to build a fake city with actors playing a part for the people being trained to interact in? Be employed by the US Army for acting in a simulated city so they can better understand how to weed out terrorist and help people in need, yet do so in a safe environment. Also, working with actors trained themselves in certain ways AND with the ability to actually "think" would be WAY better than AI in a game.

    Just a thought, but probably a stupid thought on my part.

    --

    "Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
    1. Re:Now we know how it began... by Smidge204 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem with the book analogy is scope.

      It is definately cheaper to print a book than create a virtual world to intereact with a virtual book. Especially at that time.

      It might be cheaper to build a fake city and staff it with actors than to build a virtual world. But considering the state of the art right now in VR worlds, it likely won't be.

      It's definately cheaper to build an artificial world to model the entire planet than it is to build a fake planet and staff it with actors. Not to mention where you're going to put it and what you're going to make it out of... (Chia-Earth, anyone?)

      It's all about scope and purpose.

      The biggest problem I can see is keeping the model up to date. Geography, cities and populations are always changing. If their intent is to have a virtual world that can be used to study the real world, they're going to have their work cut out for them. Frankly, I can think of better things to spend money on.
      =Smidge=

    2. Re:Now we know how it began... by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We can use President Bush's terrorist definition:
      1) Is brown
      2) Mistakenly refers to God as Allah
      3) Hates freedom

      He talks about #3 all the time even though it makes no sense. When Bin Laden was working with the CIA to free Afghanistan from the Russians, he liked freedom well enough. The Army of God has killed 3 people and injured over 100 in 4 bombings (Olympic Park, 2 Women's Clinics, and a Gay Bar). They fail tests #1 and #2, so Bush never mentions them.

      -B

  20. Super-accurate physics for...what again? by NewbieProgrammerMan · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "While combat will be part of the game, 'the emphasis in the artificial Earth will be on human interaction rather than conflicts involving lots of military hardware.'"
    Yes, I expect you do need a lot of super-accurate physics to figure out the various aspects of "human interaction," like....um....well...simulating football games and handing out relief packages. ????

    Maybe they're talking about military tactics or something when they say "human interaction," but to me it seems like they're trying to say "no, really, it's not a military-oriented project." Come on people, this is the Army. If this system is mainly for military purposes, then just come out and say it, ok? Really, we pay you guys to worry about situations that involve "lots of military hardware." There's no need to pretend that you're really trying to solve world hunger or something.
    --
    [b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
  21. Watch out for Kirk Logic(tm) by xleeko · · Score: 3, Funny
    Yea, we could convert all of our conflicts into computer simulations, install disintegration booths, the whole nine yards.

    ... but then William Shatner would drop by and screw up the whole thing. Then he would sing "Lucy [pause] in the Sky [pause] with Diamonds" just to rub it in.

    - Dave

  22. There = Evil by richie2000 · · Score: 3, Funny
    There mandates the use of MSIE to access There.

    Evil. Evil, I say!

    This claimer: Having MSIE bundled with Windows poses no problem for me, I see it as they include Notepad instead of Word and Calculator instead of Excel. So why not let them include Internet Explorer instead of a real browser? However, I dislike sites that require it. It's like mailing around text files that need Notepad to read... Rude.

    --
    Money for nothing, pix for free
  23. A new earth? by maiden_taiwan · · Score: 4, Funny

    The mice will be furious!

  24. Re:Using the RFID chips implanted ... by the_weasel · · Score: 3, Funny

    Huh. When did you get out of the Pod?

    If they are tracking my private moments they will get a lot of lying on the couch after dinner with the top button of my jeans undone, watching television.

    I am basically jamming the signals with massive waves of mediocrity.

    --
    - sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
  25. Ender Wiggin could not be reached for comment. by *weasel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The nastier questions begin at the point at which an 'earth simulator' like this could have the control mechanisms tied to reality unbeknownst to 'pilots' within the sim.

    You thought you were running through the sim... you had no idea you just took a UAV on a live mission and actually killed 2 dozen people. Missions take place, with perfect human guidance - and not even the soldiers involved knew it actually happened.

    Worse yet - consider the game world altering the appearance of targets. Your strike deep in the Tora Bora mountains may have been a cover for an FBI raid on a militant compound in Colorado. The four phillipino terrorists you just greased with an armed unmanned terrestrial rover... well who in the hell were they?

    --
    // "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
  26. Hrm by BenBenBen · · Score: 5, Funny
    The detailed simulation will be drawn from a real-world terrain database and will be drawn to the same scale as the original.
    They're going to need a bloody big monitor.
    --
    The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
  27. But I keep hearing the voice... by abb3w · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...of Terry Gilliam saying "It's only a model".

    --
    //Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
  28. of course ... by Wordsmith · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... this could be used for the best game of Populous EVER.

  29. Easy way to memorize maps by vlm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Imagine "Blackhawk Down" set in 2005.

    What if the troops have no idea how to get home when their chopper is shot down or the natives put up another barricade?

    A 3d environment like this is a very effective and fast way to memorize the map and layout of the city.

    Also good for convoy training, preparing for ambush training, etc.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  30. See you on your own by j0n4th4nb34r · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe Violence settles the argument in the short term. But to settle all your arguements your gonna have to kill 6 billion people because for each person you kill your gonna piss 10 more off.

    --

    MacOS X, I've upped my standards, Up Yours...
  31. OpenSourceTerrain modelling by Lord+Satri · · Score: 4, Informative

    Of very related interest is http://vterrain.org , a great open source terrain modelling. It uses remote sensing and geomatics data. It is also related to http://www.openplans.org/, the Open Planning project.

    --
    Animoog.org
  32. Best interests? by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Problem is, everyone has a different idea of what "best interests" means. Joe McCarthy certainly had the best interests of the US in mind. So did communists. They just had different best interests.

    J Edgar Hoover had the US best interest in mind when he framed Martin Luther King, Jr with forged audio tapes of bogus conversations.

    McCarthur had the US best interests in mind when he tried to start WW III with Red China.

    The generals who had plans in the early 60s to fake terrorist attacks in the US and blame it on Castro had the US best interests in mind.

    Oliver North had the US best interests in mind.

    Poindextor and TIA had the US best interests in mind.

    I myself don't particularly appreciate other people having my best interests in mind. They don't know my best interests and they don't care.

    And that includes you. To all you and your ilk who have my best interests in mind, I say FUCK YOU, I can decide my own best interests.

    --
    Infuriate left and right
  33. Re:Once again, NOT ON OUR SHORES.... by cherokee158 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think there is a profound misunderstanding of the role of the Pentagon here. The Pentagon does not initiate hostilities. Our elected politicians do. If you don't like war, don't vote for a warmonger. But don't harp on the professionals whose job it is to win wars. Because as soon as some misguided politician starts one, you can be darn sure the best way out of it is to win it.