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Israeli Army Frowns on D&D
Big Rob found us a gem of a story about the Israeli Army frowning on D&D players. Apparently '18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance.' I especially enjoyed the pictures of D&D players with swords, as generally the only thing in my hand during D&D is soda and/or swiss cake rolls.
I'm thinking that a few generals should meet up with Jack Chick and have a good long discussion about the evils of role playing.
After following a lot of the news regarding reprisals against palestinians and realizing the IDF acts with a higher degree of autonomy than US forces, I've wondered who-the-heck's influencing them. I've known a considerable variety of people who have played D&D and/or been active in the SCA (The Society for Creative Anachronism) and find most are no more delusional that your average baseball fan, stamp collector or technology geek. I rather expect it's more along the lines of these people really not being easily subverted, unlike some ultra patriot who will do whatever a commanding officer says, even it would strike the man-on-the-street as an outrage.
To launch Air To Ground missiles into civilian areas, which may harm innocent bystanders, plow people's homes because they live too close to the egyptian border and enforce some kind of colonial marshall law in a ghetto takes a special personality, quite likely someone who can be easily broken down and then built up into a new unquestioning soldier, rather than someone who can think for themselves and consider 'hey, this isn't right'
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
A DnD player whose character is a chaotic good elf or some such would be averse to slaughtering palestinians and driving tanks over their homes, thus unsuitable for a leadership or "sensitive" position.
Not sure why this belongs on slashdot...
The kind that they lob into Palestinian villages are still perfectly OK, right?
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Well, fine. We all know LARPers are huge fucking losers.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Your description fits the old Soviet military, but not ours. ...and you keep proving exaclty his point.
wow, I'm impressed. did you think of that all by yourself?
In an army you want people who can understand an objective and modify an operational plan of the fly as the situation changes. Soldiers who stop and look at their commanding officer every time they run into an unexpected obstacle are worthless.
Name an effective army that wasn't backed by a solid educational system.
The US Army is pretty effective, I wouldn't call the educational system solid.