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Jack Thompson Claiming Games Industry in Collusion with DoD
mytrip brings us a Wired blog about Jack Thompson's recent press release, which claims an "unholy alliance" exists between the gaming industry and the U.S. Department of Defense. Game Politics also has a discussion of Thompson's main points. From Wired:
"Jim Blank, the head of the modeling and simulation division of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, says that commercial games don't meet the demand of the military, adding, 'first-person shooter games really don't apply in this environment.' Blank's point is that game-like simulations are a valuable tool for training soldiers in situations that would be too expensive to simulate in reality."
Yes, they use video games to train. Yes, they use video games to market to recruits. Yes, they are in the business of war.
Somehow adding video games to the mix makes it more unholy than it already was?
Whatever. Will someone just shoot this guy already?
...and we're coming for you, Jack. We're all out to get YOU, Jack. Boo!
The DoD is just copying what the aliens already did. I heard that if you do really well in the alien video game, it sends a signal out and pretty soon a talking spaceship lands to take you away to fight evil aliens.
See, the game is just a simulation of the real fight and the aliens need to find someone to save them. If you are the best, they come get you to go fight their war using the fabled "Death Blossom" maneuver.
(Not to be confused with the fabled "Turd Blossom" maneuver used many times over the last seven years by the Bush administration.)
Hasn't he been disbarred yet? Seriously if it was you or I going on like this month after month we'd probably at least get a month commited for evaluation. He's got something wrong with him and instead of looking inward to see what it is he projects it outward and thinks everyone needs to be saved from the demons that plague him.
Shh.
What will the extreme left wing, anti-war, anti-military establishment, conspiracy theory maniacs that are pro-pornography, pro-simulated violence in video games do? DoD using video games with subliminal messages to create new breed of professional military recruits and only Jack Thompson, evil video game critic to stand in the way. It's like being a Republican and realizing the only candidate that believes in what he's saying is Ron Paul. Guess the Democrats got that with Kusinich (sic). They both kind of remind me of Ross Perot, but I ramble....
Really, folks - which is a simpler explanation for these graphs:
Violent crime rate
Video game sales
That (presumeably violent) video game use correlates with a massive secret drive towards violence, that is somehow counterbalanced in the overall violent crime rate, or that this (now) extremely common form of entertainment is at worst, on average, a similar factor in people's lives as movies or books?
True, the ever-shifting and politically influenced definition of violent crime may have shifted definition over the years too, but I highly doubt any theories on that line would be able to mask the accusations Thomson makes about the use of video games in society.
In order to match Thomson's account to reality in any way, you'd have to start making up any number of wild inventions to force the facts into place... kind of like what he's doing here.
Ryan Fenton
Two points: First, War as glamorous and consequence free... Wow, I don't think that I ever heard about anything like that in movies that I've watched for my entire life and many of the books that I've read. Seriously, didn't this moron ever watch Patton? Secondly, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the VT shooter was established to have not been a gamer. Granted, Fox News (never one to let the facts get in the way of their "reporting") opted to have him on right after the shooting, before any facts had been established, so that he could talk about how games were responsible for it. As I recall, however, the shooter's roommates said that they'd never seen him play any games. I really wish that the main stream media would out this guy publicly.
Regards, Ian
The Last Starfighter. I love that movie.
Jack Thompson is someone best ignored. I think it is better to stop making headlines every time he goes off his rocker, and let him not be heard, than to give him free publicity for his stunts.
"Microsoft killed my company, I hold a personal grudge. I don't use Microsoft products and neither should you."-JWZ
It's the fluoride!
Passionately Indifferent
But his whole thesis is that video games make people violent, and obviously he's pissed off a lot of said video gamers. How is he still alive?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
well they want to recruit young guns and mindless zombies :P
not geeks
Norris Normal - Who am I?
Yvan eht nioj
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
This. Is. JACK THOMPSON!
Isn't there supposed to be a point where these people disappear from the conversation after their actions prove they're not relevant?
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Most importantly, Video games don't do that with any accuracy at all. They can show you what it looks like, they can help you learn the approximate timing, they can maybe remind you to keep looking around for more bad guys and not just focus on the one in front of you. But that is all. At best it shortens the training time needed in the real world training course, much like a football coach has a "chalk talk" in a classroom before you suit up and take the field. Worse, too much application of simulation can induce negative training, in short, teaching them to do the wrong thing in order to win the game.
As for the Industry taking cues from the DOD, I wish they would. For starters the Physics models used in gaming are a joke and have been for years. If police and soldiers and criminals in real life could run like they do in games, shootouts would look like the Superhero Olympics. Every car chase would be the Indy 500 Cross Country Demolition Derby. If the aliens ever show up, they'd have good reason to want humans stomped out, we'd be too dammed dangerous! No, Game designers might get ideas from military scenarios (Call to Duty 1 - N anyone?), but they aren't using real situations. And if anyone could even vaguely show the FPS games were imprinting "Go Army" on any brains, major heads would roll. The fact the school shooters were using the games just shows how "out of it" they were. They didn't know the games weren't useful or accurate for training, so they used them, which somehow means the games were responsible after all.
Thompson is just taking out some ire on innocent bystanders for doing something he already hates. Yet another example of a political control freak.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
It apparently took him years to realize that America's Army is out.
I am pretty sure that was meant to be funny, but the truth of what is really being said is startling.
He is anti-american, like so many other neo-cons. The reason they want to change so many things of such consequence is they do not like the US. They want a new country with their rules in place. Something much more akin to the fundamentalist Muslim countries or Mussolini's government. A place where their ideals and beliefs reign supreme without that bothersome interruption from people who would think or believe differently.
I guess the scary part for me is that at one time, when I started learning about the neo-cons, I agreed with much of what I had learned. It was not until much later when I started seeing through the lies that I really got a grasp on what they stand for. It almost lends plausibility to those who believe they are trying to create a new world order. Because it sure seems like they are.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
If he's speaking out against the Department of Defense, a branch of the government, doesn't that mean he's in league with the terrorists?
/. could take care of an other?
Could it be, that one of the most complained about things on
The Patriot Act gets Thompson tossed in Guantanamo for an unspecified period, then there's one less problem to worry about.
Probably too good to be true, but we could dream.
i guess its a lot easier to throw around a term like "neo-con" that dumbly lumps people into a group then to actually parse each individuals perspective in the group as to their beliefs.
please don't think that i am a "neo-con", or defending that particular POV. i guess in this current cycle of election-mania i felt the need to vent about the oversimplification of political rhetoric that bombards us daily from the news outlets.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
The guy is an absolute nut case, and is totally irrelevant. He is about to be disbarred, has made numerous clearly paranoid statements in the past, why the hell does his ridiculous ranting gain credence by being submitted to /. time and time again?
The next time someone submits a Jack Thompson story, please make the headline the following: Jack Thompson Bleats Again.
And the body of the text can be: Jack Thompson, well-known corrupt and insanely-paranoid former lawyer, makes another outrageous statement.
Small amounts of lead can stimulate people to behave in a more violent way. The majority of the decrease occurred in the early 1990's - roughly the age when when kids who were no longer exposed to leaded gas were in their teenage years. The vast majority of violent crimes are committed by men, aged from 13 to 40. So once the unexposed kids grew up, they diluted the violence pool so to speak, and have been lowering the rate ever since.
..........FULL STOP.
Jack?
They're still running around trying to locate the BFG first?
If Call of Duty taught me anything (which I doubt), it'd be that war a crap thing to be caught up in as death can come at any time from someone you hadn't noticed hiding in a bush or a doorway. This random "died from being in wrong place at the wrong time" with no respawn is probably more likely to convince people of the benefits of couch-potatodom than it is to get them to sign up.
At least after being killed on the screen you can respawn a few times before crossing the floor to the fridge to extract another beer while you comtemplate the fact that you earn more sitting in your office than a soldier does in Iraq without having to put up with being shot at. On the other hand, if you are still at school and can't tell the difference between a game and reality you're more than likely better off in the army as they're probably getting pissed with soldiers who go "off message" on their blogs.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
Though personally, I'd have thought it easier just to get some sort of big fucking gun than to get a fictitious character from a Roald Dahl children's story to do the dirty work..
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
No no no. See, when you really need to worry is when you find the military in collusion with shower curtain manufacturers. That never ends well (even if there is cake).
i guess its a lot easier to throw around a term like "neo-con" that dumbly lumps people into a group then to actually parse each individuals perspective in the group as to their beliefs.
We tried that. And they said "those liberals can't agree on anything."
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Keep in mind, Jack started this anti-game crusade after he discovered his son was playing them. So like any batshit crazy parent void of reason, instead of actually acting like a sensible parent and monitoring his child's activities, he's attacking the whole industry like a mother grizzly bear separated from her cubs. I guess he thinks it's easier to sink the video game industry than teach his kid the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, fantasy and reality...actually, I'm not so sure he can tell the difference between those last two. Here's hoping somebody adds a "Jack Thompson's Grave" level to Dance Dance Revolution until we have the real thing to get down on.
What's startling is that people confuse neo-con thinking with free market. neo-conservativism is (when looking at it from a purely economic point of view) anything BUT free market. It's anti free market and anti free speech.
About as un-american as I could imagine, to be blunt.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
You can't take the sky from me...
... He certainly seems to be off of it.
To really Godwin a thread takes an inappropriate comparison. Generally, it's hyperbole that indicates a Godwin - i.e. Jimmy pulls the wings off of flies, and somebody posts "He'll grow up just like Hitler. One day it will be six million flies!". So it's actually hard to Godwin this thread.
It's a fair comparison, not hyperbole at all, to take what some of the founding members of the neo-conservative movement have said, and the fact that some politicians have claimed to be inspired by those people, and compare that, not to Hitler in general, but to Mussolini quoting Machiavelli, or even Hitler quoting Von Clausewitz. When someone talks to a nation's leader about repeating a lie often enough that the public believes it's the Truth, there's no exaggeration at all in comparing that someone to Gobels. Whether that makes the leader more similar to Hitler or not is something for the listener to infer if he wants to, not part of what's actually being said.
In the same way, Jack Thompson isn't a U. S. senator, but he's a politically committed lobbyist, what most would call a Washington insider, so it's only a moderate stretch to compare him to McCarthy. He's tried to turn this issue into something that will give him tremendous political power, so comparing his desire for power with Hitler's desire isn't really hyperbole either. Someone would have to greatly exaggerate his chances of success or number of followers to be drawing an inappropriate parallel.
Who is John Cabal?