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Red Cross Debates If Virtual Killing Violates International Humanitarian Law
Ron2K writes in with a story about a Red Cross committee that is debating if people playing war video games should be subject to the same humanitarian laws as people in a real war. Seriously. "With 62 billion kills in Call of Duty: Black Ops alone, a committee of the Red Cross is debating whether the International Humanitarian Law is applicable to online gamers, and if they are violating it. From the committee's site: 'While the Movement works vigorously to promote international humanitarian law worldwide, there is also an audience of approximately 600 million gamers who may be virtually violating International Humanitarian Law. Exactly how video games influence individuals is a hotly debated topic, but for the first time, Movement partners discussed our role and responsibility to take action against violations of this law in video games.' While it's questionable if gamers themselves can be prosecuted for not obeying the Geneva convention, the Red Cross committee's actions seem to be aimed more at game developers — as first person shooters become more realistic, do game developers have an obligation to include humanitarian elements?"
This is the daily mail, pretty pointless reading anything they say about computer without a quick fact check. The wired article make more sense: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/video-games-war-crime/ Playing the game is not a war crime, using a realistic game to train soldiers who then go onto commit the crime in real life could mean the trainer is commiting one as well as the trainee.
It's not about arrests. They're basically talking about using moral suasion.
It's just another element of the game.
I know it seems ludicrous on first thought, but it's actually quite reasonable. Reason: People are crying out for "realism" in games down to the last blade of grass.
Well, if you're going to have realism, I guess you'd need all the other stuff that comes in a war: not just America's Army and the Taliban, but also the Red Cross. In fact, for a multiplayer game, some people could be Red Cross personnel. And it makes perfect sense to deduct points for illegal kills (i.e., after someone has already surrendered to you).
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
How to shoot yerself in the foot in 3 steps:
1. piss off 30% of the world population
2. watch your donations decline
3. watch real people die due to shrinking budget
But at least those virtual soldiers can now rest assured that red cross is thinking about them, which was all worth it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc732uzUkw4
Penn and Teller's Bullshit on Mother Teresa. Not suggesting you take it as God's honest truth without some critical thought, but interesting nonetheless.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
So at the moment I'm playing through a Japan campaign in Victoria 2, which is Paradox's pseudo-realtime complex conquest and development game simulating from 1836-1936. The Brits obviously start the game with a huge advantage (as do the other European powers) and indeed, Japan starts as an uncivilized nation, with major penalties to research and the inability to industrialize among other things. There is however, a path to becoming civilized (which Japan can do through the Meiji restoration decision) and indeed by 1878, I'm in a war with my allies France and (uncivilized) China against Great Britain and the North German federation in an attempt to take Northern India. In this war, about 2.5 million men are fighting on either side, and there will be about 3 million dead (mostly through the British and Chinese armies marching over the Himalayas) by the time the war is over.
In Victoria 2, each soldier is a member of an individual 'pop' living in a certain province, and having its own needs, incomes and political positions. In this war, there are many conscripted regiments who belong to specific 'poor strata' pops of jobs such as farmers, laborers and craftsmen (which I will note, separate men of working/fighting age from women and other parts of the population). Each death on the battle field decreases the size of the 'pop' by the same number of men. Also, I've enacted policies of minority building restrictions, and a discriminatory schooling system to speed assimilation.
By this rationale, aren't I doing worse (in both war and peace) in a single playing session than all the Call of Duty players can do in a similar session combined?