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The Price of Military Tech Assistance In Movies
derekmead writes "Last week at Camp David, President Obama met up with fellow NATO leaders to discuss the road ahead in Afghanistan. Although no one there used the language of defeat, the implicit message was clear: the war has gone nowhere in the past few years and it's time to start packing up. Meanwhile, what raked in $25.5 million at the box office? Battleship. And who provided director Peter Berg with the war technology that beats the aliens? The U.S. military. He's not the only one: the past few years have seen an explosion of high-profile cooperation between the armed forces and the movie industry. If the most powerful armed force in history isn't winning in reality, it certainly is on the big screen. And like so many problematic aspects of late capitalism, the military-Hollywood complex has a grimly understandable logic."
Matthew Alford, film researcher and author of Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy, is even harsher in his critique. âoeThe Pentagon has a manual. Basically, it will only provide full cooperation to propaganda pieces,â he said in an interview.
Is this against the law?
Against the law? If anything it should be the law. Why should the military spend its time and money on projects which aren't relevant to recruitment or combat/training?
It IS relevant to recruitment. It basically started with Top Gun in the 80's years ago when they realised the idealised portrayal of going to war led to a sharp increase in recruitment.
It was so successful that recruiters even had booths set up outside the cinema to catch these people.
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-05/entertainment/ca-20403_1_top-gun
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Do editors here do any proofreading at all, whatsoever? Irrelevant statements, useless commentary, and almost no coherant point of the headline.
No wonder people are leaving this site in droves. Slashdot = the myspace of tech sites.
Oh I do agree with you and I've been here for years, long since before registering my account (I had another account prior to it, and prior to that I lurked).
I come here because I can directly contact individuals who can reason and think critically. I can also directly contact petty spiteful people who are easily revealed to be what they are. Both are good when handled correctly. I also come here because I can listen, read, and learn from people who have knowledge that I do not. I find that if I am at least slightly thoughtful and write well, I am modded up; if I am not, someone will speak up and tell me precisely where I failed. Both are good when handled correctly.
It is the users who make this site what it is. It is not the editors. They are not worthy to be called "editors" because they cannot even handle automated spell-checkers, let alone true proofreading. They would not last one day working for a tabloid -- they would be fired for incompetence and underwhelming performance. This site succeeds in spite of their stumbling, comic, pathetic attempt to master their native language.
I could personally do a much, MUCH better job than a dozen of them. I could do that with no serious effort. In this job market, I am hardly alone in that sense. I wonder if they appreciate the cushy job they can so thoroughly fail to do day after day with no serious consequence? I mean their idea of a "job consequence" is using their infinite mod points to down-mod posts that criticize them too heavily. It's a coin toss whether or not this one gets their attention, for they may be asleep at the wheel.
If they think I speak falsely, I hereby invite them to post with their own accounts and confront me, like men. I will have a multitude of previous examples to justify my position. They aren't going to say a damned thing against me because they know this is easy to find.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
More people die on the highways in the US each year than have died or been injured in combat in both wars, and the "collateral damage" isn't too far beyond that number either.
So the more people die in accidents in a country the more murders that country is allowed to commit? In other words what you're saying is that if the roads in Nazi Germany were more dangerous that'd make the Holocaust ok. That is not how it works. If I kicked you in the balls and explained it's fine because that happens to people everyday would you accept the excuse or try to beat me up for kicking you in the balls?
(Accidental) Road deaths in the US: ~30k/year
Civilians murdered in Iraq: >100k (total)
So you're wrong. More people died in the Iraq war (which, by the way, would be very easy to prevent by not invading it) than die per year in road accidents in the US (road accidents are only preventable to a degree (unless you don't use roads, obviously)).