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72% of Xbox 360 Gamers Approve of "More Military Drone Strikes"
An anonymous reader writes "During the latest presidential debate, Xbox 360 owners were being polled live, as the debate was progressing, on a number of different questions, and asked to answer 'Yes,' 'No,' or 'Don't Know' using their gamepad. Out of these questions, one particular question produced a surprising result: Xbox 360 owners were asked 'Do you support more use of drone aircraft to attack suspected terrorists?' 20% answered this question with 'No'. 8% answered 'Don't know.' And a whopping 72% answered the question 'Yes.' This raises an interesting question in and of itself: Is the average Xbox 360 player at all aware that drone strikes in countries like Pakistan cause a serious number of civilian deaths on a regular basis? Or do Xbox 360 gamers live in a parallel, game-inspired universe, where a real world 'Drone Strike' is something seriously cool, just like it is cool to use it in popular games like Call of Duty? In other words, does playing simulated war games like COD on a game console on a daily basis, and enjoying these games, cause gamers to become blinkered to the at times seriously dire real world consequences of using military tactics like drone strikes for real?"
Or, perhaps they feel using a drone to make an attack, rather than risking American soldiers, is the better choice?
The more correct question is "Are civilian deaths lower from drone strikes than from conventional military action?"
What a horrible summary for one, and two, how the fuck is this news????
The gamers understand it's unrealistic to expect civilians not to get killed, and the best that you can really do in any war is to not go out of your way to kill them like the Nazi's did.
I watched all four debates on XBox Live.
Every single time a question came up like
Have you already decided who you want to vote for?
Definitely [ 80% ] No [ 15% ] Not Really [ 5% ]
Will you vote for Obama or Romney?
Obama [ 72% ] Romney [ 23%] Not Sure [ 5%]
It was like that on every question, every debate. SO that's the audience we're talking about.
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Regarding drone strikes on terrorists, we need to know what our other options are:
1. Let the terrorists live.
2. Send in a SEAL team to kidnap them.
3. Assassinate them by some other means.
Would these create more civilian deaths?
Is it worth taking civilian deaths on our side, through terrorism, to avoid civilians deaths on the other side?
Despite all the pretense of morality, voters are going to side with sending screaming death down upon these people if there's a chance that some of our people are going to get killed.
Geezuz....no agenda in this "news" story. How about it's because gamers know the efficacy vs. collateral damage of drone strikes and accept the numbers? Genuis whoever approved this as a /. story. It's going to be the hottest topic of the day probably.
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They don't expect people to give insightful answers while sitting on a couch and holding a gamepad which was used to shoot people's heads off probably just an hour ago, do they? This, and probably just a dash of the good ol' American ignorance.
Do most of the Xbox poll questions come anywhere near other polling on each topic? If not, is their an observable leaning? Is that lean towards liberal views, conservative views, just plain 'Yes', or something else? Are they just way off in all sorts of random directions?
And once you've got all that covered, how does that 72% compare to polling on the same topic done by other polling methods?
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
How many military-esque games have civilians (particularly in multi-player mode)?
In any of the games I've played where drones etc were an option, it's just "your team" (good guys) and the "other team" (bad guys).
A drone strike/airstrike/satellite bombardment/etc only hurt military characters. Heck, on many settings you don't even get friendly-fire.
Is your average gamer going to know what a real drone strike is like? Probably not. Accompany the poll with some documentation + pictures of mangled civilians and see if what approval rate you get.
I bet close to 72% hit whatever button they normally use to acknowledge some popup in order to get to their game/netflix. I'm betting it was either A or X. Put "yes" on left button and you'll have vastly different results.
Is it worth taking civilian deaths on our side, through terrorism, to avoid civilians deaths on the other side?
Civilians, by nature should be valued as equally as possible. Obviously, a state's military has a duty to their own citizens, but I think we should find a way to avoid civilian deaths on each side. It is not their fight. Their children didn't ask for this. As decent human beings, it is our duty to prevent harm to civilians on either side.
Modify the game to show photos of actual war casualties, so every time you shoot someone in COD or BF you get a photo of a bullet mangled corpse, or if you use a UAV or other weapon you get real photos of blood and guts.
I'm amazed at how powerful television and video games can be as teaching tools, it's just a shame what we are teaching most of the time.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
72% of Xbox 360 Gamers are about 12 years old, full of raging hormones, and love yelling "YEAH MOTHERFUCKER I PWNZ J00" at their fellow gamers. What the heck would anyone expect from such a poll?
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
4. Determine the conditions that inspire people to become—or, more importantly, support—violent extremists who threaten us and our values, and mitigate or eliminate those conditions.
Most people have the good sense to support that option, especially in recognizing that those conditions themselves fundamentally threaten our values as well, if it's presented as an option. It's so far from the dominant discourse that we end up facing the false choice you've presented.
I remember an online discussion I had about the Collateral Murder video. This guy took the stance that the civilians killed shouldn't be in a war zone. When I tried to convey the idea that the war zone came to their homes by asking my counterpart to imagine Chinese helicopters circling his neighborhood shooting American civilians (in precisely these terms), he accused me of distorting the argument by bringing emotion into it.
Apparently empathy for people from a different part of the world is in short supply with some people. Especially online.
Truth be told, I'm as guilty of this as the next person. When I read about shooting sprees in the US, I don't really care beyond the sensational aspects. I should, but I don't.
Is it worth taking civilian deaths on our side, through terrorism, to avoid civilians deaths on the other side?
These civilian deaths are not 'on the other side'. They're innocent bystanders. Further, killing them is extremely unlikely to diminish terrorism; it's far more likely to encourage terrorism. It's not just immoral, it's also stupid.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Then it must be the popular opinion is wrong.
Drone attacks are not perfect. However it is better than having our soldiers in harms ways doing the attacks. Or would you prefer these terrorist organizations to flourish and grow and get better organized again?
The biggest question is the fear of the US dones creating more terrorist then we are killing? That is a tough call.
Soldiers are not perfect. However, it's better to put the lives of our beloved young soldiers in harms way doing the attacks. Or would you prefer having even less of an incentive to maintain peace by reducing the price of war? To me it's far better to see the news broadcast about one of our local "heroes" who died in the war vs a footnote about the on going remote controlled attacks on far away lands. To me the cost of war should be felt as powerful as possible on both sides -- It should be nothing less than insufferable.
What is a terrorist but a surgical strike intended to do the most damage and strike fear into the enemy at the least cost to the overall effort? You would have us swap places in our "War on Terror" and become the robotic terrorists of the world.
if you level a building with a drone or with an A-10 it does not matter if the building in question has "civilians" in it.
drones at least can be lost without needing rather long term (and expensive) build processes.
the ideal drone should be able to "redact" a single building and leave the surrounding buildings intact.
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Like you said, it's all about "good guys" and "bad guys". It's so pathetically clear who is good and bad that it doesn't generate any cognitive dissonance in the player when they're killing bad guys.
That's one of the reasons why I liked playing The Witcher so much. In that game, the two fighting factions (Scoia'tael and Order of the Flaming Rose) are not clearly good or bad. Most players can identify a little bit with both of them, and most players can see that both of them do some good and some bad. The Scoia'tael suffer from racism that the Order helps to impose on them, yet the Scoia'tael also engage in terrorism against the humans that the Order protects.
You can choose which of the two you want to align with (personally, I went Scoia'tael because the Order was too religious for my taste), and you can even choose "none of the above", and each of the three story arcs has different consequences, none of which are clearly good or evil. Truly, The Witcher is the greyest game I have ever played.
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Joe Klein is a columnist for Time Magazine. He recently went on Morning Joe to discuss drones.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/klein-drones-morning-joe
So you're exactly right, a 4-year old American deserves protection but a 4-year old Pakistani? Oh well, that's what you get for having a terrorist neighbor or relative.
Just like that 16 year old American boy who was assassinated without any sort of due process, far away from any battlefield...merely for having a terrorist for a father. When Robert Gibbs was asked to justify how we can kill an American citizen like that, his reply was...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/robert-gibbs-anwar-al-awlaki_n_2012438.html
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So many explanations of human behavior on a global scale (or any scale outside your Monkey Sphere) can be found right here. http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
This debate is a perfect case for application of the golden rule.
Imagine that it was the Chinese sending drones over and firing missiles at terrorists hiding out here in the US. Sometimes they kill genuine terrorists, of course, they certainly wouldnt waste a missile if they didnt expect to hit one with it, but they are killing innocent US citizens that just happen to be in the area as well. I presume you area US citizen, how would you feel about this? Do you suppose you might develop some 'extremists' views against the Chinese, perhaps even start attacking them yourself, or at least turning a blind eye to those who do, after a few members of your family became 'collateral damage?'
Can you not see that no matter how many enemies you kill with a strike, if that strike makes you new enemies, it was a bad move?
And please, if you are going to say that the analogy is flawed, point out the flaw, specifically.
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