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72% of Xbox 360 Gamers Approve of "More Military Drone Strikes"

Posted by timothy on from the ok-but-what-about-pepsi-drinkers? dept.

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?"

26 of 446 comments (clear)

  1. Or... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or, perhaps they feel using a drone to make an attack, rather than risking American soldiers, is the better choice?

    1. Re:Or... by Squiddie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We should also consider the fact that gamers are not exactly a monolithic group. There's a lot of twelve year olds that scream bitch at you when they beat you. I doubt this has anything to do with the game and more with the baseline of the gamer group. Ask a group of children the same question and you'll get similar answers.

    2. Re:Or... by crazyjj · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It probably didn't help that that question was more loaded than an Irishman at a wake on St. Patrick's Day. If you ask "Do you support doing X to attack suspected terrorists?" you could pretty much get at least a two-thirds majority no matter WHAT the "X" in question was.

      --
      What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
    3. Re:Or... by Desler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Which is why the article mentions, but glosses over during their tirade, that other polls have shown 62% support on a similar question to the general population. That the difference is only 10% from a biased sampling is quite interesting.

    4. Re:Or... by daem0n1x · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I dont see one good solution here.

      How about going home?

    5. Re:Or... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I dont see one good solution here.

      How about not being in Afghanistan or any other Middle East country in the first place?

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    6. Re:Or... by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You take something as overwhelmingly popular as drone strikes on terrorists and then filter out the women by conducting the polling with a game machine... I think that pretty much eliminates any mystery. There's a push in the press to show the horror of drone strikes on civilian populations, but I think to the average Joe it is hard to tell how the horror of drone strikes is any worse than the horror of a Seal raid, conventional bomb, or cruise missile.

      Personally, I can understand how it must feel to have this buzzing drone overhead, knowing that it could fire off a missile at any moment. It must be scary as hell, but more importantly, it must make you feel powerless and impotent - I can totally buy that they bring out the inner terrorist in people. That said, I'm not "against" them on principle - I just wonder if they are being overused. It's hard for me to make the call, since I don't have the information that the President does. The fact that Bush and Obama both made the same decisions when given the same facts is both reassuring and unnerving. Clinton didn't have drones, but he loved to fire off Tomahawks.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    7. Re:Or... by SMoynihan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Or, as so well put in "Yes, Minister":

      I was somewhat naive in those days. I did not understand
      how the voters could be both for it and against it. Dear old
      Humphrey showed me how it's done.

      The secret is that when the Man In The Street is approached
      by a nice attractive young lady with a clipboard, he is
      asked a "series" of questions. Naturally the Man In The
      Street doesn't wants to make a good impression and doesn't
      want to make a fool of himself. So the market researcher
      asks questions designed to elicit "consistent" answers.
      Humphrey demonstrated the system on me. "Mr. Woolley, are
      you worried about the rise in crime among teen-agers?"

      "Yes," I said.

      "Do you think there is a lack of discipline and vigorous
      training in our Comprehensive Schools?"

      "Yes."

      "Do they respond to a challenge?"

      "Yes."

      "Might you be in favor of reintroducing National Service?"

      "Yes."

      Well, naturally I said yes. One could hardly have said
      anything else without looking inconsistent. Then what
      happens is that the Opinion Poll publishes only the last
      question and answer.

      Of course, the reputable polls didn't conduct themselves
      like that. But there weren't too many of those. Humphrey
      suggested that we commission a new survey, not for the Party
      but for the Ministry of Defence. We did so. He invented the
      question there and then:

      "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"

      "Yes," I said quite honestly.

      "Are you unhappy about the growth of armaments?"

      "Yes."

      "Do you think there's a danger in giving young people guns
      and teaching them how to kill?"

      "Yes."

      "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms
      against their will?"

      "Yes."

      "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
      I'd said "Yes" before I'd even realized it, d'you see?

      Humphrey was crowing with delight. "You see, Bernard," he
      said to me," "you're the perfect Balanced Sample."

    8. Re:Or... by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Anyone we shoot with a drone is a terrorist by definition. Didn't you read the manual?

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    9. Re:Or... by fustakrakich · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Those 'suspected terrorists' are only trying to protect their homeland from outside invaders. Self defense is a birthright, of everybody's, not just Americans.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    10. Re:Or... by Squiddie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sure, you don't have to be twelve to have a child's intellect.

    11. Re:Or... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only confirmed terrorist is one that already has committed a terrorist act, as a former military who served in Afghanistan I would rather not wait till they took a shot at me or tried to blow me up thank you very much.

      Question: What do we call pre-emptive killing Stateside?

      Pretty sure the answer is murder.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    12. Re:Or... by mjm1231 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The Taliban, as evil as they may be, did not attack the US. They allowed Bin Laden to lead Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. The US gave them the choice of turning Bin Laden over, which they refused. Bin Laden's reasons for hating the US are well documented, but chiefly had to do with the American military setting foot in Saudi Arabia.

      This may seem like hair splitting to some, but misremembering history is not a good recipe for sound decisions.

      --
      Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
    13. Re:Or... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because we weren't in Afghanistan and they attacked us.

      You do realize the highjackers on September 11, 2001 were pretty much all Saudi Arabian, right?

      You do realize Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi, right?

      What did the people of Afghanistan do to us again?

      FYI, the correct answer is, "not a goddamn thing we didn't do to them first."

      They hate us. They hate the culture, freedom, religion, color, and superiority of the US. They hate everything the US stands for.

      Who is this mysterious "They" you keep referring to, and what did "They" ever do to me? Or you, for that matter?

      They hate us. They hate the culture, freedom, religion, color, and superiority of the US. They hate everything the US stands for.

      So does the Westboro Baptist Church, but I don't see many people calling for every man, woman, and child who attends the WBC to be wiped off the face of the planet with a damn airstrike.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    14. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because we weren't in Afghanistan and they attacked us.

      Wait, the Taliban attacked us? Wow, it amazes me how misinformed people are. The fact is they just sympathized with the people who did attack us, Al Qaeda. You know, Al Qaeda, the group who formed their anti-US foundation based on the presence of US forces on Saudi soil during the first US Gulf War, which kinda supports the point you were trying to refute. They are, of course, terrible awful people, for more reasons than just expressing sympathy for terrorists, but being terrible and awful doesn't make them the aggressors.

      Because we actually trained and helped the Taliban fight off the USSR, and they attacked us.

      Er, no. As described above, we trained them, then we attacked them. Then they fought back.

      They hate us. They hate the culture, freedom, religion, color, and superiority of the US. They hate everything the US stands for.

      They do hate us, I agree with that. They hate how our troops occupy their countries, how we kill and torture their people/women/children with impunity, how we've propped up petty tyrants for decades in their region. The hate didn't spring up overnight, or even in the past decade--it's been there since we knocked over the democratically-elected leader of Iran and installed a bloody murderous tyrant. They hate what we stand for--and over there, we stand for brutal dictatorships, war crimes, and profiting from their misery. They don't know or don't care that we have an entirely separate set of values for ourselves at home. In fact, if they did know, they'd probably hate us more for our hypocrisy.

      Moral of the story? If a terrorist moves in next door, kill him yourself or move out ASAP.

      Or call the cops, who will arrest him, give him a fair trial and, if convicted, put him in jail where he can't do any more harm. We did that the first time terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, or did you forget? Sure, it didn't stop the phenomenon of terrorism any more than arresting murderers stops the phenomenon of murder. But it stopped those particular terrorists extremely effectively (still behind bars in a normal non-military prison thank you very much, no Blofeld-esque terrorist prison-break attempts), and back then we didn't have to give up the freedoms we were supposedly protecting.

    15. Re:Or... by BakaHoushi · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'd be kind of interested to see a poll to test this idea that at least 2/3 of Americans would be for anything used on suspected terrorists.

      "Do you support training Olympic athletes to hurl javelins (the spear not the missle) long range at suspected terrorists?"
      "Do you support training an army of suicide bombers to pre-bomb suspected terrorists?"
      "Do you support cutting off parts of countries that harbor suspected terrorists and floating them out to sea?"
      "Do you support opening a transdimensional portal to the Realm of the Dark Ones to place suspected terrorists?"

      I'd like to know just how outlandish you'd need to go before support dropped.

  2. Nice leading question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The more correct question is "Are civilian deaths lower from drone strikes than from conventional military action?"

    1. Re:Nice leading question by Andy+Prough · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The more correct question is "Are civilian deaths lower from drone strikes than from conventional military action?"

      No - the more correct question is - why are 12-year-old boys being polled about American military policy? I think you would have gotten a similar 72% positive response to the question: "Should America's President be a 9th degree Ninja warrior with high-power rifle and demolition skills instead of a businessman or lawyer?"

  3. Perhaps by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Perhaps by royallthefourth · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's your stupid fucking opinion, but here's the facts:

      "The study by Stanford Law School and New York University's School of Law calls for a re-evaluation of the practice, saying the number of "high-level" targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low -- about 2%."

      http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/asia/pakistan-us-drone-strikes/index.html

  4. Re:WTF?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    News? It's intentionally inflammatory linkbait.

  5. XBOX Live Drone Strike by puddingebola · · Score: 4, Funny

    XBOX Live is pleased to offer a new real time, real world game, "Drone Strike." In an innovative and wonderful new partnership with the Pentagon and US Military, gamers will now be able to pilot real drones on real actual strikes, killing real actual people. The first game of its kind, now you can help your country by helping the Pentagon cut costs through outsourcing, and experience the thrill of remote controlled combat at the same time. Only $9.99 on XBOX Live.

  6. Games don't have many civilians by phorm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. Which button was Yes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. Re:Need to make a comparison, not absolute judgmen by omfgnosis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  9. If they are not Americans they are not real people by lxs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.