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Swedish Dad Takes Gamer Kids To Warzone
Z00L00K sends this excerpt from The Local:
A Swedish father has come under fire for taking his two sons on a trip to Israel, the West Bank and occupied Syria in order to teach them the reality of war. [Carl-Magnus Helgegren is] a journalist, university teacher, and proactive dad. And like so many other dads, Helgegren had to have the violent video-game conversation with his two sons, Frank and Leo, aged ten and 11 respectively. "We were sitting at the dinner table last autumn, and my kids started telling me about this game they wanted to play, the latest Call of Duty game, and told me about the guns and missions," Helgegren told The Local on Friday. So Helgegren struck a deal. The family would take a trip to a city impacted by real war. The boys would meet people affected, do interviews, and visit a refugee camp. And when they came back home, they would be free to play whatever games they chose.
What would the dad have done if this were around eight years ago and his kids wanted to play Persona 3? Live demonstration of how shooting yourself in the head with a handgun doesn't cause physical manifestations of Jungian psychology to come out and fight demons and/or date unrealistic Japanese girls for you?
I know right, I once caught my son using an iPhone so I sent him to work in a Chinese sweatshop for a year to teach him about the human suffering that went into making it. Nothing over reactive about that.
Ignoring, for the moment, your grossly crass and inappropriate usage of the term "retarded," I will point out that there are a lot of people out there who, in fact, cannot reasonably separate fantasy from reality.
Take, for example, the current situation going on in Ferguson, MO - a large number of people have already, in their own minds, made a decision about who was at fault. Regardless of what evidence is presented, those people will not change their beliefs, indicating that these otherwise sane, reasonable people in fact cannot (or will not) distinguish reality (facts) from fantasy (what they choose to believe).
Or, for an example the atheists will love, religious devotees, which make up the vast majority of the human population - despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence so much as indicating the existence of any particular sky-fairy, billions of people the world over not only believe in them, but murder the holy living shit out of each other because of said belief.
So, going back to your statement:
Normal people who can tell the difference between fantasy and reality
The evidence indicates that either A) that is a false statement based on a particular belief and not the facts of the matter (meaning that you, yourself, fall into the "not-normal" category), or B) you don't know what "normal" actually means, in terms of human behavior.
Or I guess it could be C) you can't accept that your delusion isn't actually reality.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It is not seeing how "the other half live[s]" any more than going to a zoo to see how animals live or walking over a homeless person, once, in order to experience poverty/mental-health.