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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.
I love how people insist on commenting on what fathers or mothers do to teach their children about reality. If you did not hand them weapons or put them in the line of fire (keep in mind in some countries even that is perfectly acceptable for a 12 year old), then mind your own freekin beeswax. Why is this even a /. story?
Side note? I would do the same with my kids if I actually got up off my ass and stopped typing on computers for 10 minutes. Sad.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Uhhm, OK, uhhh...I'm sorry, why is this on Slashdot?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Back in my day, parents would say, "you want that? Save up your money! I'll pay you 50 cents every time you mow the lawn, now get to work." And I was grateful!
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
No, seriously. This guy was thinking of his children.
I think it's great that he wants to give them a dose of reality. I think a lot of us in the US (and not just kids) could use that kind of experience.
Does it pose some risk to the kids? Yeah, sure. Growing up has all sorts of risks.
Which is why some of us never do.
"And when they came back home, they would be free to play whatever games they chose."
That opens up so many possibilities...
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
"Kids get in the car. We're goin' to the box factory!"
crazy dynamite monkey
"A Swedish father has come under fire for interacting with the real world."
We discussed all kinds of issues:
Bombings, genocide, gas chambers, blockades, dictators.
They get it. They know war is horrible and they know what a game is.
It's called parenting. I applaud this guy's efforts.
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
It's a grayer area than that. Blasting Nazis on Mars or whatever was one thing, but the US Department of Defense now throws millions of dollars at game developers, tasking them with making war look like just another extreme sport.
IMHO (and in the opinion of most credible researchers) even these games are not directly psychologically damaging to young people. But I don't like the message they are engineered to send. It sounds like this father has found a great way to give his kids an inside look at the game they're really being trained to play.
If he did then he wouldn't have been able to come up with the idea of teaching his kids the difference between fantasy and reality.
So, I say this sounds like a perfect education. You kids like playing war? Lets go see what war really is because games & stories don't do it justice. Look it in the eyes and you won't treat it like a game anymore.
When they're adults, these kids will be able to look back and use this experience to make an informed decision on whether or not to fight in whatever conflict their country gets into. Sweden's next generation of decision makers will be better equipped because of the presence of these kid's experience.
but... but US is the "global Force for Good"
are you eeeeveeel?
But I took an arrow to the knee.
Bye!
Ask someone, anyone, who has been to a region in which people fight to survive, and has to the smallest extent, even by simply talking to those people, shared their experiences. Unfailingly, the person will tell you that the experience changed his or her perspective, and that since then he is better, larger, more generous.
If you starve for a few days for the lack of food, a spoonful of plain, white, unsalted rice will taste better than the richest gourmet meal. My memory of the bowl of rice I had after 4 days of hunger is a calming, delicious memory. It was not the relief of having got food - but my whole body rejoicing from the taste of the soft, wholesome, starchy taste filling up in my mouth - a taste that I had not recognized until then.
We in the west are shielded from the harsh realities of life, little do we know that we are not exempt of them, we only ignore them, until one day it becomes impossible to do so. But if you have to face such realities then the perverse suffering caused by banalities - Internet connection going down, personal relationship problems simply dither away into insignificance.
I think it would be beneficial to society as a whole if every education included such encounters which teach people that life cannot be compared to the boom and splat of video games.
If they see themselves on the winning side, they'll want even more war
That statement seems intuitively true. If you investigate more deeply, I'm not sure it holds up.
Consider for example, world war 1. The British and French won, but had no more appetite for war at all. "Wanting war" seems to be determined primarily by other factors than 'winning' or 'losing.'
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Actually, if you RTFA they had to respawn twice.
Blank until
Kids should be taught that war is horrible, but that sometimes that horribleness needs to be undertaken to prevent something even worse. I don't agree with the "War is never the answer" bumper stickers I see here and there, but war should never be the first answer. War should be our last option after all other options are exhausted. You should beware of people who either a) think that you should never engage in war ever or b) are itching to rush into a war. The former will let atrocities happen while they wag their fingers at the perpetrators. The latter will cause bloodshed (on both sides) when diplomacy could have been used instead.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I'm going to guess that the video game angle is kind of irrelevant. He took his kids from a very wealthy, stable country -- to go see how the other half live. They received first hand, a very real lesson in the way the world works.
Kudos to the dad.
"Here Junior, stop watchin' that porn and step over here to watch your mum and i having sex... that's what it's really like..."
And the medical industry would diagnose the kids as have PTSD and ADHD and medicate the hell out of them as soon as possible.
Yes, I'm rambling.
On a side note, whatever happened to pen pals? Has social media replaced that as well? Get instant notification that the family you visited got blown up...
Yes, I'm a bit of an a$$ today...
My dad did that, but for fairly different reasons. His friends convinced him that their area of Yugoslavia was pretty unimpacted by fighting, so we visited. It was honestly one of the more interesting vacations I've taken; the entire country was completely economically devistated. Fortunately I don't think any of the involved governments (we're American) ever found out about that somewhat irresponsible vacation.
My kid is playing Rocksmith an hour a night, and using *my* guitar to do it.
I'm going to threaten to take her to a rock concert. That'll teach her the difference between playing the guitar and people playing a guitar on stage.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The issue, is that you have governments that dont know the meaning of a peaceful "no."
You know, like,
"Hey bro-- I see you have lots of untapped oil resources. Would you please make some backroom deals with me so I can get some of it real cheap? I'll give you all the stuff to get it out of the ground for a reasonable bait and switch arrangement..."
"no, your deal is clearly not in our best interests. Seek your oil elsewhere."
"Oh, sorry to hear you say that..." (Turns around, spreads propoganda in his own country to rile up the 'For the right reasons' crowd) "For FREEDOM!(tm)"
(censored)
[sounds of killing and horrors of war of scene]
[new scene, completely different person is now in charge of the other country.]
"Thanks so much for putting me in power! Now, how can I help you?"
"yes, about that oil...."
THIS is why we must not allow people to be moved by speeches about "right reasons" for war. There would never have been a war without them. That's the point.
The argument in favor of 'For the right reasons' revolves around war being inevitable and necessary. It is a logical tautology.
"War is needed, because war exists(elsewhere)"
By that reasoning ithe subject of the game doesn't have to be war. If the kids play Fruit Ninja the dad should take them to a poverty-striken third world country that is having a food shortage, so they no longer want to trivialize the act of destroying food. As you said, starvation is something that Westerners are normally shielded from. "You're teaching people that life cannot be compared to the boom and splat of video games".
Yet it would be obviously ludicrous to do that.
Are they realistic to war? Of course not. But then, I haven't seen any games that are realistic to anything. Their point is to be fun, not realistic.
You seem to be fairly typical for the military types I know (which is more than a couple) in that they quite enjoy the make believe of FPS games, despite having experienced the reality of combat.
While not quite as extreme, I can point to myself and enjoying computer/hacker games like Introversion's Uplink. I'm a network and systems administrator professionally. I know quite a bit about network security and how this stuff really works, and I don't at all believe black hat hackers that bust in to systems are glamours, they are criminal dickheads. However, I enjoy Uplink. It is not at ALL realistic. It is a fictional version of hacking on fictional computers ins a fictional Internet. And it's fun.
I'm not sure why people get so worked up about FPS games, like they are changing attitudes on war or anything. No, they are just games, and it turns out humans really can tell the difference between fiction and reality.
War should be our last option after all other options are exhausted.
There is a big difference between "war should be considered as a last resort to get our way" and "war shouldn't be considered at all except as a way to prevent something even worse" (where the list of things considered "worse than war" is extremely short). Whether war is justified at all is a more important issue than where it ranks on a list of options, though I do agree that other options should always come first.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Soon after returning from Syria, one of the boys didn't want to go to school because he had a sniffle and a mild fever. So next month the family is packing up again for another trip - this time to West Africa to visit with families affected by the Ebola outbreak. While they're there, with any luck, they will be able to stumble upon a village completely wiped out by the virus. While some have labeled the plan ill timed and the motivations just plain sick, the father hopes that the children will come to appreciate their health if they can interview a dying infectee with blood spewing from every orifice.
Meanwhile, the boys have withdrawn their requests to go see the new Hunger Games movie, and no longer complain about being hot, cold, bored, or anything else.
So, it may be a bit too much for the kids, actually (as someone already suggested).
But still, it's a good idea. In these war-zones, "Game Over" really is more than two words.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Think of the fact that something like this might give them PTSD. Dealing with a war zone can be traumatic for adults with training, experience, and perspective. It can be far worse for children.
Also it does rather seem to be an unnecessary risk. While childhood has risks to be sure, part of your duty as a guardian is to minimize those risks as feasible. You weigh risks vs rewards, and try to find safe options when possible.
So maybe taking kids to a war zone is not the best idea. Maybe a better idea is to talk to them, watch some movies, read books, perhaps have a friend who's a war vet have a conversation.
Of course this strikes me as a journalist being a press whore. He's doing this because he can make it a story, not because he's being a good father.
A kid has every right to say "50 cents for 4 minutes. It's the law."
Here's a dollar. Blow me. (Yes, I am going to hell for this.)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
maybe if you're a cretin who lacks empathy.
I have seen first hand a gypsy neighborhood raised by bulldozers.
Apparently, Hillary Clinton was wrong... it doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes a group of bulldozers.
Typical American - "You're not raising your children the way I think children should be raised, so you're wrong!"
At least, it sure as hell seems that way.
That is a human problem, not an American problem. Everybody on this planet is sure their way of life is the correct way. That is why everybody laughs at the fat, dumb, lazy, violent, American kids. Because they have different priorities.