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sparhawk

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And in wars it seems that over 50% of soldiers ( I think it was even higher than that) do not shoot to kill.

 

Really? I didn't know that.

 

Apparently most of the killing as done by about 20% of psychopaths. People who won medals for bravery etc, are all psychos as well, like people who storm an enemy trench single handed and kill everyone.

You have to be a 'special' sort of person to do something like that.

 

When I served in the army we had a training where we should do this. Of course with a fake machine gun that we should storm. I didn't even participate in this training storm, much less in a real one. Instead I stayed back and kept my gun clean. The fake bullets are making a lot of dirt in the gun so I didn't shot a single one. But there were always some crazy guys who liked it, so I usually swapped my ammo with them. They got my full and I got their empty ones. :) So I could show the officer that my gun was empty afterwards :)

 

THe percntage of killers in the army is  much better these days though, soldiers recieve much better psychological training.

 

Maybe because these days you don't need to go to the army, at least not for the real missions. So the ones doing it on their own free will, are more likely to kill anyway.

 

In our army I know that at least some of the officers just stayed in the army because they had a chance to study there. The army provided for them so they could more easily finance it. So they have to serve 5 or ten years (dont know really how much) and in this time they spend a lot of studying, and then the leave and do some usefull work. :)

Gerhard

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It is my understanding that they are not instructed to shoot to kill, anyway, as an enemy out of action but not dead requires less dealing with... or something.

 

That's right. But I doubt that many soldiers would have a choice in this. They just aim their gun in the general direction and press the trigger. Of course it's much easier to shoot at the training yard, but it's much harder to hit a moving target. And contrary to popular believe it is not THAT easy to make a clean kill with a single shot. Most of the hits would just be injuries.

Gerhard

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And Dom, if going on a Thief killing spree is so strange, why is such a pat on the back to steal everything in Bafford's manor and not be seen. That's equally as benign and pointless as killing everyone and attaining somekind of satisfaction...either way, they're just pixels, polygons, and equations.

It's not the same for me. In a video game (as I guess I would in real life) I draw a huge thick line between deciding wether someone can do without the money or not, and outright killing them - giving them no chance to recover from a few coins I stole.

 

I even find myself deliberately not stealing from the rather poor looking houses, and not stealling that huge amoutn of loot beside the love letter saying how that person and their partner will live happliy ever after with all this money they got as bonus or whatever.

 

I actually only cross that line when I can't complete the mission, and just play the "it's just a game" card to myself and take the loot to complete the objective.

 

I just get more fun playing that way. It's immersive.

 

And I have to justify the stealing for Garret's reasons - I'm playing as garret, so if he has to steal to make the rent, or solve some mystery, then that's what I do, but I do it my way.

 

I don't play Thief for the stealing, I play it for the sneaking required to complete the objectives.

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That's right. But I doubt that many soldiers would have a choice in this. They just aim their gun in the general direction and press the trigger. Of course it's much easier to shoot at the training yard, but it's much harder to hit a moving target. And contrary to popular believe it is not THAT easy to make a clean kill with a single shot. Most of the hits would just be injuries.

 

Yes, unlike most movies, a person can usually take several small calibre bullets and still keep going for a while with enough adrenaline. Though a single 30.06 to the head will usually do the trick...

 

I read some statistics a while back that showed that something like 99.5% of the bullets fired during the first and second world and vietnam wars never hit anyone, let alone caused a fatal injury, and that automatic weapons are really only useful in close quarters, given their lack of accuracy. And in more recent wars, like the two gulf wars, considerably more US soliders were killed by friendly fire than by the enemy (at a ratio of about 8 to 1 or thereabouts - US soldiers killed 8 of their own for every US soldier killed by an Iraqi - in fact the british troops were ordered not to worry about the Iraqi soldiers, but to keep a very close eye on the US Army - and with good reason - most of the British casualties were a result of US bullets and missiles, the rest were pretty much accidents). In fact, the only way the US has been able to settle any conflict has been with overwhelming firepower (carpet bombing disguised as "smart" bombing) and large numbers of expendable troops - in situations where they wanted to limit casualties and use of firepower, they have not fared too well (eg Somalia).

 

Yet in Vietnam, the Viet Cong were very efficient and frugal with their ammunition, and made every shot count - much higher accuracy than the US, much more vicious. The defending side will usually be more brutal and aggressive than the attacking side. So while 50% of conscripted soldiers might have avoided firing a shot, if the war came to shem anyway, they might have gotten a lot more violent. And that is why the US lost Vietnam - they had no will to be there, while the Vietnamese were fighting for their country and the freedom to govern themselves as they wished. The US just wanted the oil reserves of the Vietnamese coast. What you are fighting for makes all the difference.

 

Not trying to offend any US citizens here, just pointing out some of the deficiencies in the US defence strategy...

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That's not true. There's no evidence to show that defenders win more battles than attackers becasue they fight harder. Even if you could show statistics to that effect, a far bigger factor is the tactical advantage which defenders usually have.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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because they're instructed NOT to shoot to kill anyways.

 

Hmm, it was my understanding that they're instructed to fire bullets thru the enemy's center of mass until the enemy is no longer a threat. Bullets are engineered for maximum damage inside the body balanced with maximum penetration of armor, so a side effect of shooting thru the enemy's center of mass until they don't have the ability to fight back is usually that they're dead. It's not like they're just trying to shoot the gun out of the enemy's hand in a friendly manner.

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That's not true. There's no evidence to show that defenders win more battles than attackers becasue they fight harder. Even if you could show statistics to that effect, a far bigger factor is the  tactical advantage which defenders usually have.

 

 

I never said that the defenders win more often, merely that they generally have a greater motive to fight - of course an overwhelmed defender will lose no matter how aggressively they fight, or how motivated they are. Sorry if I didn't make that clear...

 

The Japanese would have probably lost the war in the pacific had the US not nuked them, but they would have continued to fight viciously if America tried to win by using troops, and US casualties would have been very high, and it would have taken them a lot longer to wrest control of the country, because an invasion would provoke much more nationalism, while the nukes made it clear that it was a choice between oblivion or surrender. Not that I condone the use of nukes, but clearly overwhelming firepower will win in the end, even if it is clumsily and crudely used, and the opponent has a greater will to fight.

 

@Sparhawk: but a fox facing starvation will have much more get up and go than a tired old rabbit, so you shouldn't overgeneralise too much...

Edited by obscurus
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Two quick points, its controversial that the Japanese would have fought on much longer in many historical circles although that is the official rationale of the U.S. government and the fallback position of those who seek to defend the blasts. (im not saying you are defending them obscurus) Another way to do it would have been to invite some Japanese officials to a test blast and then say "Tokyo is next, surrender." Not guaranteed to work, but it might have.

 

Secondly, its pretty clear from the historical evidence that the military and political leadership planned to use the bomb from the get-go. Ive have worked with some of the historical materials related to the A-bomb and its stated more than once that this thing was being built to be used, not merely as a deterrent. Gen. Eisenhower himself said in a speech that he did not understand why anyone would consider the bomb different from "any other bullet" or something like that, thats a misquote but you get the idea.

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Which leads me to my next corollary:  Humanity has lived by one simply creed;  That which will not adapt to Humanity will be destroyed by Humanity.  I think the evidence bares this out exclusively.

 

What's that have to do with solitaire...well, like gambling, it's a desperate ploy to control the odds, to wrest control and dominance over probablity and chaos.  Like sky diving, or cracking the human genome, or building the atomic bomb, or beating your best friend at poker...it's all the same.

 

Aggression, competition and dominance are the inevitable and necessary by-products of the evolutionary process. If it weren't for these characteristics none of us would be here.

 

Unless we start genetically modifying humans, there is nothing anybody can do about it.

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Well I saw a documentry on the large city of Coral (not sure how you spell it, pronounced "Core - al", al as in Alan) which survived a thousand years without a single war or invasion, existing soley on trade and entertainment.

 

It was an interesting conclusion - basically, if agression, competition and dominance are core to human nature, you just don't get 1000 years without a war.

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Well I saw a documentry on the large city of Coral (not sure how you spell it, pronounced "Core - al", al as in Alan) which survived a thousand years without a single war or invasion, existing soley on trade and entertainment.

 

It was an interesting conclusion - basically, if agression, competition and dominance are core to human nature, you just don't get 1000 years without a war.

 

Trade is pretty competitive, and can often be aggressive. The "core" is still there, it is just being expressed differently (or perhaps just controlled effectively).

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Competitive, yes. Aggressive, not necessarily. The Scara Brae community in Orkney (stone age) showed quite clearly a nonviolent society - indeed, it had a flat social structure, with each house having an identical floor plan. Violence/aggression is not a necessary part of humanity, although it is instinctive for us to protect ourselves, our mate and our food.

--

Somethin' fishy's goin' on here... Come on out, you taffer!

 

~The Fishy Taffer

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We are as cooperative as we are competitive by nature, and if cooperation works, we cooperate. Competition is the result of a changing environment - population growth or decline, technological change, famine, pestilence and so on are all factors that bring out our competitive side. But if we live in stable societies with sustainably harvested resources, no major changes in population or demographics, then we will stably cooperate peacefully until something disturbs the balance.

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That's good :)

 

Cause I get annoyed with people trying to convince everyone that humans are evil or violent by nature or something. You can walk up to anyone in the street and 90% of them will give you the time of day. And if a baby's pram topples over everyone around will most likely react to stop it or pick it up.

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Giving the time of the day doesn't cost anything. The result you will get is about proportional to the effort it takes to give the requested object. If it is just the time it takes only a split second and doesn't cost anything. Of course in relation to violence it at least prooves that most of the time you will not get hit just because of asking. :)

Since we are social creatures by nature I would say that it is more normal for us to operate in the boundaries of a social organisation and this includes not being overly violent most of the time.

Gerhard

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We all make conscious and unconscious cost benefit analyses of how our behaviour towards others will affect us. True altruism is exceedingly rare, most of the time people are nice to each other because it benefits them to do so. Being violent or mean is costly, because you have a high risk of getting hurt or ostracised yourself, and violence only ever pays of when you are in a position of power where the rewards of violence exceed the costs of everyone hating or fearing you. Actually, the cost of maintaining a position of social dominance by using coercion or violence is in the form of stress, and the reign of such individuals is usually short lived, as they die of stress related illnesses very prematurely, though they tend to have access to much more resources while their rule is maintained.

 

Cooperation is a far more effective and rewarding way to interact with your social peers in most circumstances, which is why we humans manage to do it more often than not.

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That's good :)

 

Cause I get annoyed with people trying to convince everyone that humans are evil or violent by nature or something.  You can walk up to anyone in the street and 90% of them will give you the time of day.  And if a baby's pram topples over everyone around will most likely react to stop it or pick it up.

 

We are violent by nature. We are greedy and will do anything for our own benefit. We have to learn not to behave like that in order to fit into scociety.

Someone brought up in isolation will have no morals at all, they will kill, rape or steal whatever they deem necessary to satisfy or protect themsleves.

Morals have to be learned from scratch by every child, they are not inherant.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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A child brought up in isolation will not be able to function in a society, because they haven't learned to interact with other humans. We are both violent and peacful by nature, but most children learn to interact peacfully with other children out of pure self interest, it has nothing to do with any kind of entrenched moral code - children who interact with other children will learn very quickly that if they want something, they can get it much more easily by trading it than they can by trying to beat someone up and take it by force. Of course, some children realise they are bigger and can get away with violence, and some never cotton onto the advantages of being nice to people, but by and large we manage to cooperate out of mutual self interst, most of the time. Most people are smart enough to recognise that their actions have consequences, and the best way to avoid nasty consequences is by being nice to people, even if inwardly they hate them and harbour secret desires of disemboweling them and eating their brains...

 

Not morality, just calculated self interest. Most humans are really amoral when it comes to the crunch - neither deliberately nasty nor nice for no reason, we generally behave in the way that best guarantees having a productive and enjoyable life.

 

It is interesting to compare and contrast chimpanzees and bonobos, our closet relatives. Chimpanzees tend to be aggressive, competitive and violently political, and will use force to get their way, while bonobos are dimplomatic and peaceful, and will offer sexual stimulation as a trade for something (they are probably the most highly sexed creatures on the planet - will fuck anything anytime). We humans use a highly varied mix of both extremes of behaviour (perhaps a bit less sex than bonobos), and a few complexites unique to us (like abstractions such as money) to get what we want from our fellows..

Edited by obscurus
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True altruism is exceedingly rare

 

True altruism is a genetic flaw, if it stems from genetics. If you're truly altruistic, then you're not helping yourself, which means you are less likely to survive and pass on your genes. "Exceedingly rare" is an understatement - more like "virtually nonexistent!" Virtually every nice thing we do is designed to garner favours back.

--

Somethin' fishy's goin' on here... Come on out, you taffer!

 

~The Fishy Taffer

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THat's not necessarily a flaw. It's as valid to help the species as a whole as it is to help just yourself. At our level of intelligence and awareness and global instant communication, we should be concerned with survival of our species as a whole and not just our own short little lives.

I think altruism is a sign of a more advanced human, and the general direction we're going in. Selfishness is the old way.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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Altruistic genes will only be furthered if you are altruistic towards other altruists. If you have a small number of altruists in a population, then their actions will not further the altruistic genes, so they will be eradicated. Although said genes would further the species as a whole, since they don't further themselves, they will go.

--

Somethin' fishy's goin' on here... Come on out, you taffer!

 

~The Fishy Taffer

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