Graphic violence in flight simulators

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

Depends how graphic they model their deaths, because you're all forgetting the most important reason for adding these, the memes. In a definitely not sad and demented insight into the hearts of the definitely not sick and twisted players, blowing up flesh and blood touches the soul more than steel and concrete.

 

Edited note:

These early posts were ripped out of 2 different threads, that's why it looks so disconnected.

Edited December 31, 2024 by =MERCS=JenkemJunkie

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

It would look kinda weird if I hit them directly with a rocket and they just lie down peacefully after fully intact. Its just pixels, I wouldn't want to do it IRL, but making horse puddles in a game will never not be funny to me. That and MUCH MUCH worse is technically historically accurate.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

Will the people on the ground be interactable with bombs and bullets in a non-PG13 way?

[LuftManu]

27 minutes ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

Will the people on the ground be interactable with bombs and bullets in a non-PG13 way?

Personally, I'm OK if the people just dissapear when hit by ammunition or a blast.

There is totally NO need to have dead bodies of non fighters visible on a flight sim.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

I find it looks goofy and makes me feel like I'm playing a kids game. Its less important for bodies on the ground ill be zooming past, but especially goofy in the case of gunners in the back of my plane.

[Gambit21]

4 hours ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I find it looks goofy and makes me feel like I'm playing a kids game. Its less important for bodies on the ground ill be zooming past, but especially goofy in the case of gunners in the back of my plane.

Meh - I think you’ll find that this is a minority position/opinion to say the least.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

I'd imagine that depends on the demo you'd ask, the 20s-40s crowd would probably be more likely to want it in. I think horror and war are inseparable so trying to sim a war without it feels sterile. Imagine trying to make a movie like saving private ryan, or all quiet on the western front without the horror elements. It would be pretty empty.

[Gambit21]

1 hour ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I'd imagine that depends on the demo you'd ask, the 20s-40s crowd would probably be more likely to want it in. I think horror and war are inseparable so trying to sim a war without it feels sterile. Imagine trying to make a movie like saving private ryan, or all quiet on the western front without the horror elements. It would be pretty empty.

We’ll agree to disagree where a flight sim is concerned. If you feel the need to expose yourself to such imagery then there’s places where you can indulge this.

 

This conversation is 25 years old by the way, and I said the sane thing back then. Not going to happen.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

Never say never, I wouldn't recognize this world from even just 5 years ago.

[Zooropa_Fly]

I wouldn't have got into flight sims I have if they were graphic in that way.

There's so many games that already are, it was refreshing to find a family of games that wasn't.

And lets not pretend that young kids don't play all the 'horror' games.

It's really not good for them.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

2 hours ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

I wouldn't have got into flight sims I have if they were graphic in that way.

There's so many games that already are, it was refreshing to find a family of games that wasn't.

And lets not pretend that young kids don't play all the 'horror' games.

It's really not good for them.

It's common for gory games to have a gore filter feature, for those who are turned off by it. I find family friendly war zones to be a big WTF in a game that will stress over the little details.

 

Kids can get access to all kinds of content that even adults shouldn't see, but what's healthy and marketed for kids, and what kids actually end up consuming are seperate issues.

[Aapje]

On 12/30/2024 at 1:06 PM, LuftManu said:

There is totally NO need to have dead bodies of non fighters visible on a flight sim.

 

Artillery and transports are manned by soldiers, so it is realistic for there to be dead bodies if you attack that. And the game is missing infantry, and it would add to the immersion if they were added, but would also result in dead bodies if attacked.

 

I would like for there to be civilians in the game (buildings, vehicles, pedestrians, etc), and a tally of collateral damage (for both friendlies and civilians), so you are encouraged to correctly identify targets, rather than go after anything that moves. In real war, hurting friendlies and civilians is quite common. In fact, targeting civilians was done intentionally during WW II by both sides, although IL-2 has almost fully shied away from that reality.

 

And a splash of blood would show visually that a person is dead and potentially where they are hit. None of that would even be close to the gore that one would see in reality, or what one can see in various movies and TV series. For example, Saving Private Ryan or Masters of the Air shows a lot more than a mere dead body or a splash of red.

 

Of course anyone is entitled to whatever level of squeamishness, or moral beliefs or whatever reasons they have to dislike gore, or dislike to be faced with unpleasant reality...but it does mean abandoning realism in favor of fantasy. I understand that combat flying requires relatively little compromise to remove the gore, as the view from the plane doesn't tend to show the bullets tearing the flesh, the shell fragments blowing off limbs, the firebombs causing asphyxiation, trapped sailors being drowned, etc, etc. But all of these were the consequences of the actions of flyers. I would personally like to see a simplified recognition of the actual reality, rather than the very fantasy that made many men happily go to war (and shaped the perception by the home front a great deal), because they believed a fantasy.

Edited December 31, 2024 by Aapje

[Avimimus]

Some thoughts:

- Having gunners slumped over can be important for indicating to an attacker that the gunner position is not actively manned.

- Different countries have different attitudes to graphic violence (and other things) in media. The original Il-2 tried to maintain child friendly ratings in some European countries (and hence the blood splatter on canopies which was developed was disabled in the release version). In contrast, Red Baron II/3d depicted aircrew leaping to their deaths without parachutes as a preferrable way to die than being burned alive... which was quite graphic. So this is a debate which has existed for some time.

- Having some after-action reporting of collateral damage can provide an additional objective (i.e. destroy the target with as little excess damage as possible). This is probably more important for modern jet simulators where accuracy of guided weapons and a broader choice of ordinance can allow different choices of tactics to minimise collateral damage.

 

I'll add one final thought: Korea was waged with rules of engagement much closer to late war WWII. This included area bombing villages and towns with the intention of wiping them off the map. To allow interdiction of resupply by foot, the rules of engagement were also expanded to allow strafing any grouping of people beyond a certain size. So, when thinking about collateral damage, rules of engagement were very permissive.

 

As for myself - I don't like gore - but I do like the idea of there being civilians on the ground who can run for cover... it makes it more historically accurate if the world is made up of more than just enemy combatants. Perhaps an option could be given in the menus to turn on-or-off the presence of civilian traffic?

[Zooropa_Fly]

Enemy combatant kills / injuries is definitely something I believe could be used to enhance scoring and stats in-game.

If you take out a multi-seater for example, you still only get credit for a single 'kill' as it is.

 

I'd also have no problem seeing virtual corpses lying on the ground where applicable, and any you're responsible for appearing as part of the stats.

That doesn't mean I'd like to see anything particularly graphic, and it doesn't have to be.

 

It's understandable that the Devs wouldn't want to have to get into age restrictions for their titles, if in fact that is a factor.

[Avimimus]

12 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

Enemy combatant kills / injuries is definitely something I believe could be used to enhance scoring and stats in-game.

If you take out a multi-seater for example, you still only get credit for a single 'kill' as it is.

 

I'd rather have historical scoring systems. IRL services and eras differed a lot in this - some used shared-kills, some recorded damaged aircraft, some only cared about confirmed kills behind allied lines... I'd rather have a realistic representation of how my sortie would have been recorded than know how many virtual people I'd injured or killed.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

I hope we get a customizable scoring system with as many options as possible vs a one size fits all one. People should be able to choose what's relevant to their whatever, instead of having to build their whatever to the scoreboard.

[Avimimus]

18 minutes ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I hope we get a customizable scoring system with as many options as possible vs a one size fits all one. People should be able to choose what's relevant to their whatever, instead of having to build their whatever to the scoreboard.

 

We shouldn't be stuck with whatever was historically accurate?

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

It should be up to whoever built the mission, whether it's 1C or a user. Historical stats should be an option, but I don't think it should be forced on everyone at all times. 

[Aapje]

34 minutes ago, Avimimus said:

We shouldn't be stuck with whatever was historically accurate?

 

The current scoring isn't very accurate at all as it doesn't differ per service, era, etc & it is also not based on claims and verifications. We also don't have shared kills, etc. And of course there was overclaiming. So I'm not sure how adding civilian casualties and such would make it meaningfully less accurate.

 

Especially since civilian casualties were actually 'recorded' for bombings (more accurately estimated, because they wouldn't know exactly). If it is OK to have perfect numbers for planes and ground targets, why not for civilian and friendly targets?

 

It would be interesting to have a more accurate stats, but preferable with an option to switch between systems, so you can choose one that is consistent between careers or one that is more historically accurate.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

6 hours ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

It's really not good for them.

To what extent playing video games is or isn't harmful to kids is highly contentious. Many studies that do show such an effect "rely on measures to assess aggression that don't correlate with real-world violence — and even more important, many are observational approaches that don't prove cause and effect", and "the interpretive value of [some of] these studies’ findings is in question". So as it stands, yours is just an expressed opinion rather than a scientifically proven fact.

 

Anyhow, I see no need for exploding brains and flying limbs, but a small measure of blood would be welcome for injured or deceased crew members (are there any crew members? I think all playable aircraft announced so far are single-seaters). For ground infantry, I see no need for any blood at all. Perhaps this would change if there's going to be a new Tank Crew, but with airplanes you fly past way too fast to see anything anyhow.

 

However I do absolutely want to see corpses; ground crew either just disappearing or standing right where a bomb exploded seconds ago is just completely unrealistic.

 

2 hours ago, Aapje said:

I would like for there to be civilians in the game (buildings, vehicles, pedestrians, etc), and a tally of collateral damage (for both friendlies and civilians), so you are encouraged to correctly identify targets, rather than go after anything that moves. In real war, hurting friendlies and civilians is quite common. In fact, targeting civilians was done intentionally during WW II by both sides, although IL-2 has almost fully shied away from that reality.

Agree 100%.

 

My grandmother came from a small village neighbouring Arnhem that was evacuated by the Germans after Market Garden, being too close to the front to be safe. The refugee train was strafed by a number of allied aircraft, who undoubtedly thought they were a German column. At least a few people died there.

 

I imagine it wasn't much different in Korea, and I think it would be important to also show this ugly side of war in Korea.

[Zooropa_Fly]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

We shouldn't be stuck with whatever was historically accurate?

 

It's a game.

So I want to see the results of what I've done, in the game.

 

33 minutes ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

and even more important, many are observational approaches that don't prove cause and effect

 

I'm not suggesting it necessarily causes violence.

It's the normalisation of it that's the problem - so that when they see it in real life on the news, they just don't care.

Generations now are largely stripped of empathy.

[JFM]

The original IL2 Sturmovik had slumped KIA pilots/crew and blood stains on the canopy. You had to change a "0" to a "1" in the config file. But it was there, I saw it a lot. Been gone a long time though. 

 

 

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

1 hour ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I think all playable aircraft announced so far are single-seaters). 

The Il-10 has the potential for some interesting scenarios.

[Aapje]

46 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

I'm not suggesting it necessarily causes violence.

It's the normalisation of it that's the problem - so that when they see it in real life on the news, they just don't care.

Generations now are largely stripped of empathy.

 

I can only imagine how many video games the Nazi's must have played...or are you suggesting that they showed a great deal of empathy?

 

Seriously though, your narrative seems to be entirely based on what you feel to be true, despite very little evidence in support of your claim, and a ton of evidence against it (basically, all of history). As @AEthelraedUnraed notes, scientists have tried very hard to blame video games, but the actual science suggests nothing more than that already violent people are attracted to violent games, which probably just decreases crime, since they stay indoors rather than be violent outside.

 

Your narrative is just one in a long row of claims about things that are supposed to be 'corrupting our youths,' which goes back millennia, where video games, movies, television, radio, books, religions and even Socrates have been blamed.

 

The entire idea that humans are naturally empathetic seems to be a falsehood anyway, very similar to the belief that people are capable of full rationality. Both of those are things that people want to believe, because not believing them causes huge problems for their world view, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against those beliefs. For example, human history is full of murder, slavery, rape and any other form of abuse known to man. So how can you ever believe that universal empathy is a natural human trait?

 

From a survival/evolution point of view, it makes absolutely no sense to be maximally empathetic (or rational), since it will greatly increase the risk that you get killed and also means that you can't unfairly hoard resources for yourself and your group.

[MAJORgoonMADLOU]

I dont care whether there are dead, injured, or mutilated military or civilian bodies in any sim AS LONG AS THERE ARE NO INJURED OR DEAD ANIMALS 😠

Edited December 31, 2024 by MAJORgoonMADLOU

[Avimimus]

30 minutes ago, Aapje said:

So how can you ever believe that universal empathy is a natural human trait?

 

You also have a bit of a motte and bailey argument going on here - claiming 'universal empathy' is a much higher standard than just 'empathy'.

 

You are probably right about computer games overall - although there may be some nuances and exceptions. I'd highly recommend Jacob Geller's essay "Rationalizing Brutality: The Cultural Legacy of the Headshot" for how gameplay dynamics might influence public attitudes (for instance). He's a very interesting video game essayist by the way - worth looking up.

 

I also know a cognitive scientist who was working on the idea that it actually takes cognitive work to not identify with others - so a lack of empathy is something that has to be learned (note: this doesn't exclude the idea that empathy has to be learned - it is perhaps possible that both empathy and lack of empathy are learned).

 

30 minutes ago, Aapje said:

From a survival/evolution point of view, it makes absolutely no sense to be maximally empathetic (or rational), since it will greatly increase the risk that you get killed and also means that you can't unfairly hoard resources for yourself and your group.

 

This is very context dependent, and is strongly influenced by the type of society you live in. Arguably, throughout most of human history, sharing most resources was normal. You can't horde resources very effectively as a hunter-gatherer, so it is better to share widely in order to have others share with you... and there isn't an immediate 'out group' as everyone you live with tends to be a part of your own group.

 

Of course, there may still be limits to empathy in other contexts, include contexts like warfare between hunter-gatherers ...but that is different from unfairly hording resources (which generally wasn't done according to the best evidence we have).

 

Let me know if you'd like citations for any of this!

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

There probably should be a note at the start of a thread if its ripped together from other threads like this. It looks really funny at the start. Not that the posts aren't weird in there own right, but I wrote those posts, and even I was thinking where the hell does this come from?

[Trooper117]

I just want a good combat flight simulator... I don't give a rats whether there is blood and bodies, but perhaps it should be an option... me, I'd leave any gore off though, as I've yet to see any game that can realistically portray it... 

[Gambit21]

55 minutes ago, Trooper117 said:

I just want a good combat flight simulator... I don't give a rats whether there is blood and bodies, but perhaps it should be an option... me, I'd leave any gore off though, as I've yet to see any game that can realistically portray it... 

 

 

Here’s my old response to the “but it’s war, I want realism!” type of peeps. Jenkem don’t take personally.

 

Rig up an 8” PVC air cannon packed with ball bearings or gravel  - secure it and point it at your face.

 

When you take a burst to the canopy, set it off. If you want a lower realism setting lower the air pressure and/or pack it with small potatoes.

 

Alternatively have your wife or girlfriend wallop you in the face with a bag full of oranges.

 

There - now you have your highly tunable  “but this is war” realism and immersion if it’s so important to you.

Plus you have more incentive to not get shot - I promise your sortie/survival ratio will improve dramatically.

 

The rest of us know that war sucks, it’s gory, and not why we fly these sims. Also most that have actually been there and seen gore will have a reaction to you that is difficult to easily sum up.

 

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

Yeah, we all have our own personal version of selective realism, I'll pass on the haptics, but bloodless/disappearing bodies goes past my selective version of it.

I've never been in a real war, or seen anyone die horribly in front of me, so I won't pretend to understand them. From my point of view though, it's all just pixels, and I view blasting the limbs off combatants the same way I would view blasting the limbs off zombies or aliens in a game. 

[Zooropa_Fly]

3 hours ago, Aapje said:

 

I can only imagine how many video games the Nazi's must have played...or are you suggesting that they showed a great deal of empathy?

 

Seriously though, your narrative seems to be entirely based on what you feel to be true, despite very little evidence in support of your claim, and a ton of evidence against it (basically, all of history). As @AEthelraedUnraed notes, scientists have tried very hard to blame video games, but the actual science suggests nothing more than that already violent people are attracted to violent games, which probably just decreases crime, since they stay indoors rather than be violent outside.

 

Your narrative is just one in a long row of claims about things that are supposed to be 'corrupting our youths,' which goes back millennia, where video games, movies, television, radio, books, religions and even Socrates have been blamed.

 

The entire idea that humans are naturally empathetic seems to be a falsehood anyway, very similar to the belief that people are capable of full rationality. Both of those are things that people want to believe, because not believing them causes huge problems for their world view, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against those beliefs. For example, human history is full of murder, slavery, rape and any other form of abuse known to man. So how can you ever believe that universal empathy is a natural human trait?

 

From a survival/evolution point of view, it makes absolutely no sense to be maximally empathetic (or rational), since it will greatly increase the risk that you get killed and also means that you can't unfairly hoard resources for yourself and your group.

 

 

Didn't you read my first sentence ?

I haven't made any claims about correlation between watching violent stuff and becoming violent.

 

But I don't need science to tell me whether or not continued exposure to something desensitises whatever it is to the person exposed.

As a general rule of thumb, that's common sense.

 

Anyway, back to my Black'n'Tan.

HNY everyone !

[Winkysmith]

I personally cannot see whatsoever how anyone could enjoy, or find humour, in causing graphic violence in a video game. Especially to animals. Things like that just don’t sit well with me.
 

I must agree with what has been said above; that this genre doesn’t need gore to be ‘enjoyed’, or to give an accurate experience. Did the men who served in either World War enjoy seeing the real thing? Of course not. Why do you think the vast majority never spoke of their experiences to their families or friends? And why, if they didn’t want to bring home the horrors of war, do we now want to bring them inside our homes?

 

I myself started playing IL-2 when I was only 13, and I certainly wouldn’t have started that early if it contained gore. As simple a change as gore would have stripped me of hundreds of hours of enjoyment, and education as well. 

 

I just don’t understand why some want to expose themselves to violence and gore, even if it is only virtual.

[MAJORgoonMADLOU]

30 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

 

Rig up an 8” PVC air cannon packed with ball bearings or gravel  - secure it and point it at your face.

 

When you take a burst to the canopy, set it off. If you want a lower realism setting lower the air pressure and/or pack it with small potatoes.

 

Alternatively have your wife or girlfriend wallop you in the face with a bag full of oranges.

 

There - now you have your highly tunable  “but this is war” realism and immersion if it’s so important to you.

 

Hmmm...... I know this sounds crazy but I kinda think  it might be interesting to have a device which gives the flight simmer a small but very annoying electrical shock  if he/she gets injured from either combat or a crash.  If I had the know-how I would try making one just to see how it would go. 

 

I have an insatiable hunger for more immersion in my flight and racing sims.  Unfortunately, I can not justify the current high cost of a good motion simulator but have everything else, ie. FFB, Buttkicker, VR, high fidelity sound system.   I truly thank almighty God that I lived long enough to experience VR.  GB is great in VR.  I can't  imagine what immersion technology will be like in 50 years!

 

When I first started flying Il2's WW1 biplanes, I ran a fan in front of my face to simulate the rush of air one experienced in an open cockpit.  That's how crazy I am.  It does add to the immersion but  I don't fly WW1 planes that much.

[Aapje]

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

You also have a bit of a motte and bailey argument going on here - claiming 'universal empathy' is a much higher standard than just 'empathy'.

 

Is it really empathy if it is not universal, but weaponized to get your way (gain status, bond only with those who are useful to you, etc)?

 

Besides, the other person claimed that modern people are mostly stripped of empathy, which is itself rather absurd in a society where one of the most common strategies to get your way is to play the victim so people do what you want. In a society truly stripped of empathy, this would not work.

 

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

You are probably right about computer games overall - although there may be some nuances and exceptions. I'd highly recommend Jacob Geller's essay "Rationalizing Brutality: The Cultural Legacy of the Headshot" for how gameplay dynamics might influence public attitudes (for instance). He's a very interesting video game essayist by the way - worth looking up.

 

That people's view on violence is shape by culture is quite obvious. In no way does that prove that consuming violence has any effect on empathy, let alone that it is specifically video games that do this.

 

Besides, people have recognized that the head is a rather crucial part to remain alive for a very long time. Hence the development of the guillotine as a humane/quick method during the French Revolution, and the neck shot execution by the Cheka in 1918 or so. Strangely enough, neither of those where inspired by the Kennedy assassination or video games.

 

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

I also know a cognitive scientist who was working on the idea that it actually takes cognitive work to not identify with others - so a lack of empathy is something that has to be learned (note: this doesn't exclude the idea that empathy has to be learned - it is perhaps possible that both empathy and lack of empathy are learned).

 

Having some empathy that you can turn off when you want to murder, rape, enslave, dispossess, bully, etc someone is quite consistent with what you say and what I claim, as well as with easily observable human behavior during human history. You've probably seen the bully part in school.

 

We have testimony from the Holocaust executioners (the shooty shooty ones, not the gas ones), who were quite empathetic with how they themselves and their colleagues suffered from the difficult duty of having to murder so many men, women and children. But shoot they did, again and again, until their fingers hurt from pulling the trigger.

 

For me, that is functional empathy. They gained status and approval from empathizing with their fellow murderers, but not if they would empathize with the victims and would refuse to do their 'duty.'

 

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

This is very context dependent, and is strongly influenced by the type of society you live in. Arguably, throughout most of human history, sharing most resources was normal.

 

Do we even know this? Of course people would work together and help each other, but I would actually expect the early people to mostly gather and make things for themselves and their family. Specialization is a sign of civilization and seems to typically accompany bartering, actual selling for money (equivalent), or a taxation system.

 

It is easily observable with kids that sharing is not exactly a strong natural instinct. It is something we have to teach them, while their natural instinct is clearly: "Mine! Mine! Mine!"

 

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

You can't horde resources very effectively as a hunter-gatherer

 

Storage caches of tools and such have been found. But it is true that they had considerable less opportunity to hoard than modern people. That doesn't prove that they didn't hoard when they could and instead freely shared everything, rather than say: "Get/make your own" or required a barter. It especially doesn't prove that they would freely share with other tribes.

 

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

so it is better to share widely in order to have others share with you...

 

No, it is better to cut other people off unless they share sufficiently fairly. Economists have shown in experiments that people are in fact willing to punish unfair propositions even if this leaves them personally worse off. They are willing to suffer to enforce a quid pro quo.

 

Your narrative leaves people at the mercy of freeloaders.

 

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

and there isn't an immediate 'out group' as everyone you live with tends to be a part of your own group.

 

Nonsense. People have been bashing in the heads of other tribes for a very long time. Ötzi the iceman was murdered over 3000 years BC. And this was in a cold environment where there was a lot more need to work together than in the savannah.

 

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

but that is different from unfairly hording resources (which generally wasn't done according to the best evidence we have).

 

What evidence?

[Gambit21]

25 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

 

 

Didn't you read my first sentence ?

I haven't made any claims about correlation between watching violent stuff and becoming violent.

 

But I don't need science to tell me whether or not continued exposure to something desensitises whatever it is to the person exposed.

As a general rule of thumb, that's common sense.

 

Anyway, back to my Black'n'Tan.

HNY everyone !

 

What IS scientifically proven is that whether you know it or not consciously, your brain on some level receives it in the same way / doesn't discern between real/simulated violence. (same goes with "adult" imagery etc) That's been demonstrated with brain scans etc, and desensitizing factor is also a matter of record... So your point is more than valid...and these points are enough from where I stand.

 

32 minutes ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

Yeah, we all have our own personal version of selective realism, I'll pass on the haptics, but bloodless/disappearing bodies goes past my selective version of it.

I've never been in a real war, or seen anyone die horribly in front of me, so I won't pretend to understand them. From my point of view though, it's all just pixels, and I view blasting the limbs off combatants the same way I would view blasting the limbs off zombies or aliens in a game. 

 

That was all very tongue firmly implanted in cheek you understand. 

[Avimimus]

9 minutes ago, Aapje said:

 

Is it really empathy if it is not universal, but weaponized to get your way (gain status, bond only with those who are useful to you, etc)?

 

Besides, the other person claimed that modern people are mostly stripped of empathy, which is itself rather absurd in a society where one of the most common strategies to get your way is to play the victim so people do what you want. In a society truly stripped of empathy, this would not work.

 

 

That people's view on violence is shape by culture is quite obvious. In no way does that prove that consuming violence has any effect on empathy, let alone that it is specifically video games that do this.

 

Besides, people have recognized that the head is a rather crucial part to remain alive for a very long time. Hence the development of the guillotine as a humane/quick method during the French Revolution, and the neck shot execution by the Cheka in 1918 or so. Strangely enough, neither of those where inspired by the Kennedy assassination or video games.

 

 

Having some empathy that you can turn off when you want to murder, rape, enslave, dispossess, bully, etc someone is quite consistent with what you say and what I claim, as well as with easily observable human behavior during human history. You've probably seen the bully part in school.

 

We have testimony from the Holocaust executioners (the shooty shooty ones, not the gas ones), who were quite empathetic with how they themselves and their colleagues suffered from the difficult duty of having to murder so many men, women and children. But shoot they did, again and again, until their fingers hurt from pulling the trigger.

 

For me, that is functional empathy. They gained status and approval from empathizing with their fellow murderers, but not if they would empathize with the victims and would refuse to do their 'duty.'

 

 

Do we even know this? Of course people would work together and help each other, but I would actually expect the early people to mostly gather and make things for themselves and their family. Specialization is a sign of civilization and seems to typically accompany bartering, actual selling for money (equivalent), or a taxation system.

 

It is easily observable with kids that sharing is not exactly a strong natural instinct. It is something we have to teach them, while their natural instinct is clearly: "Mine! Mine! Mine!"

 

 

Storage caches of tools and such have been found. But it is true that they had considerable less opportunity to hoard than modern people. That doesn't prove that they didn't hoard when they could and instead freely shared everything, rather than say: "Get/make your own" or required a barter. It especially doesn't prove that they would freely share with other tribes.

 

 

No, it is better to cut other people off unless they share sufficiently fairly. Economists have shown in experiments that people are in fact willing to punish unfair propositions even if this leaves them personally worse off. They are willing to suffer to enforce a quid pro quo.

 

Your narrative leaves people at the mercy of freeloaders.

 

 

Nonsense. People have been bashing in the heads of other tribes for a very long time. Ötzi the iceman was murdered over 3000 years BC. And this was in a cold environment where there was a lot more need to work together than in the savannah.

 

 

What evidence?

 

Some points to clarify - The difference between non-reciprocal altruism and empathy. The existence and structure of 'gift-economies'. Warfare among hunter-gatherers. Research on infant reactions to displays of fairness (and their implications or lack of implications). You'll find I agree with many of your points, up to a point - but that I also think there are important nuances (and a couple points where I think hunter-gatherer societies tend to behave differently from what people raised in agriculture-based societies might expect).

 

But this is getting very off-topic.

 

Maybe we should move to DMs? If anyone else wants to join in discussing the science around this stuff - I'm open to doing a group chat.

[Aapje]

16 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

Didn't you read my first sentence ?

I haven't made any claims about correlation between watching violent stuff and becoming violent.

 

So how is this supposedly near lack of empathy that you claim exists, observable in reality? It's clearly not violence, so what is your evidence? Or is it entirely based on suppositions?

 

And if people become desensitized to violence, but this in no way makes them more prone to violence or has any other clear negative outcome, then what is the issue?

 

16 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

But I don't need science to tell me whether or not continued exposure to something desensitises whatever it is to the person exposed.

 

But how do you know that unrealistic violence in video games that happens to fake people is similar enough to real violence that happens to real people, that the former will desensitize to the latter? After all, I'm pretty sure that if I suddenly whisper behind you every day for a year, and you learn to ignore that, that you then will still be startled if I set off a loud horn behind you. The assumption that they are sufficiently similar is an unspoken assumption in your narrative that very easily can be wrong.

 

Pretty much any rationalization has one or more very debatable assumptions that can easily lead the conclusion to be very incorrect.

 

Also, in actual reality, exposure can desensitize or sensitize or neither. Exposure therapy has to be done in a certain way to not make things worse, for example.

 

16 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

As a general rule of thumb, that's common sense.

 

The fun part about common sense is that it can show anything. You just need a rationalization that sounds good, which can be done for anything. After all, it's common sense that if people get killed a lot and kill others a lot in video games, they learn how easily they can die, or how easily they can kill others, and they will thus become very careful and peaceful.

 

See, that is no less 'common sense' than the narrative you came up with, despite concluding the opposite. The infinite ability to rationalize pretty much everything is, and the inability of nearly everyone to critically assess their own rationalizations is exactly why I earlier said that almost no one is capable of rationality.

 

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

16 minutes ago, Winkysmith said:

I personally cannot see whatsoever how anyone could enjoy, or find humour, in causing graphic violence in a video game. Especially to animals. Things like that just don’t sit well with me.
 

I must agree with what has been said above; that this genre doesn’t need gore to be ‘enjoyed’, or to give an accurate experience. Did the men who served in either World War enjoy seeing the real thing? Of course not. Why do you think the vast majority never spoke of their experiences to their families or friends? And why, if they didn’t want to bring home the horrors of war, do we now want to bring them inside our homes?

 

I myself started playing IL-2 when I was only 13, and I certainly wouldn’t have started that early if it contained gore. As simple a change as gore would have stripped me of hundreds of hours of enjoyment, and education as well. 

 

I just don’t understand why some want to expose themselves to violence and gore, even if it is only virtual.

I usually don't get enjoyment or laugh at it, unless it's really absurd, and it's the absurdity that funny. Most of the time I just view it as something that's supposed to be there. So not seeing it is similar to sticking your head through the canopy in VR and feeling like "WTF this isn't how it should be". 

Imagine ripping a photo of a person, thats all pixels are to me. There's no one actually feeling pain or being murdered, so its just a non-event to me. Its the consequences of these actions that make them horrible, and without anyone real in pain its nothing more than a ripped photo to me.

21 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

What IS scientifically proven is that whether you know it or not consciously, your brain on some level receives it in the same way / doesn't discern between real/simulated violence. (same goes with "adult" imagery etc) That's been demonstrated with brain scans etc, and desensitizing factor is also a matter of record... So your point is more than valid...and these points are enough from where I stand.

I dont believe that this would apply to all people all the time, I can play horror games without getting scared, and there's 0 chance I wouldn't be pooping bricks if I was fighting those things in real life.

32 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

That was all very tongue firmly implanted in cheek you understand. 

[Gambit21]

6 minutes ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I usually don't get enjoyment or laugh at it, unless it's really absurd, and it's the absurdity that funny. Most of the time I just view it as something that's supposed to be there. So not seeing it is similar to sticking your head through the canopy in VR and feeling like "WTF this isn't how it should be". 

Imagine ripping a photo of a person, thats all pixels are to me. There's no one actually feeling pain or being murdered, so its just a non-event to me. Its the consequences of these actions that make them horrible, and without anyone real in pain its nothing more than a ripped photo to me.

I dont believe that this would apply to all people all the time, I can play horror games without getting scared, and there's 0 chance I wouldn't be pooping bricks if I was fighting those things in real life.

 

Not to get into the weeds on this, and I'm sure the mods will appreciate us not winding down this too much further. However the part of your brain that "doesn't discern the difference" isn't contingent on you getting scared necessarily etc. That said, I know what you mean.

 

All this said I don't mind seeing little dudes fall down. I guess my analogy would be this...old westerns vs some of the newer movies. I was fine seeing the guy fall down into the horse trough. I get it...he go shot, dead. Serves the purpose and nothing more is required. I don't need to see brains on the wall. That does nothing for my experience, in fact it's a detriment. 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2024 by Gambit21

[Avimimus]

We do appreciate everyone keeping things calm. Looking at this conversation, I can't help but feel like recommending that Jacob Geller youtube video essay again (the rationalising brutality one).

 

I think it is true that the subject is somewhat complex - human cognition and psychology can allow for diverse responses - Aapje puts it well here:

10 hours ago, Aapje said:

Also, in actual reality, exposure can desensitize or sensitize or neither. Exposure therapy has to be done in a certain way to not make things worse, for example.

 

The one consideration I haven't seen in this conversation - one which might be a bit sensitive - is "What is most respectful to the dead?" I'm sure some of us would feel that recreating the brutality of war would help capture the horror of it. Others might feel that depicting violent deaths as part of an entertainment product might lessen them.

 

Depending on our culture and background we might come to very different conclusions.

 

I sort-of come down the middle on this personally:

- I don't want to treat deaths in war as routine or as entertainment (and this makes me want them to not be trivialised in entertainment).

- At the same time, I don't want the reality of war to be obscured... it would seem wrong to cover up the deaths or the fact that war is often horrifying and anything but glorious to those who experience it.