Report: Video games create drone pilot 'naturals'

Are you talking about real ones or are you saying they're inaccurate in CoD?

Me too!

Oh, wait...you weren't serious. Crap.

Forget what I said!

Don't be so defensive. There are gradiations to these things. Do all gamers lose all ability to value human life? No. Nobody says that. The implication is that SOME gamers (what percentage, unsure) will become SOMEWHAT densitized to killing in a "virtual" environment (i.e. not using a pistol in "real life"). This is (AFAIK) neither proven nor disproven, but is a likely hypothesis.

Mind you, using unmanned drones desensitizes one to killing in general. Soldiers shoot high. Drones pilots don't. Which is probably one of the reasons that they kill so many civilians. Go Obama Go!

how is it possible that people who stand behind a screen with "mostly" non lethal drones suffer the most from post traumatic stress disorder?

or do all drones have weapons now?

i suppose knowing that you are killing people with ease from afar (terrorist or not) it can lead to mental illness.

Have you experienced it? No?

It's actually pretty rough, depending on what they're doing. Very rarely do people enjoy playing God, and that's about what it feels like.

a lot of UAVs are used for safe bombing of enemy positions actually. that's really where they come in handy since you're not risking any allied lives. there are better things for recon.

"Have you experienced it? No? "

can't tell if you are being defensive or something, but yea, i can understand how it could be traumatic, but i'm not sure about the statement: "drone pilots have the highest rate of post-traumatic stress disorder"

It just means a higher percentage of them have some form of it. It doesn't mean they have the worst symptoms.

The report interviewed several pilots that work on base in the U.S. and control drones in Iraq and Afghanistan. The piece also dealt with the C.I.A. using them to make hits against targets. These people are not trained for combat stress (though who could be?). One man said that he sits in a cubicle all day and provides fire support for Ally troops and kills enemy soldiers. Then he gets in his car and drives home and has to be a normal dad over dinner. It does sound horrid. But they made their choice I suppose. The piece tried to correlate video game players aptitude and an army rep mentioned how the game companies have spent millions creating ergonomically advanced interfaces and free training in how to use them. (controllers) They also profiled a pilot (a young game playing dropout) who was considered the "best" at long distance killing. Really good piece and worth a look on NPR.

Not suprising, particularly given that the seem to kill more civilians than anybody outside of the odd Air Force pilot.

@aerothorn Hardly, the entire purpose of the predator is the minimize civilian causalities

@wayne doesn't look like its working. LOL! I can not count the times I have heard that weapons will be safer and more effective.

I see what you did there.

Well I'm sure that would apply if we were fighting an enemy with honor, that didn't use children as human shields or suicide bombers.

I take it by that remark that you are one of the multitudes of those that believe the rest of the world hates the western world because it has been so...successful?

The actions they have taken would have nothing to do with a destructive foreign policy, would have nothing to do with nation building, would have nothing to do with all the many subversive actions taken to overthrow various governments. Let's not even speak of how the US in different instances trained these very groups, armed these very groups to carry out actions against their own people. Latest news (month old) is Taliban may even be getting 'rented' by the US. mainstream news my friend.

Is this just news that you don't hear? For real, I'd like to know. I'm American, I live in Canada - and the news can be very different. Speaking with my younger sister - she never heard that Cheney was busted last year for wanting to get some Navy Seals, dress them as IRA members, put them in a boat - marked as Iranian, and have them shoot at NATO forces. This made the major news networks up here in July 08, I do believe this is the proper date. This would have been a pre-text to begin operations against Iran...because after all...we don't want the evidence to be shown in the form of a mushroom cloud.

How many members of your family would have to be killed by a foreign force before you started to hate them and see little light of being left alone. Where is the faith in humanity? I see little, instead I see alot of selling of the idea that people just want to kill each other, including you and I. Bollocks! Peoples perceptions of other countries are formed in large part by what their respective governments relationship is and what is shown on the major media outlets, when you actually sit down and talk with some of these 'bad people' - you find that they are nod different than you and I - they want the same things as us. A good quality of life.

Don't buy the line for a minute that this all started on 9/11, this stuff has been going on for decades. If we take that extra step to kill others from the comfort of our own homeland, feeling smug that there are only two borders to monitor and we've got two oceans as barriers, then we are becoming the enemy in the name of freedom. WE become the terrorists, holding the entire planet hostage.

Recon? No prob. Killing with drones? Man, that's throwing gas on a fire. There's alot of propaganda out there, and CBS / NBC / ABC / CNN are going to tell you what they get approved to 'repeat' on -sure there are controveries brought to light (waterboarding 183 times in one month, do the math on that and tell me you buy that was good info they got, OF COURSE they will say it was credible!), however we can't talk about the ugly things that take place - support may wane for the empire. No one talks about the spike in troop suicides, could cause support to wane.

The idea of promoting drone warfare makes my blood run cold. It should makes your run cold too. Fictional games are one thing, really doing it is another ballpark altogether.

Man, another long rant - I'm really sorry and everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, I do say however that there are some serious issues that need to be brought to the light - for the benefit of everyone, now and future generations. Not saying that everyone should get along and love each other either - that's asinine. We should be asking questions and digging deeper. If no one speaks up though, we might all be complicit to allow this path to be followed.

Ghandi nailed it - "There is no path to peace, peace IS the path", of course we're so mired in our current path that extraction is almost impossible, we can make the right choices though to not continue down further and begin to look at ways to start leading by example. Our current example is not working, and the world sees this. They are not stupid.

So the killstreaks in MW2 actually kill real civillians?