Sarge, I Can't Run Ten Miles: I Failed My Constitution Save
Hey, America's youth! Worried about the possibility of a draft? Already thinking about how to get a deferment?
Try playing lots and lots of role-playing games. It works in Israel, apparently. (via Boing Boing).
On the other hand, the U.S. Marine Corps has actually run ads in the past where they appear to promise that service in the Marine Corps is functionally fairly similar to being a tank in Molten Core, so maybe this won't work as a deferment strategy in the U.S.
Posted by Timothy Burke on March 10, 2005 | Permalink
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Tracked on Mar 11, 2005 11:48:55 AM
Comments
"These people have a tendency to be influenced by external factors which could cloud their judgment, a military official says.
Am I the only one who interprets this as, "They won't stay brainwashed long enough to be useful?"
Posted Mar 10, 2005 6:58:14 PM | link
sssssssh don’t tell the folks at America’s Army that gaming is supposed to select people out.
Posted Mar 11, 2005 6:11:34 AM | link
"These people have a tendency to be influenced by external factors which could cloud their judgment, a military official says.
Adam Miller > Am I the only one who interprets this as, "They won't stay brainwashed long enough to be useful?"
Being a bit more serious (than I was above), that is a good point.
Is there a political type associated with gaming?
Are gamers, particularly those into role play, more apt to be left leaning and liberal (I’m using that in the UK sense I think it’s taken more pejoratively in the US).
Posted Mar 11, 2005 6:15:20 AM | link
Before I would address this situation, I would want to know if there are other criteria that the Israeli Army uses to weed folks out? Is this particular criteria part of a large body of factors that they weigh? Or is it a stand alone policy that singles out a particular group?
I think they probably should take a person's lifestlye, extracurricular activities, etc... into consideration when granting security clearances. I would be pretty suprised if this was the only criteria they were applying to their personnel.
Perhaps the huge numbers of active duty personnel who play MMO's and their notoriously loose lips has motivated this? I have had guildmates in numerous service branches of at least 4 countries militaries, and they have always been eager to talk about their jobs and what they are doing. Is this what the Israelis are reacting to? Or is it tabletop gaming?
I'd see MMO gaming with it's chat room with swords model being much more dangerous when it comes to security than tabletop gaming.
Posted Mar 11, 2005 10:00:36 AM | link
Adam Miller
>> Am I the only one who interprets this
>> as, "They won't stay brainwashed long enough
>> to be useful?"
Cute. Well, you may mix with different gamers from me. I know ones where that is true (cynicism a requirement to "get it"), and others (the ones I play football with, mainly, but only because that group self-selects) who happen to own and play a lot of PS2 games, but who would not describe themselves as "gamers". And I know two based at Lasswade, soldiers both, neither of whom would react well to being described as "brainwashed". Don't worry, they wouldn't react by using their l33t military ski11z. But they'd probably use language to make you feel pretty small.
[opportunity to play identity politics games grudgingly passed up].
Ren says:
> Is there a political type associated with gaming?
Again, I'd suggest that there is a political type associated with gaming-and-blogging-or-posting-on-blogs-about-it.
> Are gamers, particularly those into role play,
> more apt to be left leaning and liberal (I’m
> using that in the UK sense I think it’s taken
> more pejoratively in the US).
What can I offer but anecdote? I'm a soft libertarian gamer from Scotland. Most of my gamer friends are as politically apathetic as they come. Same seems to go for my XBox friends list. Gamer bloggers *seem* (that word occurs a lot) to tend to be left-centric. But try posting a moderate political viewpoint on gun-control or the death penalty on an MMO off-topic board and watch the white-hot fury erupt from five hours towards the sunset.
Posted Mar 11, 2005 10:50:10 AM | link
Marshall,
I seem to remember the article indicating that this was in regard to live-action RP players. It also metioned that they supposedly ungo an additional pyschological review.
Posted Mar 11, 2005 12:26:18 PM | link
> Is there a political type associated with gaming? Are gamers, particularly those into role play, more apt to be left leaning and liberal (I’m using that in the UK sense I think it’s taken more pejoratively in the US).
I should resist the temptation, but....
First, let's clarify terms. "Liberal" does mean different things to different people in different places, so let's exclude it. Let's use "left" and "right."
The common way today to classify members of Western civilization politically is by their general views on economics and social issues -- specifically, whether a person believes there should be more control over that area from some external source (government, society, etc.), or whether they believe individual choice should prevail.
By that standard, those on the "left" believe in economic control and social freedom, while those on the "right" believe in economic freedom and social control. (There's a third axis -- foreign affairs -- but too many people are all over the map on that one for it to be useful in classification.) Obviously this is a rough measure, but it works well enough in practice for a reasonable understanding of someone's politics.
(And yes, there's also a "libertarian" quadrant for those who hold that both economic and social issues are best determined by individual desire. It's possible that programmers and other technical people are well-represented here, but it's not a major political force in the general population.)
So, by this left/right standard, are most gamers left-leaning?
I'd say "no." It seems to me that gaming is now so much a part of Western society that the real answer is, "the politics of gamers are the politics of the populace generally." America today, for example, is nearly evenly split into thirds: 1/3 on the left, 1/3 on the right, and 1/3 who just don't care. As far as I can tell from watching and listening (politics is an interest of mine), gamers as a group reflect that 3-way split pretty accurately. (The "don't care" group is perhaps somewhat larger than 1/3 as a result of gamers typically being young.)
It's possible that RPers may skew more leftward than other kinds of gamers, but now you're talking about a much smaller segment of the population. Polling evidence suggests that most women tend (*tend*, mind you) to vote left, so if most RPers are female, then evidence of a left-leaning tendency among RPers would not be surprising.
Finally, although it wasn't asked, I would venture my opinion that while gamers may not be left-leaning, game *designers* definitely trend leftward. I've never been able to figure out why this should be so, but it's always intrigued me.
--Flatfingers
[Note: Nothing I've said here is intended in any kind of pejorative way, so no one needs to come after me with a hot poker -- we're just having a friendly conversation.]
Posted Mar 11, 2005 1:00:39 PM | link
Weird. It seems this info is going 'round for the first time. But It's nothing new! Back in 1986, when I've been "activist" in the german p&p-rpg-scene, Scient*l*gy church was advertising in german sf- and rpg-zines. We quickly found out they payed double for ad-space in zines, to overcome some resistance.
We were a bit upset, and tried to stir some action, but most other activists said "what a waste of time on the side of SC", made some jokes on it in fanzines, and left it. Until a girlfriend came sobbingly around, asking for help, because a gamemaster she felt in love with admitted to be quite in a position in SC.
Things changed very sharply, and suddenly the scene was experiencing some activity. We started with investigation.
What was most disturbing, were the insights we got: Because of his status within the german SC, the first sciet*l*gist we pulled out had seen internal papers stating sf- and fantasy-fans being a good target for "recruiting", boasting some successes, because of the "addressable personalities aggregating in the scene".
Because of some evidence of influence SC was aiming for in german society, we took the chance to contact the german "Verfassungsschutz" (political secret service). One of us then had a very brief contact, where we were told they weren't surprised at all, as i.e. german military "recruitment officers" expressed their disaffirmation of roleplayers for security-relevant positions (that back in 1986).
Ok, we thought, and tried to contact such an officer. We succeded. And got confirmed what the agent had told us. And again, asked some "head hunter" (of high-profil positions in german privat enterprises). And guess what...
We were embarrassed - and still are - but said: Hey, that doesn't help our fellows!
In the end, things went well: We ourselves pulled three roleplaying SC-members out, and together with other german activists stopped SC-ads in fan- and professional zines, by threat of making the news public in press.
But everybody saying "israeli military is nuts" should do some investigation themselves, i.e. ask someone who knows about psychology, and then re-adjust his position. I'm a fanatic RP-gamer myself, but I think some realistic self-assessment dosn't hurt, even if it does... ;-(
Posted Mar 13, 2005 12:35:35 PM | link
