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Lumifer comments on Summary and Lessons from "On Combat" - Less Wrong Discussion

17 Post author: Gunnar_Zarncke 22 March 2015 01:48AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 24 March 2015 02:34:48PM 5 points [-]

I'd like to see a meta study of this to compare the exact results.

It's psy-sociology, so not quite science and studies tend to be pretty bad. But the point is that there was a lot of desire to find such a connection and it just stubbornly refuses to be found.

However what I called bullshit was the claim that playing FPSes makes you a good real-life marksman.

Most military do use FPS training

Yes, for things like tactical awareness, unit cohesion, etc. I am not aware of anyone who uses FPSes to train marksmanship.

the ability of teenagers to kill lots of people with headshots after only one day of experience with a real weapon but hundreds of hours of FPS?

What is this "ability of teenagers"? Sources, please.

How do you explain that the highschool killers didn't stop after killing their intended targer but kept going?

I have no idea what you are talking about. Do note, however, that to support your point you need to show that such behaviour was absent or less frequent before FPSes became widely played.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 24 March 2015 06:36:42PM 3 points [-]

This also claims that Grossman misrepresented the facts:

http://www.grandtheftchildhood.com/GTC/Excerpts/Entries/2008/1/28_Can_video_games_train_snipers.html

I tend to update toward him being intentionally misleading in at least some of his points.

Disappointed.

Comment author: Lumifer 24 March 2015 06:58:40PM 1 point [-]

Yeah, well, politics is not the only topic one can get mindkilled on. Arguments are soldiers, y'know...

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 24 March 2015 09:09:49PM *  0 points [-]

Ruminating a bit about this. If I just assume he bends arguments everywhere I have to discount all his arguments as soldiers (kind of a pun isn't it). But isn't that just a negative halo effect?

One other interpretation is that he over-extends the probably well-founded results for solders to children playing FPS. He might even look away from contradicting evidence. Yes such is the argument of someone looking to defend him. But one could also call it steelmaning.

Also: If I assume that children do not acquire routine killing pattern in FPS then I also have to assume that soldiers do so neither. But then how do you explain the much increased shooting percentage in wars after routine killing training (with fotorealistic targets) was introduced after WW2?

Comment author: Lumifer 25 March 2015 02:29:30PM 1 point [-]

But isn't that just a negative halo effect?

Not quite -- you now know that he is not above bending to truth to support his point. That does not mean all his arguments suffer from this, but I think it's correct to update towards requiring more third-party confirmations.

ge over-extends the probably well-founded results for solders to children playing FPS.

That sentence makes no sense to me. Compare: "he over-extends the probably well-founded results for solders to children playing cowboys and indians".

I don't doubt that it's possible to teach people to kill (better, easier, more efficiently). It's also possible to teach kids to kill (see African child soldiers). But I still don't see what FPSes have to do with this.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 25 March 2015 08:32:27PM 0 points [-]

I meant the well-founded results that solders can be trained to automatically act in certain patterns even when under stress via authentic simulations. Simulations which involve FPS, Paintball, fotorealistic target on shooting ranges...

He over-extends these to children playing only the FPS part of this training by assuming that the FPS part is enough to anchor the behavior.

But I still don't see what FPSes have to do with this.

FPS are a way to train behavioral patterns. Action sequences that are likely to get executed without conscious thought when under stress - same as intended for soldiers.

Comment author: Lumifer 25 March 2015 08:39:45PM 1 point [-]

FPS are a way to train behavioral patterns.

The behavioral pattern that FPSes train is to slightly move the mouse and click with your index finger.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 25 March 2015 08:44:35PM 0 points [-]

I (or for that matter Grossman) don't mean fine motor skills. I mean higher abstractions like scan environment, search next target, shoot, move on, stop on game-over.

Comment author: Lumifer 25 March 2015 08:55:45PM 1 point [-]

"Stop on game-over" as a behavioral pattern is, I think, pure fiction. Note that it's different from "stop on command" which is trained in a lot of situations.

So, let's take, say, wildlife photography. It teaches one to "scan environment, search next target, shoot, move on". OMG, wildlife photography trains killers!

In the more general sense, the loop "scan -- locate -- act" is very common -- look e.g. at a football match or a traffic cop or a driver fighting through traffic or... etc. etc. It's by no means unique to FPSes.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 25 March 2015 11:46:45PM *  -1 points [-]

Sorry. I have the impression that you are intentionally misunderstanding me. I just can't read that as genuine desire to understand what I (or Grossman) mean but as to use your own metaphor soldier arguments.

For example "stop on game" over was admittedly simplistic but you could have read it as including "stop on command" which is the actual case mentioned by Grossman. He doesn't claim that "game over" stops the children but actual commands (probably by caregivers) did in attempted violence cases.

Comment author: DanArmak 04 April 2015 01:41:30PM -1 points [-]

Quite apropos, since his book is about how soldiers (or "warriors") get mindkilled in a sense.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 24 March 2015 06:30:01PM 1 point [-]

1) I can't show that it was absent before FPS became good enought because it wasn't:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/17/why-timely-reliable-data-on-mass-killings-is-hard-to-find/

So Grossman is probably wrong on this:

http://www.killology.com/school_notes_preventing_violence.htm