Emily Wagner

"The severe discrepency in the scale of concequencemakes the comparison of war and gaming nearly obscene."

bad guys, realism...sometimes it seems to me that video games, particularly realistic video games begin to blur the lines between fiction and reality. It's as if some of the young men joining the army are only doing so almost as it it were an extension of game play- i'm remembering when i saw Fahrenheit 911 and a young soldier was being interviewed and his whole take on what he was doing sounded like he was playing a game with a tank, he and his crew were singing "burn motherfucker, burn," while they were burning down the homes of Iraquis. I remember wanting to reach through the movie screen and just slap him, this war involves real people, it's not a game- people will die because of your actions, if you get shot, you don't get a do-over like in the game. it seems to me that the use of gaming might also be targeting people who might not be best for the job, people with anti-social behaviors that could be dangerous in certain situations, which in a time of peace would most certainly be screened out of the military.