I would say that (USA) inner-city, 18-22 year-olds will display more violence and "sick" behavior (provided one considers things like murder, gang violence, hardcore drug use, pimping/prostitution) to be within the realms of "sick" than the military ever will. At least our military.

Also, part of it is defining "sick." College students engage in lots of behavior that I might consider sick, but because they are "normal" people, the activities get redefined as acceptable. Also, there isn't a lot of getting caught. For instance, date rape is a sick behavior that is not to be found among the military, but is much more rampant among college students.

It's kind of hard to defend the U.S. Army when they use a violent first-person-shooter video game as an official recruitment tool. Through this "America's Army" game and other media, the military advertises the job as having at least the potential to KILL other living people without legal consequences. I'm sure that some people in the military are decent, but it doesn't change the fact that the Army actively searches out people with violent urges.

It is especially sad that America's Army deliberately reduced the amount of blood and gore so they could get a "Teen" rating from the ratings board. Not only does this misrepresent the horrors of war, it also allows them to widen their target demographic to the 13-and-up crowd.

And if that wasn't enough evidence, last time I read an issue of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" there were at least 3 full-page military ads that clearly attempt to tie into the love of violent video games. One ad for the Navy depicted a large missile as the center piece. Obviously, not all video gamers are violent in real life, but these ads are making promises to the few that, tired of video game fantasy, might want to try using real weapons on real people.

Furthermore, the military also exploits immature male bravado to gain new recruits. At my college, the Army often have a booth outside with a pull-up bar. We used to call it them the "peer pressure" pack. Using school-yard like tactics, they try to pressure male students to compete with a uniformed soldier to see who can do the most pullups. Do any of you think that these schoolyard tactics are an ethical way to lure 18 year-old guys into a job where they may have to kill or be killed?

So yes, while I have no data, I would not be surprised at all to learn that the military has a disproportionate amount of violent people. My reasoning is because they specifically target immature people who like to shoot things.

plumage Wrote:I would say that (USA) inner-city, 18-22 year-olds will display more violence and "sick" behavior (provided one considers things like murder, gang violence, hardcore drug use, pimping/prostitution) to be within the realms of "sick" than the military ever will. At least our military.

You forgot serial killers on death row. That would have been a more extreme example.

plumage Wrote:Also, part of it is defining "sick." College students engage in lots of behavior that I might consider sick, but because they are "normal" people, the activities get redefined as acceptable. Also, there isn't a lot of getting caught. For instance, date rape is a sick behavior that is not to be found among the military, but is much more rampant among college students.

I don't want to go down that path again so I will just disagree.

Many groups in society contain more violent people than other groups. Martial arts is one I can think of. There are more violent people there either because they want to fight, or the people who don't want to fight get scared away eventually. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Similarly more violent people get into the army, because it's about violence. The police force, bouncers, security guards, etc. are jobs which obviously attract people who aren't averse to a bit of physical confrontation. I also suspect groups such as librarians, priests, florists, etc. exhibit less violence.

I don't know why this is even a discussion. I know some of you guys are in the army or whatever, but have you ever considered that there are people that would be totally unable to function in the army due to their extreme distaste for violence? The corollary is that there are people perfectly willing, perhaps even eager, for the chance to fight and kill people without getting in trouble. It's what they naturally want to do. Those people will gravitate to those professions which allow it.

phauna Wrote:I don't know why this is even a discussion. I know some of you guys are in the army or whatever, but have you ever considered that there are people that would be totally unable to function in the army due to their extreme distaste for violence? The corollary is that there are people perfectly willing, perhaps even eager, for the chance to fight and kill people without getting in trouble. It's what they naturally want to do. Those people will gravitate to those professions which allow it.

I suspect a large number of people join the military for a chance at a better life than the one they had growing up. That is the selling point they used to recruit in my small town. I spent four years in the military after high school. I hated it at the time and got out at the end of my contract but I can honestly say, most of people I met in the military were there because it was a stable job with a paycheck. The worst crimes committed consistently were adultery and drug use. There was the occasional major crime but even if it was committed on base the military was always eager to punish people for their crimes. I felt there was a big push in the military to get rid of the bad seeds early on so that only the strongest, most stable remained. I found the whole thing, understandably, run very similar to the way someone would run a large business.

Of course I met a few annoying people during my time in the military, but I also met some of the most intelligent people I have met in my life. I once had the opportunity to work with a group of Navy Seals, they were just amazing people. They were not the meat headed supermen you would expect but very calm, well read, and practical. I would say they were more like the guy you would want to be your trainer at a gym than rabid dogs. I remember one of them has heavily into yoga. Another spoke several languages that he taught himself for fun (no I didn't test his ability). Another was completing online courses as fast as he could. His goal was to get his bachelors degree so that he could become an officer and better support his family. They were not violent at all, they were just the type that didn't like to fail at things with dreams of becoming heroes. I am not saying I would have invited any of these guys to a dinner, they were all incredibly conservative in their viewpoints. I just want to point out that even in one of the most deadly sections of the military there are a lot of good people, people that didn't join just for the chance to shot a few more towel heads.

phauna Wrote:Similarly more violent people get into the army, because it's about violence. The police force, bouncers, security guards, etc. are jobs which obviously attract people who aren't averse to a bit of physical confrontation. I also suspect groups such as librarians, priests, florists, etc. exhibit less violence.

I don't know why this is even a discussion. I know some of you guys are in the army or whatever, but have you ever considered that there are people that would be totally unable to function in the army due to their extreme distaste for violence? The corollary is that there are people perfectly willing, perhaps even eager, for the chance to fight and kill people without getting in trouble. It's what they naturally want to do. Those people will gravitate to those professions which allow it.

People in the military are violent because they are trained to be. Poor people don't gravitate toward military because they want to hit things.

phauna Wrote:Many groups in society contain more violent people than other groups. Martial arts is one I can think of. There are more violent people there either because they want to fight, or the people who don't want to fight get scared away eventually. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

Wow.... :O

Of all the martials artists in the world, violent ones are the extreme minority. They are the ones who study for sport, and sport alone. And even amongst those who studying for sport a small percentage are actually "violent."

No one is scared away from martials arts because they don't want to fight -save for small children who would be afraid no matter what they were studying. From personal experience -growing up in a city where you learn to be violent a very young age - martial arts actually helped me ....smooth out... that area of myself.

Please try to find a more statistical example.

Dragg Wrote:It's kind of hard to defend the U.S. Army when they use a violent first-person-shooter video game as an official recruitment tool.

By that token, wouldn't it be just as easy to say:

It's kind of hard to defend first-person shooter video games when the U.S. Army uses them as an official recruitment tool?

Most people never admit any responsibility for violence on the part of VG, but this argument seems like if it doesn't work both ways, it works for neither.

Dragg Wrote:It's kind of hard to defend the U.S. Army when they use a violent first-person-shooter video game as an official recruitment tool. Through this "America's Army" game and other media, the military advertises the job as having at least the potential to KILL other living people without legal consequences. I'm sure that some people in the military are decent, but it doesn't change the fact that the Army actively searches out people with violent urges.

Now you just have to show some kind of correlation with violent video games and violent people. I don't think this is the reason they use games at all. What is the key age demographic for the army? What age demographic plays video games the most? They line up pretty closely.

There are army ads in some of my comic books too, I guess that means they are also looking for people that dress up in spandex.

@cracky

Actually, the America's Army game was designed with realism in mind. Obviously, they didn't succeed in every aspect (sometimes purposely) but it was definitely one of the goals. Its as if the people who created the game are saying, "If you enjoy this game, you might enjoy doing this kind of stuff in real life." Btw, one of the people in charge of the program has actually the called the game "propaganda" in his own words.

I would imagine that the US military places ads in comic books for some of the same reasons they place them in video game magazines; both mediums frequently portray violence and heroicism. (And it might not be spandex, but the military gives you a uniform and tells you that you are battling evil.) And yes, you are also correct in the sense that they are using the medium because their market research shows that young guys play games. It is a combination of all these factors I've just listed.

I can't prove the correlation between violence and video games because I believe that most people who play video games don't particularly want to kill people in real life. My point is that there is a small percentage of gamers that probably feel this way, and that the military feels it is worth their time and money to try to reach out to this select few through advertisments.


@plumage

Violent video games are just a fantasy for most people, but I think a very small minority of gamers actually want to carry out the acts performed in the game. I think the U.S. military specifically targets these people.

I found at least a few studies that may support my point (or may not even be relevant depending on how you see it). Its pretty hard to design a study that proves that some people are more violent than others so scientists are forced to measure "anger" as a substitute instead. Here is an excerpt of an article from Ars Technica.

"They designed a study in which measures of anger levels acted as a proxy for violent behavior. They recruited 135 children, but were forced to kick some out of the study due to bad behavior, leaving them with about 110 boys and 15 girls with a mean age of 14.6 years, all of them familiar with the game of choice, Quake II. The children were given personality profile tests and measured for anger levels, at which point they were set loose for 20 minutes of gaming. Anger levels were measured again following the gaming session.

Crunching the numbers indicated that there were three clear groups. The anger levels of 77 of the subjects remained unchanged after the gaming session. In 22 of the subjects, anger levels nearly doubled from a starting point similar to that of the unaffected children. But 8 of the test subjects started out at this high anger level; for them, 20 minutes of gaming dropped them down to levels similar to those seen in the unaffected group."

The problem with this study (and basically all studies like it) is that angry feelings don't necessarily lead to violent acts. Like I hinted at earlier, this is a limitation that is hard to overcome in such studies because of ethical ramifications, etc.

Dragg Wrote:@cracky

Actually, the America's Army game was designed with realism in mind. Obviously, they didn't succeed in every aspect (sometimes purposely) but it was definitely one of the goals. Its as if the people who created the game are saying, "If you enjoy this game, you might enjoy doing this kind of stuff in real life." Btw, one of the people in charge of the program has actually the called the game "propaganda" in his own words.

This may be true, I don't really know anything about the behind the scenes stuff. I still personally feel that they were just making the game more realistic to compete with other games that are popular(SWAT, Rainbow 6, Etc.).

That study is interesting but it leaves out some crucial information. First were they playing Quake II against each other? If so, they'd have to look at how the kids did also because that's a pretty big variable to ignore. A kid losing really badly isn't going to be having a good time and might get a little angry. Some people also feel differently about competition.

I know we like to discuss a lot of things on this site, but I say we get off bashing the army and the Japanese's silly way of 'punishing' foreigners and get back to studying Kanji.

kazelee Wrote:Poor people don't gravitate toward military because they want to hit things.

I was thinking about armies in general, in my country I don't think people get into it because they are poor. They just want to. I can see how America may be different in this respect, you have already exhausted your supply of 'eager' recruits, and are now on to your 'desperate'. I was referring more to the 'eager' type.

kazelee Wrote:Of all the martial artists in the world, violent ones are the extreme minority. They are the ones who study for sport, and sport alone. And even amongst those who studying for sport a small percentage are actually "violent."

No one is scared away from martial arts because they don't want to fight

Well again I was talking about martial arts in general. Asian countries that train martial arts usually train it more martially than Westerners in the same arts. If you don't want to fight or spar in most MAs then you cannot train them. Judo and TKD are the second and third largest MAs and they are both sport, so I think most martial arts these days lean towards sport. MA includes boxing and wrestling, so again a sport focus, and violent. Most TMA these days include a sporting element, because they know it's importance. Sport means competition, competition leads to aggression, and there you have it. Navel gazing TMA is going the way of the dinosaurs thanks to the removal of the martial, so I think you are slightly mistaken. MA is for fighting, not health, spirit or any other reason. Most people begin it to learn to fight, or at least not to get beaten up. Using MA to channel aggression does not remove the aggression.

How does this all work in countries with required military service by all males? Many of these are European countries, and since military training must train people to be killers, wouldn't that by necessity make those European countries "sicker?" Or is it that during periods when America has not been engaged very heavily in conflicts that our own military is thereby "less sick?" Could it be that war is itself a sick endeavor, and anyone who finds themselves in it will be more prone to "sick" behavior? If so, then the only reason the USA would have more cases would be because we're more involved than most.

plumage Wrote:How does this all work in countries with required military service by all males? Many of these are European countries, and since military training must train people to be killers, wouldn't that by necessity make those European countries "sicker?"

European countries use conscription, not mandatory military service. People can opt out of the military and do civilian work instead. That's how it works in Germany, for instance.

Moreover, France and Italy recently abolished conscription. Several European countries are to follow suit within the next ten years.

EDIT:

I was only partially correct. Some European countries, like Switzerland, do not have a civilian option.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_se...ice_option

Sweden has, in theory, abolished conscription. Everyone has to go and take the tests but they don't have enough resources to bring in even all the people who WANT to be in the military... so tons of people who really want to go isn't allowed to.

phauna Wrote:Well again I was talking about martial arts in general. Asian countries that train martial arts usually train it more martially than Westerners in the same arts. If you don't want to fight or spar in most MAs then you cannot train them. Judo and TKD are the second and third largest MAs and they are both sport, so I think most martial arts these days lean towards sport. MA includes boxing and wrestling, so again a sport focus, and violent. Most TMA these days include a sporting element, because they know it's importance. Sport means competition, competition leads to aggression, and there you have it. Navel gazing TMA is going the way of the dinosaurs thanks to the removal of the martial, so I think you are slightly mistaken. MA is for fighting, not health, spirit or any other reason. Most people begin it to learn to fight, or at least not to get beaten up. Using MA to channel aggression does not remove the aggression.

Aggression <----> Violence

Violence is about intention not action. Sparring does not make a person violent -unless that person spars to inflict pain on his opponent and nothing else.

"so I think most martial arts these days lean towards sport."

Give some statics of individuals training for sport vs recreation/self defense. I'm sure they will show the numbers of those competiting for sport are far outnumbered by those not. Enter any dojo and asks to see how many are entering the next upcoming tournanent - a handful of students, at most, will say they are.

"If you don't want to fight or spar in most MAs then you cannot train them."

Because it's kinda of hard to drive a car without wanting to touch the steering wheel. Sparring is not sport. It solidifies technique and understanding while in motion.

Bryan_Saxton Wrote:I know we like to discuss a lot of things on this site, but I say we get off bashing the army and the Japanese's silly way of 'punishing' foreigners and get back to studying Kanji.

Amen, Brother!

French people are really lame tourists. I was at a tourist event in Kyoto and had the same thing happen. They were literally shouting out derisives at the performers on stage. It made me want to vomit.

There was a survey done last year around the world to mostly hotel workers and tourist industry people and French ranked number one as the rudest nationality in the world. Japanese were of course ranked most polite. I think Americans were somewhere in the middle.
(Just because I have to qualify, the rest of the article talked about how Americans used to be much higher on the rudeness scale until everybody in the tourism industry worldwide learned English. French are theorized to be partially so high because it always appears more rude when you can't communicate accurately. Not a good enough excuse for the behaviors I've seen though)

French people [edit] "irk me recently". If there are any French people here, [edit] "de-irk me please".

Edit: adjusted to be less inflammatory

Americans are not hated. What is hated is their habit of suing everything! Well, that's my prejudicious view.

welldone101 Wrote:There was a survey done last year around the world to mostly hotel workers and tourist industry people and French ranked number one as the rudest nationality in the world. Japanese were of course ranked most polite. I think Americans were somewhere in the middle.

Out of curiosity, is there a website that shows the results of this survey?

[ファブリス]

welldone101, that last sentence sounds very much like trolling.

Well yeah, there are French people here, and no I'm not going to say anything. There is no need to defend anybody against such narrow-minded statements.

Evil_Dragon Wrote:

welldone101 Wrote:There was a survey done last year around the world to mostly hotel workers and tourist industry people and French ranked number one as the rudest nationality in the world. Japanese were of course ranked most polite. I think Americans were somewhere in the middle.

Out of curiosity, is there a website that shows the results of this survey?

I searched "rudest tourist survey france" on Google. And got this:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0...full-world

Apparently, according to hotel staff. Chinese are the rudest, followed by Indians, followed by the French. Japanese being the most polite, followed by Germans, then Brits and then Canadians.

I can't believe that Chinese and Indians would rank first/second, that's actually a bit surprising. I would take the survey with a grain of salt

welldone101 Wrote:French people suck. If there are any French people here, defend your countrymen somehow please.

I'll give it a shot, etpan. I will assume welldone, that you are American. I was never exposed to this weird anti-French sentiment until I got on the Internet and was suddenly swamped by Americans. French people seem normal to me, in Australia there is no anti-French sentiment. It's like a parallel world on the Internet, mention certain topics and Americans, who are still the majority on most English sites, go crazy. Hot topics where I feel like suddenly everyone around me becomes insane include gun control, the free market and France.

Paris is the number one tourist destination in the world. I imagine there is some reason for that. A few moronic tourists don't represent a whole country.

Here's some article about the story which compares the French and Americans and explains some possible mitigating factors. Out of 21 countries, Americans came 11th, French came 19th.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0...58,00.html

And for people who want to hassle me, here's an article about the Australians, who placed 6th. I will explain it by saying that we don't tip, we don't know how, and don't feel like we should have to.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/news/aussies-...08562.html

Here's the list:

1. Japanese

2. German/British (tie)

3. Canadian

4. Swiss

5. Dutch

6. Australian/Swedish (tie)

7. Belgian

8. Norwegian

9. Austrian/Danish/Finnish (tie)

10. New Zealanders (Kiwi)

11. U.S. American/Thai (tie)

12. Irish/Czech/South African/Portugese (tie)

13. Brazilian

14. Italian/Greek/Polish (tie)

15. Turkish

16. Spanish

17. Mexican

18. Russian

19. French

20. Indian

21. Chinese

List found here: http://current.newsweek.com/budgettravel..._worl.html

As for the Japanese coming first, they are polite, rich, and most important of all, meek. They are not going to start problems for these hoteliers, they won't press for better service, they just won't return if they don't like it. This is not much of a virtue, if true. Just my opinion.