

 Seven Navy SEALS Reprimanded for Actions Linked to Videogame - 001sky
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/11/08/us/08reuters-usa-defense-seals.html

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rdl
That's great marketing for Medal of Honor: Warfighter right there. I wonder if
EA gave that to the NY Times.

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csallen
_> > The seven each received a punitive letter of reprimand and were docked
half pay for two months..._

I wonder how this dock in pay compares to the amount they were paid as
consultants by EA.

~~~
rdl
Less than they paid in taxes (with allowances, etc., they make $3-8k/mo). The
letter of reprimand is the bigger deal, if it prevents promotion or
assignments in the future, and potentially makes it so they can't get to 20
years and retirement.

~~~
tdfx
One military analyst I was listening to on the news said that this would
effectively end their careers.

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dfc
MoH had some issues earlier with a MoH branded SOG tomahawk:

[http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-14-the-medal-of-
ho...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-14-the-medal-of-honor-
tomahawk)

[http://soldiersystems.net/2012/08/20/an-american-
perspective...](http://soldiersystems.net/2012/08/20/an-american-perspective-
on-the-european-perspective-of-eas-medal-of-honor-warfighter/)

On a side note I think there were a lot of neat ideas in MoH but sadly it
seems the game had to be rushed out in order to beat Halo and CoD:BO.

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mercurial
Jesus H. Christ. My impression was that Medal of Honor/Call of Duty had turned
into soulless, corridor shooters with no open gameplay at all, all the while
painting a picture of a black and white world where you get to kill people for
the crime of having a beard. This was bad enough, but that was just
nauseating.

~~~
dfc
An odd way to begin a moral rant. Anyway nobody plays the campaign mode and
all the high-speed low-drag cool guys have beards now.

~~~
snogglethorpe
Eh? It's not odd at all ... "Jesus H Christ" is a bog-standard exclamation
with which to express extreme surprise/disgust.

~~~
dfc
Its a bog standard unclassy way to lose any moral high ground before
describing someone else's choices as nauseating. Personally I am not religious
but I still think its important to respect other people's faiths in meatspace
and in threads on HN.

~~~
snogglethorpe
Er, no. It's _so_ common that it's essentially lost any religious
connotations. It implies nothing about "faith", lack of faith, lack of
respect, or anything else.

Maybe it originally had such connotations (and thus initially had shock
value), but it long ago made the jump to a simple generic exclamation, and a
rather mild one at that.

~~~
thebluesky
If that's your idea of a "mild" one what would you regard as religiously
offensive?

~~~
snogglethorpe
It has nothing to do with what I think, it has to do with the way the phrase
is typically used, and the reaction it gets: In normal usage, it's mild.

This is true of many religious words used in this manner ... they've pretty
much lost any bite they once had. E.g. "God! <complain complain>" is similar:
75 years ago maybe you'd have had people up in arms over that, but these days
nobody will even notice.

~~~
CrankyPants
I don't think your goal is to offend. But I think we'd all be better off if we
tried to make our points here without needlessly causing tangential offense.

And you're right: it has everything to do with the reaction it gets. Many
would disagree about your characterization of it as being "mild," or whether
it's "lost any bite," and there's the rub: whether or not that's correct is up
for debate, but I'd also submit that it's largely irrelevant whether or not
that is, in fact, as inoffensive as you believe it to be.

While you may not think it offensive, many do, and would consider it a
thoughtless treatment of something that's important to them. We can all argue
about whether or not that's reasonable, but it's the reality, nonetheless.

It's one thing if you know your audience, but it's another thing to be
commenting in a public place.

Consider this variation:

\---

 _It has nothing to do with what I think, it has to do with the way the phrase
is typically used, and the reaction it gets: In normal usage, it's mild._

 _This is true of many religious words used in this manner ... they've pretty
much lost any bite they once had. E.g. "_ [racial epithet/gay
slur/nationalistic slur/etc.] _! <complain complain>" is similar: 75 years ago
maybe you'd have had people up in arms over that, but these days nobody will
even notice._

\---

I'm sure inside those brackets there are plenty of things I could say that
wouldn't feel offensive _to me_ , or even many of the people I'm around in the
real world, but if I care about making my point without it instantly becoming
about _how_ I made my point, then I'm probably not going to start my comment
off with something completely irrelevant to my point that runs a non-trivial
chance of offending someone who reads it.

