

Using virtual reality to desensitize troops - CharlieHall
http://www.polygon.com/2014/10/17/6994793/using-virtual-reality-to-desensitize-troops

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srean
At a certain level things like these ask the question what it is to be human,
and should we tamper with it because it is perceived as an impediment to our
political goals. Perhaps, one shouldnt be getting into these unnecessary wars
in the first place !

A telling anecdote might be the following: before mass extermination had been
perfected, a method that used to be followed by the WWII Germans was to
machine gun the victims packed in a pit. There have been several letters found
to have gone back and forth among the higher ups concerned with the emotional
reaction of the underlings doing the actual machine gunning. They considered
their emotional reaction to be the principal problem and sought out
alternatives, not that the concept of mass extermination itself was the one
that was questionable, quite preposterous !

Lest anyone jumps at it, I am by no means making a claim for moral equivalence
here.

@PavlovsCat Wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. Strange as it may
sound coming from someone who harbours anti-war sentiments, I for one support
mandatory military service for the reasons you mention. Without it, it is
easier for one set of people to encourage war with little risk or cost to
them. Or even better, those who are in favor of, or vote for war should be
required to take up proportionate risk. But exactly as you said, thing are not
simple, there is a thin line between what I proposed just now and war
profiteering at a national scale.

~~~
emotionalcode
It begins with assumptions that pretend to take the whole view into context,
but do not, as you suggest with the WWII comparison. The side effects are
pernicious and systemic.

I think the important thing to remember about PTSD and other mental illness -
numbing and desensitization are not the same as healing. Whether these things
occur as preparation or as treatment; I am not so certain this matters as
much. The events still occur. The thoughts and memories still exist.

Just because a person can not visibly show an emotional reaction or feel one,
does not mean the emotion has vanished, been extinguished, or that the person
has somehow been protected. The idea that this is effective preparation can
lead to further confusion, both for the individual affected and those
observing.

I agree with learning a certain kind of preparation up to a degree. I believe
doctors need a certain amount of preparation and experience in order to act
during crisis. I wish people would put more effort towards creating peace,
rather than assuming that war and violence are permanent conditions of the
social psyche.

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fapjacks
Disclaimer: I've been in some pretty intense situations in my life.

At some point, no amount of VR can get past "this is not real". I suspect you
would need something that supercedes the psychological barriers in place which
keep telling a person "this is not real". For example, MDMA-assisted VR
therapy. Additionally, this seems just another form of what's called
"prolonged exposure therapy", which is why they state "That’s part of why VR
therapy doesn’t work for everyone". At the risk of downvotes, I think the real
silver bullet here would be to create and enforce stronger barriers to going
to war in the first place.

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Sebpereira
I remember MGS 2 brought up this possibility, when they compared Raiden's VR
training with normal live exercises. And how even in real drills there is a
chance of someone dying, while VR training makes you think war is a game.

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thisjepisje
Next up: virtual reality as a tool for information extraction.

