David Byrne Journal

David Byrne Journal

The Independent weekend magazine says that after WWII a number of studies and some reports by military officers estimated that only one in four soldiers actually fired on the enemy. The others weren?t as mentally and psychologically ready to kill, so they simply didn?t. Very annoying for the higher-ups. The ubiquitous image of soldiers rushing into battle guns blazing simply just didn?t happen.
A man named Dave Grossman was brought in to remedy the problem. He used ?operant conditioning?, a Skinnerian psychological term mixed with simulations that were closer to the actual conditions ? previously gun training mainly involved shooting at distant targets and aiming carefully. (On Killing was his book.)
This was further refined with simulators over the years ? which bore a remarkable resemblance to today?s first person shooter video games. (One wonders if the military should get some credit for designing what became game software.) Grossman has since become a critic of the impact of these games, claiming that they are in effect training young players to be killing machines. The efficiency of the soldiers trained in this way quadrupled, so it is effective. He claims that games teach adolescents (and frustrated nerds) to have the killing instinct and to quicken their reactions and lower their inhibitions. He has a website: killology.com

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