Do we support the research on application of industrial violence?

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

The question that has been recurring for a couple of years now, at least since Panther Games, the company that released Airborne Assault series and then Battles for the Bulge, revealed their ties with military subsided research projects as far as I can remember. Obviously enough any military structures are directly connected to arms industry for certain reasons.The thing must have started for me yet when I was an active member of "Operation >Flashpoint<" community - its success in creating the realistic tactical combat environment simulation led to the software being turned into a training tool for military, there was even a finely tuned version of that called Virtual Battlefield System or VBS -cannot recall now if that was the correct name, but there was someething like that.

Now, again - as far as I know - we're facing the similar situation here; the fact that military recognize the value of the wargames we play as realistic and formative simulations is hard to remain unnoticed and disregarded. after all I have been on a constant lookout for more demanding and realistic tools to model varied levels, means and stages of warfare.

On the other hand, reaching my forties and being a father myself I got myself thinking - mere buying the product which functions the way I have just described above means I actively support the application of violence on industrial case which the modern warfare invariably is? Just don't respond with the usual rightist righteous warmongering please. I also hope no offence shall be taken by anybody since that's not what I meant by this post. I am just curious what you fellow wargamers ,interested greatly in naval warfare as we are, think.

[thewood1]

A) Maybe you should go play some other game if you have those doubts. I can't imagine what it must be like for you to have be forced to play games that might support a company that makes weapons. I have to assume you don't drive a car or fly in a plane that is built by a company that also makes weapons. It must be terrible to be you.

B) Maybe you shouldn't be posting this here. There are a number of forums, including one right here at Matrix where you can post your self-doubting musings.

C) If you don't want people to post with what you call rightist warmongering, then you are a poor debater who really only wants to discuss with like-minded people. Another incentive to not come here and spew drivel like this.

You'll note I didn't write any rightist warmongering. Your style was easy enough to counter without resorting to that. In fact, I an empathize with people that do not like wargames. But I have no empathy or sympathy for hypocrites.

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

Thank you for the prompt answer and its excellent since it apparently refers to the thread you think you have answered to and not the one I had posted above thus easy to blast.

A). you ... B.) ... you c.) ... you - meaning me. If you reread properly what I have written then you should refer to what's the core there and not me since I was an example I know for sure and not the content. Check the definition of hypocrisy - it's got another meaning that you assign here, but you had to use that to perform a direct personal attack which in your opinion lifts the weight on thinking on the I issue I raised. Ergo - you are warmonger as your answer is belligerent. Check the "flaming" for instance, too. You can call me a hypocrite as much as you want since it's irrelevant as you don't know me and people voicing opinions about others most often speak about themselves and reveal their real nature as it's the only thing hey know for sure - the rest is, let's say, the fog-of-war. That is also why I gave my own example. Are you corporate here? Quantity does not mean quality according to your forums status.

... but I was counting on some formative and meritorious replies so sorry about swerving off.

[mercho]

Edited

[thewood1]

I can't understand what you would expect by posting in a wargame thread with that crap. And...it was not a personal attack. If you put something like that in a thread for a wargamer, you are going to get some serious pushback. Again, I will ask...do you drive a car or fly in am airplane. Have you written any letters to Boeing or Dassualt about your refusal to use their products until they stop producing weapons? See that is hypocrisy. Complaining about one product and not complaining about another. Its called a cause of convenience. I will withdraw my hypocrisy statement if you tell me you have gone to all the other products you use with the same potential and protested or had a discussion with only like-minded people.

You also might want to check on the definition of internet troll...

"One who purposely and deliberately (that purpose usually being self-amusement) starts an argument in a manner which attacks others on a forum without in any way listening to the arguments proposed by his or her peers. He will spark of such an argument via the use of ad hominem attacks (i.e. 'you're nothing but a fanboy' is a popular phrase) with no substance or relevance to back them up as well as straw man arguments, which he uses to simply avoid addressing the essence of the issue"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=troll

[thewood1]

Again, I'll point out that there are other forums for this discussion. Why come here and immediately assume you are going to get rightist warmongering to the point you had to mention it. You are already insulting anyone that disagrees with you. You have already assumed the skew in this forum is "rightist warmongering". You don't want a discussion or debate...you want to shove your views down the throats of anyone who disagrees by limiting them to being categorized by your self-proclaimed category

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

Sorry if I have entered your holy church and desecrated it, but I am sure I haven't. Besides - crap, pushback etc. - nice choice of vocabulary. I'd say - debate. I refuse to reply in any length as long as you don't refer to the very core of the issue I have been trying to raise here even though I seem to feel teased a bit ... Ah, nay.

[Randomizer]

Should not the General Discussion forum be the place for this sort of silly, navel-gazing pontification where it can get the attention that it really deserves? That said, in before lock.

-C

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

I knew I shouldn't have - now they got me ...

Alright, a couple of quotations since I wasn't supposed to reply:

"... Wise men do not have to be told what to do, but only fools do not listen to what they are told ..."

So I have just had a look at General Discussion section in case you may be right - and yes, please, put it right next to Australian beauties, there's place for something someone can associate with a navel only. Or you meant "naval"? It's only good - not in before getting shot. Just don't shoot the piano player please, we'll need him to have our well-deserved fun.

I assume you have a full citizenship with full voting rights and yet you go to another department to do so?

Polish writer Stanislaw Lem said "without internet I never knew there are so many idiots in the world". Myself I have always scorned that on basis there are many more outside, but ... So I'd say "what a level of discussion" anyway. Don't know him? Type "Solaris". No, not Polaris. Thank you.

Let me remind you - I am asking the question the Strugacki brothers asked in their " The Rainy Season" book - "is an honest man someone who honestly works for war?" ...

People who have no doubts are intellectually and mentally dead. A paraphrase from P.K. Dick this time.

[CapnDarwin]

Assuming this thread does no close while I type, here is your answer from another Matrix Games developer. First, the money you spent on the game goes to pay the games developers and Matrix/Slitherine. No funds channeling to any countries military industrial complex. Second, if the military comes to the developers with a bag of cash to develop simulations (can't say games, the military guys hate that), it is another avenue for those developers to make back some money for their time and effort in making us a game to play. Now if you think about that, we are actually take funds away from the military. Finally, if you are living in the westernized world, you pay some form of taxes. Like it or not (and that's a debate for another post in the general of topic forums), your money already supports the great military industrial complex of your country in amounts a game developer only dream a fraction about.

So there is the answer. Commence the locking and have a great day. [:D]

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

First coherent and on the point answer which I am grateful for. With the remark on the fact that taxes are obligatory and the argument with cars and planes is valid only if one is given a free and unrestricted choice - a matter for another debate. Here I assumed we do have such so it is an issue and an indication of our own nature and approach.

The fact that during the Kristallnacht certain groups of the Nazi Germany citizens were allowed to demolish shops and families of other Nazi Germany citizens in accordance with then governing law just because of their non-Aryan origin made everything acceptable? This is that sort of questions attached to the freedom of choice.

[Randomizer]

The problem with the OP is that it is rather like musing about the evils of being an omnivore while tucking into a big rack of BBQ ribs. That, coupled with some vacuous quotes (without meaningful context) and some pseudo-intellectual ramblings does not a rational argument make. Hopefully the moderators will shut this thread down (preferably deleting it entirely) or move it someplace more appropriate so we can all get back to discussing CMANO.

-C

[Dysta]

Remember, as long as it IS a game, then play without regards, it will not destroy the world like this 80s' movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbqMuvnx5MU

[AlmightyTallest]

Nice one Dysta

I liked this scene the best!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RRGvAB4HF8

https://youtu.be/s93KC4AGKnY?t=2m32s

As long as no one actually dies, I'd rather simulate it all on a computer.

[Tomcat84]

ORIGINAL: burroughs

"is an honest man someone who honestly works for war?" ...

No idea what the context is in this book but I would say i can't see why one excludes the other. Unless you want to call me dishonest for being in the military? Again: not sure what the context of the quote is or your intent with it but it seems a bit random.

ORIGINAL: burroughs
With the remark on the fact that taxes are obligatory and the argument with cars and planes is valid only if one is given a free and unrestricted choice - a matter for another debate. Here I assumed we do have such so it is an issue and an indication of our own nature and approach.

You have a free choice as to whether or not you buy and play this game, no? Also you have a free choice in which airline you travel with and which brand of car you buy, and these days you can book a flight and already see what type of plane it is so you can attempt to avoid those companies that you don't want to support.

Anyway to me it seems a rather trivial matter but to each his own.

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

The psychological determinants of the dynamics of a conflict are that if an attacker suddenly finds himself on the defence - quite often only due to his wrong assumptions - he may turn to voicing his outrage by not referring to the content but rather to the form - like being insulted or finding something inappropriate in certain situations. The fact that you fail to observe the context does not mean it doesn't exist. After all neither me nor you have invented the wheel yet it is available, isn't that?

Rest assured I took that into consideration - the thread facing the fate of being closed out of corporate reasons, it's a company run thing in here after all, isn't it and I wouldn't find it inappropriate. But you may still report that directly, there should be a button 'report to moderator", but I failed to locate it so as to make the thing easier for you. Perhaps that's because it a place for adult people mostly, but feel free to do your service to the free world if you feel like rescuing that from freedom of speech, it well deserves that.

Who said that: people who resign from freedom for the sake of security do not deserve either? Must have been some "pseudo-intellectual" type ...

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

ORIGINAL: AlmightyTallest

As long as no one actually dies, I'd rather simulate it all on a computer.

Indeed, I had an opponent for Tiller's Operational Campaigns who stated something similar and it got me thinking a bit, but isn't that a bit of an oversimplification? It's like it's better to kick a kitten than a kid. But there is a point to consider. And Dysta has also hit the right spot. Do we happen to know "Ender's Game"?

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

ORIGINAL: Tomcat84

ORIGINAL: burroughs

"is an honest man someone who honestly works for war?" ...

No idea what the context is in this book but I would say i can't see why one excludes the other. Unless you want to call me dishonest for being in the military? Again: not sure what the context of the quote is or your intent with it but it seems a bit random.

Anyway to me it seems a rather trivial matter but to each his own.

No need to take it personally, actually it directs the discussion here in the wrong way unintended by me. No need to know the book, the quotation speaks for itself and that is the only context here. Do we support the real wars in any form here by buying a particular software type (if we don't have to) and to what extent is it intended and conscious - if that is so of course? I simplified this a bit though, but that is more or less what I have seriously discuss for quite some time.

Terrorism was also a remote and perhaps even trivial thing for say, Americans before 9/11 right? Apart form Dallas assassination and Dakota FBI building bombing perhaps, you know Timothy McVeigh or what was his name . Aw, the Unabomber, too so a wrong example, but won't change it now. And I don't need to be a vegetarian to try to avoid running over a dog , do I? So those market related instances are also a bit out of focus to me. Let's do not reduce everything to marketing, that's propaganda after all.

[thewood1]

I was trying to head this off at the pass. But it turned into exactly what I thought...someone who is an armchair philosopher coming to pontificate and get a warm glowy feeling inside. At the expense of coming into a wargame forum and spewing out unsubstantiated nonsense.

I'll point point out the definition of a troll again. Go through it word for word and look at the original post...it almost like he was trying to be an example of troll.

These discussions can happen anywhere, but to bring them into a wargaming forum is crass, uncalled for, and trolling. As was already pointed out, there is a general forum at Matrix you and the other resident trolls who have a lot of time to waste can have at it.

[AlmightyTallest]

Indeed, I had an opponent for Tiller's Operational Campaigns who stated something similar and it got me thinking a bit, but isn't that a bit of an oversimplification? It's like it's better to kick a kitten than a kid. But there is a point to consider. And Dysta has also hit the right spot. Do we happen to know "Ender's Game"?

Actually sometimes the simplest explanations are the most true. The fact is that I'm neither kicking a kid, nor a kitten as you put it when I simulate code on a computer.

We're not supposed to engage in conversation with protesters outside our facilities either, so I'll just end with that simple thought.