I am passing this along from an Evolutionary Psychology mailing list. Robert Karl Stonjek wrote:
<begin quote> During world war two, as few as 15% of soldiers actually aimed at the enemy - the rest hoped that others would do the killing. This was particularly true of new recruits. Just like in the television movies, sometimes a handful of seasoned soldiers could keep a hundred or more green soldiers at bay. The number of shoot-to-kill soldiers falls even further if they are conscripts.
The training technique changed in the 1960s. Soldiers were trained to shoot 'instinctively' through training in fast shoot situations such as when targets are suddenly flashed before them. They eventually stop 'thinking' and simply act, being able to assess whether the target flashed before them represents an unarmed civilian or a combatant in a split second.
It is my understanding that new recruits now have a shoot-to-kill ratio of better than 95% now, largely because the normal 'don't kill' instinct has been circumvented. <end quote>
RKS also pointed at this very interesting ABC Radio transcript, dated May 1999:
There's a particular poignancy to the talk you will hear today in view of the NATO bombing of Serbia, the violence towards civilians in Kosovo and East Timor, and yet another shooting spree at a North American school.
At a conference in Canberra a month ago, Colonel David Grossman spoke about 'Killology', a term he coined to describe his work in behavioural science as it relates to human combat. Grossman has worked within the military establishment and with law enforcement groups and he's written on the effects of violent video games on children. His book, 'On Killing' has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
<snip>
Napoleon said that on the battlefield, the moral is to the physical as three is to one. That is the psychological factors are three times more important than the physical factor. If you think you're going to win a war by pounding somebody to death, you have missed the essence of it. You do not defeat the enemy, you defeat their minds. How do you do that? How do you do that? That's what we need to understand. We need to understand the dynamics.
<snip>
I could unleash a bunch of snakes, come slithering in through the sides, and about 5% of the audience would have a phobic scale response to that, they'd go straight from their eyes, to their feet, and they'd be out there leaving a trail of body fluids behind them.
Everybody else would do everything for them to get out of the way to sell tickets, because that's what we do. The same thing is true of tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, dogs, the dart, you name it, only a tiny percentage will have a phobic scale response to that, but if I came in here with a pistol and started shooting people, or rampaging through the audience with a machete and started whacking on people, 98% of the audience would have a phobic scale response to that. It is the universal human phobia.
<snip>
if you've got a particular individual, or a group of individuals who want to kill, fine; and if you have some structure you want to destroy, fine. But the reality is, if you think you're going to change somebody's behaviour, if you think you're going to influence their behaviour with air power, then you are following a theory that is scientifically unsound, psychologically disproven, and morally bankrupt. Because the reality is dropping cruise missiles on people doesn't do anything but (excuse my language) dropping cruise missiles doesn't do anything but piss them off. Psychologically speaking the thing that modifies human behaviour is this: another human being looks you in the face; it is the fact that another human being will come, look you in the eyes and hold you accountable for your behaviour, that modifies human behaviour and that holds our civilisation together.
<snip>
The Battle of Gettysburg only lasted three days, and they took the nights off. It's only in World War I that we began to see this phenomenon occur, and the magnitude of the horror of interpersonal human aggression for months on end is such that at the end of 60 continuous days of combat, 98% of all combatants had become psychiatric casualties. The other 2%? They were sociopaths.
<snip>
Now basically in every attack that the Brits had in the Falklands, they were outnumbered three to one, with no air superiority and no artillery superiority. How can you attack an enemy who outnumbers you three to one, well equipped, well dug in without any force multiplier. Now understand this. Training is a force multiplier, and if your guys are firing at 95% level, which is what Holmes estimates that the Brits were, and the other guys are firing at about a 10% level, which is what they estimate they were doing, then what happens is you have an enormous advantage on the modern battlefield.
Re:On killing
« Reply #1 on: 2004-06-15 06:26:59 »
What makes me sick goes beyond the desensitization or even simple conditioning it is the worship of killing. The celebration,"Hey look i got another one","Good job, haha that makes 11 for you 8 for me", shakes me to the core. If celebration is included with desensitization and conditioning you have a training camp for sociopaths. Every year between 250,000 service members go back into civilian life. The percentage of ex-military and military is almost 25% of the population. Can we gamble with 25% of the population. Maybe only 5 % of service members will become sociopaths (I'd estimate higher). That's more than 3 million people.
As David Grossman points out video games are a problem in that they give you great reflexes and skill but more than video games are giving people their life philosophy. So many look at the world deciding what team their on and how they rack up points without any ethical guidelines. I watched a friend of mine on sniper mode repeatedly killing people all day long, every day. IMO, If this does not get boring then there is a serious psychological problem.
Soldiers doing most the combat are young. Most soldier going into civilian life are young, one term 3-yr contracts. Most prone to becoming sociopaths, the young. We are making time bombs that could go off. Training Columbines and Maryland snipers.
Most of US murders are committed in the urban areas, and most of these ar= e committed by gangbangers who had an entirely different kind of combat training, beginning prior to puberty. =0D =0D -------Original Message-------=0D =0D From: virus@lucifer.com=0D Date: 06/15/04 05:30:13=0D To: virus@lucifer.com=0D Subject: virus: Re:On killing=0D =0D What makes me sick goes beyond the desensitization or even simple conditioning it is the worship of killing. The celebration, look i got another one, shakes me to the core. If celebration is included with desensitization and conditioning you have a training camp for sociopaths. Every year between 250,000 service members go back into civilian life. Th= e percentage of ex-military and military is almost 25% of the population. C= an we gamble with 25% of the population. Maybe only 5 % of service members w= ill become sociopaths (I'd estimate higher). That's more than 3 million peopl= e.=0D =0D As David Grossman points out video games are a problem in that they make give you great reflexes and skill but more than video games are giving people their life philosophy. So many look at the world deciding what tea= m their on and how they rack up points without any ethical guidelines. I watched a friend of mine on sniper mode repeatedly killing people all day long, every day. IMO, If this does not get boring then there is a serious psychological problem.=0D =0D Soldiers doing most the combat are young. Most soldier going into civilia= n life are young, one term 3-yr contracts. Most prone to becoming sociopath= s,=20 the young. We are making time bombs that could go off. Training Columbine= s and Maryland snipers.=0D =0D ----=0D This message was posted by jubungalord to the Virus 2004 board on Church = of Virus BBS.=0D <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=3D61;action=3Ddisplay threadid=3D30495>=0D ---=0D To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/= virus-l>
Re:On killing
« Reply #3 on: 2004-06-15 12:56:29 »
That is a major problem Joe. Unfortunately is the celebration of gang banger culture is getting bigger and bigger. Germany now has a successful rapper (in german). So many people seem to be buying in that whole mind set from all cultures. It would be interesting to get some crime stats on non-gang affiliated posers. I think it's a terrible memeplex. Causes very selfish behavior and simplifies almost everything to the point of no return. Even the religious memeplexes are havening a more difficult time against ganstaism.
Another thing I have been searching for but can't find. I have been looking but I don't seem to be able to find accurate statistics on ex-military crime rates. If you find something let me know thanks n8
I agrr by the way here. Our training of Al Qaeda to fight the Russians backfired.
But I have a feeling that if all the ex-military militiamen decide to organize a revolution, it'll be for a damn good reason. --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
: Most of US murders are : committed in the urban areas,
According to what study? What was there definition of a urban area? What percentage of the population lives in urban areas defined that way? Any references?
It was my understanding that per-capita murder rates, inclusive of temporary populations, are far lower in cities. --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
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