Comment by wahern
1 day ago
The point was just that gameification is just a modern word that doesn't reflect any change in behaviors. Presumably you were familiar with these practices under previous descriptors. And your moral objections would have been shared by many millions before you, long before gameification was coined.
On the other side of the coin to thinking there's something new about the way war is waged are the people who think they can wage war without the same consequences as befell nations before. It's fundamentally the same err, IMO. So I take moral objection to the pretense that there's something morally novel to criticize. This stuff is what happens in war, always. And things can get way worse than this, and will get worse the longer we tolerate open hostilities among nations.
I think the difference is between: 1) me doing a nice thing and them reciprocating later, possibly. Others may or may not see this display of niceness. 2) me doing a nice thing, getting karma points my friend and other sees, which I can possibly use to get perks of some kind.
Gamification is not a new word for an old idea. It's a new thing, at least in many contexts.
#1 seems a lot more human to me.
#2 is basically money.
I think something fundamentally new is not only the incentivisation directly affecting kills - as a top team/unit can iterate up much faster, unlike a soldier who could boast more kills, but still have the same rifle as his colleagues - but the layers and desensitisation overall.
Part of this probably admittedly isn't new, and likely started with drones, where you could kill someone in Iraq sitting in DC, on the other side of the world.
But now with both, being separated from the physicality, and the incentives via points (the same way arguably in app currencies are used in gacha games - "20 tokens for this character!" feels better than $40), this is way more similar to CoD or any other shooting game than it has ever been in human history, and by a significant amount.
Sorry for the rambley and extremely verbose reply but tbh it's absolutely horrifying and sickening to see as a fellow human, and I just wanted to get it out. (I'm obviously not saying Ukraine is wrong for wanting to protect territory - but it's the other aspects that are "awesome" (or awe-full?), in the wrong way of awe.)
Nobody in Ukraine is separated from the carnage, least of all the soldiers. The value in the points system is in communicating target priorities down the line. It's just another technological improvement in the vein of, say, the radio. All technological improvements will seem to have the effect of dehumanizing people. But war is fundamentally dehumanizing. In fact, for most soldiers dehumanizing the enemy is a necessity, because otherwise they can't pull the trigger. The dehumanization to be worried about is the dehumanization of people from the perspective of non-combatants, especially those isolated from the war, like Americans.
Where technology creates greater moral hazards in war is when it helps insulate the leadership and population from the consequences of war, and so lowers the sociological and political costs to violence. In that sense having a professional rather than conscripted army should be much more morally repugnant than e-points. Again, no one in Ukraine is isolated from consequences in any meaningful way.
The Ukraine War is the most televised war in history. Especially in the beginning I forced myself to watch the videos, just so I wouldn't get lost in abstraction. The human suffering is gut wrenching. You can watch men getting shredded down; soldiers embracing each other in fear and helplessness moments before they're killed or maimed. Debates over e-points, to me, reflect a failure to appreciate the reality, a reality which is only hidden from one's view by choice. (After a few videos that left me crying, I figured I saw enough to ensure I was dutifully more engaged with the reality than the typical non-veteran at a comfortable remove.)
If anything drones and the necessity of having to record a kill for "points" is arguably an improvement over traditional aerially bombardment. Being forced to watch people injured and killed comes with a greater cost, even for veteran soldiers. On HN we take for granted that, e.g., Facebook employees forced to sift through child porn continually pay a price no matter how long they've been at the job, yet seem to assume soldiers watching a drone video feed feel no different than playing a video game. That perspective betrays a certain callousness that is in some respect even more worrisome than these technological advancements on the battlefield.
Unfortunately I'm too tired to give a more thought out reply at this time of the night, but there were a few things I wanted to add.
To clarify at the outset, I full understand your view and partly agree with it.
I just had some thoughts, and was reminded of something while reading your comment.
> All technological improvements will seem to have the effect of dehumanizing people...
> Where technology creates greater moral hazards in war is when it helps insulate the leadership and population from the consequences of war, and so lowers the sociological and political costs to violence...
These were also the results of the invention of the gatlin gun.
A gun made by the creator to save lives.
Of course, if you now can shoot 100 times as many bullets, you don't use 1/100th as many men, you just shoot 100x bullets.
Which... yeah. I wish I had a solution, but I don't. And obviously no one's going to ramp down their own death causing machines™ when the enemy has no incentive to. (Nuclear proliferation was probably only sucessful mainly because of the high level of difficulty in both the processes as well as material sourcing.)
> Debates over e-points, to me, reflect a failure to appreciate the reality...
I don't think the debate (at least not from my side) is over e points; it's more "shit, war's already terrible, and this is even more dehumanising".
> ...yet seem to assume soldiers watching a drone video feed feel no different than playing a video game...
I never implied that in the slightest. My ire is primarily directed at the people making the system, which almost certainly are folks at higher ranks - not the average soldier. I fully understand humans are human(e).
> Especially in the beginning I forced myself to watch the videos, just so I wouldn't get lost in abstraction. The human suffering is gut wrenching. You can watch men getting shredded down; soldiers embracing each other in fear and helplessness moments before they're killed or maimed.
I have also watched many of these absolutely messed up videos; but I am absolutely not convinced that the e-points system reduces this suffering in any way. Psychological distance absolutely can make it "easier" to kill, and perhaps a man with a broken down tank was already effectively a "Hors de Combat" but if you shoot him you get 12 points, and...
...I think you see what I'm saying.
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This post is so insanely out of touch with reality. What an irony. Their country is being invaded. Their families are being affected and killed. Their land is being taken. The goal is to end their country. Trying to project criticisms of the American drone program onto Ukraine in such an openly transparent and uncritical manner is the only thing sickening here. For your platitudes about humanity you clearly care so little about such a deadly conflict to have clearly done no research into the basic facts. The comparison to CoD in particular is so deeply egregious. But really it's the arrogance of this post paired with the professed humanity that is so unnerving. It's like you took an essay about America's drone program and just copied it into the Ukranian context with no critical thought or self reflection. That seems the most charitable way to interpret your post. And I'm really trying.
> That seems the most charitable way to interpret your post. And I'm really trying.
Ps, if you're genuinely curious, I can share a link where I got Gemini 3.1 Pro (at max thinking) to analyse this chat as neutrally as I could. Seeing as Gemini had an easier time than you did, maybe it could give you some help?
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> What an irony. Their country is being invaded. Their families are being affected and killed. Their land is being taken. The goal is to end their country.
And what does that have to do with anything I was talking about?
I'm talking about "Shit, it's bad to dehumanise war even more".
Are you saying "No, that's a good thing if your country is under attack"?
Because if you're actually wanting to say "It's a fucked up situation for them", then, yeah, I agree... and I've never said anything to the contrary? Are we on the same page then, or not?
> The comparison to CoD in particular is so deeply egregious.
So you're saying this war isn't the closest we've been to a gamified war perhaps ever in human history?
If you're saying "we shouldn't be crying about gamification because there are more important things as their country's at stake", well, there are more humans dying of hunger every day than in Ukraine, so therefore the EU should put all its funds supporting Ukraine into reducing global hunger? By that logic??
Please, if you're a grown adult, have the nuance and the maturity to show it. Multiple things can be issues at the same time, and calling one out doesn't make the other justified - because that's what it feels like you're accusing me of. And please feel free to correct me if I've said anything wrong (or if you disagree with any of my options.)
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I'm intrigued (but unfortunately not surprised) by the downvote.
I suspect it's primarily due to folks missing nuance/misinterpreting thing (and/or getting emotional and running off with it).
I ran a thread to analyse hidden/missed nuance - where I tried to be as "neutral" as possible (by never identifying myself), if someone's genuinely interested I can share the link. (Hint: Gemini 3.1 Pro at max thinking mode in AI Studio says others are missing a point/some nuance.)