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ran

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Posts posted by ran

  1. Posted

    Hi all

    The following is a very simplified precis.

    Killing our own kind is something that we genetically programmed not to do. Any species that easily kills its own kind is on its way to experience a Darwin award. Read On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz.

    That said about 2% of the population are sociopaths who can kill without remorse or empathy, most of these are conditioned by society not to kill and their normal social conditioning prevents them from killing and they live normal healthy lives, a few don't take that conditioning and are the people who become sociopathic murderers. This 2% are the people most armies weed out with their psychological testing. They do not tend to make good soldiers.

    Another 2% to 3% are those who can kill without training or conditioning but do so with empathy and remorse. These are the people who tend to be heroes and win medals. They are good at war because they can see the reason behind the need for violence. Their actions tend to be reasoned and considered. This 2% to 3% are the people most armies look for with their psychological testing they are also the people who end up being leaders in the military.

    5% Are those the who cannot kill no matter the circumstances they make good medics and firemen though as they will often risk their own life to save another, their empathy levels are so very high. They are also the people who become conscientious objectors

    The rest of us are the 90% are normal every day people; using operant conditioning most of those can can be taught to kill. This 90% are the people who most armies psychological testing show they will have to train a lot in order to make them kill. Modern military training is very effective at doing this.

    Operant conditioning overrides our basic instinct not to harm our own kind; it is achieved by the following methods:

    1) Continuous training and drilling to the point where the order is obeyed by the unconscious thought before the conscious thought can mediate the action

    2) Associative memory conditioning by using human-shaped targets rather than the of bulls-eye type targets used in rifle competition, also of relevance here is the use of high fidelity simulation to give a very real representation of the human movement and even the reaction to being shot.

    3) The so called firing squad principal; of distribution of responsibility for the act of killing throughout the group, thus reducing the stress and pain of killing.

    4) Mob mentality. Encouraging pack thought and action so that the pack reacts violently to a threat. This has to be sharply controlled as it can very easily become displaced into lynch mob behaviour My Lai Massacre anyone. This tends to the most primitive conditioning form and most modern armies tend to want leave it alone.

    5) Displacing responsibility for the killing onto an authority figure, i.e. the commanding officer and the military hierarchy this is what caused apparently normal people to comply with the Holocaust and is the subject of the Milgram Experiment recorded in "The Perils of Obedience", the 1974 article by Stanley Milgram the man who got people off the street to electrocute someone they did not know if they did not get questions right. I am sure you have seen the archive film.

    6) Inure the person to violence via exposure to violent experieces and culture such as fights, violent images films, games and language. In military training they try to compatmentalise this so that it can be triggered on demand via orders and situations.

    On top of all this we have peoples fear reactions most of us when exposed to extreme violence, threat, or emergency for the first time just feeze up or run away as our conscoius mind has nothing to fall back on; not having experienced this before. Operant conditioning also makes use of our midbrain to make us act in these circumstanses by suplanting our conscious thoughts with a set of trained subconcious reactions.

    The real problem with operant conditioning is that even if you can be trained to kill the psychological damage it does is the biggest part of PTSD.

    You may think most soldiers who come back complaining of PTSD from war are those shocked by the violence they have seen and for some that is true, and in a way is very true it is violence they have seen up real close because they have done it and most of us are that 90% for whom violence is not something we will do consciously and willingly.

    Simplified, yet clarifying a few things for some people in this thread.

    A friend of mine had a way to describe that :"C'est comme le saut à l'élastique niveau adrénaline, mais à l'envers chez les gens normalement finis. Pour ce qui est de l'acrobatie, c'est avant que tu te poses des questions, juste avant que tu te chies dessus, et après que tu es fier et con. Tuer quelqu'un, c'est donc l'inverse, au début tu es fier de ton flingo, de ton joli treillis, de ton beret, des idéaux que tu défends. Arrivé le moment de faire le boulot pour lequel t'es payé et pour lequel on t'a formé, tu le fais machinalement, après, tu te fais dessus (tu tiltes un coup) ou tu chiales et après tu te poses les questions qui font mal."

    "It's like bungee jumping adrenaline-wise but the events are reversed in the mind of normal people. When it comes to acrobatics, you ask yourself questions beforehand, it's right before jumping that you shit your pants or pass out and it's after that you're proud about your dumb feat. Killing somebody is the contrary : beforehand, you're proud about your rifle, your green fatigues, your berret. When comes the time to do the job you've been taught and you're paid for, you do it mechanicaly, afterward, you shit your pants, pass out or cry and then you ask yourself the questions which hurt."

    The only way to kill somebody without mercy and remorse is to be a sociopathological bastard, because even with the "mob mentality" (which would normally be called Esprit de corps wink_o.gif ) you end up feeling the weight of your acts.

    It's not your superiors either who pulled the trigger for you.

  3. Posted

    France may be far from an earthly paradise, but as I see it, briton independantists have no real real ground for their claims. Since you're into history and enjoy keeping a foot in the past and different time periods, it's been what ? 500 years since Brittany has been rattached to the french crown.

    Not forgetting the fact that some "regionalistes" pledged allegiance to the krauts during the second world war.

    Brittany won't be independant anytime soon, and the ARB won't pull you out from french "oppression". And don't forget that this movement has blood on its hands. And it's not through political means that you're going to change anything either, not with the 450 persons of the PB and all the other minor parties.

    Be happy that you still have a strong culture and strong traditions.

    It's not as if an independant Brittany could survive by just exporting Breizh cola you know. Quit dreaming.

    I don't think Igor's reply was all that "franchouillard", it's mostly that vocal persons without a clue and no basis for their claims tend to annoy people, especially when it's about such a ridiculous topic.

    Most Britons, past the fact that they'll go watch a Bagadou play from time to times and hang a Briton flag just about anywhere, hold their social security benefits, their infrastructures financed by France and the many administrative jobs offered by the french state too dear to even bother.

    If "you secede", I naturally want the Pays de Retz back as it is after all a Picton territory originally, and I'm going to push for a seccession from France in the Poitou Charentes, we've got the Parlanje afterall, we also got some pretty cool traditionnal dancing and music bands ...

    Tache de seug' to chemin dreit, d'Angoleme à La Rochelle, pas d'besoin d'passer pr' Potiers

  9. Posted

    I am still correct that the current AT Javelin was first created under the pretence of being a AA weapon?

    I don't think so, it's a relatively long way from a MANPADS to a top-attack large caliber antitank weapon.

    IIRC, the Javelin AT is a LM/Raytheon product and was ment to be a replacement for the Dragon.

  11. Posted

    This thread is a goldmine biggrin_o.gif with pretty large nuggets such as that "stella" MANPADS.

    What caused the American helos to go down was more of a doctrinal than technical nature. You don't fly over desert and over gunmen filled casbahs the same.

    That's my humble advice as a former poor little gun-totting grey blob in the optronics of those things.

  15. Posted

    GJ ran, you are correct. Its the Piasecki VZ-8P Airgeep aka Army flying jeep experiment.

    Why didn't any of my sources feature the "full" black line (bumber?) and the fin? huh.gif

    Anyways, the crashed bird is a Loire-Nieuport L.N.40.

    good job !

    about the Airgeep, just looked like a thing I saw on a plastic model box, a Glencoe model iirc. From what I know, this thing had numerous prototypes and real size models each with certain differences.

  21. Posted

    BUZZARD @ Mar. 31 2007,23:57)]Here's the next one... sorry for keeping u waiting...

    Double points for who names the special thing used to make this one! whistle.gif

    Stipa Caproni ?

    I could describe the propulsion system in french but my english is failling me there.

    This thechnology interested the french air force a lot back in the 30's, it was seen as as alternative to jet engines.

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