I think the biggest differences between a flight simulator and an FPS is a flight simulator is way closer to the real thing than an FPS.
Flying a plane is largely sitting a seat, moving a control stick and other switches (simulated by the keyboard, or for you hard core simulators, actual gauges and switches.) Want the plane to turn left? Move the stick left. Use the foot pedals to control the vertical flaps, While I would never want to fly with a “sim only” pilot, one could probably transition from PC to IRL at least half the time with proper practice.
There is NOTHING like real life in a FPS. Want to look left? You have to move your body holding a 7-8lb weapon left, not move a thumb. Want to load it? It is usually automatic, or you hit a button in the game. There is a multi-step process IRL that requires some fine motor skills. The red-dot or sights? They don’t hold anywhere near that still unless you’re prone or supported. Want to actually MOVE? You gotta actually use your feet and start breathing to get oxygen to your muscles. Want to fire it? Congrats, you now can’t hear anything because you didn’t have ear protection and it is going to get worse. The recoil may be simulated similar in some games, but the way you actually have to adjust to it IRL is way different.
Anyone who thinks an FPS is anything like IRL either is so young they think a cape might let them fly if they get a good jump, or has the Dunning-Kruger effect so bad that they think they can do anything.
FPS’s are like porn in that they’re a simulacrum of the real thing, distorted for entertainment value. To claim they’d be useful for training in the use of actual firearms is absurd.
It’s also hard to make the case that video games would be the primary cause of desensitising these shooters to the suffering of their “targets”. The dehumanising language of right-wing populists is a lot more powerful in spurring the massacres perpetrated by already empathy-challenged individuals than is an FPS.
ARMA is great if you want to learn small unit tactics and the limitations of a combat soldier. It won’t actually help you learn how to be that soldier. You could learn to be a reasonably good pilot, at least in theory, just by using a simulator that’s advanced enough. You could spend a lifetime on ARMA without acquiring the ability to even properly unsafe and operate an M4.
The current parlance among certain legs of the alt right. Specifically the organized misogyny movement and among incels.
Have you ever fired a gun? Because even so far as there is anything even remotely realistic in these games. If they’re your primary experience with fire arms, you’re going to be no more prepared or aware of how to use one than anyone else who’s never held on in their hands. After playing a round of Call of Duty you are unlikely to be able to even load a fire arm depicted there without further instruction.
I wouldn’t call anything that happens in a Mortal Combat game “realistic”. Unless you’re positing that it’s physically possible to rip a man’s spine out bare handed, and there is anything like that much blood in a human body. If goriness of depiction had an impact on real world violence. Exploitation cinema of the 70’s would have likely proven the media-violence connection. And yet we’ve got a like a century of repeatedly debunking it for every category of media.
According to Conservapedia “The video game industry is largely lead by liberal organizations, and used as a cash cow by large multinational corporations.”
Is it really any surprise they are being scapegoated?
I dunno, from what I’ve read, the younger generation in general scores HIGHER on empathy then older generations. Yeah you can find dude bros and other people who are “young and dumb”, but they really aren’t any different than any other generation. Generalizations I don’t think really help, and certainly not “kids these days”.
Of course there are outliers. There are always outliers. From the description of the Ohio guy, he sounds like this dude who lived in the dorms at JUCO. He worried me. I was always nice to him (I try to be nice to everyone), and he seemed to like me. But if he ended up doing something horrible I’d not be surprised in the least.
