Interesting article, can definitely see the potential for learning/empathy here. Ethically (in the US), I wonder how VR modules like this will be received. I see a case for and against a VR module that allows next gen students to 'experience' 9/11 or any other historic catastrophe.
I mean, we have video games that depict both world wars, with very realistic recreations of major battles. Does being in war make it fundamentally different?
Do you mean, like, is there an experience difference between "being there" and experiencing a highly realistic VR simulation?
Apologies if I'm misunderstanding because the questions seems to answer itself... "yes, of course!"
Besides the obvious fact wherein if you get shot you die for good, and if you don't die you'll feel tremendous pain and be potentially maimed for life, you've got other factors such as
-Friends you've developed closed bonds with being killed next to you
-A campaign lasting months or years that consumes your existence
-Terrible food
-No sleep
-Extraordinary boredom in downtime (which doesn't exist in videogames or nobody would buy them)
-The endless question of "why are we here" (which doesn't exist in videogames - we are here to have fun)
Yes. Most people who experiance modern war never see a battle. Soldiers battle. For the other 90% of the population, war is suffering, deprivation and fear.
At the moment, no. VR is still in its infancy, and the experiences are distinguishable from reality in a way that they are closer to video games than real life.
However if VR and haptics are able to perfectly recreate war in the next few decades, let's hope that psychology develops in pace. A generation of teenagers who have been exposed to perfect recreations of trench warfare and 9/11 is a generation that will have more PTSD than any other generation before it.
I think there would be an important psychological difference in knowing that your life isn't really in danger, or your friend didn't really just get killed, and so on.
There's also the issue that such a realistic sim probably wouldn't be fun for a lot of people, and wouldn't get played that much.
There's an argument that putting children through traumatizing simulated events has unclear psychological consequences. Western education at young ages goes surprisingly graphic when talking about certain historical atrocities (think seeing Schindler's List in grade schools). While this sort of shock-and-awe storytelling can be impactful, its consequences may not be all positive.
Another issue is that a stronger reliance on "empathetic/emotional" learning experiences can delve too far from education and too much into propaganda. Group A can produce material that hits deep at our psyches and highlights the evils of Group B, and vice versa. Whose side wins the popular debate isn't from the facts on the ground, but from which group has the tech/production skills to make their story grip the heartstrings. In that way it's like any other over-produced documentary, but VR can have the seductive appeal that it's "more real" and thus more objective.
The issue of "experiential VR learning" becomes harder and harder to do right the further back in time you go, because of the mistake we moderns make when trying to "relate" to the past. We often imagine time-traveling and dropping ourselves in a past environment, thinking that's what it would be to be, say, a medieval peasant. We too easily forget that our own mindsets and approaches would be fundamentally different in some ways.
There's a very simple overhead-view VR recreation of the Hiroshima bombing at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It, along with the rest of the content, is emotionally stirring while at the same time not placing blame or pointing fingers (something I found incredible).
Some of the stories told at the museum are from school kids who were walking around the city during the blast. They walked through streets in intense pain, skin hanging in sheets off their bodies, trying to find their friends so they could pick them up and help them. Some of them were on fire. Some returned to their homes to find their families dead. Those same children grew up and lived full lives, and can be heard in recounted interviews at the museum.
Children are a lot stronger than many adults think.
I think those are all valid concerns in the long run. My thought about 9/11 is that most of the country 'experienced' 9/11 but in a much different way than being on or near the site of the attacks. As a kid, the weeks/months long aftermath was far more impactful on my psyche than the immediate moment of learning of the attack. It would be tough to recreate that experience in VR.
If watching Schindler's List is traumatizing, then what is going to happen to your kid when they actually meet someone trying to take advantage of them in one way or another?
I'm still developing these thoughts, but I think the critical difference lays in the difference between "VR experience of Hiroshima bombing" and "watching Schindler's List."
A movie is a narrative. Otherwise it wouldn't be entertaining and nobody would watch it. Even documentaries have narratives. Narratives require good guys, bad guys, etc.
A VR "experience" is just that - one little slice of experience. I really don't think that can be biased (maybe, depending on the experience). It's just "putting yourself in someone's shoes." I don't see how anybody could be biased about how terrible a city being nuked was. It was terrible. Someone might argue that "it was for the greater good," but it was still terrible. Maybe it'll make it harder for a future (now child) president to make the decision to drop the bomb, good! Is that a biased viewpoint, to not want suffering of anybody? I guess maybe it is.
At a point it’s a matter of norm and probability. If the chances that a kid goes through that kind of experience are astronomically low, prepping them for that kind of traumatic event while encuring PTSD risks might not be worth it.
I would even dare to say that the moment you allow a majority of your children to grow up this way; you allow a minority of psychopaths to do whatever they want to them (the children). It’s a simple game-theoretic question.
A counter argument: if we don’t teach kids about the atrocities of war, fascism, and communism, they will grow up ignorant of those things and discover them all over again for themselves, but worse, because we can now slaughter and surveil people much more efficiently than ever before. I’d be in favor of showing “Come and See” by Elem Klimov to school age kids, with peasants burning alive in barns and everything else, because that did actually happen and it absolutely can happen again. In fact I made my son watch it when he was 12.
Counter counter argument: do we make them watch equally graphic recreations of what happened in Nanking? Based on the American morals I'm use to seeing in others (granted these may not apply to people not in the US), any notion of letting a child see the horrors of war is immediately destroyed once you introduce certain forms of violence.
If it's not handled appropriately, you're potentially making a really poor-taste virtual roller coaster. It could easily be seen as making a spectacle of a national tragedy.
Comments
Interesting article, can definitely see the potential for learning/empathy here. Ethically (in the US), I wonder how VR modules like this will be received. I see a case for and against a VR module that allows next gen students to 'experience' 9/11 or any other historic catastrophe.
Actually I think there is already a 9/11 VR experience:
https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/30/9642790/virtual-reality-...
That's a very interesting article!
I mean, we have video games that depict both world wars, with very realistic recreations of major battles. Does being in war make it fundamentally different?
Do you mean, like, is there an experience difference between "being there" and experiencing a highly realistic VR simulation?
Apologies if I'm misunderstanding because the questions seems to answer itself... "yes, of course!"
Besides the obvious fact wherein if you get shot you die for good, and if you don't die you'll feel tremendous pain and be potentially maimed for life, you've got other factors such as
-Friends you've developed closed bonds with being killed next to you
-A campaign lasting months or years that consumes your existence
-Terrible food
-No sleep
-Extraordinary boredom in downtime (which doesn't exist in videogames or nobody would buy them)
-The endless question of "why are we here" (which doesn't exist in videogames - we are here to have fun)
I wasn't asking if a VR experience is different than reality.
I was asking if this new experience of the atomic bomb in VR is different than the other WWII games we have, some in VR.
Basically, if war video games based on real wars are ok, are other games based on real, horrible, events ok?
Yes. Most people who experiance modern war never see a battle. Soldiers battle. For the other 90% of the population, war is suffering, deprivation and fear.
In war games, soldiers usually die quietly, instantly, and in one piece. Reality is still too brutal.
At the moment, no. VR is still in its infancy, and the experiences are distinguishable from reality in a way that they are closer to video games than real life.
However if VR and haptics are able to perfectly recreate war in the next few decades, let's hope that psychology develops in pace. A generation of teenagers who have been exposed to perfect recreations of trench warfare and 9/11 is a generation that will have more PTSD than any other generation before it.
I think there would be an important psychological difference in knowing that your life isn't really in danger, or your friend didn't really just get killed, and so on.
There's also the issue that such a realistic sim probably wouldn't be fun for a lot of people, and wouldn't get played that much.
What's the moral argument against?
There's an argument that putting children through traumatizing simulated events has unclear psychological consequences. Western education at young ages goes surprisingly graphic when talking about certain historical atrocities (think seeing Schindler's List in grade schools). While this sort of shock-and-awe storytelling can be impactful, its consequences may not be all positive.
Another issue is that a stronger reliance on "empathetic/emotional" learning experiences can delve too far from education and too much into propaganda. Group A can produce material that hits deep at our psyches and highlights the evils of Group B, and vice versa. Whose side wins the popular debate isn't from the facts on the ground, but from which group has the tech/production skills to make their story grip the heartstrings. In that way it's like any other over-produced documentary, but VR can have the seductive appeal that it's "more real" and thus more objective.
The issue of "experiential VR learning" becomes harder and harder to do right the further back in time you go, because of the mistake we moderns make when trying to "relate" to the past. We often imagine time-traveling and dropping ourselves in a past environment, thinking that's what it would be to be, say, a medieval peasant. We too easily forget that our own mindsets and approaches would be fundamentally different in some ways.
There's a very simple overhead-view VR recreation of the Hiroshima bombing at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It, along with the rest of the content, is emotionally stirring while at the same time not placing blame or pointing fingers (something I found incredible).
Some of the stories told at the museum are from school kids who were walking around the city during the blast. They walked through streets in intense pain, skin hanging in sheets off their bodies, trying to find their friends so they could pick them up and help them. Some of them were on fire. Some returned to their homes to find their families dead. Those same children grew up and lived full lives, and can be heard in recounted interviews at the museum.
Children are a lot stronger than many adults think.
I think those are all valid concerns in the long run. My thought about 9/11 is that most of the country 'experienced' 9/11 but in a much different way than being on or near the site of the attacks. As a kid, the weeks/months long aftermath was far more impactful on my psyche than the immediate moment of learning of the attack. It would be tough to recreate that experience in VR.
If watching Schindler's List is traumatizing, then what is going to happen to your kid when they actually meet someone trying to take advantage of them in one way or another?
I'm thinking a lot about your OP.
I'm still developing these thoughts, but I think the critical difference lays in the difference between "VR experience of Hiroshima bombing" and "watching Schindler's List."
A movie is a narrative. Otherwise it wouldn't be entertaining and nobody would watch it. Even documentaries have narratives. Narratives require good guys, bad guys, etc.
A VR "experience" is just that - one little slice of experience. I really don't think that can be biased (maybe, depending on the experience). It's just "putting yourself in someone's shoes." I don't see how anybody could be biased about how terrible a city being nuked was. It was terrible. Someone might argue that "it was for the greater good," but it was still terrible. Maybe it'll make it harder for a future (now child) president to make the decision to drop the bomb, good! Is that a biased viewpoint, to not want suffering of anybody? I guess maybe it is.
At a point it’s a matter of norm and probability. If the chances that a kid goes through that kind of experience are astronomically low, prepping them for that kind of traumatic event while encuring PTSD risks might not be worth it.
Are you sure it's that unlikely?
I would even dare to say that the moment you allow a majority of your children to grow up this way; you allow a minority of psychopaths to do whatever they want to them (the children). It’s a simple game-theoretic question.
I visited Yad Vashem when I was 16. I have been traumatized for the rest of my life. The Children's Memorial is not for children.
A counter argument: if we don’t teach kids about the atrocities of war, fascism, and communism, they will grow up ignorant of those things and discover them all over again for themselves, but worse, because we can now slaughter and surveil people much more efficiently than ever before. I’d be in favor of showing “Come and See” by Elem Klimov to school age kids, with peasants burning alive in barns and everything else, because that did actually happen and it absolutely can happen again. In fact I made my son watch it when he was 12.
Counter counter argument: do we make them watch equally graphic recreations of what happened in Nanking? Based on the American morals I'm use to seeing in others (granted these may not apply to people not in the US), any notion of letting a child see the horrors of war is immediately destroyed once you introduce certain forms of violence.
If it's not handled appropriately, you're potentially making a really poor-taste virtual roller coaster. It could easily be seen as making a spectacle of a national tragedy.