On the ethics of recreating real death scenes

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

As this is a sensitive subject, I'd like to start by making a couple points.

1) I was told that we can discuss the tastefullness of making a PR based real-life recreation vid as long as it was in "Off-Topic".

2) This has nothing to do with whether the people in the Apache gunner vid were farmers or insurgents. I'd ask the mods to please delete any posts that attempt to shift the focus to that issue.

3) This should not be seen as an attack on Maistros, nor should anybody make it such. Maistros is a valuable community member. Not in the way people always say "so and so is a valuable member" whenever things get personal. He really is. He has a career background in video, and may be the most able member here in terms of promoting PR. If you guys aren't grateful for what he's done for the mod in making the PR promo video, then you should make an appointment for a CAT scan.

4) Furthermore, it should be noted that Maistros and others who have taken part in the "project video reality" genre cannot be faulted for what they've made. The tastefullness and ethics of this genre was never discussed before these videos were made.

5) I would like to see a healthy, intelligent debate here. Not a screaming match, and no "ur rong. theirs no way thats tru" style writing. Use correct spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar. Otherwise your meaning becomes ambiguous and people have a tougher time understanding you. And it pisses me off to no end. You don't want to piss me off to no end, do you?

6) There is no shame in changing your position mid-way through the debate. This proves that the reason you are arguing is to find truth, and not to cut others down or build yourself up. Just make sure to explain that that's what you're doing so nobody gets confused.

7) Mods, if smacktards start posting, can you just delete their posts without locking the whole thread please?

OK... so let the debate begin.

I think that recreating a real video in which people die is morbid.

I would argue that death is a very.... sacred thing. I'm not sure if sacred is really the right word to use, but what I mean is that there is a great deal of weight to it, and it shouldn't be taken lightly. I think that YouTube videos who's main focus is people dying are morally questionable, since they depict death outside of the context from whence it arises.

When a soldier kills a man, that's something he carries with him his entire life. Whether he feels justified in the killing or not, I doubt it is an easy thing to bear into old age. I would imagine that they don't really feel that the YouTube watching public has the capacity or moral authority to judge or understand an external 30 second view of the killing taking place.

No matter how we feel about the insurgents, they are humans, and don't deserve to have their last moments viewed by anybody with an internet connection.

I feel that if you recreate one of these scenes in PR, you're paying homage to it. That's something that I don't think needs to happen.

I understand that these ideas are a little scattered. Unfortunately I haven't fully thought them through or brought them into focus. Hopefully I'll be able to do that as the debate wears on.

I think one of the most potent objections to my view that PR representations of real deaths is the view Maistros has put forth a few times, which I will refer to as the Hyprocrite Defense.

Roughly, it argues that since PR players kill people in-game time and time again, and often post videos of them doing so, they have no business objecting when somebody posts a video that mimics a real-life scenario. Given the amount of wars that have been fought, someone is likely to have died in any way you could die in PR. Thus, all PR deaths depict real ones.

Here I would argue this point on two simultaneous fronts.

1) Since people are unaware of the real deaths they are depicting most of the time, they are different from when they are depicting known events. If somebody is speaking gibberish when talking to a baby, and one of the words happens to be a vile swear word in another language that the person does not speak, can they really be said to be swearing at the baby?

2) People (males in particular, as evidenced by the largely male demographic of PR and other war games) are naturally prone to expressing and acting out hunting and warlike instincts. They have been hardwired to hunt in order to provide their evolutionary group with needed protein, and hardwired to engage in warfare in order to defend their group. Since these behaviors are difficult to express in modern society, harmless behaviors like FPS's and airsoft have come about. This is different from acting out a real life death scene.

Finally I would like to argue by example. Normally I don't like to argue this way, as it seems to say "logic aside, if you follow your reasoning, X would be true. You don't like X, do you?", when logic, and not gut reaction, should be the only thing we appeal to in argument. But in questions of morality, everything really comes back to gut reaction. So....

You know those "Faces of Death" DVDs (I don't even know if they actually exist, or if they're just urban legends)? It seems to me that if the "project video reality" vids are justifiable, it should also be justifiable to reenact the scenes of non-combatants being killed in horrific ways using PR. Would you agree with this?

[Rusty1986]

Originally Posted by JP*wasteland.soldier

6) There is no shame in changing your position mid-way through the debate. This prooves that the reason you are arguing is to find truth, and not to cut others down or build yourself up. Just make sure to explain that that's what you're doing so nobody gets confused.

Spelling. See me.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. This debate is sensitive but I agree, it is an interesting one. Personally the thought of re-creating the moment of people's deaths is ok. Something does tell me though that it should be wrong. But if you look at films, re-enactment from documentaries etc, many times do you see re-created deaths from historical accounts.

Is it because this footage is too recent? Is it ok to recreate a known death scene of a soldier from WW2 because it's been 60 years? I personally don't see the difference but I think how recent the event is does play a significant role in whether it is acceptable or not.

Rusty

[Gyberg]

I think the main problem is comparing artificial "life" to real life. What some people are saying basically is: Well you play computer games where you kill people so you shouldn't have any problems whith grabbing a gun and go off to kill some people, right?

I do not agree with that, and if you do, stop playing these games or we will soon here of a new Columbine tragedy.

And ofcourse as I posted in another thread, there is no way a computer game could create something that resembles the fear, pain and aganoy of the people who die in the original movies. So pulling the hypocrite card doesn't work from my point of view since killing an artificial soldier dont even come close to killing a real person. Saying so would be extremely disrespectful to all the soldiers and insurgents dying in wars today! And also show a lack of respect for life.

[[R-DEV]bosco]

I don't have a problem with reenacted real life scenes in PR (and any other game). Just because they look like a video you can watch on the internet, they aren't worse then games like Medal of Honor where you reenact Omaha Beach.

[[R-DEV]eggman]

The Project Reality team does not support nor condone using PR to compare or recreate real life incidents.

The video in question was not "authorised" in any official way by the team. Nor would it have been.

While we strive to create a realistic GAMING environment, using PR for such direct comparisons to real life incidents where human beings are wounded or killed is in poor taste.

Future releases of media content from team members and representatives will require a more stringent review process before being "approved" for distribution.

It was an unfortunate error in judgement on the part of a member of the Public Relations team and is antithetical to our goals and values as a gaming community.

Hopefully the more clearly defined processes around "official" content distribution should avoid this kind of thing happening again in the future.

There is no debate, this is the position of the team on these matters. Thread closed.