:yea:

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    People can and do sometimes do stupid things because they got the idea or inspiration from their entertainment.

    We're getting dangerously close up "DOOM caused Columbine" levels of discourse.

    Star Trek drove some kids to try to develop hyposprays and communicators, citing the show as their inspiration in adulthood.

    The proximate cause for a marginal improvement to jet sprays is not Star Trek, I'm sorry. No more than the proximate cause to a marginally improved welding torch is Star Wars.

    This is pure clickbait

    • UlyssesT
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      2 months ago

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      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
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        2 years ago

        I’ve had coworkers in my past that liked that movie so much that they started “drifting” before parking their cars on the way to work

        Power sliding in the parking garage is certainly dumb. But I'll note they didn't quit their jobs to become professional car thieves.

        Again, proving a negative is a lot harder than my claim that there is some influence, intentional or not, that entertainment has on people.

        Incredible claims require incredible evidence. The relationship between Verhovan films and military enlistment is casual at best

        • UlyssesT
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          • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
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            2 years ago

            You’re willing to believe people power sliding into parking spaces but you’re not willing to believe impressionable young people don’t decide to enlist

            Yes. Because one is an trivial impulse decision and the other is a career choice five years minimum.

            I don’t think my claim is incredible

            I watched Hairy and the Hendersons once and now I think Bigfoot is real.

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              • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
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                2 years ago

                You have seriously never met or been related to someone making bad impulsive decisions with minimal forethought to them that had years of consequences before?

                There is an abundance of demographic data that predicts which kinds of people are most likely to enlist. Social and economic precarity. History of family enlistment. Access to higher education. Regional geopolitics (ie, 9/11).

                I've yet to see a successful military recruitment drive that involved repeated screenings of Starship Troopers.

                That isn’t the same thing

                Its the same Culture War nonsense I've been seeing my entire life. Starship Troopers turned my daughter into a war criminal! Teletubbies made my son start wearing a purse! Showgirls turned me into a pole dancer!

                apparently UKIP believes in Bigfoot

                They are one of the worst-run parties in a country overflowing with dogshit politicians. It would not surprise me even slightly to find out half their leadership bought into some kind of Cryptid hoax.

                • UlyssesT
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                  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
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                    2 years ago

                    the Department of Defense is really wasting its time and surely never has gotten a single recruit through coercive messaging

                    The coercive messaging over the last 20 years has only gone up while recruitment has only gone down. There's definitely some value in the Pentagon reminding people that a career in the military exists. But if I had to guess how many people signed up to join the Navy after walking out of the the latest Top Gun versus how many joined the Navy because a recruiter showed up at their school and directly propositioned them, I'd consider a 1:100 spread generous on the side of direct recruitment.

                    You’re hyperbolizing what I said into something I never claimed.

                    Starship Troopers -> provoked me into joining the military -> So now I'm participating in war crimes...

                    Which step did I hyperbolize?

                    I’m supposing Reese’s Pieces didn’t sell a single additional bag of candy after E.T. was a hit.

                    Selecting a particular brand of candy to eat is not comparable to dedicating the next five years of your life to indentured servitude.

                    But you're right. We've definitely hit :wall-talk:

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      • Comp4
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