Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
Play video games, defend your country.
At least, that's the way it works in Israel. The "Iron Dome" of anti-missile defense that protects the country is operated by experts. In video games. From Wired:
While many of the boys in Idan Yahya’s high school class were buffing up and preparing themselves for selection into elite combat units, this gawky teenager was spending “a lot of time” playing Warcraft — the real-time strategy computer game where opposing players command virtual armies in a battle to dominate the fictional world of Azeroth.
Four years later, the high school jocks who sweated it out in pre-military academies so they could make the cut into the Israel Defense Force’s Special Operations units are now crawling through the sand dunes on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip and watching while Idan knocks rockets out of the sky hundreds of meters above their heads. Idan Yahya, 22, an Iron Dome “gunner” in the Active Air Defense Wing 167, currently holds the record for the number of rockets intercepted: eight.
Missile defense in Israel, drones in the US: it seems like all of that time spent playing video games might actually pay off in a real way. If warfare becomes more and more technology-based, maybe what we're looking at is an Army of Geeks.
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Oct '12
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
US military hasn't missed this action. According to Stars and Stripes, a few years ago, "DARWARS Ambush" is a Army video game system. It was modified by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to train soldiers using desktop computers. It focuses on teaching soldiers how to react to real world threats such as ambushes and convoy attacks. The game is based on 20th-century gaming technology and can accommodate a number of players in a virtual battle space (similar to MMOG, massive multiplayer online games). More recently, several weapons system proposals for the DOD, have in their specification requests for weapon designers to have 'video' like game controller interfaces.
Your child's x-box time could be the gateway to a successful military career.
Jan '11
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
Time to market the new video game: Run an Economy!
Mar '11
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
There have been a few out there like that already. SimCity was essentially an economics simulation. You could build parks, schools, libraries, and museums...but you also needed roads to get to them, power to turn the lights on, and water for the people, or the amenities would just sit unused. You had to zone for residential, commercial, and industrial use, and deal with waste disposal and pollution. Mess up significantly, and there would be riots and arson, so you'll need police stations, jails...
It was pretty sophisticated.
Apr '12
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
Well, Missile Command was the first video game I ever spent more than a couple of quarters on. Lot's of fun to play in a warm and comfortable arcade. I wouldn't want to try it from an electronics-filled IDF trailer in the Negev.
And let's not forget Disney's wonderfully dull and corny The Last Starfighter, in which extra terrestrial head hunters planted video games in arcades around earth, all in the hopes of finding an earthling with a Starfighter's necessary inherent talents (a score of a million points, as I remember).
Edited on November 20, 2012 at 3:53amMay '11
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
They told me if I voted for McCain that the defense department would be run by video gamers and they were right!
I know a few gamers and I read about them on AOSHQ and I don't find this development to be reassuring.
May '11
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
The only difference in this is that the geeks are actually using the technology in real time, but this kind of thing has been going on for a very long time, remember Hobarts Funnies from the invasion of Normandy? In warfare it is often the geeks, the nerds that think up the weapons advances and the warriors then take them to battle and use them effectively, in this case the geek is actually able to run the advanced weapons. Still it is very cool, think if they could prevent 100% of the rockets from entering Israeli airspace, every time, after a while I think Hammas would give up sending them, well maybe.
Domo
Sep '10
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
You wouldn't believe how many people in the USCG disappeared when the latest WoW expansion came out, or the Call of duty Black ops 2.
I can only imagine the amount in the Army or the Marines.
May '10
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
I was reminded of Missile Command as well. But I suspect Iron Dome is closer to trying to hit a distant, moving helicopter with an RPG in Call of Duty.
I've seen 4-year-old boys learn iPad video games on their own. Controllers abound. The challenge is make the machines more versatile and responsive... and safeguarding against hacks.
CCP hired a professional economist to manage the virtual economy of EVE Online. MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games) all struggle to balance the supply and demand of virtual items within an online community. Hundreds of players have tried to analyze and correct those efforts.
Edited on November 20, 2012 at 4:07amMay '12
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
The missile defense system in South Korea then must be really kick asphalt.
May '10
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
OK, so the geeks have a role in saving the world, but what about us bandos?
Aug '10
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
Video games that prep you for life and death combat... I think they already did that movie.
Aaron Miller:
CCP hired a professional economist to manage the virtual economy ofEVE Online. MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games) all struggle to balance the supply and demand of virtual items within an online community. Hundreds of players have tried to analyze and correct those efforts.
And just like in real life, EVE's market participants treat intervention as damage and route around it. EVE's economy is such an exploitative mess, it has become legendary. Most of the meta-game involves finding CCP's calculation errors and profiting hugely from them.
Other major MMOs have followed CCP's lead and hired economists to advise on their games, with less disastrous results in the simpler systems. EVE's economy is uniquely complex, making accurate economic calculation almost impossible, even with perfect data.
(You would think real life economists would learn the lesson, since they're so fixated on models and this one is screaming valuable truths at them. But no, they write their papers for the Fed and go on their merry intervening ways.)
Apr '11
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
It will be like Ender's Game, which I'm not sure is that comforting a thought. I mean removing people from the violence will make people bolder about implementing it. Don't get me wrong its great that they can perform a defensive role in protecting civilian areas from rockets, but I fear drones and video game like war will lead to a very nonchalant view of the whole affair.
To quote the movie Patton.
Mar '11
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
Drone pilots in Creech Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas are also targeting bad guys in Afghanistan. Geeks – they’re not just for breakfast meetings anymore.
Another observation: the effectiveness of Israel’s Iron Dome shows how prescient Ronald Reagan was in his advocacy of the Strategic Defense Initiative. While the Dems were ridiculing it as “Star Wars” and saying it was impossible to hit a bullet with a bullet, technology now permits such high-tech sharpshooting with less warning than even the Gipper ever imagined.
Sep '10
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
Jack Richman: Drone pilots in Creech Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas are also targeting bad guys in Afghanistan. Geeks – they’re not just for breakfast meetings anymore.
Another observation: the effectiveness of Israel’s Iron Dome shows how prescient Ronald Reagan was in his advocacy of the Strategic Defense Initiative. While the Dems were ridiculing it as “Star Wars” and saying it was impossible to hit a bullet with a bullet, technology now permits such high-tech sharpshooting with less warning than even the Gipper ever imagined. · 0 minutes ago
By the end of the decade if we can still fund our R&D imagine if the Railgun project and the Missile defense projects combine.
Apr '11
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
Valiuth: It will be likeEnder's Game, which I'm not sure is that comforting a thought. I mean removing people from the violence will make people bolder about implementing it. Don't get me wrong its great that they can perform a defensive role in protecting civilian areas from rockets, but I fear drones and video game like war will lead to a very nonchalant view of the whole affair.
To quote the movie Patton.
1 hour ago
You know, if Israel can see fewer deaths and less destruction in return for experiencing less reaffirmation and glory, I think I'm OK with that, and would expect most Israelis feel similarly. I've had people die protecting me, and if they'd been able to do their job from elsewhere and protected me without dying, I'd have felt a lot better about the whole thing. I understand my position on this to be entirely typical.
May '10
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
Aelreth
By the end of the decade if we can still fund our R&D imagine if the Railgun project and the Missile defense projects combine. · 20 minutes ago
The real challenge there is to build electronics and a control system for the interceptor seeker that would survive the acceleration of a railgun.
May '12
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
Iron Dome is not even supersonic. There's no point in being fast if you're going after a target that is coming towards you.
May '10
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
AIG
Iron Dome is not even supersonic. There's no point in being fast if you're going after a target that is coming towards you. · 2 minutes ago
Mine was just a general statement about railguns, not pertinent to Iron Dome specifically.
But in reply to your comment, the speed of the interceptor missiles directly determines its reach, i.e. the area you can protect with each launcher.
Edited on November 20, 2012 at 7:25amMay '12
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
Sure, but its always a trade off. You're limited by your radar, plus you need to know the projectile is going to land inside a protected zone before engaging it, plus faster missiles means more expensive missiles. Overall, it makes little difference.
May '10
Re: Video Gaming Geeks Save Israel
AIG
Sure, but its always a trade off. You're limited by your radar, plus you need to know the projectile is going to land inside a protected zone before engaging it, plus faster missiles means more expensive missiles. Overall, it makes little difference. · 4 minutes ago
It may be that Israel's engineers determined a subsonic interceptor suits their needs. Out of curiosity where did you get that information?
I can't tell if your statement "it makes little difference" is intended to be a general statement about interceptors or just the Iron Dome.
As a point of contrast, all three of the United States' ballistic missile defense systems that would attempt an atmospheric intercept (Patriot, Aegis, THAAD) fly in the high supersonic to hypersonic regime.