BS: US military creates second Earth

Subject: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Ed.
Date: 23 Feb 04 - 05:47 PM

From this BBC News article

"The ambitious project aims to help the US Army plan future conflicts"

It's rather a shame that they didn't decide to build something to help avoid future conflicts.

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Feb 04 - 06:05 PM

Perhaps we're living in it already.

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Peace
Date: 23 Feb 04 - 07:07 PM

If the military could do it on a 1/ 1000000000000000000000000000 scale, maybe that would be a good thing. Then our wars would be smaller and easier to contain (like put 'em in a zip lock bag). I think that's a neat idea.

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Amergin
Date: 23 Feb 04 - 07:13 PM

that would be a cool video game.....to hell with sim city...but sime earth meets ages of empires

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Peace
Date: 23 Feb 04 - 07:32 PM

Hey, if they make enough of them, pinball could make a comeback.

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 03:57 AM

Like with so many inventions done for military purposes, a civilian application though not the driving force for the invention will e/in ventionally be possible.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 04:40 AM

The idea is far from new, although in capability this is a vast improvement on the very basic models command teams trained on back in the sixties.

Apart from Wolfgang, the way this news has been received by those above seems pretty predictable.

It's potential use in disaster response and relief operations is immense.

US Army have been training their soldiers on computer simulators since "Desert Storm". Can't remember the name of the engagement, but it was unique, in that, from the US Army's side, it went exactly to plan. The battle was modelled and used for training, that could only be done because it did go to plan, you need something in which one side did everything exactly right, to be able to throw variables at it to see what the reactions are, and what counter-measures are effective.

Interestingly, the guy in charge of the programme said, that children who play these "Street Fighter" games, learn exactly the same skills required of platoon, or tank commander - i.e. You know what you've got, and you have to make instantaneous decisions on how to counter a multitude of varying threat situations.

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Strick
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 04:00 PM

"If the military could do it on a 1/ 1000000000000000000000000000 scale, maybe that would be a good thing. Then our wars would be smaller and easier to contain (like put 'em in a zip lock bag). I think that's a neat idea."

Wow, maybe we'll go back to how the Europeans are supposed to have fought some of their wars in the 17th century. Small professional armies would maneuver back and forth looking to gain the advantage. Since they tended to move at the same speed, nobody had to fight unless they wanted to. Being truely independent and professional armies, often well out of control of the king or principality that hired them, well, unless they had to fight, they didn't. Things might go that way for some time until one army or the other was forced into a serious disadvantage where it promptly surrended, saving lives and money all around.

If this thing works, think we could just simulate wars and get rid of all the armies? Think of the savings!

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 05:40 PM

modeling most of the world will take to Sept. Then accurately doing the fence Israel is building to keep out Palestinians will take another 10 years...

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Strick
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 05:41 PM

"modeling most of the world will take to Sept."

Danged contractor over runs. This was only supposed to take seven days.

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 05:46 PM

Exactly what in the hell does "massively multi-user persistent environment" mean?

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 05:59 PM

Geeze, guys, I hate to say anything, but simulations of tactical and strategical warfare has sucked up billions of dollars in the US alone over the last decade. I invite you to google on the following terms:

JSIMS
EENWGS
WARSIM
MTWS
BCS
JSAF
MEDSAF

and that's just a quick list off the top of my head.

Let's just say simulation has been a major industry in the military industrial complex for some time.


A

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Peace
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 06:04 PM

Blow it out your ass, Teribus. I do rescue work, and I really don't need the snide shit from you. Yes, there are spin-off benefits to 'civilians', but the military wants it for military use. If you can't take a joke, tough.

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: dianavan
Date: 24 Feb 04 - 11:44 PM

disaster response? If you or the military were interested in disaster response or relief operations, you wouldn't be so interested in kids learning "street fighter" games.

I happen to deal with a lot of kids who have learned to "play" that way. I teach effective problem-solving techniques but its pretty damn hard to compete with a video game. Peace is pretty boring for kids. They like action. ...but these so-called "games" create a pretty horrible reality.

Whatever happened to adult responsibility?

d

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 03:31 AM

This time they'll have to remember to beware the kangaroos.

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 11:10 AM

Didn't they learn anything from "Tank Girl"

Don't mess with the Roos man!

Subject: RE: BS: US military creates second Earth
From: Wolfgang
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 06:14 PM

Just to add to Amos' list and to broaden the scope:

(1) Even long before the advent of the computer the military has used simulations, small scale in a bit of sand with reduced size figures, large scale simulations involving real humans and vehicles called manouevres.

(2) After the invention of the computer, simulations have entered all areas of human activity:
- Evil environmentalists have simulated the full scale earth with all its physical properties and possible human actions to warn about global warming.
- In Germany, animal leftists even demand (with a bit of physical threat) simulations in our university curricula to replace real experimentation on frogs etc. They only want to alienate us from the physical contact with nature.
- In Germany, evil authorities simulate the possible movements of real humans in simulated to full scale real towns in preparation for the next football world championship. I'm sure they only want to prevent a warm human face to face contact between mild-mannered fans eager to discuss the deciding penalty from the last minute.
- Evil Bolshevik Kasparov lets simulate his next opponents in computer programs in preparation for a chess tournament.
- Not to forget the plane constructing industry. By simulating flight properties of future planes they take most of the former fun out of real life testing.
- And I'm sure you all prefer in the next flight emergency you encounter as a passenger the pilot not to be routinely trained on a simulator. His actions this way will be much more spontaneous.

   Simulations are really everywhere now. They are suboptimal compared to reality for several reasons. One example for these reasons is you cannot simulate everything: The pilot in the flight simulator just does not experience real fear of death. But they are great for training (see Kasparov), they are close to perfect in areas with a borad knowledge and a restricted set of parameters (flight behaviour of not yet existing planes), and they are a very poor but better than nothing instrument in situations involving a system with many hardly known variables and more or less unknown feedback looks (simulating the future temparature of the earth).

Wolfgang