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Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Groucho » Fri Oct 08, 2010 9:23 am

Thorsten wrote:
Thorsten wrote:
That's a completely different line of argument, and this argument applies as well to the B-52 (and other warplanes) as it applies to nuclear weapons.

Groucho wrote:We have gone through this a few times and I have answered it a few times, even today. We as the FG community have commonly agreed on the use of military equipment (especially planes) against military targets as a part related to FlightGear, eg. to improve flight skills. And I have also pointed out the bombings of Dresden, London and Coventry. Shall we go through this again and again?


Well - am I not part of the Flightgear community? Who is that 'we' you claim to speak for?


Thorsten, I am not repeating myself over and over again. Reread the thread from the beginning where we discussed military equipment in general unless someone I am not going to name narrowed the focus and moved the nuke discussion from a different topic here.

True - but it applies equally well to the B-52. In what way does pretending that the B-52 (which in reality was designed for the purpose of killing people and has done so on countless occasions) is just a regular plane to fly from A to B not trivialize the suffering of civilians who have been fire-bombed by this plane? Do you want to explain that to anyone who spent his childhood searching the skies for approaching bombers?


Already gone over it even one day ago (plus more in the thread). See Dresden, London, Coventry.

Flightgear is not capable of emulating WoMDs. It can not simulate the aftermath and its global consequences for life forms even years after the application. All it can and will do is to show a fireball, fire and a mushroom cloud. Therefore it will remain a trivialised copy of the real thing.


Thorsten wrote:Flightgear isn't capable of simulating a real airplane either - a real plane has g forces, smells a certain way, has funny vibrations,... - all of which are strangely absent whenever I use Flightgear. So it remains a trivialized copy of the real thing. Doesn't keep us from using it though.


You are once again comparing ordnance with planes, of which most of the primary functionalities are simulated. Aftermath is an integral part of a nuke which will always be lacking in the simulation. At least for me it is not imaginable how you would emulate dying of people from cancer and diseases for years in FlightGear.

Your line of argument 2: Slippery slope - having virtual nuclear weapon leads to glorification and war crime reenactments and advertizes real nuclear weapons.
If so, then let's ban spoons from airplanes. If people get to eat with spoons, they may ask for forks, and once they have that, they may want knifes. Once someone has a knife, he might also argue for a dagger, because in past ages people have been used that for eating. But if one person gets a dagger, another may ask for a sword. And then somebody really needs his gun because he feels threatened. And we can't have that, so let's stop it at the beginning.


You very well know that you will never get a dagger, sword or anything else in an airplane even if you asked. But spoons, plstic forks and knives. The reason is: Forks, spoons and knives are not built to harm people but have a harmless purpose.
One of the first statements of Jack in this debate was that he was asked for a nuke to reenact Hiroshima (note, he never said he wanted to do this himself). Another statement was "If we now only had Enola Gay". To respond to your point: The signals are clear. As long as the nuke does not simulate (or show) all aspect, it is a gaming effect which advertise the "press the trigger, solve your problem" principle applied to nukes. There is a definite lack of critical views on the application.

Not an issue in practive, because knives are okay, daggers not, end of story. We are capable of drawing a line where actual harm is done, and this line cloud (potentially) be 'Virtual nucelar weapons yes, virtual warcrimes no.' There is no automatic equality leading from one to the next.


Not quite, because then you would not have understood the implication of applying a nuke. There is no chance in deploying nukes without committing a rather large and long lasting global collateral damage on innocent civilians which violates the Hague conventions as quoted above by me.
As soon as somebody would set up a realistic scenario (real background or not) in which he applies a nuke realism would demand that nearby cities and civilian installations are affected as well as global radiation would occur. In fact he would simulate such a war crime. This is the basic issue with nukes which make it hard to look for an easy solution- what do you expect, it is the most controversal weapon ever created and there is a reason major parts of the world want to get rid of it.

Your line of argument 3: It's not necessary for aviation simulation.
Fine - then let's ban Santa and his reindeer, along with movable jetways and pushback. These are all not part of the flight itself, but just part of the airplane operations - just like a bomb is not part of flying a bomber, but as part of its operation.


You can actually fly Santa, right?
A pushback or jetway makes airport and flight operations more realistic because we see it in real life.
A bomber can have various ordnance. You don´t need a nuke to make a bomber complete or realistic. In fact the FlightGear nuke makes bombing more unrealistic as it lacks basic features.

But making yourself the spokesman for 'the Flightgear community' or any anonymous groups and claim that you act in your name is not. Claiming that there is some intrinsic objective rightness, independent of different moral standards and cultural norms is not.


This once again is a repeated accusation which you still fail to put evidence on.

There is no doubt that Jack has the right to build whatever he wants and offend whoever he would like to. My right is to speak up against that (as some others already did, which I also pointed out) and spoil his nuke fun whenever I feel appropriate.

No, you're not entitled to spoil his fun wherever you feel appropriate. If you behave in a disruptive way in the forum, then the moderators will deal with you. The forum is not an 'anything goes' place.


At least I am not accusing or insulting people (at least not at will) like others did in my or others directions. As long as I speak out my right to critize the development I can and will do this.

It's like an anti abortion activist bombing a clinic and killing people to defend the unique value of life - sometimes the means corrupt the ends.


Be careful with such comparisons. We are talking and dicussing about simulations here, not religious or ideological fanatics killing people.
I strongly contradict being put in whatever relation you had in mind.
And by the way, it is not me who came up again with arguments we had been going through over and over again. The last confrontation was started by you by directly adressing myself in an answer to a post of mine directed to someone else. As well as Jason did. In a attempt to deliberately defend rights and free speech. So the origin of the confrontation is as clear as it can be.

Since you seem to like him - think of how Mr. Mandela would have solved the issue. When he came to power, he would have had the possibility to 'spoil the fun' of the white minority wherever he felt appropiate. But he didn't. He could tolerate people gathering and giving hate speeches, he did not send in the police to lock them up. He understood that he can achieve more in a different way.


Yes and before he came to power he spoke up and argued whenever he felt appropriate which brought him >30 years of imprisonment.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Thorsten » Fri Oct 08, 2010 9:27 am

Well, persist if you wish... I think I have exposed the issues, I am content with that.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Algernon » Fri Oct 08, 2010 12:04 pm

I realise the philosophical and moral perspectives of this topic have been discussed at length, but isn't the real crux of this issue the multiplayer element? As I understand it, everyone is free to do whatever they like with FG if it doesn't breach the license, but both sensitivity to other people's feelings and the technical reality of using enormous mushroom-cloud models or massive wildfire are two of the issues relating to a nuclear attack being visible over MP. AndersG suggested elsewhere that the wildfire, for instance, could represent the closest thing to a Denial of Service attack upon the MP servers. This does sound highly likely, and with my current machine's performance, being within visual range of a nuclear attack would probably finish my flight for me, and I would not be at all happy.

My suggestion would be that if some players wanted a FlightGear MP environment where attacks such as carpet or nuclear bombing are possible and visible to all participants, they could set up their own MP server which is separate and unconnected to the others, where hell can indeed break loose upon the unsuspecting world. If I connected to this server, I would have to be fully ready to see my home city nuked or carpet bombed and, presumably, be quite within my rights to intercept any aircraft that looks like a threat and shoot it down. A solution like this would, in my opinion, have to be kept very separate from the main FlightGear experience as the issue is clearly far too contentious to produce any kind of agreement.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Groucho » Fri Oct 08, 2010 12:28 pm

Algernon wrote:I realise the philosophical and moral perspectives of this topic have been discussed at length, but isn't the real crux of this issue the multiplayer element? As I understand it, everyone is free to do whatever they like with FG if it doesn't breach the license, but both sensitivity to other people's feelings and the technical reality of using enormous mushroom-cloud models or massive wildfire are two of the issues relating to a nuclear attack being visible over MP. AndersG suggested elsewhere that the wildfire, for instance, could represent the closest thing to a Denial of Service attack upon the MP servers. This does sound highly likely, and with my current machine's performance, being within visual range of a nuclear attack would probably finish my flight for me, and I would not be at all happy.


Wildfires can be switched off locally (though then totally for you) and as far as I remember the developer can exclude his wildfires from being propagated over multiplayer. Anders has pointed this out I believe in a different thread.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby timjschong » Fri Oct 08, 2010 12:29 pm

hehe.
Algernon wrote: AndersG suggested elsewhere that the wildfire, for instance, could represent the closest thing to a Denial of Service attack upon the MP servers.


You know, there's a DoS attack called a 'Nuke'.

Sorry, couldn't resist.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Algernon » Fri Oct 08, 2010 1:17 pm

Groucho wrote:Wildfires can be switched off locally (though then totally for you) and as far as I remember the developer can exclude his wildfires from being propagated over multiplayer. Anders has pointed this out I believe in a different thread.

Yes he has. My understanding of it is, I think, the same as you have just explained, which leaves a couple of problems - firstly, that it is the developer of a weapon of mass destruction who sets the resultant wildfire to be non-MP propogated, and I don't think we can always count on that happening, and secondly, you have to disable the perfectly legitimate wildfire if your aircraft crashes in order to be safe from a questionably-legitimate nuclear explosion in your vicinity.

This is all, of course, all hypothetical and based on the assumption that potential Hiroshima re-enactors or Dresden levellers will want to do it with other like-minded individuals... which I'm certain will happen at some point or other. And I personally don't want to be on a server where that happens.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Algernon » Fri Oct 08, 2010 2:57 pm

timjschong wrote:hehe.
You know, there's a DoS attack called a 'Nuke'.
Sorry, couldn't resist.

Fair enough! :) And seriously, I have to admit the idea of both visually and effectively ruining everything for 100 miles around appeals to the hacking-fascinated teenager I was a long time ago, and if there was a separate FG-based experience that I could take the Eurofighter I work on into combat in such a universe I'd probably be quite excited to try it. But as it stands, in the FG I currently know, it is always peacetime and you can fly unrestricted across national borders between countries whose relations are always cordial. I think significantly more people prefer that than not.

It doesn't even need to be a fork of the programme or the community, as I think much of the functionality for airborne warfare already exists in FG. Just a separate multiplayer environment with a different perspective on what's acceptable. I believe it's entirely possible that pilots who enjoy 'real' simulated combat (actually launching missiles, etc.) are more likely to understand the motivation of those who want to re-enact historical atrocities and to not be offended by it. Thus, on this server the understanding would be that it isn't peacetime and anything could happen.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby jack » Fri Oct 08, 2010 3:01 pm

This topic is sucking up too much of my time and has yet to benefit me in any way. I respectfully withdraw. Groucho, when you want to do something other than start moral debates, let me know.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby timjschong » Sat Oct 09, 2010 12:17 pm

Mmhmm. Well, I think I will withdraw as well. Just as a final note, I apologise if I have unknowingly offended anyone.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Oliver » Thu Oct 28, 2010 4:36 am

Algernon wrote:It doesn't even need to be a fork of the programme or the community, as I think much of the functionality for airborne warfare already exists in FG. Just a separate multiplayer environment with a different perspective on what's acceptable.


In long term this will be somehow or other a requirement. Because history is also a subject.
Think of a sceneries that depend on time.


Some examples of possible different perspectives contexts could be:

- Civil modern Time (Explanation: Everything that flys today in a civilian context. But no Concorde and No WTC in scenery)
- Civil old days (1920-1950: -> only propeller engines. DC-3, Junkers Ju 52. In Europe, Japan & Hawai only pre-WW2 buildings in scenery)
- Civil Time, the Beginning of Jet Engines (1957- let's say 1980: -> Boeing 707 & Concorde but no Airbus A380. WTC in NYC, but no Taipai oder Petronas Tower in scenery)
- Civil unknown future (UFOs and stuff like that :) )
- Military modern Time (Eurofighter EF2000, F-22, F-117 but no SR-71 Blackbird or Locked U-2. Scenery like in Civil modern Time)
- Military Cold war (F-14, Mig-29, SR-71 Blackbird & Locked U2, but no F-22, Eurofighter etc.. Scenery = Iron Curtain. So Berlin Wall in Berlin & US bases in West Germany and sovjet Bases in East Germany etc.)
- Military World War 2 (BF-109, Spitfire MK2, P-51 Mustang but no Mig-29, Eurofighter, F-14 etc.. Scenery like in context Civil old Days. Old Buildings in Europe, no skyscrapers. No Berlin Wall etc.)

There could be even small scenery contexts, like for example:
- Military Vietnam War (Mig-15, F4-Phantom, Bell AH-1. But no AH64-Apache, Mig-29, F-16 Falcon etc.. Scenery limited to the Vietnam area and close neighbour countries)

Also a mix between everything might be possible, like for example:
- Civil & Military modern Time with defined war zones. This means, weapons do only work inside the defined war zones. Also interesting would be the aspect of ATC -> A ground based controller must guide civil jets around war zones, this could lead to extensive traffic on some areas.


So there are a lot of ways how to handle this.


The Flightgear user should be able to choose the context and perspective he wants to fly at startup.
And because everything is on its own MP server oder MP instant, there won't be any conflicts between civilian or military oriented FlightGear users.
The good thing is, with perspective contexts, the codebase can be the same.



BTW. If someone wants to copy this idea to the flightgear wiki, he can do this.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Hooray » Thu Nov 04, 2010 12:20 pm

Oliver wrote:
Algernon wrote:It doesn't even need to be a fork of the programme or the community, as I think much of the functionality for airborne warfare already exists in FG. Just a separate multiplayer environment with a different perspective on what's acceptable.


In long term this will be somehow or other a requirement. Because history is also a subject.
Think of a sceneries that depend on time.


A "separate multiplayer environment" could be as simple as setting up a dedicated multiplayer server, this is well documented - please refer to the wiki: http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Ho ... yer_server

This is a really loooong topic, and finally some constructive ideas seem to emerge from it. However, no one (in his sane mind) is going to take the time to read through all the moral b/s here, just to filter out a handful of good ideas. If you really care about some of the ideas that you have made, and if you think that they are good and useful, it would be better to post them to the fgms feature request tracker: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_i ... tid=821811

Once you do some research (wiki!), you'll see that many of the "novel things" you are suggesting here are indeed fairly old ideas already. I would suggest to check out the DIS/HLA wiki page: http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Di ... Simulation or directly go to http://virtualair.sf.net

Specifically, you'll want to look into this one: http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Di ... obal_state
* Server to support separate "worlds" to ensure that certain users only get to see certain users (#1866508)
* Server to maintain a global status for each world (#1866504, #1849311)
* * date/time
* * weather
* * positions of automatic (random, AI) objects
* * runway status


Like I previously said, in its simplest form you could simply have a dedicated fgms instance for each "scenario" or "context".

BTW. If someone wants to copy this idea to the flightgear wiki, he can do this.

If you truly care about any of your ideas, it would definitely be better to add these to the wiki yourself

but if you think that you have any new (and good) ideas, it would probably be much better to post them to the developers mailing list, or at least to the feature request trackers - developers are unlikely to read through hundreds of flame war postings, and the wiki isn't really being used for discussions either.
Please don't send support requests by PM, instead post your questions on the forum so that all users can contribute and benefit
Thanks & all the best,
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Algernon » Thu Nov 04, 2010 4:33 pm

Hooray wrote:A "separate multiplayer environment" could be as simple as setting up a dedicated multiplayer server, this is well documented - please refer to the wiki: http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Ho ... yer_server

That's basically all I meant with my suggestion - set up a separate multiplayer server where the understanding is that, militarily, anything could happen. If it offends you, don't visit it - it would just need to be disconnected entirely from the mainstream, civilian-oriented FG servers to prevent any conflicts of morality spoiling anyone's flying experience.

However, I think the reason the discussion was taking place was more because of differing moral viewpoints, and that really a solution to the issue isn't what's wanted. This opinion is reinforced by the fact that many of the proponents of military destructive capability on the MP network pointedly stated they were finished with the discussion after I posed my suggestion, so if nobody's going to engage in it, I can only assume no-one wants to compromise.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Groucho » Thu Nov 04, 2010 5:37 pm

Algernon wrote:That's basically all I meant with my suggestion - set up a separate multiplayer server where the understanding is that, militarily, anything could happen. If it offends you, don't visit it


So this would be the place where people could play "kill the jews in concentration camps" scenarios as well as have fun with all sorts of war crimes ?
The place "you know where" which name is unspoken and so conspirative that the most disgusting things can happen as long as nobody notices because nobody cares or everybody looks straight-through?
And to bring a point back which I mentioned pages ago- if I go to the grave yard at night and undig ones relatives freshly buried corps to take it home for meal and provided people are turning away from this incident or did not notice at all- does that justify the action?
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Algernon » Thu Nov 04, 2010 8:26 pm

So far as I know, FG doesn't yet have the ability to model individual jews in order to subject them to horrific simulated deaths, nor is such a feature likely to get very far in being accepted into the codebase. I'm purely talking about FlightGear and a way to potentially accommodate the two differing sides, one peaceful and one not, if the latter is something people want. Honestly, I'm starting to find this continued comparison of events in a computer-generated universe with the very real Holocaust a little offensive in itself, it seems a little like trivialisation.

Ultimately, simply asking moral questions simply takes the argument around and around and around again, because there isn't an answer to the question "Is this wrong?" It's way too broad. And I have yet to hear how people are to be held to account if they break one of these internal holocaust laws I keep hearing about - how to enforce it? FG MP is - thankfully - not an environment where enforcement against users can really take place.To some people (myself included) re-enacting war crimes, atrocities or any other form of large-scale death and suffering is in poor taste, but it's not something that should be policed. You cannot police a viewpoint without making it somehow illegal - certain countries felt it was necessary to outlaw the glorification of horrific historical events, but in many other countries it's considered unworkable and in contravention of civil liberties legislation.

However, I believe exhuming human remains for service as a meal is illegal in most countries. Not quite on the same scale as someone making a computer-modelled mushroom cloud, is it?

I don't think this forum is the place for such extensive moral or philosophical considerations - such differences are usually irresolvable, as this one has, I think, proved to be. I posted a practical suggestion in an attempt to be constructive, but I think the point is academic - this thread is not about compromising, it seems to be about pegging out moral territory.
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Re: Regarding attitudes towards military aviation in Flightgear

Postby Groucho » Thu Nov 04, 2010 9:13 pm

Algernon wrote:So far as I know, FG doesn't yet have the ability to model individual jews in order to subject them to horrific simulated deaths, nor is such a feature likely to get very far in being accepted into the codebase. I'm purely talking about FlightGear and a way to potentially accommodate the two differing sides, one peaceful and one not, if the latter is something people want. Honestly, I'm starting to find this continued comparison of events in a computer-generated universe with the very real Holocaust a little offensive in itself, it seems a little like trivialisation.


Well, before you suggest a server dedicated to everything you will have to answer the question whether moving an issue to somewhere where it hopefully can't be spotted is in general a valid solution because it does only solve the "out-of sight-issue".
By the same argumentation the trivialisation of the holocaust by replaying it is also a valid option under those conditions. Regardless whether we talk about FlightGear or something else.
In other words: Moving an issue out of sight does not make things a lot better.

Ultimately, simply asking moral questions simply takes the argument around and around and around again, because there isn't an answer to the question "Is this wrong?" It's way too broad. And I have yet to hear how people are to be held to account if they break one of these internal holocaust laws I keep hearing about - how to enforce it? FG MP is - thankfully - not an environment where enforcement against users can really take place.To some people (myself included) re-enacting war crimes, atrocities or any other form of large-scale death and suffering is in poor taste, but it's not something that should be policed. You cannot police a viewpoint without making it somehow illegal - certain countries felt it was necessary to outlaw the glorification of horrific historical events, but in many other countries it's considered unworkable and in contravention of civil liberties legislation.


The legislation in Germany here is rather tight for various reasons. First, as you mentioned, due to historical experiences. But mostly because the ideas and ideologies behind the events is in extreme contradiction to values, liberties and human rights and they are strong and tempting. Therefore these laws are established to be able to prosecute any glorification and reestablishing of such ideas as they are still alive the same way as most constitutions are defining laws against unconstitutional behavior. And those laws are applied with the latest larger razzia having being held just yesterday,
You might have noticed in the whole thread here there was almost no call for policing anything but to make notice about the offense itself which finally ended up by being denied and argued down in favor of the I-can-do-it-anyway.

However, I believe exhuming human remains for service as a meal is illegal in most countries. Not quite on the same scale as someone making a computer-modelled mushroom cloud, is it?


Propably it is illegal and it remains illegal and tasteless even if it can not be noticed. Compared to the dedicated server: A win-win situation would then be if someone spots me with the corps and the shovel but instead of notifying somebody he thinks: "If I turn away this guy gets a good meal and the people can still remain sleeping well so everybody is ok".

I don't think this forum is the place for such extensive moral or philosophical considerations - such differences are usually irresolvable, as this one has, I think, proved to be. I posted a practical suggestion in an attempt to be constructive, but I think the point is academic - this thread is not about compromising, it seems to be about pegging out moral territory.


The point is: In a global environment you will have to apply such considerations. If Jack throws his nuke onto a virtual Mekka that would result in a rather strong reaction by people who have a strong religious belief and see Mekka as a location with a high symbolic value.
Simply turning away from such issues is not a reasonable option.
Such issues were not on the agenda as long as FlightGear was mostly a civilian simulator. But lately the military fraction has grown and wantin to engage in military conflicts. Which raises new challenges to deal with and those are mostly of political and moral nature. Eg. if people find themselves being placed in roles of victims or foes in a simulated conflict.
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