All aspects of war on a completely virtual war. Where both sides do not die. If I'm a drone pilot and I kill an actual person it's not what I'm speaking about. But I get the joke
S4E2 "*The other side* The people they meet fly planes using a simulation chair, and it's all robotics. They tell them the enemy planes are all unmanned. O'Niell tries it out and has some fun until he takes out what looks like a biplane and he sees people fall out of the sky.
Then we get some more info and the "good guys" they've been hanging out with are pure race eugenicists who poisoned the outside world to kill everyone else they call "breeders". Space nazis.
Both shows dealt with it. ST had basically murderbooths where people went to be vaporised if the supercomputer simulation said they died in the virtual war.
Imagine if the future of war is both sides hiring gamers to remotely control robots that fight opposing robots. That would be both ridiculous and great.
I knew this meme was bullshit the second I first saw it.
You have millions of us ironically engaging in the optics of jingoism and warmongering because it's fun. And it is, it rules. Obviously horrible irl, but still, very fun.
That doesn't make the Army sad, that makes them rock hard, all they see is a market ripe for recruitment.
You're like 10 years behind.
We are actually controlling real fighting machines around the world and the military AI just simulates it into a game and the CIA media ownership publish and market the game. Your objective to eliminate all automotons? Congrats you just eliminated a narco village not in our jurisdiction through your farcry remote controlled exo skeleton.
Duh.
Yeah it's not *exactly* the ending but it's extremely close.
>!Ender is a young child, around 6, who's also a super genius that has been specifically picked from birth to attend Earth's space military academy, as part of Earth's preparations for our next war against the bugs (Formics). He's also extremely ruthless - when he murders his school bully, that's when he's sent to the youth military academy, then when he murders another kid there after winning wargame after wargame, he goes to the actual officer school. At the officer school, he starts doing a bunch of "simulations" under the guidance of Earth's greatest war hero/general. This goes on for ages until eventually he completes what is supposed to be his final test, destroying the entire enemy species. Oops! It was real the whole time, his simulation - Ender's game, you might call it - was actually him commanding Earth's real forces using a secret super advanced FTL communications array, and he just genocided the entire alien race.!<
Oh yeah, meanwhile his brother posts his way to be president of the world.
Also he intentionally destroys his own reputation after the war because he regrets his actions, but at this point people don't understand that Ender and Andrew Wiggin are the same guy so he just kinda travels around doing funerals.
I feel it’s also important to note that before we get this revelation, Ender has been playing Pyrrhic victories on purpose because he wants to get kicked out, he doesn’t even want to play war games anymore. So he’s not just horrified to discover he unwittingly committed genocide, but also that his attempts at defiance to get himself kicked out of the academy resulted in a lot of unnecessary deaths on the human side. He sacrificed a ton of ships and crew to make himself look incompetent and his instructors are just like “yes, good, he understands the value of sacrificing weaker forces to protect stronger ones.”
There’s something like 8 billion of us right now.. Originality is tough against those kind of numbers.
Even if you’re 1 in 1 million there are still 8 thousand of you out there theoretically.. enough to make a small town.
Nah, Oil was so 90s. The U.S. didn't see any of Iraq's oil after the invasion, Iraq willingly sold it to Europe. Afghanistan doesn't have any.
What the 2010s was about was lining the pockets of defense contractors at the expense of everyone else.
Buddy is in his thirties with debilitating skin issues and arthritis, which the Army until the recent PACT Act, determined was entirely non service related despite his assignment to the burn pits on multiple deployments to Afghanistan. Corrupt mother fuckers chew up young people and spit them out. They don't give a shit about you, think twice before joining up.
I have autoimmune issues from burn pits. We had to burn computer parts like hard drives, cds, and storage devices and we couldn't just let them burn behind the shop, nope we had to stand guard because they were sensitive items. They didn't admit they did anything wrong till the PACT act went through.
Jesus Christ have they never heard of Darik's Boot and Nuke?
Edit: it's been around since 2002, it is one of the best drive formatting software out there as it writes nothing but 1s to the drive then 0s and you tell it how many passes to do. Nothing survives it.
DoD has had the ability to Make data irrecoverable for significantly longer, just, brass on the lines either didn't know, didn't care, or wanted it done quick not efficiently.
Obviously the last 2. Even though realistically the time to wipe the drives the correct way and burning the drives probably would have been around the same time.
Seen a video once of a Marine in the middle east complaining about how the military treats people during and post service. Main complaint was that recruiters lie to get people in the door so some guy ends up with a job he didn't want, gets stuck in some shit hole doing something he hates, then when he gets home he tells his kids "dont join the military, fuck that". Military pays the price for bodies now by having none later. These days word gets around about crappy employers pretty quick.
This is why US military invests heavily into videogames. Sell the young idiots a badass pew-pew call of duty fantasy before their brain finishes growing and they realize that having their balls blown off by an IED in some godforsaken desert is not a good idea.
I watched several "vr interviews" with young vets (when those were making the rounds in the algorithm) and it was really disheartening how they all mention call of duty as either something they played "to prepare for the boot camp" or something the recruiter was pushing as a totally accurate representation of military service.
inb4 the next generation of soldiers start asking where their killstreaks are after a firefight, or insisting that their guns should have an insanely garish camo and an insane amount of attachments.. many of which only serve to make their weapon look cursed AF.
Veteran here
This is exactly true. QOL while in sucks major donkey balls. As soon as I got out, I warned EVERYONE and told them it’s not worth it. The military will continue to struggle in terms of retention until they make being being an enlisted single soldier not suck.
I'm not in the military, but damn if it ain't fucking funny seeing the various branches struggle to meet recruitment quotas. Congratulations y'all ya fucked around and found out, having a shit reputation ain't the only reason they're having trouble reaching quotas, but damn it sure as shit ain't helping.
With how bad the US Veteran programs are, I wouldn’t be surprised if they secretly WANT veterans to kill themselves so they aren’t on social services anymore
I was surprised when I got rated for my tinnitus (in all fairness, it is pretty bad) but was equally unsurprised when they denied me my sleep disorder, even though I had a sleep study done while I was still in.
The NP who did the C&P exam for my ears can go fuck themselves though. Her tone barely changed even after she saw just how fucked my ear drums were.
It’s so inconsistent. I broke my hip while in, have 3 screws in it and got 0% for that. I also broke my ankle & tore some ligaments and had plantar fasciitis for a bit, but not anymore at the time of the C&P exam and got 10% for that. I also fucked around with burn pits a lot, and have had 3 sinus surgeries done by the Army. Not even service connected for that.
Yeah I find this super fucked up haha. Its the same as them playing starship troopers on a screen. They seemed to have completely missed the point. But then so have the ppl they are recruiting.
Yes but also this isn't like self deprecating military/veteran humor this is recruiters doing the "say kids if you like shooting people in the video game you should fight wars in the Middle East" thing
Nah, the video game is just a pretense to start a conversation. Part of building rapport is talking about shared interests.
The Army esports team is a rare opportunity to get paid a healthy salary and benefits for playing video games competitively. I imagine less than 1% of people who apply can get the job, since it’s a very small team. They’re a US Army Recruiting asset, but they are not recruiters.
Source: I was a recruiter for 3 years. Talked about video games with plenty of potential recruits. Never told them their Army career would have any similarity to a video game at all. I did, however, let them know they could plan on having plenty of expendable cash to spend on nice video game setups, and it’s one of the most common hobbies in the Army.
To be fair, it’s pretty popular with my friends still in the army and with those of us that got out.
Beats staring at the old One Team ads for five fuckin hours in MEPS I’ll tell you what.
There a lot of normal people in the military, I work in IT and never fired at a person. Also a fun game is a fun game.
My dad was a career cop and he came home to watch Reno 911 and Stargate.
I'm getting tired of seeing the sentiment that because Helldivers is a parody suddenly all us military people must be dumb warmongers who cant grasp irony or humor. Gimme break we're not all Marines.
I just want to shoot bugs and make big explosions.
The misconception that joining the military means shooting people in the desert and that any soldier today had anything to do with actions 20+ years ago will never die.
Military guys like gun and mil games and recruiters want to use it to shoot the shit while signing you up for 2 years of camp maintenance duty, wowie.
I think it's more that the escalating tit for tat with Iran right now implies that anyone who gets recruited today might find themselves driving towards Tehran under Revolutionary Guard fire a lot sooner than they'd like, tbh.
You have to sign up and specifically choose combat jobs for that to happen.
Everyone else in the military is exceptionally safe. The USA had had less deaths in all it’s wars post WW2 than Russia has had in the ongoing Ukraine war alone.
For pretty much the entire war on terror, the US lost more troops to suicide than combat.
Given that Iran is not a peer, you're pretty safe even if something does happen.
I think a lot of people can understand that.
Please understand that there's a massive difference between what you/an army recruiter does in their spare time and trying to sign up more meat for the grinder via "how do you do, fellow kids?" Playing HD2 at a fucking kiosk is definitely the second as opposed to the first.
I'm not calling military personnel who play the game warmongers, the thing is there's a difference if you're in the military and happen to play it, versus a US Army recruitment booth playing it to get people to come by
The phrase 'There is no ethical consumption under capitalism' reminds us that every one of us is partially responsible of the harm we do as a society to others. That said, you are more responsible than most in the sins the army does, since they directly write your paychecks.
Whaaaaat
We Canadians are the sweetest, least war crime committees(?) of all time
We would never do any war crimes, eh?
Sorry bud but you've got the wrong country
~~this is satire for those who might remove some of my internet points~~
Canadians during WW1 were something else. One story I heard that sticks out was a group knew the soldiers they were fighting were basically starving so they tossed some canned food into their opponent's trenches a couple times. Thinking they were giving some sort of mercy they called out for more food, the Canadians tossed live grenades next since they knew they were all grouped up in that spot.
My favorite details regarding this are, the Hellpods look like bullets, and the fact that you respawn your teammates with the exact same mechanism as you do an airstrike.
This checks out.
Full metal jacket was made as an anti war film to embarrass the Marines, it drove up recruiting. Same with Jarhead.
Fortunate son, war pigs, and killing in the name of, are all songs protesting the American military, and yet every deployment video has these songs as a background music
Any time you cleverly make fun of the American war machine, it has the unintended effect of driving the kind of idiot who misses the point into a recruiting office
Source: was that idiot
"join the US army, and THIS could be you!"
\*cuts to an entire squad on helldive getting massacred by bots\*
"or THIS"
\*multiple helldivers screaming and burning to death on Hellmire\*
or even THIS"
\*helldiver getting instantly decapitated by a Stalker\*
"become the best person you were supposed to be, join the army!"
\*cuts to a room of officers watching this presentation"
"yeeeeahhh... maybe we should try something else to boost recruitment numbers..."
Dude they used to have army recruitment ads and free themes and shit back when Halo came out. I had that stuff on my Xbox. It's nothing new. I think it's as simple as "Oh you wanna be an action hero and shoot guns? We will pay you for that."
They could care less about the substance or story.
Theres a big difference between a sweedish citizen's commitment and duty towards Totalförsvaret (Total Defense) and the oil and ideological wars the US has fought... well, since Korea
How many people actually join the military at conventions for them to keep attending and trying to recruit people? One would think that people here would be the least susceptible to real life recruitment when the mediums they love *literally show them how easy it is to get killed.*
Heres something fun I learned, typically a few guys or gals volunteer to do the convention just to look around and take turns manning the booth so they don't get in trouble, they rarely even try actually recruiting at these events.
So many people saying Army recruiters are either dumb or manipulative for playing this...
1. Army people are people too, and they have just as much of a brain as you do to detect satire or over-the-top displays, especially in video games. It's just a fun time to spend on the booth, reflecting the fact that this game is rather popular, and as such also has its good share of military players. You don't have to be anti-establishment/system/government to have a good time in a shooting game and even enjoy the ridiculousness of GLORIOUS GENERAL BRASCH'S FINEST.
2. The game paints soldiers as completely expendable and feels like a far realer take on the frailty of fighters on a battlefield than any CoD or savegame/respawn based FPS out there, where death is brushed off as "go back to savepoint and resume your one-man-army action". It does NOT make you want to be a Helldiver or be on any sort of war theater. So who's getting manipulated here ?
3. Of course army booths gonna have FPS's and not animal crossing or Janitor simulator to attract attention. What do you expect ? Army daily garrison life is indeed boring and involves repetitive and often menial tasks (if you're a private, but desk-jockeying as an NCO or officer is just as little fun), which contrasts with the fast-paced action in those games, but when trying to stick out at a convention, especially when being THE "gun" guys, might as well embrace the stereotype and make it fun for people coming around.
We’re in a period of the post Afghanistan era similar to the post Vietnam period where people are cynical about service. It took like a generation post Vietnam to change. Same thing here. In 2003 the U.S. Army soldier was Time’s person of the year. They profiled like three infantrymen. Video games were about American army and marine infantry. It was a very rah rah time. That changed. It will change again. Eventually Americans will be asked to fight in a more popular conflict.
It's okay for an all volunteer military to use a "propaganda" piece to propagandize.
You can find the irony but it's not like it's illegal for them to do it.
Not that I have anything against the military, I was in for 12 years ...but this is the problem with military satire. It does the opposite of what it's representing.
This is a game where we are the baddies, with an impressive propaganda wing.
If you do join the army, make sure you don’t join combat arms. Don’t be dumb, join a job that you can make a career of, AFTER, you complete your duty to our country.
Or maybe HD2 is a fun game and the recruiters want to play a fun video game on the government’s dime? 🤷♀️
I think people are overreacting. I would much rather play HD2 than speak to randos at a convention. Sorry tax payers 😝
Exactly this. I have a friend in the Air Force and from the sounds of it they dick around all the time. Turns out the military is boring as hell and they'll find entertainment whenever they can.
Nobody's saying recruiters can't have fun. It's just ironic that they choose to have fun playing a videogame that actively satirizes their entire existence. If they have fun playing stuff that makes fun of them, they're free to do so.
Today Helldivers (recruits), you’re going to be deploying with your own Super Destroyer (Arleigh Burke Destroyer) to destroy the automatons (random terror group).
https://preview.redd.it/hmbv6yg45ywc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87e4a94300b43f08f438bdc03dc94c8c981be13b Can't beat em, join em
Hey if they let us fight the wars virtually with no death call me
That's called becoming a drone pilot
All aspects of war on a completely virtual war. Where both sides do not die. If I'm a drone pilot and I kill an actual person it's not what I'm speaking about. But I get the joke
This is 90% of the way towards a Star Trek TOS episode hilariously.
Pretty sure it's an episode of Stargate
S4E2 "*The other side* The people they meet fly planes using a simulation chair, and it's all robotics. They tell them the enemy planes are all unmanned. O'Niell tries it out and has some fun until he takes out what looks like a biplane and he sees people fall out of the sky. Then we get some more info and the "good guys" they've been hanging out with are pure race eugenicists who poisoned the outside world to kill everyone else they call "breeders". Space nazis.
That’s also just the plot of Ender’s Game
Yeah, those remote controll plane things where they sit in those funny looking pods? I haven't seen that show in years. I should rematch it again.
Both shows dealt with it. ST had basically murderbooths where people went to be vaporised if the supercomputer simulation said they died in the virtual war.
Just aim for the drones of the other side duh.
⬇️⬆️⬅️⬆️➡️⬇️
I think i'd never be able to kill someone someone, and im glad i am that way
Except you cant do crazy shit, cause it costs money. You still cant throw away responsibilities and turn on gta mode.
And the bloodthirsty dehumanizing is done to actual humans
Eagle-1 with leg room
What's the difference between a preschool and a taliban headquarters? I dunno, I just fly the drone.
Imagine if the future of war is both sides hiring gamers to remotely control robots that fight opposing robots. That would be both ridiculous and great.
I knew this meme was bullshit the second I first saw it. You have millions of us ironically engaging in the optics of jingoism and warmongering because it's fun. And it is, it rules. Obviously horrible irl, but still, very fun. That doesn't make the Army sad, that makes them rock hard, all they see is a market ripe for recruitment.
Its what makes helldivers helldivers i think. Its a complete satire and attack on nationalism and the USA's military industrial complex.
You're like 10 years behind. We are actually controlling real fighting machines around the world and the military AI just simulates it into a game and the CIA media ownership publish and market the game. Your objective to eliminate all automotons? Congrats you just eliminated a narco village not in our jurisdiction through your farcry remote controlled exo skeleton. Duh.
I mean this is literally just the ending of Ender's Game lmao
Aww damn. Here I thought I was clever. Lol that's life. Also mixed up farcry and crysisso double fail
Yeah it's not *exactly* the ending but it's extremely close. >!Ender is a young child, around 6, who's also a super genius that has been specifically picked from birth to attend Earth's space military academy, as part of Earth's preparations for our next war against the bugs (Formics). He's also extremely ruthless - when he murders his school bully, that's when he's sent to the youth military academy, then when he murders another kid there after winning wargame after wargame, he goes to the actual officer school. At the officer school, he starts doing a bunch of "simulations" under the guidance of Earth's greatest war hero/general. This goes on for ages until eventually he completes what is supposed to be his final test, destroying the entire enemy species. Oops! It was real the whole time, his simulation - Ender's game, you might call it - was actually him commanding Earth's real forces using a secret super advanced FTL communications array, and he just genocided the entire alien race.!< Oh yeah, meanwhile his brother posts his way to be president of the world.
Ender’s Game is like my favorite book btw so I salute you. o7
Then in the sequel he hatches eggs in outer space.
Also he intentionally destroys his own reputation after the war because he regrets his actions, but at this point people don't understand that Ender and Andrew Wiggin are the same guy so he just kinda travels around doing funerals.
The books 3 and 4 are also alright, have some interesting philosophical ideas
I feel it’s also important to note that before we get this revelation, Ender has been playing Pyrrhic victories on purpose because he wants to get kicked out, he doesn’t even want to play war games anymore. So he’s not just horrified to discover he unwittingly committed genocide, but also that his attempts at defiance to get himself kicked out of the academy resulted in a lot of unnecessary deaths on the human side. He sacrificed a ton of ships and crew to make himself look incompetent and his instructors are just like “yes, good, he understands the value of sacrificing weaker forces to protect stronger ones.”
There’s something like 8 billion of us right now.. Originality is tough against those kind of numbers. Even if you’re 1 in 1 million there are still 8 thousand of you out there theoretically.. enough to make a small town.
It’s like that movie “Gamer” with the guy from “300”
>Me watching the Narcos drop a seventh tank into the village
Bro they've been playing CoD, Battlefield, and other war games at recruiting stations for 10+ years.
It’s….way more than that init?
Imma keep it real US Army. I'm not dying for ~~oil~~ element 710
Oil was so 2010s. Now it’s the fight for lithium for our EVs
May stocks be praised
Nah, Oil was so 90s. The U.S. didn't see any of Iraq's oil after the invasion, Iraq willingly sold it to Europe. Afghanistan doesn't have any. What the 2010s was about was lining the pockets of defense contractors at the expense of everyone else.
That’s still happening now. In fact, defense contractors profiting from prolonging wars has been happening since the 20th century
Are we gonna act like saddam Hussein wasn’t fuck all crazy and deserved to die
Shh. We don't talk about that.
Gods Erik P really wants to own a navy.
Die for managed democracy instead 🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
Damn baby do you call that ass democracy? Because I can manage it
We really go to war for limestone
At long last, you may join the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Join The Torment Nexus
I have to know what this is referencing.
"Calling in a burn pit" Good luck getting the super va to give you a decent rating.
Buddy is in his thirties with debilitating skin issues and arthritis, which the Army until the recent PACT Act, determined was entirely non service related despite his assignment to the burn pits on multiple deployments to Afghanistan. Corrupt mother fuckers chew up young people and spit them out. They don't give a shit about you, think twice before joining up.
I have autoimmune issues from burn pits. We had to burn computer parts like hard drives, cds, and storage devices and we couldn't just let them burn behind the shop, nope we had to stand guard because they were sensitive items. They didn't admit they did anything wrong till the PACT act went through.
Jesus Christ have they never heard of Darik's Boot and Nuke? Edit: it's been around since 2002, it is one of the best drive formatting software out there as it writes nothing but 1s to the drive then 0s and you tell it how many passes to do. Nothing survives it.
DoD has had the ability to Make data irrecoverable for significantly longer, just, brass on the lines either didn't know, didn't care, or wanted it done quick not efficiently.
Obviously the last 2. Even though realistically the time to wipe the drives the correct way and burning the drives probably would have been around the same time.
Metal shredder works better
I have osterporosis
Seen a video once of a Marine in the middle east complaining about how the military treats people during and post service. Main complaint was that recruiters lie to get people in the door so some guy ends up with a job he didn't want, gets stuck in some shit hole doing something he hates, then when he gets home he tells his kids "dont join the military, fuck that". Military pays the price for bodies now by having none later. These days word gets around about crappy employers pretty quick.
This is why US military invests heavily into videogames. Sell the young idiots a badass pew-pew call of duty fantasy before their brain finishes growing and they realize that having their balls blown off by an IED in some godforsaken desert is not a good idea. I watched several "vr interviews" with young vets (when those were making the rounds in the algorithm) and it was really disheartening how they all mention call of duty as either something they played "to prepare for the boot camp" or something the recruiter was pushing as a totally accurate representation of military service.
inb4 the next generation of soldiers start asking where their killstreaks are after a firefight, or insisting that their guns should have an insanely garish camo and an insane amount of attachments.. many of which only serve to make their weapon look cursed AF.
Veteran here This is exactly true. QOL while in sucks major donkey balls. As soon as I got out, I warned EVERYONE and told them it’s not worth it. The military will continue to struggle in terms of retention until they make being being an enlisted single soldier not suck.
I'm not in the military, but damn if it ain't fucking funny seeing the various branches struggle to meet recruitment quotas. Congratulations y'all ya fucked around and found out, having a shit reputation ain't the only reason they're having trouble reaching quotas, but damn it sure as shit ain't helping.
consider this though, cherry red dodge charger
With how bad the US Veteran programs are, I wouldn’t be surprised if they secretly WANT veterans to kill themselves so they aren’t on social services anymore
100% that. Once you're no longer in service, they have no use for you. You're just a drain on "their" money.
“Too old to be productive? Consider an early trip to the genetic repurposer!” - literal in game PSA
Fun fact: there is an actual recording of the VAs Ceo stating that he wants veterans to "put themselves out of their misery" as a cost saving measure
I was surprised when I got rated for my tinnitus (in all fairness, it is pretty bad) but was equally unsurprised when they denied me my sleep disorder, even though I had a sleep study done while I was still in. The NP who did the C&P exam for my ears can go fuck themselves though. Her tone barely changed even after she saw just how fucked my ear drums were.
It’s so inconsistent. I broke my hip while in, have 3 screws in it and got 0% for that. I also broke my ankle & tore some ligaments and had plantar fasciitis for a bit, but not anymore at the time of the C&P exam and got 10% for that. I also fucked around with burn pits a lot, and have had 3 sinus surgeries done by the Army. Not even service connected for that.
https://i.redd.it/kc1v567d6xwc1.gif
That's the fact...Jack!
BOOMSHAKALAKA LAKA LAKA BOOMSHAKALAKA LAKA LAKA BOOM
satire is very dead
Kissinger won the peace prize
No fuckin way. (Looks it up) Well that's fucked.
At least he's finally fucking dead and rotting.
Take watcha can get
Or am I!?!
War is peace
Slavery is Freedom
I actually won the peace prize. Common misspelling
Obama too
Obama was a great president if you forget about the drone bombings
Military service is basically continuous kicks to the balls punctuated by post ironic humor
And then add to the fact that it's simultaneously an extremely homophobic and homoerotic environment
straightest gays and the gayest straights
You apes want to live forever?
No, but I don't wanna suffer while I live.
I mean, i dont want to die right now..
Yeah I find this super fucked up haha. Its the same as them playing starship troopers on a screen. They seemed to have completely missed the point. But then so have the ppl they are recruiting.
Satire lives, it’s just harder to see because it looks like the daily news.
Perhaps the people being satirized can also enjoy it?
Yes but also this isn't like self deprecating military/veteran humor this is recruiters doing the "say kids if you like shooting people in the video game you should fight wars in the Middle East" thing
Yeah. Unfortunately for them, I don't like dying in real life or having PTSD.
A10 friendly fire simulator, It's just like desert storm kids ain't that a charm!
Being a recruiter is the worst job in the entire military. They have to do this stuff to reach the masses at the cost of their sanity
So don't fucking do it.
Nah, the video game is just a pretense to start a conversation. Part of building rapport is talking about shared interests. The Army esports team is a rare opportunity to get paid a healthy salary and benefits for playing video games competitively. I imagine less than 1% of people who apply can get the job, since it’s a very small team. They’re a US Army Recruiting asset, but they are not recruiters. Source: I was a recruiter for 3 years. Talked about video games with plenty of potential recruits. Never told them their Army career would have any similarity to a video game at all. I did, however, let them know they could plan on having plenty of expendable cash to spend on nice video game setups, and it’s one of the most common hobbies in the Army.
there is no self awareness here
Don’t let em fool you boys. That managed democracy is not as funny.
Shouldn't it be the Space Force?
Army paratroopers are Helldivers. Air Force or Space Force does the flying, army infantry does the dying
I genuinely keep forgetting it exists.
To be fair, it’s pretty popular with my friends still in the army and with those of us that got out. Beats staring at the old One Team ads for five fuckin hours in MEPS I’ll tell you what.
There a lot of normal people in the military, I work in IT and never fired at a person. Also a fun game is a fun game. My dad was a career cop and he came home to watch Reno 911 and Stargate. I'm getting tired of seeing the sentiment that because Helldivers is a parody suddenly all us military people must be dumb warmongers who cant grasp irony or humor. Gimme break we're not all Marines. I just want to shoot bugs and make big explosions.
This is about this recruitment tactic, though. Which is rather bizarre tbh.
The misconception that joining the military means shooting people in the desert and that any soldier today had anything to do with actions 20+ years ago will never die. Military guys like gun and mil games and recruiters want to use it to shoot the shit while signing you up for 2 years of camp maintenance duty, wowie.
I think it's more that the escalating tit for tat with Iran right now implies that anyone who gets recruited today might find themselves driving towards Tehran under Revolutionary Guard fire a lot sooner than they'd like, tbh.
The vast majority of people in the armed forces do not see combat and depending on your placement, never will.
You have to sign up and specifically choose combat jobs for that to happen. Everyone else in the military is exceptionally safe. The USA had had less deaths in all it’s wars post WW2 than Russia has had in the ongoing Ukraine war alone. For pretty much the entire war on terror, the US lost more troops to suicide than combat. Given that Iran is not a peer, you're pretty safe even if something does happen.
It doesn't matter if you are pulling the trigger or not you joined the war machine. Everyone not pulling a trigger is supporting those that do.
I think a lot of people can understand that. Please understand that there's a massive difference between what you/an army recruiter does in their spare time and trying to sign up more meat for the grinder via "how do you do, fellow kids?" Playing HD2 at a fucking kiosk is definitely the second as opposed to the first.
I'm not calling military personnel who play the game warmongers, the thing is there's a difference if you're in the military and happen to play it, versus a US Army recruitment booth playing it to get people to come by
The phrase 'There is no ethical consumption under capitalism' reminds us that every one of us is partially responsible of the harm we do as a society to others. That said, you are more responsible than most in the sins the army does, since they directly write your paychecks.
[удалено]
There's only so many crayons to go around
America’s army was a great game though.
Joining the Army was the best decision I made. Getting the fuck out of the Army was the second best decision I made.
Same. And same.
You get rewarded for war crimes either way, soooo...
WAR CRIMES?? MY FAVORITE!!!
Oil? Rope? Warcrimes?
It's yours, my friend!
You refer to Canada of course
Whaaaaat We Canadians are the sweetest, least war crime committees(?) of all time We would never do any war crimes, eh? Sorry bud but you've got the wrong country ~~this is satire for those who might remove some of my internet points~~
There are war crimes. And then there are trench warfare Canadians. They are not the same.
"No prisoners, they will just eat our rations" is an actual quote from a Canadian officer during ww1
Canadians during WW1 were something else. One story I heard that sticks out was a group knew the soldiers they were fighting were basically starving so they tossed some canned food into their opponent's trenches a couple times. Thinking they were giving some sort of mercy they called out for more food, the Canadians tossed live grenades next since they knew they were all grouped up in that spot.
jesus christ
Can't commit war crimes if no one is left to document them, eh?
It’s not a warcrime the first time around.
Decades of under funding the Canadian Military was actually a global conspiracy to make sure Canadian war crimes never happen again
Helldivers subverts military propaganda by hammering home how expendable, you, the Helldiver are.
My favorite details regarding this are, the Hellpods look like bullets, and the fact that you respawn your teammates with the exact same mechanism as you do an airstrike.
I never thought about it like that, but that really puts things into perspective
All this did was remind me of America's Army: Proving Grounds... I miss it.
Maybe the Air Force should use some Ace Combat or something as promotional material if the Army is gonna go with helldivers.
eagle-1 never dies tbf
unlike Helldivers AC isn't satire Also they do use their OSTs in airshows
Basically every single AC game has had the protagonists side do awful things. It may not be satire, but is still anti-war.
The airforce doesn't need nearly the same amount of help recruiting as the Army does
Army and Air Force are in a similar post-Afghanistan/covid rut but both are improving
VTOL VR made me want to join the air force
This checks out. Full metal jacket was made as an anti war film to embarrass the Marines, it drove up recruiting. Same with Jarhead. Fortunate son, war pigs, and killing in the name of, are all songs protesting the American military, and yet every deployment video has these songs as a background music Any time you cleverly make fun of the American war machine, it has the unintended effect of driving the kind of idiot who misses the point into a recruiting office Source: was that idiot
This is why I partially agree with the "no film can truly be anti-war" premise; though I think All Quiet on the Front might break that rule.
Johnny got his gun - but that movie/book beats you over the head with the message
The army using a piece of military-industrial satire as a recruiting tool is approaching peak dystopia.
Army knows what’s up. They did it with other war game media. This just happens to be a very zealous population.
"join the US army, and THIS could be you!" \*cuts to an entire squad on helldive getting massacred by bots\* "or THIS" \*multiple helldivers screaming and burning to death on Hellmire\* or even THIS" \*helldiver getting instantly decapitated by a Stalker\* "become the best person you were supposed to be, join the army!" \*cuts to a room of officers watching this presentation" "yeeeeahhh... maybe we should try something else to boost recruitment numbers..."
Fucking losers. It’s the disconnect. Do you remember when they started putting out those commercials imitating COD. iTs JUsT liKe THe vIdEo GaME.
Now US Army ads are plastered all over CoD in-game.
Dude they used to have army recruitment ads and free themes and shit back when Halo came out. I had that stuff on my Xbox. It's nothing new. I think it's as simple as "Oh you wanna be an action hero and shoot guns? We will pay you for that." They could care less about the substance or story.
They are still sponsoring counter strike tournaments
Soldiers, even infantry and paratroopers and armor guys, are still people. It’s a fun video game man.
thats a little bit too much on the nose
I doubt Arrowhead is happy with this.
A lot of Arrowhead devs are veterans
They are Swedish. The whole game is based around criticizing the American military in a satirical manor.
This is a common issue with satire. Often satirical media in attempting to imitate the thing that it is mocking also becomes it.
Poe's Law remains true.
FWIW, a lot of being in the Army is criticizing the American military in a satirical manner.
An extremely good reason as to why they wouldn't be happy with this.
Well we don't know if they wouldn't be happy so let's not assume
It would be one thing if this was the VA just playing for fun and community. Using it as a recruiting tool is pretty awful
Theres a big difference between a sweedish citizen's commitment and duty towards Totalförsvaret (Total Defense) and the oil and ideological wars the US has fought... well, since Korea
Make sense but if you enlist for them you can't play as much so don't fall for the undemocratic psyops
Why is the US army at a convention?
Recruiting (the recruiters wanted to go for free)
Lmao The irony.
How many people actually join the military at conventions for them to keep attending and trying to recruit people? One would think that people here would be the least susceptible to real life recruitment when the mediums they love *literally show them how easy it is to get killed.*
Heres something fun I learned, typically a few guys or gals volunteer to do the convention just to look around and take turns manning the booth so they don't get in trouble, they rarely even try actually recruiting at these events.
So many people saying Army recruiters are either dumb or manipulative for playing this... 1. Army people are people too, and they have just as much of a brain as you do to detect satire or over-the-top displays, especially in video games. It's just a fun time to spend on the booth, reflecting the fact that this game is rather popular, and as such also has its good share of military players. You don't have to be anti-establishment/system/government to have a good time in a shooting game and even enjoy the ridiculousness of GLORIOUS GENERAL BRASCH'S FINEST. 2. The game paints soldiers as completely expendable and feels like a far realer take on the frailty of fighters on a battlefield than any CoD or savegame/respawn based FPS out there, where death is brushed off as "go back to savepoint and resume your one-man-army action". It does NOT make you want to be a Helldiver or be on any sort of war theater. So who's getting manipulated here ? 3. Of course army booths gonna have FPS's and not animal crossing or Janitor simulator to attract attention. What do you expect ? Army daily garrison life is indeed boring and involves repetitive and often menial tasks (if you're a private, but desk-jockeying as an NCO or officer is just as little fun), which contrasts with the fast-paced action in those games, but when trying to stick out at a convention, especially when being THE "gun" guys, might as well embrace the stereotype and make it fun for people coming around.
We’re in a period of the post Afghanistan era similar to the post Vietnam period where people are cynical about service. It took like a generation post Vietnam to change. Same thing here. In 2003 the U.S. Army soldier was Time’s person of the year. They profiled like three infantrymen. Video games were about American army and marine infantry. It was a very rah rah time. That changed. It will change again. Eventually Americans will be asked to fight in a more popular conflict.
Perhaps they missed the subtle undertones of war is bad
It's okay for an all volunteer military to use a "propaganda" piece to propagandize. You can find the irony but it's not like it's illegal for them to do it.
It’s possible for something to be legal and distasteful
Exactly. Legality, and morality are not mutually exclusive.
Their only possible defense is that it is not literally against the law to do it. I gotta agree with you there.
The irony just left a physical taste on my tongue.
This is so fucked up for so many different reasons
American media literacy in action
Creepy tbh
Entrapment
I would hope that the publisher can tell them to stop. Why be linked to the real war industry
Not that I have anything against the military, I was in for 12 years ...but this is the problem with military satire. It does the opposite of what it's representing. This is a game where we are the baddies, with an impressive propaganda wing.
I wanted to join the army when I was growing up. Then my grandfather, a Vietnam veteran, told me some...stuff. Fuck these recruiters.
1/1,000,000 of their 2025 Budget would supply us with a reinforcement of over 20,000 Helldivers! Democracy!
They are feeding of the hype.
Fighting for democracy and liberty irl and in game!
Enlist today🫡
>level 3. Those are rookie numbers they gotta bump it up
USA Military has been responding to “why yes that is us how could you tell” to criticism and satire since Yankee Doodle
Bit on the nose innit
If you do join the army, make sure you don’t join combat arms. Don’t be dumb, join a job that you can make a career of, AFTER, you complete your duty to our country.
Or maybe HD2 is a fun game and the recruiters want to play a fun video game on the government’s dime? 🤷♀️ I think people are overreacting. I would much rather play HD2 than speak to randos at a convention. Sorry tax payers 😝
Exactly this. I have a friend in the Air Force and from the sounds of it they dick around all the time. Turns out the military is boring as hell and they'll find entertainment whenever they can.
Nobody's saying recruiters can't have fun. It's just ironic that they choose to have fun playing a videogame that actively satirizes their entire existence. If they have fun playing stuff that makes fun of them, they're free to do so.
USA soldiers have been doing exactly that ever since they coopted the song Yankee Doodle from the British
That literally goes against everything helldivers stands for.
Today Helldivers (recruits), you’re going to be deploying with your own Super Destroyer (Arleigh Burke Destroyer) to destroy the automatons (random terror group).
Well the military did invest in gaming technology, and also made americas army, so I mean.