There's a great bit of research done by David Grossman, an expert on the psychology of killing. During World War II, the US army did a research study on their soldiers - they found only between 15-20% of riflemen would fire on an exposed enemy, for example. That's on a battlefield. People were willing to die, but most of them were not willing to kill.
They fixed it, of course - they now do conditioning processes to debase soldiers, then they rebuild them without the typical societal mores, by rewarding desired behaviours and by dehumanising the enemy. It's now over 95% are willing to fire. However, there's incredible levels of mental troubles in soldiers as a result - in fact, recently more soldiers who had returned from battle committed suicide than died in Iraq and Afghanistan in battle.
you crack me up, Cindy. i also enjoy your spicy brains.
My Psych 101 prof put me on the spot one day in front of the whole class and asked me if I would ever hesitate to kill had my unit been called into combat. I told him I'd never thought about it. Felt like an ass for ever having been in the military.
Minor casting thing I shall white out -
Check out who's on Tim's epi of Dollhouse: [link] - Yep, the dude who keeps beating up Fillion in Drive.
Speaking of Nathan Fillion (who's not the minor casting thing), I thought the fake ranger sounded oddly like Mal.
That guy has the most amazing eyes. He was, dare I asy it, hawt on SCC too.
Had to rewatch, and, not only was the dialogue and the voice very Mal-ish, but he even had a similar nose! I mean, you couldn't park a Cadillac in it on the silver screen, but... (I love NF's nose, so I notice these things.)
The security guy - I don't even know his name - at the very end of the episode when he's talking to Echo, he's acting like Joss. I mean, seriously - check out his speech.
