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September 2, 2025 • 61 mins

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The desire to practice life's significant moments before they happen is deeply human. What if we could rehearse our wedding, our parenting decisions, or even our next international conflict? This fascinating tension between preparation and authentic experience anchors our discussion as we explore HBO's "The Rehearsal" and what it reveals about our need to control unpredictable circumstances.

The conversation takes an unexpected turn as we trace the surprising history of wargaming, from its origins in 1810 Prussia to its influence on modern military strategy. We uncover how the Japanese military's successful simulation of Pearl Harbor gave them the confidence to execute their attack, raising troubling questions about how simulation affects real-world decision making. What happens when the line between game and reality blurs? Does practicing for conflict make it more likely to occur?

As we examine the modern resurgence of government-sponsored wargaming and its ethical implications, we confront uncomfortable parallels between gaming culture and contemporary warfare. When drone operators view combat through screens remarkably similar to video games, does it create dangerous psychological distance from human consequences? Yet we also discover the unexpected benefits of simulated conflict through personal experiences with games like Warhammer 40,000 and physical activities like jiu-jitsu, where community and camaraderie often transcend the competitive elements.

Join us for this thought-provoking exploration of how simulation shapes our world, and whether some of life's most meaningful moments are valuable precisely because they cannot be rehearsed. After all, what's the difference between the person arguing about Space Marines on Saturday and advising the Pentagon on Monday? In today's world, it might be the same person.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ron (00:28):
Welcome, welcome back, sibilant zygotes.
I'm ron, to my left on thecouches, doug, and across from
us, not on a couch, is I'm donand uh.
If the audio sounds a littledifferent, uh, today, folks,
that's because we are taking uhUncannery on the road.
We are broadcasting to you livefrom Amplify in beautiful,

(00:48):
gorgeous downtown Fullerton.
Guys, what do you think?
Should we rent it out?
Is this the place?
Is this our studio now?

Doug (00:57):
I did ask for rates, so they're getting back to me I
don't think we should commit.

Don (01:02):
We ought to see how this one goes, absolutely.
Maybe you know Abbey Road mightbe available.

Ron (01:10):
We should keep our eyes open on their schedule.
I really like the idea of notcommitting and practicing and
seeing how things go.
You guys watch it's springtime.
Have you guys been watching anyspringtime television?
That's a rhetorical question.
I'm going to tell you about thespringtime television.

Don (01:31):
What is springtime television?

Ron (01:33):
The springtime television is the television programming
that comes out in the spring.
The birds are out and theinsects are flying and there's
hot new television.
You don't know about this.
This is all the networks I.

Don (01:46):
I'd say I don't know.
I'm so.
Everything is available all thetime to me.
There's spring.

Doug (01:50):
I've kept up with the price is right, you know, we
stick with price right isdefinitely a little hairier in
the spring price all right yeah,price eroding prices have been
not right for a little while butthat's for our other podcast.

Ron (02:06):
Um, have you heard of the show, the rehearsal I have.

Doug (02:10):
I have heard of it, several people have brought it
up to me and I've reckoned haveyou seen it?
You gotta, you gotta, watch it.
You're gonna say that um, I'mnot I mean, it's pretty good.

Ron (02:21):
uh, you don't have to.
I'm not one of those guys whotries to like bully people into
watching things that they maybedon't really want to watch,
because I feel like people dothat to me all the time.
Yeah, and it's like too manypeople tell me to watch
something that I will like nolonger watch it.

Don (02:35):
I don't know, it's just the rebel in you.
Everyone else likes it, so I'mnot going to like it.

Ron (02:46):
Maybe partly that, partly that, but it's also like it's
the nine-year-old girl in you.
I only like the unlikable boys.
It's something about like if somany people have seen it, then
they'll just tell me about it.
Like I don't need to.
I think I'll get it.

Don (02:54):
It's a watch by proxy.

Ron (02:55):
Yeah, I'll osmosify it or whatever, but the rehearsal is a
show the premise of which Ifind interesting, especially for
today's topic, because thepremise is a man who wants to
find ways to rehearse the mostimportant moments in one's life,
and at least the first season,I think.
The premise is that he's tryingto rehearse a relationship, a

(03:18):
marriageable relationship, witha woman.
And then he's like, well then,you know, I want to like, I want
to make sure, when I really getmarried, that I'm a good
husband.
And then, well then, we'll wantto have kids and I want to make
sure I'm a good dad.
So, and in order to do thesethings, he spends HBO's money to
create very elaborate sets andhe brings in actors to act as
his wife, and then he brings inchild actors to act as his

(03:39):
children at different age levels, and he practices how he'll be
a parent or how he'll be ahusband and all this kind of
stuff.
And it's supposed to be acomedy program.
But the question I wanted tobring to you all was what is the
, what is the moment in yourlife that you wish you could
have rehearsed, that you couldhave practiced for, so that when
it happened, it went, it wouldgo off exactly as you wanted it

(04:00):
to.

Doug (04:00):
Now, before we answer that , I just want to say for not
selling me on the show.
That was maybe the greatestpitch on a show.
I will be watching it now thatyou said that.
Really Good job.

Don (04:12):
So I mean before we, before we answer the question about
the show and I know yourquestion is related but not
directly but uh, so is it likemoments, like your wedding
moment, or is it the experienceof being a husband Like I need
to rehearse my entire life ofbeing a husband and then going
back and doing it better?

Ron (04:31):
That's part of the like problem he stumbles into Right.
It's like when do you stoprehearsing?
Right, because it's like, likeit starts with him like helping
someone rehearse a date.
Right, they have a friend theykind of want to ask out and so
they like build literally like afacsimile of the bar that they
hang out at and it's and it'sabout okay.
How you know, what could I sayto her?
How can I make sure the dategoes well?

(04:52):
But then he's like well, butthe date is only the first part,
right, like what does it matterif the date goes well, if the
relationship sucks?
So I think you could kind oflike extrapolate that desire out
infinitely Right.
But for our purposes you canjust tell me like a moment or
something like you don't have tosay I wish I could have redone

(05:13):
my entire marriage.

Doug (05:17):
I'm going to go ahead and hijack the podcast, let you guys
know what's going on in thehome life.
Um no, it's interesting becauseI think about most of the
things that I do I tend to throwmyself into and then look back
in hindsight and say, glad I didthat, because that's prepared
me for this on so many levels.

Ron (05:38):
So it's difficult to nail down a moment I feel like I'm
kind of the same way I'm.
I'm a sort of like I'll try itand I'll learn from it, and I'll
make my mistakes.

Doug (05:47):
As long as they don't kill me, it'll be okay and I've done
that with some of the ones thatthey'll kill you too but I do
like research and yeah likefiguring things out.

Ron (05:59):
I'm in the process of painting my kitchen cabinets
that sounds like fun.
It's really terrible, but Ispent a lot of time like
watching tutorial videos andyou're trying to research the
types of paint and you know,like, like that, I didn't, I
didn't, probably.
Okay, that's actually my answer.
I would have done a dry run oflike I would have picked a

(06:20):
smaller cabinet and I would havetried the paint and I would
have waited like two weeks tosee how it cured and if I could
get a good finish and how much Ineed to sand.
I would have rehearsed doing mycabinets instead of just doing
them, because it sucks and Idon't even know if the end
product's that great.
But probably, also, like forour jobs, we had to rehearse a

(06:43):
lot right.
We're educators.
You have to practice teaching alot.

Don (06:47):
I don't practice, I just wing it, yeah, and so far it's
going well for you.

Ron (06:52):
The kids like it.
Don, when you were practicingteaching back when cars ran on
crank engines, what was theprocess like?
How did they get live studentsin the room for you?

Don (07:10):
It was a room full of cadavers.

Doug (07:12):
Just like medical school.
They're dead.

Don (07:14):
That way, you can't damage them.

Doug (07:18):
Oh, you can damage a cadaver.
That's another episode.

Don (07:24):
More information about Doug that we didn't want to know the
bonus episode, that's thepatreon exclusive my, uh, I mean
my, my teaching practice.
Uh, I actually had two wildlyextreme um, uh, takes on it, I

(07:44):
had to.
Um, we used to call the masterteacher and now they're called
uh mentor teachers.
Um and uh, and one literallytold me um, you need to come to
my fourth period and watch meteach, and then, during fifth
period, you need to say everysingle word that I said in the
same order that I said them yeah, so cool.
So there was no thinkinginvolved, it was just can you

(08:07):
reproduce this, this moment?
And my, uh, my earlier, um, myearlier classes were a teacher
who said well, you look likefirst day, you look like you
know what you're doing.
Um, I'm going to go get somecoffee and uh, you'll be fine.
And didn't know what I wasdoing, what I was teaching, ever
, like he never saw me in theroom at all.
So too wildly extreme.

Doug (08:30):
Yeah.

Don (08:31):
So, and neither of them really set me up for being the
teacher that, like I guess they.
I mean I didn't take a lot fromeither of those two moments.

Ron (08:41):
What would you have needed?
What would have made you feellike I'm prepared now?
I'm ready for any eventualityand to be an effective educator
in in the classroom?

Don (08:58):
Feedback on um on what I was trying to do on my own.
So I appreciated the freedomthat I had from in my in my
morning classes, but I didn'thave anybody there telling me,
except for the students right,telling me that this was
successful or not.
And then in my in my afternoonclass that was the recitation.
I had no, no flexibility to totry things a different way.
So yeah.
I don't like that, but neitherof those is my answer.

Ron (09:23):
That's not what I would rehearse if I got to choose
Right Because it's worked outand you clearly had a terrible.
Well, I mean so far.
We'll see.
Yeah, what would you rehearse?

Don (09:35):
I want to say, like my wedding, yeah, but I think I
think the problem that I'mhaving is what we started
talking about when I asked you.
The question about the show isit's a once in a lifetime moment
and I hate once in a lifetimemoments Like I actually hate New
Year's Eve for that very reason, like it's just another day and

(09:57):
tomorrow is a different day,but the fact that it's a year in
advance, you know likeeverything changes, like I hate
New Year's Eve is the end ofsomething that I makes me think
about all the things I didn't dolike yep right um to summarize
and ruminate on an entire yearin one evening right so I mean
we had a wedding rehearsal, butyou know they're, they're as
effective as everybody else'sterrible right because, because

(10:20):
nothing happens in your weddingrehearsal the way they happen in
your wedding right, I've beento a lot of wedding rehearsals
and it's like sometimes half thepeople aren't there.

Ron (10:28):
The right you know, priest or pastor, whoever doesn't
really care, and they don'tcause they don't go through the
word, you don't get them Likeit's, it's.

Don (10:35):
So you can run through the steps, right, but the that's not
the moment, right, right, themoment is is when it's for real.
And the look on on yourpartner's face, the feeling that
you have the you know, notknowing what your uncle's going
to do in the, in the pew, likeum, all of those things are not

(10:56):
rehearsable, yeah, and, andthat's what makes those moments
those moments.
So if you rehearse them, Ithink it moments those moments.
So if you rehearse them, Ithink it it doesn't.
It's not actually rehearsal forthat, it's just, uh, I don't
know it's a sham.

Ron (11:11):
Yeah, there's like a flaw in that.
Like we, we think that ourideal picture is like oh, it
needs to be just like this.
This is actually how it will bebest, but like that, um leaves
out a lot of possibility, space,right, because, like, all those
little weird things are kind ofthings I remember most from my
wedding and, fun or not, thoseare like just part of the charm

(11:34):
of the day.
Now you know like yeah, I'm notlike oh, the playlist went off
without a hitch, Thank God youknow, like that's not really the
thing I ended up caring aboutso much.
But it is hard to tell yourselfthat the day before right right
, right it is all that.

Doug (11:50):
Oh man, it's got to go just like this, yeah yeah, it's
very reflective for me because Iremember not believing, like
when we were on the way to thehotel of the place we're going
to with honeymoon.
The next day, I remember justthinking, especially with
wedding, like oh it's, I can'tbelieve how fast that was.
Like in in retrospect, it'sjust, it's just the beginning.

(12:11):
That's right.
That's absolutely right.
Yeah, I really enjoyed myhoneymoon, but I I definitely
wish I could have savored someof those moments so much more.

Don (12:22):
But if you rehearse them, it wouldn't be those moments.
That is correct, that doesn'tfix that saver problem.
That is correct yeah definitelyno.

Ron (12:30):
You'd probably enjoy it less because you'd just be like
I've done this six times.
It means less to me the more Ido, for sure.

Doug (12:39):
Well, mine's a more.
It's definitely not assentimental.
I rehearsed because when Iturned 21, I took the proverbial
trip out to Las Vegas and threwsome money on some gambling
tables and had myself a time,and I didn't really have the
money to do it.

(12:59):
So it was a very short livedexperience of just losing your
money very quickly and going.

Ron (13:03):
I guess that's it.

Doug (13:09):
But I remember the experience that I took away and
I remember saying the next timeI go to Las Vegas I definitely
want to do this is looking overat the craps table.
That was the.
That was what I saw.
I just saw the 15 peoplesitting around the table, the
hoots and hollers after everydice roll and, most importantly,
the fact that there was dice onthe table.
That was the thing that I Ibecause I, I like dice, I like
dice and I, I really wanted toplay.

(13:31):
But the barrier of entry, whenyou look at a craps table and if
you haven't, it's just there'sso many different options how
does the game work?
And it seems like everybodywho's at the table is the type
of person that's been playing itsince they were three years old
.
So I went home, I got myself uh, I believe is on a website
called wizard of odds I tooktheir fake bankroll and every

(13:57):
day I practiced playing crafts,um, to get myself ready for the
next time.
A few years later, when I wasgoing to take the trip, and the
thing that was funny about it isI looked up a statistical
analysis of different ways thatyou can play and I ended up on

(14:17):
this thread that was explainingthat playing uh with the house,
betting with the house.
You're one of those.
Yeah, it's probably playing wecan never go to vegas playing,
uh yeah, with the house is theway to go.
Well, what I didn't knowbecause again, the rehearsable
moment for me is I went okay,this is kind of working out.

(14:38):
I've been playing every day.
Most of the days I don't loseas much money.
It seems like I'm doing prettydecent.
I'm going to take this to vegas.

Don (14:44):
Well, got to my first table did you tell them this is just
for practice?
Yeah, I think so.

Doug (14:50):
I wanted to do over something tells me they wouldn't
have liked that had I said it.

Ron (14:54):
So here's some canadian money can we just try?

Doug (14:58):
oh, they'll take that too if I know anything about them.
But, um, getting to the tableand starting to place bets on
the side with the house when theentire table is playing against
the house, I didn't realize,the moment that I hadn't been
rehearsing is hearing.
I'll never forget this um,mother and son that are sitting

(15:19):
next to me and this son sayingdon't worry about him, mom, it
doesn't matter if he's bettingagainst us, we're gonna do fine.
Well, I started winning, uh,because I was playing with the
house and the house started towin and I watched, as was the

(15:46):
only person left, and the amountof swearing at me as was
leaving the table, you name it.
I was not very popular in thatmoment, even to where the
dealers at the table I believethat's what they're called, the
dealers at the table even saidnormally, if you're going to do
something like this, you usuallywant to find hours that there's

(16:07):
not as many players.
Even they were bummed outbecause they were getting tipped
out by that family.

Don (16:12):
That was there, yeah, and they're losing money.
So technically the dealer withthe stick is called the croupier
, but the other dealers aredealers.

Doug (16:20):
The croupier was not the one.
It was the gentleman who wasclosest to the side that was
taking bets.
So, yeah, I didn't get.
There was no.
Yeah, I thought I wasrehearsing for a moment, that
was going to be exciting and Ididn't.
It was actually one of mybiggest wins that I ever had
going to Las Vegas.
But what a terrible experienceto watch as everyone essentially

(16:43):
gives you the finger and walksaway from the table.
So I was rehearsing for thatexperience, not knowing I was
not going to get the experienceagain.
Go back to my original memorythe hoots, the hollers, the
excitement.
Nobody was with me on that.

Don (16:57):
No, nobody's ever going to hoot and holler for you Bet in
the don't pass, bar Well, I.

Ron (17:02):
Hey, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
You know, money comes fromsomeone absolutely take it from
the ground.

Don (17:07):
But you could all go and play, don't pass and you both
have been in my workspace andyou know that I have an
obnoxiously sized desk yeah yeah, that is actually the product
of a good night at craps that'swhy I got that money and I was
betting against the house, andso that's, that's Vegas's money.
That, uh, I don't know.
Uh, I don't actually know a lotabout crafts.

Ron (17:28):
I didn't know.
Uh, it seems like, yeah, youwant to be the the.
The who's the little guy thatfights Goliath?

Don (17:37):
You want to be that little guy you want to be the day.

Doug (17:45):
It take vegas's money right?
You don't want to take yourfellow man's money all right,
yeah, well you're not, but youcan do that.
Yeah, yeah, you, you bet sowhat?

Don (17:49):
you have better odds, why, um, every time the entire table
loses, you win.

Ron (17:53):
Yeah, that's kind of sick yeah, that's why I like it.
That's why I like it can be areal reptile man as long as you
can play by yourself, you'refine absolutely you know?

Doug (18:03):
I mean, I think that this really begs.
We need to go togethercollectively and we'll all play
donuts.

Ron (18:10):
Yeah, we do.
Let's see who can last thelongest.

Doug (18:12):
That's right.

Ron (18:16):
Well, thank you all for your responses to that question.
I think those are good moments.
Hey, you want to talk aboutWarhammer?
Good transition, uh, our goodmo.
Hey, you want to talk aboutwarhammer good transition.
Yeah, I've been working on my.
I've been rehearsing mytransitions.
Yeah, secretly, this is awarhammer episode.

(18:36):
I want to talk about um becauseit turned.
Uh, really, I want to talkabout war gaming.
Um, because the the.
I think if you're an uncannibalfor a while, you've noticed
that doug and I partake in wargames and every time we mention
it, we have to talk about whatexactly it is Like LARPing.
No, it's not like.
LARPing.
I'll get into it in a moment.
It's close, but the reason Iwanted to talk about it is

(19:00):
because I think there's a sortof weird uh sort of ethical uh
line or quandary, much like, youknow, betting with the house
and craps, um, and war gaminghas a history of being a sort of
like government tool and for along time that that tool kind of
left the government.
It became a sort of sport andentertainment for the masses, um

(19:21):
, the unwashed masses, and uh,and now it's, it's back, the
governments are back into wargaming.
They really love war gamingbecause they love rehearsing and
practicing wars, uh, andoperations overseas that's my.

Don (19:36):
So just so I know what we're talking about.
That's my question is are wetalking about war games, like
you know the us is doing, uhactivity with south korea in the
south china sea, or we'retalking about like risk?
So right.

Ron (19:50):
So both because I find that history is kind of interlocked,
like it's impossible to talkabout one without the other.
Okay, I couldn't possibly talkto you about how governments use
war gaming without telling youabout risk, unfortunately, I do
like risk australasia, and youjust build up and build up, and

(20:10):
build up it's a common strategy,but there's other things in
there too there's a, there's aquestion that gets, um, uh,
talked about a lot in like boardgame or game circles like what.
What is the difference between awar game and a board game like,
like risk, don like.
Is that a war game or is thatjust a board game and does it
matter?
What do you think?
I think it's a board game and Idon't think it matters yeah, I

(20:40):
think it doesn't matter either,but for lots of people um a war
game does mean something verydifferent from a, from a board
game, even though there areobviously board games that
simulate warfare or involvecombat.

Doug (20:52):
Do you think there's a?

Ron (20:53):
big difference, doug.
Is this something that you itwould expand on in any way?
For someone who's like new tothe to the idea of war gaming?

Doug (21:03):
yeah, it seems to be kind of a hobby in of itself.
Uh, meaning, I actually dothink that, risk it.
It is, uh, it's probably themost simplified war game that
you can get.
I I would say that it hasalmost all the factors that are
there, um, but I also would callit a board game.
I think that war games are kindof their own, I guess, um,

(21:29):
they're their own thing.
That's such a vague way ofsaying it, but I just think
about the fact that whateverarmy you're building, how their
rules, that are kind ofcontained, whereas a board game
is kind of a package thateverybody knows the exact rules
that are surrounding it.
A war game goes so much moreoutside of it and it's like,
well, no, you're playing a veryspecific game with your army,

(21:49):
your rule set and what you'redoing among the a larger set of
rules.

Don (21:55):
That's there, so in risk right.
The idea is that there's a mapthat has regions on it that are
are correspond to continents andand countries and and the
that's.
The only part of it thatresembles war is that it happens
to be taking place on a mapRight and and that it it
introduces the complication ofwar, of having to defend borders

(22:17):
Like the more land you get, theharder it is to defend that
land, because the the space youneed to to defend is larger.
But the mechanism of thatdefense, the mechanism of
offense, is not war, it'srolling dice, yeah.

Doug (22:32):
So that's why it's abstracted so much.
Yeah.

Don (22:35):
So it's it.
I mean, there's a strategy towhere you place your armies on
the map, but that doesn't seemto be war to me.
That's that like it's war theway chess is war right yeah,
let's talk about like.

Ron (22:52):
I guess, like the difference not to be too
pedantic between a board gameand war game is the is the word
war like a war game?
Is very much interested inwarfare, whether it was olden
warfare or modern warfare, right, that is sort of the direct,
the impetus or the driving ofthe fantasy maybe of that game,
right?
And so you're like, youmentioned chess and we've talked

(23:15):
about backgammon backgammon along time ago, and these games
owe something.
They have some sort of combator versus or competitive element
.
Today we're not really callingthose war games.
I want to talk about the firstsort of war game that was
designed to be instructive inhow to perfect your ability to
wage war, and, from what I cantell, this started back in 1810.

(23:39):
We've got the Germans to thank,or the proto-Germans, the
Prussians.
In 1810, george von Reiswitzwas considered the founder, the
father, of the modern war game,and so he made a large board,
like a two-scale board, of abattlefield.
It was three-dimensional.

(24:00):
There was no chess grid orlayout or anything like that on
it.
He created small miniaturefigures to represent different
military units these are theartillery, these are the cavalry
, these are the blah, blah, blah.
And he created, a rule set andhe also acted as a essentially a
games master right For anyonefamiliar with, like Dungeons and

(24:22):
Dragons and role-playing games,which you all are, because
you've listened to our previousepisode about that.
This is season three.
Guys get with it.
Okay, you need to know thisstuff.
Um, you're juniors now.
Um, uh, so, and he would,basically he would have, you
know, two people play and hewould adjudicate the results.
There there was no dice rolling, there was no real random

(24:45):
element.
You know, someone would say I'mgoing to try and take my
cavalry through the woods andsurprise his left, his Eastern
flank, and he would whisper thatto George and George would be
like Hmm, okay that sucks,you're going to fail.
It's muddy and your horses don'trun very well.
So, anyways, apparently thisbecame super popular with the

(25:06):
Prussian king, frederick WilhelmIII, who like really loved this
game.
He had it brought, like he hadGeorge Reisvitz himself brought
in with his like only copy ofthis game.
But george was like, oh, it'snot ready for the king, and so
he spent like months making itbetter, like carving hand
figures of the soldiers andstuff like that.

(25:27):
Anyways, he brought it in andthe king loved it.
Um, but it's not, it's notclear if the king liked it
because he thought it was likeeducational.
He just it was a fun game.
I mean, what else are you gonnado as a king?
But like, pretend you'rebeating.
Probably, if you're likeplaying against your like
courtiers, they're probablyletting you win, right, so
you're probably there's an egoinflation there going on.

Doug (25:48):
I keep thinking of, you know, the king going over and
making any recommendation to himif he's the game master.
He has to go with it.
Every time he's like I throwthe bodies, I just fling the
center mass out without recklessabandon.
Well, you win sir.
Yeah, yeah, Bold sir.

Ron (26:04):
Yes.

Don (26:06):
It works again In your best Prussian accent.
That was good.

Doug (26:11):
It's pretty British Sorry.

Ron (26:13):
The next iteration of this game actually was George's son,
who was also George, so theyounger Georgeorge von reisfitz.
Uh, he, the war gaming runs inthe family sometimes.
Uh and uh, he took the game onand he actually developed
another rule set for it.
He actually invented, like uh,random chance elements and
probability tables and he madeit more like something that you

(26:34):
uh, like if you play war gamestoday you'd probably recognize
it relied less on a games masterand it had more of a rigid rule
set.
Anyways, he got this into likethe Prussian military academies,
with a little help from theking.
He was like we need to trainour officers on this, so like
they were playing these gamesand the idea was, at least in
Prussia, that this wasinstrumental and useful.

(27:00):
But apparently there was like,uh, the the officer class, like
the older officers, that kind oflooked down on on like these
games.
They're like this is bull, thisis turkey, this is whatever the
prussians would call bull andturkey.
They were looking at them likeipad kids or something.
They're like what are you doing?
Playing games like this isn't?

Doug (27:19):
actually going to help.

Ron (27:21):
Um, so are these things actually useful?
Um, in 1870, thefranco-prussian war uh occurs
and um, from what I could tell,uh, prussia whips france very
quickly and this is considered avindication of their, of their
training exercises, of theirtheir war gaming fascination and

(27:44):
and it's also sort of thebeginning of like prussia and
later germany's sort of likeassociation with uh like very
effective military strategy.
Right, they, they wereconsidered sort of like the
leading military at the time,not only because of their armies
and their technologies andthings like that, but because
their officer class wasconsidered so well educated and

(28:07):
well prepared for scenarios andstrategic thinking.

Don (28:13):
And I happen to know about the Franco-Prussian war.

Ron (28:17):
Yeah, it wasn't.
I mean, your father was in it,right, it's too easy.

Don (28:26):
France was better equipped, and yet Prussia won.

Ron (28:30):
Yeah, they were expected.
The world thought Prussia washigh for even, even engaging for
being the aggressors in the warright um, but uh, they very
quickly kind of beat them back.
So why did they win?
Yeah, well, uh, board gaming,because they're risk board game

(28:52):
nerds.

Don (28:52):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, because you know so really, you
and doug have been preparing forworld domination.

Doug (28:59):
That's exactly right.
You never know, you just neverknow.

Ron (29:03):
Obviously, this is a scenario where, like if there
was something you wanted to beprepared for obviously one of
the worst situations you knowactive warfare, combat right
would be something that youwould right.
This is why you train injiu-jitsu right all the time so
that you would right.
This is why you train injujitsu right All the time so
that you can subdue any guy yousee on the street.

Doug (29:22):
All of those spirits actually Anytime I walk the
streets.

Ron (29:28):
So I understand the impulse to want to do this right and to
to to use it.
Obviously you want to trainyour soldiers and your cadets
and your everyone.
Right, people should know howto operate on the field of
battle.
Right?
This is a good idea.
So far, right.
What's the problem?

Don (29:46):
well, the way that you just posed that question.
So if we're going back to um umvon reitz weiss reiswitz, um,
reiswitz, I don't know he madethis game to train generals with
yeah but what you just said iswe want to train our cadets.

(30:07):
Yeah, and I think that'sdifferent because it actually
goes back to what I said aboutmy wedding.
Right is so sure, I want my, Iwant my soldiers to be physical,
to know how to uh attack, toknow how to kill a person, like
all of those skills.
But we can't rehearse thatbecause in the fog of war you

(30:27):
can't predict all of thevariables that they're going to
face.
It's not the way like a generallooking at a map back in HQ can
say, well, if we take the fronthere and we advance on this
side and we flank them here,like that's all strategy, but
when you go out to the field,like it's just about survival in
that moment.

Ron (30:43):
Yeah, and that's exactly what the veteran officer corps
was saying about these games.
Right, it was like these wereguys who had actually been in
wars and it's like there's no,like no old guy who is like can
sit here and you know, like,judge a game and give you an
accurate representation of whatwould actually happen until
you're actually there and youknow what's your ability to
command the respect of men, youknow, is it, was it rainy three

(31:06):
days ago?
Was it rainy two days ago?
You know, like, are the horsesfed?
All these things are likethings that they said at the
time, the time.
Like you're not, like, yeah,you can make this as complicated
, uh, a game as you want, butthere's no level of simulation
that can even really matchreality, right, or uh, even put
you in the same mindset.

(31:27):
You would be in that actualtime.
Um, and there seems to be uhlike for all you know, everyone
thinks, wow, wargaming won,pressure, the war, they're
really smart and good and warlike other nations start
bringing in their own kind ofgames and start trying to train
their generals and officers onthese kinds of things were, uh,
war gaming.

(31:47):
What they called the schlieffenplan, which was their original
plan to again attack france,dominate them and win the war in
six weeks, right?
And uh, they were war gamingthat one for months and months
prior to the outset of world warone, and then obviously that

(32:11):
didn't go according to plan,right?

Doug (32:13):
I was gonna say that one didn't go quite as well.
Yeah, that one turned into whatfour years of stalemate.

Ron (32:19):
So this sort of seemed to be the moment where everyone was
like, okay, maybe these are.
You know, they were lucky thatone time Like games might have
some use.
But they should not be the.
You know, they may be oflimited ability, until World War
II actually, because you knowwho else really loved war games
in World War two?
The United States probably, butno that was bad teaching.

(32:45):
Now it says that was a, thatwas a bad, that was on me.

Doug (32:50):
I'm sorry, doug, that's on me, remember earlier when I
said I'll just boldly go intothis situation.

Ron (32:55):
I've done that so many times on this podcast doing's,
doing that no, japan, apparentlyjapan, really, um, as japan was
industrializing and emulatingeuropean countries.
They heard about war gaming andthey really uh liked the idea.
They had a war gaming college,um, where they would pull all
their admirals and generals andthey actually war-gamed, uh,
pearl.
And the first time theywar-gamed it it didn't work.

(33:20):
They, you know, were trying tosimulate sneaking a Navy across
the Pacific Ocean and attacking,you know, the US Navy in Hawaii
, and they got caught by airpatrols and the weather was bad
and they instead, the entire USNavy assembled and faced them on
the open ocean and destroyedtheir Navy and crippled their

(33:41):
capacity and would have lostthem the war.
And they were just like, wow,this is a terrible idea.
And then they were like, let'srun it one more time.
And they did, and this time itworked really well.
They were like, okay, we needto take a more circumnavigating
route to the islands.
And blah, blah, blah and itworked and this gave them the
confidence to actually pull offthat attack.

(34:01):
Um and it did work in real life,kids, if you don't know that
yet.
Um so, uh, this kind of broughtback the idea that like, hey,
uh, you know, maybe there is a away here to kind of expand the
sort of strategic creativity ofour military personnel and to
come up with things that youknow other people won't know.

(34:24):
Or at least maybe you can givepeople who were originally
uncertain of a plan.
It can give them the confidenceto carry out that plan right.
You can be like well, it soundsdumb to me, but it did work in
the simulation.
So what do I know?

Don (34:38):
Maybe that kind of confidence is but, but it did
work in the simulation.
So what do I know?
Maybe that kind of confidenceis, but it didn't work in the
simulation, so they ran thesimulation.

Ron (34:44):
It worked the second time, that's right.

Don (34:46):
Hey General, look, this plan doesn't work.
Let's not do this one.
No, just roll again.
Maybe this time it'll roll Like.
That doesn't give me moreconfidence that the plan's going
to work.
That gives me confidence thatI'm not playing war.

Doug (35:00):
You know it's interesting, as I'm thinking of spoilers for
Band of Brothers coming up here.
So if you've not seen Band ofBrothers, it is old enough that
I can spoil it.
But skip ahead three minutes, Ibelieve.
What's his name?
Sobel?
It's Ross from Friends.

Ron (35:15):
He's one of the generals in the beginning, is it?

Doug (35:17):
so, yeah, and he's running there, there's a simulation
that's in the beginning and it'sjust navigation of like get
point to point, and I rememberthey were running that and he
just cannot operate a map forthe life of him, and so when he
pulls through this area they cutthrough like wire that isn't
even supposed to be cut through,and and one of the guys comes
up and says congratulations, youjust lost 85% of your men,

(35:43):
you've been captured as a warcasualty.
And it's a huge moment becausethat's when he's kind of a jerk
as a commander.
And that's the moment where theguys kind of say like I don't
have confidence in this guy,cause even running the
simulation, he doesn't seem likehe knows what he's doing, which
is a big turning point for that, and I do kind of like it for
that aspect.
Obviously, it's not a war gamewhere you're sitting in a room

(36:04):
and rolling dice, but it is asimulation, and so I think it's
important to a certain degree,yeah, I mean, what are the?

Ron (36:08):
there are obviously benefits to practice, right.
I guess, like someone you knowin a military college would be
like it's not a game, it'spractice.
We call it a game becauseyou're probably versus another
player or another team andyou're trying to outwit them and
you're trying to make your planwork against theirs, blah, blah
, blah, but it is a form ofpractice, right.

(36:29):
There must be a way to practice.
It's hard to go out andpractice war, right, so there's
got to be a safe way to do that.
What are the pros and cons tothis that we can see?
Obviously, the cons are thevariable thing that we talked
about, right, and you know, noplan survives contact with the

(36:50):
enemy, blah, blah, blah.
Are there benefits that you seehere, don?

Don (36:54):
though yes, there are benefits, but the going back to
any other situation thatrequires practice, right, like a
heart surgeon right like aguy's gonna cut my chest open
and and poke around and and dowhatever needs to be done to my
heart.
I kind of want him to have donethat before yeah, I don't want

(37:16):
to be like hey you're,congratulations You're number
one.

Doug (37:19):
You said kind of I'm going to say full tilt.
Hope he's done it before.

Don (37:24):
But when he gets into, look at my heart.
It's not going to be just likethe textbook, it's not going to
be just like.
There's going to be somethingodd about it.
And I need to be able to trustthat that surgeon's ability to
make decisions on the fly isrooted in experience and
knowledge and but it's probablygoing to be a one-off experience

(37:46):
Like there's never going to.
There's no heart.
That's exactly like mine, right?
I don't know if that's a littlebit egotistical, right, but
there's something something,yeah, and and like we were
talking about in our professionlike sure you can have right.
You have a lesson plan, that'swhat I thought you've got stuff
ready to go, you've got it worksout great in your head, and

(38:06):
then it just falls flat when youdeliver it.

Ron (38:08):
And yeah, because one kid's having an off day or everyone's
kind of sleepy but then youjust adjust you like, say okay,
this is not working.

Don (38:16):
I, based on my experience of having done, you know,
thousands of other lessons, Iknow how to get this back on
track, and it's not about thefact that I rehearsed this
particular day, but it's aboutthe fact that I have experience
with making these kinds ofdecisions quickly in a high
pressure situation, which is itsown side note rehearsal I used

(38:39):
to know a colleague who didscript out like his lesson plans
were literally students to say.

Ron (38:45):
Teacher says so um so yeah anyways, but oh, a joy to be a
cog in his machine.

Doug (38:52):
Right, I can't wait to go into his class and get my script
for the day Line five whenstudents don't say, he says ah,
will you please say this, Causewe can't go forward till you see
this.

Don (39:06):
But coming back to the war issue, like so it's the same
thing, like I think that it youknow the World War, I angst that
grew in the field was that it'sold men sitting back in London
making these plans for us thathave no idea what the conditions
on the ground really are.
And so we have to makedecisions that are good for our

(39:27):
men in our situation.
And you know, yes, we're tryingto achieve the same objective,
but we're probably not going togo about it the way that the
plans say, because we know howthis works here on the ground
and there's no way, like you'resaying, there's no way to
rehearse that it's, it happensin the moment, it's a one-off
yeah, yeah, after World War two,interest in wargaming kind of

(39:48):
dies down.

Ron (39:49):
Everyone, like governments, aren't using it as much, and
that's because of the brand newfield of computers, essentially
right.
Now it becomes about runningcomputer-generated simulations
through the Cold War, right, andthere's still some wargaming.
I found an interesting thing,apparently, during the Cold War,

(40:10):
when they were playing wargames, the way the game is written
obviously, like determines a lotof the result of the war game.
So, like games that were basedin mathematics and probabilities
, they actually saw theparticipants, um like, using
nuclear weapons more frequently,right, because the math stacked

(40:31):
up and was like, well, it makesmore sense to deploy the weapon
, whereas a game that reliedmore on, like, talking and
negotiating and actuallyface-to-face communication with
the other side to negotiate asolution to the problem, saw
much fewer deployment of nuclearweapons, right.
So there's also something here,uh, which is like, what, what

(40:52):
is the game we are using torehearse?
Right, if I'm practicing forbaseball you know that game
isn't changing.
I know I got to work on my pitch, right, but warfare does change
, right, and there are lots ofdifferent aspects of warfare.
What part of warfare are wepracticing?
Are we practicing maneuvering?

(41:12):
Are we practicing in the fieldleadership?
Are we practicing geopolit inthe field leadership?
Are we practicing geopolitical,uh, diplomacy, right, um, uh,
and so it's actually.
It's actually coming back now,though, like the computer
simulations are sort of lessinteresting, apparently, to
militaries right now, becausethey you can kind of get a

(41:34):
simulation, they you can kind ofget a simulation of anything.
You can kind of get any resultsyou want.
Like numbers only have so muchvalue, it's more.
It sounds like people today arethinking it's more about like
how can we, like you said, don,prepare the people who actually
make the decisions right?
How can we prepare the peoplemaking calls, making calling the

(41:56):
shots if a conflict breaks out?
And so a lot of thisinformation comes from a
documentary called the GamesBehind your Government's Next
War, which was made by PeopleMake Games.
They're like a small documentaryoutfit that talk about
essentially like you know whatgoes into the development of
different kinds of games.
But they got invited by thebritish government to talk to

(42:19):
some of their war gamecontractors and so they did, and
they started filming thisdocumentary.
Like, okay, how does war gamingtranslate into, you know, into
modern day government usage?
And they got a very ickyfeeling the further they got
into this because they realized,like, why is the?
Why is the military you knowtypically very secretive
military interested in us making, filming them doing war games?

(42:42):
And they realized, because itwas like advertising, because
they, they want to, uh, it's a,it's a big gaming boom out there
, wouldn't you say right now,doug, like last 10 years.
Board games, video games, allsorts of games have kind of just
blown up.
They're more popular than everwith adults and children,
probably more without all todayand children, yeah, dogs play

(43:03):
board games now.
Yeah, and cats are still out,but, and part of the yeah, cats
not interested, couldn't careless.
But a lot of that fascinationhas, like, transferred into
government as younger peoplewith those kinds of interests
now take on government roles andthey like oh, I play Dungeons
and Dragons.
I can see how, with a fewtweaks, this could be useful, or

(43:25):
at least I could sell this tothe government and they'll give
me money for developing somesort of war game to, you know,
create a scenario.
So, just to be really clear,like a war game for a government
isn't necessarily like a boardgame, it's not like risk, it's
not even like one or two people,right, it can be like 25 people
on a team, all in a room, givena situation.
Sometimes they have gamemasters, right.

(43:46):
Sometimes they take, you know,several hours, sometimes it can
take weekend, right, you know,depends on what the kind of game
is and how it's designed.
And so I guess the thing thatthe documentarians found
interesting and that I also findinteresting is, like you know,
since kind of World War II, wargaming has sort of become a form

(44:09):
of entertainment right.
Like people play, people playRisk, people play Axis and
Allies, people play Warhammer40,000, right, all of these are
different kinds of games thatstill try to simulate warfare,
even if it's goofy andcartoonish and sci-fi like in
Warhammer or something, but theyowe a lot to essentially the

(44:32):
core that Reiswitz kind ofcreated back in the 1810s.
Um, so what does it mean when,like, gameplay that's supposed
to be kind of fun and now isbeing taken seriously as
something that could actuallyresult in saving or losing real

(44:52):
human lives?

Don (44:54):
oh, it means the pendulum has swung in a direction that I
don't like, but it hopefullywill swing back.
So the war gaming prior toWorld War II was focused on
strategy and focused onmaneuvering men into positions
that would ultimately win yourside of a conventional war.

(45:15):
After World War II, thecomputer simulations you're
talking about, the what I thinkthe the Rand corporation, who
started running thosesimulations what they found was
that there's no way to win anuclear war Right, and so
surviving the nuclear age of thelate 20th century wasn't about
making the the plan so you couldsimulate a successful nuclear

(45:39):
war.
What the computers determinedwas there was no such thing, so
the only safety was to not play,which is actually what the yeah
, the shall we play, okay, moviewar games?
uh, pointed out right the thesuccessful, successful strategy
of winning a nuclear war to notplay a nuclear war.
And so Kobayashi Maru also Ithink mutually assured

(46:01):
destruction was the safeststrategy.
So what you're talking aboutand the swing now to war games
in government use right isbecause look at how many more
conventional conflicts we havenow than we had in the.
You know.
Not that the world has neverbeen, you know, completely
peaceful, of course, but, um, inthe height of the cold war we

(46:24):
had less conventional conflictbecause that was where the focus
on preparation was.
But now it seems like we've allmostly agreed although you know
there's been some some chatterrecently from the Ukraine war
that there's possibility of theuse of nuclear weapons, but the
world kind of felt safe from the90s to the 2010s that everyone

(46:47):
agreed nuclear war, nuclearwarheads were bad, so we just
won't use them.
We had to have them so thatnobody else use them.
But then the focus then returnsto conventional war and I think
that's that's why it troublesme.
That that's the swing that'shappening is because it's it, it
is because it's useful nowbecause we're returning to a
time of conventional conflict.

Ron (47:09):
And, like we said earlier, I'm interested in like what that
does to the psychology of thepeople making these kinds of
decisions right, Whether or notwe engage in a conflict or start
or conduct some sort ofprovocative action that may blow
up into a larger conflict.
Right Because, like we weresaying with the Pearl Harbor

(47:32):
game, right If you have a lot ofpeople playing a lot of games
and they start to build up thissense of confidence in
themselves like oh yeah, I thinkwe could actually do this, or
we've explored all thesituations.
I do think it lends to a moresort of a bellicose nature in
people generally right, I don'treally want them to be armed

(47:54):
with that confidence, I think.
I think they would then comeback and say well, like you know
, like the heart surgeon, wellyou know, if these are
preventative right you know, ifthe worst scenario were to occur
, then you would obviously wantyour government to be prepared
to handle that with.

Don (48:10):
You know some sort of efficacy, right, but I also an
army that handles it with aremembrance that these are
humans, right, right and whenyou're talking about like when
you're playing risk, like yeah,I'm going to, I'm going to
attack you in Russia and no, I'mnot going to be able to hold
that line, but it doesn't matter, cause it's, I'm going to get

(48:31):
you know 50 more guys in thenext round.
And if that's the way youapproach real war, that's
terrible and it seems to be howsome conflicts right now in the
world are approaching it thatvery same way.

Ron (48:48):
And there are other issues with just war game design in
general that were brought up bythe people make games
documentary like you know, oneis just that, like, the
militaries are incredibly, uh,secretive, right, they will
commission someone to design agame for them, and then they
will play it in a closed room,and then they will throw it in a
filing cabinet and they won'teven release reports about what

(49:10):
happened in that game, so thatthe game designer doesn't even
know whether the game workedwell or not and they don't know
how to, like, iterate on it tomake it a more accurate
simulation or to make thedecision making more useful to
the goals of the military.
Right, even you know the factthat the military, a branch of
the military, is sponsoringthese.
Right, they will like,commission the thing they want,

(49:30):
right?
And you can kind of tweak a few.
You know again, like we weresaying in the Cold War, right,
how you design the gamedetermines oftentimes the result
from it, right, is this a gamewhere people can engage in?
You know certain actions orbehaviors.
Well then, that will dictate.
Probably you know, whether ornot they do right.
Those parameters are important.

(49:51):
So the modern day efficacy oruse of these is up in the air,
questionable, it's strange.

Don (50:00):
I've, can I, I'm sorry.
No, no, no, so I don't playWarhammer.

Ron (50:04):
Yeah.

Doug (50:04):
I've we'll get you there.

Don (50:06):
I've seen you.
I haven't seen you play.
I'm trying to get.

Ron (50:09):
I haven't seen you play.
You walked in on us that onetime in the classroom.

Don (50:14):
But so from a non-warhammer , from a, from a noob, um, it
looked like risk yeah, is it.
Is it similar?

Doug (50:23):
like it's.
No, there's definitely.

Ron (50:27):
I think we can make cosmetically it looks like risk
because there are plastic pieceson a on a board um we're
chucking dice to determine.
Yeah, there's still the randomelement, like I would say like a
lot of oh man, okay.

Don (50:40):
So I just heard there's like another like I don't want
to get too hard into the weeds,it just like it looked to me
like like you weregeographically placing armies on
a map and where thoseplacements were combined with
some random thing which was adie right.
And there's a laser too, forsome reason determining line of
sight.

(51:01):
Yes, um gave you an outcomeright, yeah, yeah.

Doug (51:04):
So.

Don (51:04):
so in that way there's a defender and I'm sure it's much
more complicated and nuanced,but I also happen to know that,
uh, the both of you went to aWarhammer game that was in VR
yes, yes, right, yes, um which Iimagine played a little bit

(51:25):
differently.

Ron (51:26):
very much, so my question is which one of those two better
prepared you for war?
Definitely the tabletop game.
Yeah, because the the vr gameis like an arcade shooter it's
about having fun.

Don (51:35):
It's a spectacle but isn't that war?
You were shooting the spiderpeople, yeah maybe it uh, but I
don't think like a soldier.

Ron (51:42):
It didn't actually like the t-rex soldiers I?
I think I'm not.
I'm not gonna say that I am abetter at strategy or anything,
because I've played war games.
I think I'm good at thosespecific games, if I'm even good
at them which I'm usually not,but uh like, I think you can be

(52:04):
good at the game.
It doesn't really translate intoa lot of general, you know
ability and by the game you meanthe board game or the video I
guess both right, but I think,like that, any game will train
you to do that thing well rightif.
I'm even playing like.
Just because I can play hockeyreally well, it doesn't mean I'm
like a really fit runner orsomething Right Like.

(52:25):
Or it translates into itdoesn't mean I can manage my
marriage.
In fact, probably I can't ifI'm playing hockey.
I think all indications areeveryone's in for a rough time
in that partnership, so um uhthis is kind of my personal take
on it.
I do sometimes wonder, like, whydo I play war games?
And the reason I sighed earlierwas because, like, even in the

(52:48):
war game culture there's liketwo other subsects, there's like
Warhammer would be consideredlike a shooting arcade game.
To someone who's really intolike historical war gaming,
which oftentimes don't have diceand kind of like in the rice
bits, uh, uh, um, frame of mindwill have a game master right,

(53:08):
um uh, to kind of determine whatactually happens.
Um, the time I felt theweirdest was when I was buying
into a world war two war game.
I've always, ever, played likesci-fi and fantasy games and
then I was like, oh, I'd like toplay world war two, and so I
like sci-fi and fantasy games.
And then I was like I'd like toplay world war ii and so I like
bought a plastic soviet unionarmy and I was building it and
getting it ready and I was kindof excited, the game seemed fun.

(53:30):
But then at some point I sort oflost steam because I was kind
of like this is weird, like thatstarted feeling weird because I
was essentially like gettingentertainment out of like actual
combat scenarios that hadoccurred that were in no way fun
for any of the participants.
And, um, this was something Ikind of started researching is
like uh, is this, making lightof real human catastrophe, what

(53:53):
can be gamed, what can't?
Um, these kinds of debates haveoccurred in the community for a
long time also, but I don'tknow if that's uh, just like I
don't even know why we want toplay war games at all or even
violent sports at all.
Right, I like we kind of talkedabout this a while ago, I think
.
Which is what does that impulsemean?

Don (54:12):
and one thing that has been striking me, as we've been
listening to you talk rightthere is that a lot of warfare
now actually emulates the game.
Yes, I was thinking about thistoo, so like.
So we've got drones now rightthat are piloted by a pilot
who's in a box in arizona ornevada, but the drone is in the

(54:33):
middle east and and he's lookingthrough a camera and it's just
like, you know, call of duty orwhatever.
And the thing about call of dutyor whatever, and the thing
about the call of duty that Iliked when I played it right, is
it like there's no consequences, like you can go through the
story a couple of times and ifyou fail, you get to try again,
get to rehearse, um, but youknow, like you're dropping bombs

(54:53):
on the village and you see thelittle soldiers run away and
it's a little bit like, oh, it'sfunny, let me you know I'm
going to get them, um, but uh,but again in when, when that
translates to the real lifedrone, then, like, those people
running away are people right?
But to the pilot in, um, youknow, thousands of miles away,
it's, it's just a pixels on ascreen, it's, it's different and

(55:16):
there's even been um.
There's YouTube videos, um,because of the drones that are
being used in the Ukraineconflict, and Ukraine has been
posting videos of theirsuccessful drone attacks and I
started watching a few of thoseand I can't watch them anymore
because of that very thing.
Like, politically, yes, Isupport, you know, ukraine and I

(55:37):
want them to win, and so itseemed like you know a political
statement to log into their,their video and watch.

Ron (55:43):
But, like, those are people yes, yeah, yeah, it is a weird.
Uh, always, I think we want tobe careful not to become too
distant from the reality ofthese situations.
Right and I think um games havethe ability to do that right to
widen that distance, to make ita little bit easier to

(56:04):
disregard what's actuallyoccurring there.
But they can also be fun.
They can be pretty cool.
You can feel good aboutyourself, right, doug?
Yeah, doug.

Doug (56:15):
Now, you've got to take the pro award.
Well, one thing I was going toalso bring up.
I just remembered it, but it'sit's worth talking about.
Do you remember in the early2000s I don't know if this hit
either of you um, they weregiving out a free game called
america's army yeah, yeah, yeahyeah do you remember what ended
up happening with that?

(56:35):
no army was using statistics tosee gameplay and who was playing
.
It was a first person shooter,team-based, squad-based real
life scenarios.
And, yeah, army was usingstatistics to see gameplay and
who was playing.
It was a first person shooter,team-based, squad-based real
life scenarios and, yeah, armywas using information of who was
really good at the game aspossible right, they would send
you a pop-up right like now tryit for real, right?

Ron (56:50):
yes, yes, 100 it was insanity.

Doug (56:55):
But yeah, I remember getting my copy of that like
cd-rom is like free, like passedout to me did you?

Don (57:00):
did you get the pop-up?

Doug (57:01):
the join now pop-up yes, I did um yeah, and I uninstalled
it after that, but um, yeah, Ithink in different levels.
That's there, um, the things Iwas going to take in is, I think
, specifically with warhammer 40000, one thing that really
pulls away.
Um, looking at the lore of thegame is one year, 40, 000 years

(57:22):
in the future.
When you look at anything aboutthe lore, it's kind of the big
joke of the game that everysingle faction is bad guys, like
that's kind of the thingbecause they're so war obsessed
and like there's always a reasonthat you can be at war because
war is the only thing thatexists, that there's a certain
amount of tongue in cheek oflike how absurdist it is.
That, I think, makes me feelmore comfortable with that

(57:43):
setting Um, because it's insane.
It's just absolute insanity.
Um, but the thing that I wasactually going to bring it back
to was you brought up at thebeginning of the podcast, uh, me
training jujitsu and and howthe idea is is that, like what
you train, combat at all times,just in case it comes up.
But what's interesting is ismaybe that was an initial goal

(58:05):
for me in the first six months,but somewhere after that I
actually find that I continue totrain because the people in the
room, like the people that arekind of you know, uh, that
you're simulating combat with umare people that I generally
have a sense of camaraderie andtrust with because, like you're
basically offering your limbsand consciousness you know, if

(58:27):
somebody puts a joke, hold onyou and it always ends with
tapping um that there's all ofthese benefits of community that
I didn't expect to be there,that continue to push me to
train in that way.
And so it's funny because it'slike you're not simulating
warfare but you're simulatingone-on-one combat and I find
that because it is so, it isincredibly fun to do and kind of

(58:50):
push yourself and to get betterat, but I find that actually
it's in the barrier of beingable to train it.
I don't think there's a singleperson in that room.
I, I hope I had hope.
Um, I think that all of us kindof realized that, like, none of
us want to engage in combat atany point in time, like, the
more that you simulate it, themore you go, and I hope we never

(59:10):
have to do this because yourealize the reality is so much
more dire.
Um, it's a really interestingloop and so, in a similar way, I
think that's where the gameplaycomes in, cause it is almost
like a game of like do I get youfirst or do you get me before?
Somebody taps out that there'ssomething there to the inherent
game nature that, I don't know,is very human, I suppose, but it

(59:32):
does get very scary when itgets extrapolated to where
people aren't thinking of thelives of the people that are
actually doing it.

Ron (59:38):
Yeah, maybe a game can be multiple things at once.
Right, maybe a blend ofeducation, a blend of
preparation, a blend of good,old-fashioned rile-me-up
entertainment?

Doug (59:50):
Yeah, all being spoken for At least.

Ron (59:54):
Any closing thoughts folks?

Don (59:57):
It's weird to me that a guy can be arguing on Saturday
whether or not space marines getplus one in close combat and
then, on Monday morning, is inthe Pentagon advising the actual
army on how to attack China.
Absolutely, they almostcertainly are.

Ron (01:00:16):
I will say from personal experience I've been in Discord
servers with war gamers who dowork in the Department of
Defense, so that is definitely areality and it is also the
reality that we've got to go.
Thank you everyone for beinghere and joining us here on
Uncannery Live.
We will catch you next time inan Amplify near you.

(01:00:37):
Adios everyone.

Doug (01:00:39):
Bye-bye, thanks everyone, bye-bye, thanks, ron, thank you.
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