They lied to us about communism, but everything they said about capitalism turned out to be true. A sad anecdote from the "good old 90s" comes more and more often to the memory of those who, by virtue of their age, saw the Crocodile magazine caricatures and naive films about the decaying West, filmed in the streets of Vilnius or Riga.
"Call a doctor! Someone call a doctor!"
Now, however, no one is laughing anymore. The unbelievable fairy tale became a reality for everyone. And the idea that we have the same diseases with the civilized West from now on, can hardly console someone who was healthy yesterday, according to most indicators.
"The family of an Amelia High School senior and softball standout (in the state of Ohio), say they still don’t know how or why 17-year-old Hannah Green was shot late Saturday".
"The Amelia Sheriff's Office received a report of a female with a gunshot wound to her stomach. The victim was conscious and able to talk to deputies before being transported to the hospital. Green later died".
"Two Hazel Park schools were placed on lockdown after a nearby shooting. The suspect, Brian D. Richardson, 29, who earlier threatened to kill his girlfriend and children, was arrested by the police".
"A high school student in Summerville, South Carolina, was arrested Tuesday night in connection with alleged threats made on social media about carrying out a school shooting".
We aren’t throwing stones, we’re presenting just a few news headlines from the last week alone. This is from the year 2018 alone. That is, it’s from the first three weeks of 2018. And if you’re interested in statistics for the previous ones, it’s also not a secret, and it can’t be blamed on either Russian hackers or the CIA. There have been hundreds of mass shootings which were not prevented. More detailed information is provided courtesy of the information portal gunviolencearchive.org. That’s how many children were already shot this year. And that’s the number of killed teenagers. This, as the saying goes, is the flip side of the coin.
We’ve been able to say the same about ourselves for some time. Arguments like "but you bully black people" can’t be used anymore. Where does it not happen?
There are two approaches to the problem. The first is to stick your head in the sand and recognize the situation, as a whole—normal, natural. Yes, there are incidents and prices to pay. But we can’t prohibit computer games and horror movies, can we? This is the price of globalization, which means that we should just be on guard, strengthen security, build more school fences and train adults.
"We have an active shooter who's arrived at a school. He can't get in and starts shooting at the doors".
This is the newest computer game, a simulator developed by the EDGE laboratory, jointly by the US Department of Defense and the Ministry of Homeland Security. The goal is to prepare the teacher in a virtual reality environment in case of an attack by another crazed teenager.
Tamara Griffith, Army Research Laboratory, Orlando: "The more experience you have, the more likely you are to survive. It helps you train, you’ll know what works and what doesn’t".
It should be noted that this experience seems progressive to many in our country as well. Since our whole life has been a game for some time, it’s impossible to succeed in it without the appropriate educational competencies.
For example, recently, the Commission for Physical Culture and Promotion of a Healthy Lifestyle under the Public Chamber, together with the Federation of Computer Sports, discussed whether it’s time to make first-person shooters and fighting games an Olympic sport.
Yelena Ishtyagina-Yeliseyeva, Public Chamber member: "Why did such a lively discussion arise? Because first-person shooters and fighting games are on the proposed inclusion list. According to popular opinion, these are the most bloody and the most aggressive kinds of computer games. Specialists and experts, world champions, officials from the Ministry of Sports, and experts from the Defense Ministry spoke about whether or not to include it and whether it has some contraindications. As a result of the roundtable discussion, a resolution was adopted recommending that the Ministry of Sports draw attention to two new disciplines—first-person shooters and fighting games".
According to Yelena Ishtyagina-Yeliseyeva, "Russia is the first country in the world to recognize e-sports, and in total, we have about 2 million cyber-athletes." It's clear that if the decision is made, no IOC and WADA will prevent the guys from defending their Olympic dignity.
Critics and skeptics, on the contrary, are convinced that the idea is dubious and that we should put restrictions on the producers of violent games, on gamers, and on the entire Internet.
There’s a third way, which hasn’t been popular in our country for about twenty-five years. According to it, first of all, we must fight not the consequences, but the causes. The causes that cause social ulcers and pathologies. The causes that make young people shooters and fighters, not "friends, comrades, and brothers".
Similarly, it’s always easier to bomb terrorists rather than to eradicate the unemployment, poverty, and inequality that give rise to terrorism, because in this case, the fact of the existence of all three things is recognized. And this task is too impudent even for virtual reality today.
"The 28-year-old British Parliament deputy, who was promoted to Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party, suggested that unemployed people should opt for free vasectomies rather than continuing to have children they couldn’t afford to support. In a blog post, Ben Bradley claimed that the country will soon be "drowning in a vast sea of unemployed wasters" if workless families continue to have four or five children while others limit themselves to one or two. The politician, representing young politicians on Theresa May’s behalf, apologized for the inappropriate post and said that he has reconsidered his point of view".
If Ben Bradley knew how many like-minded people he had among those who, by a misunderstanding, are sometimes called the cream of Russian society, he probably wouldn’t have changed anything but had simply bought a ticket to Moscow.
This was Agitation and Propaganda. I'll see you soon, peace to your home.
