Professor Laccetti quotes Tranquility49 CEO Patrick A. Berzinski on the historic nature of peer-to-peer social media.

1. A silver lining in virtual clouds of war?
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
BY SILVIO LACCETTI
The Record
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"It is conceivable that peer-to-peer communication will become the most powerful means in
history to forging a common human identity – defying all forms of statist indoctrination."
PATRICK A. BERZINSKI, COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST
Scene from 'Medal of Honor.'
WAR CLOUDS hover low and dark over every American town, and spread their pall across
mountains, oceans and deserts around the planet.
Such is the ubiquity of the wars fought by the boys (mostly) of virtual reality, commanding
Playstations and Xboxes. When 14-year-olds wage cyberwars, what can we all learn from their
experiences?
Fourteen. Perhaps the most explosive age for boys, whose developmental growth in erratic
spasms and hormonal detonations mimic the kinds of chaotic, even irrational forces that blend
together in combat soldiers. According to the greatest modern theoretician of warfare, Carl von
Clausewitz (1780-1831), tremendous deep-seated psychic explosions must be engendered in
soldiers to transform ordinary men into killers. What is happening to immature 14-year-old
warriors as they reel and rampage through their cyberwar games?

2. To find out, I recently observed a group of Leonia 14-year-olds and their friends at war, some
being members of my extended family. Who are these boys of virtual reality? They compose a
cyberclan of 14 members, hoping to expand their online membership. They have clichéd screen
names, like DaFunman, DaTechman, DaBadman or DaNiceguy.
These sobriquets obscure the amazing cultural diversity of this group of web-warriors. In their
clan, I found black and white, Asian and Hispanic, Arab and Jew, Christian and Muslim — a
global unit of multiethnic and multi-cultural players. The clan mirrored the inclusiveness, and
perhaps the tolerance, found in their Leonia middle school. Significantly, though, there are no
girls in this clan!
With parental permission, they play martial games like "Call of Duty," "Bullet Storm," "Dead
Space" and "Medal of Honor." They can play singly, teamed versus each other or in a free-for-
all. And, via broadband connections, they play with individuals and teams from all around the
world.
I observed team warfare, three teams of two versus the game, each team networked in separate
but adjoining rooms. Stationed in the hallway, I could hear all the chaos of battle, the sounds of
the psychic explosions given voice in shouts, moans and curses, climaxing as players were
eliminated from the game. I could easily visualize Clausewitz's concept of the fog of war, and
the attendant friction causing plans to go awry – especially when players confronted their game
for the first time.
These simulations of combat are very graphic. A veterans group, Strong America, has issued an
alert to vets that post-traumatic stress may be triggered by playing these games. Indeed, a
number of the 14-year-olds reported heightened fear and anxiety during and after their mock
combat experiences.
There is great relevance in all of this to today's troubled scene. Many theorists of 21st century
warfare now see war not as a battle between opposing armies, but as an asymmetrical conflict of
a weak force against a powerful adversary, as with insurgencies, guerrilla warfare or terrorism.
Others see future wars as struggles between civilizations, like Western liberalism vs. Islamic
fundamentalism. Clearly, the war games of virtual reality can provide early training for future
combatants, prefiguring the psychic explosions within future soldiers.
However, despite their training for warfare, Da Boyz of Virtual Reality offer real hope for an end
to war in the later 21st century. The multicultural, multiracial-religious-ethnic teams united in
their clans may find there is no line in the sand between "us vs. them," a distinction hugely
critical to modern war of whatever caliber. In asymmetric or civilizational conflict, the all-
inclusive group would be partially – or fully – engaging people just like themselves. Hence, it
may be much more difficult to set off the psychic explosions necessary in veritable reality to get
the killing under way.
Warfare springs from difference. We have seen in Tunisia and in Egypt that the military won't
fire on "the people" when there is no sense of "us versus them." Back in 1989 in China, the
people were defeated by troops from outlying regions of the country, troops who would fire.

3. Next time, and it will be soon, China will not be able to reach out far enough to find forces
willing to undo popular uprisings.
The Leonia clan's global expansion means that it might soon meet itself in various places around
the world. Patrick A. Berzinski, a New York communications specialist, sees a hopeful scenario
in recent events.
"In an age when social media embolden masses of citizens to rise up against the gun-barrels of
entrenched, brutal regimes," he said, "it is conceivable that peer-to-peer communication will
become the most powerful means in history to forging a common human identity – defying all
forms of statist indoctrination."
In the clouds of virtual war may shine a silver lining, whose light may in fact nourish unity,
community and a common human identity in nations everywhere.
Silvio Laccetti is a columnist and a longtime professor of social sciences at Stevens Institute of
Technology in Hoboken.