Yeah, it's my view that people don't truly understand how fragile life is unless they've seen how easily it is shattered.

People would get in less street fights and do less dumb shit if they knew what the world was like. The cartels are not your friend, falling and hitting your head can kill you, wearing a seatbelt is mandatory, there are no winners in armed conflict, factory farming is not ethical, etc.

People that say these things, but they don't truly understand them until they see it.

I couldn’t possibly agree more.

It’s very easy to fetishise war when you have not seen the grim barbarity of true conflict.

It’s not like the movies, and we should not think of it as a desired or easily entered venture.

Street/Knife fights are another, I’ve seen them first hand and its impressive how mundane things or subtle movements are actually just lethal. There’s a saying that “The winner of a knife fight is the one who dies at the hospital” but even glib phrases like this are not enough to prepare you.

Kids would be less keen to join gangs if they saw the brutality before thinking they might get cool points.

As with many things, the concern is that it's bimodal. Some people learn empathy through this kind of exposure, and some people learn the opposite.