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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal>There was some kind of video game contest where a guy started shooting up the place, killed a coupla fellers.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A video of the incident showed what a witness said: when the shooting started, plenty of the contestants never looked away from their screen. In the news video, the shots can be heard in the background, people shrieking, but whoever had the camera never seemed to notice.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It caused me to ponder: until historically recent times, humans seldom (if ever) called upon their brains to do the kind of intense focus required for something like Mario Carts or Duke Nukem (see there, I show my age.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We had in historical times battle, but that only happens in short episodes spaced far apart for typical soldiers. Now we are raising a generation who can multitask effectively under fire, can laser focus on a video screen so completely that when actual shots are fired in the room, they can tune it out. As far as I can tell, this phenom has only presented to this magnitude in the past 20 to 30 yrs.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>