10 ms·

The antics and over-the-top bravado, reaching levels of self parody, is an acquired taste - the family connection must have provided a measure of inoculation.

by woodman 11y ago

The antics and over-the-top bravado, reaching levels of self parody, is an acquired taste - the family connection must have provided a measure of inoculation. There is a reason why they always put the infantry barracks in the furthest corner of the base, next to the grenade range - because even Marines get tired of the self promotion. I spent several months instructing in a joint service training program at Quantico, and honestly the Army personnel bugged the hell out of me because it was so hard to get a rise out of them :) The Army's leadership in program management and standards development was always impressive, the transition to COTS procurement in the 90s is a real bummer when you look at all the interesting stuff the military was doing: Ada, IDEF1X, etc. As far as conscription, I think that would be close to the worst thing ever. From a utilitarian perspective: it would be incredibly expensive and would reduce force readiness. From a moral perspective: it is pretty hard to logically justify the threats of violence organic to such an endeavor - threats against the intended benefactors, civilians. I might have agreed with you 10 years ago, if the infantry remained all volunteer under such a program, but the utilitarian arguments no longer appeal to me. I wish I could put my finger on exactly what bit of information flipped the switch in my brain and made me an anarchist, but it was a pretty long process. It probably occurred around the time that I was spending a lot of time studying first order logic and cybernetics (As you can see, I'm a big fan of technology once popular in the 70's). Applying lessons from those fields, related to scaling working systems, to social systems - leads to the idea that a social system founded on an immoral precept will never be able to compete against a system founded otherwise. The test is pretty easy, if a rule has an exception then the problem to which the rule applies was not well defined and this leads to serious scaling issues. I could go on for hours, but I don't think anybody really wants that. Regrets. I don't have any, aside from not taking math more seriously as a kid. I am rational and self interested, the product of my experiences - so if I had it all to do over again, I would. But, if there was a button I could press that would magically bring a few former Fallujah residents back to life - I would press it. BTW, the Starship Troopers reference is interesting because the author, Heinlein, has a Naval Academy grad who used the book as a platform to describe his preferred philosophy of governance. Ayn Rand did the exact same thing with Atlas Shrugged. Both are good reads, but I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that I lean more towards Rand's objectivism.

fapjacks 11y ago
Well, I can't say I'm surprised to hear what you've said in your last sentence. It seems most people in the military and veterans adopt this mindset. I really don't like labels, and I've always been kinda strange, and likewise have some very "strange" ideas about how the world should work. But suffice it to say that I am ultimately an anarchist, but also very much a socialist. I would like to see big government and big capitalism die in a fire, but a skeleton remain that provides social welfare for those that aren't capable of providing for themselves. I have married into becoming a Swede, and don't mind the high tax rate because of the social benefits it funds. What I've found in talking with people from all parts of the spectrum is that generally, most people share the sentiment that corporate capitalism and huge government is bad, and that individuals should be empowered to change their own fate. Once you get rid of the us-versus-them of people defaulting to defending their favorite color, you get a lot of "Yeah, veterans missing legs and orphans and the poor should be offered a leg up, and capitalism is a pretty good tool for a lot of things" from both sides. You get a lot of this kind of discourse in Sweden, for example, where there is instead fierce and fallacious arguing in the States. In my teens, I used to abhor the idea of conscription. But traveling the world as an adult (outside of the military kind of "travel"), I saw systems with conscription and that conscription having a direct positive impact on the public's participation in government, which seems to most maximally bring to fruition the will of the people, whatever their collective wishes are. A distant cousin of "an informed decision is the best decision, regardless of what is chosen". Places like Israel and Finland. Interestingly, Sweden abolished conscription in the early 2000s, and I believe there is a resultant apathy in the youngest generation that is pretty plain and obvious and generally acknowledged even among that generation. It is very interesting to have watched that happen, and I believe having abolished conscription is directly to blame for that apathy. With respect to your magic button, the way I look at it is that everyone eventually meets their demise. A mantra my best friend instilled in me is that everything happens for a reason. I don't want to get into religion because we're not on mushrooms and that is a whole universe unto itself, but the point I'm trying to make here is that our current mindset and state of being has come at a price. The important thing to say here is that we don't get to set the price. Our experiences cost real, actual lives. I also carried a machine gun my entire time in the Army, at various times I was also a Bradley gunner and a .50 gunner. We pressed buttons that gave us experiences at a cost that we didn't choose. That's just the way the world worked out for us in those moments, and it is what it is. What I'm driving at is that it is difficult or impossible to speculate about what our lives would be like without those costly experiences, because those experiences are necessarily driving our decisions today. It took a lot of time for me personally to come to this point, and what it ends up doing is really brings those costs to bear, so that I get much more out of life than I would otherwise. Once I stopped feeling numb about the whole thing, even going out for a run on the trail next to my house in the suburbs feels like a gift, and that's a pretty profound realization, considering the general attitude of apathy a lot of the population of the developed world feels. They take life for granted. So, that was a tangent, maybe also not directly addressing all of the things you've said. But maybe helps quantify some of the reasons I've said what I've said.

by woodman 11y ago

fapjacks 11y ago

Well, I can't say I'm surprised to hear what you've said in your last sentence. It seems most people in the military and veterans adopt this mindset. I really don't like labels, and I've always been kinda strange, and likewise have some very "strange" ideas about how the world should work. But suffice it to say that I am ultimately an anarchist, but also very much a socialist. I would like to see big government and big capitalism die in a fire, but a skeleton remain that provides social welfare for those that aren't capable of providing for themselves. I have married into becoming a Swede, and don't mind the high tax rate because of the social benefits it funds. What I've found in talking with people from all parts of the spectrum is that generally, most people share the sentiment that corporate capitalism and huge government is bad, and that individuals should be empowered to change their own fate. Once you get rid of the us-versus-them of people defaulting to defending their favorite color, you get a lot of "Yeah, veterans missing legs and orphans and the poor should be offered a leg up, and capitalism is a pretty good tool for a lot of things" from both sides. You get a lot of this kind of discourse in Sweden, for example, where there is instead fierce and fallacious arguing in the States. In my teens, I used to abhor the idea of conscription. But traveling the world as an adult (outside of the military kind of "travel"), I saw systems with conscription and that conscription having a direct positive impact on the public's participation in government, which seems to most maximally bring to fruition the will of the people, whatever their collective wishes are. A distant cousin of "an informed decision is the best decision, regardless of what is chosen". Places like Israel and Finland. Interestingly, Sweden abolished conscription in the early 2000s, and I believe there is a resultant apathy in the youngest generation that is pretty plain and obvious and generally acknowledged even among that generation. It is very interesting to have watched that happen, and I believe having abolished conscription is directly to blame for that apathy. With respect to your magic button, the way I look at it is that everyone eventually meets their demise. A mantra my best friend instilled in me is that everything happens for a reason. I don't want to get into religion because we're not on mushrooms and that is a whole universe unto itself, but the point I'm trying to make here is that our current mindset and state of being has come at a price. The important thing to say here is that we don't get to set the price. Our experiences cost real, actual lives. I also carried a machine gun my entire time in the Army, at various times I was also a Bradley gunner and a .50 gunner. We pressed buttons that gave us experiences at a cost that we didn't choose. That's just the way the world worked out for us in those moments, and it is what it is. What I'm driving at is that it is difficult or impossible to speculate about what our lives would be like without those costly experiences, because those experiences are necessarily driving our decisions today. It took a lot of time for me personally to come to this point, and what it ends up doing is really brings those costs to bear, so that I get much more out of life than I would otherwise. Once I stopped feeling numb about the whole thing, even going out for a run on the trail next to my house in the suburbs feels like a gift, and that's a pretty profound realization, considering the general attitude of apathy a lot of the population of the developed world feels. They take life for granted. So, that was a tangent, maybe also not directly addressing all of the things you've said. But maybe helps quantify some of the reasons I've said what I've said.