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From todays perspective it's really hard for me to understand how different society must have valued their own young men to sacrifice 20.000 within 90 minutes w

From todays perspective it's really hard for me to understand how different society must have valued their own young men to sacrifice 20.000 within 90 minutes without knowing for sure or at least having a high probability of succeeding. (Keep in mind that populations were generally everywhere much smaller than today) Today even the strongest militaries in the world are terrified of the possibility that they could loose a few thousand men within a few years of war. Maybe it's because we in the West have become so productive that we value every member of society much more. If it is so then it'll mean that eventually as every society gets richer over time it'll see these mass killings and sacrifices as pure insanity and refrain from it. I believe we would have less of a mess in the Middle East if there was economic stability and the young men there would have the means (and attitude which is often missing) to reach their goals without resorting to violence. After all it must be obvious even to the crazy people running ISIS that the state they are trying to build cannot be sustainable on the long run only through looting and killing their neighbours, even if they were to win every single battle. Eventually they would run out of neighbours that they can loot and what then? Edit: I criticise the attitude of men from the Middle East because since we have now many refugees and immigrants here I had the chance to meet many of them. I've not met a single one that didn't come across as a free loader to me so this leads me to believe that this is nothing unusual in their culture. So it's no wonder to me that they are generally poor over there while countries like Germany are rich.

tremon 10y ago
Maybe it's because we in the West have become so productive that we value every member of society much more I think it's less a matter of productiveness, and more a matter of connectedness: it's easier to send thousands to their death if they're not your peers. The increased mobility of our society (both social and physical) has blurred and removed many of the old divides (class, vocation, religion) and we're still working on removing others. Also, the increased transparency of wars and accountability of institutions plays an important role.
- DominikR 10y ago
  As far as I know the number of friends or connections a person has has been relatively stable in the last few centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number It is not absolutely uncontested but I haven't seen any evidence that the number of connections people have nowadays has increased. > The increased mobility of our society (both social and physical) has blurred and removed many of the old divides (class, vocation, religion) and we're still working on removing others. I see more of an atomisation of society into ever smaller groups of minorities that fight each other and more class divide than ever. One other symptom of this is the radicalisation that we see particularly with young people. 20 years ago it would have been unfathomable to me to even imagine that teenagers born in the West would decide to join some crazy group that cuts of heads and throws gays off tall buildings.
slededit 10y ago
The beginnings of the war didn't see tens of thousands killed in such short periods of time, nor did the war planners anticipate such at the outset. World War I was more about a chaotic system getting away from its designers and turning into something of its own beast. The trench system was put in place slowly over time, each increment the designers thinking it would only be a temporary set back. The start of the war was much more mobile with land being taken quickly. Initially the Germans had planned to defeat France within 6 weeks. When this failed Germany was having a tough time on the Russian front and the Triple Entente saw an opportunity to reclaim lost land. Yet by this time modern weapons gave the advantage to the defenders and the war was in stalemate.

tremon 10y ago

Maybe it's because we in the West have become so productive that we value every member of society much more I think it's less a matter of productiveness, and more a matter of connectedness: it's easier to send thousands to their death if they're not your peers. The increased mobility of our society (both social and physical) has blurred and removed many of the old divides (class, vocation, religion) and we're still working on removing others. Also, the increased transparency of wars and accountability of institutions plays an important role.

DominikR 10y ago
As far as I know the number of friends or connections a person has has been relatively stable in the last few centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number It is not absolutely uncontested but I haven't seen any evidence that the number of connections people have nowadays has increased. > The increased mobility of our society (both social and physical) has blurred and removed many of the old divides (class, vocation, religion) and we're still working on removing others. I see more of an atomisation of society into ever smaller groups of minorities that fight each other and more class divide than ever. One other symptom of this is the radicalisation that we see particularly with young people. 20 years ago it would have been unfathomable to me to even imagine that teenagers born in the West would decide to join some crazy group that cuts of heads and throws gays off tall buildings.

slededit 10y ago

The beginnings of the war didn't see tens of thousands killed in such short periods of time, nor did the war planners anticipate such at the outset. World War I was more about a chaotic system getting away from its designers and turning into something of its own beast. The trench system was put in place slowly over time, each increment the designers thinking it would only be a temporary set back. The start of the war was much more mobile with land being taken quickly. Initially the Germans had planned to defeat France within 6 weeks. When this failed Germany was having a tough time on the Russian front and the Triple Entente saw an opportunity to reclaim lost land. Yet by this time modern weapons gave the advantage to the defenders and the war was in stalemate.