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"If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost, just as many volun

• theossuary 8y ago
  What a great book, just finished listening to it. Afterwards I heard a lot of people thought it had a pro military/war bent; I don't think they read the book
  • joejerryronnie 8y ago
    Fantastic book. And I'm pretty sure it's a staunch anti-war critique.
    • luckydata 8y ago
      No it's not, but the movie was. Just check the wiki page, he wrote it himself (under Major Themes, Militarism): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers
      • joejerryronnie 8y ago
        Interesting, I'll have to re-read as it's been several years. My original takeaway was that the surface level pro-military engagement aspect was meant as deep irony and that the user was encouraged to draw their own conclusions. Mine was that war is horrific, even if done for the right reasons.
        • Udik 8y ago
          "Yeah, war is horrible, but we have to do it." That's militarism.
          • joejerryronnie 8y ago
            I feel like that is overly simplistic. The world is not black and white.
            • Udik 8y ago
              True, of course it's a simplification. What I meant to say is that the militaristic argument will always be that you'd rather avoid war, but you're forced into it. This doesn't mean that it's never true- but rather that you should be highly suspicious of the claim.
              • joejerryronnie 8y ago
                Yes, this is definitely true. The sincere form of this argument is very easily co-opted by the military industrial complex.
          • LyndsySimon 8y ago
            That reminds me of another quote: "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee, commenting on the Battle of Fredericksburg
  • luckydata 8y ago
    I've read it multiple times (first when I was 16) and I still think it has a fundamental pro-military bent. Heinlein himself said so, I don't see any reason to doubt him.
  • Boxxed 8y ago
    A lot of people consider Starship Troopers to be pro-military (the US military itself has it on the recommended reading list for the enlisted). Heinlen's background and the situation surrounding the writing of the book also suggests it would be pro-military. I'm curious as to what would make you think otherwise? Sources: https://sites.google.com/a/newmyths.com/nmwebsite/non_fiction/starship-troopers-influence-on-the-american-military https://sites.google.com/a/newmyths.com/nmwebsite/non_fictio... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers
    • rixrax 8y ago
      I always thought that the concept that you had to earn your right to vote was an interesting one. In the book, in order to vote, you first had to complete [onerous] military service. “Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.” - Startship troopers [1] [1] https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2534973-starship-troopers https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2534973-starship-troop...
  • merpnderp 8y ago
    I don't think it was pro-war at all. But it could certainly be said it was pro upholding a strong military tradition in the concept of a voting population as a form of civil service to earn full citizenship. And since the only people who would be voting would be the ones who were or had done the dying, it's likely a very strong anti-war book, as one would presume only absolutely necessary wars would ever be fought.
    • watwut 8y ago
      Military people are on average more pro war then average population. Military leadership gains power with wars and looses it with peace. Pacifists happen to join armies less.
      • merpnderp 8y ago
        We're talking about a hypothetical electorate made up of mostly enlisted soldiers who were on the shit end of the stick when it comes to war.
        • watwut 8y ago
          And I am talking about actual attitudes of various real world demographics. Right now. But also, Nazi leadership was on the shit end of the stick when it comes to WWI. That did not prevented them to start WWII. Instead, the experience normalized the violence for them and shaped their believes. On the other side, Stalin was fighter in particularly cruel war too in his formative years. Was not peaceful either. Lastly and less importantly, people who had done dying don't vote, they are dead. Only people who survived previous war vote. And survivors often internalized values that are help to survive the war. They sometimes have hard time to adjust to peaceful life afterwards. Your presumption that "only absolutely necessary wars would ever be fought" has no basis in reality. Also, your theory assumes that enlisted soldiers actions are motivated primary by self-preservation and will vote on that. Some are, but many are not. Others are motivated by duty, career progression, pride, social status, honor, professionalism, tradition, salary, wish to prove themselves or simply by liking to be in the army structure. In case of your hypothetical army, many men will join for career in politics and social status reasons. People motivated primary by self preservation wont join your hypothetical army.
  • ocfx 8y ago
    > finished listening to it > I don't think they read the book Neither did you...
  • cmurf 8y ago
    Ok well quite a few hundred reviewers have read the book and consider it virulently militaristic, and some go further considering it jingoistic, and fascist. I don't know enough about Heinlein, but I kinda rather doubt he was advocating fascism. But it would not surprise me if he thought civilian control of the military was backwards, because I've had this conversation with members of the military. And some of them have overtly expressed people who have not picked up a weapon and used it to defend the country (I guess by shooting and killing, but perhaps merely by taking the risk to their own life) should not have a right to vote. And that is directly expressed in Starship Troopers as a matter of public policy. If you don't serve, you aren't a citizen, you cannot vote, and you cannot be a member of the government. This may not have been what Heinlein intended to convey. But I tend not to find an author's advocacy relevant when reading fiction. I see the author as giving me rope to hang myself if I choose, rather than considering that they advocate anything at all. As I read it, militarism so permeated that society that the only possible contrarian point of view would come from the reader. And I thought that was the whole point of the book. It doesn't matter whether that's Heinlein's intent. If it's true Heinlein just didn't convey the vast majority of Federal Service was non-military, and yet all we have to go on is the exclusively militaristic bent as written, that deficiency might make the book all the better just to have the ensuing ideological battles and discussions that resulted. And this book generated quite a lot of them at the time, and I see it as overwhelmingly beneficial. A likely metaphor to the non-citizens of Starship Troopers are those who of their own volition do not enter into military service, do not vote, do not participate in government - exist in large numbers in the U.S. Most Americans now do not vote, they're simply along for the ride, and in effect aren't citizens in any meaningful way (other than perhaps they can't be deported - but in Starship Troopers it was a world government so there's no concept of deportation anyway).
    • LyndsySimon 8y ago
      My takeaway from the book was that it wasn't so much about militarism as it was a critique of universal suffrage.
• abandonliberty 8y ago
  Yet who shows up for the 3.1 million children who die of malnutrition every year? Every 3 minutes we lose more children then were in the cave. We can comprehend 13 people and the struggle against nature, while the scope of world hunger is far too complex and emotionally incomprehensible to mobilize enough people.
  • nxc18 8y ago
    I keep coming back to this. How many lives could have been saved it improved with the expense we put into saving 12 people who went caving in monsoon season? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad society found a way to save them, I just wish we took the every day threats to human life more seriously.
    • addicted 8y ago
      I’d bet 0. The money “saved” from not helping these kids would probably have saved exactly 0 other people. Because for better or worse, that’s not how most money is redistributed.
    • conjectures 8y ago
      When you think 'the money', you're probably counting sunk costs. What do Thai Navy divers do? If there's no war on, they're probably training. What better training than a live rescue mission? I.e. the wages for those highly skilled Thai teams have probably been paid down already. Similarly international forces benefit from co-operation because it's something they would want to do anyway: good will, training in co-operation, skills training. As for volunteers their time is hardly a cost in the same way. But if you're a cave diving medic, the expected utility of using your time to save people in a cave is probably better than working and donating to a charity.
    • coryfklein 8y ago
      I think you're viewing this wrong. This wasn't a one-time $2M spend on saving 12 people, this was cashing in on an insurance policy where citizens of Thailand pay premiums in forms of taxes. Failing to save these kids is the case you want to think about - that would be sending the message to the public that if your kid gets lost in the mountains we're not going to save them. Sure this particular "insurance claim" (in this impromptu parlance) was an expensive one, but most of the others aren't, and the thing about insurance is that it is there particularly when the costs are catastrophic.
• tomxor 8y ago
  Well, in this case one of the Thai divers died from running out of oxygen... but 12 - 1 is still a win if you want to reduce it to arithmetic.
  • triviatise 8y ago
    Except with the money spent they could have saved 50000 kids from dying from easily preventable diarrheal diseases with inexpensive vaccines.
    • hospes 8y ago
      We still can spend money and save 50000 kids, it is not an A OR B problem. There is plenty of money and resources out there to save all kids dying from easily preventable diarrheal diseases. There is no political will to do that.
    • coryfklein 8y ago
      It's not just the 12 kids. With the money spent Thailand is paying for a belief in the minds of its people: that the government would do the same for their kid. I'd argue that this kind of belief is extremely valuable for a country's economics as a whole. In order for the populace to be economically productive (and save 50000 kids from dying of diarrheal diseas) you need to create a safe, reliable, and predictable environment. Governments insuring against events like kids getting lost in caves is the way that they get that.
      • shardinator 8y ago
        Yep, same reason Private Ryan was saved (in the movie).
    • balls187 8y ago
      That's a false equivalency. Those two choices aren't mutually exclusive.
      • dredmorbius 8y ago
• AtlasBarfed 8y ago
  They were categorically losing that war, in the book and in the movie.
• steeef 8y ago
  "If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do." (The Martian by Andy Weir)
  • smichel17 8y ago
    "The Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every individual human life... But they've learned this lesson just in time for it to be hopelessly wrong—for we humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our own lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entrenched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane." (Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card)
• watwut 8y ago
  Reality check is that armies do the math and do leave people behind. Rescuers do risk bith lives and life time injuries, but won't go into action that is likely to kill more of them then the amount of saved people. That book is fiction, fun to read but still made up.