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The effect is more pronounced for someone who has never been in the military, but has had occasion to observe military personnel going about their daily tasks,

The effect is more pronounced for someone who has never been in the military, but has had occasion to observe military personnel going about their daily tasks, for the purpose of partially automating their jobs with custom-built software. I'm not certain that "absurd" is a strong enough word for it. I was frequently reminded of Tevye the milkman singing "TRADITION!" at the top of his lungs. The only thing worse than participating in absurd and obsolete traditions as an insider is to be forced as an outsider to completely ruin an otherwise rational workflow in order to accommodate them. If you have ever taken calipers to a software-generated printout, in order to compare it to a paper form that was last revised in 1980, and printed in bulk ever since, you deserve to wear starched underwear.

gumby 8y ago
The purpose of tradition and drill is to encourage people to take action without thinking (this is why the officer/enlisted distinction still exists). In addition, idle hands are the devil's tool, and when you have a bunch of young men doing nothing you need to keep them busy. True absurdity in the military is an orthogonal axis and runs from, indeed, vestigial rules such as you imply, all the way up to ordering enormous weapons systems the military doesn't even want simply for political reasons.
- jandrese 8y ago
  Kind of a shame we can't think of better busywork for the troops. Sending them out to patch up roads and bridges or cleaning up streams or something. It's such a shame to spend so much time and effort on obsolete and silly uniform regulations.
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    I'd probably end up turning the Army into a grindy JRPG-style augmented-reality game, and the enlisted would eventually end up referring to civilians as the NPCs. But we'd also have viable gunblades and dozens of rare uniform crafting recipes, and our military would be well prepared to repel zombie pandemics, space-alien invasions, and goblin sieges, as well as to defeat S-class daikaiju. ...So there is something to be said for letting experienced professional soldiers run the military. They might know what they're doing behind the facade of repetitive busywork, like Mr. Miyagi teaching Daniel-san karate. Or they might not. It's hard to tell from where I sit. A lot of the budget is not freely auditable by the public, and I have certainly seen firsthand a very small portion of it totally wasted on absolute nonsense.
  - gumby 8y ago
    We do, but in other countries.

gumby 8y ago

The purpose of tradition and drill is to encourage people to take action without thinking (this is why the officer/enlisted distinction still exists). In addition, idle hands are the devil's tool, and when you have a bunch of young men doing nothing you need to keep them busy. True absurdity in the military is an orthogonal axis and runs from, indeed, vestigial rules such as you imply, all the way up to ordering enormous weapons systems the military doesn't even want simply for political reasons.

jandrese 8y ago
Kind of a shame we can't think of better busywork for the troops. Sending them out to patch up roads and bridges or cleaning up streams or something. It's such a shame to spend so much time and effort on obsolete and silly uniform regulations.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  I'd probably end up turning the Army into a grindy JRPG-style augmented-reality game, and the enlisted would eventually end up referring to civilians as the NPCs. But we'd also have viable gunblades and dozens of rare uniform crafting recipes, and our military would be well prepared to repel zombie pandemics, space-alien invasions, and goblin sieges, as well as to defeat S-class daikaiju. ...So there is something to be said for letting experienced professional soldiers run the military. They might know what they're doing behind the facade of repetitive busywork, like Mr. Miyagi teaching Daniel-san karate. Or they might not. It's hard to tell from where I sit. A lot of the budget is not freely auditable by the public, and I have certainly seen firsthand a very small portion of it totally wasted on absolute nonsense.
- gumby 8y ago
  We do, but in other countries.