4 ms·

I know the logic, it's just, I don't think it makes that much sense any more. Fighting wars has become an increasingly technical occupation in the last couple o

I know the logic, it's just, I don't think it makes that much sense any more. Fighting wars has become an increasingly technical occupation in the last couple of centuries. Therefore, a technically capable soldier who is cowardly, individualistic, and occasionally insubordinate would be, in some roles (say intelligence) superior to one who was none of those things, but didn't have the technical skills or aptitude. Realistically, a ship is a big machine, so it would make more sense to prize people that fit the typical 'conscientious engineer' profile, warts and all, even if those people are going to be pretty awful at traditional soldiering. These kind of roles have absolutely proliferated over the years, and it makes zero sense to prize physical fitness and ability to follow orders in a lot of them. Imagine if you were a hiring manager for a gigantic industrial complex with cutting edge technology, producing a delicate and high-stakes product, in a environment that often demands extreme creativity and imposes severe timetables. Except all your hirees have to be able to do twenty pushups and be OK with being shouted at by some guy in a big hat. That's the literal situation of human resources on an aircraft carrier, and it's insane.

notadev 5y ago
I think what you wrote makes perfect sense and I could get behind not caring so much about some standards for some positions. What would you propose for the support jobs like “Culinary Specialists” or “Logistics Specialists”?
- pasabagi 5y ago
  My thinking is that a peacetime military is basically a skeleton that needs to be able to be rapidly fleshed out when it becomes necessary. That's not exactly a novel thought, but I think there's a lot of room to explore when you stop thinking about fighting wars, and start thinking about how to build the machine that builds an army (preferably within weeks) if a war breaks out. European countries can be quite good at this: the whole logic of Finland's conscription system is to have it so that if a war breaks out, you can mobilize the whole nation within a short time, and everybody knows where they fit in. In previous big wars, nations have typically just slashed their standards when the war broke out to meet manpower quotas. It would be better, generally speaking, to build an institution that can, in an emergency, use everyone. That would mean, in peacetime, working out if there are profitable places to put people to use, so when you get a deluge of asthmatic flat-footed civilians signing up because a big war has broken out, you don't waste time trying to make them into infantry. Obviously, my view is informed by being a peacenik. If you want an army to do offensive, expeditionary operations on a budget, there's much less to change. Having a big and capable HR department would be important if you were going to get all the dysfunctional people in a country to fight in an actual war, but it would be better, in a small professional force, to just not induct anybody who doesn't meet a bunch of stringent standards.
  - tekknik 4y ago
    At this point you are just trying to force fit your ideals to the real world. Please stop, you clearly don’t understand. the original post i made is clear, make your army hard. or lose your country. maybe you’re russian…
CobaltFire 5y ago
This entire paragraph reinforces what's mentioned elsewhere: that modern people are completely divorced from what the military is actually required to do and how it does it. Why does every person on an aircraft carrier need to be physically fit, follow orders, and be able to put others or the mission ahead of themselves? Because under fire, in a casualty (fire, flooding, etc.) those technically apt, out of shape people die and get other's killed. I need to know you can put on the SCBA, carry smoke curtains and hang them, etc. No, we don't have dedicated fire fighters or casualty handlers; in a SHTF situation everyone needs to pitch in. There isn't room for dead weight. To go further, I haven't found that those "conscientious engineer" profile people are even worth the time. The people who we get into the jobs are often far more competent than you would give them credit for, while still being fit and capable of taking orders. We get plenty of that profile in my jobs (I used to be one if I'm being honest) and though they excel at the technical aspects of the job they are so bad at everything else that's required that they often end up getting hurt or getting others hurt even in daily activities. Performing demanding technical tasks (like running software updates on a linux distro, only the bash script is corrupted so you've got to understand WTF is happening, pull the required info from the aircraft's systems, slip it into the patch so it will be authorized, then push it manually) in 40lbs of safety equipment on a flight deck with moving ordnance and launching/recovering aircraft is something we need a well rounded person for, not a prima donna. Basically you are making an outsiders mistake of thinking you understand what's required to make that ship function. If you are interested in learning what's really required there are any number of people in this topic that would likely be happy to tell you. I'm one.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  My feeling is that a lot of people work in dangerous workplaces, where mistakes can and do kill people. The miltary is one of those workplaces: if you look at the stats[0] you can see that ordinary workplace injuries absolutely dwarf combat-related injuries. Even in wartime[1], the number of deaths from enemy action rarely exceed those from accident. What makes this worse is that the military is a pretty dangerous workplace. Even in peacetime, the US military typically loses more people to accidents than any other profession (I suspect a lot of this is down to people being 'on the job' even when they're not, but even accounting for that, the stats are bad). If you compare the military to other institutions that do similar things the military doesn't look good. If you have an underperforming car plant that keeps on maiming employees, and the last two car models were both hideously expensive flops, then you don't go around telling people that they 'don't understand' the special requirements of your institution. You reform. I think a lot of the people in the US military are on that page already (judging from the stuff I've read about the upcoming overhaul of the marines), but in general, I think militaries would be better off if they were way more open to civilian criticism. [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/96-103/pdfs/96-103.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/96-103/pdfs/96-103.pdf [1]: https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/report_number_serve.xhtml https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/report_number_serve.xht...

notadev 5y ago

I think what you wrote makes perfect sense and I could get behind not caring so much about some standards for some positions. What would you propose for the support jobs like “Culinary Specialists” or “Logistics Specialists”?

pasabagi 5y ago
My thinking is that a peacetime military is basically a skeleton that needs to be able to be rapidly fleshed out when it becomes necessary. That's not exactly a novel thought, but I think there's a lot of room to explore when you stop thinking about fighting wars, and start thinking about how to build the machine that builds an army (preferably within weeks) if a war breaks out. European countries can be quite good at this: the whole logic of Finland's conscription system is to have it so that if a war breaks out, you can mobilize the whole nation within a short time, and everybody knows where they fit in. In previous big wars, nations have typically just slashed their standards when the war broke out to meet manpower quotas. It would be better, generally speaking, to build an institution that can, in an emergency, use everyone. That would mean, in peacetime, working out if there are profitable places to put people to use, so when you get a deluge of asthmatic flat-footed civilians signing up because a big war has broken out, you don't waste time trying to make them into infantry. Obviously, my view is informed by being a peacenik. If you want an army to do offensive, expeditionary operations on a budget, there's much less to change. Having a big and capable HR department would be important if you were going to get all the dysfunctional people in a country to fight in an actual war, but it would be better, in a small professional force, to just not induct anybody who doesn't meet a bunch of stringent standards.
- tekknik 4y ago
  At this point you are just trying to force fit your ideals to the real world. Please stop, you clearly don’t understand. the original post i made is clear, make your army hard. or lose your country. maybe you’re russian…

CobaltFire 5y ago

This entire paragraph reinforces what's mentioned elsewhere: that modern people are completely divorced from what the military is actually required to do and how it does it. Why does every person on an aircraft carrier need to be physically fit, follow orders, and be able to put others or the mission ahead of themselves? Because under fire, in a casualty (fire, flooding, etc.) those technically apt, out of shape people die and get other's killed. I need to know you can put on the SCBA, carry smoke curtains and hang them, etc. No, we don't have dedicated fire fighters or casualty handlers; in a SHTF situation everyone needs to pitch in. There isn't room for dead weight. To go further, I haven't found that those "conscientious engineer" profile people are even worth the time. The people who we get into the jobs are often far more competent than you would give them credit for, while still being fit and capable of taking orders. We get plenty of that profile in my jobs (I used to be one if I'm being honest) and though they excel at the technical aspects of the job they are so bad at everything else that's required that they often end up getting hurt or getting others hurt even in daily activities. Performing demanding technical tasks (like running software updates on a linux distro, only the bash script is corrupted so you've got to understand WTF is happening, pull the required info from the aircraft's systems, slip it into the patch so it will be authorized, then push it manually) in 40lbs of safety equipment on a flight deck with moving ordnance and launching/recovering aircraft is something we need a well rounded person for, not a prima donna. Basically you are making an outsiders mistake of thinking you understand what's required to make that ship function. If you are interested in learning what's really required there are any number of people in this topic that would likely be happy to tell you. I'm one.

pasabagi 5y ago
My feeling is that a lot of people work in dangerous workplaces, where mistakes can and do kill people. The miltary is one of those workplaces: if you look at the stats[0] you can see that ordinary workplace injuries absolutely dwarf combat-related injuries. Even in wartime[1], the number of deaths from enemy action rarely exceed those from accident. What makes this worse is that the military is a pretty dangerous workplace. Even in peacetime, the US military typically loses more people to accidents than any other profession (I suspect a lot of this is down to people being 'on the job' even when they're not, but even accounting for that, the stats are bad). If you compare the military to other institutions that do similar things the military doesn't look good. If you have an underperforming car plant that keeps on maiming employees, and the last two car models were both hideously expensive flops, then you don't go around telling people that they 'don't understand' the special requirements of your institution. You reform. I think a lot of the people in the US military are on that page already (judging from the stuff I've read about the upcoming overhaul of the marines), but in general, I think militaries would be better off if they were way more open to civilian criticism. [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/96-103/pdfs/96-103.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/96-103/pdfs/96-103.pdf [1]: https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/report_number_serve.xhtml https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/report_number_serve.xht...