5 ms·

there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; Why do you/others think this is? I'm not a US citizen, so that count

by dotBen 15y ago

there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; Why do you/others think this is? I'm not a US citizen, so that counts me out. But even so I wouldn't become a reservest because I feel I have a lot of unique and valuable skills (engineering, thought leadership in platforms, and media technology) that wouldn't be capitalizable by the military - certainly not as a reservist. I wouldn't feel I was utilizing my skills if I was a regular solider or even reservest officer. It's similar to volunteering for charity: rather than volunteer to work a day in a soup kitchen I would be able to bring far more value to a charity by just work for a day doing my normal job and then donating that day's pay to them. (yes you personally learn some good life skills volunteering but I'm talking about which is better for the charity) EDIT: perhaps folks who have downvoted me would like to leave a comment to help me understand where the skill capitalization for a tech founder/software engineer is in the reservists, seeing as they clearly feel I'm wrong.

VladRussian 15y ago
> rather than volunteer to work a day in a soup kitchen I would be able to bring far more value to a charity by just work for a day doing my normal job and then donating that day's pay to them. so, have you done either of it?
- dotBen 15y ago
  Yup, both.
rdl 15y ago
I agree with some of your sentiment, but I think you don't have accurate information on all of the military. The big deal with the reserves/NG (in the Army, at least) is that there is a huge difference among units; the majority of army PSYOPs capability is actually in the reserve component, and is as good as anything in active duty; there are both active duty and reserve units in other specialties which are pretty widely regarded as incapable/ineffective. It kind of becomes an evaporative cooling thing -- good people who end up in bad units find ways to leave, and are attracted to great units. Basically the same as companies in the civilian world. In some cases, the services (and government as a whole, and big companies) don't take advantage of pre-existing skills or aptitudes. In other cases, they do -- there are incentive/recruiting/fast-track systems for certain types of professionals. They've gotten better about this since becoming an all-volunteer force vs. draft. The big problem is that there is a "military way" to do a lot of things, largely focused on big-vendor enterprise in the IT space, and you have to work within that. Getting affiliated with a lab, DARPA, etc. is probably the way to use more interesting tech. One problem I have personally is that they're very credential-focused; as a high school and college dropout, I'd be kind of screwed. Otherwise I'd be really interested in reserve/NG in certain specialties (psyops, civil affairs, infrastructure parts of embedded advisor teams, rotary/uav aviation, sigint, SAR, medical, diving). It would also be really difficult for a startup founder vs. an employee at a larger tech company. For the donation/volunteer argument, rather than just donating money, my plan is to do NGO work on the side, and hopefully eventually be able to set up a specialty communications-in-conflict/disaster zones infrastructure NGO. A lot of charities ARE saddled by large numbers of unskilled volunteers (or at least without specific relevant skills), and structure their operations to be labor vs. skill intensive.
- dotBen 15y ago
  Your argument, if I read it right, is basically that I'm wrong and that the military is good at capitalizing on people's skills - and you give psyops as one example and also talk about people's credentials. Sure, I don't disagree with you that in general, you can specialize in the reservists. The point I'm making is that specifically for tech/software engineers/startup folks -- which was the genesis for the OP comment -- there isn't a great deal of skill overlap and capitalization. I'm not sure anything you've said disagrees with that.
  - thrill 15y ago
    FWIW, I'm retired from the USAF. I also hold an ECE degree. In the military I did nothing that required my degree (though I got to fly fighters for a career, so it was awesome anyway). The military has a different mission than the "real world", and using your background and expertise and self-discipline and stamina and perspectives and judgement and ethical view are called upon at any given time, and occasionally, all at once - and sometimes there is failure - and you continue. The great value of such service is in learning to do the mission, to live with the frustrations of political vacillation that can decide what was worth great risk one day now might cost votes, to work with others that humble you with their own talent once you mature enough to recognize it, to absolutely be there when someone depends on it, and to develop and develop with those around you such that you know they will also be there when you need it. I did get to do a multi-year job once that drew heavily on my engineering education, and it was great too - but following Heinlein's thoughts on over-specialization, sometimes breadth is worth more than depth - sometimes much more. Vince malum.
  - lucasjung 15y ago
    The military has been making a huge push in recent years to grow capabilities for "cyber warfare." The Air Force has pushed especially hard to establish themselves in this area, because they see some of their existing core capabilities being marginalized, and they need to keep finding ways to keep themselves relevant. Although the Air Force is pushing hardest in this direction, the other services are also trying to expand their cyber capabilities, and the Navy even recently established a designator for officers to basically be hackers: http://www.informationwarriors.net/showthread.php?t=623 http://www.informationwarriors.net/showthread.php?t=623
ewoodrich 15y ago
My grandfather was a reservist and a chemical engineer -- so I think you're overestimating your own qualifications to think the military would not be able to utilize them adequately. And as an example of a possible use for your "media technology skills": http://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/browse-career-and-job-categories/arts-and-media/multimedia-illustrator.html http://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/browse-career-and-job...
jphackworth 15y ago
Maybe it's because so much of Silicon Valley is left-wing, and the military is more of a right-wing institution.

by dotBen 15y ago

VladRussian 15y ago

> rather than volunteer to work a day in a soup kitchen I would be able to bring far more value to a charity by just work for a day doing my normal job and then donating that day's pay to them. so, have you done either of it?

dotBen 15y ago
Yup, both.

rdl 15y ago

I agree with some of your sentiment, but I think you don't have accurate information on all of the military. The big deal with the reserves/NG (in the Army, at least) is that there is a huge difference among units; the majority of army PSYOPs capability is actually in the reserve component, and is as good as anything in active duty; there are both active duty and reserve units in other specialties which are pretty widely regarded as incapable/ineffective. It kind of becomes an evaporative cooling thing -- good people who end up in bad units find ways to leave, and are attracted to great units. Basically the same as companies in the civilian world. In some cases, the services (and government as a whole, and big companies) don't take advantage of pre-existing skills or aptitudes. In other cases, they do -- there are incentive/recruiting/fast-track systems for certain types of professionals. They've gotten better about this since becoming an all-volunteer force vs. draft. The big problem is that there is a "military way" to do a lot of things, largely focused on big-vendor enterprise in the IT space, and you have to work within that. Getting affiliated with a lab, DARPA, etc. is probably the way to use more interesting tech. One problem I have personally is that they're very credential-focused; as a high school and college dropout, I'd be kind of screwed. Otherwise I'd be really interested in reserve/NG in certain specialties (psyops, civil affairs, infrastructure parts of embedded advisor teams, rotary/uav aviation, sigint, SAR, medical, diving). It would also be really difficult for a startup founder vs. an employee at a larger tech company. For the donation/volunteer argument, rather than just donating money, my plan is to do NGO work on the side, and hopefully eventually be able to set up a specialty communications-in-conflict/disaster zones infrastructure NGO. A lot of charities ARE saddled by large numbers of unskilled volunteers (or at least without specific relevant skills), and structure their operations to be labor vs. skill intensive.

dotBen 15y ago
Your argument, if I read it right, is basically that I'm wrong and that the military is good at capitalizing on people's skills - and you give psyops as one example and also talk about people's credentials. Sure, I don't disagree with you that in general, you can specialize in the reservists. The point I'm making is that specifically for tech/software engineers/startup folks -- which was the genesis for the OP comment -- there isn't a great deal of skill overlap and capitalization. I'm not sure anything you've said disagrees with that.
- thrill 15y ago
  FWIW, I'm retired from the USAF. I also hold an ECE degree. In the military I did nothing that required my degree (though I got to fly fighters for a career, so it was awesome anyway). The military has a different mission than the "real world", and using your background and expertise and self-discipline and stamina and perspectives and judgement and ethical view are called upon at any given time, and occasionally, all at once - and sometimes there is failure - and you continue. The great value of such service is in learning to do the mission, to live with the frustrations of political vacillation that can decide what was worth great risk one day now might cost votes, to work with others that humble you with their own talent once you mature enough to recognize it, to absolutely be there when someone depends on it, and to develop and develop with those around you such that you know they will also be there when you need it. I did get to do a multi-year job once that drew heavily on my engineering education, and it was great too - but following Heinlein's thoughts on over-specialization, sometimes breadth is worth more than depth - sometimes much more. Vince malum.
- lucasjung 15y ago
  The military has been making a huge push in recent years to grow capabilities for "cyber warfare." The Air Force has pushed especially hard to establish themselves in this area, because they see some of their existing core capabilities being marginalized, and they need to keep finding ways to keep themselves relevant. Although the Air Force is pushing hardest in this direction, the other services are also trying to expand their cyber capabilities, and the Navy even recently established a designator for officers to basically be hackers: http://www.informationwarriors.net/showthread.php?t=623 http://www.informationwarriors.net/showthread.php?t=623

ewoodrich 15y ago

My grandfather was a reservist and a chemical engineer -- so I think you're overestimating your own qualifications to think the military would not be able to utilize them adequately. And as an example of a possible use for your "media technology skills": http://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/browse-career-and-job-categories/arts-and-media/multimedia-illustrator.html http://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/browse-career-and-job...

jphackworth 15y ago

Maybe it's because so much of Silicon Valley is left-wing, and the military is more of a right-wing institution.