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I am very tempted to flag this. the sociopath thing really rubs me the wrong way -- there are logical flaws with using that label. War is a part of society. If

I am very tempted to flag this. the sociopath thing really rubs me the wrong way -- there are logical flaws with using that label. War is a part of society. If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. Having said that, it's a great first-person account of what real combat is like, at least for this one guy. I am concerned the effect on HN discussion will be negative. Hopefully I'm wrong. The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. With a draft and mandatory conscription, everybody had the common experience of serving and perhaps doing really bad things in the line of duty. As it is now, the vast majority of civilians have absolutely no idea what military service is like, as the author points out. In this lack of context everybody becomes really impressionable. Not only can the military manipulate public opinion through selective release of information, other soldiers like this one can also. When the majority of people don't have context, they'll believe anything. This is why you couldn't get away with writing a really negative article about WWII right after the war. It wasn't that somehow the war wasn't terribly horrible, it was that the average Joe reading it would immediately say something like "yeah, but that's not the way it was for most people" or "you think that's bad? I remember when..." We don't have that kind of audience now. Once again, as the author points out, most of the readers only know cartoon violence and have never even hunted an animal. So people are left substituting other experiences and trying to draw rough analogies. The one thing I know for sure is that different people in different units can have vastly different impressions of a conflict. In my mind, this article would have been better with less "I'm the sane one and the other soldiers are crazy" and more "Here's another view" I would also note that it has become fashionable for authors to say they have all sorts of combat experience when they don't. I'm sure this author isn't one of those people, but I've learned over time to be suspicious of people who wear the grisly warrior mantle as a way to get around my critical thinking skills. This area is just really difficult to discuss, especially when it's about an ongoing operation.

dfc 15y ago
Why are you "sure this author isn't one of those people"?
- phaus 15y ago
  If he came out and made a bunch of ridiculous claims about actual events, I would find it appropriate to assume that he was a liar. In this article, his ridiculous claim was simply his personal opinion about the psychological state of the average soldier, so I find it pretty likely that he was actually a soldier, even though his opinion is clearly wrong.
stcredzero 15y ago
War is a part of society. If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. I usually like most of your contributions, but reasoning like this bugs me. "Society" in your reasoning is being treated something like a mathematical set. Society isn't so cleanly defined. Even for that, one could still have psychopathic tendencies, be told to by society to go and kill, but go and kill for completely disparate, possibly psychopathic reasons.
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago
  I must be missing what ticked you off here. We set up a system where society approves of the use of lethal force. (In fact, many believe the true defining characteristic of a government is the monopoly in the use of force) People are instructed by this system to go kill people. As long as that's all the information we have, there's nothing to indicate that these people care nothing about societal norms. In fact, they might actually be less sociopathic than those who do not serve. The only thing we'rd offered is descriptions of the cavalier attitude they have towards death, but, yet again, this is not an indicator of being a sociopath. Perhaps a callous and heartless person. Perhaps a crazy person. Perhaps as you point out they may actually be sociopaths. But nothing in this article tells us one way or another. Instead we're presented with these experiences as being the "true" nature of the entire conflict, and then the brutal and crass attitudes observed as being indicative of some sort of psychiatric disorder. That's just a little too much wringing of the hands and over-reaching for my comfort. There is a premise here: going off and sneaking through the high grass to kill somebody in a brutal and bloody fashion without remorse is indicative of a psychiatric disorder. I'd like to explore that idea. But this article doesn't go there. Instead it's trying to be a "yeah, well this is how it really is, kid." and all I'm saying is to take such stories -- no matter what their slant -- with a gain of salt. If it makes you feel any better, if the author had written the same tough-guy-been-there story with the soldiers all acting like boy scouts I would feel the same way. The only difference is that there would be plenty of folks willing to take that apart for me, so no comment would be needed.
  - gizmo 15y ago
    You're being too literal about the word psychopath. The original article claims, in essence, that war creates an environment where ordinary people can kill without it affecting them much personally. That is, from a behavioral point of view, what psychopaths do in regular society. The article definitely isn't claiming that the 5% of so of humanity that is genetically incapable of feeling (much) empathy (i.e. sociopaths) make up 80% of the military corpus. The math obviously doesn't work out. The article claims that war changes people. Some end up with PTSD, other people cope in another other way that makes them look like psychopaths.
mladenkovacevic 15y ago
"If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath." I have no problem with the notion that our society is sociopathic or at least on a fast pace towards it.
gizmo 15y ago
> War is part of society War is part of society? To barbaric ones maybe. Civilized societies don't settle disputes by mass murder. > If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. Are you kidding me? Society can't tell a person to go kill somebody. A person tells another person to kill somebody. It is this absurd respect for authority that makes these wars possible, combined with a lack of personal accountability. Didn't we learn the lesson of the second World War? > The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s [...] As it is now, the vast majority of civilians have absolutely no idea what military service is like, as the author points out. That was the entire point of ending conscription! Vietnam became a huge PR nightmare because average kids from middle class families had to fight in it. That's why it got constant media attention. That's why people protested in the streets. The people don't mind war as long as it doesn't affect them personally, and poor people have no say anyway. So now poor kids with few options are recruited into the military. Problem solved.
- cellis 15y ago
  Politicians are the body and voice of society. I hate to expose an ugly truth to you, but it is not a single person deciding to go to war. It takes many people to nod in agreement before bombs start being dropped and troops start marching.
  - cglace 15y ago
    That is the way it is supposed to work but how many people would say politicians are doing what their constituents really want.
- spindritf 15y ago
  > War is part of society? To barbaric ones maybe. Civilized societies don't settle disputes by mass murder. It's quite the opposite -- only civilized societies can have the kind of logistics, range, military culture, ability to support the warrior class (or standing armies), and numbers to engage in organized warfare. Conflicts between small bands of foragers can hardly be even called war. Not to mention mass murder which absolutely requires the kind of discipline, organization and leadership only a very cohesive and civilized society can provide. It just doesn't happen outside of civilization, no one has the means, or could benefit from it. Anything of the scale of holocaust is only possible in a highly industrialized country. > So now poor kids with few options are recruited into the military. Problem solved. Actually, poor kids seem to be enlisting at lower rates (relatively) to richer kids: > Enlisted recruits in 2006 and 2007 came primarily from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds. Low-income neighborhoods were underrepresented among enlisted troops, while middle-class and high-income neighborhoods were overrepresented. This and much more on the topic: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-in-the-us-military-the-demographics-of-enlisted-troops-and-officers http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-...
Alex3917 15y ago
"Not only can the military manipulate public opinion through selective release of information, other soldiers like this one can also." It's illegal for a soldier to even tell a reporter how they feel about the war, whereas the military has a propaganda budget of several tens of billions of dollars per year to control what gets shown on TV, in movies, in newspapers, etc. Yes, a retired soldier could theoretically spin something, but in reality they have basically 0 percent control over the way that war is portrayed and sold to society.
tfb 15y ago
There are some logical flaws with the sociopath label, but there is certainly some truth to it, at least from my own experience. I'll provide a single example. One of my childhood bullies - let's call him Tom - is most definitely a sociopath, and he joined the marines, along with his two brothers who are not unlike him. All three of these guys have been violent for as long as I've known them. During middle school and high school (and the couple years after where he happened to live in the same city as my university), he would pick fights with anyone and everyone for the dumbest reasons. I think he did it just to do it. Oddly enough, despite all the bullying and "shittalk" towards me over the years, he never fought me - although we did come close a couple of times but I just laughed at his stupidity and that was that. One of the last "conversations" I had with Tom was shortly before he went off to boot camp (or whatever you want to call it) and I asked him why he was going; he explained that he had nothing else better to do so he might as well go kill some people. He said those exact words, and he was dead serious. If you're wondering why I didn't avoid the guy like the plague, it's because he and I had a lot of the same friends and he would always throw parties as his house to which my friends would invite me. Despite Tom's overly violent behavior, he was always very popular with the ladies, and most people really liked him. This is the same guy who posts pictures of himself on facebook cutting off the heads of goats in his marine gear. My theory is that because of his aggressive behavior (and using it to "dominate" others), people perceived him as an alpha male. Can I get a second opinion on this? Because so many people liking such a violent sociopath has always bothered and confused me. Back on topic though... while Tom and his brothers are an example of some confirmation of the article's statements, as far as marines (or army, navy, etc.) go, for every Tom I've known, I've also known at least a few very easy-going men. So the author is partially right but his argument is flawed. Violent sociopaths without education probably do gravitate towards the military and war, but the statistics have got to be way off - not nearly 80% - but that's just from the small sample set of my experiences.
- ezy 15y ago
  "Because so many people liking such a violent sociopath has always bothered and confused me." I think it's pretty much what you state, but less evo-psych than being an alpha male. Someone who is a sociopath doesn't really care too much about others most of the time, hence they can be extremely confident individuals in certain circumstances. Confidence is a major factor in social success.
mattquinn 15y ago
"If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath." ...what? I'm at a loss for words on this one. Just because society - a large, faceless group prone to rallying around propaganda and emotional bandwagons - embraces a cause, doesn't mean it's acceptable by default to kill in the name of that cause. And it certainly doesn't mean you're not a sociopath.
chrischen 15y ago
> If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. That doesn't make sense. If society asked for volunteers to torture someone, the first to step up would very likely be a sociopath.
- kiiski 15y ago
  I think the point is that while a sociopath might be more likely to volunteer for it, volunteering for it doesn't make one a sociopath.
  - chrischen 15y ago
    It seems as if he was trying to define sociopathy as purely the act of doing what's socially unacceptable, and that if society condones it then it's by definition not sociopathic. However I don't believe that's true since gov != society and even society can be conditioned into sociopaths. I'd say I consider sociopathic as anything that's harmful to society, regardless of how society perceives it.
run4yourlives 15y ago
Great post. I too noticed that the author's "combat experiences" seemed to be more about relating the experiences of his friends than his own personal thoughts and feelings. The best analysis I've seen about the combatant are the works of LCol. Grossman. On Combat and On Killing are outstanding pieces of work that say pretty much the exact opposite of W here.
- bdunbar 15y ago
  On Combat and On Killing are outstanding pieces of work that say pretty much the exact opposite of W here. This might be because W is an intelligent Brit who enlisted as a private solider. Grossman is an intelligent American who accepted a commission. Different experiences, different cultures.
  - run4yourlives 15y ago
    Grossman is a psychology professor, specializing in the psychology of killing and its effects on humans. Add "different skillset" to your comparison while you are at it.
    - bdunbar 15y ago
      Before he was a professor of psychology he was an NCO, a company commander ... I thought 'different skillset' went without saying (smile).
- majelix 15y ago
  The best example of this is his story about his buddy never seeing the dead bodies of a family, and trying to hold this up as some moral issue. It was really more an issue of his brain simply filtering out everything that wasn't a direct threat to his immediate existence. Adrenaline may make you super strong, but it also makes you blind, deaf, and destroys fine motor skills like marksmanship and bladder control.
javert 15y ago
The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. My life is my own to live. It's not your right to dispose of it. The draft is a massive violation of individual rights. If a nation cannot get enough paid volunteers to fight a war, that war is simply not worth fighting. In my view, mandatory conscription is one of those first-class evils that we need to dismiss as a society---like genocide, slavery, and denying women the right to vote. My father was drafted to Vietnam, and although he survived the war, I think it damaged him badly and in turn damaged me. So please consider whether you really want to advocate the draft.
- angersock 15y ago
  While I do agree with you in some regards, there is a very real policy impact involved in having a professional all-volunteer army. When you have to draft chunks of your population in order to conduct warfare, public opinion is very much against you if your cause is not 'just'. "If a nation cannot get enough paid volunteers to fight a war, that war is simply not worth fighting." The flaw here is that there are always going to be people available to fight for a chance at gold. Additionally, and even more troubling for the United States, we are increasingly reliant on machines to do this work for us--there is increasingly no meaningful connection between the citizenry and the hawkish body politic. If we do not have drafts, nor the possibility of drafts, then we find ourselves in a position where either: 1. We do not fight, for war is not worth fighting. 2. We continue to fight, and find ways of reducing the human requirement even further than it is already. (2) is much more likely, given the history of man and the way our tech is evolving. At best, this implies that one day we'll have robots blowing up other robots, all made by autonomous factories--this is merely a farcical misallocation of resources. At anything less than best, this implies that we'll have robots blowing up lots of civilians or other troops. It doesn't matter whether the lives lost are ours or not, it matters only that things are worse off. I'd suggest that the United States solely use draftees, and that we pursue national policies that don't require us to deploy widely to hostile areas.
  - javert 15y ago
    It is good design to solve problems directly, rather than to solve them indirectly by introducting a different problem. So let's solve the problem of the US entering unjust wars directly, rather than by introducing a new problem (the draft). How to solve it directly? The recent unjust US wars do reflect cultural problems: a belief among politicians and the populace that it is worthwile to sacrifice thousands of American lives and trillions of American dollars to occupy and rebuild other countries. The way to solve the problem is to combat that notion on an intellectual level. To speak out about it. Some other solution (like requiring a draft) is just duct tape. The ideas of society at large can improve over time. Just look at the history of women and minorities to see that. This is one of those areas where cultural activisim can lead to an improvement. I am very optimistic that my generation (I'm in my 20s) will not engage in wars like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam once we become the generation that directly makes those kinds of decisions. In fact, my fear is that my generation will be unwilling to take preemptive offensive action when it is necessary (e.g. to prevent untrusted parties from acquiring nuclear or biological weapons).
noarchy 15y ago
>The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. With a draft and mandatory conscription, everybody had the common experience of serving and perhaps doing really bad things in the line of duty. As it is now, the vast majority of civilians have absolutely no idea what military service is like, as the author points out. The last time there was coerced/forced military service in the US, many people here were not alive. Imagine how the disproportionately-libertarian leaning crowd in places like HN would react to being compelled to serve in the military.
- bh42222 15y ago
  Imagine how the disproportionately-libertarian leaning crowd in places like HN would react to being compelled to serve in the military. That's exactly the point. It is almost certain we would have fewer wars, and they would be shorter.
  - smacktoward 15y ago
    Didn't stop us from going to war in Korea for three years, or in Vietnam for 15-20...
  - ktizo 15y ago
    I can hear the ghost of Robert Heinlein sniggering right now.
CodeMage 15y ago
War is a part of society that the vast majority of that society likes to keep romanticized and far away from home. The idea that the "society tells you to go kill somebody" is a gross oversimplification. And claiming that a society made you do something and therefore you can't be called sociopath for doing it is not exactly the soundest excuse, because you can ultimately blame everything on the society.
lukifer 15y ago
> If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. I think there is social value to having some well-behaved sociopaths on your team (ie, the Jayne Cobb archetype). But certain jobs/roles will absolutely self-select in favor of violent individuals with little empathy (and if you're not one already, the military, and to a lesser extent the police, are happy to turn you into one). This obviously isn't true of most military personnel, but there is a tendency, and the outliers on that bell curve will be ugly indeed. I'm realistic enough to know that war isn't going to just go away, and in some situations is a necessary evil. But I would happy enough if we could just stop exalting war as inherently glorious, and instead viewed it as the utter horror that it is, only to be employed at the utmost necessity. > The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. I actually think I agree with the logic here. Forced conscription was part of the reason for public opposition to Vietnam; the opposition to Iraq would have come quicker and stronger if the costs and realities were more uniformly distributed.
- p9idf 15y ago
  "The opposition to Iraq would have come quicker [...]" The opposition to the war was pretty quick already, coming at least three months before the invasion began. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/11/us/threats-responses-dissent-protests-held-across-country-oppose-war-iraq.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/11/us/threats-responses-disse... http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=iraq+war+protest&srchst=nyt&d=&o=&v=&c=&sort=oldest&n=10&dp=0&daterange=period&year1=2002&mon1=12&day1=01&year2=2003&mon2=03&day2=03&frow=0 http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=iraq+war+protest...
philwelch 15y ago
I think you might be one of the only people in this thread who knows what he's talking about. Certainly your comment squares well with everything I heard growing up from my dad, who fought in three wars and was never shy about telling me stories, ranging from funny to grisly, about what he did.
zeteo 15y ago
>I am very tempted to flag this. the sociopath thing really rubs me the wrong way Geeze Louise. I don't think flagging, on this site, is meant as a downvote for articles where you disagree with some terms' definitions. >The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. With a draft and mandatory conscription, everybody had the common experience of serving and perhaps doing really bad things in the line of duty. Are you seriously proposing that, instead of sending in a few thousand well trained guys who can do the job, it's preferable to send a few million who can barely fire a rifle - just because it may make for effective anti-war propaganda? If you are truly serious, you should at least know that it doesn't work. Only Vietnam turned a significant proportion of its veterans into anti-war activists. Korea, the World Wars and the Civil War had no such effect.
- philwelch 15y ago
  The World Wars were justified in the eyes of the population, Korea didn't last long enough to get worked up about, and there were draft riots during the Civil War as well as federal repression of the anti-war movement.
ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
"As it is now, the vast majority of civilians have absolutely no idea what military service is like. In this lack of context everybody becomes really impressionable." When you vote, you are exercising political authority. You are using force. And force, my friends, is violence, the supreme authority from which all other authority derives. Whether it is exerted by ten or ten billion, political authority is violence by degree. The people we call "citizens" have earned the right to wield it. Naked force has settled more issues in history than any other factor. The contrary opinion "violence never solves anything" is wishful thinking at its worst. People who forget that always pay. They pay with their lives and their freedom. - Lieutenant Jean Rasczak - http://imsdb.com/scripts/Starship-Troopers.html http://imsdb.com/scripts/Starship-Troopers.html
tsycho 15y ago
> If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. So, if society tells you to stone a woman since she committed adultery, you would do so?

dfc 15y ago

Why are you "sure this author isn't one of those people"?

phaus 15y ago
If he came out and made a bunch of ridiculous claims about actual events, I would find it appropriate to assume that he was a liar. In this article, his ridiculous claim was simply his personal opinion about the psychological state of the average soldier, so I find it pretty likely that he was actually a soldier, even though his opinion is clearly wrong.

stcredzero 15y ago

War is a part of society. If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. I usually like most of your contributions, but reasoning like this bugs me. "Society" in your reasoning is being treated something like a mathematical set. Society isn't so cleanly defined. Even for that, one could still have psychopathic tendencies, be told to by society to go and kill, but go and kill for completely disparate, possibly psychopathic reasons.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
I must be missing what ticked you off here. We set up a system where society approves of the use of lethal force. (In fact, many believe the true defining characteristic of a government is the monopoly in the use of force) People are instructed by this system to go kill people. As long as that's all the information we have, there's nothing to indicate that these people care nothing about societal norms. In fact, they might actually be less sociopathic than those who do not serve. The only thing we'rd offered is descriptions of the cavalier attitude they have towards death, but, yet again, this is not an indicator of being a sociopath. Perhaps a callous and heartless person. Perhaps a crazy person. Perhaps as you point out they may actually be sociopaths. But nothing in this article tells us one way or another. Instead we're presented with these experiences as being the "true" nature of the entire conflict, and then the brutal and crass attitudes observed as being indicative of some sort of psychiatric disorder. That's just a little too much wringing of the hands and over-reaching for my comfort. There is a premise here: going off and sneaking through the high grass to kill somebody in a brutal and bloody fashion without remorse is indicative of a psychiatric disorder. I'd like to explore that idea. But this article doesn't go there. Instead it's trying to be a "yeah, well this is how it really is, kid." and all I'm saying is to take such stories -- no matter what their slant -- with a gain of salt. If it makes you feel any better, if the author had written the same tough-guy-been-there story with the soldiers all acting like boy scouts I would feel the same way. The only difference is that there would be plenty of folks willing to take that apart for me, so no comment would be needed.
- gizmo 15y ago
  You're being too literal about the word psychopath. The original article claims, in essence, that war creates an environment where ordinary people can kill without it affecting them much personally. That is, from a behavioral point of view, what psychopaths do in regular society. The article definitely isn't claiming that the 5% of so of humanity that is genetically incapable of feeling (much) empathy (i.e. sociopaths) make up 80% of the military corpus. The math obviously doesn't work out. The article claims that war changes people. Some end up with PTSD, other people cope in another other way that makes them look like psychopaths.

mladenkovacevic 15y ago

"If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath." I have no problem with the notion that our society is sociopathic or at least on a fast pace towards it.

gizmo 15y ago

> War is part of society War is part of society? To barbaric ones maybe. Civilized societies don't settle disputes by mass murder. > If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. Are you kidding me? Society can't tell a person to go kill somebody. A person tells another person to kill somebody. It is this absurd respect for authority that makes these wars possible, combined with a lack of personal accountability. Didn't we learn the lesson of the second World War? > The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s [...] As it is now, the vast majority of civilians have absolutely no idea what military service is like, as the author points out. That was the entire point of ending conscription! Vietnam became a huge PR nightmare because average kids from middle class families had to fight in it. That's why it got constant media attention. That's why people protested in the streets. The people don't mind war as long as it doesn't affect them personally, and poor people have no say anyway. So now poor kids with few options are recruited into the military. Problem solved.

cellis 15y ago
Politicians are the body and voice of society. I hate to expose an ugly truth to you, but it is not a single person deciding to go to war. It takes many people to nod in agreement before bombs start being dropped and troops start marching.
- cglace 15y ago
  That is the way it is supposed to work but how many people would say politicians are doing what their constituents really want.
spindritf 15y ago
> War is part of society? To barbaric ones maybe. Civilized societies don't settle disputes by mass murder. It's quite the opposite -- only civilized societies can have the kind of logistics, range, military culture, ability to support the warrior class (or standing armies), and numbers to engage in organized warfare. Conflicts between small bands of foragers can hardly be even called war. Not to mention mass murder which absolutely requires the kind of discipline, organization and leadership only a very cohesive and civilized society can provide. It just doesn't happen outside of civilization, no one has the means, or could benefit from it. Anything of the scale of holocaust is only possible in a highly industrialized country. > So now poor kids with few options are recruited into the military. Problem solved. Actually, poor kids seem to be enlisting at lower rates (relatively) to richer kids: > Enlisted recruits in 2006 and 2007 came primarily from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds. Low-income neighborhoods were underrepresented among enlisted troops, while middle-class and high-income neighborhoods were overrepresented. This and much more on the topic: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-in-the-us-military-the-demographics-of-enlisted-troops-and-officers http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-...

Alex3917 15y ago

"Not only can the military manipulate public opinion through selective release of information, other soldiers like this one can also." It's illegal for a soldier to even tell a reporter how they feel about the war, whereas the military has a propaganda budget of several tens of billions of dollars per year to control what gets shown on TV, in movies, in newspapers, etc. Yes, a retired soldier could theoretically spin something, but in reality they have basically 0 percent control over the way that war is portrayed and sold to society.

tfb 15y ago

There are some logical flaws with the sociopath label, but there is certainly some truth to it, at least from my own experience. I'll provide a single example. One of my childhood bullies - let's call him Tom - is most definitely a sociopath, and he joined the marines, along with his two brothers who are not unlike him. All three of these guys have been violent for as long as I've known them. During middle school and high school (and the couple years after where he happened to live in the same city as my university), he would pick fights with anyone and everyone for the dumbest reasons. I think he did it just to do it. Oddly enough, despite all the bullying and "shittalk" towards me over the years, he never fought me - although we did come close a couple of times but I just laughed at his stupidity and that was that. One of the last "conversations" I had with Tom was shortly before he went off to boot camp (or whatever you want to call it) and I asked him why he was going; he explained that he had nothing else better to do so he might as well go kill some people. He said those exact words, and he was dead serious. If you're wondering why I didn't avoid the guy like the plague, it's because he and I had a lot of the same friends and he would always throw parties as his house to which my friends would invite me. Despite Tom's overly violent behavior, he was always very popular with the ladies, and most people really liked him. This is the same guy who posts pictures of himself on facebook cutting off the heads of goats in his marine gear. My theory is that because of his aggressive behavior (and using it to "dominate" others), people perceived him as an alpha male. Can I get a second opinion on this? Because so many people liking such a violent sociopath has always bothered and confused me. Back on topic though... while Tom and his brothers are an example of some confirmation of the article's statements, as far as marines (or army, navy, etc.) go, for every Tom I've known, I've also known at least a few very easy-going men. So the author is partially right but his argument is flawed. Violent sociopaths without education probably do gravitate towards the military and war, but the statistics have got to be way off - not nearly 80% - but that's just from the small sample set of my experiences.

ezy 15y ago
"Because so many people liking such a violent sociopath has always bothered and confused me." I think it's pretty much what you state, but less evo-psych than being an alpha male. Someone who is a sociopath doesn't really care too much about others most of the time, hence they can be extremely confident individuals in certain circumstances. Confidence is a major factor in social success.

mattquinn 15y ago

"If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath." ...what? I'm at a loss for words on this one. Just because society - a large, faceless group prone to rallying around propaganda and emotional bandwagons - embraces a cause, doesn't mean it's acceptable by default to kill in the name of that cause. And it certainly doesn't mean you're not a sociopath.

chrischen 15y ago

> If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. That doesn't make sense. If society asked for volunteers to torture someone, the first to step up would very likely be a sociopath.

kiiski 15y ago
I think the point is that while a sociopath might be more likely to volunteer for it, volunteering for it doesn't make one a sociopath.
- chrischen 15y ago
  It seems as if he was trying to define sociopathy as purely the act of doing what's socially unacceptable, and that if society condones it then it's by definition not sociopathic. However I don't believe that's true since gov != society and even society can be conditioned into sociopaths. I'd say I consider sociopathic as anything that's harmful to society, regardless of how society perceives it.

run4yourlives 15y ago

Great post. I too noticed that the author's "combat experiences" seemed to be more about relating the experiences of his friends than his own personal thoughts and feelings. The best analysis I've seen about the combatant are the works of LCol. Grossman. On Combat and On Killing are outstanding pieces of work that say pretty much the exact opposite of W here.

bdunbar 15y ago
On Combat and On Killing are outstanding pieces of work that say pretty much the exact opposite of W here. This might be because W is an intelligent Brit who enlisted as a private solider. Grossman is an intelligent American who accepted a commission. Different experiences, different cultures.
- run4yourlives 15y ago
  Grossman is a psychology professor, specializing in the psychology of killing and its effects on humans. Add "different skillset" to your comparison while you are at it.
  - bdunbar 15y ago
    Before he was a professor of psychology he was an NCO, a company commander ... I thought 'different skillset' went without saying (smile).
majelix 15y ago
The best example of this is his story about his buddy never seeing the dead bodies of a family, and trying to hold this up as some moral issue. It was really more an issue of his brain simply filtering out everything that wasn't a direct threat to his immediate existence. Adrenaline may make you super strong, but it also makes you blind, deaf, and destroys fine motor skills like marksmanship and bladder control.

javert 15y ago

The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. My life is my own to live. It's not your right to dispose of it. The draft is a massive violation of individual rights. If a nation cannot get enough paid volunteers to fight a war, that war is simply not worth fighting. In my view, mandatory conscription is one of those first-class evils that we need to dismiss as a society---like genocide, slavery, and denying women the right to vote. My father was drafted to Vietnam, and although he survived the war, I think it damaged him badly and in turn damaged me. So please consider whether you really want to advocate the draft.

angersock 15y ago
While I do agree with you in some regards, there is a very real policy impact involved in having a professional all-volunteer army. When you have to draft chunks of your population in order to conduct warfare, public opinion is very much against you if your cause is not 'just'. "If a nation cannot get enough paid volunteers to fight a war, that war is simply not worth fighting." The flaw here is that there are always going to be people available to fight for a chance at gold. Additionally, and even more troubling for the United States, we are increasingly reliant on machines to do this work for us--there is increasingly no meaningful connection between the citizenry and the hawkish body politic. If we do not have drafts, nor the possibility of drafts, then we find ourselves in a position where either: 1. We do not fight, for war is not worth fighting. 2. We continue to fight, and find ways of reducing the human requirement even further than it is already. (2) is much more likely, given the history of man and the way our tech is evolving. At best, this implies that one day we'll have robots blowing up other robots, all made by autonomous factories--this is merely a farcical misallocation of resources. At anything less than best, this implies that we'll have robots blowing up lots of civilians or other troops. It doesn't matter whether the lives lost are ours or not, it matters only that things are worse off. I'd suggest that the United States solely use draftees, and that we pursue national policies that don't require us to deploy widely to hostile areas.
- javert 15y ago
  It is good design to solve problems directly, rather than to solve them indirectly by introducting a different problem. So let's solve the problem of the US entering unjust wars directly, rather than by introducing a new problem (the draft). How to solve it directly? The recent unjust US wars do reflect cultural problems: a belief among politicians and the populace that it is worthwile to sacrifice thousands of American lives and trillions of American dollars to occupy and rebuild other countries. The way to solve the problem is to combat that notion on an intellectual level. To speak out about it. Some other solution (like requiring a draft) is just duct tape. The ideas of society at large can improve over time. Just look at the history of women and minorities to see that. This is one of those areas where cultural activisim can lead to an improvement. I am very optimistic that my generation (I'm in my 20s) will not engage in wars like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam once we become the generation that directly makes those kinds of decisions. In fact, my fear is that my generation will be unwilling to take preemptive offensive action when it is necessary (e.g. to prevent untrusted parties from acquiring nuclear or biological weapons).

noarchy 15y ago

>The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. With a draft and mandatory conscription, everybody had the common experience of serving and perhaps doing really bad things in the line of duty. As it is now, the vast majority of civilians have absolutely no idea what military service is like, as the author points out. The last time there was coerced/forced military service in the US, many people here were not alive. Imagine how the disproportionately-libertarian leaning crowd in places like HN would react to being compelled to serve in the military.

bh42222 15y ago
Imagine how the disproportionately-libertarian leaning crowd in places like HN would react to being compelled to serve in the military. That's exactly the point. It is almost certain we would have fewer wars, and they would be shorter.
- smacktoward 15y ago
  Didn't stop us from going to war in Korea for three years, or in Vietnam for 15-20...
- ktizo 15y ago
  I can hear the ghost of Robert Heinlein sniggering right now.

CodeMage 15y ago

War is a part of society that the vast majority of that society likes to keep romanticized and far away from home. The idea that the "society tells you to go kill somebody" is a gross oversimplification. And claiming that a society made you do something and therefore you can't be called sociopath for doing it is not exactly the soundest excuse, because you can ultimately blame everything on the society.

lukifer 15y ago

> If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. I think there is social value to having some well-behaved sociopaths on your team (ie, the Jayne Cobb archetype). But certain jobs/roles will absolutely self-select in favor of violent individuals with little empathy (and if you're not one already, the military, and to a lesser extent the police, are happy to turn you into one). This obviously isn't true of most military personnel, but there is a tendency, and the outliers on that bell curve will be ugly indeed. I'm realistic enough to know that war isn't going to just go away, and in some situations is a necessary evil. But I would happy enough if we could just stop exalting war as inherently glorious, and instead viewed it as the utter horror that it is, only to be employed at the utmost necessity. > The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. I actually think I agree with the logic here. Forced conscription was part of the reason for public opposition to Vietnam; the opposition to Iraq would have come quicker and stronger if the costs and realities were more uniformly distributed.

p9idf 15y ago
"The opposition to Iraq would have come quicker [...]" The opposition to the war was pretty quick already, coming at least three months before the invasion began. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/11/us/threats-responses-dissent-protests-held-across-country-oppose-war-iraq.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/11/us/threats-responses-disse... http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=iraq+war+protest&srchst=nyt&d=&o=&v=&c=&sort=oldest&n=10&dp=0&daterange=period&year1=2002&mon1=12&day1=01&year2=2003&mon2=03&day2=03&frow=0 http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=iraq+war+protest...

philwelch 15y ago

I think you might be one of the only people in this thread who knows what he's talking about. Certainly your comment squares well with everything I heard growing up from my dad, who fought in three wars and was never shy about telling me stories, ranging from funny to grisly, about what he did.

zeteo 15y ago

>I am very tempted to flag this. the sociopath thing really rubs me the wrong way Geeze Louise. I don't think flagging, on this site, is meant as a downvote for articles where you disagree with some terms' definitions. >The United States made a huge mistake in moving to an all-volunteer army in the 1970s. With a draft and mandatory conscription, everybody had the common experience of serving and perhaps doing really bad things in the line of duty. Are you seriously proposing that, instead of sending in a few thousand well trained guys who can do the job, it's preferable to send a few million who can barely fire a rifle - just because it may make for effective anti-war propaganda? If you are truly serious, you should at least know that it doesn't work. Only Vietnam turned a significant proportion of its veterans into anti-war activists. Korea, the World Wars and the Civil War had no such effect.

philwelch 15y ago
The World Wars were justified in the eyes of the population, Korea didn't last long enough to get worked up about, and there were draft riots during the Civil War as well as federal repression of the anti-war movement.

ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago

"As it is now, the vast majority of civilians have absolutely no idea what military service is like. In this lack of context everybody becomes really impressionable." When you vote, you are exercising political authority. You are using force. And force, my friends, is violence, the supreme authority from which all other authority derives. Whether it is exerted by ten or ten billion, political authority is violence by degree. The people we call "citizens" have earned the right to wield it. Naked force has settled more issues in history than any other factor. The contrary opinion "violence never solves anything" is wishful thinking at its worst. People who forget that always pay. They pay with their lives and their freedom. - Lieutenant Jean Rasczak - http://imsdb.com/scripts/Starship-Troopers.html http://imsdb.com/scripts/Starship-Troopers.html

tsycho 15y ago

> If society tells you to go kill somebody and you do, you can't be a sociopath. So, if society tells you to stone a woman since she committed adultery, you would do so?