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Your kind of thinking leads to societal decay like the kind seen at Uvalde. Each of the 374 cops chose to prioritize their own wellbeing over collective interes
by mopsi 2y ago
Your kind of thinking leads to societal decay like the kind seen at Uvalde. Each of the 374 cops chose to prioritize their own wellbeing over collective interests, ultimately leading to 19 kids and 2 teachers getting killed despite overwhelming odds against the perpertrator.
And there are many things worse than death. Do you know how Russian combat medics are trained? Instructors pick a prisoner, cut off their palm, then instruct the medic on how to stop the bleeding. Then they cut the arm off up to elbow, teach how to stop the bleeding, and repeat it until the prisoner has no limbs left. Stories like these are a common occurrence. The number of documented war crimes has exceeded 100 000, and investigators don't even have access to most of occupied land.
It is natural that no-one wants to take the risk of ending up in the situation I described, but at the same time, someone has to take the risk, otherwise Russians will simply exterminate Ukraine and Ukrainians as they exist today. Like at Uvalde, more people will die as a result.
- cjbgkagh 2y agoI dont agree with your framing but doubt I could change your mind. Instead I will ask what is your excuse, unless you’re posting on HN from some battlefield you must have some sort of excuse as to why you are not acting on your supposedly strongly held beliefs.
- mopsi 2y agoI am a reservist in a country that has such a high risk of Russian invasion that defense leaders have stopped all non-essential spending in favor of hoarding as much artillery and rockets as they can for when the time comes. I do not have a suitcase packed and I do not intend to flee anywhere. And people here are taught since childhood that this not about being an useful little soldier for the government, but an essential duty to your friends and family, because when the situation gets tough, there won't be anyone else to protect them. A huge professional military that can come to your rescue - like the US Army - is a luxury that most people in the world don't have.
- cjbgkagh 2y agoSo because you don’t need the freedom to not volunteer others shouldn’t have it either? The issue pertains to pressganging which of course does not apply to volunteers. I don’t agree with the framing again, but again I don’t think I’ll be changing anyone’s mind here.
- mopsi 2y agoAs with Uvalde, I believe that the choice to maximize own wellbeing at the expense of others will often lead to worse outcome for all. Vaccines are a good example of this. Everyone is better off when they take a personal risk to eradicate polio from the entire group. In the process, some people will suffer side-effects ranging from allergic reaction to even death in the worst case, but that is the sacrifice that needs to be made. Unfortunately, modern imbalance towards individualism has produced a generation of parents who cannot tolerate any risk, choose the selfish option and leave their children unvaccinated, leading to re-emergence of old infectious diseases that kill and maim more children than the universal vaccination would. Individual and collective interests need to be fairly balanced, and Ukraine has done that by preferring older conscripts over younger ones, but you will never find enough volunteers for any truly shitty situation that requires more people than the tiny fraction of natural-born risk-takers who fill the ranks of firefighters and other dangerous professions.
- dmpk2k 2y agoWow. That second paragraph sounds like _blatant_ war propaganda. Unless there’s plentiful evidence for the above (it’s possible one-off, I suppose), I think you’ve gone full fruit-loop territory. I humbly suggest you look in the mirror and ask what’s actually going on in your head, and why. This sort of distorted extreme thinking is what creates monsters.