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I sometimes think that a lot of the war machine is partly about governments seeking to identify the people within their country who are most capable of organize

I sometimes think that a lot of the war machine is partly about governments seeking to identify the people within their country who are most capable of organized violence, and then making sure they spend as much time abroad as possible, preferably somewhere very dangerous.

woodman 12y ago
So are you trying to insult the military, the government, or are you just demonstrating lazy thinking? If your thinking was anywhere close to reality: the military would welcome criminals, the infantry would fill the majority of the ranks and be treated like cannon fodder, and very little time and money would be spent on training and support. The opposite is true.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  No, it came from a reading a history of the Crusades, which certain Kings and the Church did view at the time as a method of getting troublesome Knights out of Europe, or at least that is what is stated by many historians. edit - and why give up on a successful strategy? It pays to keep the experts in the use of force busy.
  - woodman 12y ago
    Well history is great, not repeating the same mistakes and all, but some events are more relevant than others :)
    - lotsofmangos 12y ago
      Actually, the parallels are striking. All sorts of dangerous idiots on all sides are heading for the big trapdoor erected over the completely and utterly predictable power vacuum we left in Iraq.
      - woodman 12y ago
        re edit: Well I don't know how successful the strategy actually was. Also, a knight would be more like today's generals right? Again, not a super relevant comparison. The time and money spent on getting the actual trigger pullers up to speed and into action is incredibly expensive, there would be a lot of cheaper alternatives to handling troublemakers.
        lotsofmangos 12y ago
        Less like a general and more like a (for the time) state of the art high speed weapons platform, possibly with not much to do. The sort of person you really don't want gallivanting around and raiding nearby castles through boredom. So you tell them that they can kill and still go to heaven, as long as they do it somewhere else. Then you take their confession in advance and give them a nice new shiny sword and send them out of the country.
        woodman 12y ago
        Well didn't they enjoy titles, land and command of foot-soldiers - in exchange for an oath of loyalty? How would they be more like an inanimate object than today's generals (who have similar benefits to what I just listed)? Also, I understood your original point to be related to the threat from a human bad actor - not a "state of the art high speed weapons platform".
        lotsofmangos 12y ago
        Personally, I'd call a state of the art high speed weapons platform a very animated object. However the reason that I am conflating the person with the technology is because they were. A knight was as much the armour, the horse, the swords and the retinue as it was the person inside the armour. The lesser kings, princes and dukes of the time were more like todays generals. Knights were more like tanks.
        woodman 12y ago

woodman 12y ago

So are you trying to insult the military, the government, or are you just demonstrating lazy thinking? If your thinking was anywhere close to reality: the military would welcome criminals, the infantry would fill the majority of the ranks and be treated like cannon fodder, and very little time and money would be spent on training and support. The opposite is true.

lotsofmangos 12y ago
No, it came from a reading a history of the Crusades, which certain Kings and the Church did view at the time as a method of getting troublesome Knights out of Europe, or at least that is what is stated by many historians. edit - and why give up on a successful strategy? It pays to keep the experts in the use of force busy.
- woodman 12y ago
  Well history is great, not repeating the same mistakes and all, but some events are more relevant than others :)
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    Actually, the parallels are striking. All sorts of dangerous idiots on all sides are heading for the big trapdoor erected over the completely and utterly predictable power vacuum we left in Iraq.
    - woodman 12y ago
      re edit: Well I don't know how successful the strategy actually was. Also, a knight would be more like today's generals right? Again, not a super relevant comparison. The time and money spent on getting the actual trigger pullers up to speed and into action is incredibly expensive, there would be a lot of cheaper alternatives to handling troublemakers.
      - lotsofmangos 12y ago
        Less like a general and more like a (for the time) state of the art high speed weapons platform, possibly with not much to do. The sort of person you really don't want gallivanting around and raiding nearby castles through boredom. So you tell them that they can kill and still go to heaven, as long as they do it somewhere else. Then you take their confession in advance and give them a nice new shiny sword and send them out of the country.
        woodman 12y ago
        Well didn't they enjoy titles, land and command of foot-soldiers - in exchange for an oath of loyalty? How would they be more like an inanimate object than today's generals (who have similar benefits to what I just listed)? Also, I understood your original point to be related to the threat from a human bad actor - not a "state of the art high speed weapons platform".
        lotsofmangos 12y ago
        Personally, I'd call a state of the art high speed weapons platform a very animated object. However the reason that I am conflating the person with the technology is because they were. A knight was as much the armour, the horse, the swords and the retinue as it was the person inside the armour. The lesser kings, princes and dukes of the time were more like todays generals. Knights were more like tanks.
        woodman 12y ago