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Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

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Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#211

Post by justin66 »

snakeanus wrote: post #204
justin66 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There truly is nothing more disgusting than war The first counterexample that came to mind: to be exterminated without even putting up a fight.

It seems that you are assuming that the attacking country would employ some form of genocide tactic.

As I said, merely the first counterexample that came to mind.

I'd judge surrendering your freedom and your property without putting up a fight as "more disgusting than war." Allowing an innocent ally to be conquered probably also qualifies. There's really quite a lot of stuff that is "more disgusting than war." But people can feel free to choose what they're disgusted by...

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#212

Post by moogly »

metafunctor wrote: post #139

In Finland, the army exists for the purpose of defending Finland against attack. Hence the name: Finnish Defence Forces. Finnish males serve a mandatory 6-12 months in the Finnish Defence Forces. It's a citizen's duty here; some people opt for a civil service duty. Thus, when asked a question like this, most Finns will automatically assume defending Finland against a military attack.

Many countries' military have gone through that name change to make it sound more palatable. It's basic PR. I live in Finland's neighbour country Sweden where as late as 1974, the Swedish Armed Forces were still named "Krigsmakten" as opposed to post-1975 "Försvarsmakten" ("krig" = "war", "försvar" = "defence").

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#213

Post by oblio »

batushka wrote: post #201
oblio wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice trolling, I guess? When there's a conflict, I generally look at the "weight" of the opponents. Can you, with a straight face, call Iraq a real opponent or even threat for the US? More than that, do you think the US really needed allies to invade Iraq? (except for trying to use them to legitimize the war).

It's very easy to throw statements after the facts and aftermath is known, many years after it happened. But when events are hot, it's another story. Lets forget about Iraq, and return thinking about notion of ally, in it's essence.

If you're beating up a little guy you don't need allies. You need fellow bullies.

And your whole notion about "hot events" is ridiculous. It wasn't like Iraq in 2003 was USSR v2 and only the US intervention stopped it from taking over half of the world...

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#214

Post by arethuza »

EugeneAZ wrote: post #163
arethuza wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does having a professional military leads to fewer wars - the UK has had a preference for professional military for centuries and it didn't stop us invading a significant proportion of the world!

Professional military (by definition) force politicians to spend money on them. So, every conflict becomes measurable in terms of money. Thus, citizens become aware of the true cost of it. When you have conscription, you cannot measure how much each of the soldiers loses in terms of money - they don't ask them such a question deliberately. Also, when all citizens (women and "disabled") are forced to pay for the milit…

I'm pretty sure the UK defence industry isn't run primarily to equip our armed forces with decent equipment....

[Edit: UK armed forces seemed to have to suffer comparatively poor but very expensive equipment foisted on them for political reasons].

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#215

Post by rjprins »

ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #205
ddnb wrote: post #3

Belgian here, as a resident of one of the bottom 3 countries I have to say I thought about this question myself a few times in the past. Even though I would never join the army to fight wars, should an occupation come I would do everything in my power to resist and sabotage. So to this question I would have to answer 'no' even though that doesn't mean I'd give up on my country.

>> Even though I would never join the army to fight wars... ok, so obv a hypothetical scenario - some other country invades Belgium, your country starts drafting ppl into the army to defend itself - you saying you're going to evade the draft? Why?

Depends on the invader? What if it's the USA "liberating" Belgium from it's evil government? Who says the current government is better than the one taking over?

What are countries anyway, most of them don't align with cultural or language barriers.

Fuck patriotism, fuck flags, fuck any tribalism that powerful people are using to get others to do what they want.

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#216

Post by et2o »

Of course the Finns are at the top :)

Interesting to see Turkey included as a European country. Not that it matters any more than semantically, but is it considered European now, by other Europeans? Different from what I was taught in school. Obviously a political issue.

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#217

Post by gasof »

taway_1212 wrote: post #94
ddnb wrote: post #3

Belgian here, as a resident of one of the bottom 3 countries I have to say I thought about this question myself a few times in the past. Even though I would never join the army to fight wars, should an occupation come I would do everything in my power to resist and sabotage. So to this question I would have to answer 'no' even though that doesn't mean I'd give up on my country.

> Even though I would never join the army to fight wars, should an occupation come I would do everything in my power to resist and sabotage When under foreign attack, you don't join the army - the army "joins" (conscripts) you. It's not voluntary.

Unless you're female.

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#218

Post by EugeneAZ »

arethuza wrote: post #214
EugeneAZ wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional military (by definition) force politicians to spend money on them. So, every conflict becomes measurable in terms of money. Thus, citizens become aware of the true cost of it. When you have conscription, you cannot measure how much each of the soldiers loses in terms of money - they don't ask them such a question deliberately. Also, when all citizens (women and "disabled") are forced to pay for the milit…

I'm pretty sure the UK defence industry isn't run primarily to equip our armed forces with decent equipment.... [Edit: UK armed forces seemed to have to suffer comparatively poor but very expensive equipment foisted on them for political reasons].

Man. They are all corrupted or just too ignorant. J.R.Nyquist can tell you even more : )

Have you ever heard of thista?

For any engineering problem one can make a "brute-force" algorithm, which theoretically finds its solution, describe that algorithm as a logical scheme (a directed graph with logic gates as nodes) and then one can use an AI agent to make that logical scheme easier to compute, by simplifying (through transformation rules like the De Morgan rule) unnecessary computation steps, input variables, etc. The solution to the problem can be found by calculation of that simplified version of the logical scheme.

The AI agent may be built from Neural Nets, or from the algorithm, which I call Evolution of Neural Graphs [0].

Some of interesting engineering problems are:

- to find a machine code for a controller of a bipedal robot [1], which makes it able to work in warehouses and factories;

- to find a machine code for a multiprocessor system [2], which behaves as an AI agent purposed for a given work to be done;

- to find a CAD file [3], which describes the design of a spheromak working with MHD generators;

- to find a file [4], which describes the manufacturing steps to produce the first molecular nanofactory in the world;

- etc…

Officials of what country would take it seriously, can you guess?

[0] https://github.com/Eug145/TetrAI/blob/master/Source-v0.92bet...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKtHCFToYPY

[2] https://www.princeton.edu/news/2016/08/23/new-microchip-demo...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynomak

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqyZ9bFl_qg

I have a reddit account, you may discuss it there too.

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#219

Post by EugeneAZ »

arethuza wrote: post #214
EugeneAZ wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional military (by definition) force politicians to spend money on them. So, every conflict becomes measurable in terms of money. Thus, citizens become aware of the true cost of it. When you have conscription, you cannot measure how much each of the soldiers loses in terms of money - they don't ask them such a question deliberately. Also, when all citizens (women and "disabled") are forced to pay for the milit…

I'm pretty sure the UK defence industry isn't run primarily to equip our armed forces with decent equipment.... [Edit: UK armed forces seemed to have to suffer comparatively poor but very expensive equipment foisted on them for political reasons].

Here, https://www.reddit.com/user/EugeneZavidovsky - is the discusion about SMS direct democracy on another my reddit account. People are afraid even of public voting : ) Well, it's possible to make it secret with clever enough citizens, but I don't think, it is reasonable...

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#220

Post by arethuza »

alkonaut wrote: post #156
arethuza wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it's more like any other job such as a policeman" I don't know what its like now but in the 80s/90s the people I knew who were in the UK forces were either from very posh backgrounds if they were officers (particularly Guards regiments in the army) or from pretty humble backgrounds for other ranks.

Yeah I didn't mean in terms of class but in terms of other status (grades, criminal background) we don't have the "it was either jail or the army" type people as you often hear (perhaps more historically and of course from fiction) about the US.

I certainly knew a few people from high school who I suspect probably would have ended up in jail had it not been for the Army (NB I did not go to a posh school!).
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