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Why Men Love War (1984)

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Re: Why Men Love War (1984)

#121

Post by JackCh »

fapjacks wrote: post #112
ryanmarsh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bragged about killing. Nope. That’s how you know he didn’t see any shit.

This is one of those rules with essentially zero exceptions. Nobody that's telling the truth ever brags about that.

Do you wager Ernst Jünger fabricated his memoir?

I strongly suspect there are exceptions to this rule. At the very least we know there exist people in prisons today who enjoy murder. Arguably that's very different since (I assume) 'enjoying killing' and 'enjoying getting shot back at' are worlds apart. But, would it surprise you if there was a small minority of drone operators who genuinely enjoyed their work?

Then again I suppose (hope) the modern military system might select against that kind of mindset.

Re: Why Men Love War (1984)

#122

Post by Pica_soO »

arca_vorago wrote: post #98

It provides a sense of purpose, it builds comraderie, and actual combat is more addictive than any drug. There ya go, the basics in easily digestible civilian form.

It provides the missing counter-piece to human civilization, ever since we started farming.

You can not be intellectually honest with yourself and against war(before the invention of fertilizer and the atomic bomb) if your lifestyle produces x^2 kids every generation. So war always was the other part of the cyclus civilization was ramping up towards.

And this cycle deformed us - the culture as a total down to the individual whose psychological variations and epigenetics are basically barely hidden adaptions to these cycles.

So even the most seemingly peaceful society is one recession away from becoming a emotionally hardened band rallying behind some leader to wage conflict upon whoever is foreign and in reach. Which is one of the reason why the economic mill must be kept going, no matter what- the alternative is not some settled down hippie life- but a war of all against all.

Respect to whoever coerced the current path (cell-phones with cameras, internet) into being. It seems to be pretty reliable when it comes to instilling self-control and preventing the war mode partially. And of course, thanks goes to Los Alamos, the atomic egg that prevents the best at power-grabbing from sending millions to die like in the iran-iraq war or the WorldWars.

Re: Why Men Love War (1984)

#123

Post by rootusrootus »

ryanx435 wrote: post #81
rootusrootus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That feels like a fairly unique experience. I was in the military and I don't recall ever meeting anyone with that sort of attitude towards killing or death. On the contrary, most everyone I knew was rather opposed to fighting and saw what we were signed up for as a necessity that we did out of duty to our country, not because we liked it.

Are you serious? The Marines literally make you say "kill" during combat training. The phrase for firing a machine gun is "die mother fucker die mother fucker die mother fucker release" (release the trigger to prevent over heating of the barrel) Every time we went on a platoon run the diddies are about murdering our enemies. I honestly don't believe you were in the military, or you seem to have forgotten what it was…

Completely serious, thanks. It is totally normal for the Marines to beat it into you, they are trying to make sure that when the shit hits the fan you do what you need to do without hesitation.

Yes, I was in the U.S. military 25 years ago. I will leave it at that and not try to demean your opinions with an unnecessary personal attack. It's just the Internet, after all, and 'winning' an Internet argument ain't worth it ;-).

Re: Why Men Love War (1984)

#124

Post by JackCh »

dingo_bat wrote: post #92
ryanx435 wrote: post #78

Fucking dickwads in this thread who can't understand that violence has solved more problems in human history than any other solution. Its like, "oh, I live in a peaceful society, therefore all other societies in the history of humanity should have known better" when they don't realize that america is very violent, has always been violent, and has more capacity for violence than any other society in the history of the…

Many people don't realize that violence is literally the foundation of our "peaceful" society. The policeman with his taser and handgun directly enforces peace in your neighborhood. The soldier with his rifle and cannons guards your nation's borders, and his violence is the reason you can work in peace in your air-conditioned office and blabber about which js framework to abuse this week. You are 100% right. Violence…

> "Violence (or threat of violence) is the answer to almost all problems."

Not including which js framework to abuse, I hope!

Re: Why Men Love War (1984)

#125

Post by fapjacks »

JackCh wrote: post #121
fapjacks wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those rules with essentially zero exceptions. Nobody that's telling the truth ever brags about that.

Do you wager Ernst Jünger fabricated his memoir? I strongly suspect there are exceptions to this rule. At the very least we know there exist people in prisons today who enjoy murder. Arguably that's very different since (I assume) 'enjoying killing' and 'enjoying getting shot back at' are worlds apart. But, would it surprise you if there was a small minority of drone operators who genuinely enjoyed their work? Then a…

I'm not talking about whether or not people enjoy the act of taking another person's life. Obviously, some people do. I am talking about bragging about it. If you ever hear someone making these kinds of claims loudly at a bar, you can bet your next paycheck they never left the FOB.

Re: Why Men Love War (1984)

#126

Post by Nimitz14 »

That was fantastic. It is rare for someone to speak so publicly about such feelings. I felt that it was coming from the heart. A real connection. I immediately checked whether he might have written anything else but was disappointed to find nothing.

For others looking for more I very strongly recommend Dispatches by Michael Herr. That book is probably the most beautiful of the 20th century.

Re: Why Men Love War (1984)

#127

Post by Bombthecat »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #104

This article resonated with me. I was a Marine (no combat), didn't like it, but knew and respected the hell out of people who made a career out of it. I learned several lessons in the service, many of which people don't want to talk about. It takes only a few armed and motivated men to dominate hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. So disarmament and pacifism is not a workable strategy until the day we start program…

> It takes only a few armed and motivated men to dominate hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. So disarmament and pacifism is not a workable strategy until the day we start programming people as if they were machines

This is was a lot people don't see. How easy it is to create a dictator ship with a "system" like that

Re: Why Men Love War (1984)

#128

Post by Thiez »

alexashka wrote: post #54
aphextron wrote: post #35

This is the single thing that freaked me out the most about our military and made me realize it wasn't the place for me when I joined at 17. Being a high school kid and meeting people who will look you straight in the eye and laugh as they talk about murdering someone, or watching their comrade's head explode. And not hypothetically, but in real, gruesome detail. I guess there's a need for that kind of person to exis…

A calf is no more perfect than the wolf that rips it apart and eats it. There's no reason to assume other people are like you, and that if someone's not, that they're better or worse, broken or holy.

Apples and oranges. I'd wager that most people would agree that there is something fundamentally broken with a calf that rips apart other calves.

Re: Why Men Love War (1984)

#129

Post by tim333 »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #108
tim333 wrote: post #66

It's interesting to read this first hand account after having read some more science focused stuff. >The power of war, like the power of love, springs from man's heart. Both actually almost certainly arise from evolution. Love helps reproduce the species, wiping out the adjacent tribe and grabbing their resources helps also and if you are too nice they may wipe you instead. See 'Demonic Males' and the like for how ch…

Pinkers theory about how we have become more peaceful are apparently not backed by sufficient statistical evidence. I always take NNT’s statements with a grain of salt, but the pure stats/math stuff seems solid.

Taleb seems to be criticising stuff Pinker didn't really say. Pinker's arguments are mostly look at this graph / dataset, haven't the numbers gone down, maybe this is why and he isn't really trying to do sophisticated statistical analysis generally. Taleb then attacks and says he hasn't done sophisticated statistical analysis but that's not really Pinker's point.

Re: Why Men Love War (1984)

#130

Post by [deleted] »

placebo wrote: post #88
ryanmarsh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War is some special experience that Western Men have ... where they get to fulfil some kind of murderous power fantasy over people who don't matter? No. Nothing about that is western. That’s just history. War is the most human you’ll ever be. I don’t know how to explain it to someone who doesn’t want to believe their own potential for malevolence. It’s like eating from the forbidden tree in the garden. You’re eyes be…

True. Nothing about violence is specifically western. Also true that the reality is that humans have evolved from more primitive animals that are totally driven by survival instincts and thus will usually act that way too (though mostly disguised in more subtle forms than war). What you're missing though (or perhaps deliberately ignoring) is the potential of humans to rise above being marionettes of their animal inst…

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