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A violently true depiction of what war really is

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Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#171

Post by PakG1 »

cobrausn wrote: post #20
roboneal wrote: post #7

Being ex-military and not a sociopath -- he lost me when he said that the "vast majority of us are straight up sociopaths" We constantly made decisions that increased the risk to ourselves while trying to minimize the risk to civilians. That is not a mindset of a sociopath.

From what I could tell from my time in the service, your view of your situation is highly dependent upon who you are serving with. I'm willing to bet it is highly likely that the group this supposed sociopath served with had no such compulsions. Without proper oversight, I could easily see a group mindset of this kind developing. As such, I'm willing to bet he thinks all soldiers are like him, when the reality is tha…

There's data about a lot of gang members entering the service these days and receiving a lot of military training, but then taking that training back to the gang (as well as smuggling some weapons). If it's reliable data, I wonder if the number of sociopaths in the military could be growing, if it's also possible that gang members have a higher probability of being sociopaths. A lot of conditionals there, I know.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#172

Post by PakG1 »

philwelch wrote: post #123
apsurd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I understand what you are trying to say, but you can't seriously think you , with a knife in hand, are going to kick an unarmed Bruce Lee's ass? (using Bruce Lee because he is internationally famous, but assume I mean any world-renowned, elite trained multi-dimensional fighter) The person still needs to be trained how to use a knife in combat. Have you ever stabbed anybody? (I haven't) but it seems obvious th…

If your self-defense strategy entails being Bruce Lee (by which I also mean any world-renowned, elite trained multi-dimensional fighter), it's safe to say you're overpreparing. Trying to become Bruce Lee "just in case" you get mugged is like trying to become Michael Jordan to win pickup basketball games.

I know a bunch of amateur basketball players who try to do precisely this. They know they'll never be Jordan, but they do practice pretty hard, much harder than I'd ever expect.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#173

Post by yummyfajitas »

angersock wrote: post #110
javert wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

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'.

When you have to draft chunks of your population in order to conduct education, public opinion is very much against you if your cause is not 'just'. There will always be people willing to teach for a chance at gold.

People will oppose most policies if you tie the policy to forced labor, and rightly so. Forced labor is really bad.

That's not an argument for forced labor, that's just a ruthless political maneuver you want to apply to get the policies you desire. Similarly, politicians often attach poison pills to bills they want to kill (e.g., attach tax cuts for coal power to an environmental bill).

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#174

Post by PakG1 »

bdunbar wrote: post #99
JS_startup wrote: post #64

I like one point in particular that he touched on. That is, the military's careful manipulation of the media and public perception and the lens through which we view military personnel. I know I'm supposed to laud infantrymen as brave and patriotic (which is why I'd never voice this in public), but frankly..nearly every frontline veteran I've ever met seems like an uneducated, violent and scary thug. I know that's ba…

but frankly..nearly every frontline veteran I've ever met seems like an uneducated, violent and scary thug. I never went to war, but I was a rifleman in the Marines, spent eight years there. One thing I've noticed about me, and other guys like me, is that you'd never know on first acquaintance that I was a Marine. Commonly heard: But you don't look/act like a Marine! I suspect you've met more so-called 'frontline vet…

Are you saying that the frontline changes people? Or something else? Just trying to clearly understand your meaning there.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#175

Post by yummyfajitas »

leot wrote: post #163
vacri wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just use draftees, as you'd have no senior staff unless you draft for life. In my opinion, draft is only justified for defensive wars where the nation is in total war.

In my opinion, it's unlikely that a war is just if the citizenry is unwilling to submit to a draft. In the same way, if an administration can't convince everyone in the population to pay for a war with tax increases, then the war either isn't defensible or the administration is too stupid to wage it effectively. The worst possible situation is when you get a war that is fought by volunteers being paid with borrowed m…

Are you willing to apply this logic to policies you support?

Is public education unjust if the citizenry is unwilling to submit to forced labor in public schools? Is care for old people unjust if the citizenry is unwilling to submit to forced labor cleaning old people's bedpans?

(I'm assuming you support these two policies, based purely on the observation that most people do.)

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#176

Post by viraptor »

winter_blue wrote: post #160

Violent video games & media must be banned. It should be treated like child pornography. A federal law prohibiting the dissemination of such material and people who develop or make such games and movies should be given the same punishment those filming child pornography receive. I personally recommend a minimum of 10 years. The social and psychological corruption of society must come to an end. I know many of you wil…

Where does the violence start? Modern warfare? AA? CS? What about fantasy like World of Warcraft? If hitting someone with a giant hammer ok, if you don't see the blood? Then what about car racing? If you can crash the car, do you assume people will think about the guy inside who has shards of glass inside his skull now? Is that violent? What if you don't see it? And animal cruelty? Is the frogger with cars running over the main character violent, or not? What about the games which depict whole wars but need only your imagination to add 2 and 2 together and realise that in chess you aim to kill as many soldiers of the opponent as possible (some skilled and specialised, half of them just cannon fodder - it's ok to sacrifice those), until the king is left alone and captured by the enemy...

Actually it's hard to find games which do not imply violence in one way or another. Even cards symbolise opposing kingdoms on them. Even Go happens around life, death and taking liberties...

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#177

Post by gnosis »

fleitz wrote: post #87
mikeryan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also a guy who left the gov't military to become a "private military contractor". He's a lifer and sometimes you have to try to bring everyone to your level by casting them as "sociopaths" in order to sleep at night. We do it for real, time and time again, with no other motivation but pay, leave, and the chance to brutalise whomever we deem the “enemy”. scary.

Yeah, the guys who aren't PMCs are doing the same thing except for the "dulce et decorum est" reasons instead of the cash. People don't sign up for the military because they really think it's sweet and fitting to die for one's country, they sign up for the military because it's how they get into college or out of their shitty 2000 person town. I dated a girl who served, one day when I was ranting about recruiters wor…

I wonder how many Iraqis or Afghanis died as a result of that noble choice to become a gun for hire.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#178

Post by AJ007 »

Cushman wrote: post #121
ilaksh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A bit of a violence problem in our culture" Fighting games are incredibly realistic and advanced. Games like Battlefield, with the right mix of realism and "fun", are the greatest possible war propaganda instruments ever created. The "Department of Defense" and other agencies have too many smart people working in them and too much recruiting pressure not to be funneling money into these "video game" projects. Iran i…

There is certainly a propaganda campaign being run to encourage Americans to support war. It is being run by powerful people with vested political and financial interests who spend millions of dollars to project their message across all forms of news media. If you think video games are anything more than a sideshow to this, you're delusional.

I happened to be watching RT while at a hotel on business. I thought the obviously Kremlin slanted take on Syria was a bit amusing, that Syria was fighting an armed insurgency. You'd read the New York Times and think they were just mowing down civilian protestors. Sure enough, a few weeks later the cover of the Economist has Syrian "protestors" wielding machine guns.

Whats impressive is that both the "right" and "left" media in the United States pretty much run the same story, leaving some minor disagreements on detail making each seem to be at opposite extremes of each other. That's important when you have to you propaganda or marketing to get your message out.

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#179

Post by leot »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #175
leot wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, it's unlikely that a war is just if the citizenry is unwilling to submit to a draft. In the same way, if an administration can't convince everyone in the population to pay for a war with tax increases, then the war either isn't defensible or the administration is too stupid to wage it effectively. The worst possible situation is when you get a war that is fought by volunteers being paid with borrowed m…

Are you willing to apply this logic to policies you support? Is public education unjust if the citizenry is unwilling to submit to forced labor in public schools? Is care for old people unjust if the citizenry is unwilling to submit to forced labor cleaning old people's bedpans? (I'm assuming you support these two policies, based purely on the observation that most people do.)

First off, I'm going to call "straw man". No one is forced to clean old people's bedpans. They all do it for money, or because of a sense of obligation/love.

But, there are a few other big differences between waging war and providing social services.

Perhaps the biggest is that a particular war is a one-time, no-easy-turning-back event, that generally provides little direct benefit to the population funding it. By way of contrast, I'm not saying that civil defense should in general go unfunded.

I'm saying that a single massive expenditure of blood and treasure, which will almost certainly result in the violent deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, should probably need to meet a somewhat higher bar than the requirement and funding of compulsory high school. Whenever many extra innocent people are likely to die prematurely, extra scrutiny of the decision-making process is required.

Because it is precisely when people are asked to pay for something that they seriously evaluate whether it is worth the expense -- and this is a calculation that needs to be made for war more so than for anything else. In general, I think most populations are more than willing to spend what's necessary to defend themselves from a large, immediate threat -- there was little trouble in getting people to pay extra taxes for WWII.

Also, because of its one-time nature, the cost of the war could easily come at the expense of other services. In general, people have consented to paying for social services (yes, in the long run they'll cause America to run a deficit if nothing changes, but for now it's being paid for with tax dollars).

Re: A violently true depiction of what war really is

#180

Post by bdunbar »

PakG1 wrote: post #174
bdunbar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but frankly..nearly every frontline veteran I've ever met seems like an uneducated, violent and scary thug. I never went to war, but I was a rifleman in the Marines, spent eight years there. One thing I've noticed about me, and other guys like me, is that you'd never know on first acquaintance that I was a Marine. Commonly heard: But you don't look/act like a Marine! I suspect you've met more so-called 'frontline vet…

Are you saying that the frontline changes people? Or something else? Just trying to clearly understand your meaning there.

Of course being in the service changes people - going to war even more so.

I'm saying that not every grunt is a coarse thug.

We leave the service, get a job, get an education, get a life. We leave the soldier behind, is what I'm saying.

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