U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#251

Post by meroes » Sun, Jan 28, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #241

meroes wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A “continental” war without air superiority. You think Russia against Greece or Turkey who just got multi dozen gen 5 and 4.5 aircraft (not sure when delivery is) would be the same? No. It’s not even continental. It’s a proxy war.

This is on the same level of hubris as militarly comparing Russia with Italy in February 2022 based on their nominal GDP figures alone, and yet, here we are, two years later and major politicians here in Europe warning us about a future war with the same Russia. I guess the Germans or the Brits didn’t get the memo that the Greek aviation would be enough of an opposing force.

Greece and Turkey while both in NATO have their own rivalry. And enlistment is down in most western counties, so this is a good opportunity to effect a reversal. Many doctrines require a minimum amount of manpower. As for Ukraine and Russia, the War began in 2014. They have been stockpiling artillery for this express tactic for decades now. Anyone who simply compares spending across two arbitrary countries does deserve hubris. But that’s not what’s happening.

Why there’s not more Western defense of Ukraine I can’t explain except for present greed over future problem solving, but nothing is that surprising.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#252

Post by johnnyanmac » Sun, Jan 28, 2024, 5:15 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #176

johnnyanmac wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow inferior or stupid people. I took it the opposite way. High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. The top side may be extremely competitive, but the bar for passing high school is meant to be low. Someone who can't pass that and doesn't have developmental issues likely have environm…

I think you shouldn't equate "didn't graduate" with "can't graduate" - I feel that a large part, perhaps most, high school dropouts didn't drop out because of various social issues, and for a young person without a high-school diploma, very likely lack of money and potential jobs, and very likely a lack of a supportive home environment, the army can provide a stable employment and a community that has its issues but…

I feel my "that student has environmental issues" agrees with your sentiment. I do agree that very few students who did not graduate truly can't pass the curriculum. And lower socioeconomic standing is a huge (if not biggest) reason.

>the army can provide a stable employment and a community that has its issues but is likely less abusive than whatever home environment prevented them from graduating high school.

For such a student I feel it's out of the frying pan and into the fire. Now they are bound to the government for X years for everything, from a meager pay to living quarters (you also needed to look the way they told you to look, but I think they are relaxing those hair/tattoo codes a bit). You go where they tell you to go and do what they tell you to do. And "leaving your job" if it's not for you means you can be put at trial.

It's an awful lot of a gamble being taken here for someone who likely hasn't addressed their core traumas to begin with.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#253

Post by iteria » Sun, Jan 28, 2024, 5:19 PM UTC

dotnet00 wrote: post #133

halJordan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that a high school education represents literally years of knowledge a person has accumulated. People not having that knowledge means they will not be able to participate. It's not about whether they will be smart enough to learn; it's about the fact that they will have to be taught. There's no foundation to build on, there's no axiomatic knowledge we can rely on. People who haven't graduated high scho…

Everything covered in high school was retaught within 1 year at my university to bring everyone up to a common baseline level. They have students from all over the world. It really isn't years worth of useful knowledge, the military is capable of giving recruits the knowledge they need much more quickly, especially given the much more disciplined/controlled environment involved.

Doubt. If someone can't even read, or even have a solid concept of abstraction with numbers, I doubt you can came up to even the lowest bar of college. There is an unspoken filter to even get the chance to take that one year catch up.

In a year you can teach kids who are a little behind enough to get them up to the min high school will teach them, but certainly not the most that high school will teach them if they want it.

Of course this overlooks what the minimum bar for a college is. At my college the lowest math they offered that wasn't considered remedial was calculus. That's a far cry from many community colleges where the lowest is alegebra. You definitely should have learned alegebra in high school and not knowing it definitely extends your timeline on certain disciplines.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#254

Post by johnnyanmac » Sun, Jan 28, 2024, 5:20 PM UTC

drewcoo wrote: post #118

johnnyanmac wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow inferior or stupid people. I took it the opposite way. High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. The top side may be extremely competitive, but the bar for passing high school is meant to be low. Someone who can't pass that and doesn't have developmental issues likely have environm…

> High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. That's a bold claim. Can you back it up? On the flip side, an actual path to citizenship is military service. https://www.uscis.gov/military/naturalization-through-milita...

>That's a bold claim. Can you back it up?

It's more of a spiritual gesture than some hard law. They aren't called "standardized tests" because they test for the exceptional.

I'm sure we can put the relevant education board in a room and have them argue over what should/shouldn't be on such tests, but the current result is a compromise after years of deliberation, being tweaked a little each year.

I'll be a bit more specific and say "high school testing is designed to provide a floor of knowledge a government feels its citizens should achieve" if that helps.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#255

Post by PeterisP » Sun, Jan 28, 2024, 5:28 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #252

PeterisP wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you shouldn't equate "didn't graduate" with "can't graduate" - I feel that a large part, perhaps most, high school dropouts didn't drop out because of various social issues, and for a young person without a high-school diploma, very likely lack of money and potential jobs, and very likely a lack of a supportive home environment, the army can provide a stable employment and a community that has its issues but…

I feel my "that student has environmental issues" agrees with your sentiment. I do agree that very few students who did not graduate truly can't pass the curriculum. And lower socioeconomic standing is a huge (if not biggest) reason. >the army can provide a stable employment and a community that has its issues but is likely less abusive than whatever home environment prevented them from graduating high school. For su…

I'm just saying that there isn't a safety net that provides a better alternative, such a high-school dropout without a supporting family becoming homeless does even less for their core traumas than being told what to do in the army; whatever the drawbacks are, for many this is legitimately the least worst option that's available to them.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#256

Post by johnnyanmac » Sun, Jan 28, 2024, 5:35 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #255

johnnyanmac wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel my "that student has environmental issues" agrees with your sentiment. I do agree that very few students who did not graduate truly can't pass the curriculum. And lower socioeconomic standing is a huge (if not biggest) reason. >the army can provide a stable employment and a community that has its issues but is likely less abusive than whatever home environment prevented them from graduating high school. For su…

I'm just saying that there isn't a safety net that provides a better alternative, such a high-school dropout without a supporting family becoming homeless does even less for their core traumas than being told what to do in the army; whatever the drawbacks are, for many this is legitimately the least worst option that's available to them.

Perhaps. That's what brought my main point of the feeling being "entrapment" (i don't know the exact term for this sort of phenomenon).

Hey, did our system utterly fail you? Submit yourself to us and we'll fix the problem we continue to propogate! You don't even need to complete the educational system we outlined anymore, just be a warm body to throw at future battles for oil.

There's less incentive to provide proper housing when you can instead put your citizens in barracks.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#257

Post by mindslight » Sun, Jan 28, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #82

mindslight wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be 2003 any longer, but what happened then is still reverberating. Seeing the US military and so many lives just get utterly squandered running imperial errands for the president's daddy's friends. Who wouldn't strongly discourage their own kids from putting themselves in such a vulnerable position, or be skeptical of the claim that the next war might actually be important? Similarly so much of Russia's cu…

> it's all too easy to pigeonhole what actually appears to be reasonable support for a would-be ally into the same bag. This seems to imply that Soviet intervention into an American war declared over the Cuban Missile Crisis would have been fairly characterized as "reasonable support for a would-be [in this case, already formalized] ally".

In a rough sense, sure? That was before my time so I don't have much of an opinion. It would seem the real root of the problem there was the mutually escalating global cold war. Whereas for current events, the West was quite happy integrating with the former Soviet Union including Russia, until Boomer Putin got high on his own supply and started trying to Make Russia Great Again.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#258

Post by b4ke » Sun, Jan 28, 2024, 6:19 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #108

atmavatar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little worried that if we implement the "service guarantees citizenship" scheme you allude to, we'll be forced to fight a war against an interstellar insect race soon after.

I feel like "service guarantees citizenship" was debated in 50BC in Ancient Rome. "In this framework, the blood and toil of immigrants won't just contribute to our nation's fabric, but will be the very bedrock of its defense." We are going dark here.

I agree the sentiment of that period was dark, and giving the people who have sacrificed their homes and have made a perilous journey here hope is what they came for to begin with. There is an argument to be made for ejecting people with no prospects outside of abhorrence, this is my attempting to soften it with something to strive for.

If we don’t do things like this, what do we expect these people who need to care for themselves and potentially their families are going to be willing to do?

We also have to be serious in consideration of the current climate, and having recruiting down will just lead to drafts or forced conscriptions if the climate turns further.

I wish we wouldn’t have enabled the current belief in the country being an opportunity for foreign actors to come to without using the proper mechanisms. Unfortunately it has and we are now in a situation that is untenable. We can hold back in fear of the “invasion” or come up with plans to integrate and/or assimilate these individuals in their family that will be a benefit or leave them to languish to our detriment.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#259

Post by b4ke » Sun, Jan 28, 2024, 6:24 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #85

b4ke wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I didn’t say that or allude to it, voluntary conscripted amnesty. They would still have to naturalize as well, and only offer that after a sufficient period of service and all the rigors of training, ait, and actual term. Do you believe we are not already having an inter-domain/dimensional information war with something of a nature you describe? (Kind of kidding)

>> if we implement the "service guarantees citizenship" scheme you allude to > No I didn’t say that or allude to it Did you forget what you put in your own comment? >>> There would be no need for sign-on bonus, you could add additional qualifications for g.i. benefits in the form of naturalization.

Your comment is dismissive, and unhelpful. I think if you were to maybe review the concept in a less shallow manner, you would see this is voluntary, for those already in country on parole anyways. If you think you can dismiss the concept by being disrespectful of your lack of depth I’d suggest you work on comprehension with logic puzzles or the like.

All of what I said requires effort, which is not guaranteed, they are options for the motivated, which is what we want those coming to this country to hold of personal value. Have a nice day though.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#260

Post by EasyMark » Sun, Jan 28, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

maroonblazer wrote: post #234

kerkeslager wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Back in the day my country still had obligatory military service for the oldest male child of the family. Everyone had to do this. IQ tests were used to sort people coming in. With due respect for your country, which country you're talking about is highly relevant. There are That starts with the fact that the US doesn't do compulsory military service, because soldiers who don't want to be there aren't effective sol…

>That starts with the fact that the US doesn't do compulsory military service, because soldiers who don't want to be there aren't effective soldiers (note that Israel does do compulsory military service, which is because they have different problems than we do). While the security concerns of certain countries have motivated compelled military service, I wonder if a side-effect is less division/greater intra-country…

It doesn't really matter if the US would benefit from forced military service because that's not the kind of values the country was founded on. Drafts may sometimes be necessary in wartime, but during peace it's an awful idea to force military training on everyone.