Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 465 posts

Re: Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

#81

Post by frmersdog »

hopelite wrote: post #52
appreciatorBus wrote: post #17

> "We don't want to spend half a year of our lives locked up in barracks, being trained in drill and obedience and learning to kill," the organisers of the protests wrote in a statement posted on social media. "War offers no prospects for the future and destroys our livelihoods." Is the idea that it’s better for your livelihood to just start learning how speak Russian now?

[flagged]

Wars are won on resolve, and mercenaries don't have any. The reason so many of these people fled to Europe in the first place was to avoid getting caught up in violence. They have zero reason to fight anything except the insistence that they fight.

Also, this is racist as hell, why isn't it flagged to death yet?

Re: Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

#82

Post by threatofrain »

wkat4242 wrote: post #65
venturecruelty wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of young people look at all of the wars waged post-WWII and are rightfully opposed to fighting for their governments. Would you want to die for nothing in Vietnam? Probably not, and a lot of other people didn't want to as well. Some of them did anyway, and it was all for nothing. So please have some grace if today's kids have looked back at our miserable history and have decided that they'd rather not d…

Exactly. Even after Vietnam, in this century. Iraq war 2 was all false pretenses. And the resulting power vacuum created ISIS. Afghanistan accomplished absolutely nothing, things are back to the way it was and all the deaths were for nothing. The only fairly recent war that the west was involved in that was slightly justified was the first gulf war. But even that wasn't really any of America's business. It wasn't tha…

But do people think American will translate to Germany?

Re: Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

#83

Post by crooked-v »

anonym29 wrote: post #63
appreciatorBus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you believe life in western democracy is exactly the same as life in modern imperial Russia, like if you could choose, you would have no preference whatsoever?

[flagged]

Russia, because just by existing there as a male in a certain age bracket you have a realistic chance of being tasered and beaten until you sign "voluntary" military service papers so that they can send you to die on the front lines of a war of conquest (https://theins.ru/en/society/277452).

Re: Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

#84

Post by anonym29 »

crooked-v wrote: post #83
anonym29 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Russia, because just by existing there as a male in a certain age bracket you have a realistic chance of being tasered and beaten until you sign "voluntary" military service papers so that they can send you to die on the front lines of a war of conquest ( https://theins.ru/en/society/277452 ).

[flagged]

Re: Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

#85

Post by fasbiner »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #26
fasbiner wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be too far of an obscure historical reference, but is there really nothing specific to German history and nothing within german civic education and contemporary national identity formation that might make this potentially more controversial? Hint:some of these events involved spheres of influence and control over resources in eastern europe!

I think the much bigger issue is that the older generation (those who, say, turned 18 in the 70s) told the younger generation lots of really nasty stories about the cruel trials people had to endure who wanted to do alternative national service (Zivildienst) instead of military service. These formed the value system of many people in at least two generations ("Soldaten sind Mörder" [soldiers are murders]). EDIT: If y…

That's certainly some nuance there! I had in mind a more basic concept which due to legal restrictions in Germany maybe make thinking about it as part of German history and a geopolitical conflict likely to naturally reoccur is part of a Denkverbot.

But I think you should legally be able to answer if you can think of anything between 1914 and 1945 that is taught to Germans in schools that might cause younger Germans to feel some aversion towards preparing to fight a land war against russia in eastern ukraine? Anything that maybe resulted in the premature deaths of millions of young german men, initially volunteers who were solicited at the secondary school level?

Massive political differences and ultimate outcomes aside for each conflict, Germany becoming increasingly militarized has a poor track record when it comes to not getting extremely large numbers of teenage german boys killed in eastern Ukraine.

Re: Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

#86

Post by geoka9 »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #17

> "We don't want to spend half a year of our lives locked up in barracks, being trained in drill and obedience and learning to kill," the organisers of the protests wrote in a statement posted on social media. "War offers no prospects for the future and destroys our livelihoods." Is the idea that it’s better for your livelihood to just start learning how speak Russian now?

That wouldn't be half as bad, by comparison. But it's more like learning how to survive in the Russian "meat wave" corps a bit longer than your peers.

Looking at the parts of Eastern Ukraine that were under Russian occupation since 2014 and are now almost devoid of male population, that's what happens if you're not willing to fight in your own (European) army: sooner or later you end up fighting in the Russian one.

Re: Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

#87

Post by jadamson »

Balgair wrote: post #79
nothercastle wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to being drone operators or targets it’s probably a negligible difference

Actually you make a good point here. Women have better reaction times then men, so female drone operators, all else being equal, may be better at the job.

[flagged]

Re: Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

#88

Post by geoka9 »

anonym29 wrote: post #57
appreciatorBus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a proxy war if Russia invades and you fight back?

Because both sides are funded and armed by much larger players using their respective proxies to deplete the resources of the other side. NATO is using Ukraine like a bullet sponge to deplete Russian resources, China is using Russia as a bullet sponge to deplete NATO resources. NATO sends Ukraine equipment, happy to send hundreds of thousands of Ukranians who have no say in the matter to their deaths. China sends Rus…

Of course, it's just a question of Ukraine knowing what's good for it (and the poor Russians) and folding so that all of the dying stops!

Nice one, аноним29; I hope you made your day's quota!

Re: Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

#89

Post by anonym29 »

geoka9 wrote: post #88
anonym29 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because both sides are funded and armed by much larger players using their respective proxies to deplete the resources of the other side. NATO is using Ukraine like a bullet sponge to deplete Russian resources, China is using Russia as a bullet sponge to deplete NATO resources. NATO sends Ukraine equipment, happy to send hundreds of thousands of Ukranians who have no say in the matter to their deaths. China sends Rus…

Of course, it's just a question of Ukraine knowing what's good for it (and the poor Russians) and folding so that all of the dying stops! Nice one, аноним29; I hope you made your day's quota!

You must have missed my comment about opposing the war. But this kind of bad faith accusation is really disappointing to see on HN. The caliber of discourse here is usually much higher - people engaging with the actual merits of the points being raised, not reverting to attacking strawmen that only exist in their head as if this was Facebook.

Ordinary Russian and Ukranian people are both victims of this war. It is being waged for reasons neither of them chose, that neither of them asked for, that neither of them wanted. Civilians are being killed on both sides, and the people most vested in the continuation of the conflict are those that reap all of the profits from the war while paying none of the human costs. This is a classic principal-agent problem.

If you can't see the inhumanity in the structural forces at play and want to play a game of "attack the strawman" to score meaningless internet points while millions die needlessly over a pointless war, I can't force you to stop, but I'd at least hope you can grow up and take the tragedy and human suffering seriously enough at some point to care more about that than you do about your HN rep.

Re: Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

#90

Post by duxup »

enceladus06 wrote: post #8

Just build nukes if you are afraid of Russia then nuke them if they try to invade. Ukraine is not as smart and gave up its nukes in the early 90s, and is now in the middle of a war for the last couple years.

More nations with nukes just seems to increase the odds that someone dorks up and possibly gets everyone screwed.
Post reply on HN