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How We Learned to Kill

nytimes.com

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Re: How We Learned to Kill

#31

Post by calibraxis »

mrottenkolber wrote: post #25

He ordered the killing of humans because of an assumption? What the shit. Just walk over there and ask the bloke what he's doing, or investigate after they left, or throw in a flash grenade and disable, shoot the legs not the heads. Anything but kill. What are they thinking? That their chances of survival are higher if they kill the enemy combatants before they can kill them? Is this really what it boils down to? Thi…

Yes, what a goofy bit of propaganda. Anyone with a shred of ethics asks something like, "What if this were a Chinese newspaper, from a guy who invaded the US and went around killing people for the horrible crime of defending their home?"

(And unlike Afghanistan, the US is the world's hyperviolent bully.)

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#32

Post by gohrt »

huj123 wrote: post #11

>I focused on lessons I had learned reading Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s book “On Killing,” Dave Grossman reportedly cites someone named S. L. A. Marshall who made the claim that only a small percentage of infantry ever fired their weapons, to support the idea that most people have some natural reluctance to kill in battle. I just want to point out that there is zero evidence for this claim: https://westhunt.wordpress.co…

I have no idea what the evidence really says on this topic, but I suspect the claim is more likely to hold true in the past era of huge conscripted armies, than in the modern error of small highly-trained armies (and small guerilla armies, which don't have large numbers of conscripts).

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#33

Post by alextgordon »

There was a BBC doc about Sandhurst a few years ago where they showed how they train recruits to kill people.

Basically it involves the delightfully low-tech method of having recruits charge towards a bag of grass cuttings and stabbing it in the gut with their bayonet while chanting "KILL!"

One of the recruits was so freaked out by the whole thing that he quit soon afterwards.

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo

(46:11) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo#t=2771

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#34

Post by sebastianconcpt »

BariumBlue wrote: post #27
mrottenkolber wrote: post #25

He ordered the killing of humans because of an assumption? What the shit. Just walk over there and ask the bloke what he's doing, or investigate after they left, or throw in a flash grenade and disable, shoot the legs not the heads. Anything but kill. What are they thinking? That their chances of survival are higher if they kill the enemy combatants before they can kill them? Is this really what it boils down to? Thi…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem If you were in the situation above, what choice would you make? I'm legitimately curious, as I do not know many people that seem to think in moral absolutes.

You don't fall into the false dichotomy of even entering into playing that game. Your question presents a false dichotomy that (dangerously) is pushing things into trying to institutionalise a justification of killing a fellow human being. Worst, is trying to do that a priori. Is exactly what dictatorships, genocides and Eugenicists would use. In Nature, and even in urban life, the chances of experiencing the Trolley problem are close to nil.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#35

Post by vinceguidry »

mrottenkolber wrote: post #25

He ordered the killing of humans because of an assumption? What the shit. Just walk over there and ask the bloke what he's doing, or investigate after they left, or throw in a flash grenade and disable, shoot the legs not the heads. Anything but kill. What are they thinking? That their chances of survival are higher if they kill the enemy combatants before they can kill them? Is this really what it boils down to? Thi…

> This sort of behavior is not acceptable for a human being, heck its not acceptable for an animal being or a plant.

Animals are ruthless killers. Cats kill for fun. Plants aren't much better. In India, a captive elephant is allowed to kill two of its handlers before they will put it down. They suspect the elephants know this and pick their targets carefully. Only man has the ability to be moral, to decide whether the killing they do is legitimate or not. Doesn't stop us from killing, but at least we can feel bad about it.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#36

Post by mter »

mrottenkolber wrote: post #25

He ordered the killing of humans because of an assumption? What the shit. Just walk over there and ask the bloke what he's doing, or investigate after they left, or throw in a flash grenade and disable, shoot the legs not the heads. Anything but kill. What are they thinking? That their chances of survival are higher if they kill the enemy combatants before they can kill them? Is this really what it boils down to? Thi…

> investigate after they left

We tried this terrible idea once. It results in our guys dying because surprise, they detonate the ied when you walk up to it.

> shoot the legs not the heads

Have you ever watched programmers on tv doing things like 3 people typing on the same keyboard? That's the equivalent of this statement.

> Don't shoot unless shot upon

They fight by planting ieds. In your world, we'd be dying by the dozens. Interdicting the guys planting IEDs is the most effective way to prevent IED attacks.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#37

Post by TeMPOraL »

A very good and honest article.

Here's one gem I noticed, right at the end:

> I don’t blame Presidents George W. Bush or Barack Obama for these wars. Our elected leaders, after all, are just following orders, no different from the Marine who asks if he can kill a man digging by the side of the road.

Exactly. Some people seem to think that the President is the one with the most power, and that he can wield it arbitrarily. It's not true. You don't get to be a President of a country if you're not up to your eyeballs with connections and mutual favour-based relationships. Nobody is going to let you become President if you're the type of person that could seriously endanger the entrenched status quo based on your whims. Such people are filtered out earlier in the process. I suspect that, in a way, the office of President is one of the least real power in actual politics.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#38

Post by sebastianconcpt »

War is the institutionalization of selective sociopathy.

This is quite illustrative:

"For a while after I ordered the Marine to take that first shot, everything we did seemed acceptable. It revealed that killing could be banal. Each day would bring a new threat that needed to be eliminated"

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#39

Post by TeMPOraL »

mrottenkolber wrote: post #25

He ordered the killing of humans because of an assumption? What the shit. Just walk over there and ask the bloke what he's doing, or investigate after they left, or throw in a flash grenade and disable, shoot the legs not the heads. Anything but kill. What are they thinking? That their chances of survival are higher if they kill the enemy combatants before they can kill them? Is this really what it boils down to? Thi…

This is war. A place of snap decisions, unfortunately. Sure, I personally would like US soldiers, or for that matter my own country's soldiers, to wage war like United Federation of Planets - diplomacy, diplomacy, and if that fails, set phasers to stun. But we don't have phasers. Nowdays, if you run at your enemy with a taser, you'll get shot to death before you're halfway there.

I'm not defending the atrocities many a soldier committed on purpose. There are many unforgivable things that happen during war. But in the current shape of warfare, you can't blame soldiers for using lethal force against a perceived lethal threat. Let's develop phasers with stun settings that are as effective as guns, and then we can go back to this conversation.

EDIT: Come on. Off-topic or not, you're breaking the conversation flow by deleting your responses. Those comments are useful for context even if some of us disagree with them.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#40

Post by TeMPOraL »

[deleted] wrote: post #30
BariumBlue wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem If you were in the situation above, what choice would you make? I'm legitimately curious, as I do not know many people that seem to think in moral absolutes.

[deleted]

> It's a bullshit problem created to justify stupid decisions.

No. It's a toy problem designed to check for particular moral reactions in controlled conditions, for exploring the way human conscience works. It's not meant to be used as something you reduce real-world problems to.

> I don't think in moral absolutes, hell I don't even consider myself an especially moral person. I justify my actions based on their merits and everything I've read, seen and heard about offensive warfare just seems like a really stupid idea.

This is good, and that is very much in agreement with the trolley problem. Evaluating actions based on their merits, looking at principles and consequences alike.

With rest of your comment, I agree. Iraq and Afganistan wars are stupid, and are an example of a collective failure to do the right thing.

Just don't blame it on the trolley problem.

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