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Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft

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Re: Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft

#211

Post by azangru »

mrhottakes wrote: post #120
azangru wrote: post #77

What does it mean for Palantir to want to reinstate the draft? And why is this newsworthy?

The movements and announcements of large tech companies tend to be newsworthy, whether it's "we made a new iPhone", "our new model is so good it's dangerous!" or "we should have a draft to support new American imperialism"

I understand why your first two examples would be newsworthy – they are 1) about technical products that 2) are produced by the company that is making the announcement. But what does Palantir have to do with the draft? Isn't this comment on the same level as, I dunno, Elon Musk tweeting that families should have at least 3 kids?

Re: Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft

#212

Post by anigbrowl »

joquarky wrote: post #167
anigbrowl wrote: post #141

I'm in favor of mandatory public service (not exclusively military) but I also don't think a private company should be weighing in on such topics, since it's just a bunch of capital owners preaching about what everyone else should do.

Who will pay for it? We can't even pay for education or healthcare.

We can, we just choose not to because of how we prioritize accounting. I see no reason why a well-run program shouldn't pay for itself since people would be doing some work as well as getting trained. Obviously, I'm picturing this as part of a broad realignment of national priorities and governance mores, not as a drop-in solution that we could just put in place tomorrow.

Re: Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft

#213

Post by bigfatkitten »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #178
1234letshaveatw wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't we? That is pretty close to the number of firefighters in the US, and they rarely fight fires

From some quick googling, I think the average firefighter fights about two fires per month, which is pretty good! And the average specialized wildlands kind of firefighter fights fires much more often. But firefighters don't just fight fires, they mostly do medical emergencies, which keep them very busy. And that's the problem with standing armies: we generally don't want soldiers doing a bunch of other kinds of work…

> And the average specialized wildlands kind of firefighter fights fires much more often.

For the most part, only during fire season.

Re: Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft

#214

Post by red-iron-pine »

chromacity wrote: post #63
_doctor_love wrote: post #20

Other countries have compulsory military service, for example Finland. Generally speaking I am a fan of the idea that everyone should be required to do some kind of community service for 2 years once they turn 18. Military service would just be one option, could be other kinds of civic engagement. This can really help people feel connected to their society and understand that there is something to show up for. BUT -…

> Generally speaking I am a fan of the idea that everyone should be required to do some kind of community service for 2 years once they turn 18. Why? I get the warm-and-fuzzy angle of "instilling civic responsibility", but you're effectively instilling that at gunpoint: the government forces you to do this, else you go to prison. Is that really such an enlightened thing to do? It takes away two years of your life, po…

> but you're effectively instilling that at gunpoint: the government forces you to do this, else you go to prison. Is that really such an enlightened thing to do?

if you want rights, you need to do more than just exist.

gunpoint is optional; West Germany used to force people to go either into the Army, or else do a longer stint of service in hospitals, firefighting, old folks homes, rescue services, youth organizations, or other civil roles.

Re: Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft

#215

Post by TrackerFF »

Having grown up in Norway, I did my conscription when I was 18. Not really a big deal - even though I was incredibly unmotivated in the beginning. Back in the old days (read: Cold War days) everyone had to serve, but then as Russia became less of a threat, so did military funding, and the number of conscripted. Today around 15%-20% will be conscripted.

But interestingly enough, for the past 10 years we've seen a trend here in Norway where conscription service is viewed almost as a prestigious thing - due to how selective the military can be.

When I served, everyone would be called in. It wasn't a prestigious thing to do, just something you pushed through. We had one guy in our platoon during boot camp that was so big and heavy, he could not get into any standard issue boots. He was completely unable to run. Eventually he was discharged for medical reasons - but these days someone like that wouldn't have gotten past the screening stage. They can pretty much pick and choose among the fittest and brightest.

Re: Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft

#216

Post by SJC_Hacker »

anigbrowl wrote: post #123
chromacity wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally speaking I am a fan of the idea that everyone should be required to do some kind of community service for 2 years once they turn 18. Why? I get the warm-and-fuzzy angle of "instilling civic responsibility", but you're effectively instilling that at gunpoint: the government forces you to do this, else you go to prison. Is that really such an enlightened thing to do? It takes away two years of your life, po…

you're effectively instilling that at gunpoint: the government forces you to do this I'm so sick of libertarian tropes. Starting every argument with oerwrought emotionalism has made me increasingly indifferent to your 'plight' over the years, because it's just victimization politics. Perhaps if we rebalanced public/private obligations overall tax burdens owuld be lower and society would be more pleasant to live in.

I'm not a libertarian but I think they have a point here - conscription is tantamount to slave labor. The fact that it was accepted by societies for hundreds of years doesn't make it any less so.

Re: Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft

#217

Post by SJC_Hacker »

Danox wrote: post #133
causal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea of civic engagement / service in theory too, but I feel like the Vietnam war was a demonstration of possible failure modes when draft is in place: a lot of poor kids died, some rich kids allegedly used parental influence to dodge the draft. No incentive for leaders to avoid war while loop holes remain for their own interests.

The word allegedly should be dropped many ie.. Taco got out of it, however much better men John McCain, John Kerry, and Robert Mueller did not. Serving is okay if everyone serves no exceptions.

McCain and Kerry volunteered. Don't know about Mueller

Re: Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft

#219

Post by SJC_Hacker »

LoFiSamurai wrote: post #12
dylan604 wrote: post #5

Opening graph: "We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost," says military contractor and all-around surveillance-enabler Palantir. If that's the case, then every war to be fought needs to have the say so of those that will be doing the fighting and not the solitary decision made by a delusional leader tha…

Having those sent to fight in a war being the ones to decide if the war should be fought was on of the major points in General Butler’s 1935 book War is a Racket

I used to think this is a good idea. However, the reality is when you join the military it should be reasonable assumption you are going to be sent somewhere to actually fight at some point.

My proposed alternative would be, when you sign up for the military, you are presented with a list of "regions" in which you are willing to be deployed in a combat role, with pay/benefits scaling accordingly the more regions (and more "in demand" regions) you are willing to be deployed. So you could potentially ahve a group that would not fight in the Middle East but would fight in the Pacific, etc. Of course you can't have too many declining service in too many reasons, but if it starts to get expensive to find recruits willing to fight in a given region thats a clear sign somethings amiss with popular sentiment.

Re: Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft

#220

Post by HDThoreaun »

_doctor_love wrote: post #170
stronglikedan wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what are American soldiers dying for? The American way of life, which is still the most preferred way of life, as evidenced by (a) people wanting to emigrate here more than any other country in the world and (b) more people immigrating here than any other country.

> The American way of life It's your argument that our current and recent engagements in Venezuela, Iran, and soon Cuba, are to defend the American way of life?

Yes? Iran threatens a nuclear attack on the US constantly. Not saying the war is some great idea but it definitely is about defending the american way of life
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