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

The Soldiers' Philosopher (2014)

philosophyforlife.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: The Soldiers' Philosopher (2014)

#31

Post by FrustratedMonky »

rightbyte wrote: post #18
KineticLensman wrote: post #6

I used to work with Soldiers a lot (I helped build training simulations) and was often amazed by their perspectives. I remember theoretical discussions (Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is) alongside powerful raw emotions (Dutch peacekeepers unable to intervene in the Srebrenica massacre). On one project, where things were technically crashing around our ears, I was staggered by the emotional and p…

> Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is Well, giving up is taboo in the military. As is fragging etc. I think there is a big correlation between being defeated and thinking you are. The quote seems to imply a one way causality. Like as if the realization causes the defeat.

"Well, giving up is taboo in the military"

The quote was about the 'enemy'. Many civilian governments will end a war, before the military would have.

I'm sure there are a lot of examples in both directions, they should have just walked away sooner, or they should have stuck it out and all died gloriously.

Example: The German Military didn't want to end WW1, wasn't it the civilian government. But, weren't they actually really beat?

Or Vietnam. Did we lose? Or were we convinced we had lost.

It is possible to be 'defeated' but just not accept it. The never give up attitude leads to extra deaths.

What if Japan had this attitude, and we just kept dropping atomic bombs until the country was gone.

Guess goes back to some other quote I can't cite. War is easier to start than to end.

Re: The Soldiers' Philosopher (2014)

#32

Post by dullcrisp »

biorach wrote: post #30
dullcrisp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing goes together like Russians and whataboutism

That wasn't whataboutism

Well it’s certainly hard to tell sometimes. People will bring up Russia out of nowhere just to point out that it’s not any worse than the US.

Russia: Other countries do bad things too!™

Re: The Soldiers' Philosopher (2014)

#34

Post by [deleted] »

bbor wrote: post #16

You’re in a lethality and violence-soaked environment, increasingly in population-centric environments. There’s a lot of grey area - who’s the enemy, are they a voluntary or involuntary human-shield, and so on. I guess she understandably doesn’t want to focus on that part, but this has to be a huge part of rising PTSD rates: it’s hard to ignore that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were ultimately immorally waged. Wh…

[deleted]

Re: The Soldiers' Philosopher (2014)

#35

Post by tristramb »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #31
rightbyte wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is Well, giving up is taboo in the military. As is fragging etc. I think there is a big correlation between being defeated and thinking you are. The quote seems to imply a one way causality. Like as if the realization causes the defeat.

"Well, giving up is taboo in the military" The quote was about the 'enemy'. Many civilian governments will end a war, before the military would have. I'm sure there are a lot of examples in both directions, they should have just walked away sooner, or they should have stuck it out and all died gloriously. Example: The German Military didn't want to end WW1, wasn't it the civilian government. But, weren't they actuall…

"The German Military didn't want to end WW1."

Not true. Following the breaking of the Hindenberg line on 1918-09-29 Ludendorff realised that further resistance would likely lead to communist revolution in Germany. On 1918-10-01 he explained this to the heads of department of his General Staff and said he had therefore asked the Kaiser and Chancellor to ask Woodrow Wilson for an armistice based on his Fourteen Points. It took six more weeks for the armistice to be agreed partly because Ludendorff was trying to ensure that someone else could be blamed the defeat.

Its all in "On a Knife Edge - How Germany lost the First World War" by Holger Aflerbach, 2022.

Re: The Soldiers' Philosopher (2014)

#36

Post by wruza »

dullcrisp wrote: post #32
biorach wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't whataboutism

Well it’s certainly hard to tell sometimes. People will bring up Russia out of nowhere just to point out that it’s not any worse than the US. Russia: Other countries do bad things too!™

How would you comment on that? What would change if ggp wasn’t (allegedly) russian?

Your comment reads like “whatever, shut tf up” and nothing else. What you expect from that?

Re: The Soldiers' Philosopher (2014)

#37

Post by KineticLensman »

The_Colonel wrote: post #25
rightbyte wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is Well, giving up is taboo in the military. As is fragging etc. I think there is a big correlation between being defeated and thinking you are. The quote seems to imply a one way causality. Like as if the realization causes the defeat.

You interpret the question in a tactical context, but I sense it was in a strategic sense. e. g. US thought it defeated Taliban by the end of 2001, Taliban certainly didn't think so. Similar thing with Palestinians vs. Israel.

> You interpret the question in a tactical context, but I sense it was in a strategic sense.

Exactly. The (British) soldier who answered this was channelling Sun Tzu

Re: The Soldiers' Philosopher (2014)

#38

Post by KineticLensman »

keybored wrote: post #11
quercusa wrote: post #5

(2014) Interesting: The Stoics were giving salvation for tough times. It’s a great philosophy for tough times, I’m not sure it’s a great philosophy for everyday living. It’s always good to feel more in control, but it’s not good to think that luck and the vicissitudes of the world can’t touch you or that you can’t show moral outrage, love, grief, and so on.

If someone said this about Stoicism on HN (not a professional philosopher) they would get corrected by the Stoic practitioners/dabblers: that it’s about skillfully managing circumstances and your reaction to them. Not about cutting off your emotional life. Anyway I don’t see the connection between the vicissitudes of life and travelling half-way across the world and then getting blown up by an IDE^W IED. What part of…

> > God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.

Or, as soldiers (and some others) put it: "Pick your battles"

Re: The Soldiers' Philosopher (2014)

#39

Post by sandworm101 »

rightbyte wrote: post #18
KineticLensman wrote: post #6

I used to work with Soldiers a lot (I helped build training simulations) and was often amazed by their perspectives. I remember theoretical discussions (Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is) alongside powerful raw emotions (Dutch peacekeepers unable to intervene in the Srebrenica massacre). On one project, where things were technically crashing around our ears, I was staggered by the emotional and p…

> Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is Well, giving up is taboo in the military. As is fragging etc. I think there is a big correlation between being defeated and thinking you are. The quote seems to imply a one way causality. Like as if the realization causes the defeat.

>> Well, giving up is taboo in the military

No. It is only taboo at basic training. Mission-focused delegation of authority in modern militaries specifically adresses this. Leaders are encouraged to take initiative, which often means abandoning a failing plan. The ability to quickly recognize failure, "give up" and reattack a problem is what separates western forces from the drills-based approach of the post-soviet block.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission-type_tactics

(Even at basic training, giving up is a thing. The only true failure at basic is getting oneself or others injured.)

Re: The Soldiers' Philosopher (2014)

#40

Post by FrustratedMonky »

tristramb wrote: post #35
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Well, giving up is taboo in the military" The quote was about the 'enemy'. Many civilian governments will end a war, before the military would have. I'm sure there are a lot of examples in both directions, they should have just walked away sooner, or they should have stuck it out and all died gloriously. Example: The German Military didn't want to end WW1, wasn't it the civilian government. But, weren't they actuall…

"The German Military didn't want to end WW1." Not true. Following the breaking of the Hindenberg line on 1918-09-29 Ludendorff realised that further resistance would likely lead to communist revolution in Germany. On 1918-10-01 he explained this to the heads of department of his General Staff and said he had therefore asked the Kaiser and Chancellor to ask Woodrow Wilson for an armistice based on his Fourteen Points.…

You're correct. I was referring more to the general attitude of the 'country'. There were a lot of people upset that Germany had 'given up', including rank and file. And a lot of that resentment went into WW2. Of course lot of details being skipped here.

Maybe Vietnam is better example. One could argue that after the Tet Offensive, that the North was out of resources and the US could have won. But the Tet Offensive had convinced the US that there was no winning, so by 'believing' they had lost, they lost.

"Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is"

I was just commenting on the original quote, that there is large part of psychology to winning/losing. If you can make the enemy 'think they lost' then you have won, even if it doesn't look like it on paper by the number of units, position, etc...

Post reply on HN