- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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Joining a military that aggresses other nations? Yeah, spot on. Joining a military to defend your line on the ground against people you see as fellow earthlings? Still a fair take. Joining a military to defend against people who want you dead because of how you were born? That’s where this starts to unravel. That kind of stuff sadly exists in this world.
I’m not gonna fault an american for an opinion like that, but if you’re involved with european leftists who are too busy virtue signalling to adopt any pragmatic defense policy positions, you get a real appreciation for the nuance.
I’m all for artistic prose, emphatic amd impactful prose, but so many people think impact is more important than accuracy and coherence.
We can assume they mean (or would accept the substitution of) “the military industrial complex” instead of the concept of “maintaining a military”, but the symmetry required them to be less accurate.
I mean self-defense is not bad. US is just not defending itself from anyone.
If only we had countless examples from history of people successfully defending themselves without a military…
Do we?
Haiti’s independence war, the October revolution, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Irish independence movement, the French revolution, India’s independence guerillas, Indonesia’s independence guerillas, women’s rights movements (including suffragette terrorism), the Black Panthers, Christians in the Roman empire, Al Qaeda fighting off NATO, …
I’m not suggesting pacifism, I’m suggesting decentralized violence that isn’t at the command of a state.
Ah, bespoke artisanal violence. That’s the difference
Unironically, yes. Shape the tools of violence for the situation, keep them in the hands of those they are meant to defend, and suddenly it’s a lot less evil.
It’s the same way your grandma knitting you a scarf is less evil than a sweatshop knitting you one.
That only works for internal resistance I believe? Like, Ukrainians can’t defend against the Kremlin with a sitting strike
However, we definitely need more sitting strikes nowadays. We’ve grown complacent in exchange for small pleasantries
Sure. Let yourself become “internal” and then assassinate and terror-bomb and sabotage them. I wasn’t suggesting pacifism, I was suggesting not outsourcing your “self-defense” to a state.
Militaries can never give you self-defense, they can only give self-defense to themselves, more specifically military high command. Or the military-industrial complex if you’re feeling fancy. You are a source of taxes, morale, and manpower.
One thing to remember is that the alternative to a military is being able to spend all the money and resources and labor and life that was going to the military on other projects. Even spending it all on self-defense if need be.
We have only grown complacent because they have everyone starved on the edge of poverty and no one can afford to risk it.
The complacency came from being overfed on chemically engineered, heartily poisoned garbage, sportsball, video games, television, alcohol, drugs, and algorithms.
Self-defense from a self inflicted problem though?
So many absurd things that I was told “you’ll understand/agree when you’re older” that turned out to just be boomer copium.
No, I don’t hate taxes (the opposite). No, I’m not more conservative (the opposite).
One thing I’ve noticed about boomers is the constant TV on in the background. Very commonly FOX news, or newsmax these days, cnn, etc. Their world view is absolutely shaped by their media diet.
Meanwhile, our generation has always had the Internet. We view the world through that lens, which has a bit more of an expanded view, especially since people from those “scary” countries can come on places like reddit and post. Which is why I think the push for AI has been so strong. Now the Epstein class have some sort of means to taint what we read online, slowly moving our own worldview to the one the boomers have had from their own propaganda. It used to take owning the news stations to push their agenda, but now they had to pivot to now posting via bots to get their messages in.
All this to say, I think we had a nice gap where a kinder worldview emerged for some generations, but I worry that the generation growing up with the internet how it is becoming is going to slip back into the boomer thinking if it continues this way.
Their strategy for corrupting the youth has been promoting a vapid hyper capitalist hustle culture and signal boosting influencers who embody that depravity. However, unlike the boomers of yore, the economy we face is terrible and only getting worse, with none of us having any personal wealth left to protect. They’re going hard into fascism in an effort to redirect the anger, but even that has a limited half life. Eventually they’re gonna need to start cannibalizing each other in mass movements against other elites, because we need somebody to pay and they need to make it not them. I forsee war in some form as an inevitability.
Meanwhile, our generation has always had the Internet.
Not true for me.
When I was young people around me told me that the further west on the map country is, the wealthiest and more free people live there without any conflict bothering them. With USA (the west-most country on map) as a shiny utopia with everyone peacefully living there being rich and free.
When I was a teen and my country joined EU I saw countless young adults emigrate west, seeking wealth and freedom beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Terrorists and oppressive regimes waged war in the eastern lands.
When I am an adult, the supposed peacekeeper of the world is waging wars to protect pedophiles. Former empire where sun never sets is trying to outlaw being young and sell their citizens data to highest bidder. And EU is bi-yearly trying to pass universal invigilation act.
I feel like my moral compass never really changed, it’s just the world around me that changed beyond recognition. I worry how it will be when I get old, if I even get to live to old age.
Hang in there, buddy, it’s rough but we are all in this together.
US quality of life is going down because labor market has lower demand. it used to be: economic growth -> high demand for labor -> high wages -> quality of life.
the only thing that it has to do with being “west” was that new land -> lots of stuff to do -> growth -> high wages -> quality of life. once the land is settled, that stops.
If nazis in ww2 had propaganda as good as american dream, nobody would know they lost the war to this day.
actually, to live without economic growth takes entirely different strategies than the labor market and wage mechanism.
it needs strategies that the US has not shown mastery of yet.
I know, but like, what? How? I just can’t see a society where that works with current ideas
Better society safety nets. Accepting that constantly chasing quarterly gains is unsustainable. Sometimes its fine for a company to just “Do/make X” instead of constantly pivoting and enshitifying chasing every % of profits. Accepting that sometimes employees will have moments of zero productivity and thats fine because your company is creating jobs and supporting the economy (instead of laying people off because $$$$)
What’s even more wild is to ask a religious leader for a religion that says “don’t kill people” about how killing people in a war isn’t a sin. I was only a child when I saw one of my peers ask a priest this. The mental gymnastics the priest was trying to pull was blatantly obvious to me, even as a kid.
It all makes perfect sense when you realize that the “don’t kill people” part only meant “don’t kill fellow tribesmen”. Non-tribesmen were 100% fair game. The God of that religion commanded multiple genocides against other tribes.
You run into the same problems with said religion and slavery. The whole “it was different and more indentured servitude than chattel slavery” was only for inside the tribe. Chattel slavery was explicitly allowed for the non-tribesman.
Modern religious leaders may be uncomfortable with this and have to perform some Olympic level mental gymnastics, but that is just because ethics and values have changed slightly in 2000 or so years.
Some people genuinely deserve it. So here is the best-intent version in all its escalating absurdity:
The problem is who gets to crown themselves the judge of who deserves to die, which is why judicial systems exist, but who assigns the judges? So then you need an external mandate or a consensus mechanism in place, long story short, you get a ruler with a divine mandate, a parliament/jury consensus system, or an AI swarm convergence mechanism depending on the era you’re currently crossing.
But then you can’t trial the chief of another tribe/country/swarm for crimes they committed which aren’t wrong at all according to their values, like say, a Muslim marrying a first cousin wouldn’t be doing something wrong according to their moral system, but it would be a big taboo in the USA and the west. So if you’re say, a pious chieftain, and you wanted to take the stuff from the next tribe over, just start thinking smart, think of the letter not the spirit. You got all you need.
And now you know why an army is a national survival necessity, and why even religions themselves aren’t safe from a politician, whom they sometimes have to kill.
I was once asked why I joined the military and my answer was ‘l needed money’. This seemed to shock my companion who was astounded that I was willing to potentially kill people over money. My response was that it was a far better reason than for imaginary friends or the colour of their skin.
Yeah well I think because they have some sense of (perverted) morals behind it, while you were doing it just for profit.
They’re really buying into a lifestyle.
And that style is included in the compensation package.
Honestly I always had more respect for mercenaries for not spreading bullshit about imagined values and just admitting why they joined lol
On some level I have more sympathy for someone who at least believes they’re doing the right thing
I always had a deep puzzlement with the military as an institution. It’s basically an organization designed to take young people and teach them to run toward a firing machine gun when told to do so. It defies all logic at the individual level, and it scares me.
But… It’s not?
You seem to have developed an understanding of the military based entirely around a small slice of WW2 movies and video games, and then assumed that has any bearing on the real world.
The way you actually learn to deal with a machine gun (and this was true even in WW2) is find cover, set up suppressing fires, use smoke and terrain for concealment as you advance, and eventually get someone into a position where they can flank and take out the machine gun nest, probably with a grenade so they don’t expose themselves. Most importantly, everything I just described above involves teamwork. You protect each other, you trust each other, you rely on each other.
Safety is paramount. No one is teaching you to run screaming at a machine gun nest with no regard for your own life. That shit barely even happens in movies anymore.
A huge amount of what you learn as a soldier is basically how to keep yourself safe in extremely dangerous situations. Yes, you still have to have a willingness to put yourself in extremely dangerous situations in the first place, but the whole point of learning to do this stuff well is learning how to be the person who can survive those extremely dangerous situations.
I think you are missing the forest for the trees here.
You’re claiming “forests” (“militaries treat young, enlisted lives as expendable for unnecessary wars”) exist and then pointing at a cardboard standee of a tree you brought as evidence.
Yeah, you’re right, but you can admit when your attempt at artistry fails your point.
You’re claiming “forests” (“militaries treat young, enlisted lives as expendable for unnecessary wars”)
Read my comment again. You are reading things that are not there.
Sorry, I was trying to think of a more reasonable alternative than your literal statement that didn’t make sense.
Can you please explain what you meant by
It’s basically an organization designed to take young people and teach them to run toward a firing machine gun when told to do so.
Such that you think someone who explained that the statement is false is missing the forest?
Read back your comment. Does it sound like an honest, good faith effort at dialog?
I’m blocking you now and I’m not going to think twice about this exchange.
This is for people that will come after (assuming the whole post isn’t randomly deleted).
I think my reading of your comment’s anti-military message was reasonable, certainly not mean-spirited. However, I will admit my first comment was more declarative than inquisitive. A more open dialogue might have been “Then what is the forest?”
OK. So elaborate. What is it that disturbs you?
it teaches them that the cause is more important than their individual life.
the cause is usually some politician getting more power… so yeah, lots of brainwashing needed
The rich need cannon fodder.
When we talk about voluntary enlistments they typically rely on mythology of noble and valiant warriors and honorable deaths, or the military represents a path out of poverty.
It’s really eye opening to read accounts of civil war and WW1 soldiers who found out how brutal war actually was.
Not to worry - eventually the industrialization of war will be such that invaders only need to use unmanned craft to decimate their opposition’s home population on their 9-5 shift and then get drinks afterwards. (/s)
The police are made to oppress your own citizens while the military is made to oppress foreign citizens
And if you’re smart, you can even use the military to oppress your own citizens!
I smell an incoming quote from “Battlestar Galactica”
I am intrigued, please tell me where to find out what you’re talking about haha
itt: people justifying why their institution of mass murder is actually good
To protect from that other persons institution of mass murder. OBV.
Killing people is bad and war is bad and the military is evil and the only way to stop it is to use the military to do a war and kill people.
It’s not though.
So what then? Everyone hug and get along? You understand there’s way too many aggressively stupid people out there that believe profoundly idiotic shit that peace will never be a thing long beyond the sun itself aging into a supernova.
You focus too much on physical aggression to fight physical aggression.
Ever heard of diplomacy? Of political, economic, industrial pressure? What about all the wars that were prevented due to clever people making some clever moves that did not involve murder on a systematic scale.Furthermore, we’ve spent an incredible amount of resources on perfectioning killing each other, and barely on exploring ways to wage war without killing.
Diplomacy? My sweet summer child, that only works for a little while. How many wars have happened within just your own teenage lifetime where diplomacy was used to prevent it, but a war was fought anyways?
The simplest way to rebuke you is to quite frankly say to you that we are all still chimps with nukes.
If you honestly and truly believe that societies that have collected into nationalistic/tribalistic cultures as a whole could stop fighting each other, then I would say that you are ridiculously naive and ignorant. Literally for the entire of human history there have been people and entire cultural movements to foster peace amongst us all using diplomacy, for at least ten thousand fucking years, and people still want to kill each other.
The wealthy and powerful already know this and always/everywhere they wall themselves in away from society as a whole and protect themselves, then pay for protection using the same violence you are against using; we call them oligarchs.
The 21st century is considered to be one of the most peaceful times in human history. That’s indeed due to international cooperation efforts, i.e., diplomacy.
Get your facts straight next time you climb on a high horse to make condescending comments.
Ever heard of diplomacy? Of political, economic, industrial pressure? What about all the wars that were prevented due to clever people making some clever moves that did not involve murder on a systematic scale.
There are times where none of this works, then what?
Take Ukraine for example. They gained their independence peacefully and democratically. After their independence, their talented diplomats and leaders made the unpredencted move to diplomatically negotiate a deal with their former oppressors to give up their entire nuclear arsenal in exchange for a promise of peace, and they even leveraged Western powers to serve as mediators and witnesses to showcase that their intentions genuine to the world. Russia signed the agreement with a smile, and then on to invade annex Crimea in 2014 as well as start the war in Donbass in 2014 in complete violation of the agreement.
The West saw this violation as an insult against their goodwill and their diplomacy as well as a challenge to their power so they backed Ukraine and applied severe political and economic sanctions on Russia. This forced Russia to come to the negotiation table in September of that year where they, again, promised to cease all hostilities against Ukraine if Ukraine agreed to freeze the conflict on the current frontlines. Ukraine agreed and the ceasefire was violated by Russia immediately.
At that point, Ukraine wanted to fight back with the help of the West, but Germany and France loved Putin, so they split off from the US and pressured Ukraine into signing a new ceasefire agreement with Russia under similar terms a few months later in early 2015. Russia once again agreed, but this time they held true to their word because the EU powers basically legitimatized Russia’s claim that the frontlines are the new borders.
Not even a decade later in 2022, Russia amassed the largest troop build up in Europe in decades and launched the largest and most brutal invasion in the continent since WWII… in blatant violation of their previous agreements. The invasion is unprovoked and is done purely for the imperial ambitions of Putin. He wants reestablish the borders of the Soviet Union and the glory of the Russian empire through military might.
So now Ukraine has spent over 3 decades trying to use diplomacy, they have tried the most extreme and clever political tactics, they have rallied the West to turn Russian into an economic and political pariah in the world, they have use the UN and other global institutions to apply pressure… yet here we are. Four years later of nonstop war, and millions of Ukrainians displaced, hundreds of their settlements are razed, 1/5 of their country is still occupied, a million of their young men are killed or wounded, and their economy is in shambles. The only thing stopping them from complete annihilation as a nation is their military.
Are you seriously going to sit here and tell me that the Ukrainians are evil for using their military to defend themselves? Are you seriously going to try to wag your finger about Ukrainians needing to try other avenues? Are you seriously going to tell Ukrainians to hit back against Russia who wants to genocide them? You would have to a complete clown to do that. There’s no way you can see what’s happening there and think that their military and their use of it is not justified.
You’re really not gonna be able to talk me out of believing militaries are evil without more than that.
I’m not talking you out of “militaries are evil”. I just want to point out that war and therefore killing people is not the only option.
I mean killing people is bad.
Yes.
Most people don’t understand the concept of the industrial military complex. There is only one way forward to end the madness and that is to dismantle this system permanently.
Amen. But unfortunately, a lot of that dismantling will have to be done at gunpoint.
You are not going to be able to stop this with a game of whack a mole. I am not a fan of a violent solution, but if done it would have to be universal all at once since this concept has already spread to every nation in the world.
Without a doubt an industry that can only grow from death and destruction is inherently a threat to human life. Couple that with fascism and you have a government that conspires with corporations to engaged in wars of opportunity for profit. A closed loop of human destruction that grows like a cancer.
I think the real solution is just getting the wealthy to dismantle the system. It sounds kind of silly and simple, but they are the only ones with the power to actually change anything at this point in a meaningful way.
Absolutely. But the rich will only dismantle the system under threat of violence.
I am not sure I agree with this. Even if the threat of violence is effective I am not sure it is the correct thing to do. I think we can both agree there may be solutions we haven’t even thought of yet.
It is manifestly not the correct thing to do. Coercing people under threat of violence is an inherently evil act.
And I fervently hope there is some other solution, but humanity has had many thousands of years to think of one, and none is forthcoming.
You don’t get it - there are lots of natural resources there!
Tell that to the people of Ukraine…
Steelman argument: he’s speaking about militaries in general, not suggesting that one country disarms first.
If hypothetically Ukraine and Russia both disarmed at the same time, that would be wonderful.
We don’t live in hypothetical world.
We don’t??? Shit! Now we can’t talk about abstract concepts without getting dragged into irrelevant details.
Have you seen what happens to animal species that evolve on some island and one day an non native exotic animal is introduced? In a lot of cases that animal goes extinct. Even if we would all magically agree to never attack other counties and all dissolve our army’s, only 1 country has to break the packt and we all have a real chance to be invaded. If we are doing imaginary systems, I would suggest a system where we all agree to respect current borders and never invade and all also agree to fight any country that breaks the rule. Sort of a more global and more elaborate NATO.
This and the electoral college. Even 12 year old me was like this shit is fucked right?? Only to be told by adults how stupid I was… smh
I’m glad I was never told this. The benefits of being from a large state I guess
And suprise, suprise, House always wins.
