Is it just me or is the blog entry itself saying a lot of objectionable things? The need for tech savvy soldiers "leads to" murdering innocent civilians? Video games are brainwashing children? 18-year-olds aren't capable of critical thought? What is this based on exactly?

And what is anti-war anyway? There must be few who actually support war. Fair enough to be against America's/whoever's involvement in conflict X, but it's pretty pointless protesting against war or the military itself.

I'd like to hear less opinions about 18-year-olds and video games, and more feasible scenarios where a superpower functions without a military, since people should avoid signing up at all costs.

18-year-olds aren't capable of critical thought? What is this based on exactly?

Actually, we don't develop adult brains until around 24 years old.  Before that, we have less white matter in prefrontal regions necessary for making logical decisions with regard to risk assessment.

This article proposes a framework for theory and research on risk-taking that is informed by developmental neuroscience. Two fundamental questions motivate this review. First, why does risk-taking increase between childhood and adolescence? Second, why does risk-taking decline between adolescence and adulthood? Risk-taking increases between childhood and adolescence as a result of changes around the time of puberty in the brain’s socio-emotional system leading to increased reward-seeking, especially in the presence of peers, fueled mainly by a dramatic remodeling of the brain’s dopaminergic system. Risk-taking declines between adolescence and adulthood because of changes in the brain’s cognitive control system – changes which improve individuals’ capacity for self-regulation. These changes occur across adolescence and young adulthood and are seen in structural and functional changes within the prefrontal cortex and its connections to other brain regions. The differing timetables of these changes make mid-adolescence a time of heightened vulnerability to risky and reckless behavior.

Steinberg, Laurence.  A Social Neuroscience Perspective on Adolescent Risk-Taking.

I think NukeMarine summed it up best, put a bunch of 18-24 year old guys together and they will engage in less than adult behavior.  As for making long-term life and death decisions about things like joining the military, that's really a much bigger debate.  What makes someone an adult agent?  Really, this cuts across philosophy, psychology, ethics, and a number of other disciplines.  Hell, anyone who knows anything about the damn abortion debate knows we can't even agree on what makes someone a human being.  If we can't figure that out, questions like these are way beyond us. 

I served in the military.  Now I'm a buddhist and against taking life.  At the same time, I can conceive of wars I'd be willing to fight, kill and die in. Does that make me a hypocrit?  Maybe, but it also makes me a human being.  And it means I recognize these sort of questions are way bigger and more complex than can be decided and divided in simple absolute terms.

As far as being offended by one person's stupid comment, it just wasn't worth my time.  That's why I laughed it off.  Deicide, you'd be wise to do so as well.  Sweeping statements like that are just too ignorant to be worth getting fired up about.

Last edited by kendo99 (2010 April 24, 7:59 pm)

Nukemarine wrote:

Personally, I'd rather have people that are in the military that want to be in there. They're less likely to become disillusioned. If that video can get a person to ask the right questions and get the right answers before enlisting then I'm all for it.

Whoever *wants* to be in the military is most likely already a disillusioned brainwashed lunatic out to "blow a crater" out of those ******* aye-rab towel heads or infidel amerikans. It's ironic that the more aware a person is, the less inclined they're likely to fight. This is why in order to persuade a people into recruiting/going into war in the first place, you have a dedicated team of propagandists out to vilify, misrepresent and demonise the other.

The video was quite clear in its presentation, boot-camp prepares its soldiers to become killing machines, this is quite obvious but at the same time, it is not so trivial. People don't realise this until they sign up. This is not unlike the psychological role that prison guards have on inmates as in the Stanford Prison Experiment etc. A soldier is forced to redesign & reinvent himself in order to be accepted, and this is different from any other trade, since this is a trade involving killing another human being, as opposed to a trade where you build a table or teach Japanese. That was pretty much the video as well as what Smackle said. Anything else you want to infer from the video will most likely follow down the path of "war is bad". Which is no big surprise really.

I have very negative thoughts on war. However, taking up arms against a foreign military occupier I have nothing against, unless there are other methods to destroy an occupier through foreign intervention or something. This will never happen granted the imbalance at the UN nothing can or will ever be solved there really no matter how many human rights violations exist around the world.

As for LegionOfDeicide's reaction: Get used to it. The days when recruits were glorified for 'fighting for their country' are long gone. And so they should be. Obeying orders isn't a sufficient enough excuse to have gone to war, how is that any different from a German solder who was obeying orders when pressing the "fire" or "gas" button (or however it worked) when killing Jews? Or the israeli soldiers who were merely 'obeying orders' when firing illumination bombs into the night sky in order to make others who are massacring a bunch of Palestinians see what they're doing.  Though these are both militaristic states, the same can be said about any soldier obeying any order from a superior.

Unless they whole heartedly believe that the war is justified and whatever they will be doing is justified which they'll have to argue for of course, say against a panel of liberal academics, then it won't be.



nest0r
10:59 am
I'm learning Japanese so I can join Celestial Being.

and lol
^

Nukemarine wrote:

I still haven't figured out the point of this thread though. Is it anti-military? Anti-war? anti-recruiting? Could the OP enlighten a bit more so I can figure out how to sarcastically respond.

This thread is about the video in OP (which you haven't watched) and discussing the views therein.  The thread itself doesn't have to be anti- anything in order to do that.

Jarvik7 wrote:

magamo wrote:

To make this thread related to Japan, here's a new recruiting poster of the Japanese Army:

http://www.mod.go.jp/pco/tokushima/posutaa.html

Technically Japan does not have an army and is not allowed to participate in missions abroad, even in a support capacity. That is why there was such a commotion when the US got the JSDF to go to Iraq (in a humanitarian aid role), even though they were specifically not to engage in any combat while there.

Japan's armed forces are pretty much just a big domestic humanitarian aid group who conduct some coastal water patrolling. As such I very much doubt that their basic training is anything like the "kill kill kill" of the US marines and there is probably a lot less lying involved to get people to sign up.

That said, I'd love to see a documentary on Japanese boot camp if anyone has one.

Found one.

kendo99 wrote:

This is based on what research, exactly? There are definitely people who want to be in the military for reasons that have nothing to do with wanting to kill people.  I am not saying those people don't exist, they do.  But that certainly doesn't qualify you to say "whoever" wants to serve must be a racist and psychopath.  C'mon, that's just ad hominem garbage.  Give a good arguement if you want to make point about this.

You've kind of missed the point I made later in that paragraph. The more aware someone is, politically, socially, historically, the less inclined they'll see the need to join the military, and the more they'd stand up against their government for choosing to going to war in the first place.

When you join the military, no matter what you're doing, you're there for the purpose of serving your country. For the defense against a foreign enemy, with a perceived threat. The keyword here being perceived. If one signs up for boot camp then I don't know what else they would expect to do other than killing the contemporary enemy. Perhaps you could clear that up for me.

kendo99 wrote:

I think it's easy to argue that specific wars are unjust, and quite difficult to argue that all wars are.

Yes Howard Zinn has spoken* about this, I'd rather not get into it.

kendo99 wrote:

I also think its the height of unreason to try to pigeon-hole and categorize a group of people you've never been a part of.  Almost like what those racist psychopaths who want to "blow a crater" in some arabs are doing...

Ok so how else am I meant to categorize a bunch of friendly young men carrying guns with them? I've come across IDF soldiers on a day to day basis while I was in Palestine as a young child. They are wild devilish bush pigs, and nothing more.

Last edited by liosama (2010 April 25, 3:30 am)

bizarrojosh wrote:

but seriously, army people are usually the scum of the earth. I swear like 80% are the worst people I have ever met in my life. Nuke is of course part of that 20% that are "good people"

firstly I would like to say that I'm sorry if I offended you. I was speaking casually and carelessly.

Secondly I would also like to say that in my experience this has been true. My definitions of scum of the earth might be different than yours but if 80% out of the total number of military people I have met are the worst people I have ever met in my life can you really get angry at me? Killing people, being goblins, not valuing other's ways of living, being homophobic and sexist, just to name a few are just a few of the things I've witnessed. Did I say that 80% OF THE ENTIRE MILITARY SERVICE are the worst people? No, I said OF THE SAMPLE I HAVE MET. Maybe it implies that the entire population is that way, but that is an implication that I did not explicity say. Maybe I should have said 私は to make things more clear. I did make a bad blanket statement though when I said usually. But then again, that usually can only be drawn my my experiences. So, I must have just run into the "cream of the crop" so to say.

Last edited by bizarrojosh (2010 April 25, 4:28 am)

Probably best to delete the first post.  Don't think this thread is going anywhere useful.

I think it's pretty unnecessary to try to categorize military personnel like several people here have been doing... they might be hateful, but equally they might not. It's really no different to saying women/black people/Americans are unpleasant - you really don't know them all, so you don't know. You could try to guess at people's reasons for joining the military, but again, why project your prejudices on them? Grow up.

Liosama so you've experienced a few unpleasant soldiers. I've met some nasty Australians. In fact, of the Australians I've met, a large proportion have acted very badly. I DON'T assume all Australians are idiots, horrible people or that there's something wrong with Australia. They're all just people, and you don't know anything about them.

Blahah wrote:

I thought long and hard about this for several years before choosing my own career path as a conservation biologist. I'm pretty sure I'm clean (but time will tell).

My family was mauled to death by bears that would have been extinct if it wasn't for your conserving their habitat, you insensitive clod!

Blahah wrote:

I think it's pretty unnecessary to try to categorize military personnel like several people here have been doing... they might be hateful, but equally they might not. It's really no different to saying women/black people/Americans are unpleasant - you really don't know them all, so you don't know. You could try to guess at people's reasons for joining the military, but again, why project your prejudices on them? Grow up.

Liosama so you've experienced a few unpleasant soldiers. I've met some nasty Australians. In fact, of the Australians I've met, a large proportion have acted very badly. I DON'T assume all Australians are idiots, horrible people or that there's something wrong with Australia. They're all just people, and you don't know anything about them.

Sooo... Australian soldiers are extra bad?  I'm sorry, I'm having trouble understanding what you're trying to say.  I mean, I see the words "don't" and "stereotype" together in a sentence, but then I just think "Man, what a Jew!" and start yelling at clouds.

Mcjon01 wrote:

Sooo... Australian soldiers are extra bad?  I'm sorry, I'm having trouble understanding what you're trying to say.  I mean, I see the words "don't" and "stereotype" together in a sentence, but then I just think "Man, what a Jew!" and start yelling at clouds.

Hitler was an Australian soldier. I'm just saying...


(or was that Austrian?)