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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2935 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 20, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Now, special forces are .. special kinds of people. Aggressive guys who just won't quit despite punishing training, expected to go into the hairiest situations in small groups, typically against far more numerous opposition, without much support.

The whole idea of putting them in a box labelled "special forces" is keeping them safely away from the rest of the soldiers and the civil society. You don't want your soldiers to look up to them and your civilians to admire them.

Oh, this is the fun thread, isn't it? Is the role of a soldier a culture war topic?

I personally feel society ought to be militarised completely, or at least, all people with any measure of political power ought to be soldiers involved in some capacity in the army.

That'd pretty much prevent unnecessary wars & ensure the political class was healthy and cohesive. There'd be mandatory wargames held continually (computer simulations of conflict, fought for real money) and less frequent physical exercises.

It's a fun class but I'm the kind of weirdo for whom coming up with half-baked policy policy proposals is a 'fun' activity.

If multiverse is truly infinite, somewhere they have a very entertaining timeline where I'm an absolute monarch of some country and driving the bureaucrats up the wall constantly.

It’s a nice idea, but the closest to your idea that has happened have been states like the German and Japanese empires.

My first thought was America, where everyone has access to a quantity and quality of weapons guerrilla forces in other countries could only dream of. Interesting how you get to the other side of the libertarian-authoritarian spectrum when you include the condition that the armed populace have to be under the command of army officers.

Well, the upper crust of Israeli political class is near-universally distinguished in military service (e.g. Bibi) or, for earlier generations, has history in paramilitary/terrorist organizations (e.g. Begin, Allon, Shamir). Seems to work out okay for them.

But then again, you never know if the overall success is because or in spite of that.

What is certain is that this doesn't make them especially avoidant of conflict. Would be interested to see if @No_one endorses their approach.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that 'nukes are bad because they prevent war, the civilization's only hygiene'. But then I've rather unhinged opinions on all of this and probably deserve to get blown apart by a shell somewhere for them.

It's good that we don't live in a just world, I guess.

or, for earlier generations, has history in paramilitary/terrorist organizations (e.g. Begin, Allon, Shamir).

The early political class in the Soviet Union and in communist China, Yugoslavia and Albania also earned their power by fighting in a war. How did that work out? Not well for the Soviet Union, China or Albania, I would say. Not sure about Yugoslavia.

Edit: I forgot about the American Revolution. But how many of their early politicians actually fought in the war? I know George Washington did, what about the rest?

Vast differences though. And these countries almost never practiced simulated war against each other, for actual stakes.

E.g. German military was full of idiotic traditionalists on eve of WW1.

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