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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13350 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026

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I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen comrade.

If that's the warrior ethos, then I've had several team leads and CEOs who tried to instill a "warrior ethos" in us software devs. No offense, but it's fairly clearly a warrior ethos in name only, and has little to do with anything that would historically be recognized as such.

Maybe the problem is your conception of the term?

What I observe in this thread:

A - "people wanting a 'Warrior Ethos' is stupid. Why would people want it? Warriors are violent and dangerous, we want less of them."

B - "Because Warrior Ethos is not primarily about being violent and dangerous. It's a term for an approach to handling unbounded chaos that is generally useful in all manners of high-stakes, high-demand endeavors. War is just one of the most high-stakes, high-demand endeavors, so it's the trope-namer."

A - "If it isn't about being violent and dangerous, then warrior is a bad name for it."

See here, also.

In the US, we have a common trope of the C-suite executives hiring "leadership training" from former Navy SEALs. So it doesn't surprise me that you've had them trying to instill warrior ethos in software devs.

And to say that the US Army's idea of a warrior ethos "has little to do with anything that would historically be recognized as such" seems ridiculous to me.

Also the ubiquity of business books claiming inspiration from Sun Tzu.

If you've got fallen comrades in software development

  1. Probably you need better electricians or

  2. Maybe you actually ARE warriors.

Does carrying a mate, who's had a few too many, count as not leaving behind a fallen comrade?

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