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Kurzon posted:In the novel Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, only veterans are allowed to vote. Heinlein believed that veterans would vote more wisely than non-veterans because they understand discipline and sacrifice, which would lead to better governance. But selectorate theory tells me that this would be a terrible idea. K.
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Sep 25, 2022 15:14
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 19:35 |
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Veteran =/= Military in Starship Troopers- something you are conveniently leaving out.
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Sep 25, 2022 17:54
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Rico and his generation will never get to exercise their franchise. They cannot vote until they get discharged; they cannot be discharged until after the war. Their Oath is not less than two years, and no longer than the needs of the Federation.
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Sep 25, 2022 19:12
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Force de Fappe posted:gently caress you for your service Buy me dinner first.
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Sep 27, 2022 00:32
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I unabashedly LOVE Starship Troopers. It had a great and lasting impact on my life, but it's got issues. Also, it feels like either I took the wrong message away, or other's missed the message. To me, it was largely the idyllic sci fi world to brain poo a whole bunch of philosophical musings based on the 'Battle of Athens' which was recent memory when ST was released. I'm not defending the fascism that everyone sees- just that I never saw it? Maybe because I read it as written, and assumed the best of what was presented. But uh, this is a thread.
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Sep 27, 2022 07:14
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It still blows my mind that the film came out Pre-9/11. It's satire has numerous layers, and the neverending blowback war with the bugs totally fits with a GWOT world- entirely on accident.
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Oct 1, 2022 02:15
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I like that he expected us to rally 'round the broken windmill and asking after Kyle.
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Oct 30, 2022 18:15
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Imagine the lifetime annual training for voting each year.
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Oct 31, 2022 20:29
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The Doogie "We're in it for the species" speech where he yells to his only friends that he will send them to their death owns.
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Nov 3, 2022 21:33
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ST says outright the Veterans has no moral, ethical, or intelligence value more than the civilian- it insinuates the correct point that by and large, Civilians are better than the Veteran. Service also doesn't require military service. The concept was that franchise must be earned to have value; that they aren't picked men, but men who traded worth for value. I don't think you are going to find anyone here who believes that the Veteran is superior to the Civilian in the way you are framing. Our military is made up of the poor, the illiterate, and the patriotic. It runs on assault, caffeine, and a bottomless budget of micromanagement. They do a job that amounts to Subway with Grenade Launchers for an average of 4 years. Nothing about dressing like a clown going hunting makes a person of better character. Service shows nothing more than lack of options, lack of money, or lack of critical decision making.
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Feb 9, 2023 18:04
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A.o.D. posted:Have you read the book in question? Going off the posts, no. They are basing it off political theory class and Cliff Notes.
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Feb 9, 2023 21:49
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Kurzon posted:I am basing off that YouTube video. Try reading the book if you want to discuss the book. If you want to discuss political theory, drop the pretense of the text, because you look like a dipshit.
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Feb 10, 2023 18:13
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Kurzon posted:I am basing off that YouTube video. It's not discipline- it's sacrifice. That is his entire point. Franchise is earned through service so that it has value to the person and society practicing. It demonstrates that the individual was willing to risk themselves to play a role in the body politic, in theory making them more engaged. That by forfeiting years of their life, they get the authority and responsibility to vote. It shows the individual places the group above themselves. You would know this because 1/3 of the book is set in a High School classroom breaking this poo poo down. I'll buy you a copy if you will read it and quit this dumb poo poo af arguing points not made in the book that you got from someone on YT, because your discussion is going nowhere because you came in under a massive cloud of ignorance on the text you want to debate.
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Feb 10, 2023 18:51
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Here's my thing- as presented in the vaguely utopian sense, I like the system. I like the idea that someone has to give service to the country- whether it be teaching, medical/fire, military, whatever- to understand the gravity of the responsibility. But it falls a part outside of fiction. While Heinlein clarifies in later work that Citizenship offers no difference to the day to day workings of the society beyond the right to vote (Citizens get no extra legal rights in court proceedings, etc), and access to specific niche jobs, like History and Moral Philosphy Instructor- a position that must be held by a Veteran, in real life, it would quickly devolve into something more akin to Apartheid. It's also implied that the rich DON'T serve, which would bring an interesting dichotomy into the society. I read the book as presented, and that idealized presentation makes sense to me, because it's a system I would honor. I like it because it fits with my character, but I know it's not a functional system. I also disagree with the premise that the system as presented in the text is fascism; too much of the political system is absent from the book to form that conclusion. Militaristic? Absolutely, because it's a criticism of the military in a boy's adventure story. Because of that presentation, we haven't any idea how the government works beyond a Limited Representative Democracy. It doesn't represent a military junta, because A) the military doesn't rule. B) active service are forbid from voting. C) Veteran =/= Military.
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Feb 10, 2023 21:59
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I loving love the book. I'm all about discussing it; but I want to discuss it, not a YT takedown. I want OP to come back after they read it- I wasn't kidding when I said I'd buy them a copy. I buy a copy a year to give away.
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Feb 11, 2023 00:29
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Petroleum Specialist and Laundry Specialist both accepted lower ASVABs than the Infantry when I joined
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Feb 11, 2023 01:48
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I've also heard the theory that Starship Troopers was also his way of handling his personal guilt about not serving in combat/WW2, and never getting to really do his service.
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Feb 11, 2023 16:51
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Melthir posted:....they got the same benefits and learned a skill that at least has the ability to get hired in the civilian sector. I almost got a job in the civilian sector, but I would punch that WalMart Manager if he got in my face.
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Feb 11, 2023 22:34
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Dug out my copy just in case it's needed for book club.
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Feb 12, 2023 01:32
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Kurzon posted:I can get my own electronic copy easily enough, thanks. He literally says service doesn't make you wiser in the book. It's a major point of one of the H&MP class lectures, and is reinforced in other sections- like when Rico attends Officer Training. Define education and criminal history for political office, because both can be bought without earning it. Bernie Sanders has a criminal history related to his Civil Rights work- does that mean he is barred? What about Juvenile crimes? I can buy a degree online; I can get a music theory degree from Liberty University; what about my Certificate in Cryptozoology from the Center of Excellence? I'm not being a dick, I want to understand. Since you won't talk about the thread topic you started- the contents of the book- I'll entertain the rest of this. And having served, if anyone was an Officer, they should be barred from public office.
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Feb 14, 2023 15:40
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TheWeedNumber posted:But what about JFK? I said what I said.
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Feb 14, 2023 17:20
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I finally listened to the OP video. I'm not sure OP did, since the video makes points he argues against. I wasn't going to, because if OP can't read the book they want to discuss, why should I waste my time? But McNally gave them HW, so it's only fair. The video is also beyond cliff notes of the book, and is factually wrong in some places. It's a brief treatise about Heinlein, NOT Starship Troopers. It cherry picks to establish a specific viewpoint to build off of- ignoring the fact that the book never presents Military rule, that the "only the strong" attitude doesn't apply to the individual, but the society at large, that they establish the reverse Clauswitz- Politics are another form of warfare; that voting is an act of force by the individual. It seems OP stumbled across the video, then remembered a semester of PoliSci 102.
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Feb 14, 2023 18:44
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McNally posted:lol holy poo poo this keeps getting better and better Maybe I'm wrong- if someone wants to correct me, but the biggest to me was that the video outright says Veterans have no inherent better attributes beyond service- something OP keeps just ignoring, instead trying to convince a thread to go Cap'n Crunch Oops! All Fascists.
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Feb 14, 2023 19:11
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Nystral posted:I want to dig into the no officers as politicians comment As stated, the Officer Corps as a whole (obv some exceptions apply) tend to be self serving, and politically cutthroat in pursuit of personal gain. They tend to be poor leaders even within the institution- an incestuous little institution full of cliques and cohorts, one with customs and policies far different from civilian reality. They tend to be operating removed from reality, from a position of privilege and protection. Officers tend to have the worst traits of politicians in spades, and not enough social experience to know it's wrong. They tend to be the types who think about how great a Purple Heart will look in their jacket without contemplating the cost. I'm also a fairly bitter E who had to deal with their garbage.
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Feb 14, 2023 21:48
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TheWeedNumber posted:I’m looking forward to the amount of dick/clit I’m gonna need to suck if I get this internship at either Leavenworth or Carlisle Barracks. Cause guess what’s at both of those places? Officers and war colleges. Other posters can temper your expectations. My experience with Nobles was fairly limited, and very tainted by both those experiences and my own attitude, which never quite jived with the Army. I'm sure that it's not as bad as I portray. Part of my attitude comes from dealing mostly pay grades I had no business being around- LTC and above.
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Feb 14, 2023 23:15
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My Spirit Otter posted:do you guys know how many assassins it took to kill jfk? 1.
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Feb 14, 2023 23:59
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My Spirit Otter posted:none, his head just did that. i call it the no bullet theory I love you so much right now.
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Feb 15, 2023 00:26
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It was originally published in serial form for what amounted to a Boy's Magazine. It's under 300 pages. It's like 4 bad bathroom trips.
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Feb 15, 2023 05:55
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I have a very narrow view- I served solely in war time, mostly in theater, where a bad Officer doesn't make your life miserable, they get you maimed and killed. In OIF 1, I did a ton of Personal Security Detail missions. I hadn't attended official training, but read what I could, and had some working knowledge from being a weirdo war kid. These guys actually had training on how to do the job, and routinely did dumb poo poo that was super frustrating. Throughout my career, I had more interactions with Major and above than CPT and below, which is pretty unusual for a low ranking Grunt. I had too many experiences where the Officers lacked such basic awareness that happened. I'm talking very Day 1 Hour 1 soldier skills- things like don't drive loops around the same road for four hours, skip Pre Combat Checks/Pre Combat Inspections, poo poo like that. If you've seen the show Generation Kill, imagine the "Even a boot loving Marine knows danger close" repeated regularly. An Officer good at Army'ing is good at Army; that doesn't make them a qualified leader, tactically or strategically proficient, or adapted to Combat operations. I had a BN commander who, according to all accounts, was a drat fine MP Officer. She had no concept of operations for theater. By her own admission, she had no studies or even significant lectures on Counter Insurgency. She seemed to have gotten no tactical or strategic goals or concept of operations, and treated our little land as garrison. Her patrol schedule cost 2 men limbs, one man his life, and gave a 21 year old kid significant head trauma, in addition to a double amputation on his loving birthday. Our Company Commander, who had 3 years as a Marine before going OCS, refused to stand up to her, even when he knew it was wrong and poor fieldcraft. I shocked my unit medic in the NG when I was signing papers to get kicked out (medboard), a medic asked if I knew the mentioned CO after seeing I deployed in his unit. "Did you deploy with him." "Unfortunately." "He's really hosed up from those guys. Nightmares. PTSD. He's hosed up." "Good. He should feel guilt. He cost those guys because he had no loving backbone." It's supposed to work like this- Nobles are the grown ups, NCOs are the Babysitter, the filthy enlisted the children. It doesn't matter if you have an excellent Nanny if the parent is neglectful or abusive. The kids have no real recourse, other than changing units or getting out. Otherwise, you risk your career, and in some cases, your life. Parents are supposed to be held responsible, but in the military, it's nearly always the enlisted that are held to task. Reminder- Lt Calley, the Officer who 'ordered' the My Lai Massacre, didn't do any time in Prison- years house arrest. The lower enlisted got actual punishment, as did a Servicemember who tried to stop it.
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Feb 15, 2023 17:25
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Fivemarks posted:I'm basically getting two kinds of responses: All officers are bad and unneeded (which I know can't be the case, considering how often it is that an army without good leadership gets rolled up by a theoretically inferior force that has better leadership); and "Officers are good when they focus on the big picture and overall direction- handling the 'What' to do while leaving the 'how' to do it to others" I may be mistaken, but I think you are misinformed. All of those armies are run on Officer micromanagement, because they lack a strong NCO Corps. Neither reward individual initiative, unconventional thinking, or questioning of orders. In the ME, Officers tend to skew higher class- think like old British poo poo, where you could buy commissions- and misuse and abuse the lower enlisted as they are a different class. All of those examples of also hoard knowledge- very little cross training, and purposely training troops to a limited extent so they pose no threat.
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Feb 15, 2023 17:30
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Fivemarks posted:No, that's exactly what i'm getting at- how does the western (ideal) paradigm compare and contrast with those other paradigms. Then I probably garbled the transmission. None of those armies have performed well in modern combat. The lack of flexibility and tend to under perform even in set piece 'conventional' war. Officers won't act without orders, and since individual initiative is typically killed off, you have things like tank units driving in column down a road getting picked off by ATGMs and enemy tank fire, but driving in a straight line down the road because that's what the orders were. Or stopping when you have ability to push because your orders said stop here. Officers in those militaries promotion is not typically based on performance, but politics, class, cash, and friends.
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Feb 15, 2023 18:11
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shame on an IGA posted:One big thing about low initiative high authority militaries is that they're built to point inside their borders just as much or more than outside. Compare them to US police forces instead of the US military and you'll see a lot more similarities. Exactly. Authoritarian regimes often create a web of loyalty and distrust among services, almost always with different security forces focused on each other. All of those armies have something else in common- deep seated fear of coup/overthrow/assassination. They keep power and knowledge limited, and maintain Officer Corps that are a mirror to the internal politics. They will often also reflect the civilian security services. They will have a secret police for civilians, and a separate internal secret security force within the military. Command in these armies will be purposely curtailed and cultivated- if you rock the boat in any way, your promotion is done. If you are capable, but less popular, you will hit a ceiling to keep you from gaining power. To achieve high rank, you must be apathetic, willing to trade favors, and compliant to the ruling class. Even then, you might accidentally get a 9mm DUI.
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Feb 15, 2023 18:34
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The Western force design is better for combat, period, for one reason: we cross train, and expect our guys to be able to perform the job responsibilities both one rank higher, and 2 lower. That means when we lose an NCO, the spot is typically filled instantly. A senior NCO can act in lieu of an Officer. A LT can act as a Captain. We instill and train that it should be reflex- we regularly 'kill' leadership in training exercises, sometimes appointing the lowest ranking man to then act as a Platoon commander. The militaries mentioned, plainly put, don't. An Officer acting independently and out of grade ends their career. They aren't taught to step up, because stepping up reflects badly on your boss. Their military exercises reflect this, and their combat performance often proves it. In those militaries, anything that makes you look good will make your boss look bad, and rank promotion depends further on maintaining the system than maintaining the force. There isn't a single conflict in history where the two opposing systems conflicted, and the Western style didn't outperform. I know there is a massive budgetary aspect to the two, but even in the micro, the Soviet style (the basis for that system) have proven not as capable in combat as the Western alternative. The control of knowledge is a big thing. The book Armies of Sand cover things like the Saudi Offciers confiscating all the documents and manuals- including the maintainence manual needed for basic operation- and refused to distribute them for fear the men would learn, and threaten his power. That is common in the militaries discussed- Russia operates in a similar manner. Besides the lack of logistics to train their guys, they have no desire to. The lower enlisted are fodder that require no knowledge beyond "That way and kill". Compare that to the US military, where can Privates will briefed on the concept of maneuver and details of operations. We will often take lower enlisted into briefings covering an entire operation so that they can be plug and play if needed, and aware of the battle space.
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Feb 16, 2023 16:01
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Weird. My copy of the book still says the opposite of OP. 
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Feb 17, 2023 04:06
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Back to Military talk- you can have a functioning army without an NCO corps, but it requires the same attributes in low level/operational level officers that we apply to NCOs; initiative, self management and control, and an air of stubbornness/insubordination. More importantly, it requires a system that rewards those same attributes- attributes that chaff at the Officer mentality. No doubt logistics is why America is so dominant. We were able to write the book on worldwide war logistics, and worked incredibly hard at perfecting our systems. From what I've read, one of the few things McNamara did right was hiring civilian experts in transport and logistics to increase effectiveness.
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Feb 17, 2023 23:37
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OP! It's 7 past High Noon in God's chosen timezone. What did you learn? Besides not to post half cocked in GiP?
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Feb 19, 2023 18:08
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Isn't a Mod Challenge failure a permaban?permanent? E- make his rap sheet reason a book reference. OP did the ol' Danny Deevers
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Feb 19, 2023 18:20
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CainFortea posted:
There's his new profile pic. Red text "Literacy Means Citizenship"
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Feb 20, 2023 00:19
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Leave posted:Can we talk more about Starship Troopers? I was really interested in all that chat, and it's been a long time since I read the book. Chat away! I'm always down for this chat.
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Feb 21, 2023 02:07
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 19:35 |
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Can I rebuy his account and restrict his posting to this thread?
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Feb 21, 2023 02:32
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