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rndmnmbr posted:I invite anyone who believes Heinlein actually espoused the fascism of Starship Troopers to give The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress a read. There are a whopping lot of highly objectionable things Heinlein believed, but fascism wasn't one of them. Starship Troopers is more akin to a simple thought exercise. You can split Heinlein into a few different eras depending on his stories- Starship Troopers has much more in common with Stranger in a Strange Land than it does with Harsh mistress. Thankfully, we don't talk about late era "Really into Incest" Heinlein.
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Dec 14, 2022 06:22
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 07:32 |
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So I can totally get the "Officers are bad" argument. Enlisted hate their officers generally, and a bad officer in the right position can spoil the whole pot by setting the wrong example and encouraging lovely politicking and bullshit instead of doing the job right. So here's my question: What's the alternative, and what is a 'good' officer?
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Feb 15, 2023 15:57
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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" Which fits in with the general western ideal paradigm, but what about military traditions that don't have NCO's and put less of an emphasis on individual initiative and the idea that soldiers can be trusted to poo poo without an officer micromanage it? Like the Russians, traditionally, or what I've heard of some middle eastern militaries like the Egyptians and Saudis?
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Feb 15, 2023 17:11
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This seems like a very loving stupid system to not have any accountability for Officers.
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Feb 15, 2023 17:28
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bulletsponge13 posted: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. No, that's exactly what i'm getting at- how does the western (ideal) paradigm compare and contrast with those other paradigms.
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Feb 15, 2023 18:02
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CommieGIR posted:Russia and a lot of other countries effectively train as a show rather than training for combat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjlCVW_ouL8
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Feb 16, 2023 20:30
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 07:32 |
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For me, the path was reading Weber and Ringo and Flint as a Teen, then reading SST, then briefly getting into Peter F Hamilton and then getting the gently caress out of that, and now (and still) being really into David Drake, especially the Slammers.
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Feb 22, 2023 22:09
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