fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6111 ]

[ SECRET POST #6111 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6111 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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08. [OP requested warning for vomiting]

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09. [WARNING for discussing of rape]

[The Division]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #873.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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03. https://i.imgur.com/hitqqVC.png

The part of this that SHOULD be a secret is choosing to join the military, ffs

Eyeroll

You probably want to defund the police too bc "ACAB" but soon call if a BLM riot is happening outside where you live, or someone sends a "mean" tweet. Criticise military action you disagree with but no volunteers means forced conscription because you can't leave your borders undefended and still have a free country where women and gay people have any rights.

I believe you misspelled domestic terrorism there.

Yeah mate that's how propaganda works. It's "wow cool plane, hero pilot" all the way through to bombing civilians and committing murder for a state that considers your life completely expendable, as just one small part of its warmaking resources. Sorry, I know this is gonna feel uncalled for and callously harsh, but... it feels like such an injustice to me that states have their citizens actually *volunteering* to be chewed up and spat out and put to work on war crimes. And then left to rot if they survive long enough to need physical or psychological healthcare back home.

I like a lot of war- and army-based media myself but that shit is a fantasy. War isn't about heroes, it's just violence, death, destruction. I wish we as a society could be honest about that.

What would being honest about it do? We've been going to war since before we were even technically human. We came from an aggressive and territorial species, and we continue to be one. It's going to be a long, long time, if ever, before we stop stressing over resources and trying to make sure only our own people benefit from them.

AYRT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

We are also an incredibly collaborative and pro-social species. Without our natural inclination to form social bonds and communities and look after each other, we wouldn't have civilisations at all. Why should we defend and lean into our aggressive instincts and not our prosocial instincts? What defines who is or isn't "our people"?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

We live on a planet with finite, unevenly distributed resources. Among those resources is habitable land, the amount of which is going to continue to shrink as the climate changes. As long as this is the case, we are going to come into conflict with one another, no matter how "pro-social" we claim to be. Yes, we do collaborate, and form communities - but the attachment we form to those communities itself drives our aggressive impulses, as we want to protect those within them from perceived threats; and we are more than happy to secure more resources for them at the expense of a competing community. War is in fact a byproduct of our social nature, and the intense bonds we form with members of our tribes.

"Our people" means "our community/country." It's a nice thought, the notion some have that the entire world could be "our people," but few are willing to give up the comforts of modernity in order to achieve that. Is it "pro-social" that we all now have a device in our pocket whose battery was made with cobalt that was mined by children, children who may have died to get it? Is it "pro-social" that, when we buy fish, or a cheap can of cat food, it's pretty damn good odds we're benefiting from a brutal modern-day form of slavery, a slavery that no country on the planet has any will to end due to its profitability? These are but two examples; so much of our lives are only made possible through exploitation, and we clearly, as a whole, do not think of the exploited as "our people."

But, okay, let's say we decide that we're going to consider every single human being on the planet as part of "our people," in the name of ending exploitation and war. We can't keep our current lifestyle, because it can't be sustained without treating some as lesser; and because, both for that reason and due to the aforementioned finite resources, it can't be guaranteed for everyone. How do we get people to peacefully give up what they have? How do we get people who for years held onto the hope of entering into the global middle class to peacefully accept that, while others got to experience it, they never will, because we've decided to be "pro-social" and disallow it? How do we decide who gets to live in the nicest areas - the ones with the best land, the best weather, the fewest natural disasters - and how do we convince those who must live elsewhere to peacefully accept their lot?

Uhh, not to say militaries aren't about war crimes. But not all jobs in the military involve the direct killing of people and/or physically commiting crimes against humanity. There's logistics involved that require clerks, cooks, doctors etc.

I suppose you can make a case that even people in those careers are supporting all of the things you're accusing OP for, but you could also make a case that tax dollars in general support and grow the military.

Realistically, what would nations have in place of militaries? Unless all countries agree to demilitarization, would there be a better alternative? I mean we can just look over to biggest current war in the western sphere and see what lessoning their military presence did for them.

Like it'd be great if we didn't have a need for militaries, but denying the necessity of them is like beliving people can't be terrible human beings.

AYRT

I do agree that there's a difference between engaging in/recruiting people for combat vs medics etc. I'm not about to tell a front-line doctor that they're causing war crimes, haha. And, yeah, I take issue with military spending, but it's not like tax money HAS to go to the military. Someone's making that decision, you know? They could make a different decision.

And I'm not a pacifist - I agree that violence is necessary and that good things can come from violence. If someone attacked me, I would defend myself. But it's not a binary situation, IMO. The things I took issue with above - war crimes, expendability, lack of medical care, misrepresentation - aren't an unavoidable part of having a military. I think the way war and the military are presented to people, as a chance to be a hero, as cool video game stuff, sick guns and brotherhood... It's an intentional lie. It's manipulation. Manufactured consent.

Pair that with the way militaries have often been used in recent history, and, yeah, I find the whole thing really upsetting. I'm not necessarily against any form of military ever, but I don't think that means I have to be okay with the way militaries are now.

(Also, definitely didn't mean to imply OP was a war criminal. I'm really sorry if it came off like that, that'd be shitty.)

I mean fair enough, military propaganda is actually the worse and there's been quite a lot in that case especially regarding certain video games.

I think militaries should be held to higher standards but that's also how I feel about police, and changing tactics/policies/etc of that sector of society is an uphill battle of systemic problems with no clear solutions. A noninsignificant percent of people attracted to those jobs imo, are also the sort to abuse their power. So it does in some way feel that it comes with the job description (if we're mainly talking combat roles).

Changing any of it would prob need an overhaul of the whole command system and that would require people on the inside doing it. Effective change would mean ironically more people should join, not less so there's more of an incentive to weed out the scum and thin the ranks.

Absolute defunding of militaries would also be a mistake that would honestly lead to more privatization. That would absolutely make things worse not better. If government oversight leads to war crimes, little or no oversight at all, would be 100x worse.

Tax dollars will still need to be spent, but the insane amount by the US in particular definitely needs to be curtailed.

I think we all should be concerned about how the military is ran, because it's mostly horrible, but condemning every person who joins (even if it's for a silly reason) isn't gonna make the situation better.

If we do, we run the risk of running the people who actually care about all these issues you stated, out from the military and we'd all be worse off for it.

We don't need to present soldiers like they're heroes but we also don't need to treat them like they're scum of the earth either.

British people love doing all that war stuff though. They don't need to be proselytised into it. That they don't do so much crushing of populations these days is more of a turn off than them actually doing it.

Good on you, chasing your dream. They were awesome! I wanted to join the RAF because I wanted to fly planes but asthma did me over. Ah well.

it's a shame that boys don't feel free to openly look up to girls/women or be inspired by them.

That's a lot to unpack here

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[ SECRET POST #6111 ]

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