There's an argument to be made that the military employs socialization tactics often found in cults, such as group mentality--I'll be the first to concede that. But the notion that the military's 'objective' is the "continuous exploitation of lower level persons" is utter nonsense.
The objective of the U.S. Military is to fight and win wars. There's been a lot of social science put into the military on how best to accomplish that. Much of that science is on leadership and how to organize groups into effective teams.
A brief skimming of many of these texts clearly highlight how tactics like overworking subordinates, threatening troops, and other intimidation tactics have terrible consequences in the long term. The most effective leaders care for and inspire their subordinates, which yields more cohesive teams and higher productivity. The military teaches this constantly.
> But the notion that the military's 'objective' is the "continuous exploitation of lower level persons" is utter nonsense.
Is it?
> The objective of the U.S. Military is to fight and win wars.
Is it?
> The most effective leaders care for and inspire their subordinates, which yields more cohesive teams and higher productivity. The military teaches this constantly.
The military programs people, like hypnosis + operant conditioning, to respond instantly and consistently to stimuli.
There are higher levels of leadership that use more sophisticated mechanisms, and there are great leaders in the military no doubt. For sure I can say this. Some of the most intelligent, mindful persons in leadership hold advanced military positions.
However, the majority of military is not in the upper echelons of the power hierarchy. And the majority of leaders in the military do not fall in this category of exceptionalism. This is to say, the majority of people are located at or near the bottom. And guess what happens at or near the bottom? "Continuous exploitation of lower level persons."
And when those persons leave the military and are given leadership positions in corporate institutions, guess how they lead? You already described it: "... overworking subordinates, threatening troops, and other intimidation tactics have terrible consequences in the long term."
> the majority of military is not in the upper echelons of the power hierarchy. And the majority of leaders in the military do not fall in this category of exceptionalism.
You're making a correlation that the best leaders are at the top, but that's not the case. Furthermore, you don't need to be an exceptional leader to know that you need to care for your subordinates.
Yes, there are terrible leaders in the military. There are leaders who go through courses specifically geared for command positions, learn tools on good leadership, and then actively use techniques counter to the learned approach. However, there are terrible leaders everywhere, at all levels of command.
Very rarely are civilian leaders given dedicated time and instruction within their profession on how to manage their subordinates effectively, outside of say academia (e.g.: business school). The military has professional military education (PME) built into all levels of leadership from first line supervisors up to executive leadership (general officers)---The differences between military and civilian leadership is very apparent. Military veterans are often the most preferred candidates, all things being equal, in recruiting pools because of their leadership and performance.
> You're making a correlation that the best leaders are at the top, but that's not the case.
I'm not. I said this:
"However, the majority of military is not in the upper echelons of the power hierarchy. And the majority of leaders in the military do not fall in this category of exceptionalism."
> However, there are terrible leaders everywhere, at all levels of command.
Yes, this is what I am saying.
> Military veterans are often the most preferred candidates, all things being equal, in recruiting pools because of their leadership and performance.
No. Military veterans are often preferred because it is easy to understand how you've been trained and how you will react. Because Operant Conditioning. Oftentimes it is not because you are the best, rather it is because you are predictable, and cheaper.
The only reason to even have a military is to have the ability to fight and win wars. If your military can't do that, it's not worth having at all.
> The military programs people, like hypnosis + operant conditioning, to respond instantly and consistently to stimuli.
Is this based on personal experience? If so, how recent? My experience in the military is several decades old, but the above is not a good description of what I experienced then.
> The only reason to even have a military is to have the ability to fight and win wars. If your military can't do that, it's not worth having at all.
While it is one use case, it is not all use cases.
> Is this based on personal experience? If so, how recent? My experience in the military is several decades old, but the above is not a good description of what I experienced then.
It is based on multitudes of studies in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, evolutionary anthropology, and the like. At its very core, the purpose is to reduce individuality and to reprogram a person's brain and body to fit the characteristics of military use cases; to make replicable bodies fit for military use. There's tons of declassified docs that describe this process, at least since WWI. And then if you study history then you'll know this has been a topic of investigation for thousands of years.
This is why there is an "adjustment period" and persons are strongly suggested to under go deprogramming before returning to civilian life. You've tricked the brain into believing a specific version of reality that is not objective reality, and there's so much PTSD/cognitive dissonance that the human brain and body is now forced to endure post-service. It's quite taxing physically, mentally and emotionally. You know, like a cult... Because it's a cult.
> While it is one use case, it is not all use cases.
Really? What other use cases are there for a military?
> It is based on multitudes of studies in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, evolutionary anthropology, and the like.
In other words, no, you have no personal experience to back up your claims. You should not presume to speak of what you do not know.
As for the "cult" accusation, historially, militaries that work like cults do not win wars. Militaries that win wars have esprit de corps, but that is not the same as a cult. A cult has no objective purpose outside the people who run it. A military does--or at least, a military that can actually win wars does.
> > It is based on multitudes of studies in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, evolutionary anthropology, and the like.
> In other words, no, you have no personal experience to back up your claims.
It's ironic that in a threat discussing leadership as a discipline, someone would make an appeal to "lived experience".
Unless someone here was with you, they don't know (nor do I) what your personal experience was. Similarly, you don't know everyone else's personal experiences. OTOH, we have these wonderful social sciences which go around and collect data from lots and lots of individuals, draw conclusions and publish them for other people to read and learn.
The data and conclusions might not be representative of your experience, but it's rubbish for you to handwave it away for your individual, subjective experience.
You broke the site guidelines egregiously in this thread with flamewar, snark, and even personal attack. We ban accounts that post like this because it destroys what the site is for.
> You broke the site guidelines egregiously in this thread with flamewar, snark, and even personal attack.
Please do explain the algorithm that resolves to a True statement here. I can't find a link to the codebase for the sentiment and opinion analysis models.
> We ban accounts that post like this because it destroys what the site is for.
I don't see warnings on other interlocutor accounts. Seems very one-sided, which is of questionable moderation. Not just on this comment thread but many others. I don't see these warnings anywhere. Again, this points to subjectivity. I searched for subjectivity in moderation on the link you provided and it returned no results.
Please can you also share the algorithms used in moderation for HN?
The "algorithm" is that I read your comment and saw that it was obviously breaking the rules. I wish I knew how to write software to do that correctly, but I don't.
Re other commenters: everyone always feels like the mods are singling them out personally and treating the other side with kid gloves (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). That's a universal bias, same as it always feels like the cops are singling you out for a speeding ticket when lots of other cars were going fast too.
> The "algorithm" is that I read your comment and saw that it was obviously breaking the rules. I wish I knew how to write software to do that correctly, but I don't.
Got it. Maybe I will give it a shot and share it. I'm not sure which types of bots you're already using but there's ways to orchestrate consensus networks on opinion dynamics to derive a "threat" level (or whatever metric name you want to call it). And that could be used to do things like auto-cut tickets to inspect threads for guideline violations.
IMO, there was a misunderstanding about the term "you": there is an individual "you" and a collective "you".
> Re other commenters: everyone always feels like the mods are singling them out personally and treating the other side with kid gloves
I don't feel like I'm being singled out, more like I feel like there is inconsistency in moderation. Probably because it's hard and there are limited resources and the bots that you do have have thresholds set super judiciously to avoid false-positive flagging (or not; I don't actually know).
Moderation here is always going to be inconsistent, simply because we don't see everything that gets posted, or even 10% of it - there's far too much. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
We evidently don't have enough common ground to have a useful discussion. You are making huge, sweeping statements based on nothing. I see no point in further engagement with you.
Do let me know if you want to engage with some scientific research, and/or declassified docs that describe exactly what I'm saying. Happy to share, because science and scientific method.
> there's so much PTSD/cognitive dissonance that the human brain and body is now forced to endure post-service
Combat is traumatic by its very nature. Of course many people who experience it are going to have PTSD, just like with any other traumatic experience.
As for "cognitive dissonance", anyone who has been through a particular harrowing experience is going to have some difficulty dealing with people who not only have never had the experience, but devalue it because they don't understand it. The only way to fix that is to (a) teach civilians that people who volunteer to serve their country in the military deserve respect, not disdain, and (b) teach our political leaders that they need to not use the military unless it's really necessary, so that the public will support such usage instead of protesting against it.
> but devalue it because they don't understand it.
No one is devaluing it. I'm certainly not. Rather it is highlighting that humans are vulnerable, by genetic design. And it requires actual help to reprogram the brain. To take on the burden alone is quite a difficult and insurmountable task.
For your (a) and (b) you are definitely entitled to your opinion on how you want to be viewed and treated in the world. This is very much the same as women arguing that men should not have a say over their bodies; bodily autonomy is a human right, not a right reserved for only white men.
> humans are vulnerable, by genetic design. And it requires actual help to reprogram the brain
Sure, I'm not disputing this at all. I'm just pointing out that this has nothing whatever to do with the military being a cult. It has to do with the nature of the military as an occupation. The military is certainly not the only occupation that has traumatic experiences as an expected part of service, and that needs to have a plan in place to deal with that.
> For your (a) and (b) you are definitely entitled to your opinion on how you want to be viewed and treated in the world.
It's not a matter of my or anyone's wanting to be viewed a certain way. It's a matter of understanding as a country why we have a military at all and what it is for, and holding our political leaders accountable for making appropriate use of the military and giving it the support it needs.
> I'm just pointing out that this has nothing whatever to do with the military being a cult.
So, it actually does. One must "de-program", meaning to unravel previous programming, such that the brain can learn a new wiring for existing. It's very much linked to the previous "training"/"programming" one endures via the military.
The military is not unique in this regard. We also see this with religious groups, self-help groups, and even in corporate environments. We're humans and we are vulnerable by default. And that's a beautiful thing that in my opinion needs to be preserved as we face this AI-interjection in our lives.
> It's not a matter of my or anyone's wanting to be viewed a certain way. It's a matter of understanding as a country why we have a military at all and what it is for, and holding our political leaders accountable for making appropriate use of the military and giving it the support it needs.
I agree that leadership making irrational decisions at the expense of humans, humans that are committed to protecting our country, needs urgent attention. It's disrespectful and can lead to catastrophic loss of life for service members. It causes unneeded pain for families. I agree.
Indifference at an individual level is not necessarily a problem. Nor is exercising individual judgment.
However, as a matter of public policy, our current treatment of veterans, to put it bluntly, sucks. The VA is underfunded and overworked, and many vets do not get the kind of support they need and deserve after risking their lives. The only reason the government can get away with that is that there is no political pressure to fix it.
>> You've tricked the brain into believing a specific version of reality that is not objective reality
> Whereas civilians, of course, have a completely accurate view of objective reality with no illusions? It is to laugh.
No. It's just different; in some ways radically different than the niche reality of "military." .... That's the point.
Are you still in the military because you are sending clear signals that you are not in control of your own mind. Which gets into the illusion of free will and if that's real, but there's a boundedness that is tight or loose depending on the individual/group. And yours seems quite tight. As in, constricted from any thoughts outside your military programming. Scary stuff.
Personal attacks will get you banned here. No more of this please. Also, please avoid perpetuating flamewars - we don't want those here, and you did it quite badly, and a lot, in this thread. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36935261.
This is how cults work. Another example is Republicans who believe in Trumpism and QAnon. It is quite reasonable that those persons can use a defense of insanity, because they are brainwashed (i.e., not in control of their minds). It's how cults work.
I didn't make cults. And I didn't make people join them.
You made the statement in a personal way. Responding with a generic argument doesn't address that.
Telling someone "you are sending clear signals that you are not in control of your own mind" is super obviously a personal attack, or at least guaranteed to read as one. Please stop doing that so we don't have to ban you—and please stop posting flamewar comments as well. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for:
It's not a personal attack. It's a statement of cause and effect. When a person is programmed to think and believe a certain way, to the point of operant conditioning, that pattern in the brain fires first. By design. That's the purpose.
In terms of the "flamewar" claim, (1) did you also warn the other person? (2) Just because the truth doesn't make people feel good doesn't make it less true. Stoking a flame can be a subjective experience depending on one's personal position about a topic.
If you mean that civilian life is different from military life, yes, of course, that's to be expected. That doesn't mean civilian "reality" is somehow more valid or more accurate than military "reality". Indeed, since most civilians aren't expected to routinely risk their lives as part of their job, one would expect civilians' view of reality to be missing some things. (And looking at civilians whose jobs do routinely involve risking one's life, such as police or firefighting, might give quite a different take on even civilian "reality".)
> Are you still in the military
No. I already said elsewhere in this discussion that my military experience is several decades old.
> you are sending clear signals that you are not in control of your own mind
Spare me your patronizing. You are welcome to your uninformed opinions, but don't expect me to respect them. I see no point in further discussion with you.
> That doesn't mean civilian "reality" is somehow more valid or more accurate than military "reality".
It's not any more valid than living in a different culture. There's an assimilation that one undergoes. And it seems to be the case that the transition from military to civilian life is quite jarring (for lots of reasons we don't have to address here). I don't think people understand how PTSD (e.g., the constant nightmares and jerking awake to fight for your life, against your kids who stumbled in the bedroom because they are scared of the dark) impacts families. It's silent. And VA doesn't provide sufficient resources to help people cope. It's a serious situation. It's possible to make the transition better for service members and their families. It's also gravely underfunded.
> I see no point in further discussion with you.
OK. Well, if you change your mind, I'm cool with continuing the conversation.
> And you are the only one who can see clearly through everything. How nice.
I'm not the sole arbiter of truth. Lots of people research and write about these topics. I'm also autistic and this happens to be one of the things I research to death (being human, how humans "human", power dynamics, group dynamics). I really like this topic actually.
Apologies if I'm coming off callous. It's not my intention.
The objective of the U.S. Military is to fight and win wars. There's been a lot of social science put into the military on how best to accomplish that. Much of that science is on leadership and how to organize groups into effective teams.
A brief skimming of many of these texts clearly highlight how tactics like overworking subordinates, threatening troops, and other intimidation tactics have terrible consequences in the long term. The most effective leaders care for and inspire their subordinates, which yields more cohesive teams and higher productivity. The military teaches this constantly.