Of the ethicness of Killing Children and its dependence on context.

No-one? Wasn't training in general and boot in particular... wasn't their function to prepare the soldiers for this? Is it that ineffectual?

It's to prepare them as much as possible. But it's not possible to show someone what it's like to kill another person or watch your buddy be killed without actually doing it. You can't teach an emotional response.

^Wait a minute! Are you telling me the military doesn't have secret psychological training and chemical therapy to make cold, emotionless super-soldiers? But I saw it in fiction! Why would fiction lie to me?

Well, I thought that by this decade they'd have achieved it. Not with superdrugs or anything, just with education and training and philosophy and mediation and stuff. I don't remembver any work of fiction actually portraying what you describe except Guns Of The Patriots, and even then the nanites only held off the emotions, and as soon as they stopped working the soldiers were overwhelmend by the pent-up stuff, so it's not what I meant.

So, what is wrong about using kids for battle is mostly that it'll screw them up if they survive and it'll screw up their killers if they are killed and it's unfair tactcs because it exploits the instinctive hesitations adults have towards shooting kids (at least until they get used to it).

edited 10th Jan '11 7:12:19 AM by RawPower

Unless we actually do get crazy with the science fiction stuff, that will never be attained.

Some people, like Barkey, seem to be doing fine. Reading lots of Warhammer40k and such Beyond the Impossible Crapsack World military fiction might help people be desensitized, yes? I know this will sound utterly silly, but me and my dude friends were at the amusement park (I know) and we made a bet on who wouldn't scream at the scariest rides. I managed to win every time by picturing myself fighting an Apostle, and suddengly, while challenging, nothing seemed quite as scary. (Yes, make fun of me all you want, but I suspect when the horrors you've vicariously experienced in fiction are so many orders of magnitudes greater than what you will ever meet in Real Life, you might learn to put things into perspective).

Wait a minute! Are you telling me the military doesn't have secret psychological training and chemical therapy to make cold, emotionless super-soldiers?

Oh we have those in Britain. We call them "boarding schools".

Joke?

Doubt it.

Raw, everybody will look for a way to deal with stuff that they don't know how to deal with already. They're called Coping Mechanisms, after all — they allow you to cope. But coping doesn't mean there's not still damage, it just means that you figure out how to work around it. Without knowing Barkey in Real Life there's no way for any of us except him to know how well his coping mechanisms are working, or even if they're are working.

Some people, like Barkey, seem to be doing fine. Reading lots of Warhammer40k and such Beyond The Impossible Crapsack World military fiction might help people be desensitized, yes? I know this will sound utterly silly, but me and my dude friends were at the amusement park (I know) and we made a bet on who wouldn't scream at the scariest rides. I managed to win every time by picturing myself fighting an Apostle, and suddengly, while challenging, nothing seemed quite as scary. (Yes, make fun of me all you want, but I suspect when the horrors you've vicariously experienced in fiction are so many orders of magnitudes greater than what you will ever meet in Real Life, you might learn to put things into perspective).

I've also wanted to do what I do my entire life, my dad and several other family members are veterans, and I volunteered to go on my deployments, none of them have been activations where I didn't have a choice. Some psychological profiles are fit for war, and some definitely aren't. I've wanted this since I was young, and there are plenty of people who would question my stability as a result.

It's affected me plenty, it's just that I'm still functional. I occasionally have dreams, some things can trigger mild paranoia in me, and yeah, there's a few things pent up in the back of my brain that I just flat-out refuse to think about. That and my humor are my coping mechanisms, they work well for me, but not so much for others. As you've all probably noticed, I'm rather pessimistic and I hold a very casual value of human life and suffering compared to most of y'all.

I'm functional, but I could very well encounter issues in years to come, and that's not even taking into account future wars. I'm happy with me, and how things have worked out, I'd still go again. The money is good, and I have more pleasant memories than bad ones with deployments. It's just that the bad memories are more potent than the good ones.

edited 10th Jan '11 4:52:47 PM by Barkey

So, do we agree that doing away with the whole war business would be an improvement for everyone?

^ While the destruction, death, and damage to health (physical or mental) is certainly not laudable, I don't think humanity can do away with war entirely, short of some totalitarian dictatorship that brainwashes everyone into being mindless drones. It's in our nature, and arguably why humanity isn't just a byproduct of carnivore digestive tracts.

edited 11th Jan '11 5:05:05 AM by Nohbody

I don't think we're going to see an elimination of war without committing genocide of humanity.

On the upside, that would definitely end child soldiers.

I believe you are wrong. Throughout history humans have progressively learned to communicate with each other and stop using brutality and violence to reach their ends, and if the trend continues the economical interdependency between nations will be so tight regional wars will become unthinkable. Rebellions and guerrillas and terrorism... can be made much less effective, with SCIENCE.

The result may or may not be totalitarian, depending on how far that world's citizens are willing to fight for their rights...

edited 11th Jan '11 5:56:35 AM by RawPower

^As long as there are people, there will be war.

edited 11th Jan '11 6:31:30 AM by Kino

Bullshit. There may be conflict, competition, emulation, rivalry, manipulation, cheating, hurting, and abusing. But there need not be war. Not now, not ever.

Everything you listed is an aspect or a cause of war.

edited 11th Jan '11 6:35:27 AM by Kino

Yet can be done without war. We do it everyday, with everyone, yet the streets aren't filled with slaughter and blood.

edited 11th Jan '11 6:39:05 AM by RawPower

So if I began to conquer and kill; because of my need for a resource, fear for my saftey, or my political/religious beliefs...it's ok as long as I don't call it warfare?

edited 11th Jan '11 6:39:17 AM by Kino

Sorry Raw but Kino's right. As Long As There Are People, there will be wars. Whether amongst ourselves or against other species in the cosmos, war is always going to follow us.

Bullshit. The danger of war will always be there, the same way in every society, even the most civilized, there are murders. That doesn't mean there need to be actual wars.

It's not a matter of calling, it's a matter of not forcing people through physical violence. It's about sticking to a convention of rules.

^People only follow rules if a)The benefit from the somehow or b)The repercussions of breaking said rules would be too severe. Then we have option c)People who don't give a fuck and want to test their luck; Noriega, Saddam, JB, Saddam again..ect

[edit]

Exactly how would a society that doesn't engage in warfare defend itself from a civilization what does? Ask them nicely and hope they agree to the rules you live by?

edited 11th Jan '11 6:50:12 AM by Kino

If the culture that does warfare is in a minority and depends from other for trade and these others refuse to trade with them if they don't demilitarize...

Trade is the key here. War is bad for trade. It's bad for the economy. It's bad for most businesses, and wreaks havoc with the markets, making things utterly unpredictable and giving place to crazy speculation. A peaceful world is a world where you can plan on the long term.

edited 11th Jan '11 7:34:45 AM by RawPower

^ Yeah because that's worked historically....

Usually when you have a militaristic nation that's dependent on trade like that, it ends in war when you cut off the trade. If the larger nation cannot defend itself or defend itself sufficiently, it will be destroyed. That exact scenario has happened a thousand times before in human history and will happen a thousand times more before humanity is done.