Stargate SG-1 Review - 1969

[McAvoy]

Well it's also much more simpler than that. The draft was unpopular and Vietnam War was unpopular. Why would a career officer/s bother with a draft dodger?

[CrypticMirror]

A lot of military officers were opposed to the draft ... largely because they had to command all those draftees, and guess what? It's hard to get a good performance out of people who do not want to be there.

There is a reason the more, shall we, expeditionally inclined nations don't have a draft or, conscription, national service anymore, despite bringing back forced military service being a fairly reliable conservative talking point for decades; the militaries will not have it. Draftees work well when there is a clear common national enemy. Nazi Germany being the clearest one, and Soviet Russia/Decadent Capitalist Running Dogs [delete as per side] being the other recent one. Something everyone can see as a threat, and can easily be motivated to do what they don't want to in the face of a clear and present danger. As soon as wars stop being about survival and become about rival political ideologies, then conscriptee armies all fall apart pretty quickly. Even on continental Europe, where social ethos is stronger, and the threat of Russia is a bit more pressing, conscription is still a dicey prospect, and the nations that do have it basically have to promise that on no account will it actually ask the conscriptees to fight anywhere outside their homeland.

Nations that still enjoy having foreign wars have volunteer armies because it means they can expect that they can at least tell their troops they volunteered to have body parts blown off in some foreign field, and not have much mutinous answers. Albeit some nations are pushing the line on volunteer, right now, because when the only way out of poverty and into trade school is via the military it starts to seem less like a volunteer army and just conscription by economic oppression instead of legal duress.

[McAvoy]

Exactly. You got it.

To add to it, the military on pretty much the entire world requires less bodies. Technology made it far easier to do more with less. But at the same time that tech is expensive and you can have so much of it.

[CrypticMirror]

Exactly. You got it.

To add to it, the military on pretty much the entire world requires less bodies. Technology made it far easier to do more with less. But at the same time that tech is expensive and you can have so much of it.

Tech that just got much scarier, since military drones can now select their own targets without operator input. https://gizmodo.com/flying-killer-robot ... 1847001471

Do you want Terminators, because this is how we get Terminators.

[Nealithi]

Exactly. You got it.

To add to it, the military on pretty much the entire world requires less bodies. Technology made it far easier to do more with less. But at the same time that tech is expensive and you can have so much of it.

Tech that just got much scarier, since military drones can now select their own targets without operator input. https://gizmodo.com/flying-killer-robot ... 1847001471

Do you want Terminators, because this is how we get Terminators.

The device uses machine learning? I have some really strong mixed feelings on that. On one hand machine learning made a design that was better than standard human design theory on an antenna. On others the work had the machine 'cheat'. Asking for an oscilloscope got a radio receiver. And built a device not using a provided circuit, but the flaws in a provided circuit. So conclusions are way too scary to trust yet.
I hope they are using these things the way they are supposed to be testing self driving cars. IE someone at the wheel in case it screws up.

But ban laws may be too knee jerk at this phase. Bear with me a moment. But many highly useful technologies we use began life as a military project. Let the military explore the tech and we could have the new mini-PC or better surgical devices. Once we see how it works then decide how to control them socially.

And by god don't make these things fully autonomous. Part of the reason for men in silos is a failsafe on one man pressing a button out of spite.