this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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I apologize in advance of the things I am about to say to you but this has to be one of the most naive and sophomoric statements I have ever read, so I'm going to address you as a teenager because I hope nobody gets to adulthood believing such bullshit.
To start with I hate to be the bearer of bad news but a substantial percent of humans are violent by nature, which means there is no amount of logical debate that will convince someone to not take your things or your life. This transcends to the national level which is why every peaceful nation in history has an army, for self-defense.
Army doesn't make any productive labor? My brother in Christ you are on the internet. Which means you are using a software that implements TCP/IP protocols specifically designed to build the . . . Drumroll . . . ARPANET! For the US military? Did you type that comment with your phone? Did you use GPS today? Hell the entire space race was funded for military reasons!
I have to envy you though. Thinking that you can simply argue your way out of any confrontation without the threat of violence, must be nice. Ask Palestinians or Ukranians what they think of that.
Internet person: "Army does nothing!"
Army corps of engineers building half of all critical infrastructure in the US: "Am I a joke to you?"
Civilian engineers doing the same without military overhead: I'd like to have a word
Full agreement. My heart is with OP, but it's a sad fact of life on this planet that peace without violence or threat of massive violence just is not usually possible.
The truth is there are fucked up people out there, and worse there are the real parasites that seem to love licking the boots of horrible people (staring at Trump and his ass lickers).
Honestly one just has to look at nature - everything from the bacteria to the plants to the birds and mammals are in a constant fight to the death over their next meal or territory - us primates have not been able to escape it, and I don't think we will (staring at water scarcity, food scarcity, upcoming energy crisis, upcoming climate change crisis, etc etc). Sprinkle a little bit of population explosion into the mix, along with wealth disparity - It's just gonna get fucking worse going forward I fear
Not a critique of you personally, but people who look at the issue from that perspective tend to ignore that their own military can be the spark that ignites a massive conflict. Your own country's military command can be those "fucked up people".
Army is the solution to the problem that army itself creates, and arming up is not maintaining peace - it's exacerbating the problem.
As per inequality - yes, we should fix that, and not just to prevent wars, but because everyone deserves to have a decent life - and we as humanity absolutely can make that happen. UN repeatedly stated we have more than enough resources to provide high quality of life to every person on the planet.
Sure, military industrial complex is probably the phrase you are looking for. I have no solution other than we tried our best in the US with having a civilian leader of the military, just it was impossible to foresee how much money would corrupt the entire political spectrum. All I can tell you is it's established every society (no matter how big or small) is going to have to have some sort of defense - otherwise they will get pillaged sooner or later.
Problem is people with armies usually want to start conquests eventually.... No one has figured out how to stop this through history other than having a bigger and better army
...a bigger and better army which eventually goes into an all-out war.
We had good tries with military alliances that drastically reduce the amount of soldiers required to defend the country as other countries' soldiers are ready to join in.
The problem is, they were formed against certain forces and got stuck with that mentality. We need a democratic worldwide alliance, probably led by the United Nations officials.
Oh, sorry, but I am an adult. And, while I'm gonna skip your condescension, to which I see no place on Lemmy, I can't help but point this is where you get complicit with all of that monstrosity. My point is - for as long as we try to talk of armies as inevitable, even if bad, no change will be made. And we should push for their abolition - they won't be removed fully overnight, that would be the most naive thing to expect - but the problem remains that they are parasites and we should not just accept that. The more people understand a little about what army is and what it does (pitches people against eachother and spills blood and destruction, that is all) and stop excusing it, the more chances we have at actually pushing the policy towards demilitarization again, curbing the current war craze.
The violent percentage of humans are held well by the police, and on the national level the policy should be dictated by the masses, i.e. we should have and uphold democracy, which is a base struggle we already have.
I'm well aware Army made ARPANET, but the Internet as we know it was a public civilian endeavor, so it is not fair to attribute it to army to begin with. GPS - sure, but after that we, again, have seen the rise of navigation systems built with civilian focus, and currently the civilian purpose is more than reason enough to sustain it. You might argue that army was still the first, to which I'll say - yeah, they were the first to funnel money that could go to public research which would make it civilian from day 1, while making proper use of money currently wasted developing more technological ways of killing each other.
The space race was a vanity project first and foremost, aimed at showcasing national prestige. It started without military purpose (just a beeping satellite) and it always kept that way, with just some exceptions like certain Space Shuttle programs (that would happen anyway). Currently, almost everything in space is civilian-purpose.
As per Ukraine and Palestine...you might have skipped the part when Russian and Israeli Ministries of Defence (ironic, huh? they're all talking defence to sugarcoat their true purpose) caused it all. Armies are only good at fighting back other armies, and my proposition is not to have either to begin with, or at least drastically reduce them to decrease the potential for suffering - i.e. leveling of Ukraine and Palestine.