Hacker News Reader

Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

> as a kid I thought they were strong ant powerful people that excelled at war, kill or be killed

That is because most popular depiction of military amount to propaganda and is designed to make you feel good about military. It does not show the ugly or boring or realistic parts of it.

You pretty much never see movie from point of view of civilians living in the place where military operates. Military would not be so cool looking there.

Even death in combat or mistreating civilians is depicted in a way that makes you want to join fight. More realistic (and less popular) depictions don't have thay effect.

What you wrote is just propaganda internalized.

View on HN

You're saying it's weird that kids like tanks, supersonic aircraft and and nuclear submarines? Technology is cool. You didn't think the blackbird was really cool? I never thought only the US military was cool, powerful machines facinate boys without propaganda. I liked monster trucks and crushing machines too and I bet lots of other boys did too despite their non military function.

But as a kid I also read books about civilians in war time. I seen photos of bombed cities and read memoirs of people who went through it. Journals would have that every year at milestones.

There were those sad movies about kids in war time too.

No, the war was not unambiguous cool good as far as I remember. I never perceived it as cool technology only, it was never framed to me that way.

My grandma used to say that war is horrible. The grandparents generally did not liked it and did not liked movies with shooting and bombing. They added details only later, the stuff they personally seen, when I was adult, but when I was kid they would at least generally say it was bad.

What is the war you talk about? I was always interested in cool technology, not war. Often, the military had cool technology. I remember reading a book, how things work and it explained lots of things to me, like how airplanes fly, so I wanted to look up the fastest one and the blackbird was really cool. I love machines and used to take apart clocks to (try to) fix them too. I wasn't interested in guns despite them being in every military game, they just exploded a bullet from a shell in various ways.

Some things had a horrible magnificence like when the US bombed Los Alamo's US soldiers and the men in a documentary talked about how beautiful it was, or the terrifying effect of white phosphorus.

After writing this, I think I liked the idea of the power and leanness of the military ( wanted their gear because milspec means hardy), but also thought they had the coolest toys to play with.

The whole point of military it to do war and keep themselves ready for war. There is no military without war or threat of war.

And there is no war without massive suffering. Pretty much any of them displaces people, interrupts food distribution and generally makes people living in that area suffer.

Pick up the one you want, you find all that.

Military would not be necessary if there was no conflict. And I doubt you can find humanity without conflict.

> "I seen photos of bombed cities and read memoirs of people who went through it."

I have too, which is precisely why I'm greatly in favor of an extremely strong military. Sovereignty is a privilege enjoyed only by those with the means to enforce it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com