It’s Silicon Valley or the Israeli Army for This Young Entrepreneur | Hacker News Reader

It’s Silicon Valley or the Israeli Army for This Young Entrepreneur

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19 pointsturoczy13 comments

I can't believe that a modern nation has mandatory conscription. It's truly backward. What's with military prep school?

Military/wars are ultimately all political, so conscription places obedience to the political leaders right in the middle of adolescence. Very unfortunate.

Most Scandinavian nations have mandatory conscription. I wonder if requiring all citizens to serve isn't preferable to establishing a military that ultimately consists of those who have fewer alternatives for making a living.

As for obedience to political leaders, you have it completely backwards. A professional military staffed mostly by the underclass is much more convenient to political leaders. Military adventures are much easier when most people don't personally know any soldier. Think about Vietnam vs. later conflicts.

Those are good points.

"Military service holds a vaulted position in Israeli’s entrepreneurial culture. Many start up founders attribute their success to those post-adolescent years spent following orders and memorizing technical manuals in specialized army units."

Unfortunately this only seems to work in Israel. From a Scandinavian perspective, and personal experience in the Finnish Defence Forces, our conscription and entrepreneurship seem to have nothing to do with each other. Our service does provide connections, but they don't readily turn into businesses. Perhaps because there is nothing like the current threats around Israel. Thus there is less procurement etc.

Finland's and Israel's aerospace/weapons industries have surprisingly much common history. We had the leg up after WW2 until about 80's. Tampella (mostly known for grenade launchers) and other Finnish manufacturers provided quite many designs (for example Israel's Galil rifle was based on a design licensed from Finland) and consulted in the development of Israel's armament industry. Nowadays the tables have turned - Finland buys a lot of defense materiel from Israel.

Scandinavian countries already have quite selective conscription. International op requirements and cutbacks seem to be leading to rapid professionalization (very apparent in Sweden). Soon Finland could be the only N. European country with mandatory conscription, since it's the only non-Nato country which borders Russia.

Military & entrepreneurship: Very interesting pair. Remember Steve Blank's Secret History of Silicon Valley? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

What a waste - why destroy something promising just to get another warm body for another useless conflict over a country so tiny most Americans walk longer to take a piss and which may or may not have once played a role as the place where some people who worshiped a god in their way slept until they were kicked away by some other people who worshiped the same God in a slightly different manner? Why not at least let the delusional people fight it out amongst themself.

And yes, it would have killed me to make the sentence shorter.

Islam and Judism are very different religions. To say they worship the same God is absolute ignorance.

How do you know? Did you ever see "him"?

It's a pretty standard theological view that all Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) worship (on some level) the same god.

No it is not - the Christians inherited the old testament from the Jews and Islam inherited the Christian holy texts.

So yes, it is the same God.

They're not destroying something promising. They did give him time to show that it's something more than just "promising".

Being small doesn't mean they're any less keen on remaining independent than bigger countries. Remember that there are over 7 million people there. And that they certainly aren't located in the most peaceful part of the world.

"Why not at least let the delusional people fight it out amongst themself." Isn't that exactly what they're doing?

The delusional people are exempt from military service in Israel.

A stronger argument would have been that, politics aside, mandatory military servitude is inherently anti-freedom and undemocratic. It is the only form of slavery still permitted by "free" countries. Which means it stifles entrepreneurship and innovation.

It's just not that simple. You can decide to look at it that way, but it's the country the guy grew up in and that gave him what he has. He was raised in a deeply patriotic place where a sense of contributing back to that national body through defense is a fundamental part of the culture. In any event, the guy would no doubt be doing technological work for the IDF, so he'd not likely be a front-lines grunt.

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