China has new conscription law

ibtimes.com

8 points·Animats··7 comments

Hoovers the reported twenty percent youth unemployment problem at risk of causing societal instability, perhaps, and create large talent pool for wagner/blackwater style international private security secondary market.

Yes, there's absolutely no downside to taking already disaffected, unemployed young men who can't find a wife, giving them weapons training, and then sending them off to a meat grinder somewhere from which they—well, some of them—will return even more angry and messed up than they were before.

If I were China, I definitely would not be worrying about the social impact this sort of thing could have at all.

Don't forget the training and invaluable experience they will gain (if they survive) via said meat-grinder.

This is targetting technical post college cohort to man sophisticated modern weapon systems - aka very employable folks not covered under 18-24 youth unemployment stats. They're not looking for more jar heads to run private security, which is already filled with able bodies. They're looking for cyber/electronic warfare specialists etc, folks US mil has problems retaining or competing with private industry.

The plan includes drafting people from tech into the military.

The work in the military is more meaningful than hustling premium indulgence banana skin silk LGBTIQ+ risque undergarments on Ant's Alibaba platform.

Really depends on how you define meaning, personally. If you're not particularly nationalist (not a hard sentiment to imagine in China), anything probably beats conscription for a cause you don't really care about.

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