The US Military is Embedded in the Gaming World. Its Target: Teen Recruits
source link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/02/14/1828207/the-us-military-is-embedded-in-the-gaming-world-its-target-teen-recruits
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
The US Military is Embedded in the Gaming World. Its Target: Teen Recruits
›
Russia, England, the US are all experiencing the same thing: failing to hit recruitment goals. Between movies, games, and in particular social media coming out of Ukraine of kids getting shot at (and having to shoot back) in an active war, nobody wants to get involved in these things. From birth kids are exposed to the very grim reality of war, and voices both for and against it.
If nobody wants to go to war, how will government wage war? Russia is just barely hanging on to their immediate recruitment needs by sending their prison population through the meat grinder, and many of the best and brightest fled the country at the first hint of war. They all have (much, much better) jobs now and are unlikely to return before retirement age, if ever.
I think there's a lesson to be told here; going to war means your upper middle class will immediately flee, and your financial system will be kneecapped indefinitely. And also that nobody (who hasn't already been brainwashed) really wants to take a bullet for their country.
-
Robots. It's already happening. The USAF and Navy are going for "soldier + 5 drones" in next gen air craft and ships.
I saw a blurb about some automated mini tank in Ukraine but there weren't enough details to know what was really going on there.
Maybe future combat will be one kid playing Command & Conquer but with real robots moving around. Or like Ender's Game but with robot ships instead of human pilots taking orders.
-
let's play global thermonuclear war
-
How about a nice game of chess?
-
And far away in some recess
The Lord and the Devil are now playing chess
The Devil still cheats and wins more souls...
-
-
-
People, well mainly the military -- ironically enough, have forgotten that the most important part of war is gathering and analyzing intel. Knowing who and what to strike -- that's very hard to do with pure SIGINT.
-
-
To add to that, I think peoples feelings on the validity of war have plummeted. I think people have always known at least at a surface what they are signing up for. But people aren't really willing to sacrifice themselves for causes they don't believe in.
-
As a vet, I kind of agree, but feel the need to expand and clarify a bit. Go back to the old yarns - the most expensive military is one that loses. The next most expensive is one that wins. The cheapest military? One that doesn't need to fight.
Unfortunately, semi-recent events have shown that there are still bad actors out there. As such, militaries are still needed.
Remember, Russia invaded Ukraine because Putin viewed the Ukraine military as weak. He attempted a thunder run like what the US got away
-
This requires this "better place" to exist. Once you stop being willing to fight for your nation, it will quickly stop existing, because all nations exist by the will of men at arms agreeing to maintain its existence.
And most nations aren't welcoming to outsiders that aren't fabulously rich. They'll happily take your money, and then kick you out after you're used up though. Amount of nations who are welcoming to immigrants beyond that is slim, and those are the nations that are suffering from lack of men to
-
-
That's not being "brainwashed", that's believing in a cause greater than yourself that you're willing to fight and die for, not that you somehow want that to happen (you're thinking of Islam, where the best honor comes from being a martyr. Those fighting for religion ARE brainwashed. Fighting for the preservation of life and liberty is not.) If you think that only the poor participate, then you know nothing of what it means to serve in a modern military. Ukraine's soldiers aren't fighting because they're po
-
I'm not a veteran, so I can't very well criticize others who say they wouldn't fight. But personally I think the young men even of wealthy western nations would stand up if they actually felt they and their loved ones were threatened. That's just human nature. 9/11 gave us a relatively small taste of being threatened at home, and it changed the national mood rapidly.
-
There is a difference between fighting against an existential threat, as in the world wars (or Ukraine today), where even conscription is preferable to the end of your country, or fighting simply as cannon fodder for questionable and entirely optional political goals, like Vietnam or Iraq.
I am old so the question is moot, but if my country is threatened I will fight regardless. Not seeing why anyone young wants to go to Iran or Venezuela or whatever the current enemy du jour just to die though. There a -
Nobody was dragging religion in to this, thanks for participating.
-
-
Joining the military is a sucker's path.
If you want to "help" your country AND get paid, there are other more lucrative routes to kill or help kill. Become a contractor or, if you're up for it, just show up in Gaza and grab a house! If you don't, someone else will anyway!
Joining the military is like volunteering to work at a bank.
-
More peace & cooperative diplomacy instead of aggressive, intransigent, provocative expansionism?
-
Soldiering has always been the choice of last resort, a way out of desperate financial problems. But it's failing even at that because it's a bad deal: you may get killed, you may end up with a lifetime of medical issues and the government won't necessarily pay for it, politicians will actively harm your well being in the military for idiotic ideological crusades even their supporters may not care about, the skills you learn on the job don't necessarily prepare you for any kind of civilian life, the conditi
-
You can deliver pizzas or flip burgers for the same as entry level military work. And you get five days off, access to unlimited porn and almost unlimited Xbox/PlayStation. At this point the only thing the military provides is a halfway reasonable social safety net got retired GI and possibly a path to a college edition, which most 18 year olds aren't super focused on. Last resort in America is flipping burgers. Military service is an unnecessary risk at any economic level in America
-
Uh...
Entry level military very quickly makes more than burger flippers.
E-3, under 2 years, 2024: $2377.50/month. $28,530/year. $13.72/hour.
As I entered as an E-3, if I'd entered today, that's what I'd be earning in basic training.
That's before you add in that you're being provided housing, food, and medical care for free.
If they're not providing it, it's an extra $467.95 for food, ~$1500(it varies by location) for housing, per month. Healthcare would be worth around $4k/year.Add that stuff in and you're
-
-
I'd disagree with that, it has often been a choice seen as honorable, part of duty, a pathway for special privileges, etc...
Go back in time, if it was the "choice of last resort", in our racist past we wouldn't have been as opposed to black soldiers. Instead, it was often viewed as too honorable of a profession/duty for them.
In the Roman days, it was a path to citizenship, and still is. It pays a lot more than minimum wage, at least once you work your way up a bit.
There's actually more dangerous jobs out
-
-
Your information is at least a year out of date. Russia isn't having a recruitment problem any more. They decided they're going to pay what they have to to mobilize poorer parts of the society, even with a meat grinder going on. They set the monthly goal at around 30.000 new recruits a month, and according to Ukrainian TG channels, they've met this goal for many months now. This is universally recognized as untenable on the Ukrainian side, and one of the reasons Ukrainian recruitment effort on the other sid
-
Destroying national pride and vilifying your native population has consequences, sorry progs.
Recommend
About Joyk
Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK