“Journalist and best-selling author Sebastian Junger discusses his book, “War,” an account of his time with a US Army platoon on the battlefields of Afghanistan. For one year, in 2007–2008, Sebastian Junger accompanied 30 men–a single platoon–from the storied 2nd battalion of the US Army as they fought their way through a remote valley in eastern Afghanistan. Over the course of five trips, Junger was in more firefights than he could count, as men he knew were killed or wounded and he himself was almost killed. This lecture contains graphic language.”
Is there any evidence that someone involved in a competitive sport or game has a mental state substantially different from that of a soldier in combat?
Mike in Boston: Let’s cut Al O’Donnell some slack. You’ve done some real stuff you can’t talk about, you’re retired, bored stiff and time hangs heavy. Then some eager young girl starts pumping you for stories, hanging on your every word. Are you telling me you’re not going to spin some good yarns, occasionally pursing your lips and keeping mum so she cajoles you for more?
roo_ster: What BS wrote: Complete baloney. Hard t obelieve anyone with discernemnt could swallow that mess.
Bob Sykes: Bullshit, every word, bullshit. I suppose you believe Biden won the 2020 election, too.
Phileas Frogg: This is vaguely reminiscent of a proposed means of industrial/social sabotage recommended by the less than savory denizens of a particular website of infamy, which I shall refrain from naming. The idea was created and put together following the publication of a news story concerning an unusual event on an airline. A passenger experienced a bout of explosive diarrhea, which saturated the cabin and was running down the aisles, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing for health...
Phileas Frogg: The inevitability of market-dominant minorities is merely the economic expression of the Iron Law of Oligarchy. The only question is whether that oligarchy will be constituted by a particular class, or a particular people (race/religion/ethnicity /etc).
John Derbyshire: My 5/19/2003 review: We are, the pundits tell us, living in an age characterized by globalization and democracy. People and capital move ever more freely across national boundaries, while rulers everywhere are more and more obliged to pay attention to the desires of their citizens. The common opinion in the United States, propagated by the big-ticket media, the educational system, and the political establishment, is that both globalization and democracy are wonderful things that will...
Pseudo-Chrysostom: If it can’t be easily represented on a one page stat sheet, then it can’t be accounted for by a solipsistic bureaucrat, the dominant lifeform of peacetime militaries (and endemic to all spheres of human endeavor in general). If use of a specialized metamaterial can allow for 10% more glorpfinning at ten times the cost, then the committee will see this as well worth the price of other people’s money. If a certain design arrangement makes serving and repairs impossible...
Ceck: https://www.frontpagemag .com/we-need-chinese-pro ducts-to-fight-a-war-wit h-china/ The Pentagon should not want slick hardware. The Pentagon should want reliable hardware made entirely in USA territory. The Pentagon should aspire to autarky even though such a goal is difficult.
Phileas Frogg: Harry Jones, Amen. Alexander Hamilton and Friederich List are further validated each day that passes, not merely by the historical success of their models, which is undeniable, but by the increasingly obvious failure of the Globalized version of Manchester Liberalism that replaced it. Laissez-Faire Capitalism, like Communism, simply isn’t built for the real world.
Harry Jones: Gratuitous globalization is stupid. Autarky is safer and more efficient.
Bob Sykes: A T-72 has already taken out an Abrams with an ATGM. All Russian tanks can fire ATGM’s from their main gun, which gives the Russian tank overreach against US/NATO armor. Tanks, aircraft carriers and other modern weapons are very dangerous, and militaries everywhere have spent huge sums of money developing counter measures. Many of these are being used for the first time, and Russia and US/NATO are having to develop new tactics. In any event, the US/NATO weapons are merely slowing...
McChuck: The ammunition gate inside the turret automatically closes, unless you deliberately lock it open. So, what we have here is one of two scenarios: 1) Poor training of the tank crews. 2) Deliberate sabotage by the US so the tanks are less likely to be captured relatively intact.
Bruce: Just noticed from Wiki the author of ‘Vampire’ was a Nazi. Huh. Mildly surprised. It’s not like reading Ludendorff. In hindsight I remember the use of ‘Chosen People’ to describe how the author thinks the Brits think of themselves.
Bruce: Read ‘The Vampire of the Continent’ on Beholder’s recommendation. Reminded me of ‘The German Talks Back’, a book Morgenthau got published after WWII and Heinlein thought should be read. An annoyed German’s potted history of England up to 1916, England being evil, plutocratic, and miraculously good at ridiculous propaganda. The British Isles spent 1500-1850 as a perfectly-placed pirate base against Western Europe, the Brits took advantage, ‘The...
Gaikokumaniakku: I suppose many readers of this site have some experience with either military or civilian logistics. A typical civilian experience of the past fifty years has been the profit-mad company that slashes its safety inventory to the bone because products held in inventory represent both a cash investment plus a holding cost. Then the civilian company goes into crisis because it does not hold enough safety stock and it is not nearly clever enough to do just-in-time like Toyota can do. This...
Graf von Zeppelin: Abrams entered service in 1980. I bet the Soviets had its blueprints before the design was finished. The Soviets spent at least a decade working out ways to kill Abrams in battle and Russians then worked on it for another 30 years. The Kornet ATGM was specifically intended to defeat Abrams. Other than a couple of Abrams tanks disabled by Iraqis in 2003, Kornet hasn’t had a real battle test. I imagine that an ideal test would be against a small number of Abrams tanks, say two...
T. Beholder: Not entirely wrong, but he veers into romantic territory. The Red Army he have seen emerged from several iterations of intense debugging. It was not just experience of WW I and Civil War, and then “let’s prepare for the last war”. Not counting misadventures of Tukhachevsky in Poland… But in Spain, Winter War, Soviet-Japanese war? Early performance was scrutinized, and when anything wasn’t good enough, improvements in tactics, training, equipment and organization made ASAP. Testing new...
T. Beholder: Indeed. As to Napoleon, he did learn. He understood he cannot contest the seas head-on, so the next thing he tried was to weaken the Brits (specifically including their Navy) indirectly, via their economical colonies. Why do you think he went to Russia of all places? Because so much hemp and timber went to England from Russia, it redefined local economy and internal politics. Hence genuine popularity of monarchy in Russia: the common interest of the crown and the peasants was to stop the...
Bruce: Bought ‘The Vampire’ on T. Beholder’s recommendation. WWI agitprop is wildly better than any political stuff since. I recommend Ford Maddox Ford’s ‘Between St Denis and St George’ to anyone.
Related: Why Men Love War by William Broyles.
Also Junger, War in Afghanistan (47 min):
“Journalist and best-selling author Sebastian Junger discusses his book, “War,” an account of his time with a US Army platoon on the battlefields of Afghanistan. For one year, in 2007–2008, Sebastian Junger accompanied 30 men–a single platoon–from the storied 2nd battalion of the US Army as they fought their way through a remote valley in eastern Afghanistan. Over the course of five trips, Junger was in more firefights than he could count, as men he knew were killed or wounded and he himself was almost killed. This lecture contains graphic language.”
Is there any evidence that someone involved in a competitive sport or game has a mental state substantially different from that of a soldier in combat?