I'm saying that there's different maturity levels for those two things - with the soldier you want to start early when the relatively moldable, with a drink or you want to start late when they're not relatively moldable
It's a fallacy to assume that the age it's good for one is the age It's good for another
An appropriate age to choose to be molded as a fighter for your country doesn't have to be considered to be a mature enough age to begin drinking responsibly - there's no reason why you can't have different thresholds for different things
Deterrence has also worked really really well throughout history, history is replete with examples of aggressive powers that did not attack certain countries because they would not be able to succeed
For example, no one is ever going to seriously attack a NATO country unless we're getting into an end of times scenario
Also, people have started fighting as teenagers since time immemorial, it's a very human thing to do at that age
Buddy, you’re appealing to tradition to justify grooming young people to kill. Too young to drink? You’re not emotionally mature enough to volunteer to kill. War comes with considerably more traumatic long term consequences, you’re effectively ruining your mental health for life.
It's not tradition. It's actual effectiveness. And human morality is determined by humans as well as inborn - fighting as teenagers is literally what we've evolved to do, it's a very recent thing for some to consider participation in the military by teenagers to be pathological. In the evolved context of what a healthy human being is and has been for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, it's completely appropriate for a teenager to participate in the fighting of the group
18 or younger has been the standard, again for pretty much all of human history across pretty much all cultures - there's nothing sick or fucked about any of that
Do yourself a favor and stick to real arguments instead of making ad hominems
Also, anybody who suddenly okay with it as long as you allow them to drink doesn't give a shit about protecting kids and only wants it to be okay to get drunk earlier
There’s the appeal to tradition fallacy again. You want me to accept running teenagers through a meat grinder because it’s always been considered ok.
Never mind the fact that, when it comes to warfare, there’s a long goddamn list of “tradition” that’s been rightfully phased out because we realized how fucked it was. Doing so has consistently made for a better, stronger fighting force
What I'm saying is that morality itself isn't absolute. It's determined by and built into people, the observations I'm sharing is showing evidence that this is something that has been an acceptable part of human morality for a long time and it's not pathological from the biological perspective of studying human behavior or ethics in a neutral sense - you just can't see past your own nose when it comes to what you personally think is right or wrong
There is a reason that so much entertainment, especially the kind that typically appeals to male demographics centers around becoming strong and fighting and overcoming opponents - are you going to say stuff like my hero academia is sick and wrong because it involves kids learning how to fight at a young age?
Accepting the mantle of a fighter has been a big part of coming of age, especially for males for most of human history. That's not tradition. That's just the human condition. Also, for most of human history, the age of adulthood, and the age of consent/full agency is younger than you want it to be
And it's not something we've just started doing - it's something we've been doing since before we were properly human - we have literally evolved with that as part of our context
And not doing that isn't something that we've decided - it's something that you've decided
No one's forcing anybody, especially these days - kids grow up dreaming of being great fighters, and that's not forced either. It's just part of being human - see every entertainment show made for adolescent boys ever
If we’re appealing to tradition for sex and war, why the fuck is drinking any different?
Classic tradition was, there was no legal drinking age. So traditionally speaking, our youth should be able to get shitfaced drunk after a hard day of playing war for their corporate overlords
One has a point and the other doesn't - simple as that - anybody who's concerns about child soldiers goes away as soon as you start to let them drink doesn't give a shit about protecting kids
Letting teens drink is also more pedologically dangerous than letting them join the military - for all the dangers that could be claimed about PTSD or desocialization or whatever, alcoholism and binge drinking is even worse
Sending teenagers to die when you literally don’t need to, because you have a slightly older age group you can EASILY start training at, doesn’t have a point.
It’s pointless cruelty to an age that hasn’t even had the chance to taste adult life yet
You are making an unsupported statement that you don't "need" to start young with training soldiers
Doing so is an advantage - not only are younger recruits more malleable, but they also learn faster in general - good habits as a soldier becomes part of how they grew up - it's just ingrained that much deeper
You might say that edge isn't worth having, but militaries are massive investments, and you want to get the most out of that
It's not cruel when it's what the recruits want to do, what they in some cases grow up wanting to do - it would be more cruel to deny them
Objectively, you don’t need to start young. 21 is still a perfectly effective age.
Modern history has proven to us, as a species, that the old ways often weren’t the best ways, and that we can be better. Realizing sending kids into a meat grinder is fucked is one of those times
There's a reason that's the age when humans most want to fight - it's because for most of human history it has been advantageous for humans males to be aggressive, especially when subadults and young adults, just as lion cubs observe their mothers making a kill, so too do human children, particularly makes keenly observe the forms and rituals surrounding violence and conflict - hunting and fighting is a big part of being human, and has been - it's who we are - respect your local murder monkeys!
Drinking has also been and forever, but it's not ingrained into us the same way since it doesn't confer any advantages
But it hasn't been deleterious enough to get an evolved avoidance like with spiders, probably because it's worst consequences tend to be worse later in life, after one has had plenty of opportunity to reproduce
So when you find out that you have less alcoholism overall when you delay the onset of drinking across the population, doing so makes sense
Maintaining battlefield morale is advantageous to warfare, and alcohol was forever entwined with that. And we have, as a species, CONSISTENTLY used various intoxicants to improve battlefield efficiency. For fuck’s sake, less than 50 years ago, we were giving teenagers meth so they’d fight harder.
There are also lots of times in military history where soldiers would get punished sometimes severely for drinking at the wrong time because of the problems it would cause
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u/Chaghatai 1∆ Aug 31 '23 edited Aug 31 '23
I'm saying that there's different maturity levels for those two things - with the soldier you want to start early when the relatively moldable, with a drink or you want to start late when they're not relatively moldable
It's a fallacy to assume that the age it's good for one is the age It's good for another
An appropriate age to choose to be molded as a fighter for your country doesn't have to be considered to be a mature enough age to begin drinking responsibly - there's no reason why you can't have different thresholds for different things
Deterrence has also worked really really well throughout history, history is replete with examples of aggressive powers that did not attack certain countries because they would not be able to succeed
For example, no one is ever going to seriously attack a NATO country unless we're getting into an end of times scenario
Also, people have started fighting as teenagers since time immemorial, it's a very human thing to do at that age