From: Robert P. Stefko [rpsst16@pop.pitt.edu] Sent: Thursday, January 07, 1999 12:28 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Military Efficiency (was: Hybrids) >While your premise is undoubedly true, for me it's more of an issue of whether the soldiers are in any position to apply what they see to their life in any kind of meaningful way by the time they see it. I think that the ones who would take the knowledge of what they've seen and realize that there is something other than war would be a very small minority, and they would hae a lot of trouble communicating this to the others as there is just not going to be a conceptual framework for even asking the question "am I happy doing this" - they would be too highly trained to avoid asking just such a question. The best soldier never questions the morality of his actions, so I would think that the hybrids would be pragmatic to the extreme (by training if not by nature) and really fairly incapable of feeling that they have been dealt with unjustly since they have no paradigm (and really no way to embrace one) of the way things are supposed to be in any other sense than battlefield tactics.< While an automaton is unfailingly loyal and obedient, it's also inflexible and easily confused. Good soldiers must be given a degree of latitude in carrying out orders, as well as the option to countermand or ignore an order that is imprudent or illegal. The United States learned this in Vietnam; My Lay and other massacres were the direct result of inept officers issuing illegal orders to soldiers who were unaware of the international laws of war, and consequently unwilling to question their commanders' decisions. If the soldiers had been schooled in military ethics and the Geneva Conventions, then such massacres would have been less likely to have occured. My point is, even the armed forces operate by an ethical code. There is no such thing as an unfeeling, unthinking soldier. That said, the first generation of hybrids was raised with these military ethics, but also came into contact with civilians who held different notions of morality. Specifically, the young hybrids would have been cared for by professional nursemaids for at least the first three to four years of their lives. No amount of training or conditioning, short of complete personality reconstruction (a process that may or may not be possible with psychoactive drugs and/or direct neural interface), is going to erase these highly impressionable years. So they did have an alternative frame of reference, buried in their childhood memories and later reinforced through contact with non-military personnel working on the project. A vociferous minority speaking out against their condition of involuntary servitude would probably have been enough to convince the other hybrids that their Spartan lifestyle was not the normal state of human existence and cause discontent among the ranks. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Chris Sakal [csakal@erols.com] Sent: Thursday, January 07, 1999 5:46 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Military Efficiency (was: Hybrids) >It's essentially impossible to prevent the dissemination of ideas from one >group of people to another. Even the most repressive totalitarian states >never managed to accomplish this feat. A human being raised to be a soldier >will still come into contact with non-soldiers at some time in his life — >while recuperating in a hospital, while "pacifying" a village of >noncombatants, while marching in a parade, or whatever. If communication >occurs, ideas will necessarily be exchanged, and the soldier will slowly >come to realize there are facets of human existence other than soldiering. >How he acts on this revelation is, of course, a matter of personal choice. >Obviously, enough hybrids chose freedom to force the issue with the project >leadership. While your premise is undoubedly true, for me it's more of an issue of whether the soldiers are in any position to apply what they see to their life in any kind of meaningful way by the time they see it. I think that the ones who would take the knowledge of what they've seen and realize that there is something other than war would be a very small minority, and they would hae a lot of trouble communicating this to the others as there is just not going to be a conceptual framework for even asking the question "am I happy doing this" - they would be too highly trained to avoid asking just such a question. The best soldier never questions the morality of his actions, so I would think that the hybrids would be pragmatic to the extreme (by training if not by nature) and really fairly incapable of feeling that they have been dealt with unjustly since they have no paradigm (and really no way to embrace one) of the way things are supposed to be in any other sense than battlefield tactics. Chris Sakal csakal@erols.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Adam Lewis [adamswork@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, January 07, 1999 2:09 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Jim...how do you put up an army tent? I was wondering if any of you know where I can get a copy of theinstructions to put up a GP Medium tent. Is there a web site that I can download this off of? Thx, == AdamL "Humans were invented by water for transporting it uphill." _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message.