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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
1971 points (100.0% liked)
A Boring Dystopia
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I’ll go against the grain here.
I joined not long after high school because I wasn’t gonna be able to pay for college, not that I was a good student anyway.
Spent most of my 4 year Air Force enlistment in the UK doing what I wanted - sysad, basically. Never deployed.
Got out and worked for increasingly higher pay and now I make $250k+ without a college degree.
Should you not be pissed off that this was one of the very few options you had in order to have a chance at success later in life because of your economic situation rather than touting this as a good idea?
More options are better, usually, so sure, I would have liked the option not to join.
But like I said, I’m a terrible student and still haven’t gone back to use my education benefit even though it would cost me nothing but time.
I’m simply providing a counter to the sentiment “I don’t wanna die for some oil company”.
To be honest, I think it every time I see people complaining about their prospects. Rather than bitch about it online, I did something to upgrade my socioeconomic status.
Is it a counter? Because your argument seems to be that risking dying for some oil company was worth it for you because you ended up successful since you didn't die.
That seems more like a caveat than a counter.
This is hard to convey to people who didn’t serve but my job, even if I had deployed, was low risk.
I worked in datacenters where I needed a jacket to stay warm year round.
I wore the same pair of boots, issued to me in basic, my entire 4 years because I sat on my ass the majority of the time. They never needed replacing.
Did you know how low the risk was going to be when you signed up? Do you think most people sign up knowing that there will be little likelihood that they will die in a war?
I did and I would expect most do because the jobs are public.
I considered pararescue and the difference between that and what I did was clear before joining.
Yes, most people that sign up for infantry want to do it
^^ Found the lemmy air force recruiter
Well I am assigned to this community…
Similar story. Air Force 6 years, barely a degree worth noting, and tech jobs since. And damn good times and friendships were had. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. But… I would take it back if I had killed people. Never wanted to do that. Thankfully there is more to the mission than killing innocents on behalf of oil magnates.
Yeah this government system sucks either go into massive debt, or risk dying or depression to protect the interests of a company extracting an obsolete fuel
It is fairly dystopian in itself that army is used as a social mobility tool. A ton of resources go into luring young men into doing what is ultimately useless, dangerous and harmful. Resources that could be spent to help so much more people.
I’m afraid the world will soon find out what happens when the US doesn’t play world cop. I think the US and its allies will be worse off for it.
Given the choice between Russia, China, or the US, my choice is clear.
Regarding it being a social mobility tool, I’d like to think of myself as a realist, if nothing else. The facts remain:
Everything can work as social mobility tool if govt decides it to be. They can make a plan to boost any other sector of the economy and create a lot of super high-pay jobs which would achieve just the same while being actually productive for society, i.e. returning something tangible on taxpayer's dollars.
And yes, the world should know US shouldn't be a world cop. Neither should China or Russia for that matter. The world cop should be the UN, the Security Council, and the UN Peacekeeper force.
No single country is a good fit for the role, and all would severely abuse their power, leading to a ton of suffering.
It's better than not having social mobility at all.
The point is not to eliminate this one leaving nothing, but rather to actually build other routes - something that goes through productive labor beneficial for society.
Science. Engineering. Art. Medicine. And a lot more.
I’m so envious. That’s what I wanted to do when joining the Navy. The paper said “advanced electronics computer field” and I ended up as an Electronics Technician. What a waste. The cost of ignorance is high. I didn’t have a mentor or father to guide me in such things. Now I’m in my late 30s studying AWS and tryin’ to make a change :-\
Hey, you are doing it, bud. Forgive your younger self. It needs love too.
I appreciate you. I need to remember that I did the best I could at that moment and time. Hindsight and “what could’ve been “ can be such a bummer and debilitating.
I went in thinking “if I hate it, I stick it out 4 years then get out and go to school”. But it just happened to work out well.
Same, gave me some experience and set me on my career path.
Did my 4 years on bases with no flight lines (Like being in the navy and never stepping foot on a ship, lol) and only deployed to humanitarian missions even though the first gulf war was going on.
Still keep in touch with people i worked/lived with all those years ago.
Different world now and am glad my children didnt have to make that decision.