So the guy spends 100% of his time outside of his job at Shopify in constant training to fight some war someday. That day may not arrive for years, if at all. Still, he needs to go and spend all of his free time in some imaginary war exercises every week. I am unable to fathom in what way this is a good and worthwhile use of anybody’s time. I can understand needs of many people to satisfy their caveman style hunting instincts, to fight, to feel important, to feel brotherhood, to feel adrenaline rush, to fund their education, to feel proud, to get medical insurance while rationalizing this entire enterprise beneath patriotism. To be honest, I haven’t understood the need for armies for “defense” (I understand it’s need for offense). If you want only defense, you should train every able citizen with basic and mandatory training with occasional refreshers. This makes a country with 10M+ population nearly undefeatable, even without nukes. Most countries can then get rid of 80% of the army this way and the associated costs. There is no need for human robots who act up in imaginary wars every day of their lives as their sole purpose and meaning. Human life hopeFully should mean something more than that.
Who’s going to train all your citizens if you don’t have any professional soldiers? Who’s going to lead them? As the article says, the knowledge of how to fight can’t be generated from nothing on the day that you suddenly need it. You need some kind of cadre to maintain skills and knowledge.
