Why Young Men Go to War - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/war-is-boring/sebastian-junger-knows-why-young-men-go-to-war-f163804cbf6 <comment><USER2> I forgot who said it, but it went like this: "If people recognise the banality of war, there will be no more wars."

Of course its not that simple, but we, I suppose especially us techie boys (us because I am one), think that an M1 Abrams tank, a F-15 airplane or a Sig Sauer rifle are, well, cool. We also think uniforms look good. And we dream of being heroes, especially when we are young.

It is, of course, nonsense. All these machines, while technologically interesting, are basically just ugly tools to end lives of other humans. I suppose the glamour and pride only work as long as you believe it does. And so forth.

Of course we need some weapons to defend ourselves, (one might argue our nuclear weapons are more than enough already), because who knows may come and attack, sure. But, yea, I think I just want to say, stop glorifying all this stuff.

It gives me hope that one of the most popular computer games ever, Minecraft, is not a war game. :)

<comment><USER3> No we need weapons to defend others. The USA and UK are in part two of the richest nations in the world because they are physically isolated from threats, we grew, and continue to grow, rich of trade with the rest of the world.

The West has the capacity to be heroic and for a brief period at the turn of the millennium was actually doing that. Kosovo and Sierra Leone were examples of successful military intervention followed up by nation building. Before that the first Gulf War was again a successful intervention.

The cause of peace allows Rwanda, Bosnia and a hundred other regional conflicts and genocide to claims the lives of millions and blight regions. We should not let Afghanistan and Iraq - and really the root problem is Iraq detract from the potential to affect positive change in the world.

Finally it's worth saying that military capability gives humanitarian capability. The recent Philippines disaster saw HMS Illustrious deliver all the spare rice in Singapore in a short space of time along with a number of helicopters as well as fit, motivated, organised and well led teams to assist in disaster relief.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that 1 or 2 successful interventions make a heroic period. And the First Gulf War was a farce. What has occurred in Iraq since is directly related and the stationing of troops in Saudi during the conflict had a profound influence on many, including Bin Laden. Intervention is always complex but this was a disaster.

<comment><USER3> I'd hardly call over a decade of regional stability a farce. It checked any expansionist tendencies of other regional powers. It helped make a very powerful point to Iran who didn't cause any problems with the Straits of Hormuz for a long while after, to Libya who had been invaded Chad only years before etc.

It was the 2003 invasion of Iraq that kicked off the nightmare and heightened regional and global instability. It was that massive miscalculation which hugely multiplied the number of jihadists and gave victories to radical Islamists.

Remember Iran had been chanting death America for years by that point, religious zealots already hated America and the West.

<comment><USER4> Regional stability didn't make for a very good time in Iraq if you were a Kurd, had supported the U.S. in any way or if you wanted to eat. Infant mortality went through the roof and the death toll from coalition bombing civilians was also a problem. Regional stability is a phrase that gets used to justify support for vicious dictatorships that suit foreign powers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I went in the army because at the time, I had big dreams and no clear path to them. I thought joining the army and doing a hard training would teach me something about achieving goals.

I went to war because I was in the army and wondered what was the point of being in the army if you don't go to war. After doing my training, deploying in Afghanistan was the logical follow up. Why train so hard just to stay home.

After the mission, I left the army. Partly because life back into garrison was boring as hell, partly because I felt I had lived all that was to live in the army and it was time for the next phase in my life.

At least my original goal is sort of achieved. The army and all the things I lived at that time have equipped me with a confidence that has since helped me achieve milestones toward my life goals. In retrospect, the three decisions I enumerated were sound and being my young self again, I would do the same.

<comment><USER6> Your second paragraph seems callous to me. Going to war for the sake of not wasting one's hard training, so to speak, is not moral. At least as I look at it.

War is horrible and should be avoided at all costs. Sometimes it is justifiable and necessary. War should be a last resort. I wish society had alternate means of accomplishing your first paragraph without resort to the second.

<comment><USER5> Why is it callous? Why get in the army in the first place, if not to do the work of the army? I'd be hypocritical to join the army with the desire to then avoid operations.

I can understand that people be against war. I don't like violence. I don't encourage violence and certainly do not enjoy wars. But wars exist and as a citizen, you can decide to wish that war magically weren't a thing, or do something about their existence. I did not encourage the concept of war by taking part in it, no more than I encourage system outages when I take part in building or fixing them.

War is not just war. It's not "just going somewhere to kill people". I didn't decide "Oh all that sweat wasted, better kill foreigners to make up for it". I volunteered because I thought I could make a positive influence, if any, by being a reasonable person doing their job in the most humane way I could. Not every soldier is an angry, bloodthirsty, moronic killer. Most of them aren't.

I don't wish to kill an innocent person anymore than you do. I don't wish to kill a guilty person either. But sometimes, participating in a war, or killing a person, is the only way to make the war less harmful, or prevent that person from killing many more.

Avoiding wars at all cost is not a magic bullet against wars. That's my take on it, I might be wrong.

<comment><USER7> As Sun Tzu said, the greatest warrior is the one who need never fight. While this can be interpreted as a pacifist/moral sentiment, it is really deeply practical: fighting incurs risks and resources, even if victorious. The most effective victories come from a credible deterrent which is never actually used. So I don't think your training would have been wasted by not seeing combat, any more than a policeman's weapon is wasted even if it is never fired.

<comment><USER8> If only US policemen listened more closely to Sun Tzu.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Having been in for 20 years now, I definitely agree with Junger, there is an innate element in young men trying to prove themselves. I think YCombinator appeals to a similar desire.

I was performing an autopsy yesterday when the med student, the photographer, and the assistant started talking about guns. Their gusto was impressive. I felt no need to partake, but I think that was attributable, at least in part, to the fact that I have far more experience with weapons than any of them. But I acquired those experiences by satisfying the same desire they, to some extent, haven't. How do you break that chicken-egg problem?

Alternate rites of passage, I would think. We need more of those. Is there a way to facilitate young men helping on start-ups earlier in their careers? Maybe before college?

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps, but I really don't know if that would solve it either. I've done rather well thus far in my career, and continue to do so. Yet something feels missing, I don't know what, but I still have some recurring desire to enlist. That the whole software thing - and this is something I've been doing since a very young age - is not enough. That I should be doing something _more_.

<comment> saiya-jin Try rock climbing/mountaineering. Being in the wall few hundred meters above the ground, your mind doesn't care if there is securing rope tying you to last quickdraw or not. You will be scared. You will be bathing in adrenaline. You will have to muster all your courage to move forward, to climb higher, to reach the top. Again and again.

You'll get all the excitement army guys get in deployment, without screwing you up and becoming permanent mental cripple. In fact, it will make you a better person in many many ways. Guaranteed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think, going to war has much to do with the construction of the male gender. (We're talking seldom about the male side in the gender discourse, but we may be allowed to do so in this context. Please read the following cum grano salis.)

In most cultures and societies males start life on the female side along their mothers. They are special, they are beloved, they are cared for – but they are also objects. When entering adolescence and adulthood, males are essentially losing their identity. They are no more special or unique, they are disposable (as in "women and children first") — and they have to accept this insult. They have to redefine themselves. Moreover, there are some preconditions in most cultures to becoming eligible as a subject. Some of these are related to inheritance, but it really goes a bit deeper than that. So, if they are not born rich or not the eldest son, they are asked to prove they were eligible for being a valued member of society. One way to do so is founding and supporting a family, but there are also preconditions here. To most, the final proof is showing their willingness and to prove being able to "burn themselves" (sometimes literally as in the trenches of war) for societies sake, to accept disposability. (Staying up late coding is yet another way of burning yourself, while not that drastic.) — This may be underpinned by an institution known in some cultures, the institutions of "sworn virgins", where women would enter the male side on the precondition of never returning the realms of female definitions. Ever thereafter they are part of the male side and accepted as males, but they also have to adhere to the socials contracts related to this definition. — Following to this, war is a major means of regaining identity and uniqueness – and becoming an eligible member of society. Small wonder that this often connected with pride.

In my humble opinion, these patterns are also to be observed in the discussion of gender diversity in IT and other male dominated environments. Most of the objections and/or insults against females are rather pretexts or symptoms for a basic mistrust against members who do not adhere to the laws of disposability. (Problems often evaporate as the gender-definitions are crossed by "sworn virgin coders". But this isn't a solution to the problem at all.) In this context, the presence and acceptance of "real females" is a real threat to the construction of these environments. This isn't just a show. It's more about accepting that these are not protected realms of males joined in their attempt to become eligible to the honors of society, accepting that these environments are rather part of society themselves. (So, is coding war? Swallow your pride. Nobody should be forced to burn. Does this align with the structures of business as we know it? No. – Hint: Businesses are not only burning money.)

<comment><USER11> I was with you until you introduced the need for voluntary "disposability" on the part of males as a requisite to earn a place in society. I don't see self immolation in any form as being respected or admired, in the USA anyway.

I think all adult males don't inherit a natural place in society simply because they are males, the way that females do as mothers. Fatherhood just doesn't fill the bill comparably, perhaps because it's seen as only a part- time vocation. Thus a man must seek other ways to demonstrate his value.

Making lots of money or attaining power are perhaps the chief means to earning respect. But becoming a Warrior is widely seen as a good way to demonstrate the requisite desiderata -- leadership, courage, self sacrifice, inner strength, outer strength, loyalty, stoicism, a sense of purpose, a sense of honor, and more. Having more of these makes you more of a constructive contributor to society. You're a man among men.

Very few jobs or social roles can serve even a few of these components of character. Historically, going to war has been an established and respected way to demonstrate you are indeed made of sterner stuff.

Of course, if _your_ war has a dubious justification or muddied purpose, that will complicate its ability somewhat to define you favorably. Aside from WWII and perhaps WWI, American wars since 1865 largely have been Faustian bargains. The fact that young Amercian men continue to enlist in the service of what are too often Wars of Opportunity indicates that, in our culture, alternative ways of proving your mettle have proven elusive.

<comment><USER10> There have been attempts to rewrite world history based on statistics of how many young man to "burn" there were in a society at a given time – and it works out greatly. While I do admit that this isn't of that importance in modern societies, I would still maintain that the patterns are still to be observed. Also, war has been one of the first means of making a fortune, with trade becoming another one only in the 18th century or so. Still, we may observe some inheritance here, by the emphasis on the risks involved to justify the wins. (Read Jane Austen's "Persuasion" as a sociological study on the matter and you'll see how the British upper- and middle classes would have imploded under the pressure of second sons around 1800, if there hadn't been the Navy and the Army as means of making a fortune and becoming eligible for marriage. Even more true for the lower classes, but there's no much writing on this.)

As a sidenote, we may observe that the US has undergone some efforts and investments in the past decades to decouple its war force from this logic by the means of technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not politically correct, but essentially the truth about human nature.

These two statements:

1\. "War is so compelling that you can even get a room full of pacifists to pay money to be entertained by it.""

2\. ""My sister is a complete and utter feminist and pacifist," he explains. "She doesn't see the irony. She's participating in this wonderful festival … that's reenacting a battle. Nobody reenacts the Treaty of Ghent. [It] just isn't that compelling.""

I find particularly profound.

Any attempt to "window dress" our base nature, is just that - "Window dressing".

<comment><USER13> I like watching disaster movies, yet do not support actual disasters.

<comment><USER14> Yet presumably you recognize them for the natural, if tragic, events that they are? One's support for or opposition to a force of nature is rather irrelevant.

<comment><USER13> I'm saying that noting that people enjoy war movies and kids play games about war, doesn't mean they support war at all. Disaster movies are liked for the same reason as war movies. There is adrenaline and excitement and suspense. Thinking about how you would react in those situations and discussion with friends afterwards. No one wants to watch movies about boring everyday life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They join the military for a variety of reasons, which may or may not have involved any feelings about any conflict at hand much less the media. The reason they go to war, however, is because of old men.

<comment><USER16> >is because of old men.

This is a typical modernist redaction of the will to violence that is common to young men. Past societies found ways to incorporate, normalize, redirect, celebrate that will - now we pathologize it. This is because we think we can mutate the human condition into something better.

<comment><USER17> I don't think that's accurate, if we're discussing what actually motivates military deployments. There are exceptions, but in most wars the enlisted men themselves have not been the ones chomping at the bit to be sent to war. Rather, they were sent by older men serving in government, who did not themselves participate in the fighting, often over considerable dissent from the rank and file. In some cases, such as the U.S.'s participation in Vietnam, the wars were _exceedingly_ unpopular among the young people actually sent to fight them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think that's an entirely accurate depiction, given the article. I believe this is strictly in a modern context, and given that every soldier, sailor, Marine, and airman is a volunteer, it misses the point. We can point at Cheney and Rumsfeld and Halliburton, but as the article states, this robs every service member of his or her agency.

The reason every one of my friends from high school went to war is because they wanted to. Some wanted to serve their country, defend it's freedoms. Some wanted to spill blood. I very nearly went down that path myself, and some nights I wonder why I didn't. Sometimes I think it's not too late. Perhaps they were hypnotized and lack free will, maybe our NJROTC instructors indoctrinated them in a way that didn't have an affect on me. Why is it so pervasive?

I'm young, make a killing writing software - something I've loved doing since a young age - and yet I can't help but think I should enlist (I simply lack the desire to complete my degree, so getting a commission is not a reality). I lust for the thought of besting other young men, I want to win, I want to be the one standing when the dust settles. Maybe it will sate that appetite, maybe it will give me some appreciation for the world that I lack. Who is to say? I don't feel the desire to go out and slay my fellow man, except in that one specific context.

I shared the article because it rang very close the home, and I suspect it would for each and every one of my friends.

<comment><USER17> If someone joins _during_ a war, I agree, they are usually doing that of their own accord, modulo a few people who maybe felt they had no other economic/etc. choice. But that's not that many people, which is why the U.S. military started having recruiting problems after they launched the Iraq and Afghanistan wars: many people who had previously signed up now regretted it, and the supply of new volunteers dwindled.

My own experience with classmates is quite different, but it sounds like it's a few years prior, so it might already be out of date. Around when my friends and I graduated high school (~1999-2000) the military was seen as a reasonable career path with a primarily deterrent and strategic role, and a fairly low chance of offensive deployment. And the reserves were seen as a last-ditch force that would effectively only be called up if the U.S. or a NATO ally were invaded. Many of my classmates who entered around then signed on for this mission, and didn't agree with subsequent decisions made by the political branches to change their role. The "stop-loss orders" of 2002–03, in which they were not allowed to discharge at their originally agreed discharge date, and the calling up of the reserves for something that did not really fit the prior understanding of how reserves would be used (both done as desperate measures to make up for volunteer numbers absolutely tanking), were particularly unpopular, and at that point many no longer felt like they were still volunteers. I feel myself like I dodged a bullet by not going that path (I had talked to a recruiter in 1999, who painted a fairly appealing story about technical careers in the military).

<comment><AUTHOR> We certainly have a time difference, I was born in '93, so we all came of age throughout the war, and by the time we graduated (2011) and could enlist, the war had raged and begun to wane. The cards had fallen, and anyone with half a brain could look at the facts for what had happened. My view of the US, by that point, had morphed from that of a patriot to that of a dissident. Given the NSA revelations, I could almost say I have a hatred for our government, but the military seems to represents something else.

To this day I feel bad for those who fought in Iraq (2003), because I think many (most?) were duped. Yet that urge remains. Perhaps the years of recruitment tools disguised as video games and the notion of the "warrior" were just far too ingrained in my head, but I entered high school (in fact, I started in middle school in a pre-JROTC program to get a head start over the others) dove head first into the NJROTC program with the intent to get a head start on enlistment. I ate that shit up! Ultimately, after a series of (un)fortunate events, I walked out of high school with a jaded outlook and a full-ride scholarship, so enlistment wasn't in the cards. I don't quite know just what it is that keeps enticing me, maybe it's a desire for a fresh start, maybe I'm a bloodthirsty baby-killer, or maybe it's biological. It's probably a mix of many things, but I can't help but think there is a desire to prove oneself as a man. I'm very introspective, but I just cannot put my finger on what it is.

<comment><USER17> That makes sense. I think in the '90s there was more of a difference in how people thought of "the military" overall, vs. the special forces specifically, which is where you'd get the dropping-in-somewhere-from-a-helicopter-and- shooting type action. The special forces were definitely a fascination for many, but I think more of some kind of theoretical fascination. I'm not sure I know anyone who seriously pursued it, in part because it seemed pretty unlikely as a career path, like becoming a "black bag" style CIA spy or something. More of kind of an idle fantasy than a serious source of indecision. (Obviously _some_ people did, since special forces existed.)

The ones interested in the "regular" military I remember thinking of it as more like a kind of adult boy scouts: a good place to develop some self- discipline, physical fitness, ability to work closely with teammates, etc., and maybe gain useful skills depending on your specialty. All the while doing some kind of vaguely patriotic duty deterring China simply by existing and maintaining/flexing some advanced technology. But going to an actual hot shooting war wasn't really the goal. The idea was to do your tour of duty, get honorably discharged, and then either get a job, or go to college on the GI bill. Either way a military tour probably would look good on the resume. Some people also had more specific interests, usually having something to do with technology (but maybe this is because of who my friends were), e.g. if you want to work on nuclear-powered ships or advanced jets, the military is where they are. The recruiters really played up the tech angle when visiting my high school, almost downplaying the "military" aspects. I guess they have probably changed their pitch in the intervening years...

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that hits the nail pretty well. The handful of older adults I know who went into the service did it for those exact reasons, wanted to fly, wanted to go to college on the GI bill, wanted to become a surgeon but couldn't afford medical school, etc. I think part of this modern situation, is that the armed services have done an amazing PR job in the past decade and a half. We've gone from the notion of a _citizen soldier_ to this _warrior_ notion. You're no longer doing your duty, conscripted and fighting an evil empire. You're joining up to be a warrior!

Something that just came into my head is that, out of my male friends, all but a two went Army/Marines with one going Air Force and the other going Navy, and my male friend who went Navy wanted to be (and is) a dental tech. A cursory check of Facebook confirms this, and interestingly, of the women I know from school who went into the service, all but one went Navy (the odd woman out went Marines). I think that notion of "Adult Scouts" and a stepping stone still applies to the Navy, Coast Guard, and Air Force to large part, no airmen or sailor is doing night raids in an Afghan village, you might get someone aiming for a Corpsman or a forward observer, and of course SEALs or Pararescue, but those are a small part of those branches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd say this article is mostly spot on... the assertion that this is male biological urge is probably true. I believe at its core it is a desire to identify oneself as a member of a group of "manly" males and to prove one's worth and garner the respect of the already prestigious members of that group.

This actually plays out in a lot of areas... fraternities, urban gangs, Github, etc. The dynamic of dividing humanity into "insiders" and "outsiders" follows closely as well. That dynamic is used to dehumanize all "outsiders" so that the goals of the group can be placed above morality and ethics.

I believe these things are true because I'm a slow learner and have been suckered into this dynamic more than once... I tried a college fraternity for a short while (after being accepted, rejected it and dropped out of college), fell in with the wrong crowd and did drugs until my eyes rolled so far back into my head that I swear I was able to see my brain (stopped altogether after somewhat harrowing experiences) and joined the US Army to shoot artillery after 9/11 (went to Afghanistan and after I got back became a conscientious objector before being put out administratively with an "honorable" discharge).

In the US, mass media is the fertilizer for mass murder... we teach young men that their number 1 goal is to be manly... and that women are just holes to fuck... and that you need to fuck as many holes as possible to be manly... and that explosions are cool... and that you need to create and survive explosions to be manly... and that streetfighting is cool... and that you need to be in a bunch of streetfights to be manly... I could keep going but I think you all get the point.

If the culture changes men will stop going to war unless they are forced to... while the biological urges described above can be exploited to manipulate peoples' actions, those urges could be channeled to positive actions instead, and they are certainly not a free pass to commit the atrocities that most people just pretend don't exist. This is the area where I disagree with the author if the article... it actually does start and stop with those who pull the trigger

</comment><comment><USER19> Well, 66% of the men in WW2 and 38% of those deployed to Vietnam went to war because the government forced them into the military under threat of imprisonment.

<comment><USER20> Well, you can't put millions behind bars.

<comment><USER21> But you can threaten an individual and everyone else will just mind their own business

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Because young man don't have enough experience to understand the world and they cannot see that war is a good business made by rich men. Rich men who would never send their children to war, of course.

</comment><comment><USER23> While I'm sure there is some truth to this, you do run into the problem that people don't want to admit the mundane reasons they do things sometimes. People join armies all the time because they need a job, but if you ask I'm sure many of them will tell you it's due to a more personal reason or nationalistic pride.

That's not confined to the military of course. It seems almost rude to admit you do your job to get a pay check in many occupations.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is pretty interesting. I have always thought of war as a political and economic phenomenon. Why try to get by with what you currently have when you can just take what your neighbor has? In some cases it's just cheaper to go beat someone up and get their lunch money than to earn your own.

Junger is saying that war is really emergent behavior: young men are violent, so they are not just willing to go to war, but want to. It's certainly a new perspective to me. I suppose it makes some sense, though it feels to me that wars today are "not what they used to be". Take WWI and WWII. There was mass draft and the country was generally behind these. I am sure there was a great number of people who were unhappy to be drafted, but it seems that here people actually believed in the existential threat to the US.

Then take the Vietnam war. Hugely unpopular. Look at this widely circulated picture of a lighter supposedly carried by a US soldier in Vietnam: [http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/10/article-2171404-14...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/10/article-2171404-14002534000005DC-124_306x423.jpg).

Now, today our military is volunteer-based and tiny compared to, say, what it was during WWII. Only a small percentage of the population serves, and are pre-selected. Is it then fair to say that all or even most young men want to go to war? It seems to me the answer is no.

So the remaining question is whether war happens because of this emergent behavior or for other reasons. Basically, if we gave that small percentage of young men something better than war, would war stop? Or would we continue to wage war anyways?

<comment><USER25> The truth about Vietnam is that it is an unpopular war now, and towards the end of it, but when American involvement escalated in the beginning, support was pretty widespread.

When thinking about war, it's better to exclude ww1 and ww2 from the sample as outliers. Of course they are the default war experience and the worst wars around, but they aren't typical.

It's emergent behaviour - it has to be, as it is endemic with human history - I think you're no more likely to stop wars than you are to stop men looking at women's breasts. You can temper the behaviour with morals and ethics but it's ready to surface at the slightest slip of those things.

It's not that young men want to go and start a war, but that some men crave power for powers sake, and it's easy to talk young men into getting involved once a war is in the offing.

Ironically the best thing you can do to temper the behaviour is to let men gather wealth and power via peaceful means, such as commerce and trade. Where this happens they usually don't go into war with their neighbours. Having the majority of the worlds people not under the sway of religion would be a good start as well, but I'm of the belief that religion is hard wired in as well - remove an ancient text and god and people usually start tot replace it with some other belief system anyway. And it would be those belief systems clashes that would probably be the 'cause' of wars down the track.

<comment><USER24> Agreed with you re. Vietnam. That is a good point.

Not quite agreed on WWI/II. Lots of modern military and foreign policy is based on the aftermath of WWII. After all, that was the last war that the US was involved in. All the ones after that were "operations", and the US never formally declared war on another country since. They aren't typical, yet they are always the ones other wars are compared against.

So war is emergent behavior because some percentage of young men is always available to fight it, and because old men in power are more than willing to send the young men into war. That's at least two different behaviors we've identified so far.

Up until reading this article I had the point of view that war was just too cheap vs alternatives. Want land/power/oil/money/whatever? Just go and take it rather than building your own. And the solution is the opposite: make war expensive. Then again, neither our war on terror, nor the terror attacks on the US and its allies quite fit this paradigm.

<comment><USER25> My point with ww1 and ww2 is that, if you graphed wars by people involved, destruction, whatever, they stick out of the group by a long way. I think your looking at the picture with too much of a us-centric view. The US is not involved in the majority of wars, at least not directly with men nondescript materials. You're right in that the world wars are all part of the same narrative about destabilisation that leads to other wars - arguably the majority of conflicts around today have roots in both.

But if you look at some more topical wars/conflicts - say the Arab/Israel conflict from 1948-present you see that it's not just about gaining territory but far deeper things (territory is the score, but the purpose is much deeper) plus the military conflicts during this period have been much more conventional with the majority of attacks being primarily military. Lately it has gone more asymmetrical and terrorism v conventional military but initially it was tanks on battlefields. Again other conflicts in the he second half of the twentieth century were far make typical wars in that they were relatively localised, didn't involve things like carpet bombing civilian population and didn't involve mass troop movements. Even Vietnam and Korea, wars with direct US involvement, had a fraction of the men deployed as compared with Ww2.

Also, it's a good point about making the cost of a war prohibitive - we have the means to do this now - but the costs of a war don't usually fall onto the main aggressors on all sides. Typically it falls onto the soldiers, refugees and ordinary citizens. If powerful countries were prepared to apply the costs of war to those who start them, the incidence would go down. But you spiral into an eye-for-an-eye retaliation which is a worse mess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It is frightening to see some people on this thread saying how they feel an urge to go to war because they "want to best other men" or "want to win".

One way to counteract that could be actively practicing nullifying one's ego. Everyday, do one thing you really dislike, and stop doing one thing you really like and can do. People need to get over this ridiculous idea that all their desires must be sated.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lacking context, that sure does sound scary, but it isn't thirst for bloodsport alone, but the added desire to stop those intent on doing the same to others, especially innocents. The notion of sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs.

<comment><USER26> A lot of that desire is basically buying into government propaganda, and that is even more problematic.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't buy into government propaganda to a large degree. I'm fiercely critical of my government. But you clearly have your preconceived notions, so I'll leave you to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Participating a war means participating murder, torture and rape. If that's what it takes to be a man, I'll pass.

<comment><USER28> Murder yes that's sort of the point. Torture and rape are not required.

<comment><USER27> Is there a documented case of a war that didn't result in any torture and rape?

<comment><USER28> I doubt it.

However, a man (or woman) could go to war to defend their country against an aggressor and do so effectively without torturing or raping anyone. However, they pretty much have to be prepared to kill people... Indeed many modern armies will investigate and eventually punish rapists and torturers whilst they giving medals for doing lots of killing...

So 'murder' (or killing people) is a necessary condition for fighting a war. Rape and torture are neither necessary nor sufficient.

<comment><USER27> Point accepted, I forgot to consider defending against outside invaders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I dislike when people try to say they don't have a political agenda and are "neutral" observers. All media has a political dimension, and even if you aren't trying to beat people over the head with it, it would serve you well to acknowledge your leanings. Even Frederick Wiseman, the creator of the "Film Truth" school of documentaries happily acknowledges that he could never be unbiased.

However it seems especially absurd to say he has no political agenda in his films, and in the next breath criticize two common political narratives.

</comment><comment><USER30> I really enjoyed this article. imho The _quest /test for manhood_ theme is one of the most dominant in our media, yet it is also kind of a taboo topic. _Breaking Bad_ and _Fight Club_ come to mind, where "castrated" protagonists fight back for their manhood... The Big Lebowski is, among many themes, about how different people prove their masculinity in different ways too. The whole _damsel in distress_ genre... Also, movie/tv male comic relief is often portrayed as asexual or incredibly dorky.

</comment><comment><USER31> Because there are army recruiters in american high schools...

This for me was an unbelievable experience as a German, where if the army would be involved with any kind of school it would be a major scandal. But while in high school in america it was normal to be propagandaed on during your lunch hour.

<comment><USER32> Perhaps there is some historical reason for this.

<comment><USER31> What history could a western country have to be the only one to recruit for the army in schools?

<comment><USER32> A country formed through revolution which only fights its wars overseas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The day after the Pearl Harbor attack my grandfather literally dropped everything he was doing and enlisted. Why? A visceral disgust that resulted in a sense of responsibility, or duty to take action. I know a lot of people who did the same after 9/11\. War is dumb but a strong military is necessary, and I'm sure others here can explain the game theory behind it all.

</comment><comment><USER34> My opinion is probably as invalid as the author's or most anyone else's... but I can't let a couple things just sit.

Just because some closely related primates display something we can interpret as war doesn't mean you can then assume there is some related, unavoidable instinct in homo sapiens. This is a poor argument that highlights the author's own bastardized interpretation of evolution. It's 2015 and those are chimps, in 2015. We are not chimps. This line of argument is very weak.

Overall, his self-consciousness is barely containable and I'm having trouble being objective based on this. It sounds like intelligent people tell him he's wrong, but he's got the facts and the platform, so he's right. He can't strongly defend his ideas. He just likes to say everyone on the right and left is crazy, absurd, and/or wrong - obviously. But there's no follow-through. He knows. He was there, and he's telling you. He's read something about chimps and has an opinion about innate differences and their implications for society. This echoes personalities I've known who self-affirm from exactly the lack of external affirmation they seek. He seeks to define the boundaries of the discussion to suit his conclusion, then accuses others of not being able to have an honest discussion if they wouldn't agree to it since they argue that it is no space for an insightful discussion. Catch-a 22.

Why is there no mention of the incentives for the 14%+ of women in the US military? That's a big enough number to do a study to see how many of them are trying to find "manhood" and compare it to the boys.

They should have a question in the discharge process: "Did you find manhood during your service?"

As an aside, I'd be interested to see an Ask HN: "How many people have you killed on the field of battle?"

<comment><USER35> I'm glad you said this; I feel much the same way. There's all sorts of fallacies and pop culture theories throughout the article, though the author is a competant writer.

One of the ones that really bothered me was the assertion that we should be respectful of the decisions that these young men make - despite the decisions of young adults rarely being taken seriously by society, regardless of the context.

As for 'men are clearly wired for war', well, no they're not. As a demographic, they have to be trained hard to take a life (in person at least). Plenty of men can do that, but to suggest it's an innate wiring is just plain wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Related question: is there an elite conspiracy to keep the USA at war? "There has been no decade in which the USA has not been at war."

[http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/12/we-re-at-war-and-we-have- be...](http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/12/we-re-at-war-and-we-have-been- since-1776/)

<comment><USER37> Was there a Papist plot to keep Europe at war? Between the establishment of the papacy in Rome and the downfall of Napoleon, there had been no decade that Europe was not at war.

<comment> saiya-jin you're probably american, so you're forgiven for this ignorance, but europe consists of +-50 sovereign states. Even now with EU (that doesn't contain many states), declaring a war is always matter of a given nation.

Apples to ants...

<comment><USER38> The GP said between the establishment of the papacy to Napoleon, so he's speaking about events well before there were 50 sovereign states in Europe or an EU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > _" The male response to war is an evolutionary adaptation that clearly works > for our species."_

> _" It's a left-wing version of the Christian right rejecting the theory of > evolution," he says. "I mean the far left is also now rejecting the theory > of evolution, which is just insane."_

The left wing, whatever it's worth, is certainly not rejecting the theory of evolution. Just because men are evolutionarily predisposed to go to war doesn't mean that not wanting them to go to war is rejecting the theory of evolution. Evolution only shows us _what is_. (In the case of evo-psych, it's usually more like _what may have been_.) Meanwhile, it's our job to figure out _what ought to be_ , and to defer to evolution on that point is nothing but intellectual laziness.

Just because men choose to go to war doesn't mean that they are not also victims of a social order that glorifies war and gives them a warped idea of what it means to be male. These can both be true. Politics always takes advantage of pre-existing psychological propensities, but it also reinforces them and reshapes them to its advantage over many generations. In fact, most questions in the form of "did X cause Y or vice versa?" in politics and sociology can be answered as "duh, it's a feedback loop."

Humans are subject to evolutionary pressures like any other life form. But one of the major differences between us and other animals is that we can recognize when our biology predisposes us to participate in evil, and counter it with our intelligence and strength of will.

If evolution is taking us places where we don't want to go, we have the intelligence and technology to give the middle finger to evolution and shape our own destinies. That includes telling young men that they no longer need to kill other men in order to be acknowledged as upstanding members of our society.

EDIT: An earlier version of this comment included the following rant, which was meant as an aside. But too many people seemed to think that it was my main point, so I'm moving it to the end.

> _" I don't put any political agenda into my work. I think the right wing > tends to idolize soldiers—you can't talk about them critically in any way. > The left wing went from vilifying them in Vietnam to seeing them as victims > of a military-industrial complex." He laughs over the phone. "Both views of > soldiers are just absurd."_

It's funny how every time I hear someone say they have no political agenda, or that they are neutral, they almost always go on to devote the vast majority of their effort to criticizing the left wing. Maybe they secretly endorse the right wing, or maybe they think the right wing is not even worth criticizing. In either case, I find this fascinating.

<comment><USER40> The rejection is not in not wanting men to go to war, or in favouring any particular social order, but in denying innate sex differences.

 _According to Junger, these theories are strongly rooted in academia, and particularly the social sciences._

 _"I have friends who are anthropologists and primatologists and evolutionary psychologists … [who are under] an enormous amount of pressure to generate data that shows that all gender differences are cultural."_

<comment><USER41> > "I have friends who are anthropologists and primatologists and evolutionary > psychologists … [who are under] an enormous amount of pressure to generate > data that shows that all gender differences are cultural."

You would think that, no matter what your goals for the roles of gender (or sex) in society are, you would achieve these goals best by deliberately seeking out and investigating the properties of the underlying biology (and culture) with the utmost of academic and intellectual integrity, and only afterwards pushing for the policies you prefer to realize that world. Then you would have the advantage of using a position of Enlightenment, instead of Ignorance.

Maybe in a few more generations when people look back at us the way we look back on the Victorian era.

<comment><USER42> > _" You would think that, no matter what your goals for the roles of gender > (or sex) in society are, you would achieve these goals best by deliberately > seeking out and investigating the properties of the underlying biology (and > culture) with the utmost of academic and intellectual integrity, and only > afterwards pushing for the policies you prefer to realize that world."_

That is how it is supposed to work, but reality is never so clean.

One of the best modern examples of doing it backwards _(starting with a conclusion, and then working backwards from there)_ , is so called _" intelligent design"_/ _" creation science"_. Many different groups and movements are guilty of it, but the ID scene is relatively unique in the lengths that they went to present themselves as legitimate scientists. See: _Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District_ ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District)) Those nutjobs _insisted_ that they were real scientists, despite the glaring contradictions with their nonsense and the scientific method.

His comparison was rather apt.

<comment><USER39> ID was nuts because it tried to present itself as a description of the past.

But if you're trying to issue prescriptions for the future (i.e. what kind of world do you want to create?), there's nothing fundamentally wrong about first identifying where you want to go and then cherrypicking biological and psychological traits to manipulate in order to get there. It would be just like writing a program to get the results you want.

<comment><USER42> Descriptions of the past are not nuts. History, _the legitimate peer-reviewed study of history_ , does the same. Evolutionary biology tells us much about the past, as does much of physics. None of that is problematic.

ID was nuts because of their flawed methodology.

> _" But if you're trying to issue prescriptions for the future (i.e. what > kind of world do you want to create?), there's nothing fundamentally wrong > about first identifying where you want to go and then cherrypicking > biological and psychological traits to manipulate in order to get there."_

Do not confuse policy forming / social engineering with science.

<comment><USER39> Actually, I agree with you.

What I meant is that ID used an inappropriate methodology for what it purported to do, but the same methodology might be appropriate in other contexts such as social engineering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Timing of this article is interesting: Yesterday I watched the prescreening of "The Water Diviner". It is the story of an Australian father looking for his 3 sons killed during the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey in 1915. As the father of a young son, his story resonated with me.

Young men might have an excuse, but we, older men, should know better. Even when we didn't live through a war, we should be smart enough to understand its realities, its destructive power, its cruelty. We must stop wars before they start. None of it is worth a young man's life.

We should teach our children how ugly weapons are and how valuable life is.

</comment><comment><USER44> I think the central question - what is it to be a man (or human) - is a question worth trying to answer.

I disagree with the author when he states the West doesn't really have an answer - sure, the answer isn't in the back of a textbook. One might even reasonably conclude there exists a multitude of answers - some of which probably conflict.

Here are some examples -

Pedestrian - acquire a skill, get a real job, marry, have kids. Clearly serving the profit motives of others - cultivate expensive tastes. Macho - pursue dangerous hobbies, enter a risky profession - which for some reason excludes cab drivers and convenience store clerks.

If I had to offer a guess, I might say, "Assume responsibility for yourself."

</comment><comment><USER45> It is funny how the whole argument of masculinity is based on the American experience. A good control study would be somewhere where male rites of passage still exist, but men also still go to war (most conservative Asian societies for example).

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps that is mostly because Junger's documentaries are all around American troops. I also highly recommend Restrepo, and the follow up, Korengal.

<comment><USER46> Yeah, the whole article, subject matter, and journey he explores is American. It's investigative at its best in that it explores why people make these decisions, and their decisions are strongly rooted in the ever-changing American society.

Tangentially, I might be alone in this, but I consider great journalism to be like great science - it's able to discern the fundamental mechanics of an issue, but they're also notoriously terrible at applying those mechanics in a constructive way. As a result, when a journalist shares their perspective, I put a lot of weight on their analysis and little weight on their solutions.

<comment><USER47> _" Yeah, the whole article, subject matter, and journey he explores is American."_

and yet it's universal. By training Junger is a anthropologist and if you read _" War"_ you'll see the stories and themes he explains can be applied equally from Roman to the modern warrior.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/WAR-Sebastian- Junger/dp/B0085RZFDC](http://www.amazon.com/WAR-Sebastian- Junger/dp/B0085RZFDC)

<comment><USER46> I think there's something to being a soldier and obviously masculinity that is universal. I would argue the American military experience - especially the modern American military - is fundamentally different from those that preceded it though. We don't claim tribute, we're not an honor society (at least not universally), we are building an empire, and ostensibly the wars of the country are the will of its citizens. Why Americans fight and American terms of victory are something different than any historical counterparts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Wars are planned by rich old men and fought by poor young men.

</comment><comment><USER49> There is a saying, I can't remember from where, that old men send young men to war because the old men know what war is. I think I'm telling it wrong. The original I heard implied exploitation.

The article is about young men choosing to go to war, in our all-volunteer military, but there wouldn't be a war to choose to enter if the mostly old, mostly white, mostly men in Congress didn't choose to have one.

</comment><comment><USER50> A very interesting Article. It is basically a further explanation of the theories of Gunnar Heinsohn about young men and War.

</comment><comment><USER51> I've never needed to wonder why they go but I wonder deeply at why they charge into opposing fire.

<comment><USER52> They only do it in films - to cultivate the heroism that will eventually lead them to charge into fire in practice.

My best guess is it's an implementation of (social-)darwinist beliefs using cultural modelling (aka propaganda).

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Perhaps we should encourage young men to join the Peace Core. To find themselves by helping others.

</comment><comment><USER54> A great documentary miniseries about this topic is War: A Commentary by Gwynne Dyer. In particular, the episode anyone's son will do:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_%28miniseries%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_%28miniseries%29) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo)

The episode covers what goes into training young people who enter the marine core. It features candid interviews with drill sergeants and the recruits themselves about their motivations. Well worth a watch.

One of the main points the episode makes is that the job of being a soldier is ultimately about killing and dying, something that doesn't come naturally to most people. The method for turning young men into soldiers is basic training.

According to Dyer the secret of basic training is that its not really about teaching people, its about changing people. He claims that if you want to change people quickly and radically, you put them in a place where the only right way to think and behave is the way you want them to. You isolate them and then apply enormous physical and mental pressure. i.e basic training. Essentially he claims that basic training is all about brain washing.

In the linked interview Sebastian Junger talks a lot about what it means to be a man. In particular:

"In that kind of environment," Junger continues. "If you dare talk about what it means to be a man, what you're saying is men are different from women."

and

"We aren't asking, 'What does it mean to be a human being?'" he says. "'What's it mean to be a man?' Once you have that conversation you offend a lot of academics."

and

"Men are clearly wired for [war]," he continues. "The male response to war is an evolutionary adaptation that clearly works for our species."

He doesn't quite claim that young mens desire to go to war has its roots purely in biology but he comes close. Personally I don't buy it.

I think the concept of going to war as a rite of passage, particularly in the USA, is a social construct that's largely the result of pervasive propaganda. The US military has an impressive marketing budget and aggressively recruits in schools right across the country. In the US, joining the military is not seen as a weird or embarrassing thing to do. In contrast, in my country (Ireland), joining the military is seen as a somewhat odd choice.

What's interesting about Dyer's documentary is that it interviews recruits before they go through basic training. Many of them are poor with few job prospects and no sense of direction. The military gives them a sense of purpose and is socially acceptable thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER55> And the American culture encourages these young men.

</comment><comment><USER56> Here's a big part of it, and it ain't pretty.

First, while gender may be "a social construct" it tends to recur in similar patterns across most societies. That's not to say that gender roles don't exaggerate the (actually very slight, in biological terms) differences and aren't a source of much injustice. However, there's a recurrent ranking that societies create: high-status men > high-status women > low-status women > low-status men. This is why conversations about gender and "patriarchy" fall flat, it's why feminists and MRAs both have a point, and it's not how things necessarily _should_ be, but it's how things are in at least 90% of the societies that humans create.

High-status men have harems of 10+ wives, in pre-monogamous societies, which means that some men will have zero. Since women have a rate-limiting reproductive resource (i.e. a womb) they have a good chance of getting at least some action. Low-status men don't, because they're the lowest of the low. No one likes them. And in a non-monogamous society, they're recognized as an actual danger. Of course, most young men will start out low in status. When's the last time, in popular culture, you saw a teenage male portrayed in a positive light? Most of the world fears and hates (most) teenage males.

Eventually, the high-status men recognize the threat. They see men who are sex-starved and poor and deprived of opportunities for improvement, but young and fit while they are fading. So they encourage them to raid other tribes, escalate petty conflicts into moral causes, and even glorify the whole thing because it brings the male population down and makes a pre-monogamous society (which would otherwise be unstable and violent) stable for a while.

This pattern is so ingrained in us that we've mythologized it and glorified something that is actually pretty awful. It's also where we get the need to "become a man". Because the gap between high-status (or, at least, realized and mature) men and low-status ones is so severe, we've had to create narratives around it. We've also had to elevate quixotry to a virtue.

You see this not just in war but when the stakes are smaller. Take startups. What do we call those (oddly nostalgic, even if things were awful at the time) narratives about low-status men working 90-hour weeks, debugging others' awful written-to-deadline code, as 0.02%-owners of a startup whose benefits would accrue to high-status men (founders and investors)? "War stories."

As a species, we've had to create this narrative to explain something that we do to each other for Darwinian, reproductive reasons. It continues even in a mostly monogamous and mostly peaceful society.</comment>


Show HN: LCON – Ludicrously Compact Object Notation - ar-nelson https://github.com/ar-nelson/lcon

<comment><AUTHOR> Suggestion: Show both the JSON and LCON representation for the examples. This would help illustrate the difference between the formats.

<comment> ar-nelson The examples are all LCON versions of JSON documents that are out there on the web. I provided a link to the JSON before each example. Side-by-side JSON and LCON would have been nice, but you can't do floats in Markdown, and putting the JSON and LCON one after the other would have made the overly-long README even longer.

<comment><USER2> Easy fix: just align the JSON examples out to the right of the LCON ones inside of your MD code blocks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1\. What problem are you solving with this? This really seems like a solution in search of a problem.

2\. There's no emitter, just a parser. This suggests to me that there's no such thing as a canonical LCON transformation for a given input. This is bad.

<comment> ar-nelson 1\. It's a byproduct of another project I've been working on, a programming language that's essentially JSON Lisp. I tried both YAML and CSON as syntax for the language, and neither worked quite like I wanted. The features that make it useful for the language are:

\- Easy chaining of one-element maps. `a b c d` = `{a: {b: {c: d}}}}`

\- Only a few reserved characters, so just about anything can be an unquoted string (symbols, etc.)

\- Parenthesized maps

2\. This is the first version. An emitter will probably be in the next version. The canonical version is essentially "JSON, but with unquoted strings where possible, no colons, and parens instead of braces".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love yaml because I can see it, and it (usually) makes sense. Same thing with Markdown. They both visually represent the data/content in a manner that my brain gets.

This seems less obvious (or slower to digest) but I've stared at yaml and markdown for a while now.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is compact, sure, but I have a hard time reading it.

I'll stick with JSON.

<comment> ar-nelson Fair enough; this seems to be the most common complaint I've seen here. There's nothing stopping you from including colons, at which point it would look exactly like YAML and CSON, but then I suppose it would have very little added value beyond YAML or CSON. For me, the killer feature is chaining one- element maps on a single line (CSON can do that too, but it doesn't have unquoted strings).

<comment><USER5> While that might be convenient, it gives me a hard time comprehending what the actual structure of the map is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like how this is presented to be ludicrously compact, but it uses double quotes "" instead of single quotes ''. Everybody knows that single quotes take up less space!

</comment><comment><USER7> If you're really looking for efficiency, take a look at baconification ;)

[http://pastebin.com/RGRfewBY](http://pastebin.com/RGRfewBY)

...comes in handy for those occasions when the courts order you to hand over some data - especially effective when printed.

</comment><comment><USER8> For anybody who wants a little bit more structure than LCON but less clutter than JSON, I'd recommend checking out CSON.

[https://github.com/bevry/cson](https://github.com/bevry/cson)

<comment><USER9> There's a few really awkward corner cases that are much clearer in YAML (and, it seems, LCON). The most significant one, to me, is lists of objects, which are perhaps not so common in code literals (hence why people don't tend to run into it in coffeescript), but do tend to come up a lot in structured documents. In JSON they are trivial:

        [
          {
            "a": "b",
            "c": "d"
          },
          {
            "e": "f",
            "g": "h"
          },
        ]

In YAML also trivial and very concise:

        - a: b
          c: d
        - e: f
          g: h

But in CSON (if I remember correctly), I think this looks odd and confusing by comparison:

        [
          a: "b"
          c: "d"
        , # <- note dedent, without this it comes out as one object not two
          e: "f"
          g: "h"
        ]

Now, in each of these you can just revert back to JSON for the difficult part, but that kind of defeats the purpose. I think YAML-the-syntax strikes a really nice balance between eliminating unnecessary punctuation and having solid structure, and LCON seems like it does as well. CSON errs too far on removing punctuation without a lot of thought put into the remaining structure.

If I understand correctly, the above example in LCON would be (at most minimal):

        . a b
          c d
        . e f
          g h

I actually really dislike this use of . and would like to know a rationale for it, to be honest.

<comment> ar-nelson This was one of the reasons I designed it the way I did; I think it's a nice middle ground between YAML and CSON.

As for the ., I chose it over - or * for the bullet character because I designed LCON as the syntax for a JSON-Lisp programming language, and - or * could conceivably be used as prefix operators for math functions (* [5, 6]), leaving . as the only "bullet-like" ASCII character left.

The more I write LCON, the more I realize that the . can be difficult to see (though it's still not as bad as CSON's dedented commas...), so I can see your point, I'm just not sure what other character to use. In an earlier version, I had used :: as a bullet, but that ended up looking ugly.

<comment><USER9> If I was working in a language that used isomorphic json-like, I think I'd expect it to have call signatures more like smalltalk (object verb subject) than lisp (verb object), so calling '-' or '*' would seem strange to me.

But I don't know anything about this other project of yours other than what you've said here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For another compact format (exclusive to homogenous collections), checkout JSONH [https://github.com/WebReflection/JSONH](https://github.com/WebReflection/JSONH)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm waiting for ubjson [http://ubjson.org](http://ubjson.org) which is probably the most compelling json replacement I've seen yet.

</comment><comment><USER12> How does this compare to JSON when gzipped? I imagine any size benefit of stripping colons and parenthesis is negligible compared to a good compression.

<comment> ar-nelson The goal is to save keystrokes, not file size.</comment></comment>


Anatomy of a Coyote - <AUTHOR> https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/09/16/anatomy-of-a-coyote/ <comment><USER2> Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think "human trafficking" isn't used correctly in the article? Human trafficking is the trade of humans. Coyotes don't do that, they just help people get from one place to the other.

A better term would be people smuggling.

<comment><USER3> I think that distinction is strictly connotative. From pure definitions, human trafficking and "people smuggling" are synonymous.

<comment><USER4> No, the definition of human trafficking is usually for the purpose of forced labor, which a coyote does not do.

<comment><USER5> The coyote just delivers the people to the people that use them for forced labor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fartworkte...](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fartworktee.com%2Fwp- content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F03%2Fanatomy-of-pepper- coyote-1-600x764.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fartworktee.com%2Fshop%2Fanatomy- of-pepper- coyote%2F&docid=qSfEbwffvojVHM&tbnid=oG35wx7ObsIooM%3A&vet=1&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim)

</comment><comment><USER7> ha It's always fascinating to me how language evolves. For some reason I thought this would be about hunting and skinning coyotes, as in the varmints I hunted as a kid, not people smuggling folks across the boarder. I read the URL as carcass, not caracas. I should know better than to think something like that would be a thread on Hacker News.

<comment><USER8> This is just an example of a word having various meanings.

For some reason it's a tired HN tradition to point this out. "Haha, did anyone else thing it was talking about the animal? :^D"</comment></comment>


David Ogilvy Branding Commandments  - <AUTHOR> http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2008/03/david-ogilvy-ca.html

<comment> craig-faber A friend of mine introduced me to Ogilvy a few years ago. I still remember his basic strategy : _-Have a good product. Say what's good about it._ (Once it was successful, Ogilvy's firm used to turn down clients whose products they didn't think were salable.) And a couple ancillary points: -Sex doesn't sell, unless you're selling cosmetics. -Don't let graphics crowd out content.

Ogilvy's _Ogilvy on Advertising_ is a good antidote to marketing stupidity. Even though he dealt entirely with print advertising, it's still relevant.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really refreshing to read such clear and down-to-earth advice on advertising / promotion / branding.

Anyone care to review how well my firm's new product + web-site <http://bcisive.austhink.com/> (pre-launch) stack up against the Ogilvy check- list?

<comment> craig-faber Your tour makes good points about your product, but doesn't show off the product well. I think you should have a "features" page with links to pages on individual features or groups of related features.

It helps you be more confident - show how. It saves time and effort - explain, and show, ways it does that. Helps you live longer - don't believe it - <USER2> say it reduces stress, show how.

A point Ogilvy used to make over and over is: customers want information.

Peak their interest, then let them explore. Currently, looking at your website, it looks like it might be a useful product, but I'm not sure. I want more details.

Note: I couldn't watch your slide show because I'm using Linux, so if it already addresses these comments, please ignore. Hope it helps.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the constructive feedback; I think that all of those suggestions would help.

The slideshow at least partially addresses some of these issues, but if that contains the more effective message, then Ogilvy's point about finding an ad that works and repeating it may well apply.</comment></comment></comment>


A Behind the Scenes Take on Lithium-Ion Battery Prices - <AUTHOR> https://about.bnef.com/blog/behind-scenes-take-lithium-ion-battery-prices/?sf99535078=1 <comment><USER2> I really love this quote from the end of the article:

 _There is also a legitimate debate about whether or not experience curves inherently capture technological step-changes. Put simply, something that looks like a future breakthrough today might end up simply being another point on the curve, by the time it is developed and engineered into a viable product and brought to market in a decade's time._

Sometimes this is definitely not the case, e.g. the Moore's-law-like curve of network speed improvements[1] tend to occur in steps, related to the need to upgrade both infrastructure and the endpoints to achieve a new speed tier.

[1] pick your domain: LAN, WiFi, cellular

<comment><USER3> The wireless techs usually have a lot of refinement over time, so that the real-world speed you get for a price is a lot smoother than a step function on revisions. LAN tech is isolated enough that each link upgrades in a step function, but bigger paths are a function of the price of multiple links and also smooth out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It'll be great when these battery cost reductions filter through to home batteries. At the moment a Tesla Powerwall 2.0 costs $6,700 for 13.5 kWh, so $496/kWh, which is doesn't work as a financial investment.

We've got a solar installation and so I have been considering getting a battery for either off peak to peak cost arbitration, or capturing excess solar energy for use at night.

In the UK a Powerwall costs around £9,000 to £11,000 including additional hardware, taxes and installation. Based on some estimates (see below), at current prices I think you would be lucky to get a third of that back through energy bill savings.

If the Powerwall sold at closer to its battery pack cost, it might be worth considering.

Off peak to peak arbitration

      Peak cost of energy (£ per KWh) - £0.1573
      Off peak cost of energy (£ per KWh) - £0.0815
      Saving per KWh - £0.0758
      Powerall 2 - maximum lifetime throughput - non solar uses (KWh) -  37800 [1]
      Lifetime power bill saving £2,865.62

Solar PV energy capture

      PV System Size (KWp) - 5.76
      Solar irradiation - 986
      Annual yield (KWh) - 5679
      Annual energy exported to grid - assume 70% - 3976
      Annual proportion that could be captured - estimate 50% - 1988 [2]
      Peak cost of energy (£ per KWh) - £0.1573
      Annual saving - £312.66 [3]
      Warrant Period (years) - 10
      Total saving over warranty period - £3,126.57

[1] [https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/powerwall/pow...](https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/powerwall/powerwall_2_ac_warranty_europe_1-5_english.pdf)

[2] In winter months, all solar energy could be captured, but in summer the panels will produce more than the Powerwall is able to store.

[3] Doesn't factory in degradation over the period, which Tesla quotes at 80% capacity after 10 years

<comment><USER5> What prevents cheap home lithium power?

It seems easier for powerwall derivitives to become cheaper than solar because the % total cost of ownership not attributable to batteries is less. For example, it may not require a bunch of people on your roof, maybe less permit or zoning related costs, maybe less electrician labor, etc.

Why couldn't a startup with a couple of EE's design something comparable or maybe even something with ease of installation innovations using commodity battery cells? Couldn't they buy cells in small batches online at first, paying notch or two higher than wholesale until they ramp up sales? Not sure how it couldn't start as a garage business for a clever engineer undergraduate and a clever sales/marketing/distribution person.

I mean, people are already rolling their own as side projects right (without going into the practicality or safety of that, just in reference to the barriers to entry)?

<comment><USER6> The cells themselves are the expensive bit. There have been one or two people doing it as recreational projects but obviously Tesla's vertical integration and large production run will win over the garage tinkerer.

Not to mention that selling an unsafe product is a non starter.

No, the interesting thing to me is why everyone forgot about the other chemistries like NiFe, which are cheaper but heavier - matters less for a fixed installation.

Also I feel that proper net metering should be better than domestic batteries for the normal case. The only reason it isn't is regulatory spinelessness.

<comment> Tuna-Fish > The only reason it isn't is regulatory spinelessness.

The reason it isn't widely used is because it is an absolutely terrible idea. The value of home solar fed to the grid is almost everywhere negative to the utility. (They need to maintain fixed capacity to meet worst case demand, constant power sources are cheaper than adjustable ones, and it costs money to bleed off excess power when there is not enough demand for it.)

If you force them to pay you for your useless solar excess, they just have to raise the prices on everyone. This makes home solar more attractive, resulting in even larger useless peak production, and higher electricity prices. It gets even worse if the power transmission isn't decoupled from production.

A form that would make sense is instead to allow customers to sell electricity back to the utility at the current short term spot price. As excess production would drive that price to be negative, it would limit installation to the level that is healthy to the grid.

<comment><USER6> > The value of home solar fed to the grid is almost everywhere negative to the > utility

[citation needed]

Also, being of negative value to the utility is not the same as negative value to society! Is it displacing carbon-based generation? Is it reducing the need to buildout power lines?

> costs money to bleed off excess power when there is not enough demand for it

This doesn't happen during the day. Very occasionally some wind farms get curtailment payments at 3am or similar. There are no giant resistor banks to dump energy.

> force them to pay you for your useless solar excess, they just have to raise > the prices on everyone

Economics 101: producing more of a product makes it more expensive! No, wait, the other thing.

> constant power sources are cheaper than adjustable ones

Be specific: nuclear (no longer really being built, surprisingly expensive) or coal (phasing out)?

In the UK it mostly displaces dispatchable CCGT: [https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/](https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/)

(Some of these problems _might_ appear at 10x the current solar market penetration, but most of them are just anticompetitive complaints by utilities because solar shows up as negative demand)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting that we are already well below the predicted cost per kWh of one report[1] from 2012 that projected a price of EUR250 in 2020; according to the bnef article that price was crossed between 2016 and 2017. The 2012 article used a 14% rather than 18% reduction per doubling of capacity that the BNEF article is using.

1: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225025651_Competiti...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225025651_Competitive_Cost_Analysis_of_Alternative_Powertrain_Technologies)

</comment><comment><USER8> Although the price may be getting lower, I was lucky enough to hear a presentation from the head of Automotive Engineering at the University of Windsor. The professor conveyed that there are many other issues for power storage such as a limited amounts of cobalt and difficulty in retrieving it.

I inquired about what is likely to happen as cobalt is a relatively scarce resource if we are looking to use it for powering our world. He said he is sure that they [researchers] will find some substitute, but right now there is none.

As the scarcity of other elements in power storage increase, it may drive up the prices, even if the lithium itself can be sourced.

<comment><USER9> Is cobalt really that rare, or are there just not a lot of mines right now because it hasn't been valuable before? The price of cobalt can triple and it won't add much to battery prices, since it's not that much of the pack. That price, however, will sure make building more mines a good idea.

<comment><USER10> In the oil industry whenever someone says we'll run out of supply, they're shot down by people saying "we'll discover new oilfields or technology will unlock previously inaccessible ones."

Funny how that blind faith in "market prices will figure it out" never applies to renewables.

<comment><USER11> It's not entirely blind as is demonstrated by the price history and the similar histories of semiconductor and solar cell prices. That isn't to say that there can't be price shocks or material shortages, but there are quite a few politically and economically motivated naysayers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You can buy Samsung INR18650-30Q (top of the line) off aliexpress in bulk for about $3 a piece. It's about 11 Wh.

You'd need 90 of these batteries to make a 1kWh pack, costing $270. Obviously this does not include casing, assembly, and BMS (battery management system), but that's an inexpensive (probably 10%) overhead.

Buying in "super bulk" and "from alibaba" would probably be even cheaper, and would probably approach $176/kWh.

edit: Check out Jehu Garcia on youtube if interested (no affiliation).

<comment><USER13> Is there anyway to confirm they are legit Samsung cells? Batteries seem too ripe for counterfeits.

<comment><USER12> Two options:

\- Sort by orders. If seller has sold the most, probably a reliable seller.

\- Buy a handful (or samples) first (you can ask seller that you need samples first), and test their capacity (using e.g., a good charger, I have Zanflare C4). The model I mentioned should have 3Ah (or 3000Ah). If confirmed, those are legit cells.

<comment><USER14> Plus the first order is the least likely to contain bad cells because you're doing QA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >$62/kWh by 2030

I seem to remember reading that $100/kWh is the point where electric cars are cheaper to manufacture than traditional ICE cars.

<comment><USER16> I've heard the $100/KWh number regularly, but I think it only applies to certain products. For a large sedan, that is still $10k of the manufacturing cost. For smaller cars (Model 3 sized), 5-6K. That is still going to be a substantial price hike, IMO.

<comment> cuban-frisbee There is probably some savings in not having to put in a transmission, much of the fluid system, electric motor might be cheaper. this is a little old [1] but it shows that the drivetrain is cheaper on a BEV compared to ICE. They probably haven't achieved all the savings possible yet, as model 3 is the only massmarket vehicle and it is decidedly more towards luxury with an impressive engine. When the big manufacturars starts to pump no frill BEVs into the market, we might see some optimization here.

[1] [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260339436_An_Overvi...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260339436_An_Overview_of_Costs_for_Vehicle_Components_Fuels_and_Greenhouse_Gas_Emissions)

<comment><USER17> > as model 3 is the only massmarket vehicle

Chevy Bolt

<comment><USER18> Bolt has been around 5,000 units per quarter, starting to close in on 10,000.

That's simply not mass market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Based on this observation, _and our battery demand forecast_ , we expect the price of an average battery pack to be around $94/kWh by 2024 and $62/kWh by 2030."

Would very much like to know the assumptions and factors for the demand forecast. Will manufacturers keep up, or will there be under-supply, either of the batteries or any of the key components? Will the pricing of different battery technologies transpire at markedly different rates?

</comment><comment><USER20> Now I'm annoyed that a high quality beefy 1.6kw ebike battery costs $900 shipped.

<comment><USER21> That must be with a small motor (500W or less). I can't find a decent ebike with a 750W+ motor for under $1200.

<comment><USER22> 750W is the legal limit in the US, so the market for anything over that will be relatively small.

<comment><USER21> That's only partially true. The 750W limit applies to what you call an ebike as a seller, not your ability to sell it. Many companies ignore that law since it's not strictly enforced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So will lithium batteries be able to scale to over 1 billion cars today in the world and other vehicles (trucks, buses, etc)?

What about the homes of almost 8 billion humans?

Will we go from peak oil to peak lithium?

<comment><USER24> Will steel production be able to scale to 1 billion cars? Or Rubber? Leather?

Maybe today's production levels don't support the wholesale replacement of every vehicle on the road over night, but there's no shortage of lithium in the world. It's just a matter of the market encouraging greater production, which will ramp up as demand for batteries increases.

<comment><USER25> With driverless cars coming our need for everyone to have at least one car will completely go away. I'm guessing we'd be looking at one car per family living in the same town!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Are the batteries being charged in the graphic at the top of the page? Where is it from?

</comment><comment><USER27> I bought lithium stocks in 2017 and it has been an investment disaster.

<comment><USER28> Which stocks and why? Lithium is extremely plentiful, IIRC, and my impression is production could be easily ramped up, unlike Cobalt which is mostly from a handful of mines in the DRC.

<comment><USER29> Which leads to another interesting question, why is cobalt (or anything else) heterogeneously distrubuted in the earth's crust? The answer is probably too long to explore here, but if anyone has a tldr, I'm listening.

<comment><USER30> Largest factor: the abundance of liquid water and associated chemical effects. Second largest factor: the existence of living organisms that also alter the chemical environment.

For example, lead sulfide is nigh-insoluble in water, so where water containing dissolved lead meets water containing dissolved sulfide, a concentrated ore body of lead sulfide (galena) can form. Sulfate anions are more common in Earth's natural waters than sulfide anions, but so-called sulfur reducing bacteria convert sulfate into sulfide as part of their respiratory cycle. That's an example of the biological contribution to ore body formation.

As an element in Earth's crust, lead is actually _rarer_ than so-called rare earth elements like neodymium. But neodymium's aqueous chemistry doesn't offer such common opportunities for concentration as lead, so in practice useful ore bodies of lead are much more common than those of neodymium.

The lack of liquid water on other celestial bodies is why they don't form ore bodies like on Earth. On the Moon and Mercury, for example, one would expect to find no economically exploitable deposits of either lead or neodymium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> tldr anyone?

are there game changing inflection points likely within 5 years or is the key take away prices continue to fall fast?

<comment><USER18> It's a fairly short and information-dense article. Just go read it.

Solid-state would be a game-changer, but mid- to late-2020s is about when that would come about.

<comment><USER5> >>just go read it.

Uh...no?

\- There's nothing wrong with suggesting a tldr/summary post. You hear some here say they'd prefer every article had one.

\- It's doesn't leach or degrade site comment quality. At least not if common sense is used to ask sparsely, and keep one's contribution to request ratio > 1.

\- It can provide real benefit to the community. When was the last year one person could absorb the sum of all human knowledge, 17th century, or earlier?

I along with plenty of others most often _do_ "just go read" the article here if it seems interesting. Plus a metric crap ton more from other sources. There's just not enough hours in the day. It's humanly impossible to fully read merely the subset of content that seems interesting.

None of that withstanding, thank you for adding the one liner sentence about the article in question. No sarcasm. I consider that beneficial in the same spirit, and it was appreciated.

The main point is concepts analogous to RTFM may have validity in certain contexts, but I don't believe HN is the best possible fit you could find for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I really hope hydrogen fuel cells take over at some point.

<comment><USER32> They will not, whole process from water to hydrogen to fuel cell to electricity is very inefficient. You only get 1/3 of input energy back (if you use 100kWh to make hydrogen, you get back from the fuel cell 35kWh)

<comment><USER33> Not to mention hydrogen is a massive pain to store, to transport, and to convert to electricity.

Hydrogen fuel cells aren't ever going to happen. [0] Power to weight sucks, energy to weight sucks, and safety sucks among other things. The supposed advantages over electric cars (infrastructure, range, refueling, longevity) don't exist, and at current rates of tech development won't ever exist. But the disadvantages (complexity, hydrogen storage, inefficiency) still do.

0: [https://ssj3gohan.tweakblogs.net/blog/11470/why-fuel-cell- ca...](https://ssj3gohan.tweakblogs.net/blog/11470/why-fuel-cell-cars-dont- work-part-1)</comment></comment></comment>


Dementia and brain research could be improved thanks to new sensor - <AUTHOR> http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_14-8-2017-10-13-58 <comment><USER2> This is pretty exciting!

 _Here we tested TaiNi, a novel ultra-lightweight ( <2 g) low power wireless system allowing 72-hours of recording from 16 channels sampled at ~19.5 KHz (9.7 KHz bandwidth). We captured local field potentials and action-potentials while mice engaged in unrestricted behaviour in a variety of environments and while performing tasks._

I'm used to dealing with sampling rates above 40 kHz, so the temporal resolution has a way to go, but it looks like the recorder is fairly flexible about what kind of electrode arrays it can use, which is a real positive:

 _Mice were implanted with either a single shank 16 channel probe attached to a microdrive (Cambridge Neurotech, GB) targeting the CA1 region of the hippocampus (n = 14 mice; AP: +1.7 mm, ML: −0.3 mm relative to Bregma), or a static dual shank silicon probe (n = 2 mice; 8 sites per shank (Neuronexus, USA)) targeting the medial prefrontal cortex (AP: +1.7 mm, ML: −0.3 mm relative to Bregma & DV: −2.0 mm from brain surface) & dorsal hippocampus (AP: −1.9 mm, ML: −2.0 mm relative to Bregma & DV: −2.0 mm from brain surface)._

+5 cool kid points for using Klusta-based spike sorting -- though because this group is at ICL that's not too surprising.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems to be a pretty significant step in miniaturization. It seems noteworthy that the animals perform more trials of the task with this implant as compared to an older, larger implant. However, the article is misleading: this device does not record EEG signals, which are recorded from the surface of the scalp and comprise the aggregate activity of millions of neurons across multiple cubic millimeters of cortex. It records LFPs (local field potentials), which are the aggregate activity of thousands to tens of thousands of neurons in a hundreds of µm to single mm volume around the electrode, and single neuron activity. EEGs are also recorded non-invasively, which could lead one to think that this implant isn't invasive.

<comment><USER2> Gah, i totally missed that they were getting LFP and multi-unit only. I (foolishly) assumed they could get putative single unit, too, but I guess that's yet to come.

<comment><USER4> The grantparent says as much (" _... and single neuron activity_ "). I guess, this means careful separation in case of sparse signals, though I'm nowhere near qualified to judge.

My layman take: 9 Khz bandwidth in principle means resolution of 9000 evenly spaced peaks of different magnitude. Perhaps those correlate to different distances between each neuron and the sensor, especially if 16 channels allow for spatial resolution, and if the differences might actually be too small to resolve naively, I wouldn't doubt if I were told statistical tricks existed to filter single signals.

Overall, major features are interesting enough, I guess.

<comment><USER2> The paper very carefully does not say single units were recorded: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-08078-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-08078-8) unless i'm totally missing it.

Spike sorting was done with this project, which i have used and found to be quite good: [https://github.com/cortex- lab/KiloSort](https://github.com/cortex-lab/KiloSort)

19 kHz sampling rate gives you a maximum temporal precision of ~50 ms, which is pretty good.

<comment><USER5> 50 us, you mean.

They claim a nicely low input referred noise (~4 uV), so 19 kHz should be great for spike detection, though as you note upthread it's a little low for spike sorting: it's nice to have at least 30 kHz.

I wonder how much weight savings they got over combining a wireless chip and a bare-die Intan [1].

1\. [http://intantech.com/products_RHD2000.html](http://intantech.com/products_RHD2000.html)

<comment><USER2> yes, 50us.

I wonder if it's more of a form factor thing than a weight thing.

I wonder how it holds up in multi-animal cages, too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>