South Korea students gain weight 'to dodge military service' - Sensationalist Headlines

horror is subjective to the individual undergoing the experience school can be just as horrifying to some kids, but after all is said and done once it stops being mandatory (in most countries around the age of 16), at least nominally, they're given free rein over their lives what you describe should be incorporated in schools, not outsourced to equally badly managed all-inclusive state-run compulsory service in all this, you are yet to show why it has to be compulsory

On the legal side of things 16-17 is good because you're not quite there to be fully liable and you don't have total freedom yet.

so the crux of it is this: you would potentially risk real people suffering in a compulsory environment that punishes the individual for perceived transgressions for market reasons the difference between truancy and not showing up to service is that with truancy your parents suffer the consequences which arent very severe, while when you dont show up to compulsory service you usually get imprisoned as it is you, a legally liable entity, who disobeys the law.

I don't have the option to provide anything though. I have to go to the army no matter what, even if I could have been spending the time on something more worthwhile for me and my choice of career.

meh if your parents don't send you to school they get fined and jailed too. Why do you so badly not want to show up for work? It should be set up that it is perceived to be a privilege to serve, and if there was a way to incorporate serving the community alongside this then of course it should be mandatory. What freedoms do you want to give 16-17 year olds to have that are so special?

South Africa currently has a crisis of frustrated discharged soldiers who are unemployed and have nothing to do with their time while they are discharged. Army recruits are trained for two years and after the training those who are not deployed to missions or border control are sent home. This cycle will be dangerous when military conscription is enforced because the country will have a large number of unemployed and frustrated young people who are trained in lethal combat, which might result in deadly crimes being committed. Interesting

that's south africa, you can't live in south africa without being in a crisis of somewhat. And I am not supporting Israeli 2-3 year mandatory service.

Let me break it down to you why its a shitty experience. I went for basic training on a island, and unfortunately my diploma was not recognized so I got thrown into a batch with other similar people, plus drop out students, gangsters, hooligans, etc. EVERY FUCKING DAY THERE WAS A NIGHTMARE. I was unlucky enough to get a notorious company, known for being abusive towards recruits. We were seen as the 'bad' company, no WO or sergeants treated us like humans. On the first day, some guy cut the queue at cookhouse, and he got sent to detention barracks. Subsequently, every day someone went to DB. Fighting was common, gangsters split themselves into races, some cunt didn't follow orders so our sergeants punish us often. Drugs were found in bunks, and its always the herd mentality that 'if one guy fucks up, everyone suffers' Someone didn't forgot to return arms? Well good luck going for dinner, because you gotta find it for that fucker. Plus there's ridiculous rules. Some guy smoked in my bunk during lights out, and the sergeant doing rounds saw him. He kept quiet, and then at 3am, they on all the lights and screamed at us to have everything on including our bags and ran down to the basketball court in 10 seconds (from the 4th floor, its impossible unless you're gonna jump) We were made to stay in push up positions for like 3 hours, while the whole company woke up and stared at us while we were shouted, just to root out the guy who got caught smoking. Its only after a buddy collapsed, did that asshole owned up. Couple that with assholes in the company rubbing toothpaste in their eyes, to malinger and get out of camp and go home, recruits dumb enough to point guns at each other and the sergeants, loss of bullets, loss of rifle parts, and by graduation, only half made out it for the passing out parade. You have to think if people are this stupid how we're gonna fight against well trained combatants. Unit life was better, but dealing with regular soldiers is a nightmare, and civilian contractors. Because you're all grunts in their eyes, they'll make you overwork, and you don't get paid. Also, pay was like 500 bucks a month, so good luck surviving on that.

You have no experience with it and you have a bunch of people with experience with it telling you why it's bad yet you keep stubbornly insisting it's good

then once again shut the fuck up and stop telling people who were forced into it that they should be thankful they were

I have. You are not the only person in the universe to have served. Your one miserable experience isn't the same as everyone elses. Keep spamming the rating and crying, doesn't change my opinion.

Man that sounds like it must have sucked, my heart goes out to you. I'm in the middle of my training for becoming a US officer and I only have good things to say about the training so far. The US is trying a lot of "new army" stuff where they actually try to take into account exercise and sports psychology results to improve training, such as how positive encouragement works way more effectively than negative encouragement. As much as we were arguing some of the same things, you literally quoted Viper and said he had good points in a post where he specifically implied that if you haven't done any military service, then you can't really make a solid argument about mandatory service.

I'm not stubborn. I am saying it has better potential. It isn't my issue that Israel and Singapore treat their citizens like garbage. We have had a Swede serve and say he had a great experience, the result is the remaining servers throwing a tantrum and saying how their experience has more meaning.

I am not sure how military service equates to work experience. We don't have compulsory military service here so I don't really know what it's like, but from what I've heard (Chinese and Taiwan) military service does nothing that helps you with your future career. The only positive thing out of it that I've heard was that it is supposed to be more disciplined and better at following orders but those are more of less covered by the schools here.

Come now, you can't say you're not stubborn when you seem to have been talking out of your arse whilest refusing to listen to anyone And are you referring to the Swede that acted like like a dick while demonstrating his own survivorship bias by any chance?

"survivorship bias" what does this mean. and I refuse to bow down to a bunch of actual stubborn people shooting down valid opinions. all people are doing in this thread is insulting others including those who served. why don't you address the issue at hand. national service can be beneficial if done right. response: "fuck you, I suffered 3 years and have PTSD so it is objectively bad and you shouldn't listen to anyone else" I'm not militantly for it, I am just saying it has potential for young people. And the crisis of inexperience among youth is evident. Solve the issue.

Survivorship bias is where someone only looks at those who have made it through something or achieved some goal, while completely disregarding or overlooking those who didn't. Kind of like only considering the viewpoints of the few people who had positive experiences as a conscript, and essentially telling the rest that they're too biased from their bad experiences to listen to. The possibility of some kids gaining "valuable work experience" from mandatory military service does not negate the I'll effects and suffering it will cause for the rest. The fact that anyone can have experiences like those posted here shows that it should not be mandatory. It's not like school, you don't get to just go home at the end of the day and relax, nor is it like a regular job where you have the option to simply quit without legal ramifications for doing so.

I don't know how to selectively quote someone's post :/ [quote]The fact that anyone can have experiences like those posted here shows that it should not be mandatory.[/quote] The issue with this is that the services itself differed greatly. Those two individuals who had it negatively had 3 years of mandatory service and it starkly contrasts the service the positive fellow was made to do and he states that you have the choice to further your service after a few months. This is what is wrong with the argument, you have a total imbalance of objectively horrendous mandatory service vs. a well-planned, useful one. I am arguing that you can have a useful one, but these individuals who have had it really bad are closing it all down. What if I said "1 week of mandatory service", they would still shut it down because any mandatory service of any kind is drummed into them as bad because they had 3 years of the same routine in a inescapable situation. That is not what I support, for the 50th time. I don't want the youth to be in a gulag for 3 years.

You keep saying this as if the amount of time matters. It doesn't. Even if it were a week long, it's still unjustly imprisoning someone in a highly stressful life that they want no part in, where they have no personal autonomy and have to do everything they're told 24/7 without fail and without question, where leaving is a crime. Also, don't you think that maybe there is a reason for the "total imbalance of objectively horrendous mandatory service vs. a well-planned, useful one"? It doesn't matter how well planned it is. You can have the most perfect plan in the world and there will still be people who can't cope with the stress and suffer. It's the military, not the boy scouts. It's an organization literally designed to both physically and mentally break you while rebuilding you from the ground up to be better at killing. It's not something people should be forced into.

Man, it's pretty stupid and hypocritical how Facepunch rejected personal anecdotes in arguments if it doesn't support their views (EU's immigration problem) but yet readily accept personal anecdotes if it does. Either accept all or don't. Military conscription has no place in the modern world today outside of certain situations. And said certain situations involves being either surrounded by hostile countries or a small population. (Sometimes both) Singapore has a population of less than 6 million, this is way smaller than most of the countries around the world, if we were to rely on just volunteers, I guarantee that very little, if not, no one will join due to the local attitude here of soldiering as a career. (useless, make little money) And if no one is willing to join voluntarily, who would defend this country? Rely on foreign powers? No thank you, we learnt our lesson after 15th February 1942 on relying on foreigners. My personal stance is that conscription is completely unnecessary, with the exception of nations who's population is too small for voluntary service and doesn't want to rely on an outside power for defense.

your insistence that if this mandatory service lasts a short time, perhaps a few months or even weeks, that it will not do damage to anyone (or worse, that if it does, they just have to suck it up because the market demands it) is what people have an issue here with. the experiences had by me and others (not everyone here had 3 years like me, btw) all stem from the inherent character these places have, not the length of time spent in them. a well planned conscript military (if such a thing is possible with huge numbers of conscripts) will still, when all is said and done, be a military - an organization that forces people to come and punishes them when they fail to conform to rules and discipline with imprisonment and degradation (as degradation is a very important part of any boot camp, as I'm sure you'd know if you went to the army yourself). whether a place is perceived to be a bad experience is solely dependent on the subject undergoing the experience - when you make this place mandatory for adults when it previously wasn't, you are directly responsible for all subsequent potential suffering. even a few days are enough for a person to have a traumatic experience, in this case, one entirely avoidable.

How about we just cut the discussion short and you'll go try firsthand and sign up for the armed forces tomorrow. Then we'll see how well you'll turn out

something something NO TRUE SCOTSMAN something

Sounds like a rock and a place type of situation. Both sides are right. No one should have to serve in the military, and they shouldn't be taking measures to stay out, it's sad that it has come to that. It's also sucky that they have a madman next door, who if they want to keep their fat on them, might want to keep him at bay, atleast until shit falls apart for him. Sucks.

You cannot say "oh but I don't support that kind of conscription (:" because that's not how conscription works. Conscription forces people into a rigid, hierarchical system enforced by strict rules and severe punishments for breaking those rules. It drops people into a military environment whether they like it or not, it chews people up and spits them out the other end, and it gives them no recourse for any suffering they had to endure during their time there. You trying to deflect from this by saying "their military" is unimaginably stupid and an insult to the countless conscripts who have suffered permanent trauma and even fucking died.

ignhelper & @Newb I can totally understand your view with the experience you've had. However, I have a few questions: Would you be willing to serve again if the problems you had with your service were addressed? (mainly towards @ignhelper ) Eg. shortening the length to max 1 year & doing a better job at filtering people who are fit to serve. How many people serving with you had the same view as you? I'm asking because my experience was mostly positive, and the view of other people serving with me was similar. I think it's unfair to say that, from these anecdotes, military service is all bad. In both cases, the military did a bad job at filtering people who are fit to serve. @Newb it sounds like you shouldn't have been there in the first place. You should not serve if you have problems mentally.

you misunderstand. the mental problems are not a thing i had before entering service, but things that arose as a direct consequence of serving with people i strongly disliked in a system i found badly organized in a time period i believed (and still do) that i could better use to further myself both economically and for personal development. as for your questions: 1) the problem with this question is that it assumes the system is capable of sorting who is "fit to serve" and things of that sort. what does this even mean? what the system cares about is the lowest common denominator when it comes to being capable of doing work, the rest it finds irrelevant. not to mention my problems arose from the social aspect of the bases i served in (a thing that can not be controlled for as you cant just choose where you want to serve or who you want to serve with, to the military you are a tool and a number) and from the character of service itself, this constant fear that if you fuck up or do something a commander perceives as wrong the only thing that can stop him from punishing you however he wants within the extent of the system is his own commanders saying no (and it is very common for them to buddy up and cover each other's asses in cliques). the reason for my problems is based on my subjective feel towards the environment and the inability to switch to another less terrible environment. it is not a thing you can somehow control for in a better organized environment as social incompatibility and hate are beyond the control of the organizing bureaucracy. when a kid is having problems with a school they usually can switch to another (or to another class in the same school) - a conscript does not have this choice and is forced to remain in a certain power structure and social circle for however long the service takes. 2) a minority, but a minority i had helped whenever possible to evade the most stupid aspects of the system - it is perhaps exactly because it was a minority of people that i did not have anywhere to turn to. among the majority who did not hold this view, some still viewed their service as mostly pointless and disliked the commanders but found it tolerable because they were socially compatible with people around them (a thing i unfortunately lacked, because i was surrounded by either idiots or simply people so far disconnected from me socially that we had nothing to talk about) to sum it up, nobody is saying that military service is all bad (i have in fact said to the contrary several times throughout this thread), but that whenever you make such service mandatory you have no way to control for such cases as described here from happening and, as a direct consequence, by supporting mandatory service you support this potentiality as acceptable collateral. the idea that a person which did not undergo such an experience in mandatory service (or did not go though mandatory service in the first place!) shilling for mandatory service in the faces of people with such experiences is tantamount to telling them: "i know you suffered, but i didn't, and many others didn't, therefore your opinion doesn't matter because the majority calls the shots so suck it up and serve your state"

1)You can pay me 500 hookers and I still wouldn't serve. Its 1 year of your life, gone doing work where you don't feel like you matter because you're just a 'cog in the machine' except in this case you're more like a slave. Militaries work on a hierarchy structure, so no matter what, people judge you on your rank. Its 1 year away from your loved ones(assuming you gotta stay in camp), 1 year less than women counter parts when it comes to work and studies, and 1 year where you're not 'paid' but given an 'allowance' 2)Almost 99%, those that are of the 1% would had already signed on as a career soldier. Drilling for parades for national day and etc. means fuck all when you finish your service and go out for work. No Employer is gonna look and see 'WA! You're the top cadet of Officer cadet school! You're hired!' unless you do media, IT, pilot, or logistics, or you work as a PMC or security contractor, nobody cares what you did in army. Also @Newb your Israeli officers trained up so I'm judging you guys for the 'tough' training lol

to add to this point: once everyone serves, the prestige serving in the army might have imparted upon your CV is more or less gone. you can't throw a stone in this country without hitting somebody who served in the military at some point (not that you should throw them at people still serving, that gets you killed for some odd reason :v)

Tl;dr: Conscription as a concept alone is a violation of personal choice and freedom. Those defending the idea have either called upon opinion pieces or waved a flag of "It works for me so it works for everyone!". You're not going to change someone's view if they don't understand the concept of "I want to decide whether or not I do *thing*; I don't want the government to decide for me".