Comment by plinkplonk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by plinkplonk | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Mostly good points (except one see below). Thank you.

fwiw it was a genuine question. I am not trying to be anti American, anti US army etc. I am very pro American in real life and get flak for that attitude hereabouts.

I was just puzzled to wake up in the morning and find a fairly content-lite article on the front page of HN. It does happen occasionally, but this one felt really weird to me.It doesn't say anything particularly interesting (imo). Other cultures are different and working with a diverse set of people teaches you tolerance? Well duh.

Fwiw I suspect what Dan really learned from the war will be discussed only over drinks with his fellow soldiers and not on any public forum.

"I am at war against my company's competition every time I try to convince someone our software solution is better than the alternative."

I suspect using the word "war" as a substitute for "competition" obscures the point. Reductio ad absurdum that means every investment banker (say) is a soldier and so worthy of respect.

"If I went to one of my competitors tomorrow, I'm sure I would fight just as hard for them. Does that translate to an answer for your Viet Cong argument?"

No :). Because my point was not on whether the Vietnamese soldier fought for his country as hard as the American soldier would do for his. That is a given (or close enough).

I am not sure if a Vietnamese (or Afghan or whoever) wrote such a content free article, it would get upvoted so heavily. It seemed to me ( I freely admit I could be wrong) that the upvotes for this article stemmed from some kind of patriotic impulse than because its content was intellectually stimulating, or even relevant to the community.

I am (or was) surprised at this (imo very content lite) article being on the front page of HN and getting so many upvotes and (perhaps unjustifiably) attributed it to the (imo) excess respect Americans have for their military.

Your reply helps me understand better. Thank You.

I would hardly describe the article as "content-lite." I think that maybe you are not getting the same lessons from this article that others are.

To me, one of the big take-aways that is relevant to HN is that military service, especially in wartime, gives you experiences that you cannot get anywhere else, and that these experiences prove extremely valuable to veterans in the civilian workplace. The first part (unique experiences) is not surprising, but the second part (military experience translates well to civilian work) is surprising or even counterintuitive to some people.

Another reason why this might seem content-lite to you is actually something you got almost right:

>I suspect what Dan really learned from the war will be discussed only over drinks with his fellow soldiers and not on any public forum.

I get the impression that he would be more than happy to share his most valuable lessons with anyone who asks, but the problem is that anyone who hasn't had military experience will not be able to truly understand the full extent of what he's trying to say. Your statement would be more correct if rephrased as:

"I suspect what Dan learned from the war will only be really discussed over drinks with his fellow soldiers and not on any public forum."

The reason being that those are the only people who can really understand what he's saying.

You actually demonstrate this effect in action:

>It doesn't say anything particularly interesting (imo). Other cultures are different and working with a diverse set of people teaches you tolerance? Well duh.

He learned, from the Afghans, a level of patience that most Americans (westerners in general, really) are simply incapable of comprehending. He tried to express this, but to you it just came across as a minimally interesting anecdote about differences in cultures. You can't really understand what he was trying to say unless you have been through a similar experience. Similarly, the military has a level of racial integration that just doesn't exist in most of the rest of American culture. He probably thought of himself as being comfortable in diverse crowds before he joined the military, and then he found out what it's like to work with a truly diverse group of people. He tried to explain this, but to you it just came across as an obvious point about diversity and tolerance. Again, you can't really understand what he was saying until you've been in immersed that kind of environment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com