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Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

> Drop and start pushing the ground down until I'm tired.

I've never understood, and feel I have no intuition for, responses like this. What's the value added by this? Any excuse for exercise? Internalising that the sergeant is always right even when they're wrong? Or is "permission to speak" just a Hollywood affectation not really present in the military?

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You have a very good moral compass for perceived injustice. But theres nothing wrong with someone in the militairy doing push ups. There IS something wrong with questioning authority because you can see campuflaged soldiers, which was probaly the training other recruits were supposed to be doing but some smartass with good colorblind eyes ruined it for them.

> But theres nothing wrong with someone in the militairy doing push ups.

Sure, it's the "until I get tired" (emphasis mine) part that's the main surprise to me. The extremity, more than the specific exercise.

That's just humor.

Technically, soldiers absolutely are (legally) required to question authority in some cases (e.g. if they think an order is immoral, like participating in a genocide or murdering civilians or torture). In practice it provides more utility to stomp out any desire to challenge or question authority though because if a soldier spends time critically thinking about an order they're given, that's time they're not spending being highly alert or implementing that order.

You are correct. Any excuse for exercise and dominance (sgt is always right) in basic training.

The "permission to speak" is to train discipline and to prevent chaos. After basic, it pretty much goes away except in outstanding circumstances (eg, addressing a very high ranking individual).

Basic training filters out anyone who would object - same reason there are so few smart people in the police.

Basic training filters out the stupid: those who cannot understand that there is a proper time and place to be a talkative smartass. Basic training is about learning, not showing off. Anyone who cannot check thier pride, check thier attitude, for a few weeks will not make a good soldier.

I guess it also filters out people who would object to gleefully torturing people in the most inhumane way possible [1]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...

Yes. Basic isnt like the movies: a quick few weeks afterwhich one is a soldier. Basic is only the very start of training. More advanced stuff comes later at more trade-specific training. Basic is deinitely not the place to test potential soldiers for such problems.

Smart people don’t even make it to police basic training. If the application test shows you are intelligent, you will be rejected from joining the police. At least in the USA.

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