A century later, a taped message solves the mystery of a WWI doughboy's death
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To fight for a land fit for heroes
God on my side, and a gun in my hand
Chasing my days down to zero"--Motorhead, 1916
When I felt the bullet enter my heart
I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail
For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,
Instead of running away and joining the army.
Rather a thousand times the country jail
Than to lie under this marble figure with wings,
And this granite pedestal
Bearing the words, ”Pro Patria.”
What do they mean, anyway?
- Edgar Lee Masters, from Spoon River Anthology.
The same tragic, traumatic events are being "rhymed" now in Ukraine. Yeah, perhaps we're tired of hearing it - but I'm writing this because after 110 years of industrialized warfare, our institutions and systems have still not restructured themselves to prevent these cascades of events. The consequences are unspeakably terrible (read the article!).
I'll be quite clear about it: a nuclear superpower invaded a disarmed neighbor, and is currently committing genocide on its territory. This is unquestionably, unconscionably, unacceptably wrong. (I won't mention the situation in Gaza, because that situation is far more complex and horrendously polarized.)
More than any other profession, many of us - as software developers, mathematicians, scientists - have a better grasp of complex systems. And most of us on HN have a healthy, deeply internalized sense of morality. I really hope some of us will branch out into politics or other power-positions in those institutions, and start knocking people's heads together.
I'm constantly - deeply - appalled, at the ghastliness of what's happening right now while we chat, work, and play in our separate worlds. Humanity can do better.
Having a good grasp of complex systems doesn't make one avoid the shortcomings that have created modern genocides and industrialized society, etc. In fact I'd argue that deep knowledge of complex systems makes a politician even more competent at causing harm on massive scales.
Knowledge does not make one moral.
Also, smarter folks understand that in hyper-complex structure like our global society, or on smaller nation scale, how good and freedom is something that's rare and practically unique for our current times, and should be protected at (almost) any cost since its loss may not be easily reversible for generations. Simpler folks care only about their own situation, bigger concepts are an afterthought at best.
Also, its much easier to spot manipulators and liars, typical populists these days really can't wrap their manipulation in some clever package that requires detailed analysis to unwrap, at least not most of them (and usually that's enough). When you can easily detect lies and twisting of truth you know who you deal with, you can assess both/multiple sides and weight on who is who much closer to actual truth.
Morality doesn't become some fancy foreign inconvenient concept but understanding how things that go around come around, always, and how only so you can build strong free society with bright future. And so on.
But also much more capable of manipulating others via the same sorts of tricks, that's my point.
Anyway, the real problem is parsing out the information in a way that reflects reality - what is presented on screens passes through many filters before it gets to us: corporate, military, governmental, not too mention all the people that are only able to see the world in the way that their education allows.
"Knocking people's heads together" doesn't work on people who have the entire military force of their country at their disposal. Such heads are basically un-knockable. Unfortunately one of the things that the state as an institution is really good at is projection of force; and outside democracies which divide power in a state deliberately, that force usually answers to a single person and their whim, or, at best, a small inner circle of people.
And frankly, I trust scientists even less when it comes to politics that anyone else. Khmer Rouge was an academic enterprise. There isn't really a reason why an educated person should have any better sense of morality than a random farmer from the bush. When I look at the activity of the IT giants, it is 50 shades of moral grey underlined by stuffing their pockets and trying to project a cool vibe. It seems to contradict your idea of superior morality in the IT circles.
Really. I's say sense of delusion. I think that ratio of assholes to normal is about the same in highly educated vs your regular factory workers.
>"I really hope some of us will branch out into politics or other power-positions in those institutions, and start knocking people's heads together."
Sure. PhD in physics, that's all it takes for politicians to fix everything. This is delirium
Maybe there being so much money in programming changed that a bit. It seems like it was worse when people become programmers out of interest mainly.
Gee, when you put it like that, why are we waiting to conscript my only son and send him to die in foreign lands?
Clinton fucked up. He was a bad president more concerned with getting his dick sucked by interns than doing things correctly. Ukraine should have kept its nukes (some of them, don't need 6000), and if they had none of this would be happening. Maybe Putin would've called the bluff and Moscow would be a glowing crater, but then it would have ended. But I guess he "felt your pain" so that was good right? Enlightened self-interest, and rational strategy. These things save more lives than compassion ever have.
Pity about it costing money though. :(
>I'll be quite clear about it: a nuclear superpower invaded a disarmed neighbor, and is currently committing genocide on its territory. This is unquestionably, unconscionably, unacceptably wrong.
It surely is your amazing grasp of complex systems that allows you to make such a 2-dimensional assessment of the situation. Can I vote for you as World Controller right now?
Surely there were many complex causes which resulted in Germany invading Poland back in 1939, and Poland itself at the time was a deeply flawed state in quite a few ways?
So of course you would also say that that event could not be described as “unquestionably, unconscionably, unacceptably wrong”?
Having read various opinions expressed on HN about politics, history, physics, medicine, and so forth, I'm pretty sure that we don't. Coding is not that difficult and many here are quick to say that they learned nothing of use to them in college.
I've also read posts from credible people suggesting that worse things are happening on territories still under Russian occupation. If those (unconfirmed) rumors are true, they would be the horrifying atrocities with genocidal intent since WW2.
Still no idea what the mystery is about exactly?
Dead soldier's descendant goes looking for the details of his death, finds descendant of another (surviving) soldier that was good friends with him. That surviving soldier's descendant had documented the stories that surviving soldier had told, including the occasion of the first soldier's death(and their friendship). The death happened due to getting hit by a shell during an offensive.
It's an engaging story, which I'm of course not doing justice to here, but the word "mystery" is just absolute clickbait.