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Comment by amadeuspagel | Hacker News Reader

Finland doesn't have compulsory military service to help people feel connected to their society. Feeling connected to one's society is not an end in itself, people should be free to choose how connected they want to feel. Finland has compulsory military service because it's a small country that borders Russia. The US is a big country that borders Canada and Mexico.

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> people should be free to choose how connected they want to feel

Yes and no. Of course people should be free, at the same time you live in a society and not a state of nature.

If someone never has to put back into society, that's dangerous. It could lead to people feeling that society has no value, that there's no sense in investing in it, that since nobody else cares why should I.

That's not a world I want to live in.

Many people I’ve met in the US feel like they already live in that world.

Instead of complaining about the average person not contributing enough to society why don’t we focus on the people (I.e. politicians) who directly leech off of society and make it worse? I’d rather they simply had no impact either way.

Do bureaucratic mandates instill a humanistic sense of value and commitment, particularly in societies which are at peak levels of institutional skepticism?

> If someone never has to put back into society, that's dangerous.

Most people I meet and interact with in the United States already feel like they don't need to contribute anything back into society besides the taxes they already pay to the local and federal government.

And what I mean by that is that some of them may SAY they would like to contribute, but none of them actually do (beyond taxes).

Yeah, if anyone maybe needs compulsory service, it's Mexico and Canada (to protect against the threat of the US), not the US.

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