• qarbone@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      Because, like, it’s plain obvious your “run toward a firing machine gun” is a figure of speech.

      I’m curious what you think OP meant by their statement seeing as they claim my interpretation was reading something that wasn’t there. You’re saying it’s not literal and they’re saying it’s not the idea that war wastes lives carelessly. So how should someone read the statement that the military teaches people to run into machine gun fire? It reads as a critique, although I suppose that could be the start of the misunderstanding.

        • qarbone@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          It’s about teaching people to disregard their own self-preservation, when following orders. That’s why they say “it scares me”.

          Perfectly valid to fear being compelled to move toward danger.

          But can we agree that: 1) saying “teaching you to run into machine fire” is negative tonally, and 2) you could make the quoted point illustratively, without phrasing it so reductively?

          The most obvious read of the original line is “jarheads being sent to their deaths,” – they told me to, so I’m going to run into machine gun fire – which would obviously receive pushback.

          And that’s saying nothing about the actual philosophies of how to deal with danger, vis a vis fleeing it or neutralizing it.