The Military Dehumanizes People

When people enter the military and undergo training, what is one of the first things they are taught? It's called drill. Every person must march in coordination: perfect synchrony, lock-step. Like machines. It seems to me that, if you want machines, you start with machines.

The human identity must be submerged into the whole. (Any Star Trek fans out there remember the Borg?) But that goes against the very nature of what it is to be human: every human being is unique, an individual.

Also, there is the military's insistence on unquestioning obedience to authority. Again, do not think for yourself, do not be a human being, be something mechanical, a machine within a larger machine.

I saw an interesting little video clip not long ago about a robot being developed for the military. Of course it's the ultimate weapon: it won't know fear, it can't be "killed" by chemical or biological weapons, etc. This is what the military has been aiming for for thousands of years: instead of turning humans into machines, we can use real machines to begin with. Think of all the training that will be saved.

Update, December 21, 2012
Scientific fact has a way of imitating science fiction. We have drone airplanes and probably one day the drones of Army A will fight the drones of Army B. And, as I wrote, one day there will probably be drone or android soldiers; think of Star Wars.

Further thought, added November 27, 2013.
The trend toward developing machines to fight our wars brings to mind a clever comic strip of the Seventies called Pogo. To paraphrase Pogo, If you want better machines, you start with machines. I guess the boys in the Pentagon, with their lethal "toys for big boys," recognize this.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein