• Zagorath@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    Here’s a possibly-controversial take, but joining the army isn’t really even close to the best analogy for a male-dominated industry where you “sell your body”.

    Being a labourer is. Working in industries like construction, but not as a skilled tradesman. It doesn’t carry the same moral weight riley was going for though.

    • ikiru@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      True, but it’s not just about labor.

      To join the US military you have to literally sign over your bodily autonomy to join. Once you do then they can pump you full of experimental drugs, or run whatever other ungodly experiments, all they want. I know someone who considered joining then backed out when this allegedly happened.

      Anyway, never heard of Riley before but seems nice. Hope she supports our troops and offers military discount for her OnlyFans.

      • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        True, you’re far more likely to die working menial laborer jobs than you are in the military.

        Laborers are providing direct goods to the people they supply too. The military is far more intangible with prevention being the key factor for it’s expense.

        In the United States, there were far more occupational injury deaths among men than women. In 2020, there were 4,377 male occupational injury deaths in the United States, compared to 387 deaths among women.

        https://www.statista.com/statistics/187127/number-of-occupational-injury-deaths-in-the-us-by-gender-since-2003/

        9 military people die from hostile action in 2020. 317/1017 in accidents. 190 illness. 406 suicide.

        https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/summaryData/deaths/byYearManner

        I highly doubt they consider suicide for occupational hazards too which is strange in hindsight considering the military accounts for it now. One of the few things they do ahead of the woke curve lol. First responders as well.

        So in reality you’d need to remove both suicide and illness from the military’s numbers to equal laborers.

        363 died in the military then vs 4,774.

        Even hostile deaths… 9 in hostile action and 37 homicides… Meanwhile there were 392 workplace homicides. 37,060 nonfatal intentional injuries.

        https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/workplace-violence-homicides-and-nonfatal-intentional-injuries-by-another-person-in-2020.htm

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Right, but you’re also not in mortal danger when you’re fitting pipes in Nebraska vs. Baghdad.

        Oh man, this is wrong.

        In. 2022, there were 500k plumbers in the US, I don’t have exact numbers for how many pipe fitters there were, but it’s a position that’s always in high demand, safe to say that very few of that 500k number are pipe fitters, less than a quarter. So let’s say 100k pipe fitters which is honestly, probably generous.

        There were 70 fatal accidents involving pipe fitters. Not injuries, fatal accidents only. That is a ratio of .0006.

        The US military boasted 1.3 million members that year, and 270 fatal accidents, and 0 to enemy action. A ratio of .0002.

        You are 2/3rd less likely to die in the armed forces then you are pipe fitting.

          • Wogi@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            First of all, KIA MIA for 2022 is 0, I did add them.

            People who later die due to injury is also included, for both metrics. That’s why these numbers are almost 2 years old.

            What specifically was excluded were those who died to illness or self inflicted wounds.

              • Wogi@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I picked the most recent year for which information is available, I gathered the summary information from statistics that others had already done.

                These reports are prepared yearly, I’m not sure what you expect. It’s literally how statistics are done. It’s an industrial standard. Do you expect that people only work for 1 year out of their lives while everyone in the military is stuck there for 8?

                I dunno man it sounds like you’re just being dense on purpose because you’ve run out of room to argue.

        • Rambi@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          That’s interesting, but it would be perhaps more interesting to compare the yearly average accross a longer time frame. Also didn’t a bunch of people get lung cancer and die as a result of burn pits? I’m sure people died years later from exposure to other hazards too, not to mention how many people commit suicide after.

          Also this isn’t to say pipe fitting isn’t a dangerous job, I am just interested how the statistics would look over a longer time frame and with consideration of deaths that occur after service, but still as a result.

          • Wogi@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            So there’s a few things happening here that are causing industrial numbers to surpass American military rates of injury.

            We are not actively in conflict with any other nation, so being in the military is no more dangerous than any industrial occupation because of conflict.

            The military is, generally, safer than any one occupation, but the military is also a monolith. Saying it’s safer in the military is kind of like saying office jobs in the US are more dangerous than pipe fitting. You’re essentially comparing numerous disparate positions to one type of work, and that skews your results. It would be more accurate to compare rates of incidents in say, front line infantrymen to any particular other field.

            It’s also worth pointing out that the military has it’s own plumbers, and they do their own pipe fitting. Statistics on the rates of injury there are a little harder to come by.

            But more to the specific points you mentioned: yes, and that’s not the first time the military has accidently killed or seriously injured it’s own people. These incidents happen in civilian world too and arguably, more frequently. The US industrial labor pool is 10 times the size of the military, and negligent safety hazards come up every year. Rates of suicide are also lower in the military than in the general population, and a variety of factors contribute to that.

    • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Any form of physical labour is selling your body sex work is selling your right to refuse sexual consent. I think that makes it a worse situation for the person doing the sex work than other work

    • CrushKillDestroySwag [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Doing “unskilled labor” is at the very least creating something. Even if that thing is socially useless like a Starbucks location that’s across the street from another Starbucks location, that’s a better outcome than bombing or shooting something.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        I wasn’t interested in making any value judgments. Simply in coming up with what job is the purest expression of “selling your body”.

  • ydieb@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    What I hate with this is that is defines that the army itself is good or bad. But in reality it is what it is used for. If its actually used for defence, then it’s very honorable. When it’s used as a tool to exploit resources to the rich, (aka generally being the aggressor), it’s not.

    • Coasting0942@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      Even simpler than that. People trying to slot sex work/army/any job into “good/bad” columns aren’t worth your attention.

      Except for health insurance CEOs, those definitely bad.

    • telllos@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I mean, even for defence. Your settling, an argument, the rich and powerful people above you are having. You’re settling it with your life.

      • cannache@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        If you think your side is right and you’re ready to die fighting then who is anyone else to say that you, the tool, is wrong?

    • uphillbothways@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      See, that’s an easy question to answer: Did you, or whoever, join the military while the US, or your country, was being attacked?

      • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If you wait til you are attacked, you may not be trained or ready enough to actually defend your country from the attack. You can still join in times of peace with intentions of defense for the future, helping with disaster relief, and providing international aid.

    • mar_k [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Lol can’t think of a single western country that’s had an “honorable” war post 1945. The US army is unequivocally bad

    • Bassword [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Yeah peaceful militaries like Korea’s or China’s or Cuba’s are ok. Anyone joining the US military though if just in it for the war crimes.

      • Azzu@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I wouldn’t call North Korea firing missiles over other sovereign countries very peaceful. As well as China doing troop exercises that obviously prepare for the invasion of Taiwan. I’m sure there are more examples.

        • booty [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Are you talking about that time they launched a missile over the least populated possible part of Japan as part of a test? What are they supposed to do, just not advance their tech? They’re surrounded, they’ve got to launch them over somebody and they did it the safest way they could.

          • Azzu@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            No, obviously perfectly fine. They are literally doing exercises for a potential invasion to Taiwan though, which is a difference.

            • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              You can’t invade your own territory. By Chinese and Taiwanese law, internationally recognized by the UN (and even the US, as asserted by Blinken the last time he was in China to pretend to be sorry), Taiwan is Chinese territory.

        • Bassword [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          The DPRK had literally never been to war outside its territory; it’s not a dove but at least it hasn’t invaded multiple sovereign countries like its southern cousin.

          China does troop exercises like every single other country in the world.

          • Azzu@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I mean as long as you consider South Korea part of their territory, sure. There was though the Korean War, where North Korea invaded South Korea. Of course it’s not on the same level as South Korea, but I would imagine that’s more because they literally can’t, they have no resources for it, not because they’re amazingly peaceful people.

            • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              The north didn’t invade the south though, no Koreans agreed that the US supported parallel was a permanent division of the country, both North and South fully intended to create a united Korea. Tens of thousands of Koreans were already dead from purges and suppression of uprisings in the south when the operation started. It was literally an ongoing civil war that had momentarily frozen.

              • Azzu@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                I’m not sure on what information you base this claim, but as far as I know the 38th parallel was agreed upon because both the udssr and the US wanted total occupation of Korea for themselves, but they both wanted to potentially avoid an armed conflict so tried a compromise.

                Then the north korean part, supported by China and unofficially by the soviet union, invaded the south to establish total control.

                • Sinister [none/use name, comrade/them]@hexbear.netB
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                  1 year ago

                  No North Korea claims descend from the People’s Republic of Korea and like in Germany, the US and UDSSR agreed upon an eventual neutral zone. The North invaded the South after the US sponsored regime began killing socialist uprisings, essentially protecting its citizens.

              • Urist@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Many would rate the USSR as an imperial core country, while I guess you and I maybe won’t. Stop assuming privilege of those you talk to and demean them with willful ignorance. There is always something more that may be learned about an issue and people should not be vilified if their attempts to learn more are genuine (and I think you can not determine it was not from this interaction, comrade).

          • Urist@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Can you explain why some of the nordic countries, i.e. Norway, Sweden, Denmark are part of the imperial core while Finland, Iceland, Greenland are not? I can put color on a white map too, doesn’t mean it portrays a real issue adequately. Also wtf, why is Portugal not part of the imperial core?

            • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              The map is a reference to the one you see whenever just about any international issue comes up and the same crew are all in agreement, I’m not actually positive what specific issue this map was taken from.

              The website has a more serious explainer (with a couple versions of the map) but I’m with you, Iceland and Portugal and Finland are core countries probably. The real answer is that it’s fluid and historically contingent, not set in stone. It’s a question of how your economy develops and how it relates to ‘peripheral’ countries that are primarily extracted from, not a literal list pulled off an emoji.

              • Urist@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                I looked through that article and found it somewhat problematic. Especially the description of core countries as:

                They have strong state institutions, a powerful military and powerful global political alliances.

                For example, Iceland does not even have a military, but can still be part of capitalist neo-colonialism as part of the “imperial core”. Even so, one should also keep in mind that Iceland historically had been under Denmark’s dominion and it is wrong to say that it has been a primary benefactor of classic colonialism leading to the rise of western powers in modern history. On the other hand, Portugal has been a strong colonial power historically. Still, the development index of Iceland is way higher and I would argue there are lots of factors in play as to why, and one cannot say that there is a direct equivalence between development index and imperialism. Both Norway, Iceland and Finland gained independence in the 20th century, never had proper colonies and are part of the economic elite. Norway is still in large an economy based around export of natural resources, which is atypical for being an imperial core member. I often feel that many facts like these are overlooked in discussions of imperial cores in favor of simplistic ideas such as equivocating HDI and imperialism. Can we not have better discussions around the mechanics of modern imperialism than throwing around a map and calling out people for not being intimate with the idea of an imperial core, an idea whose simplicity makes itself highly flawed?

                • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  I agree that I gave a simplistic answer, you can read literal books about it. But Iceland, as an example, does actually have a history of being closely tied to the military of the US and the UK voluntarily, I think Greenland is actually a better candidate for peripheral than Iceland. And realistically it’s going to be more of a spectrum than a binary, you’re usually going to fall somewhere in the middle rather than being on the extreme end like the US and Israel.

                  And even then you might have internal dynamics that complicate it. Parts of the US (Appalachia, “Indian Country”) are clearly peripheral within the US economy and subject to exploitation that other areas are not. So agreed, it’s complicated.

                  Dialectics as a method warns us against assumptions that “the state of things” is static, these things are always changing. But I think there’s value in the basic observation that world economic systems work in tension, where opposed interests are not equally met in a mutually beneficial exchange a la neoliberal dogma. Even if you have to acknowledge that it is much more complicated than “it’s the same map every time” I think the concept is useful.

                  What would you say is a better way of talking about this sort of thing?

            • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Unironically yes. The development in the imperial core came at the expense of the rest of the world, that’s what the term is referring to, the part of the world economy that is accumulating through imperialism the wealth and resources of the whole planet.

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Hey, im not trying to be rude or anything I just wanna quickly say that honor is a fiction typically used by the rich and powerful to manipulate the young and well-meaning into becoming fucked up stormtroopers for capital.

  • scubbo@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I would never compare, being a sex worker is obviously incredibly more honorable

    But…saying that something is more honorable than something else is comparing them?

    EDIT: to be clear, her point is absolutely valid. This isn’t (to misquote a replier) “But I must find way for sex lady be dumb”. Her actual point is spot-on. This particular linguistic evolution just feels weird to me - feels like the new “literally”.

  • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    How much Kool aid do you need to drink to think a soldiers job is “saving people”? Except for medics that’s pretty much the opposite of the point.

  • masquenox@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If you work for a living, you’re a prostitute - you’re selling your physical and mental health just to survive no different than sex workers.

    The term prostitute literally translates to “to offer up for sale” - and, guess what, that pretty much describes the entire working class.

  • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Found out my work is getting a new chemical. The chemical is so volatile that if it splashes on you, it will potentially burn you into nothing.

    I am fodder for the machines of industry.

    • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      According to my ex, who prides herself to be a social worker and a conflict solver, relationships are built solely on sex, not on interpersonal connections. But then again, she also thinks that you shouldn’t ever apologize because it shows a lack of self-esteem, called the police on her best friend because she was jealous of her hooking up while she didn’t and regularly posts “memes” about how terrible everyone else is on Facebook. Maybe she’s just a nutcase.

      • fossilesque@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        That may just be her, and I kinda feel bad for her. That sounds like a lot of maladjustment and projection. My friends say they had some regulars who’d start the sessions telling them about their lives and showing them pictures of their kids. Touch and validation can be a form of medicine. Everyone needs to feel wanted. We are social creatures. Incels are one example of those starved from such things.

  • HexesofVexes@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think I’ll ever understand why women who choose to enter the sex trade are demonised. It’s a job, some enjoy it and some don’t, but everyone enjoys getting paid. Though the comparison between people who rent their bodies (sex workers do get to keep their own bodies after work) and people who gamble their bodies (soldiers don’t always get to come home as part of the job) is a little off.

  • systemglitch@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Do what you want to do with your body, but don’t be upset when I don’t want to associate with you and educate people about what you do for a living.