• @k_o_t@lemmy.ml
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    22 years ago

    damn, i’m impressed with the ability of us military to recruit people when the service is NOT MANDATORY, like how?

    i know that their military recruitment partly depends on people who have no other way to pay for education, but isn’t that a relatively small portion of recruits?

    military service here is mandatory and everyone fears it like fire, people go through long and complex processes to avoid it 😬

    • @roastpotatothief@lemmy.mlOP
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      12 years ago

      Greece?

      I had this idea that service should be compulsory. But that you can choose to work in a charity, the police, clean the sewers, etc. It would force people to do something for society as a kind of education, but more importantly it would stop these offices becoming tight cliques of likeminded people with no new ideas coming in.

      Later I heard that this is an old idea. What do you think anyway?

      • @pinknoise@lemmy.ml
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        2 years ago

        I had this idea that service should be compulsory. But that you can choose to work in […]

        We had this in germany until 2010/2011. You could apply for “Zivildienst” instead of going to military service. It was essentially legal forced labor in the social field. Nearly everyone did this, so they made the military voluntary. (Actually, the compulsory service is just suspended :/) And now only stupid or really desperate people join.

        it would stop these offices becoming tight cliques of likeminded people

        The people that join voluntarily are basically the same people that stay after compulsory service.

          • @pinknoise@lemmy.ml
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            12 years ago

            I guess, the jobs where mostly in fields that are severely underpaid anyways, so they could use a helping hand. Companies couldn’t really abuse this to replace a full position since it was short term. And it was limited to the social field, so you had to do something at least remotely useful to society.

            Imo it’s way better than forcing people into the military, but not having forced labor is the better option. If you want to have more workers in the social field you can just incentivise that. Also it was super unfair since only men had to do this.