Why are weapons of war neat to look at?

[patrick t. cakes]

I've never got it. Why do people get off on at oggling at bombs, warplanes,
the latest in military hardware? Whats the fascination? Seems like those that support

this "humanitarian intervention" are in it for a lot more than helping people.


Just weird to see that stuff on DU.

[thereismore]

1. Because they look like penises. nt

[Zywiec]

6. I wish more people wanted to see penises! n/t

[Buzz Clik]

8. Well, that certainly makes sense. NOT!

I guess the only people who don't look at weapons of war are ... lesbians? Maybe not.

Would you mind explaining?

[thereismore]

27. Guns have always been synonymous with penises. nt

[Recursion]

31. Synonymous (adj.)

having the character of a synonym; also : alike in meaning or significance

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/synonymous

A penis is alike in meaning or significance to a gun, in your mind?

[Buzz Clik]

34. You have a very good point.

During Vietnam, a friend of mine had been in the army for about six months when we crossed paths. He told me of an incident during basic training in which one of his fellow draftees got on the wrong side of his training sergeant. It seems this kid kept calling his rifle a gun. After a couple of failed attempts to set this kid straight, the sergeant finally went ballistic. He made the kid take off his pants and stand on his footlocker in the middle of the barracks. With his rifle in one hand and his schlong in the other, he had to repeat again and again, "This is my weapon, this is my gun. This is for killing, this is for fun."

So, for those in the business of killing people, guns and penises are, indeed, synonymous.

[apocalypsehow]

44. Really?!? That sounds *just like* a scene from this movie "Full Metal Jacket" I saw one time... n/t

[Buzz Clik]

52. Could be. I never saw the movie.

Now, I can't guarantee that my friend wasn't just repeating some legendary story and pretended to have witnessed it, but that generally wasn't his way.

I think we can also assume that once a good story gets out there, it never goes away.

One thing I can guarantee, that story was told to me in October of 1969.

============

ON EDIT: You are absolutely correct, and it's even been posted here at DU. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2627475&mesg_id=2627513

:shrug:

[apocalypsehow]

64. I wasn't doubting anyone's word, I was just making an observation akin to "art imitates life."

Sorry if I didn't make that clear. I have little doubt that that was a common training practice in the military of the era, and the makers of the movie later took that reality and made it into a scene in the movie.

[Buzz Clik]

65. Thanks for that. I just wanted to assure you that I wasn't having a Reagan moment ...

... in which scenes from movies become my reality.

[Hangingon]

74. The first time I heard that story was in Uris" "Battle Cry"

I doubt he invented the story.

[originalpckelly]

82. Wasn't it Zardoz who said, and I quote, "The gun is good, the penis is evil..."?

Just sayin'.

[Taverner]

2. I'm no fan of bombs or guns, but planes and, my fave, the osprey are cool

I'd love to see a commercial application rather than a military one...

Imagine a safer osprey as a commuter line to cities...

[Recursion]

13. The bird with the gun that only fires when the door is open...

...and even then only backwards?

But, yeah, when they aren't crashing into mountainsides, Ospreys are pretty damn cool.

[Taverner]

17. Yep - and that F16 clone that can land by going straight down is cool too

And yes, I wouldn't mind taking that on my morning commute, although it would be superfluous.

[apocalypsehow]

49. Interesting stuff they teach folks in the Peace Corps these days. n/t.

[ZombieHorde]

3. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. nt

[patrick t. cakes]

5. says alot i guess...nt

[Adsos Letter]

59. No more than saying...

"Seems like those that support this 'humanitarian intervention' are in it for a lot more than helping people."

I doubt that is true with most people on this board who support intervention, but I don't have any evidence except my own feelings on the matter.

[Arctic Dave]

4. Why do people oggle guns? Or dead animals?

[WillyT]

7. Depends On If You Are On The Receiving End, Or Not...

:shrug:

[patrick t. cakes]

11. Nice to have the comfort of not being on the

receiving end. They must look monstrous to a majority of the worlds population.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. I like airplanes. I don't particularly like looking at guns or bombs.

[NuclearDem]

10. Because military technology eventually makes it way to the civilian world

RADAR, the internet, and the jet engine were mostly military technologies that eventually came into use by civilians.

Bombs and guns are all the same to me, but specialized military technology is always neat to look at to see how civilians will end up using it.

[patrick t. cakes]

14. Thats not comforting...

i don't know who oggles radar :) but there seems a real fascination with tanks, warplanes, etc..they're designed to kill.

its like waxing poetic about the guillotine or something.

[Recursion]

21. I get that, but when you're in/using one...

...you think more about the fact that it's the only thing between you and dying, and less about the fact that it's meant to kill someone else. You come to see it as meant to save you, rather than meant to kill him.

(FWIW, modern military small arms are designed to wound, not kill, though for reasons that are not very humanitarian -- killing you just takes out you, wounding you takes out you and your buddy as he takes you back to the medic.)

[NuclearDem]

28. Guns, bombs, and turrets are only parts

Tanks also have treads that are used in industrial farm equipment, warplanes have avionics technology that's used by commercial airlines, and the technology behind the Navy's railgun can be applied to launch rockets into space.

I hate the killing part, but the engineering is certainly innovative. :)

[drokhole]

36. I feel like those advances are just accidents of circumstance...

...given the fact that billions and billions of dollars are funneled into the military budget year after year (what is it up to this year, $1.2 trillion?). If we had dedicated half that to advancements in transportation/communication/energy/other technology - rather than how they can help us kill people better - we would be leagues ahead of where we are now. That's not to mention how much of that money has up and "disappeared." Such a waste.

[LanternWaste]

75. Or storms at sea, or the inhospitable regions of desert...

"its like waxing poetic about the guillotine or something..."

Or storms at sea, or the inhospitable regions of desert, of the dramatic rumblings of an earthquake, or the vast infinity of space, or a million other things which are not conducive to the survival of mankind. Yeah... no one *ever* writes poems about any of that stuff either.

[patrick t. cakes]

77. Don't know if i agree...

the "terribleness" and awesome power of nature doesn't really equate to the manipulation of it
by man to create devises of murder. IMHO

[LanternWaste]

81. You are now adding qualifiers previously not stated.

You are now adding qualifiers previously not stated.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

29. They are often examples of the best engineering available and do amazing things

[Recursion]

12. As an engineer I can appreciate the engineering that went into them

Firearms can be exquisite examples of engineering; so can vehicles. Bombs never really did anything for me, and rockets were always too brute of a solution. But firearms and vehicles can be really cool.

I had a contract job with the Navy's hovercraft fleet doing circuit analysis. They are absolutely astounding boats. Finicky, yes; fragile, yes; way too expensive, yes. But with a good skipper they are absolutely amazing, and the control systems on them are awe-inspiring.

[quinnox]

15. A male thing

Some jet fighters look really cool, and some guns do too. That said, I'm against military force being used most of the time as a general rule.

So, yea, these things look cool, but you better have a damn good reason to actually use them.

[Confusious]

16. Because they go fast and make a loud bang

I like to go fast. I like firecrackers.

They are also massive piece of technology, probably the top of what the human race is capable of producing.

I would probably get the same feeling if I saw the LHC, or some other huge piece of engineering.

All that being said, we spend WAY to much money on all this stuff. Not the research, just the items. We don't need a 300 something ship navy.

[Recursion]

19. I'd love to see some of the Navy's budget put into our merchant fleet

Which is for all intents and purposes non-existent right now. I love some of the things the DoD has made like the USNO's clock and the Internet; my worry is that when cuts come those things will go first.

[Confusious]

45. Axing one Carrier Group would fix our budge problems. nt

[Recursion]

63. We have 11 active

Cut that to 6 and we have one per bluewater ocean, one for the Med, and one in reserve, which should be more than enough (hell, cut it to 8 and keep three in reserve; that's still a ridiculous amount of money saved).

[Aristus]

18. As an ex-tanker, and now a peacenik who still has a fascination with military hardware,

all I can say is, a lot of it has to do with military aesthetics; form follows function, and military weapons are purely functional.

Personally, as much as I love peace, I still love the shape and lines of a well-designed tank; it's a thing of beauty.

[Adsos Letter]

58. Same with artillerymen (this one, anyway)...

I trained on the old M-114 155mm towed howitzer; moved on to the long-tube M-109 A1. I'm still interested in looking at the variants that have developed over the years, and those deployed by different nations.

Doesn't mean I think we need to bankrupt ourselves buying them (military budget in general) or that I want to see them used in hostile action.

[daleo]

20. People like movies about the mafia too

Maybe it comes from some deep evolutionary impulse to align oneself with the alpha male/female of the group, hoping to get a few crumbs and avoid being victimized. I suppose military hardware and movies about gangster heroes might be a sort of reification of this psychological state.

[Recursion]

22. The Iliad comes to mind

We're half bonobo and half chimp, but there's no use wishing the chimp half away.

[Cid_B]

23. Better to be the alpha IMHO...

EOM

[daleo]

33. They don't always live long

And the females tend to sneak off with the beta and gamma males when the alpha is distracted. This has all been recorded by naturalists in the wild.

[patrick t. cakes]

39. Us betas get all the chicks...:)

[daleo]

71. And without all the work. n/t

[patrick t. cakes]

76. .

:toast:

[patrick t. cakes]

25. Any thoughts on an evolutionary impulse for fascination with...

death. Serious question. I don't know, just wondering if death, fear of it, aversion to having it around us
gives us the desire to create "beautiful" things to repulse it.



i guess that could constitute the desire for power.

[daleo]

35. I suppose we try to avoid dwelling on death

That would be a reasonable evolutionary strategy. Religion, art, science, math - I suppose those would all be distractions. As is sex. Booze and drugs too, come to think of it.

[Confusious]

46. It's not a fascination with death

It's a territory thing. Show me one predator that doesn't get pissed when another predator of the same species comes into it's territory.

Territory = food = opportunity to reproduce.

[drokhole]

24. People also tend to forget what those shiny toys do.

Pretty disturbing, murderous shit. Sole purpose. Just finding different ways to kill people. Let me know when a tank can help plant a tree, then I'll be impressed.

[Recursion]

30. When a tank can help plant a tree

My grandfather planted hundreds of trees in his life, and he survived WWII because he had a tank between him and the Wehrmacht. As an example.

[drokhole]

43. Sweet, then so did the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

You know, because of all of the people that didn't die who went on to plant trees after the bombings helped bring an end to the war.

What about the people your grandfather killed with his tank? How many trees could they have planted? People tend to forget that those are flesh and blood human beings on the other side as well.

Sure, I should've been more literal and said "tell me when a tank can be used to plant a tree," rather than "help," to avoid this semantic mess altogether. And the hypothetical extends beyond trees, but I'm sure it can be taken down this same abstract road.

[Confusious]

47. Well those people on the other side of the tank were

trying to kill him as well. and that's one war we didn't start.

[drokhole]

55. Ah, the "they started it" approach, always a great justification on the playground...

...and an even greater way to justify killing someone and dehumanizing their existence - except the fact that those soldiers didn't start anything, their leaders did (and I'd rather not get into the actual minutiae of WWII here...I'm not talking about the soldiers, I mean behind the scenes). And aren't you the one who a few posts up who said this:

"It's a territory thing. Show me one predator that doesn't get pissed when another predator of the same species comes into it's territory."

By that logic, seems like we were the ones invading their "territory."

Anyway, this is all besides the point. My original post had absolutely fuck all to do with WWII. People will make every justification under the fucking sun as to why we can't help but fight (which leads to the fancier and more powerful weapons), my favorite being that "it's one of our base instincts." Yeah, for lower functioning life-forms. We have the unique advantage of cognitive thought, let's use it for a change.

[Confusious]

57. Yes, I'm sure you don't want to get into all the reasons

Because you wouldn't have a leg to stand on if we did.

"those soldiers didn't start anything, their leaders did"

People make choices, either to act, or not to act. We are responsible for our own choices. One could have chosen not to participate. It's called, in your words, "cognitive thought."

"By that logic, seems like we were the ones invading their "territory.""

Really don't know much about history do you? Germany and Japan took territory that wasn't theirs to begin with.

"We have the unique advantage of cognitive thought, let's use it for a change."

You can't stop something until you have a cause. Saying what I did was not an excuse, but a probable cause.

[drokhole]

61. No, I don't...

...because it's a lot more complex than "they are bad and we are good." But go on living like life is that simple.

Yes, people make choices, I'm glad we agree. But you said they (meaning the soldiers this person's grandfather was fighting) started it, I said their leaders did. And you tried to justify fighting these soldiers by saying "they" started it. Regardless of whether or not the soldiers chose to fight, their leaders still started it. You're taking my words out of context.

Never said they didn't invade other territories, just said that we invaded theirs. And pretty sure at some point we fought in Germany and dropped a few bombs in Japan, but you're the history buff here. Also, if you want to be technical about it, they conquered that territory, so it was theirs. Conquering territory is a way of acquiring land, no? Maybe we should ask the Indians, or the countless other cultures throughout the history of time who have had their land invaded, stolen, and claimed. I don't know, could be because the entire notion of owning land is completely fucking absurd. In the meantime, you should maybe check out a book on anthropology in your scholarly history studies to see how many times territories have changed "ownership." Also, look into how/why the U.S. "acquired" Hawaii, because it wasn't a packaged deal with the Louisiana Purchase.

I don't even know what the hell you're saying at the end here (probably explains the misspelled handle), but I'm assuming you're referring to defending territory? Which would be a reaction, not a cause. And, besides, your operating on a false, poorly worded, premise.

[Confusious]

62. Boy, what a convoluted argument

"Well those people on the other side of the tank were trying to kill him as well. and that's one war we didn't start."

Time to work on the reading comprehension. "we" in this case is the United States. Doesn't take much to figure that out.

Your argument is a derivative of the "two wrongs make a right" fallacy. Because we did it, it was alright for the Germans and Japanese to do it.

It's "you're, not "your," and I meant to spell my name that way. Mote in eye and all that.

considering, your barb of a "false, poorly worded," premise doesn't carry much weight.

[LanternWaste]

70. The infinite possibilities of life...

"But go on living like life is that simple..."

The infinite possibilities of life, culture and society allow for (indeed, dictate) that that is indeed the case sometimes. In still other instances, we ourselves force additional layers of unnecessary complexity merely by our own biases and opinions.

Regardless of wholly valid additional possibilities, 2+2=4 is, and can be quite simple if one removes the irrelevant.

[slackmaster]

68. It's only disturbing to people who choose to be disturbed about things they can't change

;-)

[NYC Liberal]

26. I dunno...why do people like to watch balls of rock and ice

flying through space (comets)? Different people just have different interests.

[Aerows]

32. War makes a lot of men...

...get a woody. Men are constantly conditioned to believe that aggression, violence and dominance are the greatest things a man can achieve. Women are conditioned with conflicting messages - they are conditioned that they can be just as violent, dominant and aggressive as men, but they are also expected to be "sexy" while doing it.

It hasn't always been this way. Those of us who were born in the 70's and beyond have been subjected to quite a bit of psychological conditioning towards acceptance of violence due to the influence of television, imho. It's worse for those born in the 80's and 90's.

I refuse to make comments on how this will affect our society, because I don't feel that I have lived long enough yet to do so. I do know that many of prior generations look on in horror at sexual mores, but are at least more squeamish towards violence. Why sexuality is more disgusting than violence I'll never know, but no one asked me when they were implementing the policy on the 20th and 21st centuries.

[patrick t. cakes]

38. Yeah the violence good/ sex bad thing

boggles the brain. Christianity fucked that one way up.

[apocalypsehow]

48. Men are not "conditioned" by the culture or society, but by evolution stretching back millions of

years to react in these ways.

"It hasn't always been this way"

Ahhhh, yes: the old saw about the glorious 1950s and the "Leave it to Beaver" days of societal perfection and you could get a soda pop for a nickel and teenagers chewed bubble-gum instead of doing drugs and....(:eyes:)

Baloney. DNA makes both genders of the human species instinctively react to certain stimuli and situations: it has nothing to do with "society" or "conditioning."

[Zywiec]

37. It's like fireworks on the fourth of July? n/t

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Amonester]

41. Not me, han-han.

If I ruled the world, there wouldn't be ANY weapons in it to look at.

There.


(You're lucky I am not ruling the world, weapons oglers!) :hippie:

[Llewlladdwr]

69. Just out of curiousity....

How exactly would you enforce this weapons ban?

[Amonester]

78. It seems I was wrong thinking it was apparent I didn't need to use the

:sarcasm: tag

My bad.

[BoWanZi]

42. The technology in the planes and stuff is just plain awesome

And what is it about the whole penis thing? I just don't get it. It seems like every time something related to the military is talked about, either a penis or Hitler is mentioned.

[Amonester]

50. It might be coming from the pre-historic 'magic-mushroom' era.

Shamans and the 'phalus' deities made warriors feel like nothing was painful (knives in the back, swords through legs, etc.)

[Blue-Jay]

51. I'm no fan of war, but the P-51 is a beautiful machine.

Designed for war or not, that is a sexy bird.

[Marblehead]

53. TV

and Hollywood

[Throd]

54. Purity of form following function

In this case, the function is often blowing up a lot of shit and killing people. As much as I prefer designs for ultimate beauty, I can also appreciate designs for ultimate utility. The P-38 happens to be both in my opinion.

[U4ikLefty]

56. When they kill your entire family, they stop being so "neat".

We are the big-boys & that is where we get our power, so it's neat.

[Citizen Worker]

60. Weapons are the logical outcome of a severe case of testosterone poisoning.

[Llewlladdwr]

73. 'Cause we all know women never kill. NT

[LanternWaste]

66. Most likely for the same reason...

Most likely for the same (or a related) reason adults are fascinated by extreme forces of nature, children with dinosaurs, the sub-literate teen with post-apocalyptic, dystopian novels, or all of us merely watching a skyscraper being built...

We are fascinated by the unbelievably large or unbelievably destructive.

[slackmaster]

67. They are examples of some of the best engineering and manufacturing of their time

Regardless of when they were made. They're made of the finest materials, and built to take a beating.

[Baclava]

72. I got hooked on planes building models as a kid, had a big collection.

Of course, that was back when they had the good glue.

I can still smell it.



Melted plastic if you used too much, burned good too.

Musta been a boy thing.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

79. There is an inate fascination with items related to mortality as well as technology.

Mortality has fascinated almost all cultures from the beginning of time.
And, being intelligent problem-solving animals, new technology is always stimulating and inspiring.

Often, weapons of war represent the cutting edge technology of the day coupled with tools which define human mortality.

[Scout]

80. i don't think they are neat to look at. i find them boring. n/t