Vaniver comments on Crossing the History-Lessons Threshold - Less Wrong

34 Post author: lionhearted 17 October 2014 12:17AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 17 October 2014 06:46:14PM 1 point [-]

If lots of people are starving but the army is well fed you would expect plenty of people to want to join the army.

Right, but why would the army want to pay them? I would not be surprised if the army had some sort of physical standards that the destitute were unlikely to meet.

Comment author: James_Miller 17 October 2014 07:25:15PM 2 points [-]

I would not be surprised if the army had some sort of physical standards that the destitute were unlikely to meet.

If this were true it would mostly explain my confusion, although I would still expect that fear of future starvation would push many parents to get their healthy sons to enlist.

Comment author: Lumifer 17 October 2014 07:32:42PM 1 point [-]

I would still expect that fear of future starvation would push many parents to get their healthy sons to enlist.

Future is uncertain. You have to balance your sons' chances of dying from starvation against their chances of being ordered to march into the Teutoburg Forest...

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