An absurdity. And the Skyhook proposal to end war

Skyhook · An absurdity. And the Skyhook proposal to end war

I don’t consider myself, by nature, to be a very moral man.

No, that isn’t quite right. I consider myself to have strong morals in matters directly relating to me; my conduct with others, people I love, people I care about. Kinda insular in other words. The world at large – the horrors, the wars, the famines, poverty, not so much passed me by, more that I had no capacity to care; the world and what human does to human was too absurd to care about. It’s a poor joke.

Was too absurd, not is.

Yesterday I had a new project handed over to me and the team I’m in. It’s a test machine, I don’t want to say too much here, but it’s testing sizeable munitions shells.
First they are put under an internal pressure of over 400 bar, then moved to a leak test.
Serious figures.

We, I, have to spec this right; it’s dangerous, the risk assessment must be thorough, the guarding must be proved to cope with a catastrophic part failure under test.

After all, we wouldn’t want anyone to be hurt by a munitions shell, would we?

An absurdity.

Normally I won’t care, but it hit me tonight while bouncing my five week old daughter on my knee. These things are designed to destroy. Property, people, lives, to tear families apart. To make hurt that will last generations – and yet here am I researching CE markings and risk assessment for military applications. Wouldn’t want an operator to get hurt would we?

Why do I care now? A short time ago if someone collapsed in the street I’d be first on the scene – not because I care, more that I’d want to go through his pockets. Chortle. War was good tellie. I believe in self-defence. I believe violence is sometimes necessary.

But the randomness of war – that suddenly offends me.

Someone a lot cleverer and mentally cuter than me once suggested war should be outlawed for anyone under the age of 70. I think that is excellent. The older you get the more you value life and the more you realise you have to live for, the more you have to fit in to the rest of your life. 70 year olds called the battlefield would say “bugger this for a game of soldiers”. Literally.

I’d go further. In fact I will, when I rule the world. I shall call Gordon Brown (for examples sake) and the leader of Madeupistan to my office. I shall make this clear. I shall explain, give figures based on historical examples of the deaths each side can expect through conflict. I shall also explain the financial cost of rebuilding the wrecked country.

Then I, Skyhook, Leader of the World will say how it is going to be.

Instead of war, each leader will go back to their own country. They will explain to the populace that in war, xxxx amount of casualties are estimated. But, instead of all that random prolonged nasty war business, each country will hold a lottery and execute it’s own nationals to the requisite estimated casualty count.

First country to give in loses. If the P.M. isn’t lynched first.

I feel this would advance the science of international diplomacy no end.

**

I presented my Grand Plan at work, this afternoon tea break. Unfortunately that’s the problem with working with Engineers – one pointed out that the instead-of-war-execute-your-own idea had already been done by Star Trek. Bollocks.

Never deterred, I thought again. Gawddamn it, I’ve got it this time.

How to settle war.

Two countries have a frank exchange of views, followed by a fracas and mucho loss of young life on primetime T.V.

Not any more. I propose in future, in times of conflict, we settle our international differences by making our leaders have a cage fight.

Oh yes. Imagine Gordon Brown and whoever, locked – welded indeed – into a cage. A fight to unconsciousness, or at least until one ‘taps out’.

Put your own money where your mouth is, leaders of the world.

Giant

I did some work recently in a factory which produces machine guns, which is situated on the outskirts of a picturesque village. The juxtaposition surprised me. Anyway such close proximity to the guns made me feel deeply uneasy, subconciously picturing the situations where these guns will end up.
I read once that humans are not evolved emotionally to kill with guns, if you had to be up close and got covered in blood to kill someone with a blade rather than shoot from a distance there would be much fewer murders in the world. The number of knife killings in the last few years makes me doubt this however.

Gurney

Hmmm.

Cage fighting world leaders to settle 'differences'.

Put me £100 on Putin.

I like your thinking though Skyhook.

Mike Amos

I have to agree with the cage fight business, with a slight twist.

A small-ish island surrounded by a reasonable sized lake. The politicians get stranded on the island to fight it out. Place croccs with chains, limited so they cannot get to the centre of the island and 24 hour cctv. Either the whingers get to kill each other or, the croccs do.

Pay per view television and they would pay for their errors too. Win win....

woof woof

"each country will hold a lottery and execute it’s own nationals to the requisite estimated casualty count."

That's the plot of a sci fi film, I can't remember the name though but it's was planets at war not countries. Same idea though.

I have my own morals and views but I've managed to work on many defence contracts for all three armed forces plus manufacturers and contractors and I've never lost a moments sleep or had my conscience remotely bothered because I think that largely we're the good guys. It's not as if we're working for some blood thirstly dictator. It's a sad fact that sometimes force has to be used for a greater good and yes that's obscene but it's best to blame the bad guys than those protecting lives and freedom.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
Tim Robbins.

"The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer."
Roosevelt.

"(Pacifists are) the last and least excusable on the list of the enemies of society. They preach that if you see a man flogging a woman to death you must not hit him. I would much sooner let a leper come near a little boy than a man who preached such a thing."
G. K. Chesterton.

Bob Sacramento

I can see Skyhook as the new Schindler, sabotaging munitions as they are manufactured. 100,000 shells that when fired explode with a puff of pink smoke, to the sound of the Match of the Day theme, and send glitter and balloons over all and sundry.

Skyhook

It'd serve the gits right for not giving me a pay rise.

'G'

A well meaning, though naive look at war. Human character defects cause war. These can never be fully countered.

Such is the nature of War, the failure of diplomacy that clears way for the removal of normal social rules , then the declaration of war, and the initial 'phony, phase, then the actual killing.

Though within the war itself, there are events here the humanity shines through to give hope for man. The selfless act of courage and dignity that no man can encounter while sweeping up at the Singer Sewing Machine Factory. Then there are the technological developments that benefit us long term. The ball point pen was a winner from WWII, for example.

War will always happen, in some form or another, as some live by that code and have a belief that they will gain from it.

We all die eventually, all we don't know is how and whether it will be an honourable death.

Guitar Zero

The end to war is very simple

Everyone in the army and anyone who is drafted - just..say...no

If both sides experience a mass consciencious objection, there is fuck all the respective governments can do about it.

They can't shoot millions of people for CO'ing (logistics and the simple fact that anyone trying to implement to shooting will be overrun and torn to pieces by all the conchies).

Furthermore, if war is so horrible and all the ickle soldiers want to come home to their mummies - why in the name of Liviticus Horatio P Shite did they join the fucking army in the first place ??

woof woof

"...anyone trying to implement to shooting will be overrun and torn to pieces by all the conchies."

So these conchies will have no conscientious objection to committing murder? Not sure how they'd reconcile that one with their conscience. If it's wrong to kill then it's wrong to kill anyone.

This is something that peace loving activists (and I know that's not you GZ) often forget.

Apex clipper

Guitar Zero

woof woof

Yes, but those examples work best when faced with people like Saddam, Bin La La and Mr Dinner Jacket.

DaveGibson

If you really want to be civilised about conflict, you should copy the ancient Chinese warlords who, rather than having their armies fight one another, competed in a game of Wei Qi (or Igo, as it was called in Japan). Whichever warlord won the game, won the war without anyone fighting.

'G'

"War is the inhumanity that is only too human. "Stephen Guckel(1960- ), Kildrum Parish Church Youth Fellowship 1977.

scamper

Regarding the OP many young men and women are obviously able to square away with themselves actually using these munitions which are made. to a lesser or greater extent.

Skyhook

Aye, and to be fair blowing stuff up is fun.

Scouse · Re: An absurdity. And the Skyhook proposal to end war

TimR

Do you remember when the UN (?) were trying to resolve the Balkans conflict?

They had all sides meet in Geneva to try to get them to sit down and discuss a way forward to end the war and atrocities.

I will always remember seeing news footage from that.
A serious looking UN bod telling the media that they were trying their hardest to get all sides into the same room for a talk.
But nobody would do it.
This went on for days, possibly weeks.

Are we surprised?
They were 'meeting' in some ritzy palace with gold everywhere and the bits that weren't gold were marble.

Meanwhile all their followers were fighting a bloody war in sub-zero temperatures.

My thoughts at the time were that an agreement would be reached a lot quicker if they took all the leaders, locked them in an unheated wooden shack near the top of an alp and told them they'd get no food, water or heat until they sorted something out.

Perhaps I should've pursued a career in diplomacy

Apex clipper

Apex clipper

Mike Amos

I think people have become desensitised to the visuals of war, after all, the pictures of the Basra road slaughter were shown on prime time news and that was just the begining.

The smell, as that someone's guts slide through their hands is something else entirely. Shit, blood, piss and other evacuations will be soon joined by the vomit of viewers. Badly burned bodies and gangrene on the other hand have a sickly sweet aroma. Burned bodies smell similar to badly overcooked pork. A method of ensuring the voracity of the smell o'vision would be to go in to operating theatres across the country to capture them during trauma surgery.

Chuck in some atmospheric lighting and the screams of the dying and you might get the begining of it. Problem is that too many have been brought up on video games where epic slaughter is not only the idea behind the game, it is also rewarded with more points. If I sound like someone who would like to see it all stop, I am.

Pkh72

Mike Amos

I did regular time in the army including some time as a parmedic and then went on to the nhs, operating theatres, a&e, itu etc. Volunteered for the 1st gulf tour where we found tons of sand but no bloody surf let alone turf.

4 tours of northern ireland.
Falklands war.
Gulf war.
nhs.

Seen a few casualties and cleaned up after them too. A particular guardsman from the coldstreamers comes to mind. I did 24 hours standby while doing normal duties, then a 24 hour shift as duty medic and the chap who relieved me on the sunday morning brought his beta max in to show a film or two so I stayed on for a brew before heading to bedfordshire. The film shown first (which I saw) was one of the zombie films and had a scene where a zombie is decapitated by the rotor blade of a helicopter. Just afterwards we were called to an rta, a ferret had overturned. I said I'd go as families sick clinic was shortly to start. When we got there the junior guy was trapped in the overturned vehicle because he ignored an order to stay with it until it stopped moving. We tried to mover the ferret on it's side to get him out but the thing caught fire (exhaust/split fuel line) and the rest is inevitable. Fire suppresor system failed, we later learned the tank was empty. We just could not move that thing with the ambulance or the fv432 apc due to the ground it was on and heard/saw this guy burn in front of us. I took the body to the morgue as I had known him slightly (as a pain in the arse). When we got to the morgue and tipped him into the aluminium casket his arm came up over my head and the fingers clenched around my ear. Burned pork is the other abiding memory of that day.

I still cannot see a zombie in a film etc wthout smelling that damn burned pork.

Pkh72

Blimey, all credit to you Mike.

scamper

BeN

Utmost respect Mike. People who work in the frontline like you are really brave.

I can never do such things. Well I probably would if I stayed in the Navy, but I guess we'll never know now.

Mike Amos

I am not a special case, nor particlarly brave. Most of us are quite capable of dealing with much worse, and many do.

We do as we have to do, we have developed as a species because of that. Fear and the fight or flight instinct only go so far and the average person will just deal with what is in front of us.

I think the worst thing I have had to deal with was my father asking me to help him die because of his cancers and the pain he was in. Thing is, I hated my father and still do, and yet I still found the topic extremely difficult. Strange vagaries of the human psyche mates, very strange. As Sara would say, weird with a capital weir....

Ben, I have no doubt you would do your best in the worst circumstances, being a decent person, you just would.

Chris M Wants a V-10

Shells fly through the air with no passengers so don't need CE marking. The last place I worked, I was involved in satellite propulsion systems. They didn't require CE marking as they were in space with no humans around them, whereas the ground control kit and support equipment did need to be CE-marked (so long as there was more than one of each piece of equipment - a single piece of kit does not need to be CE marked)

Skyhook

However, the shell test machine I'm designing does need CE marking, and some serious guarding.

Frank Bullitt · Re: An absurdity. And the Skyhook proposal to end war

An absurdity. And the Skyhook proposal to end war

Re: An absurdity. And the Skyhook proposal to end war

Re: An absurdity. And the Skyhook proposal to end war