[kyle_morris_]

On 9/11 I was a junior in high school. I joined the US Army in 2003 at 18 and served in the Rangers.

I had a deployment to Afghanistan in 2004 and three to Iraq(2005, 2006 x 2).

I’m 35 now and the wars are finally near an end. Had I had kids younger, they could have been deployed in the same war.

Roughly 7,000 Americans were killed, 50k+ wounded, not to mention then hundreds of thousands of men, women and children killed.

I’m glad the GWOT era is coming to an end and hope we can learn from all the mistakes we made along the way.

RLTW

[scruple]

I left university (hated it, was looking for an out) and enlisted on Thursday, 9/13/2001 (after spending a considerable amount of time talking to my uncle, who served 8 years USMC and ultimately 30 years US Army, my father who spent 8 years with the US Navy, and my brother who was 8 years US Army 10th Mountain Infantry). I was USAF, combat communications. 1 deployment to Afghanistan, 2 to Iraq. I enjoyed my time in, and I wouldn't change anything, but I desperately wanted out when I found myself building pallets for the invasion of Iraq.

> I’m glad the GWOT era is coming to an end and hope we can learn from all the mistakes we made along the way.

Agreed.

[timeu]

We should also not forget that some people got filthy rich with the whole GWOT.

[gmays]

Thanks for sharing. I had a similar timeline--sophomore in high school on 9/11. Joined the Marine Corps in 2006 after college and spent 1yr in Iraq 2009-2010 and 1yr in Afghanistan 2012-2013. I was on embedded transition teams on both deployments, where we lived on operated with the Iraqi Army QRF throughout Iraq and Afghan Border Patrol in Helmand province near the Pakistani border.

There were two distinct moments from my first deployment. One was our team hitting 3 IEDs on one of our first operations and thinking we still had 10 months left. The other was being on a clearing operation, seeing an IED go off and learning of our Iraqi soldiers was killed. I remember feeling my heart break and wondering why we do these things to each other. I'm also glad the wars are coming to an end.

S/F

[polotics]

I had to look up GWOT: Global War On Terror

[webnrrd2k]

"I’m glad the GWOT era is coming to an end and hope we can learn from all the mistakes we made along the way"

I'm curious about your thoughts on the subject - what do you consider mistakes? What do you think the lessons are? Are there books or other resources that you'd recommend?

[nickik]

Afghanistan is the longest war 'undeclared war' in US history. Invaded for one reason destroy AQ (and Osama), and then simply stayed for no real sensible strategic purpose.

The war there will of course not end the country has been consistently at war for 50+ years pretty much. But the US portion of it will end, as the Soviet one did before.

P.S:

Where did you serve in Iraq?

How good was your understanding of Iraq politics back then? How aware were you of the different fraction in Iraqi politics and who was fighting who and why?

That was before all the COIN ideas, so I assume there was little education. Considering you were a Ranger you might have had more insight.

[suifbwish]

Thank you for serving. It is unfortunate that avoidable wars are fought when there very well could be wars in the near to distant future that are not avoidable. With an ever expanding population there will eventually be land disputes which may not have solutions. That’s one of the reasons I really hope we can stop getting caught up in political problems and wasting valuable time on worrying about creating automated income sources and focus our attention on figuring out how to actually live in space

[nickik]

Even after 100 years of the same idiotic logical fallacy the population bomb myth will not die. How many times do these theories have to be shown to be total nonsense before people get it.

Absolutely incredible how we are still dealing with this nonsense.

[suifbwish]

I have no idea what kind of whack you are reading but the population has already expanded to the point where it has been causing social issues throughout the world. What’s absolutely incredible is how there are always those too stupid to grasp simple mathematical limits.

[zrav]

Does any of humanities current resource consumption seem sustainable for an unlimited time to you, even assuming no further population increase?

[nickik]

Yes. Even with 10x the amount of consumption based on current technologies. And 100 or 1000x with future technology.

Again, the same argument and question has been made 100s of years and every prediction based on what population growth implies for the future has not just been wrong, but 180 degrees in the wrong direction. At some point you have to ask yourself what you are missing, when repeating the exact same arguments, with literally nothing added.

10x more humans at 10x more the consumption would be a better world then the one we live in now.

The difference between a resource and dirt depends on technology. The amount of energy potential is almost unlimited, considering solar and nuclear power.

[suifbwish]

Nothing you are saying about 100s of years ago has any validity in today’s times. There has never been a population this size with the technology we have, thus nothing in history can serve as a valid compare to what lies ahead. I knew eventually I would find someone on here posting mouth dribble they heard from their polisci class.

[zrav]

I disagree with everything you said except your last paragraph.

Technology is nice but it has yet to lead to a net reduction of our ecological footprint.

The fact that we are unsustainably destroying our biosphere is supported by scientific research and data. If you don't concede that, I don't see a point in even discussing it.

[411111111111111]

The free market always creates unsustainable rates of consumption while the resources are still readily available.

But I have a pretty dark view on our global societys future as well with the negative synergies between the climate crisis, the ongoing automation effort for less skilled work and the refugees that will be out of a home with the rising sea levels... Let's just say I'm glad Ill likely be dead before it becomes too much of an issue.

[nickik]

Any evidence for that statement? Since we have modern society, or capitalist markets the world population has doubled over and over again, while overall consumption has actually increased and absolute poverty decreased.

Non of it is unsustainable we have not run out of anything, ironically outside of few renewable resources those can actually run out. Things that used to be worthless rocks are now valuable things. Other things that are now rocks will be valuable in the future. The difference between a resource and dirt is technology, more humans in our system leads to more technology.

In fact, the total amount of resources we have and no about now is probably 1000x more then 100 years ago.

Rising of sea level happens slowly, not in one big wave and can be mitigated in many ways as well. The same goes for climate in general.

Technology has been replacing workers from their job with the same speed for 100s of years, the tractor replaced far more jobs then anything we are inventing now.

But I guess this inherent pessimism counter to all evidence we have about similar predictions over the last 250 years, is somewhat systemic.

I just hope to convince people to not take it as far as the 'population growth is bad' people in the 60s when they said the US shouldn't help India so fewer of them can starve now, rather then more later as mass starvation in India was of course inevitable in their minds. Just one of their many brilliant plans for population control.

[SpicyLemonZest]

It’s just not obvious that it’s meaningful to extrapolate current resource consumption out to forever. People have always adapted their behavior as different resources become more or less available. When some resources become too scarce to be economical, I expect we’ll find alternatives or we’ll find clever ways to do more with less.

[zrav]

The behavior you describe is essentially inertia-driven, only producing change when it becomes inevitable. And it'll be the reason we won't manage to prevent most of the ecological collapse that is already happening.

If we don't behave in a way that's sustainable for an indefinite time, we're living on borrowed time. Sooner or later this debt will catch up. IMO the belief that technological progress will save us is naive. The problem is not technological, it never was, but a matter of priorities.

[nickik]

No it not when it is 'inevitable' its when an alternative becomes more viable.

> The problem is not technological, it never was, but a matter of priorities.

The growth of humanity from 100M to 10B was 100% based on technology improvement.