[ChuckNorris89]

>It will only get higher if we try to intentionally decrease worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a year of their life for public services'.

That's blatantly false. It works in Austria quite well. The healthcare and social service systems would not be able to function without the mandatory and voluntary unpaid 9 months work of the 17 - 19 year olds before they hit off for university.

What worker productivity do you think society is loosing out on here? We're talking about 17-19 year olds, not experienced workers who need to be pulled away from their well paying jobs.

The labor they provide and experience they earn in the social system is far more valuable to society than the taxes they would pay doing some minimum wage part time job waiting tables in a restaurant or flipping burgers at McDs instead.

[buran77]

> The healthcare and social service systems would not be able to function without the mandatory and voluntary unpaid 9 months work of the 17 - 19 year olds before they hit off for university.

Interesting take. Is there any supporting official position on this or just personal opinion?

If true I find it very scary that a country's health and social services systems would crumble were it not for the 3 months per year the teenagers of the country contribute. How do these systems handle the rest of the 9 months every year when the teenagers are unavailable on account of being in school. Why would a healthy society operate at the very limit of crashing down because the natality dropped or parents/teenagers start refusing to provide this service?

Now I've dealt with a lot of trainees in my life. All university graduates, including with PhDs. They all take weeks to months full time on the job until they're ready to do anything productive in the simplest of jobs. I can't imagine teenagers being or becoming anywhere near productive enough in 3 months per year (with 9 month breaks) to support a country's healthcare system from collapsing. And that's not even touching on the topic that you're forcing children to give up what's probably the last carefree time of their lives to do a job they may not want and are definitely not prepared to do.

[ChuckNorris89]

> Is there any supporting official position on this or just personal opinion?

The government figures and claims are supporting this opinion. In fact, it's been the government's opinion, not mine. I'm just quoting it.

>If true I find it very scary that a country's health and social service systems would crumble were it not for the 3 months per year the teenagers of the country contribut

9 months not 3, and yes, that's socialized care for you and an aging population when you have too many people in need of care, and too little contributions into the system since the economy has stagnated post 2008 and taxes are already high enough and no more money can be obtained this way. And it's not just healthcare work, but all social services like kindergartens, retirement homes, refugees homes, etc. that make use of 9 months of teenage labor.

> I can't imagine teenagers being or becoming anywhere near productive enough in 3 months per year

You don't need too long training to be qualified to drive an ambulance or perform CPR. At least not here. Teenagers are quite smart and quick learners if you treat them well.

>you're forcing children to give up what's probably the last carefree time of their lives to do a job they may not want and are definitely not prepared to do.

The military service is forced nation-wide (a system kept through democratic vote), while doing social public civil work is the alternative choice if you feel the military is not for you.

And the children get paid for it, and for many it's the camaraderie and opportunity to meet other young people from other parts of the country/city and make life long friends or meet future spouses while learning useful social and life skills and feeling a sense of self worth for contributing to society, especially in the context of the west having a loneliness and depression epidemic among teens. It's also an opportunity for silver spoon kids of privilege families to get to interact with the lower classes of society and soo how others live, through this kind of work.

You're making it sounds like they're prisoners for life, but they're still free to go binge drinking and care free sex in the south of Spain after.

[buran77]

> The government figures and claims are supporting this opinion. In fact, it's been the government's opinion, not mine. I'm just quoting it.

I believe you but since you're passing this on then you/they must also have more than some words in support. When critical systems would collapse were it not for teenagers being asked to work a job it calls into question both the competence of the leadership to lead and of the people to choose them. There's a reason most countries don't do this beyond basic apprenticeships on limited scale. What happens if this year teenagers start looking more towards the military following events like the war in Ukraine, do those civil services come tumbling down? You and the government make this sound like a country being driven at the edge of collapse.

> You don't need too long training to be qualified to drive an ambulance or perform CPR.

Right? Who could be more qualified to operate a critical emergency vehicle or bring someone back to life than a person who until yesterday wasn't allowed even to vote. What a thing to say...

> The military service is forced nation-wide

Mandatory military conscription is an act of desperation in the face of potential national annihilation. Most countries abolished it and even the ones who kept it start at 18. Is the Austrian civil service conscription an equally desperate move? Or an attempt to raise a "working generation" from as young an age as possible while giving those kids the alternatives "this or the military"?

> and for many it's the camaraderie and opportunity to meet other young people from other parts of the country/city and make life long friends or meet future spouses.

Sure, except literally not because they'd get the very same by going to school or university. They don't need to be forced into a job they don't want because the country will fail otherwise unless it's the only way they'd do it. The only incontestable reason is because it's mandatory, everything else is rationalizing and looking for a silver lining.

[qwytw]

> Mandatory military conscription is an act of desperation in the face of potential national annihilation

Most neutral European countries like Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Austria have maintained it to one degree or another. I don't think it's generally viewed as 'an act of desperation' by most people in those countries or even that unpopular.

[buran77]

Agreed but but that's exactly the point. Sweden and Finland have Russia even pushing them out of neutrality and towards NATO. Switzerland is a big repository of mostly illegal fortunes from all over the world and has to stay neutral to maintain this status, so it makes sense to extend its own defensive capabilities as much as it can. In Norway it's debatable, the obligativity is not enforced. You also have Greece where the conflict with Turkey drives mandatory conscription.

For these countries mandatory military service is very much an act of desperation. Maybe the word doesn't ring the right note in people's heads but it's accurate. If avoiding scenarios like in Ukraine doesn't call for desperate decisions I don't know what does.

But discussing the popularity is moot. The people of those countries understand the necessity driven by external factors. They chose neutrality, not their neighbors, so they have to compromise somewhere out of practical need and the desperation of the alternative. This being said you can only assess the popularity of something when it becomes a free choice rather than obligation.

[ChuckNorris89]

> you can only assess the popularity of something when it becomes a free choice rather than obligation.

Democratic elections and referendums have assessed this and the majority of the population has voted in favor of this system. For better or worse, that's democracy for ya'.

[ChuckNorris89]

>I believe you but since you're passing this on then you/they must also have more than some words in support.

I am not supporting this, I only said it's how it works here.

>Right? Who could be more qualified to operate a critical emergency vehicle or bring someone back to life than a person who until yesterday wasn't allowed even to vote.

And yet at their age they seem qualified enough for the US to send them to war in the Middle East or give them access to TOP-SECRET military intelligence[1] before they're even allowed to drink beer. You're needlessly discrediting youths for a cheap shot at an argument. Those people who barely got to vote, as you call them, are functioning members of society, who were vetted beforehand and given 3+ months of full time training and supervision by licensed and more experienced personnel before they get to perform CPR. Also, CPR isn't that difficult or risky, especially when you don't live in a society of ambulance chasing lawyers where everyone sues everyone for the slightest inconvenience.

> What a thing to say...

I'm not saying this, the facts are. Austrian healthcare and social system, with all its flaws, does a far better job serving the majority of the population, especially the poor and the vulnerable, than the American one does. But let's not get into that right now.

>Sure, except literally not because they'd get the very same by going to school or university.

They go to school and university anyway except with social work there's no grades or exams you need to study for making the time served there less stressful and more focused on the social and practical experience. Plus it's a more diverse setting than university where you mostly meet people with shared domains and interests as you.

>Mandatory military conscription is an act of desperation in the face of potential national annihilation.

You're false again. I don't support mandatory conscription but it's how neutral non-NATO EU nations get to defend their neutrality and provide a detergent against aggressors. The military also has plenty of uses even in peace times, such as natural disasters and what not.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/27/politics/jack-teixeira-de...

[buran77]

> I am not supporting this

Ugh, "in support" of the veracity of the statement. You wrote that "the healthcare and social service systems would not be able to function" without the work of teenagers. I just wanted to know if you have any solid evidence of this. I will assume not, suspect that this is the usual political bamboozle people fall for when an explanation is needed, and move on.

> And yet at their age they seem qualified enough for the US

I'm not sure why you'd bring this into the discussion. It's devoid of value as far as whataboutism goes but indeed, I agree that it's very wrong in that case too. How about this: some of the US also considers child marriage and subsequent sexual relations, or hard agricultural work legal starting the age of 12. Hitching your wagon to the "others do it too" argument can backfire.

I'm sure those teenagers are functioning members of society but their function isn't to be forced into adult jobs at that age. If they want to pursue a career in this have them watch and learn, like any other teenager is expected in school or university.

> I'm not saying this, the facts are.

Just follow what I'm quoting. You are saying that "You don't need too long training to be qualified to drive an ambulance or perform CPR". You're being dismissive of an entire profession as "a child can do it with a bit of training". It's not helping your argument. You actually need more than a bit of experience before driving any car safely, let alone an emergency vehicle in a critical situation. A teenager shouldn't be pushed in this kind of job. They have 40-50 years to do exactly that once they're just a bit older.

> Austrian healthcare and social system [...] does a far better job [...] than the American one does.

That's great. And again I have to say, how does this comparison help? When is it ever useful to compare to someone not doing a good job? This just says you can do worse. Focus on how to do better.

> You're false again.

And yet you go on to confirm that it's how they defend against aggressors, an indisputably desperate situation. That's exactly what desperation means, doing something to prevent/mitigate one of the worst situations a country can be in.

Now I sense that you made some assumptions about me, given the repeated US references. I'm European, my opinion about what the US is doing on internal social aspects, or external military/political aspects could be better. And I lived and worked in Austria for years many eons ago. I hope that helps you put in context what I said. Let me boil it down: let children be children; at the edge of adulthood let them choose where they go and guide them, don't force them, unless there is a desperate situation; use your critical thinking and don't believe (or worse, promote) the vagaries your government sells you when they want something their way.

Anyway, enlightening talk.

[ChuckNorris89]

> You're being dismissive of an entire profession as "a child can do it with a bit of training". It's not helping your argument.

Nobody is being dismissive of anything. I'm just showing you proof that 17 year olds can also be professionals in that field because what is a professional, but someone who received professional levels of training and got certified. Guess what? So are those 17-19 year old boys and girls to the same standards of much older people.

In fact you're the one being dismissive and ageist because you think young people can't be trained to do a job just because of their age.

> A teenager shouldn't be pushed in this kind of job.

And yet they seem to be doing it just fine. And they are not pushed, they can choose for which service they volunteer. They can work in kindergartens, but many choose emergency services because of the practical life skills learned there, camaraderie, and other personal reasons.

> don't force them, unless there is a desperate situation; use your critical thinking and don't believe (or worse, promote) the vagaries your government sells you when they want something their way.

Nobody is forcing them, and it's not my government as I'm not Austrian, and the government doesn't benefit from this as the kids don't do work for the government but they provide work for their own citizens, neighbors, etc.

It seems strange to outsiders like you and me, but this is the path that the Austrian society has democratically chosen for its kids and it seems to be working for them. Why judge someone else because they're different? School kids in Japan also clean their classrooms instead of janitors.

[panick21_]

> You don't need too long training to be qualified to drive an ambulance or perform CPR. At least not here. Teenagers are quite smart and quick learners if you treat them well.

What? I did civil service in Switzerland and while there are some jobs that require CPR courses to be done before hand, in non is it actually expected that you need it regularly. And for absolutely sure will they not let 18 year old drive ambulances, that's utterly insane.

Can you show me prove that in Austria they let 18 year old civil service people drive ambulances? Because I know for a fact this is not happening in Switzerland.

[ChuckNorris89]

https://www.roteskreuz.at/steiermark/knittelfeld/zivildienst...

https://www.tips.at/nachrichten/linz/leben/550309-zivildiene...

[panick21_]

Neither of these are drivers as far as I can tell.

[konschubert]

That's a false dichotomy.

It's not: Do we get a million teenagers or not?

There is a third option:

Let those teenagers join the workforce, use the revenue from the increased societal productivity to hire more professional workers in the health care system.

[ChuckNorris89]

Sure, but if suddenly cut the students loose from their social duties, you need money now to pay for those who will need to be employed to cover in their places, and you can't wait a few years till those students graduate, get jobs and pay taxes to cover those extra jobs. It's a monetary chicken adnd egg problem.

[areyousure]

> It works in Austria quite well. The healthcare and social service systems would not be able to function without the mandatory and voluntary unpaid 9 months work of the 17 - 19 year olds before they hit off for university.

In case anyone is curious, this appears to refer to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst_in_Austria which is an alternative to conscription in the Austrian Armed Forces. Conscription applies to men (but not women), and this alternative civil service option is chosen by ~40% of these young men.

[this_user]

> We're talking about 17-19 year olds, not experienced workers who need to be pulled away from their well paying jobs.

But these people are starting university one year later, which means they graduate a year later, which means these badly needed, highly qualified workers become available to the job market a year later, because they have to spend their time doing some menial job that most of them have no interest in doing. We used to have this nonsense in Germany. Most of the people I know were just goofing off, were drunk or high on the job, or were deliberately destroying equipment, because nobody wanted to be there.

[mharig]

Most of the students do not leave university as high qualified, badly needed workers, but as useless parasites, like lawyers, economists, psychologists, sociologists, ..............

[ChuckNorris89]

Sure, but if you cut everyone loose now, than the whole system becomes understaffed instantly and collapses. You can't wait 10+ years until all those you cut loose have great paying jobs and their taxes pay for the necessary workers.

[panick21_]

I have done social service instead of military in Switzerland where we have the same system. In fact we have to do 1.5 years of before we are 30. I worked in at least 5 (old people homes and hospitals) different positions. In not a single one of them is it true to say the system couldn't function if not for the civil service workers.

Simply paying normal people to do that work would be perfectly reasonable.

> is far more valuable to society than the taxes they would pay doing some minimum wage part time job waiting tables

Yeah but most people don't actually work minimum wage jobs. Me as a Software Developer spend 6 month cleaning windows. While this was reasonable fun and low stress not sure my window cleaning experience has this great benefit for society.

> not experienced workers who need to be pulled away from their well paying jobs

You start your job one year later and therefore spend 1 year less doing it before retirement, not sure how this is difficult to figure out.

[eska]

It seems like you do not realize that the 30 year olds who don’t flip burgers and make more than minimum age were once those 19 year olds whose career you’ve delayed by 1 year.

[ChuckNorris89]

It's the system the democratic voters have voted to keep.

[eska]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

Is this even something people voted on directly or is it just one point among many in each party’s total stance to vote for?

[jakub_g]

Do you have some links / google keywords about the teenagers working in healthcare/social services in Austria?

[panick21_]

If you are interested in the Swiss system:

https://www.ch.ch/en/safety-and-justice/military-service-and...

If you want to see open positions for the system you can see here (not in English):

https://www.ezivi.admin.ch/ivy/faces/instances/eZIVI/PublikB...

You can search for different keywords to find open positions. For me personally I worked in:

- Hospital as a Programmer (they made position for me)

- In another hospital as Technician (hanging up stuff, changing light-bulls, assessing damage, configuring doors and so on)

- Old people home, I worked for in technical service, including garden work.

- Old people home, I also worked as a cleaner, mostly windows, floors and so on.

In the hospital you can also work as a bed mover for example. You can work directly in old people care and things.

In general there are 100s of position, some position are even going with international aid organization to other countries. A friend of mine did his in archeology departments digging up old stuff. Another friends simply did farm work with a mountain farmer, that's the easiest to get (he in fact simply was to lazy to get a job so they assigned him to a farmer).