My reptilian brain tells me this is dangerous. But my frontal cortex tells me to run towards the giant teddy bear and hug it:

https://twitter.com/CosyCIub/status/1384203558967406592

What happens when discipline breaks down in a mostly-draftee army? When conscripted soldiers are asked to risk their lives in a war that they know is ending soon? This.

Think a large population of "McNamara's Morons" in the ranks had anything to do with the high rate of fragging in Vietnam?

We don't need no education:

https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1384482280526290944

The customer is not always right:

https://twitter.com/Cynical_CJ/status/1384186707231141900

Is that a sea serpent or are you just happy to see me?

https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1379801962691096576

Millennials are in charge now aka this is a fun read:

https://developers.google.com/style/word-list

Here's a charming passage of text on the computer internet.

Conan the Grammarian at April 20, 2021 8:47 AM

It's extremely gratifying that you're aware of this. (There's a book about it which I haven't read, but I've heard the author speak about it.)

I was too young to even register, but a brilliant older brother decided that if his number came up, he'd go, because otherwise some less-blessed kid was going to go in his place.

Newspeak, a thread:

https://twitter.com/GPIngersoll/status/1384475454585856002

Guilty. Happened to be looking at Drudge when it happened.

They're still gonna burn the city to the ground. The difference is that this time will be with a happy face instead of an angry frown.

Name the victor of this battle royale:

https://twitter.com/InternetHOF_/status/1384543782310404098

@Conan: "Think a large population of "McNamara's Morons" in the ranks had anything to do with the high rate of fragging in Vietnam?"

In my experience, most of the mentally deficient are less violent than the average, and quite unlikely to get away with any crime that the authorities care about. So unless many of the fraggings were solved with the conviction of a moron, I don't think they were due to morons in the ranks.

OTOH, the cluelessness (and unfeeling, unthinking politicians and political-generals) that led to such things as Project 100,000 (and rating success by body count, capturing the same hill again and again, etc.) must have often been the ultimate reason for troops of normal or high intelligence to frag the most accessible representatives of the top brass.

> I don't think they were due to morons

But it's all relative, right? to a 150 IQ, 105 is demented. Nonetheless, there's a point in human competence where the rubber meets the road, where shallowness of cognition is less easily tolerated.

The fuzzy edges of the circles aren't rendering artifacts, they're the source of the illusion.

A fun tweet and replies.

In my experience, most of the mentally deficient are less violent than the average.... ~ markm at April 20, 2021 8:37 PM

The truly mentally deficient may tend toward being less violent - in a normal societal setting. However, this is in a war zone. And we're not talking about the "mentally deficient" here. We're talking bout people with an 80 IQ, people who are functional within a societal setting. 80 is considered by some to be the threshold for independent functioning.

And even if the "Project 100,000" admittees aren't the ones doing the fragging, how much of their presence in the unit drove the smarter folks to despair, to the feeling that they were going to get killed by officers who tolerated stupidity in the ranks?

Not to mention that McNamara's Folly included inducting soldiers with criminal records, histories of violence, and many who were physically unfit. So, "McNamara's Morons" included individuals predisposed to indiscipline and violence.

According to the book, these are soldiers who often made errors that cost other soldiers their lives, whether from enemy fire or from stupidity. One, as a joke, threw a live grenade into a crowded tent.

From a review on Amazon of McNamara's Folly:

At first I thought the problem was Robert McNamara. I was astounded that a brilliant military analyst could believe that morons could have their IQs raised to acceptable levels through the use of video training. Now I have read in the book that it wasn't just McNamara. Lyndon Johnson believed in it. Daniel Moynihan championed the idea that putting low IQ men into the military would provide them with the skills and work habits that would allow them to escape from poverty. The fact that they were seven times as likely as other soldiers to be killed in combat, and that they had to be constantly watched to prevent them from killing themselves or their fellow soldiers was never even considered.

Even today there is a widespread belief in government that a year or two of extra preschool is all that we need to raise low ability children to compete with average kids or that a quick train program will find work for those displaced by jobs exported to China.

The low IQ members of society are not going away and we do them a disservice to send them to war or to the job market equipped only for failure.

So, I'm not saying the low-IQ soldiers did the fragging, but wondering how much their presence added to the anger and frustration in the ranks that led soldiers to frag their officers.

So, I'm not saying the low-IQ soldiers did the fragging, but wondering how much their presence added to the anger and frustration in the ranks that led soldiers to frag their officers.

Conan the Grammarian at April 21, 2021 9:25 AM

Don't discount the times this happens in every war to every rank. My father had just walked up to his tent with a friend to retrieve something when a suicidal man jumped on a bomb down on the flight line and yanked the arming mechanism out. Thirty men were in the kill zone. Body parts rained down on them two hundred yards away. New Caledonia 1943 I believe.

I think you'll find that reports and research from the area of criminology/penal science, a large number of the incarcerated also have lower than normal IQ. And they are anything BUT docile.