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Old 02-21-2013, 02:29 PM   #41
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Resocialisation in interstellar marines' basic training

The size of the Imperial Marines doesn't tell us a lot about how selective they are until we know how many people want to be Marines. 11,000 of a trillion is certainly rare (it would be about 4 people in the US), but if only a hundred people wanted it in the first place, it still wouldn't be that selective.

In practice, I suspect the Marines would recruit from existing military structures; it's a lot easier to evaluation people if they have a prior military service record. This makes 'basic training' something they don't really have.
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Old 02-21-2013, 02:48 PM   #42
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Default Re: Resocialisation in interstellar marines' basic training

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The size of the Imperial Marines doesn't tell us a lot about how selective they are until we know how many people want to be Marines. 11,000 of a trillion is certainly rare (it would be about 4 people in the US), but if only a hundred people wanted it in the first place, it still wouldn't be that selective.
Very true. The rate of volunteering is certainly going to be a lot less than the 7% of Nepali men who volunteer for the Gurkhas.

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In practice, I suspect the Marines would recruit from existing military structures; it's a lot easier to evaluation people if they have a prior military service record. This makes 'basic training' something they don't really have.
Unfortunately for such a scheme many of the more populous and better-run colonies have no military. You'd be recruiting police, fire-fighters, park rangers, and emergency management workers. And they might not be too bad.

Most of the colonies that actually have significant militaries use them chiefly as instruments of oppression. A shining record of fervour in burning villages, machinegunning protestors, and throwing dissidents out of helicopters is not much of a qualification for being an Imperial marine.
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Old 02-21-2013, 03:33 PM   #43
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Default Re: Resocialisation in interstellar marines' basic training

Having some who is individually competitive doesn't make them a bad marine, It just need to make sure the Resocialisation process needs channel so they preserve the Marine core's achievements are their achievements. So that dive to achieve the core's objectives.

This might be alot of work if they come from a culture that disparages collective goals in favorite of personal goals. But should not be impossible if the species his family orientated rater then loner in the first place, it's just work on getting the core anf your unit defined as us and not them.
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Old 02-21-2013, 03:43 PM   #44
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Having some who is individually competitive doesn't make them a bad marine
Not necessarily, no. But it doesn't necessarily make them a good one, either. So I think that Icelander is mistaken to assume that all Imperial marines will be intensely competitive.
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Old 02-21-2013, 03:50 PM   #45
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Not necessarily, no. But it doesn't necessarily make them a good one, either. So I think that Icelander is mistaken to assume that all Imperial marines will be intensely competitive.
Well if if the position is disrable and the are significantly more appicates than is ever accepted then it will be a strong selection biases to such competitive ness just to make the cut. The issues is once they made the cut was the press still on ongoing, probably not, but was the press on long enough that they can't let go need to push harder, that's the real question
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Old 02-21-2013, 03:54 PM   #46
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Default Re: Resocialisation in interstellar marines' basic training

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Not necessarily, no. But it doesn't necessarily make them a good one, either. So I think that Icelander is mistaken to assume that all Imperial marines will be intensely competitive.
According to the sort of people who study the psychology of special operators, the most important things that separate successful elite troopers from ordinary people are willpower and drive. I know of very, very few people who are at the top of their fields, physical or mental, without having a personality that drives them to excel. Natural gifts alone aren't enough.

Imperial Marines will need to be able to subordinate their personal competiveness to a higher goal appropriate to the Imperial Mission, but compared to average people, they'll still be insanely competative and single-minded about anything they do.
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Old 02-21-2013, 03:54 PM   #47
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Default Re: Resocialisation in interstellar marines' basic training

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Well if if the position is disrable and the are significantly more appicates than is ever accepted then it will be a strong selection biases to such competitive ness just to make the cut. The issues is once they made the cut was the press still on ongoing, probably not, but was the press on long enough that they can't let go need to push harder, that's the real question
That's only true if the selection is made on the basis of criteria that a candidate can improve with effort. It is not true if marines are selected on the basis of temperament, for instance, or moral integrity.

We're used to ambitious, competitive ********s winning all the selection contests and dominating elite professions such as the bar (where they are actually suitable) and surgery (where they are a menace). But that's chiefly because:
  • we have only lousy methods for assessing temperament and moral character, and
  • we have a destructive tendency to give out places in prestigious professions as prizes.

The Empire is not like us. It has psychological and neuropsych techniques a thousand years more advanced than ours. And it is choosing marines to get a job done right, not handing out prestigious careers as the prizes in a contest.
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Old 02-21-2013, 03:57 PM   #48
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That's only true if the selection is made on the basis of criteria that a candidate can improve with effort. It is not true if marines are selected on the basis of temperament, for instance.
Self-control and mental discipline can improve with effort. It's just as possible for recruits to compete in overcoming all of their mental weaknesses and mastering their impulses as it is for them to compete in physical sports.
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Old 02-21-2013, 03:59 PM   #49
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Default Re: Resocialisation in interstellar marines' basic training

Also the Marines are long service professionals who enlist at 18(ish) and retire at 80 (TL10 medicine). They will go for years and decades between promotions.

My impression is that the key quality is mental toughness. The ability to function well under pressure. To shoot those that need shooting without a second thought. To not shoot anyone that doesn't need it. To not lose sleep about if they make a mistake. And to keep doing it for 62 years.
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Old 02-21-2013, 04:30 PM   #50
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Default Re: Resocialisation in interstellar marines' basic training

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According to the sort of people who study the psychology of special operators, the most important things that separate successful elite troopers from ordinary people are willpower and drive. I know of very, very few people who are at the top of their fields, physical or mental, without having a personality that drives them to excel. Natural gifts alone aren't enough.

Imperial Marines will need to be able to subordinate their personal competiveness to a higher goal appropriate to the Imperial Mission, but compared to average people, they'll still be insanely competative and single-minded about anything they do.
There are three flaws in your argument, individually fatal.
  1. The study is based on personnel in units that had been selected competitively, and is therefore biased. The "successful" special operators have not been compared against alternatives who were selected in another way. And anyway, their success was judged by their winning artificial competitions set and administered by superiors previously selected for competitiveness.
  2. Just because a large degree of drive and even competitiveness might be necessary, that doesn't mean that more is always better, nor does it mean that high values in some other quality might not more than compensate for less-than-extreme competitiveness. Even temper, perhaps. Level-headedness. Flair for tactics.
  3. You are not allowing for the development of high-tech neuropsych technology that can estimate mental qualities other than by measuring success in a striving environment, nor for the social change that would be consequent upon such a development.

I knew a successful special operator, peacekeeper, and soldier once. He rose from 18-year-old second lieutenant to lieutenant-colonel in No. One Commando between 1939 and 1945, won a DSO as substantive lieutenant acting captain, and ended the War commanding No. 1 and No. 5 Commandos. He led with distinction in the Mau-Mau Rebellion and the Malayan Emergency. He commanded British Army commandos, KOAR shikaris, and Gurkhas with success and distinction. But he never rose above field rank because he had no ambition. His manner (when I knew him) was mild and donnish. Sure, he had a competitive streak; like a stage magician he loved to astound people by producing a spectacular success from seemingly impossible circumstances. But he wasn't a hypercompetitive jock. You would take him for a meticulous professional of some sort, like a physician or academic. And it seemed to me that he was motivated far more strongly by a sense of duty, of obligation to society and the Crown*, than by ambition or competitiveness.



* Yes, I am afraid he was a tory. I admired, respected, and loved him anyway.
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