How did men willingly face death in war?

Most people today would do anything to avoid this fate. I can't understand how so many millions in history so willingly died for a cause.

Ceasing to exist for an idea you'll never see take hold. It just doesn't make sense

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People back then held these silly values of patriotism, loyalty and honour.

The first step is to find a cause worth killing for.

Then you might come to find that it's also worth dying for.

Most soldiers in history were professionals whose purpose was to face death for money and loot.

Pride, honour, excitement and lust for glory get men to become soldiers

Shame and fear keep them there

Many millions of them didn't have a choice and were drafted.

Desertion is always an option. Often its a very good option

Large scale wars raise the intelligence of populations who fight them, because intelligent people are more likely to survive. Intelligent people survive because they are more likely to be both cowards and deserters and the vast majority of deserters dont actually die

>Most people today would do anything to avoid this fate.
>People back then
Why do rightist retards project their personal failings onto society at large? Plenty of people today would be willing to risk their lives for a worthy cause if it came to it. Just because YOU wouldn't do it doesn't mean everyone else is as spineless as you. Now get the fuck out of here with your rose-tinted glasses bullshit.

These are also true. Not every soldier went into battle willingly or for selfless causes.

That doesn't answer the OP's question. Just because someone is drafted doesn't mean they will fanatically fight and die for the cause they were drafted into. And yet millions of draftees fought and died fanatically for their side throughout history.

One thing I don't understand is how anybody would have the ability to fight before modern guns were invented.
Like fighting against spears, that sounds terrifying, you could have your eyes gouged out, body pierced, instantly. Or charging through arrow fire when you KNOW that deaths among your unit are expected even if you also know you'll win decisively.
Am I just soft?
Was it just the threat of being executed by your side that enabled people to actually fight? Can I even have a perspective of what fighting was like back then?

i dont mind dying in a war. i already done everything i want to do anyway.

Fighting was a lot easier before guns and artillery, since your own ability had some meaningful impact on your chance to survive

Plus actual combat tended to be very brief and adrenaline is a hell of a drug

Also modern weapons inflict far more horrific injuries than primitive ones

>Shame and fear keep them there
This. Not wanting to appear cowardly in front if your buddies is a powerful motivator.

Lots of veterans talk about not wanting to let their mates down, how they couldnt live with the guilt if they gave up and let something horrible happen to their friends

They didn't, in a lot of cases. Phobos rules the battlefield, as the old saying goes. There's accounts of how people would lose control of their bladder in the fear of waiting for the battle to happen.

The reality is that in the actual BATTLE part of the battle, where the two sides were fighting, the casualties were pretty damn low. What caused most deaths in a battle was when one side lost confidence and tried to run, and then the enemy routed them.

Camaraderie. You get recruited with some guys, train with them, march with them on campaign, get to know them really well and rely on them through the hardships of the soldier's life.

Then when shit hits the fan and you're under attack, you have to choose to run or to fight. If you run, you'll be betraying your friends and letting them get killed so that you can survive. If you fight and kill you're doing it out of love of them.

>am I just soft?
Yes but that's normal, killing is an unnatural thing for humans. Our instinct is to avoid conflict with other humans when possible, and when it's inevitable to keep it nonlethal if possible. Everyone is soft before they actually become soldiers and train.

This. As Joan Baez said, “If it’s natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?”

It's natural to fuck too, doesn't mean you're good at it the first time.

>this whole post

This is why pre-industrial armies fought in formation.

You might want to turn and run, but you've got another rank marching right behind you that's blocking your path to flee, and your officer is probably only a few meters away.

Mental training, user. Not weapons handling and stuff. People naturally want to fuck, and they aren't repulsed by the idea of it.

t.

And yet learning to fight is only a tiny part of soldiers training...

This. Military training isn't just so you know how to use equipment, it's also to break you down to the point where you are mentally capable of killing.

t. retard
Fuck off

Because we're all descended from the ones who faced it and lived. Not that fathers don't die in warfare, but every single person in your genetic history was a winner because you exist. Winners think they can win.

>Because we're all descended from the ones who faced it and lived.
Unless you're from the Isle of Man.

Rational cowardice is also strongly selected for. We're not descended from delusional idiots who thought they could survive and win.

>some poor dirty peasant living in a mudhut is a winner because his poor dirty wife shat out 15 kids for him

No I mean the Isle of Man is so small and irrelevant that it's never had to fight.

>>some poor dirty peasant living in a mudhut is a winner because his poor dirty wife shat out 15 kids for him
He's more of a winner than the poor dirty peasant living in a mudhut whose kids all died.

Don't be obtuse, you knew that I meant winner in the sense of natural selection, not in a moral sense.

Thats literally how evolution works. Survivakl of the fittest, not survival of the best

1. Propaganda and ideological processing - a story about the atrocities of the enemy. It causes a desire to avenge the enemy for his crimes.
2. Support of the strict discipline and morale of the troops
3. penalties up to the death penalty for deserters and pacifists
4. Patriotism, you are defending the fatherland

Well, survival of the best at surviving.

That's not even true. The fittest aren't the ones that survive, Darwin never said that. What is said is that the species most likely to thrive are those most capable of adapting to rapid, drastic changes.

>The fittest aren't the ones that survive
They literally are.
>What is said is that the species most likely to thrive are those most capable of adapting to rapid, drastic changes.
Those are the fittest species.

What if I told you, you're going to die no matter what.

What if I told you that you that death is dead

>The fittest aren't the ones that survive
Its not about survival, nothing survives. Its a competion to have the most children who survive to have children of their own, thats the actual definition of fitness. You can measure it

>Ceasing to exist for an idea you'll never see take hold.
1) The odds that a soldier would die are not 100%
2) Even if you die, people you care about may get to see the future you fought for.

Not survival of the individual organism, survival of the lineage

>Not survival of the individual organism, survival of the lineage
Which is determined by having the most children who reproduce themselves

Tell that to conservative Abrahamics.

I think the honest answer is they were uneducated. The internet allows the majority of modern people to understand the true nature of the world and the universe and understand how insignificant and arbitrary the concept of a nation is

But in the past people did not have this perspective. All they knew was what their lizard brains told them, that their tribal group was special and the others were dangerous and had to be killed

Ideological ndoctrination and nationalistic brainwashing is a hell of a drug.

This
I honestly don't think people really GET the concept of pre-firearm warfare. Imagining standing in in the very first row of a square of men, spear in hand, and marching directly into a square of enemy spears is absolutely horrifying.

You're boxed in from all sides, and the sheer amount of numbers on the other side means that your chances of stabbing the other guys while not getting stabbed yourself is ridiculously low, no matter how 'skilled' people would like to think they would be. You probably wouldn't even be killed on the spot, you'd more likely get speared in the leg or shoulder and fall over. And then its just up to luck as to whether if you'll get trampled by your guys, finished off by theirs, or left to bleed out or dehydrate to death.

This is the dumbest argument I have ever read

>killing is an unnatural thing for humans
That is so incredibly naive it's almost cute. Humanism was not the universally accepted moral system it is today, human life was very cheap in the past.

Fear, propaganda, delusion, ignorance, opportunity (for the hopeless), draft (force), etc

Back then you could loot and rape, sounds a lot more fun than going to war to serve your country or some bullshit.

>What caused most deaths in a battle was when one side lost confidence and tried to run, and then the enemy routed them.

This. Disease was also a major problem in armies up until the 20th century, which could often thin out an army's numbers. So even that could effect the outcome of a battle.

You wouldn't know anything about being a man, and nothing I could tell you would make sense to you.

>i-i-i'd totally die for something once i find that one thing i really believe in!!!

maybe you'll find it with the next ted talk

You realize that even though there were no digital databases at the time, men who deserted would be recognized as such if they went back home. Many of them joined up into bands with other deserters and lived off banditry after deserting.

>this thread
psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_trance

>killing is an unnatural thing for humans
>he said, fully knowing that humans fucking murder each other all the time

Money (yourself), country (your welfare), family and friends (your connections) and God (your soul).

Most murders are committed by people without military training.

This. Don't forget that ISIS managed to get loads of westerners to abandon their comfy lifestyles to go die in a desert.

Training and discipline aside, there's a certain amount of comeradery you develop with the men you fight with where you feel willing to sacrifice anything for them. That's part of it

Joy in war is something that only high-test males enjoy, you'll never understand it, go back to play some mario bros sipping some rice milk bro

Yes but back then battles generally didn't last long enough that disease was the major factor. It was a major factor in the overall war, but not a battle.

I mean, Waterloo was considered horrifically long pre-WW1, and it only lasted 3 days.

sup reddit
Wars are dysgenic, they select for cowardly weak men. Look at modern europe after the dysgenic effects of two world wars. Europe is in serious decline

Training and discilpine is a big factor. If you ever played sports you would know, martial sports even more so.

Problem is so many modern faggots itt are soyboys who haven't done anything even remotely masculine in their lives and were raised on tablets and trap porn.

Back then you'd be taken from your mediocre life as a peasant, you and your bros would then be trained over and over (if this is a serious country, if you a conscript then gg this is why they were useles). After monthes of training with your bros your morale would be really fucking high, you knew how to kill and all your bros did. You have full confidence you can fuck the enemy up to the point that you WANT to fight. This can be seen in good armies.

There are still wars going on as we speak and men (and some women) doing what you're describing.

I pray for war soon. I have never accomplished anything well off in my life. I would happily give my life or become a killer for war because as it sick as it sounds I envy veterans back in the 40s or other who got to die or kill in glory. Everyday I hope the situation with North Korea comes to a point that will lead to war. I’ll be the first to sign up, I’ll happily believe I lived and died for it. I’m not even that Patriotic, I just want something like this to happen.

By the time they realize the situation is suicidally hopeless it's too late

>Waterloo lasted 3 days
What
The first fighting began about 10 AM, and the French were in full retreat in the evening of the same day.

Join the fucking Peshmergah then, 1 vs 1 in Rust, real life.

Jesus christ what a fuckin' brainlet

It was what everyone else was doing. People would rather go to their deaths than be different.

Shit, what Napoleonic war battle am I thinking of that lasted 3 days?

>Rice
>Not soy
You had one job

Thats mostly shitholes, and often for retarded reasons (ie. muslims blowing themselves up for their garbage religion)

Woops wrong guy
Meant this one

You realize you can volunteer right? There are special ops fighting all over, it just isn't widely covered.

t. Soyboy