7 ms·
US plans to automatically register young men for military draft
- jjgreen 5mo agoI'd love to but have these bone-spurs, ouch.
- kotaKat 5mo agoWeird we have this technology but not the technology for automatic voter registration, or automatic tax filing...
- toast0 5mo agoDraft registration is compulsory based on residency; registering someone in error has no consequences unless there is a draft, which seems unlikely (no draft since Vietnam, large differences in how the US carries out war since then). In the event of erroneous registration when there is an active draft, past procedure was to allow time to reply and object, including through court process, so an erroneous registration would hopefully not leas to erroneous compulsory military service and associated risks. Not registering has potentially life long consequences that you may not be able to fix after you age out of registration; moving responsibility off of young men and onto the government seems fair. Voting has eligibility requirements (citizenship, felony status depending on jurisdiction of offense) and registering someone in error could induce them to vote while inelligible, which is a serious offense. Automatic tax filing might be nice for easy situations, but there's lots of things the IRS doesn't know and can't realistically know. Like how much capital improvements did you do on your house, and maybe even how much did you pay for your house ... whenever the IRS doesn't know the cost basis, they helpfully assume it is zero and send you a big tax bill... Still for w-2 + 1099s with cost basis reported, it could be easier.
- mchaver 5mo agoIn many countries, having citizenship means you are registered to vote. It is pretty convenient. Just show your ID card and you can vote.
- Y-bar 5mo agoIt is also worth noting that in these countries it is significantly less hassle and lower monetary costs to get an ID card than in the USA.
- toast0 5mo agoThe US has no compulsory ID. Parents are not even required to register births; medical professionals are, though, and a lot of things become challenging without a birth certificate, so I imagine the vast majority of births are registered. It's only within the past few decades that children were registered with social security at birth, instead of later. My siblings and I were only registered when it became necessary to get a credit on my parents's taxes; my parents were registered when they began to seek employment.
- jinushaun 5mo agoBut none of those reasons are technical limitations. They are political. The “system” knows who can vote, even if there might not be a unified system currently to automatically validate that. Same with taxes. These things can be automatically reported at the time of purchase.
- toast0 5mo ago> These things can be automatically reported at the time of purchase. Eh, not really. In my previous house, I redid the master bath twice (because the first contractor did a bad job). They both qualified to increase my cost basis when they were done, but the first time no longer qualified after the second... That's theoretically trackable through some seriously invasive purchase recording, but realistically, not so much. Citizenship is also trickier than it sounds. There's no full and complete register of US citizens to compare with. Better to have someone declare they are, and jail them if they vote and it turns out they aren't.
- mokash 5mo agoin the future no sign-up will be required for misguided adventurism in the middle east and beyond!
- derelicta 5mo agoEverything for Israel!
- hebelehubele 5mo agoYou can't vote, but you can die for Israel.
- nathanaldensr 5mo agoI wish this were hyperbolic. Sadly, the memes have become reality (was it always reality?)
- mingus88 5mo agoAlso, you can be automatically registered for the draft, but automatically registering people to vote is a culture war issue.
- k310 5mo agoWhat if my name is Claude? Am I exempt?
- voidUpdate 5mo agoWill trans men and women be automatically registered too? Since the US military has previously kicked out all trans people
- weinzierl 5mo agoNot sure about US but since another comment linked to an article about Germany, there you cannot avoid conscription by changing gender.
- general1465 5mo agoThe fact that conscription is gender based should be challenged in the courts. Either there is equal society or not
- throw1224 5mo ago[flagged]
- wg0 5mo agoWar hysteria is on peak. [0] [0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/germany-works-clarify-new-rules-fighting-age-men-leaving-country-2026-04-06/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/germany-w...
- RaSoJo 5mo ago>The new rule, proposed by a government agency, would see men being registered automatically rather than being asked to do so themselves within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Honest question: Why is there no such auto registration for women?
- marvin 5mo agoBecause it's a polite fiction that men and women are equally capable and expendable at warfare. Successful and enduring human societies practice traditions around warfare that reflect this.
- 7thpower 5mo agoThere are roles other than infantry in war, right?
- orwin 5mo agoI mean, the mongols were probably the most successful military, taking on armies five times their size with better metalworks. They used women as fighters. Japanese Bushi ('samurai' class) also had women in their ranks, and Celtic traditions had women not only serving in the army, but very often as arms teachers (military instructor), and sometimes war leaders. Some of the army leaders who troubled Rome the most were women. You can also take a look at the Vikings if you want a fourth example. The fact is, western military traditions it sexist for no good reason. Yes, the strongest woman will be weaker than the strongest man. Yes, it you take a sport like swordfighting, the best woman will be at the level of the 50th best man. But we're not talking about taking champions on a 1 on 1 duel here. We aren't even talking about fighting. What really matters in armies is endurance, and women are close enough to men on that that it shouldn't really matter. And even if you want to think of war as a succession of duels, war have changed in the last century. Women are just better as shooting than men, especially when standing.
- apothegm 5mo agoIn fact, women tend to outdo men in extreme endurance competition. It’s part of the trade-off for a lower ceiling on absolute strength. But yes, in modern warfare there are as many jobs if not more that require precision or some level of intelligence as those that require brute strength. Even if fewer of them are right at the front line, they’re just as important. You don’t send a large percentage of women to the front line in wars of attrition because their deaths mean a greater loss of future reproductive capacity than men’s do. But the way countries like the US have waged war over the last 75 years (with a relatively small surface area of soldiers put directly at risk), that’s less of a consideration. The counterpoint might be a border war without massive air superiority on either side like the current one in Ukraine.
- hunglee2 5mo agoUnited States is immune from conventional military attack, the only purpose of mass conscription is to create an expeditionary for invading other countries. You have to wonder whether this may be for Canada / Greenland at some point
- nelox 5mo ago[dead]
- sublinear 5mo agoYes, I suppose it makes no sense to have bases all over the world then.
- apothegm 5mo agoConventional being the key word. Yes, I know that usually is in contrast to nuclear warfare. There’s really no motivation for China to attack the US (they have plenty of economic leverage and that would be far less costly to them than an invasion, and what would they even want with the territory of a conquered US?) but I suspect many of the reasons the US is assumed to be immune to invasion are far weaker in the face of an enemy with far more manpower and a near-bottomless supply of drones that also has the capacity to cut off our access to key parts, materials, and manufactured goods.
- TheOtherHobbes 5mo agoIt's going to be much more useful to register all drones, robots, and AI systems once they reach 18 years of age.
- dauertewigkeit 5mo agoWhy? This seems so anachronistic. In the age of drones and AI, manpower is not going to be your limiting factor.
- elAhmo 5mo agoNations should be led by example, someone who is a draft dodger shouldn't be allowed to become a president. Yet, here we are.
- Simulacra 5mo agoThen Clinton would've never been president, and where would the fun have been in that ??
- giantg2 5mo agoThis isn't as big of a deal as people are hyping it up to be. This (and things like including women) has been talked about for a while now. Men have been required to register for selective service during all recent times. This just saves you the trouble of going to the post office to fill out the form (or maybe it's online finally).
- hilbert42 5mo agoNow all that Social Media, Google account data, online banking info etc. comes home to roost. Unlike Vietnam, one can no longer hide from government in times of unrest. Perhaps that's the wake-up call privacy needs.
- actionfromafar 5mo agoNo biggie, you can always develop bonespurs!
- Eddy_Viscosity2 5mo ago> you can always develop bonespurs I've looked into it, and this ailment is weirdly linked to the wealth of your parents.
- actionfromafar 5mo agoAh, that's the Rich Man's Burden, it weighs heavily on the bone (spurs).
- benterix 5mo ago> Unlike Vietnam, one can no longer hide from government in times of unrest. That's true but you can leave for Canada or Europe.
- tpm 5mo agoFor a total of 90 days in a rolling 180 day period in case of the Schengen area. That's a bit less than needed.
- schnitzelstoat 5mo agoIt's just a change to the already mandatory registration. It doesn't mean they are going to call up the draft.
- InfiniteLoup 5mo ago>It doesn't mean they are going to call up the draft. Are you aware of the concept of "boiling the frog"? 2027: "It's just calling up the draft. It doesn't mean they are going to be sent to the frontline."
- austin-cheney 5mo agoI never registered for the selective service and never faced any consequences. Maybe this is a more efficient means of closing these gaps while simultaneously saving the government tons of money.
- comrade1234 5mo agoNo student loans? No government job? There are consequences but they're easy to resolve.
- austin-cheney 5mo agoI never had problems with any of those.
- comrade1234 5mo agoYou were probably registered when you got a drivers license.
- austin-cheney 5mo agoThe point remains that I never registered. So either registration doesn’t matter or some other automated process did it for me. Therefore the process should just be automated in a single uniform way to save the government money.
- chistev 5mo agoIs this democratic?
- apothegm 5mo agoDemocratic means giving all citizens a say in government. What are you trying to convey with the word?
- chistev 5mo agoOK, wrong word. I meant if automatically registering young men for military service is something that can be done in a democratic society. It seems like you're making young men potentially go to war regardless of how they feel about it. Seems something that is the mark of an authoritarian society.
- srean 5mo agoIf enough people at position of influence fear that a war is coming, the fear itself will realize the anticipated event. Preemptive strikes will be the trigger. There is some truth to, what was it, Soros' reflexivity.
- ChrisArchitect 5mo ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47697670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47697670
- khriss 5mo agoI'm genuinely perplexed as to why this story was flagged. As multiple commenters have pointed out, this is actually not new(e.g you get registered when you get your driver's license). I wonder why flagging brigade on HN has such a thin skin when it comes to anything even remotely critical of the current govt.