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Net Addiction Gets Finnish Soldiers Out Of Army
nerdb0t writes "Reuters is reporting that the Finnish Defense Forces have allowed some men to be excused from military service because of 'Internet Addiction.' The service period is 6 months - but that's too long away from the internet for these guys. Is this a joke? Is this a legitimate illness? Hm..where can I apply for disability..."
Actually, they were not excused from military service, they were sent home and told to grow up and return in a few years for another try.
Seems to me six months on duty, away from the Internet, just might be the cure for this terrible illness.
Did you think we couldn't read your sig because it just wasn't bold enough? I cannot fathom why you would bother to put your URL in the message text when you already had it in your signature. Trying to invite negative metamods?
Recall that about half the country is above the arctic circle, so cell phnes and computers are great when you can hop a reindeer to visit the next village over. They probably have more net addicts than Korea, since the Internet is an easy to stay in contact with people when it's -20 out.
They also have one of the highest rates of alchoholisim in Europe, and I wonder how many people get waivers for that each year.
But really, what self-respecting Army would pass on a soldier because he spent too much time practicing his BFG9000 skills...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Modern medicine is so advanced that there are no healthy people anymore
The purpose of the Finnish army is to defend Finland. It's purpose is not to psychologically damage its recruits.
Boatloads of people are zombified by television and movies, at least these soldiers were (hopefully) doing something interactive online, and possibly learning useful stuff. I'd rather be addicted to something I can learn from, than television full of infomercials and Jerry Springer.
The internet IS like an addiction. I personally would go nuts without it - my mind just needs to be stimulated with the overabundant torrent of information... It gives us the ability to access anything, anywhere without much ado, and crutch or not, it gets pretty damn addictive - and is something the mind doesn't want to part with...
Take something as simple as a word dictionary. Are you more likely to page through a 600+ book or quickly pop onto www.m-w.com? Exactly... We get used to that. And when we get denied Internet, its almost like sensory deprivation - losing a sense of touch with the world...
Or maybe I just need to get some sleep...
P.S: BTW, great excuse to avoid the army...
Some might argue that military service IS a treatment program of sorts...
(Mind you, internet addiction was not my reason for not going to the army - my "work computer" during my service was a glorious Schneider 386SX with W3.11 and no net connection. But during my year I got exceedingly good in Solitaire. ;-)
I just heard a mention of this on the news. Someone was quoted as saying "for people who stay up all night playing computer games and don't have any friends, military service can be quite a shock."
I'd say such people need that kind of shock more than most.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Maybe some of us are tired of dealing the supposedly civilised "animals" in the city. You know the ones that look like walking billboard advertisment and try to murder people with their shitty ass driving skills.
It does seem to have less of a point what with NATO and all, but then again, the security of your nation isn't something you want to solely trust to others. Espically if all of Europe took that view and the US became the only NATO member with any military power to speak of. Would you REALLY want to rely on America as the sole source of your secrity if, say, the Norwegians got mad about one too many Viking jokes and decided to invade?
Ok, ok, I know it's not real likely to happen, but do recall that there was a mand only around 50 years ago that was hell bent on conquering the entirety of Europe, and I seem to recall in 1939 Russia invaded Finland, and Finland won much to the supprise of most of the world. I'm just saying it's not an all bad idea to have your own army.
when it comes to military and army, finns still live 30's. it's almost a crime to say a negative word about army in finland and finns haven't never been honest with their ww2.
it's funny when finns are like "we are the only one who have ever been able to stop the attack of super power". i think they haven't never heard about vietnam. finnish army is nowadays for patriots, who want to scare finns with the "big bad russian folks behind the border". only scenario where i could see use of finnish army is against domestic rebellion. i don't see there's any possible outside threat to finland.
army of finland is the same kind of crap that every other state army in the world.
"that lots of cannon fodder with machine guns, which is about all conscripts are good for, can't hold a candle to technology."
This is a load of garbage.
You're forgetting that the Iraqi army lacked the _will to fight_. You need good leadership and determination to effectively defend a country. The U.S. got there easy.
Try Finland. We have a reserve of about 350000 men and over 500000 can be mustered in total if necessary. Want volunteers? Wage war to Finland and you'll find half a million volunteers right away.
A good demonstration of the will and skill of the Finnish conscript army is the Winter War during WWII when the Soviet Union, with ten times the resources, failed to occupy Finland.
Just like you, the Soviets thought they would beat Finland in a matter of weeks. They never did.
It's really not just their addiction that excuses them from serving their country.
First of all, they're not excused but their service is postponed.
I think the main reason is their lack of interest and ofcourse they are in a such a bad shape that it's impossible to manage the armyduties.
I mean that if you sit in front of your computer for 12 hours a day and then you suddenly have to wear 30-40 kilos backpack and told to march 10 kilometres.
Second, you don't just pack you'r backpack and march the distance, before that you jog, go to the gym, run everywhere you are going and do marches with battle-gear only. Nobody in the army is so stupid to think that a normal guy could just all of a sudden become fit enough to do that, come on.
There are different physical standards in the finnish army of course, and for example paratroopers have to be in great condition just to get accepted for training but the normal finnish conscript starts physical training gradually and should be in the best condition after ten or so weeks of training.
The secret to a successful
The question is, should this 'addiction' be treated in the first place?
On one hand I think claiming to be 'internet addicted' to the extent that you cannot cope without the internet is a joke.
On the other I would consider myself to have a dependancy on the internet which could be classed as a mild addiction - I begin to feel like a part of me is missing when I need to spend a prolonged time away from the Internet.
I imagine the main reason I am so dependant on the Internet is convenient access to informaion. If I stumble accross anything I don't understand, or something I would like to know more about, I can obtain a wealth of information and endless user opinions after a few google queries.
When I am at a computer, I almost consider it to be an extension of my brain. Whilst my own brain keeps a record of personal memories and knowledge, the Internet lets me augment my own experiences and knowledge with that of other people.
Spending most of my life with access to the internet at my fingertips, I have got used to (and to a certain extend dependant on) the ability to instantly recall any phone number someone gave me 12 years ago. Or the ability to consult thousands of experts in any specialised field and receive a response within a few seconds. Or the ability to instantly share my experiences and discoveries with others who may find it interesting/useful. When that access isn't possible, is it that surprising that I feel as if something is missing?
Is thirst for knowledge really an addiction that should be treated like a mental illness and cured?
> All finnish men have to do their military service, which is 180, 270 or 360 days.
Not true.
They can come to any decent EU country (like the UK) and not do it. We are not still living in the 1900's.
Finns can tell their government to fuck off, but so many find it's easier 'just to go along' with things and not rock the boat then justify that to themselves later (with some spurious trite reasoning).
It amazes me that a nation of largely intelligent people fall for the propaganda that national service being useful, and that governments in countries like Finland and Germany still manage to get away with it. In reality it's a barbaric anachronism and in the face of so many other countries that have had it in the past having now phased it out, or having announced plans to end it, people in Finland should really be questioning this rather than going along with the idea out of a sense of tradition. The lack of recognition for conscientious objectors in Finland is something I find particularly morally repugnant (and let's not even get into the sexism debate).
It would have been phased out by the EU by now, if it hadn't been for the dissent of countries like Germany that are so dependant on it for the success of the state, where it's used to make up for a shortfall of civil service employees (and so to allow the state to get away with not paying real wages) but that's a different matter that has to do with poor, neigh incompetent governance, it that's not a valid excuse for keeping in place a system of forced slave labour.
The overwhelming chorus of advice from renowned intelligence organisations like Janes continues to be that it's not a way to create any sort of useful military force, and that's it detrimental to overall performance of what should a dedicated and professional organisation made up exclusively of people who want to be there to do what is a very important job.
My advice to people in Finland would be to just go and live in another EU member state like the UK, where we don't force people to signup to work for the government (and where they don't get to tell you what weekends you can go home and what ones you cant).
We don't have national service and it's precisely because of that (and because we do the Right Thing (TM) and choose to pay to have a large, competent and professional army rather than trying to scrape one together from kids who don't really want to be there) that we have one of the most powerful armies in the world (in the top 10, after the USA, India, Russia and Korea (north and south)). For such a small country, that's not bad going, and vastly better than the majority of the rest of the world, even with their swelled ranks fluffed with conscripts.
Given the evidence against it, and the insistence by the intelligence community that it's not only of no value, but can be of negative value it's a wonder people still do it. It all comes back to 'doing what's right' vrs. 'doing what's easiest'. If more people had a backbone it would have been abolished long ago, the army would be stronger, the people would have more freedom and they'd be quite a bit happier.
With a society that has the kind of outlook they do on issues like this, perhaps it is not surprising that Finland has the highest suicide rate of any western nation.
Finns, the government are there to serve you, not the other way around. Do yourself and your entire nation a favour and them to get stuffed. National service costs your nation money overall (through lossed taxes, equipment and wages), it doesn't give you a useful fighting force and it is part of an oppressive environment that harms the physiological well being of the nations citizens.
From the USSR's point of view Finland is the gateway/blockade to the entire Nordic penninsula, which is the most obvious staging area for attacks on Britain and North-Western Europe available.
Additionally, western Norway is the nearest thing the USSR has to a defensible set of seaports usable in the depths of winter.
If WWIII isn't just an unlimited ICBM exchange (unliklely I know), then Finland is gonna get it in the neck in the first few minutes, purely for blocking the way into Norway and Sweden (or possibly for blocking the way into St Petersburg, it really depends who's on the offensive).
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Well - the European countries contribute quite a lot of aid, plus their policies and international behavior are not quite as openly arrogant.. That, plus Europe being more willing to challenge Israel on their policies and actions, means that the evidence that "Europe is evil" is less convincing than the evidence that "America is evil".
And - Europe don't export quite as much crap music and crap movies..
Do as I say: Try to see things their way, don't nitpick and talk about "the reason" - I didn't.
Stop the brainwash
In one of the local neswpapers is a story about this, it say that the biggest reason is the very different life-rhytm. It's about a marginal group of yong men who havn't had anyone controlling their habits, they haven't been woken up at 6:00 and nobody has ordered them to do anything, they have been living without any limitations. When suddenly all this is true, they can't handle it. Net addiction is not a disease as such, but the other symptoms are, and they vary; panic disturbances, pressure handling problems and other psychological factors. These guys only have online friends and suddenly living in the same room with 10 other farting people is too much for them.
They go on to say that these people are examined later (1-3 years), and that most of them are rid of the addicion at that point and then they can continue their service. About 80% finish their military service.
-- [Partly (shamelessly) quoted and freely translated from "Iltalehti" http://www.iltalehti.fi ]
No sig. Go away.
A sibling post describing the issue in more detail makes it sound like "internet addiction" is mainly a euphemism for "lazy, undisciplined and poorly socialized".
Finland UK
Land area (km2) 305 000 241 590
Land boundaries (km) 2 628 360
Population 5 214 512 60 270 708
GDP (USD) 142 billion 1 664 billion
Annual military budget (USD) 1.8 billion 43 billion
Available manpower 1 200 000 15 000 000
How do you suppose we could create a paid army to protect a bigger country with long border against Russia with a fraction of the budget? A paid army of 40 000 would cost three times more and would be able to defend only part of the country.
You make it sound like we live in the North Korea or something. The conscription is preferred by 79% of Finns according to the polls.
Unlike Americans, I think most Finns don't consider the government to be evil or sinister. The government _does_ serve the people as we live in a well-fare state (at least for the time being) and this is what majority of the Finns want.
P.S. You really did the Right Thing (TM) with Iraq... It really improved the safety around the world.
It is not the army's task to straighten these boys out. You should not focus on the internet addiction part, that is only one symptom of many. I suppose you have never trained 18 year old recruits. I have. There is no time to teach someone how to lace their shoes because their mommy never did (these types really exist). Shouting at them does not work, throwing them in the brig does not work, physical violence against them is not allowed (and I don't think it would work). Strangely, a few more years as a civilian usualy works wonders, after which you have a recruit who is actualy of some use, instead of an annoyance.
BTW, the 2 countries which used to be poor and became rich after the World Wars are Switzerland and the US.
Pre WW, the US wasn't so much "poor" as "isolationist." Just the US's behavior in the world wars (lend/lease et al) is enough to prove that.
We are very proud of our Finnish men. Eight-two percent of all Finnish men manage their whole military service," Kivela said."
Wow, impressive. 82% of their men are able to handle an entire 6 months of military service. That's barely basic training and AIT, why bother?
US contributes 'quite a lot of aid.' But you are right. There is nothing openly arrogant about anything done in Europe. After all, they are willing to criticise Israel on everything it does but are 'sensitive' enough to turn a blind eye to every other injustice that goes on in the world. The Spanish ellections where influenced by terrorist attacks. France is becoming a scary place to be if you are visibly religious (with both anti religous policy and hate crimes at an all time high). All in all, Europe is looking to become a 'United States of Europe' and I am not convinced that they will flex their power as a superpower any more responsibly then the US did.
It's almost as if this world we live in has countries that do thigns that are both good and bad. America is a big place. it does a lot of questionable things. it does a lot of bad things. and it does a lot of good things. same can be said of europe. I'm sick of everyone trying to pretend the world is a dicotomy and proclaiming everything evil or good. This isn't starwars. There is no 'good side'
And europe, like the US, has both some of the best music. And, like the US, Europe has some of the trashiest, cookie cutter music one can imagine.
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist