/lit/ - Literature

>>20171023
>>20171087
The 80's mass market paperback by Ace is still the best cover.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17214.Starship_Troopers

>Does serving in the military filter for better voters as Heinlein suggests in Starship Troopers?

As for the book, when I read it, at first he kinda had me, ngl. Seemed like a good-ish idea. But soon enough I had problems with it.
First, what’s stopping opportunists from going through the army just so that they can vote/become (corrupt) politicians? They could just endure the shit and hope they survive. Or better yet, pull strings/bribe military officers. There’s no mention of this (iirc) in the book, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t IRL. Heinlein thought that after going through the army everyone would be an honest citizen, but I disagree.
Second, does this system filter for good voters? Or are you filtering for people that are good at fighting? I don’t think these two skills have much of an overlap.
Recently, I’ve been thinking that maybe I’ve been committing the Nirvana fallacy. Heinlein wasn’t trying to say this would fix all our problems ever. He wanted to say this would be BETTER than what we have today. And… maybe he’s SOMEWHAT right.
I wouldn’t go as far to go genocidin’ just for a better political system, but maybe mandatory boot camp for ALL citizens would be good (unsure if we should tamper with people’s voting power, tho). There’s always going to be opportunists, but maybe there’d be LESS if we did something like this.
Heinlein’s idea that people would become a little more altruistic in the army is based on the fact that people would have to rely on each other while training. It would make them both more personally and socially responsible, which is good to boost.
And yeah, this doesn’t filter for the ability to make better decisions, the army can’t raise your IQ, for instance (afaik), but I think it can make you a bit more aware and sensitive to others, which should, hopefully, influence your voting decisions for the better.