One factor that may explain this is that critical thinking is in a sense compartmentalised in intelligence functions.
Air Force Intelligence Officers do analysis, and their soldiers do analysis. However, in the Navy, intelligence sailors do analysis but there the officers are drawn from a common pool of naval officers under complex selection criterion (and not advertised to the public. This further emphasises that job design occurs as a crude greedy algorithm where the first generation of Officers where assigned the general job of defence and designed subordinate functions and roles from there, who in turn delegated responsibility downward without propogating information back up (which would be more like a neural network).
I want to take this opportunity to discourage any LessWrongers from joining the military, intelligence or not: In a year, a garison’d armu unit of 338 personnel sustained 242 neck, low back, ankle, patella and knee ligament injurie. It’s the only public study of its kind AFAIK. And they weren’t even infantry soldiers. That’s an obscenely high rate of injury. Joining the military, even if you’re not in combat, is probably bad for your health. The author doesn’t go into categorising the injuries into chronic and acute, but presumably some of them are chronic. I wouldn’t want to endure that after discharge. I already have chronic pain. I don’t want you to want this.
My story is that I underreported medical symptoms, mental health in particular when I first wanted to sign up for the ADF, then after putting my application on hold to study more, when I had to redo a medical form, I reported more issues (I overreported things which I didn’t quite had—self diagnosed). The nurse wasn’t happy about this. The biggest issue was the second time I DID report the mental health issues, but when the nurse interviewed me about these due to her concerns over the discrepencies betweeen the first time and the second time, I lied out of shame and said I only saw a psychiatrist twice, just went on one antidepressant for a short time and no other medications, and that was about it. And that my back pain was just temporary and not a big deal. She asked for details of these in writing from my GP to confirm. Unfortunatley I had already disclosed the identity of my GP and location of the university health service, so I really would have to go back there and ask for them to send their summary to the military who would see that I’ve clearly lied. I’ll no doubt get blacklisted straight away from the job, but also from like any security clearance. I reckon I could probably still get a job in a foreign military partner of Australia, like the United Kingdom or something. However, I reckon that the intelligence sharing agreemnts could possible mean they also share personnel security info. Its unlikely, but mite bite me sometime in my career—and I’ve demonstrated I’m shit at lying and would probably fail a serious security clerance thing anyway! I just have to hope that the foreign allies will be cool with my honest mental health admissions and such, and go for jobs that don’t require any serious clearance! I made a mistake, but I’ve learned a lot!
Call me a pussy but becoming say a medic in new zealand, while extremely appealing for the low barriers for entry, in-demand qualifications and practical skills I’ll gain, not to mention cash, community and respect, may not be worth it given how cold NZ is in the Winter!
Update 2016: I still haven’t squashed my military adventure fantasies. I need to remind myself that I’m not likely to be much more fit about military experience because I would like to become injured, particularly because of my history of muskeletal injury. ’Osteopath Paul Raw agrees: ‘I’ve seen a lot of ex-soldiers with bad backs because the idea of military-style training is to push yourself beyond your limit. This means the likelihood of eventual injury is high. It’s a British thing I think, to assume that exercise must equal pain.’ I really ought to cut out my option by telling the recruiters about my chronic pain, so I don’t do something rash, gradually. Or, perhaps if I just push this idea aside I’ll stop compulsively thinking about it. Maybe intrusive thoughts on the matter should be indication enough that it’s an unhealthy idea.
Legion is out too. It also seems that the minimum 2800-meter (1.7 mile) run in 12 minutes cooper test score for the legion is harder than a level 10 beep test so I ought not to try for the Legion, given my weak fitness!. Comments like this make it seem even less appealing: ‘....are not very sanitary, so watch as you are in the marching and chow line to the people that are blowing snot-rockets bare-handed or coughing into their hands and plunging them into the huge bread baskets, this is probably how I became sick. ’
One factor that may explain this is that critical thinking is in a sense compartmentalised in intelligence functions.
Air Force Intelligence Officers do analysis, and their soldiers do analysis. However, in the Navy, intelligence sailors do analysis but there the officers are drawn from a common pool of naval officers under complex selection criterion (and not advertised to the public. This further emphasises that job design occurs as a crude greedy algorithm where the first generation of Officers where assigned the general job of defence and designed subordinate functions and roles from there, who in turn delegated responsibility downward without propogating information back up (which would be more like a neural network).
I want to take this opportunity to discourage any LessWrongers from joining the military, intelligence or not: In a year, a garison’d armu unit of 338 personnel sustained 242 neck, low back, ankle, patella and knee ligament injurie. It’s the only public study of its kind AFAIK. And they weren’t even infantry soldiers. That’s an obscenely high rate of injury. Joining the military, even if you’re not in combat, is probably bad for your health. The author doesn’t go into categorising the injuries into chronic and acute, but presumably some of them are chronic. I wouldn’t want to endure that after discharge. I already have chronic pain. I don’t want you to want this.
My story is that I underreported medical symptoms, mental health in particular when I first wanted to sign up for the ADF, then after putting my application on hold to study more, when I had to redo a medical form, I reported more issues (I overreported things which I didn’t quite had—self diagnosed). The nurse wasn’t happy about this. The biggest issue was the second time I DID report the mental health issues, but when the nurse interviewed me about these due to her concerns over the discrepencies betweeen the first time and the second time, I lied out of shame and said I only saw a psychiatrist twice, just went on one antidepressant for a short time and no other medications, and that was about it. And that my back pain was just temporary and not a big deal. She asked for details of these in writing from my GP to confirm. Unfortunatley I had already disclosed the identity of my GP and location of the university health service, so I really would have to go back there and ask for them to send their summary to the military who would see that I’ve clearly lied. I’ll no doubt get blacklisted straight away from the job, but also from like any security clearance. I reckon I could probably still get a job in a foreign military partner of Australia, like the United Kingdom or something. However, I reckon that the intelligence sharing agreemnts could possible mean they also share personnel security info. Its unlikely, but mite bite me sometime in my career—and I’ve demonstrated I’m shit at lying and would probably fail a serious security clerance thing anyway! I just have to hope that the foreign allies will be cool with my honest mental health admissions and such, and go for jobs that don’t require any serious clearance! I made a mistake, but I’ve learned a lot!
Call me a pussy but becoming say a medic in new zealand, while extremely appealing for the low barriers for entry, in-demand qualifications and practical skills I’ll gain, not to mention cash, community and respect, may not be worth it given how cold NZ is in the Winter!
Update 2016: I still haven’t squashed my military adventure fantasies. I need to remind myself that I’m not likely to be much more fit about military experience because I would like to become injured, particularly because of my history of muskeletal injury. ’Osteopath Paul Raw agrees: ‘I’ve seen a lot of ex-soldiers with bad backs because the idea of military-style training is to push yourself beyond your limit. This means the likelihood of eventual injury is high. It’s a British thing I think, to assume that exercise must equal pain.’ I really ought to cut out my option by telling the recruiters about my chronic pain, so I don’t do something rash, gradually. Or, perhaps if I just push this idea aside I’ll stop compulsively thinking about it. Maybe intrusive thoughts on the matter should be indication enough that it’s an unhealthy idea.
Legion is out too. It also seems that the minimum 2800-meter (1.7 mile) run in 12 minutes cooper test score for the legion is harder than a level 10 beep test so I ought not to try for the Legion, given my weak fitness!. Comments like this make it seem even less appealing: ‘....are not very sanitary, so watch as you are in the marching and chow line to the people that are blowing snot-rockets bare-handed or coughing into their hands and plunging them into the huge bread baskets, this is probably how I became sick. ’