Wow. German women are amazing. So many of them showed up on a recent protest against the decision to force young German men into the army. [1] Let me tell you this: there are countries in the world where women think men *must* be forced into the trenches, while their own carefree life in safety *must* be financed. With all those rotten societies, with all those screeching feminists pushing for widening the gap even further, for even more punishments exclusive to men, for even more benefits exclusive to women, it's easy to become bitter and not see the beauty. [2]

The German women of today reminded me of the German women of a distant past. The siege of Weinsberg, AD 1140. Conrad III, "in his exasperation at the protracted resistance made by the garrison, vowed to put all the men to the sword, but promised to spare the lives of the women." He allowed them to take with them whatever they could carry on their shoulders. What did the women of Weinsberg do? On their shoulders, they carried their men.

Even if this story wasn't historically accurate, it was still a part of the local culture for a long time, which is perhaps even more important.

I would even feel uncomfortable from this patronizing. My factory settings tell me I should rather die than be seen, a big able-bodied man, carried to safety by a woman. This can't be healthy, right? Can it?

Do death-embracing but short-living people bring more value to the world than those who are equally capable but readily-humiliated and long-living? I can't tell. Sometimes you have to embrace death. But when a town changes its owner? Perhaps not.

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[1] A sardonic doubt creeps in on me: did they even understand the punishment was intended for men only?

Not quite relevant to the point I was making in this entry, but still: judging by their signs, a lot of it was less about freedom and more about abolishing all security guarantees. But that's fine. When one side tugs toward "let's force our people into the trenches," and the other side tugs toward "let's get naked and reveal our most vulnerable spots to dictators and terrorists," a reasonable middle ground is found. Germany can easily protect itself with a voluntary army. So-called russia, their most obvious threat, has the economy of one German village, while the Chinese with the Americans won't invade them for at least another half a century. So why introduce compulsion? This is embarrassing. They need to pump those fat stacks into their military technology and infrastructure, research, allies, soft power, gray-zone operations, etc. For example, a lot of the casualties in modern warfare come from drones. The fraction of drone operators in an army is big and only grows. Is it so hard to automate it fully? Do it. (Please.)

[2] Not everything categorized as feminist today is bad. For example, I support women's right to murder their babies.