Every American should have to spend about a year in an active war zone
Summary
A straphanger pitches mandatory gap years in active war zones instead of backpacking through Europe. The initial pitch gets pushback, but Kareem's convinced once the rider clarifies: no weapons, no protective gear, just vibing in South Sudan to build empathy. The system includes a placement test determining your war zone assignment based on life experience, with refugees as the sole exemption. You'd get assigned to a family and help out by cooking or whatever's needed. The straphanger argues Americans are too desensitized to war as scrollable content and need real exposure to understand its horror. Kareem shifts his position completely. The take is wild but weirdly earnest about ending conflicts through forced perspective.
Full Transcript
So, what's your take? Every American should have to spend about a year in an active war zone. 100% disagree.
Oh really? Yeah. I don't know. That sounds like a little bit like the draft.
Well, it's like a draft, but you go with no like weapons or protective gear. Oh okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you just go there to vibe. Think of it as like a gap year, you know? Like instead of like taking a year before college to like go backpack in Europe, we just like drop you in South Sudan. And there you learn that war is bad. Most people will learn that hopefully. I just think everyone here, you know, we're a little desensitized to the reality of it. You know, we see like whole wars go by as content in our feeds. I just think it would help. It would probably create a lot more human empathy.
Exactly. That's the exact goal. Do you get to pick the place? I think there's going to be like a test, you know, like you take a test and that determines like what kind of war zone experience you should have. Like if you already kind of like grew up and had a tough time here, maybe you do like three months.
Okay. Or you're exempt. Is anyone exempt? No one's exempt. Even if you're like a refugee from a war torn country, I feel like they—
No, that's an exception. Okay, that's an exception. That's the one exception. You've already seen the war zone, you're good.
And what do you do? Are you like helping at all? Maybe cooking. You get assigned a family, I think, and you just try to like make it.
That's insane. I think it's just like we've done enough of like, you know, drinking in Ireland and like it's like, you know, and it's cool. You come back to college and you have like a fun icebreaker like, "Oh, what was your war zone like?" You know, like it's a good way to bond with people. I think this would probably end a lot of wars. Absolutely. I 100% agree. I've shifted my position. Send everyone to a gap year in a war zone and let them see how bad it is.
Thank you so much for changing your mind. Does that happen a lot? It happens every once in a while when there's a good take.
Wow. I feel good. Congratulations. Thank you.