There is an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" where Charlie, a character who never gets any success in life (a janitor living in a dump of an apartment, gets rejected by his love interest constantly, abused by his friends, etc) gets really engrossed in an online videogame. He becomes really good at it, and exclaims "I'm thriving! I never get to thrive, and I want to be the guy who thrives for once! It's like when I'm doing good in the game, I'm doing good in real life!"
It feels like there's an interesting insight there - if you're near the bottom of ladder in life (in an area with few/no jobs, have a hard time making friends, have no money for activities, etc), positive feedback loops can be few and far between, and it is very hard to get a feel for whether you're actually making progress or not. Work hard in life, and maybe you can reap some rewards years and years later, or maybe not (working at Walmart 20 years won't make you wealthy, or a respected Walmart executive). But work hard in a videogame for a few weeks or months, and you can have very concrete evidence of your progress. It's not hard to see why people would prefer investing hours in the latter then.
Maybe that's where the appeal of the army lies for some. The very clear hierarchy means you know exactly where you fit, and what the path to the next rung of the ladder is - something that is true in very few other organizations.
It feels like there's an interesting insight there - if you're near the bottom of ladder in life (in an area with few/no jobs, have a hard time making friends, have no money for activities, etc), positive feedback loops can be few and far between, and it is very hard to get a feel for whether you're actually making progress or not. Work hard in life, and maybe you can reap some rewards years and years later, or maybe not (working at Walmart 20 years won't make you wealthy, or a respected Walmart executive). But work hard in a videogame for a few weeks or months, and you can have very concrete evidence of your progress. It's not hard to see why people would prefer investing hours in the latter then.
Maybe that's where the appeal of the army lies for some. The very clear hierarchy means you know exactly where you fit, and what the path to the next rung of the ladder is - something that is true in very few other organizations.