As someone who served in the military, I can tell you the military has zero interest in weapons they can't control. Do you know what happens to an enlisted soldier who wins the lottery? They are removed from service. That is because controlling a soldier's pay and free time are two ways the military controls the soldier. If you have all the money you need, why would you care if they cut your pay? In fact, why would you care what they tell you to do at all? So, you quickly become a disciplin problem and thus you are involuntarily promoted to civilian. So it would be with super heroes as well. The only way supers would be in the military is if the military had a way to punish them when they step out of line. How do you punish an invulnerable super being who can single handedly wipe out your whole army? You can't. Thus, the military would have no control, and without control, superheroes would just become loose cannons guaranteed to get soldiers and civilians killed. End result, no sale. So, no, superheroes would NOT be military contractors. Now, could they be black-ops contractors which the government could disavow any knowledge of? That is a whole different story...
@@EXPENDABLE50 Hey bear look to your left see the other bear? Push button bears head pops like a melon hit by a 50 cal bullet now sit down and shut up Good bear now who wants to go kill Ossama bin Ladin's clone? You do! Such a good boy! Pat pat.
@@Barskor1 Actually, the addictive nature of Compound V is more of a negative than a positive for the military. However, the cranial bomb has possibilities...from a science-fiction/comic book story perspective, of course...
Vought was a military contractor first in the comics, they even had supes in WWII, as did the USSR and Nazis, but they were so incompetent that the government banned them from military use.
@TookALevelInBadass weren't all of those after WWII? I remember the supes that ended up leading the Nazis to their base to kill everyone and the defunct guns in vietnam but nothing else.
@TookALevelInBadass But once it came out what an incompetent company they were and how crappy their products were, no one would do any business with them and they wouldn't have survived their WWII failures. In the Private Sector, it's not enough to be politically connected...you need to have results.
@@stevenbrown1225 I think it was mentioned that he might not have been able to stop all the nukes in time, but it's been years since I've last read it.
@@stevenbrown1225 he was growing more and more disinterested in human affairs over time. Hell my man's didn't even bother to wear clothes. Ozymandius ended up convincing him tho and Dr. Manhattan ended up like "mm k, seems legit" and ended up leaving Earth for Mars
The government tried to weaponize nerf footballs to make football-shaped, anti-tank grenades. The idea that the government would be uninterested in literal superheroes is beyond unrealistic.
Perhaps Goldberg and Rogen are looking at war in their interpretation of The Boys from the outsider perspective. wheras those more familiar with the underpinnings of war and how it shapes civilization know that the race for territorial, fiscal and technological leverage doesnt stop simply because those two nations are not in direct conflict. and that leverage influences all other things. peace, trade etc.
Can't the supes be treated as nuclear or chemical weapons though? I think it would be realistic if there is an agreement between all countries to not use weapons that are just too spooky, like homelander. But yeah, they didn't mention any of it in the show so...
@@khinlop the only way for that to happen is if everyone has supes. But if your in a room of people and only you have a gun, why would you listen to the rest of the room full of potential enemies
Wasn't it stated in the show that Vought was being fought against becoming a government contractor, not because the government wouldn't do it, but because all those other contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman etc have a lock on lobbyists and support in order to prevent Vought from getting funding and in turn, losing funding the other contractors would get.
So why wouldn't those companies recruit supers? The Super Serum to make them could be obtained through industrial espionage or poaching employees or reverse-engineering it from blood samples taken from conflicts with criminals unless they are all just that damn tough not to bleed.
@@Barskor1 they'd be behind the curb if they start making what vaught already has on the shelf. Plus their is no guarantee of getting something like a homelander even for vought, they make hundreds of them and they still have to audition and see if they are good enough to join the seven or just be a part of a lesser group. Nothing stops vought from burning down the competition with homelander, he could go to the enemy plant and blow it up. It would just be a lab accident in the media
@@EXPENDABLE50 If you are not doing anything you are not even on the curve. They can only take action if the Know where to strike and as simple as it was for you and me to figure out so would the fictional people involved they would keep it secret till they had an opposing force capable of not being burned to the ground like chumps.
@@Barskor1 how long would that take? How much would it cost? It would be cheaper and easier to just lobby for supes to stay out than try to make a homelander in secret while spying on a company that has a mute Batman. Which is why they just lobby and only lose the battle when enemy supes came into play
Again, the point is that Vought would not have been able to exist *to begin with* without government protection and contracts. Period. Vought's model doesn't work without it, for lots of reasons explored in the video - notably because they would be liable for the massive destruction and other crimes their "heroes" cause, and because the only people who would finance the billions in R&D for developing supersoldiers are governments and people who have excellent reasons expect government contracts to be the end result. Lockheed wouldn't want to compete with Vought if Vought *already* had this technology and would probably lobby against them... But that's not how this works. Lockheed would be first in line for the DARPA contract to develop the tech in the first place. As for the idea that no one could compete, that's silly. You could say exactly the same thing with all kinds of real world technology. Many companies make tanks, fighter jets, attack boats, missile systems, drones, and on and on... First mover advantage is a thing, but it's not that important.
Ehh.... I don't agree. Vought's primary business model (definitely in the comics, if not in the show) is entertainment and special appearances. They create movies, TV shows, comics, and rent out their "heroes" to show up at events. As written, they're *mostly* a PR firm. Yes, some of their heroes do work for city governments to fight crime, but even then it seems mostly in service of generating press opportunities.
@Hugh James-Berry the whole point of this video is why the second half of your point here makes no sense. The only way for Vought to have gone through the years (decades?) of R&D to create superheroes to begin with would have been through government contracts... cause that's how WMDs and "super-soldiers" are actually developed. It's not just an issue of "oversight", it's also about having billions of dollars coming in for a product that has no buyer besides the state. Furthermore, as I said, as Hughie says in the series (and the clip in the video), superheroes have qualified immunity "like police", which is a form of legal protection *only* governments provide to themselves and their own agents. No private citizen has qualified immunity for anything we do. The only time this happens is when government is directly involved. And in that arena it happens a lot. Soldiers generally can't be prosecuted for the damages they cause, police are nearly impossible to charge with crimes, and even state-owned companies can gain immunity from stuff they do wrong. For a good comparative example, consider the Ixtoc Oil Spill wherein the Mexican state-owned company declared sovereign immunity and avoided liability in 1979 vs. any private company spill like Deepwater Horizon, wherein BP was ordered to pay $62 Billion in damages and cleanup. There's only one way to avoid these kinds of costs and it is to be working for the state. And as I already discussed, the policing thing is mostly PR... as you can see by the fact that they send film-crews along with the superheroes and send them to crime scenes and based on the fact that none of the Seven actually spend much of their time doing anything but public appearances.
@Hugh James-Berry PR is going to make the city of Baltimore *look* good, though. They are doing "something" about the crime problem. Regardless of what the actual results may be.... Which is largely how governments actually operate.
Ergo Proxy definitely, and I did notice it. The comparison to Hollywood IMO works more with the superheroes, how they are made to act in the public and how the public eats it up. I especially enjoy the “washed-up” heroes like the deep and the comparison between him and washed up celebrities.
@@shamirquinones8607 In the beginning I hated the deep but I love all the scenes where he tries to actually do what he considers as good and then it just gets sea creatures killed in brutal ways xD. I know thats terrible but its so funny
Jonathan Bauer I really liked all of that too. He definitely got what was coming to him. I’m a softy though so after the sexual encounter he had with that fan that was really rough with his gills, I started to feel bad for him. I hated A-Train much much more.
When I watched the series, I thought much the same as this video. A superhero is a weapon. Why on earth would the military not want a proven, effective weapon? After giving it a moment of thought, I guessed that the problem is accountability. Would the supers fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice? Would they follow orders from the chain of command? Basically, would Homelander do what you tell him? How do you punish him when he doesn't? The military works by stick and carrot. You get honored for following orders, and punished for disobeying. Supers already have the accolades in their civilian lives. And no one could keep Queen Maeve in the brig if she didn't agree to stay. Supers have no motivation to follow orders. And that, I think is the core of the problem. No one in battle wants a weapon that may or may not work. When I pull a trigger, I damned well need to be sure the bullet comes out at the right instant. I do NOT want a bullet that second-guesses me, and that is what the supers are.
RavenPlaze I love how what you say here totally parallels how comic book writers and publishers used superheroes to boost soldier morale and propaganda in World War 2. Very interesting... And I personally believe that superhero’s have no business fighting in human conflicts like that. What they should do however is ensure that non combatants are not targeted. And prevent soldiers from committing war atrocities. Which would kind of make superhero’s on the battlefield like glorified referees. Which is something we could actually really use in war zones... Its crazy that in practically every war from the 20th century to now. Civilians have suffered far more than the “soldiers” fighting the war ever have! Maybe instead of having a Veteran’s Day we should have a Civilians Day?!
@@superbrian7997 It was more so a reflection of how common household tech is generally developed for military application years before it's available to civilians; cell phones are a good example.
@@ravenplaze8972 Because the military uses money and punishment to keep ppl in line. You can't punish these superhumans and you cant take away their finances seeing as they are celebrities.
You're missing one key component in all this. The government doesn't want sups in the military because of the potential of them going rogue. The first rule of military spending is you never field something that you either can't completely control, or can't deny use of to your enemies if they capture it.
The supes are the fucking worst ppl, if they rlly had to go war it wouldn't take long before they realize that they shouldn't be taking orders from anyone on the front lines and start botching missions, then going rogue and star7t fighting both sides to take over the world, if they could easily take one side why wouldn't they build their own art, and take the world
They wouldn't, which is why they would militarise superheroes into following orders, or by paying them large sums of money. How does Vought control the superheroes?
Yup. we flock to fiction for the order, closure and certainty we often cant get out of life. Its also why in creative writing, teachers advise storytellers to have some level of predictability.
@@khinlop Considering the Actual Archimedes proposed using sunlight as a weapon and may have used it against the Romans truth is stranger than fiction.
Monopoly of violence, every nation is based on that, it means that the government is the only entity that has the right to use lethal force. Without it you couldn't have a legal system and law enforcement.
If I remember right, the politicians' stance was that Vought would obsolete all other firearm sellers and kill their business, which would not be in favor of most politicians since they're most likely closely tied with those firearm companies, whether it be their leverage in the political scene or business relationships. And as for the origin of the compound X, I'm not familiar with the original comics but in my opinion, it wouldn't be a stretch to think that it was originally developed by some biochemical technology company since genetic engineering specifically on designer-baby is realistically a current trend in the field (though still in a very early stage irl ofc).
@@Quincy_Morris The board of directors of those weapon companies are not elected by the people, they are selected by their private owners. In fact, it's the private owners of those companies, that also own the news media, that convince people to vote for the politicians they want. The politicians don't own them, they own the politicians! You're the one seeing it backwards. And the "supers" is a metaphor for the drone program. That will also turn all other firearms obsolete. But you're right when you say they depend on the government, it's just that they control the government to keep their game going. NOT the government controls them.
2:24 well i dont know if "the boys" in the show is gonna take a similar stand as the comic book. but it the comicbooks ... vought has a long history if failing the military in big way. the military not trusting them comes for years of them abusing that trust.
I think the only point that might be somewhat counter to your argument is that Vought didn't spend time on R&D, and their product was not created by a private company- Compound V was created by Nazi German scientists, but too late to do anything and in the confusion Vought somehow lucked out and got hold of the recipe before the defense department (maybe they were founded by the guys who looted the recipe). Then, their first 2-3 'products' basically weren't marketable- They had a nazi, in stormfront, the guy that proved V worked, and 15-18 years later they had Homelander, and black noir shortly after. But I think they might have been basically keeping the whole thing hidden at that point- they knew homelander isn't stable enough to have exposed to the public without management (hence black noir in the comic), as he would have been if they went straight into being a defence contractor, and stormfront would be even worse, given if anyone worked out who he was the whole thing blows up in their face. It should be noted that they're guilty of a ton of crimes in starting to produce super heroes, so you keep the 3 guys who can let that slip carefully managed. Hence they end up operating as a PR firm, managing their three heroes appearances and contact with non-Vought employees in order to keep it under wraps. Then when the later waves of heroes raised, for free, by volunteer families, Vought is involved in their marketing because that is what it is in place to do, being a company that primarily employs marketing & PR people. Also getting the police contractor exception was probably a lot easier when it was for just 3 dudes, as it has to have been for about 2 decades before the first post homelander/noir batch matured in private homes with no input from vought- its not as if it was a far reaching ask, because there's only been 3 of these people born in all of human history (then, miraculously, more start turning up!? who would have guessed?). I still find it dubious that they'd have managed all this without being caught or being a private contractor, but it is worth noting that they don't really have any people employed in tech development or the other expensive parts of military contracting that we actually see, so their expenses for that probably wouldn't rule them not being one out automatically.
"Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading." ~Thomas Jefferson. In all of human history we have known conflict. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not war is in our blood and inherently a part of our nature as humans. We could no less remove that part of ourselves than we could make the sun set in the east. I like the idea of peace as I see it, which is everyone minding each others business and no ill will towards anyone. But I don't think it's within humans for this to be possible. That all being said I think the best example of human peace was in the show The X-files where Fox Mulder got wishes from a genie and wished for world peace. What happened next was that Mulder was the last human or animal on earth, and I think that is the only way peace can be achieved. When there is only 1 human left in the world then there will truly be peace. Loved this video, but just disagreed when it came to talking about peace as anything obtainable through human effort.
Yeah, sadly the main reason why we don't have world wars any more is because of the existence of the Mutually Assured Destruction weapons. (For a counter-exemple, look at the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war.) And we're not certain how stable that arrangement even is, it's not even been a century...
For nearly sixty years no two countries with McDonald's were ever at war with each other. The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention is still mostly true. When other people have things we value and we are engaged in trade with them the desire for a war between both groups evaporates. I agree that true utopian peace is possible but I believe a rough sort of world peace is already being initiated. The proverbial carrot is the fact that we are engaged in trade with every developed nation on earth. The stick is the fact that if WW3 happens humanity will return to the stone age, assuming we don't completely irradiate the planet and kill everyone. Between the carrot and the stick, I think we as a species will be fine.
@@BlueTemplar15 Don't forget the Carrot. We trade with everyone. One of the many advantages of globalism is that we all rely on each other for the goods or services we're the best at producing/providing. Why go through the costly process of war when you could just buy the materials you need? The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention is half of the two-sided coin that is 'world peace.'
@@brendenshouse5807 no my friend, in fact globalism and trading is just another starting point for war. Firstly, when two countries become economic rivals selling the same product, cooperation between the two is unnatural. It's a human instinct to destroy whoever can pose a threat. Imagine for example two kids in class who have the best grades. they will always be rivals and try to outsmart the other one. But more importantly, in second place, Globalism will eventually lead to dominance by one economic superpower upon others. You ay argue this creates peace, but this will also create immense Imbalance and a monopoly of sorts for that very country, leading to fascism that destroys anyone who doesn't bow down to their will. In the end this inequality and imbalance will lead to a counterbalance. Another power rising to rival the current leader. The outcome of this is inevitably war between two rivals striving for global domination. We saw that happen before and we see it happen as we speak. War is a characteristic part of humanity. Whatever way humanity invents to escape war, it will manifest in a different way.
Kiyan Hakim If no matter what we do to prevent conflicts and it will always present itself in another way, there is really nothing else we could do. I don’t know how many more repeating cycles of peace and then utter destruction humanity can go through before some unlucky events causes our extinction. I really pray for humanity that we will be able to bounce back from all of extinction level events in the future as we have done so in the past. If we get lucky and get our shits together maybe the oncoming destruction we’ll only set us back to the stone age. But at least we will survived, and at the end of the day that is the best that I can hope for.
Well... They don't, really. Luxottica has about 14% of the global marketshare for eyeglasses and their next nearest competitor, Essilor, has about 13%. There are a ton of other companies that also make and sell eyewear that (together) control the other 73%. So that's not really a monopoly at all, though anyone who has 14% of the marketshare on *anything* around the world is doing very, very well... and certainly there are legitimate criticisms to be made around their pricing and deals with retailers, though probably not quite as severe as stuff like Adam Ruins Everything would want you to believe. ARE tends to forget that value (and thus, prices) are subjective... and that people are paying a lot of money for things like designer eyewear not simply because the cost of materials is high, but because the designer label carries with it an improved sense of status and style. This is the same reason people will buy designer handbags and dresses. *I* don't particularly value that stuff, and so I personally think a lot of it is a waste of money... but other people don't value what I value, and it's not really my place to tell them how to spend their money.
@@brackcarmony6385 unclear who we are talking about now. Individuals spend their own money on eyeglasses... Or they make contracts with insurance companies or elect government bureaus to agree to pay (which BTW, is part of why stuff like this gets expensive), Luxottica isn't actually forcing people to buy their frames. There are clearly several big competitors.
Fun fact: one of the test subjects of the MKUltra was a young Ted Kasinski, who would later become the Unabomber. Seems like the CIA failed to create heroes, but excelled in creating villains...
One the one hand, peace is an divine thing to strive for. On the other hand, humans have been warring since Cain killed Abel. I didn't hear anything about defense, only demilitarization. Si vis pacem, para bellum If you want peace, prepare for war
That's right which is why we should isolate all "non favorables" into an isolated area. If we give them back to their country we would just be feeding the enemy. To get ahead in this "facade of peace" we should strike first hard and fast before they even know what happens. Eventually all those detainee become POW's and we instantly have the upper hand. Anyone that offers us peace exploit that generosity and instill our will over theirs. War is a game of life and we must succeed in order to win. So if we play first we win. We can nuke the world for all I care as long as that god damn flag with the red, white, and blue stands who gives a fuck. We won and that's all that fucking matters. Who cares how many bodies we need. Not like anyone is going to bother to remember them. So we're essentially doing them a favor in order to perserve my way of living. I would die before willing to compromise with anyone. Why offer my trades and goods when I can just pull a gun to their head and get what I deserve. If it's a free world than it's ours for the taking. It's our god damn right to take up arms. We are the masters have history so as long as we win we will always be the "good guys". (I don't really think that way but it was sure fun to type it out!)
Jonathan Okay its weird that you mention Cain and Abel because I was just playing Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines and the Vampire society’s entire belief system is based on Caine...who they believe was the first vampire.
@@jaydenshepard7928 maybe it was another caine haha, I don't think the Bible mentioned anything that would make cain seem like a vampire unless they altered stuff for the game. Interesting thought tho
@@db5094 Nah it was altered lore for the game, like a thing known by the vampires type of deal. In the world lore, humans do not know about vampires except for isolated groups who fight against them.
5:30 You think the Gov would be the first to want a Final Solution for Supers since they can't be controlled like tanks or missiles. Fun fact, in the game adaption of Marvel Civil War, CAPTAIN AMERICA opposes the Act because he KNOWS that it'll turn superheroes from skunk works meta-police, to government agents who an be ordered to protect oil lines or claim oil fields.
I find it more concerning that no one seems to care that a single corporation HAS A PRIVATE ARMY OF PEOPLE WHO CAN DESTROY CITIES, its like if McDonalds had stockpiled nukes. One thing i also find unrealistic about the show is what's stopping the superheroes from making their own superhero groups independent of Vought? Why wouldn't there already be some out there considering how awful their corporate culture is?
@Kazi Ashraf yeah, that stuff will just date the everloving shit out of the show in next few decades. I get the theme of corporate pandering to sides but the christian stuff just felt very hamfisted
Kazi Ashraf Did you watch the show? First off, Transluscent seems to have been the weakest of the seven, and A-Train’s leg was broken by another supe who had super strength. ANOTHER SUPE! I don’t think the government could do anything to stop people like Homelander. It has been stated that he left unscratched after every single weapon known to men was tested on him, and we see how powerful he is through all the show. Frankly, I cant see any way that the government could stop Homelander without some serious mass destruction. If you have any ideas tho, please do share
IRL Vought would have never had control of the supes in the first place. In the show it's kind of implied that they basically give them money, luxury, and access to dens of ill repute where they can get up to whatever kinky shit they want to (like the bar in the first episode). Basically an ideal rich lifestyle. Problem is, any one of them could easily be ambitious and decide they want to just kill the people in the company and take over the world like the gods they are (wink wink Homelander). All it really takes is one over powered supe to go rogue and the whole system falls apart. Or at least a supe civil war takes place where company guys fight rogue guys. The collateral damage there would be unspeakable. As for the government recruiting them, it all depends on whether or not they're killable. If their power can be explained by science (super strength) the government is already working on a way to "neutralize" them. If their power can't be explained by science (telekinesis or portal creation) government is gonna get on its knees and try to keep them happy. Nuke resistant demigods are out of the depth of the US government.
in the comcis Vough does have a long a really poor businesses relationship with the military. which is kind of the reason why superheros aint use lack of standardization .. as Vough can create them..but not control what they create.
Yeah, I didn't really want to get into all that... but in the comics Vought was a military contractor, but they were constantly producing poor quality stuff which is part of why their relationship with the military isn't great. But they still continue to exist because of government contracts.
@@FEEonline V-A was also the only reliable source of Compound V. There is also the fact that V-A's competitors were actively blocking Vought's legal attempts to take over the military with their Supes. As you noted, V-A was a military *contractor*... They wanted to become the MILITARY. And most other companies were desperate to prevent it.
@@dragonstormx Because in the comics one of their own is in the white house. His name is Vic the Veep and he's a parody of Bush. Vought wanted a moron in the white house that would do whatever Vought says because points isn't smarts it's obedience. That female politician in season 2 is the shows version of the character.
I have a really hard time believing that every superhero would just be a huge dick and asshole to everyone and everything, the first promotion I saw for it was something like, "a more realistic look at what the average person would do with superpowers." And I think that's total bullshit, you can't tell me that every superhero would just be okay with their behaviour and not a single one wouldn't try to stop them. It's been proven time and time again that the average person is fairly good, meaning that they wouldn't hurt anyone unnecessarily just because they feel like it, or that they would feel no remorse for what they do or hurt, because that's just sociopathic behaviour, and sociopaths aren't very common in real life. For every one bad person like those of power in The Boys there are at least five good/selfless people like Superman or Captain America that would try to stop them.
Except the supes are very much not average people, they are the most powerful people in the world and the majority believe they are superior to normal people, just look at the most powerful people from our world
In the comics, this was explained well. The first superheroes were actually deployed to be used in war, WWII to be exact, but because they knew nothing of how war worked, it resulted in all the superheroes getting killed and hundreds of American soldiers getting slaughtered. This was the catalyst that would lead to the formation of The Boys.
Personally I feel the biggest lie in the show is that a corporation could a large number of supervillains under wraps. Corporations in real life are terrible at keeping things under wraps. The problem is that the bad press doesn't actually stop them, just look at Amazon.
The only purpose to the opposition from government in the show is to create conflict. Unrealistic, yes. Lazy, yes. But I don't think modern day writers want to portray federal governments to be as flawed as the big bad corporations. That would conflict with certain agendas.
I mean, Vought doesn't claim to make the supes. The creation of them are a massive conspiracy that relatively few people know about. Hence why the world thinks they are chosen by god to be born in the US.
It actually makes little sense why Vought is trying to get defense contracts, when they started off as having them in the first place, with Soldier Boy and his team, Payback, being military assets on the field. I suppose they got demoted to private corporation status after some catastrophe or failure, and what would make sense is if Vought is trying to redeem itself in the eyes of the government, and superheroes like Homelander would be an attempt to create a new supersoldier that they can then market a mass-produced version of to the government, to regain the Feds' trust.
If the government wouldn't let these clearly ultra-powerful superhumans into the military, why wouldn't they just overthrow the government and establish their own military in which they could serve? you could easily get together the capital required for their R&D if it means an infinite return on investment by becoming the new government able to extract taxes from the citizens.
I didn’t read the books so correct me if I’m wrong, but in the final issue didn’t Homelander essentially takeover the White House and kill everyone including the president and try to establish his own rule?
Thing is, in comic there is a large opposing group of traditional weapon contractors, who are fighting Vought at every level. And Boys are, essentially, one of their side projects. Also, vought had military contracts before and fucked them up quite spectacularly, both in WW2 and Vietnam, so its understandable why pentagon doesn’t want them. Adaptation definitely lacks that angle.
I was thinking the same when watching the show. In the comic the government actually did comission Vought to use supes in the military but after the disastrous results, Vought decided to suspend the contract. And later Homelander is the one "secretly" trying to pursue putting supes into the military while Vought is so so on the idea. That's the only more realistic aspect of the comic over the show though, they're very different
My biggest issue with the Boys is that Vaught is essentially the only big company in the business of supes even though there is such a large number of super heroes.
They explain in the show that superheroes in the military would cause a lot of jobs would be lost due to the lack of needed equipment because said equipment is dubbed unnecessary by the use of superheroes. The insane amount of pressure that the government puts on military construction jobs can be seen in examples of that experimental, stealth destroyer the Navy is failing to develop. They only requested 1 ship to test with and received two due to the number of jobs it'd supply.
In the original comic Vought has a contract with the military in WW2, but their planes were such crap they were killing more pilots then the Japanese Zeros. they tried to introduce supes in WW2, but that program failed so badly and many people killed. Vought was given another chance in Vietnam, but they bungled that so badly it got more soldiers killed, so they were banned from all military contracts by the Pentagon.
1. Monopolies are usually the result of things like network externalities and qualities of the physical geography (roads, tunnels, canals). "Natural" monopolies aren't that rare. 2. Monopsonies are also not that rare. They also occur where there are network extrernalities, but an even more common one I can think of is of chemicals. Many chemicals have only one or very few large scale industrial buyers.
Theoretical natural monopoloes are common, but in practice they're far more likely to be protected by governments. Roads and tunnels, for example, do not inherently result in monopoly situations... Unless there's no other builder legally allowed to make parallel lines. The NY Subway system is a good example of this. You'd think that when that industry was private in its inception, only one company could have operated subway lines. But there were actually a bunch of competing companies digging a lot of parallel tunnels - which is part of why the system has so much capacity today. The redundancy created by competition in an arena that (under classical theory) "should" have only allowed for one company, now means there are tons of up/downtown routes to take and trains going your direction come by frequently. There's a lot of stuff like that. Now, of course, there is no competition because NYC owns and operates the whole system. Likewise, before the Federal government got heavily involved in railways, there were lots of competing rail companies. Even stuff like lighthouses what have obvious free rider problems could easily be competitive if there was any actual pressure to be so. Most of the times a natural monopoly does exist, it's not because there's no room for a competitor, but because the one company that is providing a service isn't making their customers feel exploited. If they did, as long as there was no restrictions or barriers to entry from the state, competing companies could and generally would form. Broader point being, a lot of things you may assume are natural monopolies probably aren't.
@@FEEonline I am critical of this absolute monopoly view held by many libertarians. Something like the Panama canal will always be a monopoly as an entity. Even if it were completely privately owned, something which I don't think libertarians express coherently (rights as you conceive of them don't exist, our very language and ideas are inherited, something at odds with the individualist conception of rights), it would as an entity still be a monopoly with a price in equilibrium with the cost of other routes of trade. Thomas DiLorenzo has pointed out that everything is in essence a monopoly. I'm aware of the libertarian arguments; I just reject them. I think Nozick and many others have made good arguments for why anarchist/libertarian/liberal ontology is incoherent. I prefer an absolutist ontology of reactionary theories.
@@TheThreatenedSwan I think the idea that "everything is a monopoly" is one of those pedantic kinds of points that can be literally true if you really narrowly define your terms, but which is a very silly thing to say conceptually. For example, it is *literally* true that there is no other human being on the planet that offers exactly the services I am able to provide a client or employer. I have a very specific skill set, a unique bundle of specialized knowledge, and a perspective that allows me to make videos in a way no other person can or ever will. So if you want to be that literal, I have a "monopoly" over my particular domain. But practically speaking, this is absurd. There are hundreds of other competent producers at my general level out there, and millions of people making videos on RUclips every day. I am competing with all of them. I am competing with other education channels, other pop culture channels, and with the wide world of entertainment and education options people have in general. There is no real monopoly here in any sense that matters. The Panama Canal example is also interesting. Yes, it's likely that only one company or individual would ever control entry and travel through the waterway... But it's not like that's the only means of crossing Central America or transporting goods. It's also a man-made canal and if necessary, someone else (were they legally allowed to do so) could build another one. Ultimately, the canal competes with railroads, trucks, and a dozen other routes of transporting goods across that part of the world. There are all sorts of substitute options people can use, and this is true for most everything.
@@scottysbottom5769 I almost forgot about that book. But turns out FEE covered that a while back. fee.org/articles/bad-samaritans-the-myth-of-free-trade-and-the-secret-history-of-capitalism/
@@scottysbottom5769 I might also note that this documentary we made is -- without really intending to be -- a pretty solid rebuttal of the central thesis of that book. ruclips.net/video/_U1zEuVXDak/видео.html
The most glaring flaw in this hypothesis is that while the government shows great interest in super weapons that have no free will, they have no interest in soldiers they may not be able to control. IRL men who are very effective soldiers are dishonorably discharged when they can not be controlled.
I cant see alot of upsides to a human weapon that overshadow issues like the inability to control it, no good way to manage the damage it causes, no ability to make international treaties condemning them and no guarantee it wont turn on you.
Thats just moves the goal post of the problem how did supes exist for decades not being already in the military before those weapons manufacturers gained so much power? Also why does lockeed martin exist selling conventional weapons and not super soldiers decades after compound V was invented? Your point doesn't debunk the video it just makes the boys even more stupid.
Boeing is not a sole military contractor. They have a huge (if not currently currently redundant) civil sector. As far as new weapons go, those who do not stay up with technology risk being dominated by those that do.
9:12 thats because it is a conspiracy theory, an accurate one. A lot of people nowadays do not understand what conspiracy means and use the term incorrectly, they think it means lies.
Tammy Manuel Trump: *shrugs off blazer, undoes tie* this only has to be between us, Putin, no one else has to die. Putin: *rips off shirt, transforms into bear* No one else but you, suka.
Suppose the heads of state do fight each other, what's stopping them from coming to you next? It's a bit naïve to think it's just b/w the 2 of them, or that it will stop with them.
Check out Brandon Sanderson's "Reckoners" series sometime. It starts with "Steelheart". The premise is that superheroes suddenly spring into existence due to a burst of energy in the sky related to the passage of a new comet, and rather than using their powers for good, the "Epics" use them selfishly and become worldwide evils.
I can think of one realistic reasons why the military would oppose use of superhumans. Mental Instability; having superpowers and being insane go hand in hand.
@@psyxypher3881 They don't need to know before hand you just tell them that being rendered unconscious is just a sideffect of the injection so you shoot them up with a knock out drug do the cranial bomb implantation operation then dose them with V.
The comics actually kind of explains it, Vought was originally a Defense contractor, but they were remarkably incompitent and the government gut ties with them, once they discovered superheroes, the existing military industry used all the pull they could muster to keep them out of the military since it would pretty much make them obsolite.
One quibble. A lot of the superheroes don;t have qualified immunity because the government gives it to them. They have it because of their superpowers. Imagine some cop trying to arrest Homelander. Bullet proof, super strong, can fly away, and could literally cut you in half with a glance from his eyes.
@@FEEonline How do you stop Homelander? Unlike Superman, he has no Kryptonite. Other heroes, they have weaknesses. Translucent, shock him with electricity, then stick C4 where the sun don't shine. Noir Black, peanut butter. But with A-Train, unless he has a heart attack, your screwed. He can do unto others long before anyone does unto him.
@@SaulOhio the point is that they are just criminals. Even if they are "unstoppable". That doesn't give them immunity to the law. Only the law does that. That said, how you stop Homelander is clearly through psychological manipulation. Play on his need for maternal figures, etc. There are established means of blocking powers in the show/comics. Also in the comics, the Boys themselves take Compound V to gain powers and fight on that level. There's definitely always going to be a way. Plus they're fictional, so it's just a question of how you write the characters. In any case, the issue in The Boys is legal.
It's somewhat better explained in the comics. The military actually used supes in WW2, but without any kind of training or tactical knowledge. They ended up being an enormous pain in the ass of the regular military and got themselves and loads of regular soldiers killed in what ended up being a fuckup of EPIC proportions in the Ardennes. That's when the other (regular) weapons contractors swooped in and lobbied against Vought and supes in the military. The government wasn't keen on risking such an embarrassment again anytime soon and instead went with the regulars.
In my fictional universes, private companies develop ways to give people super powers, and sell to the public, but the government is a huge buyer for most company's products, with sales to individuals being mostly a way to earn money for less powerful versions of these technologies. Ex: Captain America serum might be for sale to the individual, but a better version of it is only sold to America and its allies.
It's shown in the comic, but not here sadly as to why they're not weaponized. They may be powerful, but in the line of duty, all they are are shiny civilians with toys and superpowers. Half of them can't take a bullet, or have things like wings that can't have bulletproofing on them. In the comic ***SPOILER*** There is a flashback to when they are brought into the military in WWII (Or I can't remember off the top of my head), where they royally screw up a camp by accidentally alerting the enemy to their location by "scouting" and looking around using their powers. All of the supers die, and a few stay alive until put down even though half of their body was shredded. The only reason Vought has them around still is due to Bureaucracy, where the head guy knows a guy who knows a guy, who wants money and power and is convinced to keep them around.
This is expanded on in the comics, there have historically been people in office that have locked Vought out of contracts and been in the pockets of other corps trying to prevent their military contracts from becoming extinct
My grandfather was a medic of a experimental unit in the Vietnam War trying to create super soldiers that would not feel guilty for killing. They were experimenting with heroin, and he came back a heroin addict. The VA later killed him by prescribing him morphine to get over his addiction, knowing that my grandfather was deathly allergic to morphine.
My idea was that in The Boys, the supposed to be good guys (superheroes) are bad, while the usual bad guys (government) try to be good, so that senator tried avoiding using superheroes in military.
Putting Superheroes into the military lowers the demand for tanks, aircraft, ships, and people to use them. In turn, Vought's Superheroes inclusion would cost the companies who produce said equipment to lose billions of dollars, if not become obsolete alltogether. Military industrial complex requires that war's stagnate; Win the war just in-time for the next one; keep the cash-flow and contracts renewed. If a creation of a weapon existed that ended all war, the companies who profit from war would run out of business. They cannot afford this; so equipment is only ever made to be barely at a level to just have an advantage; but nothing much of one. And as the government officials are so heavily invested within these companies, such as Lockheed Martin and NATO sharing a few high ranking members employed into both; when one company profits, so does the other. In turn; the government profits by selling war to the masses; and allowing weapons to be sold using taxes. Superheroes is just a way to end a war. Cease the need for alllll the wealth creation; and that; is something the government cannot allow. Not until when it was leaked the enemy has super's as well; and the chemical agent 'can' be provided to adults; for a premium cost; of course. Profit from the superheroes involvement, somehow. Extremely realistic.
"Compound V is not unbelievable... The baffling part is that they DON'T HAVE AN ALREDY ESTABLISHED MILITARY CONTRACT!!!" -FEE (It's funny becaue it's true!)
The counterargument is that the US military wouldn't want a 'weapon' they couldn't control. Let's assume that is the reason the US govt doesn't do it in the series. How quickly would that policy change when another country started using supers in their military? Even if there were unintended consequences, the military would definitely start using supers for one reason or another, and I doubt there would be much hesitation about it.
Quick note: I'm not sure about the show, but in the comics Voight WAS a military contractor. Their planes were blamed for stalling WWII until the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as having their guns be responsible for a genocide of American soldiers in Vietnam. Literally, Homelander was the least defective creation of the company.
As an employee of a defense contractor, I'll say that it's not as if all the billions being spent on weapons development by the government is just vanishing into nothingness. It pays my bills, and the bills of the thousands of people who work on my site alone. That money puts kids into college, groceries on the table, and stimulates the local economy. Defense contractors are often the largest employers in their townships. It's great to talk about commerce and bridging the cultural divide, but war happens because people are assholes, and sometimes you need a $150,000 missile to stop a warlord from raping a village.
Interestingly Vought actually has made several attempts already before with failed military contracts. 1. The first official one was the creation of a fighter craft that was to replace the P-51 Mustang. The Fighter was rushed into production (likely to get sales in before the war ended) and a fatal flaw in the design caused it to kill more of its own pilots than the enemy did. 1.Classified: Vought created the serum that would make Supers as Early as WW2. Testing it out they tried to use Supers as potential super soldiers, the candidates they choose were not trained soldiers and thus unsuited for war. They exposed Allied positions for the enemy to trace which proceeded to kill off most of the supers and the allied soldiers they were with. A American soldier survivor insured the Supers were rightfully killed off. 2. At the Beginning of the Vietnam War Vought introduced a assault rifle that was so pathetic and useless it resulted in the total wipe out of Moor's 7th Calvary. Apparently it was good for putting American soldiers heads on. The M-16 was introduced instead and well a poor weapon of choice in the jungle was far far better than the vought rifle. It makes sense that the American Government would be wary of anything Vought attempted to do.
Honestly military company screw ups wouldn't matter, it's more about what bribes they're giving out to congress. I think probably it makes the most sense to just assume that the other defense contractors don't want to lose business as their tanks and bombers are rendered obsolete by supers.
I did enjoy the reason the senator gave as to why they didn't want supes in the military, it made sense within the show. He said that if the military sent someone like homelander to north korea (i think that was the example he gave) if they acted agressive then they would respond with nuking the country because that's the only response that is on the same scale as using homelander during a war.
@@esyphillis101 in theory yes, he could. But in practice, maybe not. For example, he should have been able to save the hijacked plane in the show, but we all know how that turned out.
As someone who served in the military, I can tell you the military has zero interest in weapons they can't control. Do you know what happens to an enlisted soldier who wins the lottery? They are removed from service. That is because controlling a soldier's pay and free time are two ways the military controls the soldier. If you have all the money you need, why would you care if they cut your pay? In fact, why would you care what they tell you to do at all? So, you quickly become a disciplin problem and thus you are involuntarily promoted to civilian.
So it would be with super heroes as well. The only way supers would be in the military is if the military had a way to punish them when they step out of line. How do you punish an invulnerable super being who can single handedly wipe out your whole army? You can't. Thus, the military would have no control, and without control, superheroes would just become loose cannons guaranteed to get soldiers and civilians killed. End result, no sale. So, no, superheroes would NOT be military contractors. Now, could they be black-ops contractors which the government could disavow any knowledge of? That is a whole different story...
Compound V is apparently needed on a regular basis and it is addictive so there is your means of control and just for fun add a cranial bomb.
@@Barskor1 that would be like keeping a steak from a bear with only your hands...
@@EXPENDABLE50 Hey bear look to your left see the other bear? Push button bears head pops like a melon hit by a 50 cal bullet now sit down and shut up Good bear now who wants to go kill Ossama bin Ladin's clone? You do! Such a good boy! Pat pat.
@@Barskor1 except bear is invulnerable and has laser beam coming out of his eyes... And you just pissed him off.
@@Barskor1 Actually, the addictive nature of Compound V is more of a negative than a positive for the military. However, the cranial bomb has possibilities...from a science-fiction/comic book story perspective, of course...
Vought was a military contractor first in the comics, they even had supes in WWII, as did the USSR and Nazis, but they were so incompetent that the government banned them from military use.
Makes sense
To be too incompetent for government employment now that is a superpower.
@TookALevelInBadass weren't all of those after WWII? I remember the supes that ended up leading the Nazis to their base to kill everyone and the defunct guns in vietnam but nothing else.
The ridiculous thing in the comics is that Vought survived all their WWII failures to survive past that.
@TookALevelInBadass But once it came out what an incompetent company they were and how crappy their products were, no one would do any business with them and they wouldn't have survived their WWII failures. In the Private Sector, it's not enough to be politically connected...you need to have results.
In watchmen they showed the military immediately decided to test dr manhattan's power and even use it to their advantage in Vietnam
Imagine seeing a literal god on the battlefield. Time to call in the whole army and call it a day
@@BeyondAIR15 That's literally what the Vietnamese did. In fact, they personally came in and bowed to him.
Which is the biggest plot hole in the story. Why wouldn't Dr. M help the USA win the cold war if he won Vietnamese war?
@@stevenbrown1225 I think it was mentioned that he might not have been able to stop all the nukes in time, but it's been years since I've last read it.
@@stevenbrown1225 he was growing more and more disinterested in human affairs over time. Hell my man's didn't even bother to wear clothes. Ozymandius ended up convincing him tho and Dr. Manhattan ended up like "mm k, seems legit" and ended up leaving Earth for Mars
The government tried to weaponize nerf footballs to make football-shaped, anti-tank grenades.
The idea that the government would be uninterested in literal superheroes is beyond unrealistic.
Wow, I can't believe it. That actually happened...
Perhaps Goldberg and Rogen are looking at war in their interpretation of The Boys from the outsider perspective.
wheras those more familiar with the underpinnings of war and how it shapes civilization know that the race for territorial, fiscal and technological leverage doesnt stop simply because those two nations are not in direct conflict.
and that leverage influences all other things. peace, trade etc.
Can't the supes be treated as nuclear or chemical weapons though? I think it would be realistic if there is an agreement between all countries to not use weapons that are just too spooky, like homelander. But yeah, they didn't mention any of it in the show so...
There's a huge reason why they're not wanted for military use. Forgot what it was tho
@@khinlop the only way for that to happen is if everyone has supes. But if your in a room of people and only you have a gun, why would you listen to the rest of the room full of potential enemies
Wasn't it stated in the show that Vought was being fought against becoming a government contractor, not because the government wouldn't do it, but because all those other contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman etc have a lock on lobbyists and support in order to prevent Vought from getting funding and in turn, losing funding the other contractors would get.
So why wouldn't those companies recruit supers? The Super Serum to make them could be obtained through industrial espionage or poaching employees or reverse-engineering it from blood samples taken from conflicts with criminals unless they are all just that damn tough not to bleed.
@@Barskor1 they'd be behind the curb if they start making what vaught already has on the shelf. Plus their is no guarantee of getting something like a homelander even for vought, they make hundreds of them and they still have to audition and see if they are good enough to join the seven or just be a part of a lesser group. Nothing stops vought from burning down the competition with homelander, he could go to the enemy plant and blow it up. It would just be a lab accident in the media
@@EXPENDABLE50 If you are not doing anything you are not even on the curve.
They can only take action if the Know where to strike and as simple as it was for you and me to figure out so would the fictional people involved they would keep it secret till they had an opposing force capable of not being burned to the ground like chumps.
@@Barskor1 how long would that take? How much would it cost? It would be cheaper and easier to just lobby for supes to stay out than try to make a homelander in secret while spying on a company that has a mute Batman. Which is why they just lobby and only lose the battle when enemy supes came into play
Again, the point is that Vought would not have been able to exist *to begin with* without government protection and contracts. Period.
Vought's model doesn't work without it, for lots of reasons explored in the video - notably because they would be liable for the massive destruction and other crimes their "heroes" cause, and because the only people who would finance the billions in R&D for developing supersoldiers are governments and people who have excellent reasons expect government contracts to be the end result.
Lockheed wouldn't want to compete with Vought if Vought *already* had this technology and would probably lobby against them... But that's not how this works. Lockheed would be first in line for the DARPA contract to develop the tech in the first place.
As for the idea that no one could compete, that's silly. You could say exactly the same thing with all kinds of real world technology. Many companies make tanks, fighter jets, attack boats, missile systems, drones, and on and on... First mover advantage is a thing, but it's not that important.
Vought isn't basically a sports franchise they're a private police company looking to expand into military.
Ehh.... I don't agree. Vought's primary business model (definitely in the comics, if not in the show) is entertainment and special appearances. They create movies, TV shows, comics, and rent out their "heroes" to show up at events. As written, they're *mostly* a PR firm. Yes, some of their heroes do work for city governments to fight crime, but even then it seems mostly in service of generating press opportunities.
Foundation for Economic Education I really like how active you are in the comments.
@Hugh James-Berry the whole point of this video is why the second half of your point here makes no sense.
The only way for Vought to have gone through the years (decades?) of R&D to create superheroes to begin with would have been through government contracts... cause that's how WMDs and "super-soldiers" are actually developed. It's not just an issue of "oversight", it's also about having billions of dollars coming in for a product that has no buyer besides the state.
Furthermore, as I said, as Hughie says in the series (and the clip in the video), superheroes have qualified immunity "like police", which is a form of legal protection *only* governments provide to themselves and their own agents.
No private citizen has qualified immunity for anything we do. The only time this happens is when government is directly involved.
And in that arena it happens a lot. Soldiers generally can't be prosecuted for the damages they cause, police are nearly impossible to charge with crimes, and even state-owned companies can gain immunity from stuff they do wrong.
For a good comparative example, consider the Ixtoc Oil Spill wherein the Mexican state-owned company declared sovereign immunity and avoided liability in 1979 vs. any private company spill like Deepwater Horizon, wherein BP was ordered to pay $62 Billion in damages and cleanup.
There's only one way to avoid these kinds of costs and it is to be working for the state.
And as I already discussed, the policing thing is mostly PR... as you can see by the fact that they send film-crews along with the superheroes and send them to crime scenes and based on the fact that none of the Seven actually spend much of their time doing anything but public appearances.
@Hugh James-Berry PR is going to make the city of Baltimore *look* good, though. They are doing "something" about the crime problem. Regardless of what the actual results may be.... Which is largely how governments actually operate.
@Emmerich August yes... The military does a ton of PR. But that's not really a counter to what I said here.
>The Biggest Lie in "The Boys"
Ooh-ooh, I found it. 6:00
Lmao
so good
*Fookin' diabolical*
Thank you Sauron. Very cool.
I personally took the show as a metaphor for Hollywood.
Shamir Quinones I agree, but it covered a bunch of corporate cultures as well.
Ergo Proxy definitely, and I did notice it. The comparison to Hollywood IMO works more with the superheroes, how they are made to act in the public and how the public eats it up. I especially enjoy the “washed-up” heroes like the deep and the comparison between him and washed up celebrities.
Shamir Quinones Celebrities OR politicians. They’re essentially the same.
@@shamirquinones8607 In the beginning I hated the deep but I love all the scenes where he tries to actually do what he considers as good and then it just gets sea creatures killed in brutal ways xD. I know thats terrible but its so funny
Jonathan Bauer I really liked all of that too. He definitely got what was coming to him. I’m a softy though so after the sexual encounter he had with that fan that was really rough with his gills, I started to feel bad for him. I hated A-Train much much more.
When I watched the series, I thought much the same as this video. A superhero is a weapon. Why on earth would the military not want a proven, effective weapon?
After giving it a moment of thought, I guessed that the problem is accountability. Would the supers fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice? Would they follow orders from the chain of command?
Basically, would Homelander do what you tell him? How do you punish him when he doesn't?
The military works by stick and carrot. You get honored for following orders, and punished for disobeying. Supers already have the accolades in their civilian lives. And no one could keep Queen Maeve in the brig if she didn't agree to stay. Supers have no motivation to follow orders.
And that, I think is the core of the problem. No one in battle wants a weapon that may or may not work. When I pull a trigger, I damned well need to be sure the bullet comes out at the right instant. I do NOT want a bullet that second-guesses me, and that is what the supers are.
If this was like real life, the military would've already been using the supes long before they became household brand names.
RavenPlaze I love how what you say here totally parallels how comic book writers and publishers used superheroes to boost soldier morale and propaganda in World War 2. Very interesting...
And I personally believe that superhero’s have no business fighting in human conflicts like that. What they should do however is ensure that non combatants are not targeted. And prevent soldiers from committing war atrocities. Which would kind of make superhero’s on the battlefield like glorified referees. Which is something we could actually really use in war zones...
Its crazy that in practically every war from the 20th century to now. Civilians have suffered far more than the “soldiers” fighting the war ever have! Maybe instead of having a Veteran’s Day we should have a Civilians Day?!
@@superbrian7997 It was more so a reflection of how common household tech is generally developed for military application years before it's available to civilians; cell phones are a good example.
No they wouldnt, the military has no use for people they cant discipline nor weapons they cant properly deploy
@@MrEvldreamr Why would you assume the military would have no means of keeping them in line tho
@@ravenplaze8972 Because the military uses money and punishment to keep ppl in line. You can't punish these superhumans and you cant take away their finances seeing as they are celebrities.
You're missing one key component in all this. The government doesn't want sups in the military because of the potential of them going rogue. The first rule of military spending is you never field something that you either can't completely control, or can't deny use of to your enemies if they capture it.
Really think the military will be ok with a domestic non-government entity rendering the entire military complex worthless?
The second part isnt true. We literally have us military on our uniforms
The supes are the fucking worst ppl, if they rlly had to go war it wouldn't take long before they realize that they shouldn't be taking orders from anyone on the front lines and start botching missions, then going rogue and star7t fighting both sides to take over the world, if they could easily take one side why wouldn't they build their own art, and take the world
They wouldn't, which is why they would militarise superheroes into following orders, or by paying them large sums of money.
How does Vought control the superheroes?
@@RedVelvetUnderground333 Yep, militarising supes would be the only way. And some sort of killswitch in case of a rogue supe.
Dang, truth is obviously scarier than fiction.
Yup. we flock to fiction for the order, closure and certainty we often cant get out of life.
Its also why in creative writing, teachers advise storytellers to have some level of predictability.
I thought I heard everything... until the "SUN GUN".
Also just realised that the Archimedes from Fallout New Vegas was prob inspired by it too.
@@khinlop Considering the Actual Archimedes proposed using sunlight as a weapon and may have used it against the Romans truth is stranger than fiction.
MK ultra is only one of the things we know of. Imagine the things we DON'T know, in the US and the other countries!
Monopoly of violence, every nation is based on that, it means that the government is the only entity that has the right to use lethal force. Without it you couldn't have a legal system and law enforcement.
If I remember right, the politicians' stance was that Vought would obsolete all other firearm sellers and kill their business, which would not be in favor of most politicians since they're most likely closely tied with those firearm companies, whether it be their leverage in the political scene or business relationships.
And as for the origin of the compound X, I'm not familiar with the original comics but in my opinion, it wouldn't be a stretch to think that it was originally developed by some biochemical technology company since genetic engineering specifically on designer-baby is realistically a current trend in the field (though still in a very early stage irl ofc).
yeah, the guy completely ignore that. The video falls apart when you take it into account.
This is completely backwards. Weapons contractors are run by and depend on the government. Not the other way around. The video explains this
@@Quincy_Morris - BS. Corporate power is held unaccountable in this country.
In the comics it was developed by Nazi scientists during WW2 before being acquired by Vought American.
@@Quincy_Morris The board of directors of those weapon companies are not elected by the people, they are selected by their private owners. In fact, it's the private owners of those companies, that also own the news media, that convince people to vote for the politicians they want. The politicians don't own them, they own the politicians! You're the one seeing it backwards. And the "supers" is a metaphor for the drone program. That will also turn all other firearms obsolete. But you're right when you say they depend on the government, it's just that they control the government to keep their game going. NOT the government controls them.
2:24 well i dont know if "the boys" in the show is gonna take a similar stand as the comic book. but it the comicbooks ... vought has a long history if failing the military in big way. the military not trusting them comes for years of them abusing that trust.
"War is the root of all these problems."
War is merely a symptom of evil.
No. It is the result of the "Us vs. Them" mentality that is created mankind's instinctual tribalism.
@@frankg2790
Akshually
@Cynthia Eng he didn't mean the US, he means "us vs them". That's a saying
War is the last way politics solves diferences.
War is a symptom of imperialism and capitalism, according to Lenin at least.
I think the only point that might be somewhat counter to your argument is that Vought didn't spend time on R&D, and their product was not created by a private company- Compound V was created by Nazi German scientists, but too late to do anything and in the confusion Vought somehow lucked out and got hold of the recipe before the defense department (maybe they were founded by the guys who looted the recipe).
Then, their first 2-3 'products' basically weren't marketable- They had a nazi, in stormfront, the guy that proved V worked, and 15-18 years later they had Homelander, and black noir shortly after. But I think they might have been basically keeping the whole thing hidden at that point- they knew homelander isn't stable enough to have exposed to the public without management (hence black noir in the comic), as he would have been if they went straight into being a defence contractor, and stormfront would be even worse, given if anyone worked out who he was the whole thing blows up in their face. It should be noted that they're guilty of a ton of crimes in starting to produce super heroes, so you keep the 3 guys who can let that slip carefully managed. Hence they end up operating as a PR firm, managing their three heroes appearances and contact with non-Vought employees in order to keep it under wraps. Then when the later waves of heroes raised, for free, by volunteer families, Vought is involved in their marketing because that is what it is in place to do, being a company that primarily employs marketing & PR people. Also getting the police contractor exception was probably a lot easier when it was for just 3 dudes, as it has to have been for about 2 decades before the first post homelander/noir batch matured in private homes with no input from vought- its not as if it was a far reaching ask, because there's only been 3 of these people born in all of human history (then, miraculously, more start turning up!? who would have guessed?).
I still find it dubious that they'd have managed all this without being caught or being a private contractor, but it is worth noting that they don't really have any people employed in tech development or the other expensive parts of military contracting that we actually see, so their expenses for that probably wouldn't rule them not being one out automatically.
"if you want peace prepare for war" The kind of peace you talk about will never happen, just won't.
At least, not permanently.
Course not. If you aren't willing to use force you will be controlled by those who will.
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom
@@VespoLiveGaming So true. It's not an easy fight.
As long as President Steve thinks he can get away with taking Prime Minister Bob's stuff, war will be eternal.
This man basically predicted half of vought's season 2 storyline a year in advance.
"Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading." ~Thomas Jefferson.
In all of human history we have known conflict. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not war is in our blood and inherently a part of our nature as humans. We could no less remove that part of ourselves than we could make the sun set in the east. I like the idea of peace as I see it, which is everyone minding each others business and no ill will towards anyone. But I don't think it's within humans for this to be possible. That all being said I think the best example of human peace was in the show The X-files where Fox Mulder got wishes from a genie and wished for world peace. What happened next was that Mulder was the last human or animal on earth, and I think that is the only way peace can be achieved. When there is only 1 human left in the world then there will truly be peace.
Loved this video, but just disagreed when it came to talking about peace as anything obtainable through human effort.
Yeah, sadly the main reason why we don't have world wars any more is because of the existence of the Mutually Assured Destruction weapons. (For a counter-exemple, look at the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war.) And we're not certain how stable that arrangement even is, it's not even been a century...
For nearly sixty years no two countries with McDonald's were ever at war with each other. The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention is still mostly true. When other people have things we value and we are engaged in trade with them the desire for a war between both groups evaporates. I agree that true utopian peace is possible but I believe a rough sort of world peace is already being initiated. The proverbial carrot is the fact that we are engaged in trade with every developed nation on earth. The stick is the fact that if WW3 happens humanity will return to the stone age, assuming we don't completely irradiate the planet and kill everyone. Between the carrot and the stick, I think we as a species will be fine.
@@BlueTemplar15 Don't forget the Carrot. We trade with everyone. One of the many advantages of globalism is that we all rely on each other for the goods or services we're the best at producing/providing. Why go through the costly process of war when you could just buy the materials you need? The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention is half of the two-sided coin that is 'world peace.'
@@brendenshouse5807 no my friend, in fact globalism and trading is just another starting point for war. Firstly, when two countries become economic rivals selling the same product, cooperation between the two is unnatural. It's a human instinct to destroy whoever can pose a threat. Imagine for example two kids in class who have the best grades. they will always be rivals and try to outsmart the other one. But more importantly, in second place, Globalism will eventually lead to dominance by one economic superpower upon others. You ay argue this creates peace, but this will also create immense Imbalance and a monopoly of sorts for that very country, leading to fascism that destroys anyone who doesn't bow down to their will. In the end this inequality and imbalance will lead to a counterbalance. Another power rising to rival the current leader. The outcome of this is inevitably war between two rivals striving for global domination. We saw that happen before and we see it happen as we speak. War is a characteristic part of humanity. Whatever way humanity invents to escape war, it will manifest in a different way.
Kiyan Hakim If no matter what we do to prevent conflicts and it will always present itself in another way, there is really nothing else we could do. I don’t know how many more repeating cycles of peace and then utter destruction humanity can go through before some unlucky events causes our extinction.
I really pray for humanity that we will be able to bounce back from all of extinction level events in the future as we have done so in the past. If we get lucky and get our shits together maybe the oncoming destruction we’ll only set us back to the stone age. But at least we will survived, and at the end of the day that is the best that I can hope for.
Its funny how the WW2 airplane is gull winged like the real Vought company's Corsair.
Coincidence, I think NOT!
That actually goes back to the comics when Vought was making weapons since WWII
What don't understand is how *Luxottica* the eyeglass company seems to have a monopoly.
Well... They don't, really. Luxottica has about 14% of the global marketshare for eyeglasses and their next nearest competitor, Essilor, has about 13%. There are a ton of other companies that also make and sell eyewear that (together) control the other 73%.
So that's not really a monopoly at all, though anyone who has 14% of the marketshare on *anything* around the world is doing very, very well... and certainly there are legitimate criticisms to be made around their pricing and deals with retailers, though probably not quite as severe as stuff like Adam Ruins Everything would want you to believe.
ARE tends to forget that value (and thus, prices) are subjective... and that people are paying a lot of money for things like designer eyewear not simply because the cost of materials is high, but because the designer label carries with it an improved sense of status and style.
This is the same reason people will buy designer handbags and dresses.
*I* don't particularly value that stuff, and so I personally think a lot of it is a waste of money... but other people don't value what I value, and it's not really my place to tell them how to spend their money.
@@FEEonline "it's not really my place to tell them how to spend their money" unless they want me to subsidize it.
@@ShankarSivarajan fair.
@@ShankarSivarajan But that ins't Them spending Their money. Which is the point.
@@brackcarmony6385 unclear who we are talking about now. Individuals spend their own money on eyeglasses... Or they make contracts with insurance companies or elect government bureaus to agree to pay (which BTW, is part of why stuff like this gets expensive), Luxottica isn't actually forcing people to buy their frames. There are clearly several big competitors.
Fun fact: one of the test subjects of the MKUltra was a young Ted Kasinski, who would later become the Unabomber. Seems like the CIA failed to create heroes, but excelled in creating villains...
The biggest lie in The Boys is the title: there is no connection between the tv show and the source material other than the title and branding.
One the one hand, peace is an divine thing to strive for.
On the other hand, humans have been warring since Cain killed Abel.
I didn't hear anything about defense, only demilitarization.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war
That's right which is why we should isolate all "non favorables" into an isolated area. If we give them back to their country we would just be feeding the enemy. To get ahead in this "facade of peace" we should strike first hard and fast before they even know what happens. Eventually all those detainee become POW's and we instantly have the upper hand. Anyone that offers us peace exploit that generosity and instill our will over theirs. War is a game of life and we must succeed in order to win. So if we play first we win. We can nuke the world for all I care as long as that god damn flag with the red, white, and blue stands who gives a fuck. We won and that's all that fucking matters. Who cares how many bodies we need. Not like anyone is going to bother to remember them. So we're essentially doing them a favor in order to perserve my way of living. I would die before willing to compromise with anyone. Why offer my trades and goods when I can just pull a gun to their head and get what I deserve. If it's a free world than it's ours for the taking. It's our god damn right to take up arms. We are the masters have history so as long as we win we will always be the "good guys".
(I don't really think that way but it was sure fun to type it out!)
Jonathan Okay its weird that you mention Cain and Abel because I was just playing Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines and the Vampire society’s entire belief system is based on Caine...who they believe was the first vampire.
@@jaydenshepard7928 maybe it was another caine haha, I don't think the Bible mentioned anything that would make cain seem like a vampire unless they altered stuff for the game. Interesting thought tho
@@db5094 Nah it was altered lore for the game, like a thing known by the vampires type of deal. In the world lore, humans do not know about vampires except for isolated groups who fight against them.
@@jaydenshepard7928 ohh sounds cool, vamps are sick
5:30 You think the Gov would be the first to want a Final Solution for Supers since they can't be controlled like tanks or missiles.
Fun fact, in the game adaption of Marvel Civil War, CAPTAIN AMERICA opposes the Act because he KNOWS that it'll turn superheroes from skunk works meta-police, to government agents who an be ordered to protect oil lines or claim oil fields.
Like Superman and the Watchmen.
"The wheels of industry, inevitably, turn the wheels of war."
I find it more concerning that no one seems to care that a single corporation HAS A PRIVATE ARMY OF PEOPLE WHO CAN DESTROY CITIES, its like if McDonalds had stockpiled nukes. One thing i also find unrealistic about the show is what's stopping the superheroes from making their own superhero groups independent of Vought? Why wouldn't there already be some out there considering how awful their corporate culture is?
@Kazi Ashraf yeah, that stuff will just date the everloving shit out of the show in next few decades. I get the theme of corporate pandering to sides but the christian stuff just felt very hamfisted
Kazi Ashraf Did you watch the show? First off, Transluscent seems to have been the weakest of the seven, and A-Train’s leg was broken by another supe who had super strength. ANOTHER SUPE! I don’t think the government could do anything to stop people like Homelander. It has been stated that he left unscratched after every single weapon known to men was tested on him, and we see how powerful he is through all the show. Frankly, I cant see any way that the government could stop Homelander without some serious mass destruction. If you have any ideas tho, please do share
"Superhero groups independent of Vought" would be a good premise for Season 2.
Shankar Sivarajan Vought is the only one who knows how to make superheroes tho
@@Fish-se7cf That we know of.
IRL Vought would have never had control of the supes in the first place. In the show it's kind of implied that they basically give them money, luxury, and access to dens of ill repute where they can get up to whatever kinky shit they want to (like the bar in the first episode). Basically an ideal rich lifestyle.
Problem is, any one of them could easily be ambitious and decide they want to just kill the people in the company and take over the world like the gods they are (wink wink Homelander).
All it really takes is one over powered supe to go rogue and the whole system falls apart. Or at least a supe civil war takes place where company guys fight rogue guys. The collateral damage there would be unspeakable.
As for the government recruiting them, it all depends on whether or not they're killable. If their power can be explained by science (super strength) the government is already working on a way to "neutralize" them. If their power can't be explained by science (telekinesis or portal creation) government is gonna get on its knees and try to keep them happy. Nuke resistant demigods are out of the depth of the US government.
They don't go rouge because of the sweet sweet money
My 3 favorite actors on the show:
Karl Urban
Simon Pegg
The actress for starlight
Now that's out of the way, the show is an 8.5/10 for me.
Starr basically stole this show. Homelander is fuckin awesome
in the comcis Vough does have a long a really poor businesses relationship with the military. which is kind of the reason why superheros aint use lack of standardization .. as Vough can create them..but not control what they create.
Yeah, I didn't really want to get into all that... but in the comics Vought was a military contractor, but they were constantly producing poor quality stuff which is part of why their relationship with the military isn't great. But they still continue to exist because of government contracts.
@@FEEonline V-A was also the only reliable source of Compound V.
There is also the fact that V-A's competitors were actively blocking Vought's legal attempts to take over the military with their Supes.
As you noted, V-A was a military *contractor*... They wanted to become the MILITARY. And most other companies were desperate to prevent it.
How is Vought still getting contracts if nothing they make works the way it's supposed to?
@@dragonstormx Because in the comics one of their own is in the white house. His name is Vic the Veep and he's a parody of Bush. Vought wanted a moron in the white house that would do whatever Vought says because points isn't smarts it's obedience. That female politician in season 2 is the shows version of the character.
Dude that TALOS suit is literally just Spartan armor.
I work at an election supply company and just learned I work at a monopsony. Cool.
Sidenote: Vought tower is actually Toronto city hall with some added cgi to make it look taller.
I have a really hard time believing that every superhero would just be a huge dick and asshole to everyone and everything, the first promotion I saw for it was something like, "a more realistic look at what the average person would do with superpowers." And I think that's total bullshit, you can't tell me that every superhero would just be okay with their behaviour and not a single one wouldn't try to stop them. It's been proven time and time again that the average person is fairly good, meaning that they wouldn't hurt anyone unnecessarily just because they feel like it, or that they would feel no remorse for what they do or hurt, because that's just sociopathic behaviour, and sociopaths aren't very common in real life. For every one bad person like those of power in The Boys there are at least five good/selfless people like Superman or Captain America that would try to stop them.
Except the supes are very much not average people, they are the most powerful people in the world and the majority believe they are superior to normal people, just look at the most powerful people from our world
Not only would the government allow them to be contractors, they'd most likely demand it, in the hopes of controlling the superheros.
In the comics, this was explained well. The first superheroes were actually deployed to be used in war, WWII to be exact, but because they knew nothing of how war worked, it resulted in all the superheroes getting killed and hundreds of American soldiers getting slaughtered. This was the catalyst that would lead to the formation of The Boys.
Personally I feel the biggest lie in the show is that a corporation could a large number of supervillains under wraps. Corporations in real life are terrible at keeping things under wraps. The problem is that the bad press doesn't actually stop them, just look at Amazon.
The only purpose to the opposition from government in the show is to create conflict. Unrealistic, yes. Lazy, yes. But I don't think modern day writers want to portray federal governments to be as flawed as the big bad corporations. That would conflict with certain agendas.
I mean, Vought doesn't claim to make the supes. The creation of them are a massive conspiracy that relatively few people know about. Hence why the world thinks they are chosen by god to be born in the US.
It actually makes little sense why Vought is trying to get defense contracts, when they started off as having them in the first place, with Soldier Boy and his team, Payback, being military assets on the field. I suppose they got demoted to private corporation status after some catastrophe or failure, and what would make sense is if Vought is trying to redeem itself in the eyes of the government, and superheroes like Homelander would be an attempt to create a new supersoldier that they can then market a mass-produced version of to the government, to regain the Feds' trust.
I think the most unrealistic thing about the Boys is Carl Urban's accent.
100% but i love that
"significant private monopolies are actually pretty rare", says a video in a platform bought by one of the most powerful corporations in the world
Are you sure this comment you made is intelligent?
If the government wouldn't let these clearly ultra-powerful superhumans into the military, why wouldn't they just overthrow the government and establish their own military in which they could serve? you could easily get together the capital required for their R&D if it means an infinite return on investment by becoming the new government able to extract taxes from the citizens.
Have you seen how the Supes are portrayed in the boys? Most of them just want to indulge in a life of hedonism, they don't care about ruling people
@@thedripkingofangmar6778 so why is VA trying to get them in the military?
@@sethapex9670 so they can have government backing on a bigger scale to do all their dirt in the open.
@@jevonsims900 yes, but if there's resistance to that, why don't they just overthrow it and install a new government that will let them.
I didn’t read the books so correct me if I’m wrong, but in the final issue didn’t Homelander essentially takeover the White House and kill everyone including the president and try to establish his own rule?
This video is why an cashless society would be an nightmare, we would be at the mercy of the government, and who knows what could happen.
I mean Vought is a name that sounds familiar. (Chance Vought F4U Coursair, is where I remember it from. A Second World War- Era Navy Fighter.)
16:01 - You left out Coal, Oil and Gas subsidies, which run about $20B/year, versus $7.3 for renewable energy subsidies.
You could just say "Business always good,guvernment always bad,so the bad guys should be from guvernment!" to avoid wasting time!
Thing is, in comic there is a large opposing group of traditional weapon contractors, who are fighting Vought at every level. And Boys are, essentially, one of their side projects. Also, vought had military contracts before and fucked them up quite spectacularly, both in WW2 and Vietnam, so its understandable why pentagon doesn’t want them. Adaptation definitely lacks that angle.
I was thinking the same when watching the show. In the comic the government actually did comission Vought to use supes in the military but after the disastrous results, Vought decided to suspend the contract.
And later Homelander is the one "secretly" trying to pursue putting supes into the military while Vought is so so on the idea. That's the only more realistic aspect of the comic over the show though, they're very different
So the reason we don’t have supes is that the government doesn’t contract the research for them.
That whole millitary being reluctant to hire super hero seemed like the most immersion breaking aspect in this series.
You gotta coddle the CIA in modern Hollywood, they must be the gold guys.
Yea it's so stupid Its amazing.
My biggest issue with the Boys is that Vaught is essentially the only big company in the business of supes even though there is such a large number of super heroes.
damn I thought this was gonna be a The Boys video
You are under the wrong impression that we are a super hero company.We are in fact a pharmaceutical company.
The military would be the first to recruit them.
They explain in the show that superheroes in the military would cause a lot of jobs would be lost due to the lack of needed equipment because said equipment is dubbed unnecessary by the use of superheroes. The insane amount of pressure that the government puts on military construction jobs can be seen in examples of that experimental, stealth destroyer the Navy is failing to develop. They only requested 1 ship to test with and received two due to the number of jobs it'd supply.
The absolute best 'The Boys' related video I've seen so far!
In the original comic Vought has a contract with the military in WW2, but their planes were such crap they were killing more pilots then the Japanese Zeros. they tried to introduce supes in WW2, but that program failed so badly and many people killed. Vought was given another chance in Vietnam, but they bungled that so badly it got more soldiers killed, so they were banned from all military contracts by the Pentagon.
As much as I love FEE's comedic short animations, I love this series!
1. Monopolies are usually the result of things like network externalities and qualities of the physical geography (roads, tunnels, canals). "Natural" monopolies aren't that rare.
2. Monopsonies are also not that rare. They also occur where there are network extrernalities, but an even more common one I can think of is of chemicals. Many chemicals have only one or very few large scale industrial buyers.
Theoretical natural monopoloes are common, but in practice they're far more likely to be protected by governments.
Roads and tunnels, for example, do not inherently result in monopoly situations... Unless there's no other builder legally allowed to make parallel lines.
The NY Subway system is a good example of this.
You'd think that when that industry was private in its inception, only one company could have operated subway lines. But there were actually a bunch of competing companies digging a lot of parallel tunnels - which is part of why the system has so much capacity today. The redundancy created by competition in an arena that (under classical theory) "should" have only allowed for one company, now means there are tons of up/downtown routes to take and trains going your direction come by frequently.
There's a lot of stuff like that. Now, of course, there is no competition because NYC owns and operates the whole system.
Likewise, before the Federal government got heavily involved in railways, there were lots of competing rail companies. Even stuff like lighthouses what have obvious free rider problems could easily be competitive if there was any actual pressure to be so.
Most of the times a natural monopoly does exist, it's not because there's no room for a competitor, but because the one company that is providing a service isn't making their customers feel exploited. If they did, as long as there was no restrictions or barriers to entry from the state, competing companies could and generally would form.
Broader point being, a lot of things you may assume are natural monopolies probably aren't.
@@FEEonline I am critical of this absolute monopoly view held by many libertarians. Something like the Panama canal will always be a monopoly as an entity. Even if it were completely privately owned, something which I don't think libertarians express coherently (rights as you conceive of them don't exist, our very language and ideas are inherited, something at odds with the individualist conception of rights), it would as an entity still be a monopoly with a price in equilibrium with the cost of other routes of trade. Thomas DiLorenzo has pointed out that everything is in essence a monopoly.
I'm aware of the libertarian arguments; I just reject them. I think Nozick and many others have made good arguments for why anarchist/libertarian/liberal ontology is incoherent. I prefer an absolutist ontology of reactionary theories.
@@TheThreatenedSwan I think the idea that "everything is a monopoly" is one of those pedantic kinds of points that can be literally true if you really narrowly define your terms, but which is a very silly thing to say conceptually.
For example, it is *literally* true that there is no other human being on the planet that offers exactly the services I am able to provide a client or employer.
I have a very specific skill set, a unique bundle of specialized knowledge, and a perspective that allows me to make videos in a way no other person can or ever will.
So if you want to be that literal, I have a "monopoly" over my particular domain.
But practically speaking, this is absurd.
There are hundreds of other competent producers at my general level out there, and millions of people making videos on RUclips every day. I am competing with all of them. I am competing with other education channels, other pop culture channels, and with the wide world of entertainment and education options people have in general.
There is no real monopoly here in any sense that matters.
The Panama Canal example is also interesting. Yes, it's likely that only one company or individual would ever control entry and travel through the waterway... But it's not like that's the only means of crossing Central America or transporting goods. It's also a man-made canal and if necessary, someone else (were they legally allowed to do so) could build another one.
Ultimately, the canal competes with railroads, trucks, and a dozen other routes of transporting goods across that part of the world.
There are all sorts of substitute options people can use, and this is true for most everything.
I just love How Much Redpilling this channel has showed me. This is glorious content and it really makes me think.
Happy to help :)
Enjoy the estrogen pill.
Blake Blast Now go pick up "Bad Samaritans" so you can unlearn this libertarian dreck.
@@scottysbottom5769 I almost forgot about that book.
But turns out FEE covered that a while back.
fee.org/articles/bad-samaritans-the-myth-of-free-trade-and-the-secret-history-of-capitalism/
@@scottysbottom5769 I might also note that this documentary we made is -- without really intending to be -- a pretty solid rebuttal of the central thesis of that book.
ruclips.net/video/_U1zEuVXDak/видео.html
“I can breathe ice”
*”You’re in welcome to the military”*
Can you make video about company like Nestle? It seems everyone hate them
I would if it makes sense in context of something like this. Though maybe we can look into it on Common Sense Soapbox, too :)
@@FEEonline That is neat, the Common Sense Soapbox was the series that introduce me to this channel. Thank you.
The most glaring flaw in this hypothesis is that while the government shows great interest in super weapons that have no free will, they have no interest in soldiers they may not be able to control. IRL men who are very effective soldiers are dishonorably discharged when they can not be controlled.
I cant see alot of upsides to a human weapon that overshadow issues like the inability to control it, no good way to manage the damage it causes, no ability to make international treaties condemning them and no guarantee it wont turn on you.
We couldn't even cut the Military budget by 10 percent, let that sink it.
The show specifically points many of the senators are in the weapons manufactures pockets.
Thats just moves the goal post of the problem how did supes exist for decades not being already in the military before those weapons manufacturers gained so much power? Also why does lockeed martin exist selling conventional weapons and not super soldiers decades after compound V was invented? Your point doesn't debunk the video it just makes the boys even more stupid.
Boeing is not a sole military contractor. They have a huge (if not currently currently redundant) civil sector. As far as new weapons go, those who do not stay up with technology risk being dominated by those that do.
Amazing videos as always
9:12 thats because it is a conspiracy theory, an accurate one. A lot of people nowadays do not understand what conspiracy means and use the term incorrectly, they think it means lies.
let's have the heads of states fight each other when they declare war lol
check out the comic The Royals: Masters of War.
@@tophatminion.7558 I will thank you for your suggestion.
Tammy Manuel
Trump: *shrugs off blazer, undoes tie* this only has to be between us, Putin, no one else has to die.
Putin: *rips off shirt, transforms into bear* No one else but you, suka.
Yes. And everyone that votes for war, or wants war, should go there and fight it themselves !
Suppose the heads of state do fight each other, what's stopping them from coming to you next?
It's a bit naïve to think it's just b/w the 2 of them, or that it will stop with them.
4:00 ‘Hi I’m Jeff I buy the food’
‘Oh, food for who?’
‘Yes’
Home lander is my favorite hero he's my personal hero and i wanna grow up to be as insane as him
Good luck with that Oedipus complex bro.
Check out Brandon Sanderson's "Reckoners" series sometime. It starts with "Steelheart". The premise is that superheroes suddenly spring into existence due to a burst of energy in the sky related to the passage of a new comet, and rather than using their powers for good, the "Epics" use them selfishly and become worldwide evils.
Great video! Thanks. I wish this got more views.
I mean... I hope so too, but it's only a couple hours old, so it's got some time :P
In Trinidad we have a government company called NGC. It is both a monopoly and a monosoply and still loses money
I can think of one realistic reasons why the military would oppose use of superhumans.
Mental Instability; having superpowers and being insane go hand in hand.
That is what cranial bomb implants are for.
@@Barskor1 And how many people willingly submit to that?
@@psyxypher3881 They don't need to know before hand you just tell them that being rendered unconscious is just a sideffect of the injection so you shoot them up with a knock out drug do the cranial bomb implantation operation then dose them with V.
@@Barskor1 That sounds both highly illegal and immoral.
The comics actually kind of explains it, Vought was originally a Defense contractor, but they were remarkably incompitent and the government gut ties with them, once they discovered superheroes, the existing military industry used all the pull they could muster to keep them out of the military since it would pretty much make them obsolite.
"Encouraging … cross-cultural interaction."
What happens when incompatible cultures collide?
Imagine being a neo-nazi like this guy and thinking culture ( *cough* race *cough* ) is a monolith.
What happens is that culture changes. Also, cultures don't collide, people do.
@@lettuceprime4922
So, I ask a reasonable question, given human history, and you accuse me of being a neo-Nazi?
@@JonGreen91 - Reasonable question? Fascist dogwhistle. Cultures aren't incompatible genius.
@@Jimraynor45
So culture means nothing to the people who follow it?
One quibble. A lot of the superheroes don;t have qualified immunity because the government gives it to them. They have it because of their superpowers. Imagine some cop trying to arrest Homelander. Bullet proof, super strong, can fly away, and could literally cut you in half with a glance from his eyes.
Qualified immunity is a legal concept. If some super-powered people are murderers, people would find a way to stop them.
@@FEEonline How do you stop Homelander? Unlike Superman, he has no Kryptonite.
Other heroes, they have weaknesses. Translucent, shock him with electricity, then stick C4 where the sun don't shine. Noir Black, peanut butter.
But with A-Train, unless he has a heart attack, your screwed. He can do unto others long before anyone does unto him.
@@SaulOhio the point is that they are just criminals. Even if they are "unstoppable". That doesn't give them immunity to the law. Only the law does that.
That said, how you stop Homelander is clearly through psychological manipulation. Play on his need for maternal figures, etc. There are established means of blocking powers in the show/comics.
Also in the comics, the Boys themselves take Compound V to gain powers and fight on that level. There's definitely always going to be a way. Plus they're fictional, so it's just a question of how you write the characters.
In any case, the issue in The Boys is legal.
Me and the boys watching another amazing video from fee.
It's somewhat better explained in the comics. The military actually used supes in WW2, but without any kind of training or tactical knowledge. They ended up being an enormous pain in the ass of the regular military and got themselves and loads of regular soldiers killed in what ended up being a fuckup of EPIC proportions in the Ardennes.
That's when the other (regular) weapons contractors swooped in and lobbied against Vought and supes in the military. The government wasn't keen on risking such an embarrassment again anytime soon and instead went with the regulars.
That's why that lie is not in the books. And *that's* why I don't watch tv adaptations of books I like.
In my fictional universes, private companies develop ways to give people super powers, and sell to the public, but the government is a huge buyer for most company's products, with sales to individuals being mostly a way to earn money for less powerful versions of these technologies. Ex: Captain America serum might be for sale to the individual, but a better version of it is only sold to America and its allies.
The show is still the best I have ever seen.
It's shown in the comic, but not here sadly as to why they're not weaponized. They may be powerful, but in the line of duty, all they are are shiny civilians with toys and superpowers. Half of them can't take a bullet, or have things like wings that can't have bulletproofing on them. In the comic ***SPOILER***
There is a flashback to when they are brought into the military in WWII (Or I can't remember off the top of my head), where they royally screw up a camp by accidentally alerting the enemy to their location by "scouting" and looking around using their powers. All of the supers die, and a few stay alive until put down even though half of their body was shredded. The only reason Vought has them around still is due to Bureaucracy, where the head guy knows a guy who knows a guy, who wants money and power and is convinced to keep them around.
It's really fun to see him try to defend capitalism. :D
This is expanded on in the comics, there have historically been people in office that have locked Vought out of contracts and been in the pockets of other corps trying to prevent their military contracts from becoming extinct
This went from an interesting take with some fun theories into some stupid little Alex Jones level rant
Except that everything I said is actually true.
@@FEEonline Eh a lot of it is is partial truth a perspective framing.
My grandfather was a medic of a experimental unit in the Vietnam War trying to create super soldiers that would not feel guilty for killing. They were experimenting with heroin, and he came back a heroin addict. The VA later killed him by prescribing him morphine to get over his addiction, knowing that my grandfather was deathly allergic to morphine.
My idea was that in The Boys, the supposed to be good guys (superheroes) are bad, while the usual bad guys (government) try to be good, so that senator tried avoiding using superheroes in military.
hollywood: does a sf adventure fantasy series
foundation for economic education: this is not real
Putting Superheroes into the military lowers the demand for tanks, aircraft, ships, and people to use them.
In turn, Vought's Superheroes inclusion would cost the companies who produce said equipment to lose billions of dollars, if not become obsolete alltogether.
Military industrial complex requires that war's stagnate; Win the war just in-time for the next one; keep the cash-flow and contracts renewed.
If a creation of a weapon existed that ended all war, the companies who profit from war would run out of business. They cannot afford this; so equipment is only ever made to be barely at a level to just have an advantage; but nothing much of one.
And as the government officials are so heavily invested within these companies, such as Lockheed Martin and NATO sharing a few high ranking members employed into both; when one company profits, so does the other. In turn; the government profits by selling war to the masses; and allowing weapons to be sold using taxes.
Superheroes is just a way to end a war. Cease the need for alllll the wealth creation; and that; is something the government cannot allow.
Not until when it was leaked the enemy has super's as well; and the chemical agent 'can' be provided to adults; for a premium cost; of course.
Profit from the superheroes involvement, somehow.
Extremely realistic.
"Compound V is not unbelievable... The baffling part is that they DON'T HAVE AN ALREDY ESTABLISHED MILITARY CONTRACT!!!"
-FEE
(It's funny becaue it's true!)
The counterargument is that the US military wouldn't want a 'weapon' they couldn't control. Let's assume that is the reason the US govt doesn't do it in the series.
How quickly would that policy change when another country started using supers in their military? Even if there were unintended consequences, the military would definitely start using supers for one reason or another, and I doubt there would be much hesitation about it.
Quick note: I'm not sure about the show, but in the comics Voight WAS a military contractor. Their planes were blamed for stalling WWII until the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as having their guns be responsible for a genocide of American soldiers in Vietnam. Literally, Homelander was the least defective creation of the company.
As an employee of a defense contractor, I'll say that it's not as if all the billions being spent on weapons development by the government is just vanishing into nothingness. It pays my bills, and the bills of the thousands of people who work on my site alone. That money puts kids into college, groceries on the table, and stimulates the local economy. Defense contractors are often the largest employers in their townships. It's great to talk about commerce and bridging the cultural divide, but war happens because people are assholes, and sometimes you need a $150,000 missile to stop a warlord from raping a village.
Interestingly Vought actually has made several attempts already before with failed military contracts.
1. The first official one was the creation of a fighter craft that was to replace the P-51 Mustang. The Fighter was rushed into production (likely to get sales in before the war ended) and a fatal flaw in the design caused it to kill more of its own pilots than the enemy did.
1.Classified: Vought created the serum that would make Supers as Early as WW2. Testing it out they tried to use Supers as potential super soldiers, the candidates they choose were not trained soldiers and thus unsuited for war. They exposed Allied positions for the enemy to trace which proceeded to kill off most of the supers and the allied soldiers they were with. A American soldier survivor insured the Supers were rightfully killed off.
2. At the Beginning of the Vietnam War Vought introduced a assault rifle that was so pathetic and useless it resulted in the total wipe out of Moor's 7th Calvary. Apparently it was good for putting American soldiers heads on. The M-16 was introduced instead and well a poor weapon of choice in the jungle was far far better than the vought rifle.
It makes sense that the American Government would be wary of anything Vought attempted to do.
Honestly military company screw ups wouldn't matter, it's more about what bribes they're giving out to congress. I think probably it makes the most sense to just assume that the other defense contractors don't want to lose business as their tanks and bombers are rendered obsolete by supers.
I did enjoy the reason the senator gave as to why they didn't want supes in the military, it made sense within the show. He said that if the military sent someone like homelander to north korea (i think that was the example he gave) if they acted agressive then they would respond with nuking the country because that's the only response that is on the same scale as using homelander during a war.
Bloody hell, the only comment that mantion it.
But wouldn’t homelander be able to stop the nukes? Technically he can fly around at super speed.
@@esyphillis101 in theory yes, he could. But in practice, maybe not. For example, he should have been able to save the hijacked plane in the show, but we all know how that turned out.
They didn’t make Marrow, she was just in one later iteration of Weapon X.