>>123838622that seems like horseshit, in the olden days military was a primary tool for achieving dominance, so only (or even mostly) social undesirables being killed was unlikely
before drafting was a thing, nobles and mercs were used as military, and while deadly, being man-at-arms wasn't the worst fate
after that, you could suppose that powerful enough people could evade the draft, but being a patriot was actually common then
colonies are split, if you were a nobody then you could be stationed in some middle-of-nowhere part of africa for posturing, or if you were rich you could be sent to india to make great profits
in pre-industrial countries, 90% of population is peasants, both unfit for war and of low status (expendables as article puts it) but i suppose nobody kept a ledger of serf family trees to see who died a virgin, so who the fuck knows
