• einkorn@feddit.org
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    8 hours ago

    Mercenaries are professionals, though. This phenomenon is about ordinary or at least commonly criminal people.

    • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      Anyone who does this type of work for money and isn’t employed directly by a government is a “professional mercenary.” What’s the difference between some ex-Marine who gets hired as a mercenary after a 4 year tour and an “ordinary” or “commonly criminal” person?

      You’re using “professional” to mean “ethical and skilled” but anyone who takes a job killing people for money from the highest bidder is far from that.

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      The non/semi-professional mercenaries have to start somewhere before they get promoted to the big leagues.

      • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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        27 minutes ago

        They usually start as foot soldiers in a formal state military before moving on to mercenary work.

    • Miller@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      If they are paid they are professional and not all mercenaries are paid in coin.

    • Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.ca
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      6 hours ago

      Mercenaries are definitely not all professionals - who do you think are the boots on the ground for all the proxy wars happening today?

      Turkey and Russia were flying out Syrian mercenaries to north Africa to fight each other over Libya.

      It’s extensively published in military research papers that guns for hire (mercenaries) are becoming much more ubiquitous in today’s proxy wars.

      • InternationalHermit@lemmy.today
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        2 hours ago

        Look up the definition of professional in the dictionary. If you get paid for a job, your are a professional. Level of experience or skill is not part of the definition.