Someone shoots at someone somewhere else. It just a background noise. Why bother?
You won't hear your bullet. Even if you could, it won't change anything anyway.
"Someone shoots at someone somewhere else. It just a background noise. Why bother? You won't hear your bullet."
Sounds dramatic, but I heard that staying away from shootouts, or taking cover when you are too close can somehow magically increase your odds of not getting shot.
> When Yemen united its mountainous Islamic tribal north with its mountainous Islamic tribal south, many observers were adamant that the experiment was doomed to fail. The differences between the two sides were too great.
It's like describing every country fighting in WW2 as a 'Christian urban state' - with the exception of the officially atheist USSR. Obviously the war was between USSR and everyone else. Oh, that's the Red Alert timeline, not the real one.
Well, except that as the situation developed, it turned into exactly what you describe, a conflict between the USSR and everybody else. That tends to suggest that the analysis has value.
No. Why? The cultural analysis would tell you that Japan is the natural enemy of every European country including the USSR. In a conflict between several European countries, what does that suggest?
We see them in history attacking every nearby European country (in which category I'm including the US) as well as their actual enemy, China. Where's the surprise?
The aftermath of the Second World War resulted in a foreign policy in which the U.S. sought to oppose world communism. The ensuing Cold War resulted in the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, and Reagan Doctrines, all of which saw the U.S. embrace espionage, regime change, proxy conflicts, and other clandestine activity internationally against the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile the russians are actually gearing up to invade Ukraine with force as we speak (write), and the worst deterrent the west seems willing to use is blocking Russia from the SWIFT international banking system, and that's a maybe.
Hmm. The guidelines say to avoid unrelated controversy, but possible military conflict in Eastern Europe does seem to be of some relevance to the topic at hand.
After all, the name of the article is "War Starts," and it begins by clearly hinting at the tensions between the US and China. The build-up of military assets on the border of Russia with Ukraine may merely be posturing [1], or it may be preparation for an invasion (which doesn't seem impossible a priori, given that Russia has invaded Ukraine in the past decade). In either case, it seems to me that this sort of international posturing/brinksmanship is very relevant to the article's discussion. A key question the article seemingly poses is whether war will die out, or whether it remains an essential part of society.
That's a classic example of a tangent (single point of contact, leading in a completely different direction), and flamewar tangents are most of all what we want to avoid here.
Hot generic topics are like black holes that suck in any unsuspecting spaceships that fly nearby. Our goal is to steer clear of those, because they lead to the most repetitive and inflamed sorts of discussion, drowning out anything that is quieter or more obscure, and ultimately, anything interesting.
Strange to see war starting to surface the mainstream zeigeist, as it's been happening predictably in slow motion as the consequence of obvious incentives for about 18 months, and then it goes up all at once. From everything I can tell from reading about previous ones, war is a kind of triumph of the absurd, where meaning is extinguished and all that is left is the violence until the attrition establishes some coherence again.
My bets are Russia re-establishes some of its soviet era borders between the Black and the Baltic seas, including Ukraine, then possibly Latvia or Estonia. Israel is almost out of alternatives on Iran, and China will consolidate Hong Kong and Taiwan in Xi's lifetime. The only thing standing in any of their way is the alliance of Biden, Bojo, Macron, and Trudeau getting enough democratic traction for a draft and total war. So nothing, basically.
> China is also alleged to have launched a hypersonic glide vehicle from their missile, a technological feat that no other country is close to achieving.
In a prior career I watched closely as hundreds of bright, some brilliant, minds opted for careers in fintech, crypto or webtech instead of working for (or continuing to work for) US defense companies both small and large. For some this was a moral decision, but for most it was about money.
It's almost as if our democracies don't require defending, at least not by us. Best to hope someone else will do so. After all, those weapons are sometimes misused, the arms industry is also a business, and the amount of efficiency & waste is appalling. And, our democracies are equally flawed, unequal & manipulated by special interests. The democracies run by those we elected, I should add. At least, these are the arguments I've heard stated time and again.
For something closer to the ideal I might contribute, some would say. If things were different I could justify the sacrifice.
If the US and the West loses its competition with China/Russia - it will be largely because we focused too heavily on our very lementable flaws, and far too little on what the world might look like were our remaining positive qualities overshadowed by the national interests of countries less virtuous.
What exactly is the nexus between "democracy requires defending" and "more smart people should be making fancy weapons"?
There are many serious threats to democracy in the US, but they're almost all internal: attempts to overturn elections, the confluence of increasingly disproportionate rural power with increasing urbal-rural polarization, etc. China is certainly a threat to democracy in Taiwan, and its commercial power sometimes limits free expression in the US, but it's difficult to imagine a mechanism by which it would threaten the US form of government.
On the other hand, it's not too difficult to imagine a mechanism by which increasingly brilliant feats of weapons technology inch us closer to a terribly destructive conflict by convincing the powers-that-be that they could win without too high a cost.
> What exactly is the nexus between "democracy requires defending" and "more smart people should be making fancy weapons"?
"Fancy" weapons give you a vote in how war is fought and who will win. They give you a seat at the table when war ends. They are the stick in Carrot & Stick diplomacy. If smart people don't make 'em, you don't get a vote, you don't get a seat, you don't have a stick, and you either go along or pack your bags for the concentration camp.
Alright, just wanted to get from the high-minded "nobody wants to defend democracy anymore" to the underlying "if we don't get all our best people working for Lockheed Martin, the Chinese are going to put us all in concentration camps".
After the CCP took over China, they turned their attention to Tibet. Tibet didn't stand a chance, and is now well along the ethnic cleansing path. Ask the Dalai Lama what he thinks about what's going on there.
The CCP turned their attention to East Turkistan. There's now over a million Uighurs in concentration camps. Ethnic cleansing is in full swing as they bull doze the past.
People think of these countries as part of China now. That's how all the maps are drawn.
They recently crushed Hong Kong.
There is strong evidence that the CCP is committing attrocities such as organ harvesting from living dissidents. The organ replacement situation is China is amazing for CCP members.
Their next target is Taiwan, and dictator for life Xi has staked his reputation on conquering it.
What do you think they intend to do with hypersonics or quantum supremacy?
They are pouring a lot more money into these things than the west is. What do you think will happen when they can break our strongest encryption with quantum computers? All that invenstment of time by our best and brightest in fintech won't matter at that point.
Wars are typically won by the side with more assets, money and people. Military equipment is generally not economically productive (though it can be necessary for having any economy at all); fighter jets don't make people more productive, but cargo jets do.
My thought always has been that the best way to defend the country is to grow the economy. Of course, if war comes, then you need to work on the short-term issues of making fighter jets.
Do you think the US would be better off militarily without all the technological and economic growth?
Ask someone in Berkeley if they would be open for developing defense capabilities and taking up a job at one of the defense contractors. You'll be unfriended, shamed, mocked, ridiculed and thrown out of the society. But, ask the same group of people what they think about China - "Man, they're really impressive." - this is a verbatim quote from a PI at UC Berkeley. Something is terribly wrong with these people.
When the will of the people is weak, mangled, broken, dismembered, and destroyed by the political affiliation, I have no hope for the west to have any spirit to defend, let alone assert dominance.
The US knows how to win battles and knows how to win wars. It is willing to go to great lengths and expense for the former, but only the expense part for the latter. Something to do with election cycles, a fickle public & and lousy communications strategies when it comes to expectation setting. So, I sorta agree? None of this has anything to do with why my 22 year old nephew (most recent example) is going to Wall Street instead of DARPA.
Sounds like defense companies need to redirect some of that money they’re making through never ending war into salaries then.
On another note, sure DARPA may be working on some cool projects, but I have a feeling a vast amount of work in defense working for Boeing/Raytheon/Booz Allen/etc. in a slow, environment, below market rate, working on some legacy system or a just working on software to support business processes. Maybe if you’re lucky you can work on some cool new weapon that will get sold to the Saudis and support the very war in the article itself!
I go to DARPA’s website, look under Work With Us > Opportunities, see some cool projects that are just proposals with a bunch of bureaucratic looking documents with no idea or notion how to get involved with them. I’m sure, I could find the website of a well known Wall Street firm, and find their open positions, with enough information what roles they have, etc.
I think the definition of what winning is has been the #1 issue the past 20 years and that has been demoralizing in some ways.
Winning was sold as a bunch of different moving targets, often farcically unbelievable like the taliban participating in Democracy. So yeah we lost on that one. Never stood a chance of winning if that's what winning is.
I don't think there's any question in these lopsided conflicts us/nato could have absolutely decimated the other side. But that didn't seem to be what winning was pitched as.
To me that's why it feels like we lost.
I'm more confident - though still worried - about an actual big conflict against CCP/totalitarian alliance. Our reliance on tech scares me the most.
yeah!!! i think it's really scary. Same with TSMC and having just one litho company. My biggest fear is having so many billions in planes and bombs and ships and everything else that seems like they won't work if they get hacked. and i assume everything will get hacked in an all out war.
This is also why I think Russia has the confidence to potentially do such a large scale invasion. Europe needs their natural gas. Just another reason to spend to get to almost 100% renewables asap.
>China is also alleged to have launched a hypersonic glide vehicle from their missile, a technological feat that no other country is close to achieving.
Here's a way to achieve. Don't eat your fellow countrymen, as the marxists do. They did not eat each other because they were starving. They ate each other because they liked it and did not like not following orders. Make all the missiles you want. Make all the technological advances you want. You still eat each other. Even animals have an aversion to that.
Someone shoots at someone somewhere else. It just a background noise. Why bother? You won't hear your bullet. Even if you could, it won't change anything anyway.
Sounds dramatic, but I heard that staying away from shootouts, or taking cover when you are too close can somehow magically increase your odds of not getting shot.
Clever.
It's like describing every country fighting in WW2 as a 'Christian urban state' - with the exception of the officially atheist USSR. Obviously the war was between USSR and everyone else. Oh, that's the Red Alert timeline, not the real one.
We see them in history attacking every nearby European country (in which category I'm including the US) as well as their actual enemy, China. Where's the surprise?
Since the suggestion it was two sided, when really it was more hexagonal.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/151493
The aftermath of the Second World War resulted in a foreign policy in which the U.S. sought to oppose world communism. The ensuing Cold War resulted in the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, and Reagan Doctrines, all of which saw the U.S. embrace espionage, regime change, proxy conflicts, and other clandestine activity internationally against the Soviet Union.
(Edit: and we've had to ask you about this numerous times in the past. That's not cool.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
After all, the name of the article is "War Starts," and it begins by clearly hinting at the tensions between the US and China. The build-up of military assets on the border of Russia with Ukraine may merely be posturing [1], or it may be preparation for an invasion (which doesn't seem impossible a priori, given that Russia has invaded Ukraine in the past decade). In either case, it seems to me that this sort of international posturing/brinksmanship is very relevant to the article's discussion. A key question the article seemingly poses is whether war will die out, or whether it remains an essential part of society.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/3/how-real-is-the-thr...
Hot generic topics are like black holes that suck in any unsuspecting spaceships that fly nearby. Our goal is to steer clear of those, because they lead to the most repetitive and inflamed sorts of discussion, drowning out anything that is quieter or more obscure, and ultimately, anything interesting.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Is this how inevitability of the war was felt in Europe hundred of years ago?
My bets are Russia re-establishes some of its soviet era borders between the Black and the Baltic seas, including Ukraine, then possibly Latvia or Estonia. Israel is almost out of alternatives on Iran, and China will consolidate Hong Kong and Taiwan in Xi's lifetime. The only thing standing in any of their way is the alliance of Biden, Bojo, Macron, and Trudeau getting enough democratic traction for a draft and total war. So nothing, basically.
Anyway, remember to act surprised.
In a prior career I watched closely as hundreds of bright, some brilliant, minds opted for careers in fintech, crypto or webtech instead of working for (or continuing to work for) US defense companies both small and large. For some this was a moral decision, but for most it was about money.
It's almost as if our democracies don't require defending, at least not by us. Best to hope someone else will do so. After all, those weapons are sometimes misused, the arms industry is also a business, and the amount of efficiency & waste is appalling. And, our democracies are equally flawed, unequal & manipulated by special interests. The democracies run by those we elected, I should add. At least, these are the arguments I've heard stated time and again.
For something closer to the ideal I might contribute, some would say. If things were different I could justify the sacrifice.
If the US and the West loses its competition with China/Russia - it will be largely because we focused too heavily on our very lementable flaws, and far too little on what the world might look like were our remaining positive qualities overshadowed by the national interests of countries less virtuous.
There are many serious threats to democracy in the US, but they're almost all internal: attempts to overturn elections, the confluence of increasingly disproportionate rural power with increasing urbal-rural polarization, etc. China is certainly a threat to democracy in Taiwan, and its commercial power sometimes limits free expression in the US, but it's difficult to imagine a mechanism by which it would threaten the US form of government.
On the other hand, it's not too difficult to imagine a mechanism by which increasingly brilliant feats of weapons technology inch us closer to a terribly destructive conflict by convincing the powers-that-be that they could win without too high a cost.
"Fancy" weapons give you a vote in how war is fought and who will win. They give you a seat at the table when war ends. They are the stick in Carrot & Stick diplomacy. If smart people don't make 'em, you don't get a vote, you don't get a seat, you don't have a stick, and you either go along or pack your bags for the concentration camp.
I don't understand. If I develop a new kind of missile and sell it to the government, I don't get a say in what that missile is launched at.
The CCP turned their attention to East Turkistan. There's now over a million Uighurs in concentration camps. Ethnic cleansing is in full swing as they bull doze the past.
People think of these countries as part of China now. That's how all the maps are drawn.
They recently crushed Hong Kong.
There is strong evidence that the CCP is committing attrocities such as organ harvesting from living dissidents. The organ replacement situation is China is amazing for CCP members.
Their next target is Taiwan, and dictator for life Xi has staked his reputation on conquering it.
What do you think they intend to do with hypersonics or quantum supremacy?
They are pouring a lot more money into these things than the west is. What do you think will happen when they can break our strongest encryption with quantum computers? All that invenstment of time by our best and brightest in fintech won't matter at that point.
My thought always has been that the best way to defend the country is to grow the economy. Of course, if war comes, then you need to work on the short-term issues of making fighter jets.
Do you think the US would be better off militarily without all the technological and economic growth?
When the will of the people is weak, mangled, broken, dismembered, and destroyed by the political affiliation, I have no hope for the west to have any spirit to defend, let alone assert dominance.
On another note, sure DARPA may be working on some cool projects, but I have a feeling a vast amount of work in defense working for Boeing/Raytheon/Booz Allen/etc. in a slow, environment, below market rate, working on some legacy system or a just working on software to support business processes. Maybe if you’re lucky you can work on some cool new weapon that will get sold to the Saudis and support the very war in the article itself!
I go to DARPA’s website, look under Work With Us > Opportunities, see some cool projects that are just proposals with a bunch of bureaucratic looking documents with no idea or notion how to get involved with them. I’m sure, I could find the website of a well known Wall Street firm, and find their open positions, with enough information what roles they have, etc.
I think the definition of what winning is has been the #1 issue the past 20 years and that has been demoralizing in some ways.
Winning was sold as a bunch of different moving targets, often farcically unbelievable like the taliban participating in Democracy. So yeah we lost on that one. Never stood a chance of winning if that's what winning is.
I don't think there's any question in these lopsided conflicts us/nato could have absolutely decimated the other side. But that didn't seem to be what winning was pitched as.
To me that's why it feels like we lost.
I'm more confident - though still worried - about an actual big conflict against CCP/totalitarian alliance. Our reliance on tech scares me the most.
This is also why I think Russia has the confidence to potentially do such a large scale invasion. Europe needs their natural gas. Just another reason to spend to get to almost 100% renewables asap.
Here's a way to achieve. Don't eat your fellow countrymen, as the marxists do. They did not eat each other because they were starving. They ate each other because they liked it and did not like not following orders. Make all the missiles you want. Make all the technological advances you want. You still eat each other. Even animals have an aversion to that.
Thought US had some form of this tech in the 60s but left it in favor of something else
Like Dyna-soar