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The Nice Guy At the World's Largest Weapons Expo
pigrabbitbear writes "It was the second day of the Special Operation Forces Exhibition in Amman, Jordan, and the temperature outside the convention center was around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, with a typical chance of rain of zero. Drones of various sizes hovered in the hot blue desert sky. Inside, Ed Atchley had set up a booth for his company, Aspen Water Inc., right next to a 30mm chain gun designed to sink things like helicopters and Somali pirate ships. Atchley had traveled from his headquarters in Richardson, Texas, to the largest weapons trade show in the world, mainly because he makes 'the army's smallest, lightest, least expensive, high output, reverse osmosis water purifier,' he says, and people in the Middle East – including soldiers – get very thirsty."
Actually, those booths should be sitting next to each other. All the high tech drones, big guns, fighters, bombers, and armor doesn't mean much if your soldiers starve or run out of water. Sun Tzu said as much -- it was pretty much chapter 1 of The Art of War. It may not be very sexy, but it's like saying the internet is important... and electricity isn't.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Unfortunately, at the weapons show, more of the attendees were probably interested in ways to keep this product out of the hands of "certain people" than buying it for themselves.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Is a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators!
It's not senseless murder. There is a lot of money to be made. In fact, it is one of the few industries that are booming today. Done correctly, murder can be highly profitable for the murderer (displace an ethnic minority to take their land, kill people opposing your government, stealing riches, protect your religion for heretics/infidels, etc.).
What? Do you hate economic growth? The rich killing the poor is what had created most of the developed nations of the world.
After you hit a helicopter it probably loses height even quicker than a ship.
...the stillsuit or the lasgun?
This technology could have quite a few peaceful uses as well.
You know those people you're talking about? The people trying to senselessly murder innocent people? Yeah, pretty much the only way to stop them is to kill them.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I take it you're pro-death and torment from your request he "burn", right?
The Nicest Guy At the World's Largest Weapons Expo
If you want to publicise the work of some actual nice guys, what about those people who go into warzones simply to provide this kind of facility (some even do it for free, the gall of these people!) to those who are suffering because they happen to live in the middle of a war they want no part in?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I have to disagree with you.
The senseless murder of people by other people has been going on for a long time and will unfortunately continue for at least the near future. But developing and producing better water purifiers does nothing to encourage it.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Potable water is the most critical resource on the planet. The wars of the future will not be fought over access to oil or nuclear fuel, they'll be fought over water shortages.
Anything that makes water easier to obtain will save lives in the long run, even if it's being used chiefly by the military today.
Maybe he meant "senseless to a sensible person." Also, I think you meant rationalization, not rationale.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
'An army marches on its stomach.'
'C'est la soupe qui fait le soldat.'
Nothing, absolutely nothing, matters more at winning wars than logistics. The lethal fighting force is but the edge of a vast engineering and distribution network. Or, if it is not the edge of such a network, it is soon a defeated lethal fighting force.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
fuck it tapped 100 a few times here in the states last week, besides why is this guy nice? Cause he wants to sell technology to any army that pays him enough, well just call him Jesus fucking Saint Humanity!
Definition of SENSELESS:
b : foolish, stupid: it was some senseless practical joke — A. Conan Doyle
c : meaningless: a senseless murder
He probably meant it as "meaningless" I'm guessing. As in, it's meaningless to resort to violence when it only makes the problem worst.
Could, and does. FTFA:
Since those legal hurdles were resolved, Aspen Water has been growing, distributing fresh water systems to militaries around the world and in humanitarian crises.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
I think what drives more U.S. Soldiers to commit suicide than are actually killed in combat, is that it's often the case that the Al-Qaeda follower planting an IED is a 12 year old boy
Yes, I'm sure Slashdot's readership is a highly sought-after market for $70,000 water purifiers.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
In most of the world it's more like:
Gee I'm thirsty. So are my wife, six children, handful of cows, and all the people I know in my village. I don't have any way to dig a well deep enough to give me sufficient water, much less my family and friends who are also thirsty.
But we do have a lot of guns and bullets.....
It's a very shitty situation, and I think your logic is inappropriately reductionist and simple minded.
Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you
Well, if you believe a significant number of Slashdot posters they are so dangerous to the established world order that they need to triply encrypt their data, send it via a darknetted Tor system and only read it under an infrared light after scanning the room for stray electromagnetic emissions. These highly sought after individuals might well need water purification systems for their discretely located subterranean lair.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The US military isn't evil it just follows the orders of the scumbag 1% who own the US government. The invasion of Iraq had only one driver to get Bush's croony oil folks rich'er. Everything else was a smoke screen for stupid people.
This is an ugly example of Slashdot's owners whoring the site for SEO purposes. It ain't about trying to sell water purifiers to anonymous cowards. It's about boosting this company in Google rankings when buyers are searching for water purification systems.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
It is funny how people think that all military forces are bad. While it would be nice if there was absolutely no military forces in the world but that will never happen. It is human nature to want something someone else has and to want to protect what one has (which can soon morph into we have these forces and they have what we want). In every conflict there is at least one aggressor and at least one defender. In general I side with the defenders; taking land by force is wrong. In my mind the defending force are the good guys. They too need armaments and ammunition which is why I see not issues with military expos.
Whether or not a military force is a good or bad this is a moot point. It is how the people, through their elected officials, use their military forces on other countries that matters. As examples: North Korea, pretty bad; Canada damn good.
When you see the US espouse itself as a pinnacle of freedom and justice occupy another country for 11 years, taking resources and torturing prisoners, it should be unsurprising that a lot of people cry foul. The US military is hardly the worst in the world, but it is the most visible, and it is hardly a bunch of white knights riding in on horses and serving up happiness, rainbows, and puppies.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The lighter the tail, the better, but too light and the beast dies. It's hard to achieve a good balance, and unfortunately politics plays a role, with all the kingdom building and buying things that need too much maintenance.
Done correctly, murder can be highly profitable for the murderer (displace an ethnic minority to take their land, kill people opposing your government, stealing riches, protect your religion for heretics/infidels, etc.).
Stab a rich guy in the alley and take his wallet...
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
"selling land mines has no legitimate military purpose."
Nonsense. If I'm defending a fixed position, I want a line of mines in front of me. Why? So it's harder for any attackers to overrun us, and kill not only us but whoever/whatever we're trying to protect. Mines are very effective for that.
They have absolutely legitimate military use. The problem is when they're left behind and kill civilians. Or worse, when a regime plants them throughout farm fields so they can't be worked as a way to cause starvation.
Just because you can be a bastard with them doesn't mean there aren't situations where they are needed.
If you want to put in time links so they deactivate in case they are missed when picking them up, great. I agree with that. You want to restrict who they are sold to and have monitoring of use? Ok.
But, if I were the Libyan rebels facing Qadafi's forces in tanks coming to take back my town, I would have wanted antitiank mines so that they could be stopped before they killed everyone.
Now, if you take the position that all soldiers, rebels or fighters should be dead, that's a whole other story. (Or if you think that defending a city or a refuge camp or other civilian installation is of no positive value) . That I can't argue with as it's a matter of faith.
Actually, for most of these people, having a lot of children is the only for old age pension that they can ever have. They have 6+ children so that the odds of at least one of them reaching 20 years old is reasonable. Infant mortality rates in some parts of the word are greater than 20% and this is a big improvement over the last few decades. I am astounded you don't know that. Perhaps a little more empathy for these desperately poor people would help come up with better solutions. This is why education of women is the only cure for over population: it allows the women to make informed decisions about health and family planning. It also gives them a degree of independance making them not entirely dependant on their reletives.
Religion is the biggest excuse for killing not the biggest cause. The cause is always power. Power from owning land, resources, strategic positions or influence. The only other cause of killing is insanity, insanity as a result of disease, poverty, oppression, etc.
Power or insanity.
Religion brings them both together in one package, so its often cited as the cause.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
"selling land mines has no legitimate military purpose."
Nonsense. If I'm defending a fixed position, I want a line of mines in front of me. Why? So it's harder for any attackers to overrun us, and kill not only us but whoever/whatever we're trying to protect. Mines are very effective for that.
They have absolutely legitimate military use. The problem is when they're left behind and kill civilians. Or worse, when a regime plants them throughout farm fields so they can't be worked as a way to cause starvation.
I'm very much with GP and against you on this. "The problem is when they're left behind and kill civilians" is true but a smoke screen. They're pretty much ALWAYS left behind where they kill and maim innocents, for generations. They take minutes to deploy but years to clear. You deploy now with the full expectation that you will be committing egregious human rights violations in the future. Where we draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour is obviously different in peacetime and at war -- that's almost the definition of war. However, landmines are now clearly on the wrong side of that line, even in wartime. Or, put another way, just as your right to swing your fist stops at my nose, your right to deploy mines stops unless you can guarantee you will clean them up again. And you can't guarantee that.
As an aside, I've known two people who spent many years serving in the Canadian army, who admit they previously supported land mines where appropriate, and now work or volunteer time to make sure the world stops using them, and cleans up, bit by bit, the mess we are in now.
The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures (Junius)
Combat is almost over, so the suicide rate is reasonably likely to exceed combat deaths.
"is that it's often the case that the Al-Qaeda follower planting an IED is a 12 year old boy"
Since when are there many "Al Qaeda" followers and since when is mining commonly being done by 12-year olds?
The usual reasons for checking out have more to do with young marrieds coming UN-married as lonely wives get stuffed while the husband is deployed. Anyone pulling First Sergeant duty in war or peace or in-between gets to counsel lots of troops with domestic dramas. (That's a drawback to having a married force. IMO the military should pay SINGLE troops more and discourage marriage, but the GOP would come unglued...)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I would expect the peaceful/civilian market for such a system to be far greater than the military market. Also for more permanent installations. Plenty of communities that have a problem getting enough potable water. And it could have use in shipping industry too, saving the vessels to carry (and keep fresh) large amounts of water for long periods of time.
Yes the Communists and the Nazis were just peace loving agnostic/atheists groups.
Saying religion is the problem is oversimplifying the problem. Is religion used in an excuse to make war, yes. Is religion an excuse to make peace, yes.
Religion is only one way we consider our identity. So we will support our peers of like minds. Take away religion we will fight for other thing, political ideals, resources, borders, race and ethnicity, moral code, social class status.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Because Sadam was better then getting a communist supporter in power. Sometimes you need to choose from the lesser of two evils. The USSR with nukes pointing at you, or put a crazy man who will not join the side with all those nukes pointing at you, we will deal with the crazy man later. Just like FDR working with Stallin in WWII the communists were a threat to America, but Germany was a bigger threat.
Sometimes in life you get places where you need to take the least bad action.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In general, the Military does not start wars, Politicians start wars by telling the military who to attack. "War is the extension of politics by use of force" or words to that effect.
I have tremendous respect for the US Military, its members etc. I have a lot less respect for the rich and powerful who get their politician underlings to order the invasion of a country so they can secure oil and make big profits off of the support contracts for all the troops that get sent. Anyone US soldier who died in Iraq did so not only because the enemy killed them, but also in part because they were sent there by people seeking economic gain.
Almost every war is economic at heart, and the soldiers sent to fight it are merely tools used by Politicians to achieve their goals. This does not in any way denigrate the dedication of those troops who get sent to the war IMHO.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Having spent some time in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Oman, I can assert that they don't waste a lot of water on frivolous things like showers.
Spoken like a true Armchair General....
First Sergeant is a rank in the military, not a duty position. And nobody who knew anything about the military would call a 1SG a duty position.
sudo make me a sandwich
..tries to sell water purifier.
He considers the target market and decides to try and sell to people who work in places where there is a shortage of water.
What's the story again?
I don't know if you were being sarcastic but just to make clear: the Nazi's were very, very much Christian. The SS belt buckle had "God with us" on it and Hitler was raised Catholic and always claimed to be a Christian but wanted to actually create a more extreme form of Christianity and make himself the Messiah.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Since 2004 the US has been eliminating the "dumb" antipersonnel mines in its arsenal. The ones left are electrically detonated and deactivate at a preset time, or ultimately when the batteries run out.
Mines are so useful that the reality is, they will be used. And manufactured locally if they have to be.
If you make it impossible for countries that can make the mines with time deactivation (or degradable components for the same end) to sell them, then what you will have for sale are those made by those who don't care. (And if you say it would be a war crime, I suggest you look at how many heads of state have been convicted since Nuremburg. One. Charles Taylor, And that's just in the past few weeks)
That's very good for saying "it's not my fault", but it's hiding your head in the sand as far as reducing the number of situations like the former Yugoslavia and large numbers of long term mines being abondoned.
As I said before, I greatly support putting deactivation systems in mines, and supporting it with treaties restricting the sale and manufacture of dumb mines. That may have some effect as it will mean the more modern type mines will be the ones openly sold.
But a blanket ban just leads to those who won't follow it making their own, or buying them under the table. And guess what. Those won't be self deactivating because dumb mines are dirt cheap to make once you've spent the money to set up a production line.
So, are you for something that might reduce the problem? Or are you for something that probably won't, but will let some people/countries say "it's not my fault"?
Then perhaps immigration rules are the issue.
First Shirt is, in the Air Force, a Special Duty Assignment. Scroll down in your own reference!
It is common to pull "alternate First Sergeant" and at least in the Air Force there are more of them than the official, diamond-wearing one-per-unit variety.
When the Shirt deploys or goes on leave, his duty doesn't go away. The alternates get to take up the slack and can be on call if he can't be reached.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The only resources the US has been taking are those of our citizens...and redistributing them in Afganistan and Iraq. If it was the other way around, we'd be getting rich here in the US...instead we're spending all our resources on roads, bribes, construction, keeping of the peace, and other measures abroad.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
You haven't provided enough info to argue that the Nazis were Christian. "God with us" -- every monotheistic religion could say that (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, etc.). And no form of Christianity holds that you can become the Messiah -- so if Adolph started wanting that, it wasn't a "more extreme form of Christianity," it was a rejection of Christianity and a pure power grab.