"You think we could get Texas to secede if we asked them real nice? We can give them Arizona and a state to be named later, as long as they promise to never tell anyone that they were once part of the United States."
That's actually not a bad idea. The US is a bit large to be one country, political polarization means people who are dire enemies must fight for power (producing results no one likes), and it could be cut in two or three sections with no great loss. It would be less menacing to the rest of the world.
We've gotten used to being one country, but now we don't have anything in common. "Diversity" isn't bad, but there is no reason everyone should be forced to yield to everyone else when there are such profound differences in opinion, politics, and culture. The place has gotten too huge to manage well, so it is managed badly.
"At which point it's obvious the government gives not a damn for its people and instead exists only for itself and whatever broken ideology it follows. "
That's not "obvious" in Viet Nam.
It's leaders fought free of the French and the US, repelled a Chinese invasion attempt, and guided the country into tentative steps toward Capitalism (Intel fab, etc). Just because they don't immediately open the floodgates by turning loose uneducated people with a democracy doesn't make them evil.
Detroit was based on a now-obsolete business model, and the choice to base its economy on automobile monoculture doomed it. The best solution is to walk away, forgetting sentiment (the only people old enough to be sentimental about Detroit's heyday will be dead very soon, no point in humoring them) and build in areas with lower energy cost and no urban burden.
"because he would be MIA pretty quick for leaking that much information."
Citation needed. Even the most embarrassing Cold War Communist spies got trials (and often cut deals to avoid execution).
An example would be the Walker spy ring. If ever a case argued for "disappearing" the perps, wringing them dry, and sending them on a one-way flight part way over the ocean that would be it.
Didn't happen. Trials, deal, graybar hotel, end of story.
"Kudos for him, I wish I had that kind of self sacrificing will."
No kudos for the method, and the attention whoring that got him busted. There may have been no wish to self-sacrifice at all.
It is possible to do a thing that is considered good yet not have noble or entirely noble motives. The opinion of his actions seems predicated on one's opinion of the war itself (which is where much of the discussion is going) and not on why he did what he did.
", I don't know how you could justify bragging to people about it and discussing current military operations on the internet. That could probably be construed as putting the lives of many soldiers in danger."
He's clearly an attention whore, or he'd have accomplished his _professed_ goal of leakage without being outed. It's not like he was ignorant of security, and if his goals were purely noble he would have... STAYED IN PLACE AND CONTINUED THE LEAK without any hunger for "hacker" recognition!
"If you're trusting a congressperson to do this work for you, you're the dumbass."
If he/she knows that others will know he/she didn't act, and you also conveyed your knowledge of illegal acts to the Office of Special Investigations (who can't erase the trail and are outside the Command of any base they are on), you have LOTS of leverage.
Any G.I. who isn't a doorstop could figure this out.
BTW, there is a difference between being nobly motivated and doing the same act as an attention whore. Further, the two aren't mutually exclusive but the combination may affect judgement.
__Idiot boy BRAGGED about his feat which is why he got busted!__ Some security professional.
"We've conditioned ourselves to stop doing almost everything in order to answer a phonecall. "
In the immortal words of Tonto when surrounded by hostile warriors: "Who's "we", Kemosabe?"
I direct all practical commo to EMAIL because I DEMAND non-synchronous communication with a trail. I DEMAND the time to reply with a composed response, and I will have that. (I'm polite, use passive resistance where expedient, but generally "either use email or fuck off".) I don't care to text, I'm away from the landline, and my cell reception officially sucks unless I want to talk to you.
I don't do conversations to set a mood. Pass the info and "clear the channel".
Modern comms cut both ways. Use them to get what you want instead of yielding to others, but sell what you want as a way to improve their experience. (Lying when useful, fuck 'em.)
There are ways, such as Congressional investigations, to out that sort of stuff. Plastering it on the web works but isn't exactly brilliant.
Example: Find Congresscritter(s) with adequate security clearance and appropriate record of stirring shit. Give them a detailed verbal brief including the docs and their location. Have THEIR legal eagles work out a procedure for accessing the material.
I miss the old days when all you needed was goggles because it was assumed you'd get drenched anyway (and it was easy to wash off with straight water).
We don't have that quantity. We don't have the airframes to carry that massive amount of explosive if we did. The B-52 fleet seen in Viet Nam war newsreels is mostly cut into pieces at Davis-Monthan.
"We have enough conventional weaponry to send anyone back to the stone age if we no longer care about the international repercussions." That isn't strictly true either. We have lots of weaponry that, given ample time to employ it, could make Nork life difficult, but there are still plenty of targets it can't reach. The Taliban caves in Afghanistan didn't have AAA and SAMs protecting them, and we still didn't blow them all from the air. Tech is seductive. (Don't feel bad, it seduced Rumsfeld into going into Iraq too light.) BTW we pretty much DID turn Norkland into a Stone Age desolation during the Korean War, but they routed around infrastructure damage by not giving a shit. The difficulty with our precision weapons is that we don't have a lot of airframes to deliver PGMs in-theater. Our bases in the South (this is public record visible from the air and known to the locals) are not extremely hardened. Any base will sustain sortie reduction when it gets smegged with chems, further reducing limited sortie output. It isn't as easy as it looks on Youtube.
"PLEASE never call these narcissistic twits journalists again. Journalism is based on research, fact finding, source checking and has a goal to keep a check and balance on the democratic process. Agreed, much of the media today fails this. But in a spectrum of "news" Gizmodo "stories" are on par with Bat Boy in the Enquirer. Their usage of the English language is barely a step above txt speak while their maturity is nowhere above that of a third grade child."
That's why I rely on Fox News for my tech reporting!
If you care about killing a few thousand ragheads, you've wussed out.
Remember "Bomber" Harris and other Euros who actually had balls, dedication, and didn't sweat the death of "enemy civilians" (as opposed to pretending they are something different)? Harsh people like HIM got you your current cozy position, not postwar legalist nonsense and the UN.
Slashdot Mirror
That war has been over for a very long time.
No non-participant has any business fapping to it in place of trying to understand the new reality in the region.
"This is Texas - God is their backup solution."
So much for that. I prayed to Allah for a flood.
"Sometimes it's cheaper to deal with it when it happens than to take precautions."
It certainly makes for enhanced Schadenfruede.
"You think we could get Texas to secede if we asked them real nice? We can give them Arizona and a state to be named later, as long as they promise to never tell anyone that they were once part of the United States."
That's actually not a bad idea. The US is a bit large to be one country, political polarization means people who are dire enemies must fight for power (producing results no one likes), and it could be cut in two or three sections with no great loss. It would be less menacing to the rest of the world.
We've gotten used to being one country, but now we don't have anything in common. "Diversity" isn't bad, but there is no reason everyone should be forced to yield to everyone else when there are such profound differences in opinion, politics, and culture. The place has gotten too huge to manage well, so it is managed badly.
"At which point it's obvious the government gives not a damn for its people and instead exists only for itself and whatever broken ideology it follows.
"
That's not "obvious" in Viet Nam.
It's leaders fought free of the French and the US, repelled a Chinese invasion attempt, and guided the country into tentative steps toward Capitalism (Intel fab, etc). Just because they don't immediately open the floodgates by turning loose uneducated people with a democracy doesn't make them evil.
People often refuse to learn absent being bitch-slapped by outcomes they chose not to prepare for.
When "what to do" is so well-known, refusal to do it merits scorn, contempt, and frequent use as an example to others.
Americans tend to be Do Gooders and not mind their own business.
It offends them when this is pointed out (Troll mods now mean Disagree, as exemplified by your post!).
Viet Nam has fought for and earned the right to be left utterly alone by the US.
That's hilarious.
Detroit was based on a now-obsolete business model, and the choice to base its economy on automobile monoculture doomed it. The best solution is to walk away, forgetting sentiment (the only people old enough to be sentimental about Detroit's heyday will be dead very soon, no point in humoring them) and build in areas with lower energy cost and no urban burden.
"have to gain for telling all the stuff to Lamo?"
"Peer" recognition of leetness, whose value should not be underestimated.
"because he would be MIA pretty quick for leaking that much information."
Citation needed. Even the most embarrassing Cold War Communist spies got trials (and often cut deals to avoid execution).
An example would be the Walker spy ring. If ever a case argued for "disappearing" the perps, wringing them dry, and sending them on a one-way flight part way over the ocean that would be it.
Didn't happen. Trials, deal, graybar hotel, end of story.
"I'm really sad though, because that guy could've been a great source."
Secrecy would have interfered with the quest for glory.
"Kudos for him, I wish I had that kind of self sacrificing will."
No kudos for the method, and the attention whoring that got him busted. There may have been no wish to self-sacrifice at all.
It is possible to do a thing that is considered good yet not have noble or entirely noble motives. The opinion of his actions seems predicated on one's opinion of the war itself (which is where much of the discussion is going) and not on why he did what he did.
", I don't know how you could justify bragging to people about it and discussing current military operations on the internet. That could probably be construed as putting the lives of many soldiers in danger."
He's clearly an attention whore, or he'd have accomplished his _professed_ goal of leakage without being outed.
It's not like he was ignorant of security, and if his goals were purely noble he would have...
STAYED IN PLACE AND CONTINUED THE LEAK without any hunger for "hacker" recognition!
"If you're trusting a congressperson to do this work for you, you're the dumbass."
If he/she knows that others will know he/she didn't act, and you also conveyed your knowledge of illegal acts to the Office of Special Investigations (who can't erase the trail and are outside the Command of any base they are on), you have LOTS of leverage.
Any G.I. who isn't a doorstop could figure this out.
BTW, there is a difference between being nobly motivated and doing the same act as an attention whore. Further, the two aren't mutually exclusive but the combination may affect judgement.
__Idiot boy BRAGGED about his feat which is why he got busted!__ Some security professional.
"We've conditioned ourselves to stop doing almost everything in order to answer a phonecall. "
In the immortal words of Tonto when surrounded by hostile warriors: "Who's "we", Kemosabe?"
I direct all practical commo to EMAIL because I DEMAND non-synchronous communication with a trail. I DEMAND the time to reply with a composed response, and I will have that. (I'm polite, use passive resistance where expedient, but generally "either use email or fuck off".) I don't care to text, I'm away from the landline, and my cell reception officially sucks unless I want to talk to you.
I don't do conversations to set a mood. Pass the info and "clear the channel".
Modern comms cut both ways. Use them to get what you want instead of yielding to others, but sell what you want as a way to improve their experience. (Lying when useful, fuck 'em.)
What a dumbass.
There are ways, such as Congressional investigations, to out that sort of stuff. Plastering it on the web works but isn't exactly brilliant.
Example:
Find Congresscritter(s) with adequate security clearance and appropriate record of stirring shit. Give them a detailed verbal brief including the docs and their location. Have THEIR legal eagles work out a procedure for accessing the material.
She could also call the operator for information, which predated print phone books.
This avoids diggin' under the pile of Depends for the phone book. (I'm old, so I can crack on old fuckers. They'll get over it.)
No, for the FEW they need they can fucking call Information.
BTW if they are too old to use a PC they probably can't read the phone book.
I'm old, I adapted, so can they.
It's cruel not to wean people, and if you don't, more people latch onto the same teat.
You can also gargle with dilute hydrogen peroxide. I didn't dissolve like the unfortunate ME-163 pilot, and my wisdom tooth sockets healed nicely.
I miss the old days when all you needed was goggles because it was assumed you'd get drenched anyway (and it was easy to wash off with straight water).
"Quantity."
We don't have that quantity. We don't have the airframes to carry that massive amount of explosive if we did. The B-52 fleet seen in Viet Nam war newsreels is mostly cut into pieces at Davis-Monthan.
"We have enough conventional weaponry to send anyone back to the stone age if we no longer care about the international repercussions."
That isn't strictly true either. We have lots of weaponry that, given ample time to employ it, could make Nork life difficult, but there are still plenty of targets it can't reach. The Taliban caves in Afghanistan didn't have AAA and SAMs protecting them, and we still didn't blow them all from the air. Tech is seductive. (Don't feel bad, it seduced Rumsfeld into going into Iraq too light.)
BTW we pretty much DID turn Norkland into a Stone Age desolation during the Korean War, but they routed around infrastructure damage by not giving a shit. The difficulty with our precision weapons is that we don't have a lot of airframes to deliver PGMs in-theater. Our bases in the South (this is public record visible from the air and known to the locals) are not extremely hardened. Any base will sustain sortie reduction when it gets smegged with chems, further reducing limited sortie output.
It isn't as easy as it looks on Youtube.
"PLEASE never call these narcissistic twits journalists again. Journalism is based on research, fact finding, source checking and has a goal to keep a check and balance on the democratic process. Agreed, much of the media today fails this. But in a spectrum of "news" Gizmodo "stories" are on par with Bat Boy in the Enquirer. Their usage of the English language is barely a step above txt speak while their maturity is nowhere above that of a third grade child."
That's why I rely on Fox News for my tech reporting!
If you care about killing a few thousand ragheads, you've wussed out.
Remember "Bomber" Harris and other Euros who actually had balls, dedication, and didn't sweat the death of "enemy civilians" (as opposed to pretending they are something different)? Harsh people like HIM got you your current cozy position, not postwar legalist nonsense and the UN.
Enjoy your cultural collapse. Happy Eurabia!
Congrats on turning British. Enjoy your new reality.