The meta protests don't make any sense and are counter productive. They should protest what they're really upset about rather than annoying me with shit that doesn't matter or that is actually good.
What you're basically said here is that the modern environmental movement is run by sophists... aka disingenuous manipulators.
That isn't a new thing. We've had sophists in various fields since always.
If the environmental movement wants to retain its credibility it should note that if it doesn't stop it... they're going to run into the stoics eventually.
And stoics vs sophists plays out the same way every time.
know where i can buy GMO seeds? I remember that tomato the fellow was trying to sell... the GMO tomato... and apparently no one wants to grow it and I thought... "I do"...
... There is a certain level of incompetence that is so unacceptable that you can't do anything besides line up some people against a wall and blow them away... and then move forward with everyone on the same page that "X was fucking unacceptable."
I don't know what else it is going to take to get these government fuckwits to take security seriously besides a literal firing squad.
I don't want to do it... I just don't know how to get through to these people. They're so fucking stupid.
All the seeds that just any jerk can buy are all these heirloom seeds. Which sounds nice until you realize they're basically the most vulnerable seeds possible. The original breeds that mostly didn't make great food plants were able to take care of themselves.
The seeds you get in the packets are nice only they are modified just enough that they suck at protecting themselves... which means you have to be some sort of garden wizard or blanket the field with pesticide doom just to keep your plants alive.
I'd prefer a GMO plant that had the best of both worlds. Ideally something hearty that could deal with a very wide set of climate conditions, high pest resistance, and good production when the conditions permit.
Basically I want a plant that first looks to its own survival. And once that's handled... I want it to output as well as anything. And while we're at it... why not make the produce super nutritious.
That's a thing people don't get with GMO is that it can be made to be better for you than the original. More vitamins etc.
Take wheat for example... We could have a different breed of wheat that has one extra vitamin in it. And do that with every vitamin giving us a dozen or so types of wheat that collectively have all the vitamins and minerals a person needs.
Then when you mill the flour you can blend them together in the ideal ratio to give you a super flour that really does have everything a person needs to survive in it.
The whole anti GMO thing is obnoxious... Its the 21st century, dopes... Get over it.
... The military obviously isn't used to autonomous weapons systems. But I would suspect that relatively quickly they would build in a few basic security features.
1. The IFF would expire and not merely be accepted back into the fold after the bot disappeared for days.
2. Even if it does get into the base the units shouldn't be autonomous inside the base. So them moving around without escort shouldn't happen.
3. Direct bot to bot infections should be possible. They should require a secure firewalled interlocutor that is controlled by a human being to initiate the transfer of executable code, firmware updates, etc.
4. Assuming the killbots go nuts in your base... it goes without saying that they shouldn't be able to refuel, recharge, or rearm autonomously. By all means, have them go to point X to get Y. But they should require some affirmative assistance from a human being to initiate the restoration of any resource. That might mean a human opens a port, open a hatch, flips a power switch... something. The system can be highly automated but it shouldn't be completely automated. That way even if they go amok they'll run out of juice at some point and then they can get crated up and sent back to the clockwork womb to be "fixed".
The nature of these things should be controlled. You don't want them entirely autonomous. You want them to have a certain nature to them such that worst case you can avoid them.
Human updated zones of operation is one thing you could think about. You give them a set of coordinates and you tell them to do bad things to the enemy in that area. They shouldn't stray from it until their mission duration expires.
Oh look, an AC troll/sockpuppet making a shitty post about someone that actually logs in... and what is this? He's criticizing someone else's record? Does he know that that is unbe-fucking-lievably hypocritical given that he's giving no one else an ability to examine his own record?
Surely he must know that... right?
Well, it's probably not important since we can likely assume that all he does is shit post about other people or do various trollish sockpuppity things on the forums.
What's so fucking funny about you retards is that you don't seem to get that every time you shit post me as an AC at this point you merely validate my sig. I recongize you half the time as your named persona. You'll do stupid shit like AC shit post me in some forgotten thread where it is just me and some other douchbag going back and forth. Not realizing that there is no one reading that crap at that point but the other guy and therefore... I know who you fucking are in that case.
... what do you people think accelerated these programs and why do you think the Navy is the first to deploy them?
Russia and China started saying "ha ha, your carrier groups are powerless before our anti ship missiles... Tee hee!"
And that got some Admirals worried so they went over to the various companies that build these things like Stark Labs and Luthor's Starlabs etc... and they said "I want something that kills hypersonic missiles so my carriers don't get scragged!"... and here you go.
Hypersonic missiles nullified. Potentially anyway... Maybe they cover the missiles in reflectors or space shuttle like heat tiles or something. Its going to go back and forth.
They're going to pitch the weapon as a panacea because they always do that. But you have to consider why they specifically got interested in this... Its ICBMs and hyper sonic missiles that are worrying them.... I can't think of anything the Iranians actually have right now that would take a laser to stop. The most threatening concept I've seen out of Iran was their swarm of small speed boats attacking a destroyer going through the gulf. But... first off the destroy can kill one of those little boats with anything. I mean, the close support phalanx cannons could kill the entire wave. And even if they were able to kill a destroyer that way... so what? I mean... congrats... you got a destroyer... now you're going to get a full strategic response... so... that was the last thing you ever did.
The US actually likes to start a war with someone else blowing up one of our ships. Remember the Maine and all that. I mean... read a book.
Only post what you're okay with people seeing and if you're posting something you don't want seen... then work under false names.
My social networking nonsense is compartmentalized. My names never link back to a person unless I want them to... and then I make a point of not doing anything on line with those identities that will attract controversy.
""Afghanistan there's possibly in the range of 250K deaths, and a lot of the country is still under Taliban rule."" I'm not seeing a problem.
""The mid-2000 NATO expansion pissed off the Russians and is likely responsible for Putin's invasions of Georgia and Ukraine."" This presupposes that the Russian empire would not seek to restore past territory at some point in the future.
""The Libya intervention brought about a civil war."" That war was predominantly desired by the Europeans and not the Americans. Our assistance was invoked by the French etc because they lack the logistics to project power even so far as north africa without our support.
I'm not sure what you're laying at our feet here. What did you want the US to do?
""The US overthrew the moderate democratic rulers in Iran to install a dictator (which led to the Iranian revolution)."" Various things that happened in the cold war cannot be discussed without putting them in the context of the cold war. its like talking about a single battle in a war and not appreciating that even if your forces get wiped out on some seemingly meaningless hill somewhere it had strategic significance that made it worthwhile to do such a thing.
""The US supported dictators over South America, supplied rebel groups and taught them how to torture."" Again, cold war. And we did not teach them how to torture. Any moron can cause another person pain. If we taught them anything it was how to get something useful out of it.
""The US is currently supporting dictators in the Middle East."" And the alternative to supporting friendly and largely rational dictators that are prepared to ally with us is what? What is more, most of those alliances go back to the cold war and some even to the old british empire. I'm not sure you appreciate the apple carts you suggesting we over turn there.
""Except in South America and the Middle East where the US supported the people who raped their neighbours"" Actually it doesn't matter which side you take in either of those places. They all want to fuck each other over. All you're really blaming us for there is taking any sides at all.
We had to do that for the cold war. Since... we've taken a much less active hand in it... and to the extent we're involved in the middle east at all at this point it is mostly to keep Israel from getting genocided. Something quite a few people would love to see happen.
Read the rhetoric coming out of people that are highly critical of US middle east policy and it often gets anti Semitic. When it comes from middle easterners it is guaranteed to get anti Semitic but shockingly you'll see that out of French and English people as well. Its kind of sad.
""The lesson there is people are blind to their own misdeeds."" As to this... sure... but this is a product ultimately of people having different perspectives. And the reality is that ours is a more general one in greater command of more information than is yours.
Keep in mind, the US has strategic responsibilities all over the world. You can't even begin to comprehend the tigers we have by the tail.
We could of course let go... but then the tiger would eat someone. And often as not that would not be us. That would be someone like you.;-)
""Generally not in my experience. They want the US to be more cooperative and less dictorial with its influence. Drone strikes are a good example, you kill one terrorist and create five others."" As to your experience... I'll refer you to your line about people not understanding their own misdeeds. You don't really know why you're saying things sometimes. You don't see the layers of influence and supposition in it all.
As to drone strikes... its a weapon and a tool. No more capable of creating a terrorist than a pistol shot to the back of someone's head. They're not going away. Get use to them.
As to the notion that killing one terrorist leads to 5 more. Not in our experience. They tend to come from places that have
""Actually you did mostly talk to them. The US came very late to both world wars. (though you did pretty much all the fighting against the Japanese).
But with Iran you engaged in the talk and it worked, you get a less hostile Iran with a lower chance of Nukes, the alternative was likely a Middle Eastern North Korea."" Then by this argument we always do that and always have. Every US military action has been proceeded by an exchange of words from the American revolution to Iraq.
If you feel the talking was insufficient that needs to be defined in terms that don't just boil down to "feelings". Because opinions and feelings offered on political and strategic matters are really just a fig leaf for wanting to express an opinion without having enough facts to offer up better reasons for it besides... "fee fees"... On strategic matters, feelings are irrelevant.
As to our talks with Iran working... that has yet to be seen. If Iran develops a nuclear weapon as many believe they will then it is hard to explain the full depth of the strategic clusterfuck that will be unleashed on the First World. A complete realignment of US and thus First World military and strategic power will happen and to a certain extent the first world alliance as you know it will die.
As a canadian this won't effect you much. You're so deep under our shells of protection that you'll never come out from it. But the Europeans, Middle easterners, and Asians will suffer the full force of the old curse that wishes "interesting times" on them.
""Canada, and I don't claim it's a secret agenda, it's just an observation that the US is a very bossy and aggressive country and diplomacy looks a lot like a demands for capitulation.""
As to the Canadian impression that the US is bossy... feelings... explain this in terms that are relevant.
""And being a Canadian we asked politely and got our freedom without any bloodshed:)"" Did you try that in the 1770s? Don't be obtuse. What is more, the British gave you your independence in a time when they had no choice but to do that. The British Empire is a thing of the past. They didn't adapt to changing circumstances and it cost them. They got dragged through the meat grinder twice and it destroyed them.
The United States watched it happen. And unlike the Canadians we have people taught to think strategically. Not short term. But in terms of generations... we war game the next world war all the time. Every new change in the strategic map... every new technology... every shift in the economic and industrial balance and we recalculate.
What many in the first world do not understand is that there is a lot on the shoulders of America. We are responsible for maintaining the global status quo. We have enemies everywhere... even our allies undermine us out of ignorance, greed, and malice. There is no peace. There is only putting off the next great war. The "big one". And it comes.
This is why the US is so obsessed with nuclear containment. Game theory. What happens when the number of powers with nuclear weapons expands? Iran getting weapons means Saudi Arabia must have them, Egypt must have them, Israel will openly declare that they have them... and that could easily spiral out from that point.
Now consider what that does to US strategic policy? A nuclear war becomes almost inevitable in this scenario simply because there are too many irresponsible powers with these weapons.
How do you win a nuclear war? The US is trying to develop the means to do just that. All our high level resources are bent on that goal. We know the war is coming and when it does we want to be ready for it. To annihilate the aggressors with extreme prejudice and suffer minor if any damage to ourselves or to the rest of the first world.
This statement sounds incomprehensible to most people without this education or background. Very few people get this... Some people in Russia get it, some people in the US get it, a few in the UK... but most of them are in the US.
""Nah, the vast majority is not happy with the US because it fails to uphold its own principles of freedom. That one guy from Serbia, apparently? Serbia has, from wiki, only about 7 million people. There's probably more Americans unhappy with the US than there are people living in Serbia in total.
Of course, not everyone in a nation hates the US. Especially in countries like China or Russia, where it's mostly the government and ruling elites who hate the US, not the common folk who trade with and buy products from America (sanctions notwithstanding)
So the people who hate the US for "stopping them from raping their neighbors" are a minority. They just tend to be loud so you might think there's a lot more of them. Furthermore, those people tend to hate everyone in the "Western" world as well, so there goes the other reason of envy/shame as well.
Most people who are unhappy with the US are actually people in the developed world. They are unhappy because going around using military might to get your way goes against the principles of freedom which the US itself claims to be founded upon. Look at the word you use on what happens after you achieve military victory: you dictate the terms. Putting a gun and ordering someone to play nice may be effective, but it ain't freedom and democracy you're promoting.
You're advocating security ("status quo" as you call it) over liberty.""
As to people that hate the US for stopping them from raping their neighbors, it isn't as small as you think. Most of the middle east hate is just that and nothing more. The Russians hate us for similar reasons. I can go through a laundry list of various countries. And on the internet these people are not properly attributed so you don't know who is saying what or why. So you can't isolate for example people that say X because they were stopped from genociding their neighbors from Y who feel that way for other reasons.
As to being loud, well we're talking about people that are being loud. So if X is being loud and the issue is people complaining about something then obviously X is going to make up a disproportionate amount of the complaints.
As to gaining our "way" by using military force... first that doesn't go against our principles or we'd have talked to the Imperial Japanese and Nazis instead of bombing them into submission.
Furthermore, our "way" needs to be defined because there is this implication that we have some sort of secret or exclusive agenda that only profits us when really it is in support of the entire first world as defined by the original paradigm... aka our allies. This would include the entire EU, our middle eastern allies, our asian allies, our african allies, and our American allies. Our way is in the service of that interest which likely includes you. I don't know what country you're from but it is probably a first world country.
As to putting a gun against someone's head being anti democratic... our democracy didn't happen because we asked the British nicely to let us form a republic. We violently rebelled. This notion you're pushing that violence is inherently bad is simplistic and erroneous.
If people are being violent then often the only effective response is violence.
As the man said... war is merely politics by other means.
I often restate the same thing in different ways to make it harder for people to strawman me actually. You find this in law as well. A thing will be said over and over in different ways so it is very hard for someone to just grab one sentence take it out of context and say "well clearly it means this".
Also something that has to be understood is that there are a lot of people that are just ignorant. Going into some detail helps them. If you just vaguely reference your point you've not given them a chance to learn. You're also very prone to make non-falisfiable statements which are inherently illogical.
So you make an unqualified insult, I call you on it... you make no effort to back up your statement... then you comment again with another unqualified insult?
And this time you suggest I'm not an adult when you're the one running around trolling ME by joining topics I'm commenting in and basically just throwing baseless insults at me?
Who the fuck do you think you are? You think you get to judge if I'm an adult? You're the idiot just sitting there making dumb insults. That's your entire contribution to this topic.
The hydro dams are not pumped storage dams, you brainless AC fuckwit.
They are CONVENTIONAL hydro electric dams. A great many of them were built a long time ago and have no conception of renewables in their design specs. They wrere designed to be the primary power supply in their respective areas. So they not only don't pulse the power but they have many turbines which allows them cut back the capacity of the dam marginally while doing maintenance. That is... they don't even shut down when they're getting fixed unless the problem is fucking horrible.
They are designed to pump out a consistent and reliable amount of power all the time.
Again... and for the last time... some pinhead did as you suggested and started pulsing water through the dams in California. They broke.
No no no... They broke.
And here you'll say "but if you just upgraded them to whatever then"... and here you've yet again shown another hidden cost in this stupid campaign.
Just build some nuclear reactors. They can handle the full weight of the coal power plants relatively quickly and much more cheaply than the alternative.
The Green stuff makes sense ON houses directly as a means to reduce consumption. It has very little value as actual grid linked power plants. Everything else... Nuclear.
We haven't built a nuke plant since the 70s... we've closed quite a few... and despite that the nukes we have are providing about 22~25 percent of the national grid. 45 percent of the grid is coal... and perhaps another 15~20 percent are other fossil fuels. You're not replacing that in our life times without going hard nuclear. And that is something that could very easily be the ideal power source for the world for thousands of years. Renewable? No... neither is the sun. But the fissionables will last a long long time.
Login if you want to debate the issue. Or I'll just call this done.
First, the reduction in healthcare costs is just more playing with statistics. What Americans actually pay for healthcare has if anything gone up.
The government playing with stats to make themselves look better is nothing new. They do that with everything.
As to small businesses and jobs... the ACA actually encourages businesses to only hire part time labor... or at least do that as much as possible because it is a loophole in most of the annoying regulations. This was widely reported and pretending it didn't happen is not intellectually sustainable.
As to fox, I get no news from fox what so ever. And I frankly find it to be nothing more than ad hominem for little shits like you to enter a discussion, drop a lot of talking points, and then say the opposition is wrong because of the evil fox news.
lets look at your sources... Four links from the Daily Kos which is about as valid as me citing Breitbart. The fact that you can without irony accuse me of only getting my news from fox and then you cite all your information from the daily fucking kos is fucking hilarious.
And your final example, the Los Angeles Times? Hardly an impartial source. I live in Los Angeles. I know that paper very well. It is frequently prone to advocacy.
Here's the thing, your sources were so fucking biased that I could cite literally anything at this point and you'd be unable to claim the source was biased without immediately becoming guilty of hypocrisy. You just lost any ability to do that.
Now... with that understanding... unless you want to retract all your citations... I will respond. I first just want your confirmation either that I can cite anything because you've surrendered any claim to my sources being biased in this discussion... or you need to pull those two sources and the 5 associated links back.
I'm not interested in talking about Iraq. Its a fucking whine at this point. Every thing is about Iraq. US foreign policy is bigger than that and I'm not going to argue everything from the context of Iraq because its like arguing an entire person's life on the context of an hour of their lives.
Its stupid. I'm going to talk about US foreign policy in general and I'm not going to engage the issue from the perspective of Iraq at all. You don't like the Iraq war? I don't care. Its irrelevant.
As to various nations not being happy with the US... the vast majority of that is either unhappiness that we stopped them from raping their neighbors or a mixture of envy/shame at someone being more powerful and a generous dose of ignorance as to how vital that power has been to the global status quo that everyone takes for granted.
I was recently subjected to a lot of vitriol from some fellow that was telling me how EVERYONE hates the US. I went back and forth with him and then I asked him where he was from.
Serbia apparently.
And his bias against the US was based on the belief that the US attacked Serbia for no reason in the Kosovo war and that his people were absolutely not genociding the Albanians. Also the "everyone" that hates the US turned out to be bitter ethnic serbs that didn't like getting their teeth kicked in when they were told to stop being fucking assholes.
Most of the anti US stuff boils down to something like that. And the thing is that the US gets that attitude no matter what we do. We go to war. People say they hate us. We don't go to war... and literally the same people say they hate us because we're not going to war.
So as an American you learn to not take such comments seriously because they're intellectually vacuous, self contradictory, callow, and often as not rooted in some puerile notion of an idea where "no one is powerful and we all get along because we love each other"... Which is really just an admission that whomever says that has no clue about history for foreign policy.
As to the effectiveness of war... I disagree. War is extremely effective. Can politicians fuck it up after the military wins? Sure. Name something politicians can't fuck up? If you undermine the military victory by pulling forces out and abandoning the area after winning then... yeah... your victory isn't going to mean much because you've ceded all won territory by default to any other competing power which is likely to be the inevitable remnant of your enemy.
if the US had dropped the two atomic bombs on imperial japan and then just left... no occupation... no rewriting their constitution... no carefully sculpting their political environment for generations... then they could have just reverted immediately back to the imperial Japanese mindset.
But they didn't because we didn't leave.
Same thing with South Korea...
And your citation of Vietnam or whatever else... you're ignoring that we won the battles and had the ability to dictate the nature of the societies but we ceded that by abandoning the area. Which was a political decision based on domestic political considerations and not a military decision.
Then you can get gang raped by whomever wants you to be their gimp.
Any society that won't send its sons and daughters into battle with the best they can provide doesn't deserve to survive. And whatever installs itself as your overlords will be unlikely to make that particular mistake.
It starts with the people. In the US, Obama has shown a greater ability to negociate with the Iranians than the Republicans and his rhetoric is more scathing of his domestic political opponents than literal dictators, mass murderers etc.
I dont' say this to single out obama... both sides have this problem. But it shows you how f'ed up the situation is... the sides have begun to actually hate each other. Not just disagree. But hate. We can't remain a unified society if half the country hates the other half.
Some kind of change has to come where we can come together and find a compromise that will last... or at some point we might be looking at another civil war.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the link. We'll see how those do in my green house.
The meta protests don't make any sense and are counter productive. They should protest what they're really upset about rather than annoying me with shit that doesn't matter or that is actually good.
What you're basically said here is that the modern environmental movement is run by sophists... aka disingenuous manipulators.
That isn't a new thing. We've had sophists in various fields since always.
If the environmental movement wants to retain its credibility it should note that if it doesn't stop it... they're going to run into the stoics eventually.
And stoics vs sophists plays out the same way every time.
Learn.
know where i can buy GMO seeds? I remember that tomato the fellow was trying to sell... the GMO tomato... and apparently no one wants to grow it and I thought... "I do"...
MS can call it whatever they like... the chances that at its core this thing isn't going to be IE are small.
"Mother fucking blueberries... every week end it is the same thing... they grow up like weeds everywhere!" ... I really don't see the problem.
... There is a certain level of incompetence that is so unacceptable that you can't do anything besides line up some people against a wall and blow them away... and then move forward with everyone on the same page that "X was fucking unacceptable."
I don't know what else it is going to take to get these government fuckwits to take security seriously besides a literal firing squad.
I don't want to do it... I just don't know how to get through to these people. They're so fucking stupid.
All the seeds that just any jerk can buy are all these heirloom seeds. Which sounds nice until you realize they're basically the most vulnerable seeds possible. The original breeds that mostly didn't make great food plants were able to take care of themselves.
The seeds you get in the packets are nice only they are modified just enough that they suck at protecting themselves... which means you have to be some sort of garden wizard or blanket the field with pesticide doom just to keep your plants alive.
I'd prefer a GMO plant that had the best of both worlds. Ideally something hearty that could deal with a very wide set of climate conditions, high pest resistance, and good production when the conditions permit.
Basically I want a plant that first looks to its own survival. And once that's handled... I want it to output as well as anything. And while we're at it... why not make the produce super nutritious.
That's a thing people don't get with GMO is that it can be made to be better for you than the original. More vitamins etc.
Take wheat for example... We could have a different breed of wheat that has one extra vitamin in it. And do that with every vitamin giving us a dozen or so types of wheat that collectively have all the vitamins and minerals a person needs.
Then when you mill the flour you can blend them together in the ideal ratio to give you a super flour that really does have everything a person needs to survive in it.
The whole anti GMO thing is obnoxious... Its the 21st century, dopes... Get over it.
Apparently the SeaRAM system from Raytheon specifically is able to stop the Sunburn.
... The military obviously isn't used to autonomous weapons systems. But I would suspect that relatively quickly they would build in a few basic security features.
1. The IFF would expire and not merely be accepted back into the fold after the bot disappeared for days.
2. Even if it does get into the base the units shouldn't be autonomous inside the base. So them moving around without escort shouldn't happen.
3. Direct bot to bot infections should be possible. They should require a secure firewalled interlocutor that is controlled by a human being to initiate the transfer of executable code, firmware updates, etc.
4. Assuming the killbots go nuts in your base... it goes without saying that they shouldn't be able to refuel, recharge, or rearm autonomously. By all means, have them go to point X to get Y. But they should require some affirmative assistance from a human being to initiate the restoration of any resource. That might mean a human opens a port, open a hatch, flips a power switch... something. The system can be highly automated but it shouldn't be completely automated. That way even if they go amok they'll run out of juice at some point and then they can get crated up and sent back to the clockwork womb to be "fixed".
The nature of these things should be controlled. You don't want them entirely autonomous. You want them to have a certain nature to them such that worst case you can avoid them.
Human updated zones of operation is one thing you could think about. You give them a set of coordinates and you tell them to do bad things to the enemy in that area. They shouldn't stray from it until their mission duration expires.
Oh look, an AC troll/sockpuppet making a shitty post about someone that actually logs in... and what is this? He's criticizing someone else's record? Does he know that that is unbe-fucking-lievably hypocritical given that he's giving no one else an ability to examine his own record?
Surely he must know that... right?
Well, it's probably not important since we can likely assume that all he does is shit post about other people or do various trollish sockpuppity things on the forums.
What's so fucking funny about you retards is that you don't seem to get that every time you shit post me as an AC at this point you merely validate my sig. I recongize you half the time as your named persona. You'll do stupid shit like AC shit post me in some forgotten thread where it is just me and some other douchbag going back and forth. Not realizing that there is no one reading that crap at that point but the other guy and therefore... I know who you fucking are in that case.
Cowards, liars, and shitheads.
In the words of Bill Hicks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You're posting as AC... you're owed considerably less than someone that actually logs in.
Login if you want to talk about it. Don't and keep trolling.
... what do you people think accelerated these programs and why do you think the Navy is the first to deploy them?
Russia and China started saying "ha ha, your carrier groups are powerless before our anti ship missiles... Tee hee!"
And that got some Admirals worried so they went over to the various companies that build these things like Stark Labs and Luthor's Starlabs etc... and they said "I want something that kills hypersonic missiles so my carriers don't get scragged!"... and here you go.
Hypersonic missiles nullified. Potentially anyway... Maybe they cover the missiles in reflectors or space shuttle like heat tiles or something. Its going to go back and forth.
They're going to pitch the weapon as a panacea because they always do that. But you have to consider why they specifically got interested in this... Its ICBMs and hyper sonic missiles that are worrying them. ... I can't think of anything the Iranians actually have right now that would take a laser to stop. The most threatening concept I've seen out of Iran was their swarm of small speed boats attacking a destroyer going through the gulf. But... first off the destroy can kill one of those little boats with anything. I mean, the close support phalanx cannons could kill the entire wave. And even if they were able to kill a destroyer that way... so what? I mean... congrats... you got a destroyer... now you're going to get a full strategic response... so... that was the last thing you ever did.
The US actually likes to start a war with someone else blowing up one of our ships. Remember the Maine and all that. I mean... read a book.
Only post what you're okay with people seeing and if you're posting something you don't want seen... then work under false names.
My social networking nonsense is compartmentalized. My names never link back to a person unless I want them to... and then I make a point of not doing anything on line with those identities that will attract controversy.
""Afghanistan there's possibly in the range of 250K deaths, and a lot of the country is still under Taliban rule.""
I'm not seeing a problem.
""The mid-2000 NATO expansion pissed off the Russians and is likely responsible for Putin's invasions of Georgia and Ukraine.""
This presupposes that the Russian empire would not seek to restore past territory at some point in the future.
""The Libya intervention brought about a civil war.""
That war was predominantly desired by the Europeans and not the Americans. Our assistance was invoked by the French etc because they lack the logistics to project power even so far as north africa without our support.
I'm not sure what you're laying at our feet here. What did you want the US to do?
""The US overthrew the moderate democratic rulers in Iran to install a dictator (which led to the Iranian revolution).""
Various things that happened in the cold war cannot be discussed without putting them in the context of the cold war. its like talking about a single battle in a war and not appreciating that even if your forces get wiped out on some seemingly meaningless hill somewhere it had strategic significance that made it worthwhile to do such a thing.
""The US supported dictators over South America, supplied rebel groups and taught them how to torture.""
Again, cold war. And we did not teach them how to torture. Any moron can cause another person pain. If we taught them anything it was how to get something useful out of it.
""The US is currently supporting dictators in the Middle East.""
And the alternative to supporting friendly and largely rational dictators that are prepared to ally with us is what? What is more, most of those alliances go back to the cold war and some even to the old british empire. I'm not sure you appreciate the apple carts you suggesting we over turn there.
""Except in South America and the Middle East where the US supported the people who raped their neighbours""
Actually it doesn't matter which side you take in either of those places. They all want to fuck each other over. All you're really blaming us for there is taking any sides at all.
We had to do that for the cold war. Since... we've taken a much less active hand in it... and to the extent we're involved in the middle east at all at this point it is mostly to keep Israel from getting genocided. Something quite a few people would love to see happen.
Read the rhetoric coming out of people that are highly critical of US middle east policy and it often gets anti Semitic. When it comes from middle easterners it is guaranteed to get anti Semitic but shockingly you'll see that out of French and English people as well. Its kind of sad.
""The lesson there is people are blind to their own misdeeds.""
As to this... sure... but this is a product ultimately of people having different perspectives. And the reality is that ours is a more general one in greater command of more information than is yours.
Keep in mind, the US has strategic responsibilities all over the world. You can't even begin to comprehend the tigers we have by the tail.
We could of course let go... but then the tiger would eat someone. And often as not that would not be us. That would be someone like you. ;-)
""Generally not in my experience. They want the US to be more cooperative and less dictorial with its influence. Drone strikes are a good example, you kill one terrorist and create five others.""
As to your experience... I'll refer you to your line about people not understanding their own misdeeds. You don't really know why you're saying things sometimes. You don't see the layers of influence and supposition in it all.
As to drone strikes... its a weapon and a tool. No more capable of creating a terrorist than a pistol shot to the back of someone's head. They're not going away. Get use to them.
As to the notion that killing one terrorist leads to 5 more. Not in our experience. They tend to come from places that have
""Actually you did mostly talk to them. The US came very late to both world wars. (though you did pretty much all the fighting against the Japanese).
But with Iran you engaged in the talk and it worked, you get a less hostile Iran with a lower chance of Nukes, the alternative was likely a Middle Eastern North Korea.""
Then by this argument we always do that and always have. Every US military action has been proceeded by an exchange of words from the American revolution to Iraq.
If you feel the talking was insufficient that needs to be defined in terms that don't just boil down to "feelings". Because opinions and feelings offered on political and strategic matters are really just a fig leaf for wanting to express an opinion without having enough facts to offer up better reasons for it besides... "fee fees"... On strategic matters, feelings are irrelevant.
As to our talks with Iran working... that has yet to be seen. If Iran develops a nuclear weapon as many believe they will then it is hard to explain the full depth of the strategic clusterfuck that will be unleashed on the First World. A complete realignment of US and thus First World military and strategic power will happen and to a certain extent the first world alliance as you know it will die.
As a canadian this won't effect you much. You're so deep under our shells of protection that you'll never come out from it. But the Europeans, Middle easterners, and Asians will suffer the full force of the old curse that wishes "interesting times" on them.
""Canada, and I don't claim it's a secret agenda, it's just an observation that the US is a very bossy and aggressive country and diplomacy looks a lot like a demands for capitulation.""
As to the Canadian impression that the US is bossy... feelings... explain this in terms that are relevant.
""And being a Canadian we asked politely and got our freedom without any bloodshed :)""
Did you try that in the 1770s? Don't be obtuse. What is more, the British gave you your independence in a time when they had no choice but to do that. The British Empire is a thing of the past. They didn't adapt to changing circumstances and it cost them. They got dragged through the meat grinder twice and it destroyed them.
The United States watched it happen. And unlike the Canadians we have people taught to think strategically. Not short term. But in terms of generations... we war game the next world war all the time. Every new change in the strategic map... every new technology... every shift in the economic and industrial balance and we recalculate.
What many in the first world do not understand is that there is a lot on the shoulders of America. We are responsible for maintaining the global status quo. We have enemies everywhere... even our allies undermine us out of ignorance, greed, and malice. There is no peace. There is only putting off the next great war. The "big one". And it comes.
This is why the US is so obsessed with nuclear containment. Game theory. What happens when the number of powers with nuclear weapons expands? Iran getting weapons means Saudi Arabia must have them, Egypt must have them, Israel will openly declare that they have them... and that could easily spiral out from that point.
Now consider what that does to US strategic policy? A nuclear war becomes almost inevitable in this scenario simply because there are too many irresponsible powers with these weapons.
How do you win a nuclear war? The US is trying to develop the means to do just that. All our high level resources are bent on that goal. We know the war is coming and when it does we want to be ready for it. To annihilate the aggressors with extreme prejudice and suffer minor if any damage to ourselves or to the rest of the first world.
This statement sounds incomprehensible to most people without this education or background. Very few people get this... Some people in Russia get it, some people in the US get it, a few in the UK... but most of them are in the US.
Login and we'll continue. Don't and you've already gotten more from me than you were owed.
Okay, so in response to this post then:
""Nah, the vast majority is not happy with the US because it fails to uphold its own principles of freedom. That one guy from Serbia, apparently? Serbia has, from wiki, only about 7 million people. There's probably more Americans unhappy with the US than there are people living in Serbia in total.
Of course, not everyone in a nation hates the US. Especially in countries like China or Russia, where it's mostly the government and ruling elites who hate the US, not the common folk who trade with and buy products from America (sanctions notwithstanding)
So the people who hate the US for "stopping them from raping their neighbors" are a minority. They just tend to be loud so you might think there's a lot more of them. Furthermore, those people tend to hate everyone in the "Western" world as well, so there goes the other reason of envy/shame as well.
Most people who are unhappy with the US are actually people in the developed world. They are unhappy because going around using military might to get your way goes against the principles of freedom which the US itself claims to be founded upon. Look at the word you use on what happens after you achieve military victory: you dictate the terms. Putting a gun and ordering someone to play nice may be effective, but it ain't freedom and democracy you're promoting.
You're advocating security ("status quo" as you call it) over liberty.""
As to people that hate the US for stopping them from raping their neighbors, it isn't as small as you think. Most of the middle east hate is just that and nothing more. The Russians hate us for similar reasons. I can go through a laundry list of various countries. And on the internet these people are not properly attributed so you don't know who is saying what or why. So you can't isolate for example people that say X because they were stopped from genociding their neighbors from Y who feel that way for other reasons.
As to being loud, well we're talking about people that are being loud. So if X is being loud and the issue is people complaining about something then obviously X is going to make up a disproportionate amount of the complaints.
As to gaining our "way" by using military force... first that doesn't go against our principles or we'd have talked to the Imperial Japanese and Nazis instead of bombing them into submission.
Furthermore, our "way" needs to be defined because there is this implication that we have some sort of secret or exclusive agenda that only profits us when really it is in support of the entire first world as defined by the original paradigm... aka our allies. This would include the entire EU, our middle eastern allies, our asian allies, our african allies, and our American allies. Our way is in the service of that interest which likely includes you. I don't know what country you're from but it is probably a first world country.
As to putting a gun against someone's head being anti democratic... our democracy didn't happen because we asked the British nicely to let us form a republic. We violently rebelled. This notion you're pushing that violence is inherently bad is simplistic and erroneous.
If people are being violent then often the only effective response is violence.
As the man said... war is merely politics by other means.
I often restate the same thing in different ways to make it harder for people to strawman me actually. You find this in law as well. A thing will be said over and over in different ways so it is very hard for someone to just grab one sentence take it out of context and say "well clearly it means this".
Also something that has to be understood is that there are a lot of people that are just ignorant. Going into some detail helps them. If you just vaguely reference your point you've not given them a chance to learn. You're also very prone to make non-falisfiable statements which are inherently illogical.
So you make an unqualified insult, I call you on it... you make no effort to back up your statement... then you comment again with another unqualified insult?
And this time you suggest I'm not an adult when you're the one running around trolling ME by joining topics I'm commenting in and basically just throwing baseless insults at me?
Who the fuck do you think you are? You think you get to judge if I'm an adult? You're the idiot just sitting there making dumb insults. That's your entire contribution to this topic.
You're garbage.
The hydro dams are not pumped storage dams, you brainless AC fuckwit.
They are CONVENTIONAL hydro electric dams. A great many of them were built a long time ago and have no conception of renewables in their design specs. They wrere designed to be the primary power supply in their respective areas. So they not only don't pulse the power but they have many turbines which allows them cut back the capacity of the dam marginally while doing maintenance. That is... they don't even shut down when they're getting fixed unless the problem is fucking horrible.
They are designed to pump out a consistent and reliable amount of power all the time.
Again... and for the last time... some pinhead did as you suggested and started pulsing water through the dams in California. They broke.
No no no... They broke.
And here you'll say "but if you just upgraded them to whatever then"... and here you've yet again shown another hidden cost in this stupid campaign.
Just build some nuclear reactors. They can handle the full weight of the coal power plants relatively quickly and much more cheaply than the alternative.
The Green stuff makes sense ON houses directly as a means to reduce consumption. It has very little value as actual grid linked power plants. Everything else... Nuclear.
We haven't built a nuke plant since the 70s... we've closed quite a few... and despite that the nukes we have are providing about 22~25 percent of the national grid. 45 percent of the grid is coal... and perhaps another 15~20 percent are other fossil fuels. You're not replacing that in our life times without going hard nuclear. And that is something that could very easily be the ideal power source for the world for thousands of years. Renewable? No... neither is the sun. But the fissionables will last a long long time.
Login if you want to debate the issue. Or I'll just call this done.
First, the reduction in healthcare costs is just more playing with statistics. What Americans actually pay for healthcare has if anything gone up.
The government playing with stats to make themselves look better is nothing new. They do that with everything.
As to small businesses and jobs... the ACA actually encourages businesses to only hire part time labor... or at least do that as much as possible because it is a loophole in most of the annoying regulations. This was widely reported and pretending it didn't happen is not intellectually sustainable.
As to fox, I get no news from fox what so ever. And I frankly find it to be nothing more than ad hominem for little shits like you to enter a discussion, drop a lot of talking points, and then say the opposition is wrong because of the evil fox news.
lets look at your sources...
Four links from the Daily Kos which is about as valid as me citing Breitbart. The fact that you can without irony accuse me of only getting my news from fox and then you cite all your information from the daily fucking kos is fucking hilarious.
And your final example, the Los Angeles Times? Hardly an impartial source. I live in Los Angeles. I know that paper very well. It is frequently prone to advocacy.
Here's the thing, your sources were so fucking biased that I could cite literally anything at this point and you'd be unable to claim the source was biased without immediately becoming guilty of hypocrisy. You just lost any ability to do that.
Now... with that understanding... unless you want to retract all your citations... I will respond. I first just want your confirmation either that I can cite anything because you've surrendered any claim to my sources being biased in this discussion... or you need to pull those two sources and the 5 associated links back.
Your choice. I'll wait for you to make it.
login and I argue my side of that. Don't and I'll have to let this drop down the memory hole.
I'm not interested in talking about Iraq. Its a fucking whine at this point. Every thing is about Iraq. US foreign policy is bigger than that and I'm not going to argue everything from the context of Iraq because its like arguing an entire person's life on the context of an hour of their lives.
Its stupid. I'm going to talk about US foreign policy in general and I'm not going to engage the issue from the perspective of Iraq at all. You don't like the Iraq war? I don't care. Its irrelevant.
As to various nations not being happy with the US... the vast majority of that is either unhappiness that we stopped them from raping their neighbors or a mixture of envy/shame at someone being more powerful and a generous dose of ignorance as to how vital that power has been to the global status quo that everyone takes for granted.
I was recently subjected to a lot of vitriol from some fellow that was telling me how EVERYONE hates the US. I went back and forth with him and then I asked him where he was from.
Serbia apparently.
And his bias against the US was based on the belief that the US attacked Serbia for no reason in the Kosovo war and that his people were absolutely not genociding the Albanians. Also the "everyone" that hates the US turned out to be bitter ethnic serbs that didn't like getting their teeth kicked in when they were told to stop being fucking assholes.
Most of the anti US stuff boils down to something like that. And the thing is that the US gets that attitude no matter what we do. We go to war. People say they hate us. We don't go to war... and literally the same people say they hate us because we're not going to war.
So as an American you learn to not take such comments seriously because they're intellectually vacuous, self contradictory, callow, and often as not rooted in some puerile notion of an idea where "no one is powerful and we all get along because we love each other"... Which is really just an admission that whomever says that has no clue about history for foreign policy.
As to the effectiveness of war... I disagree. War is extremely effective. Can politicians fuck it up after the military wins? Sure. Name something politicians can't fuck up? If you undermine the military victory by pulling forces out and abandoning the area after winning then... yeah... your victory isn't going to mean much because you've ceded all won territory by default to any other competing power which is likely to be the inevitable remnant of your enemy.
if the US had dropped the two atomic bombs on imperial japan and then just left... no occupation... no rewriting their constitution... no carefully sculpting their political environment for generations... then they could have just reverted immediately back to the imperial Japanese mindset.
But they didn't because we didn't leave.
Same thing with South Korea...
And your citation of Vietnam or whatever else... you're ignoring that we won the battles and had the ability to dictate the nature of the societies but we ceded that by abandoning the area. Which was a political decision based on domestic political considerations and not a military decision.
Then you can get gang raped by whomever wants you to be their gimp.
Any society that won't send its sons and daughters into battle with the best they can provide doesn't deserve to survive. And whatever installs itself as your overlords will be unlikely to make that particular mistake.
It starts with the people. In the US, Obama has shown a greater ability to negociate with the Iranians than the Republicans and his rhetoric is more scathing of his domestic political opponents than literal dictators, mass murderers etc.
I dont' say this to single out obama... both sides have this problem. But it shows you how f'ed up the situation is... the sides have begun to actually hate each other. Not just disagree. But hate. We can't remain a unified society if half the country hates the other half.
Some kind of change has to come where we can come together and find a compromise that will last... or at some point we might be looking at another civil war.