Excuse me if this is a bit forward but who asked? In other words, why do hn commenters go off on tangents to the extent that in some posts you'll find more irrelevant tangents than discussion of the article in the link?
> why do hn commenters go off on tangents to the extent that in some posts you'll find more irrelevant tangents than discussion of the article in the link?
Stimulation of interesting discussion and anecdotes is the lifeblood of HN? I understand this one doesn't interest you, but I bet some others do and don't interest me.
This does not track for me at all. I'm sorry but why would anybody in the DOD have an incentive to "make Americans believe in US military and intelligence superiority"?
So many reasons. If you want unlimited funding, if you want people to join, if you want citizens to feel safe… you really want them to feel like the government is powerful. If people think their government is a joke they will treat it as a joke. You don't want people thinking that a dozen people with box cutters can fly planes into buildings. You don't want people thinking that "the greatest superpower in the world" can't defeat literal cave dwellers with ancient soviet era weaponry. You don't want people to know that China's military is much more advanced than the public is aware and they are routinely flying over US airspace undetected.
You want people to feel safe and pay their taxes. You want your citizens to believe that the $2 trillion spend on defense every year goes to good use, creating the kind of military and intelligence apparatus that Hollywood portrays.
We fund these types of propaganda campaigns for the same reasons we have military parades and air shows. We saw how well these kinds of "overwhelmingly powerful" government myths worked for both the Soviets and Axis powers in WW2 and we copied it. Every government chasing power and status wants its citizens to feel like they are the most powerful. China and Russia have similar kinds of myths.
But you don't have to take my word for it. Please, continue to believe that spaceships from other planets have crashed and some elite division within the US government managed to retrieve them and keep it secret for 50+ years. Look past the failing state of our infrastructure and continue to believe that an alien species capable of interstellar travel is interested specifically in Americans, but "they" are keeping you from knowing the truth!
There's a vast gulf between "believing that spaceships from other planets have crashed and some elite division..." and subscribing to your theory which is so far only supported by you insisting to us what "you want" as a theoretical deep state government apparatus. From my perspective, it would seem like the widespread belief that terrorists could crash planes into buildings resulted in a lot of public money, enlistment, and support flowing into the US Military over the early 2000s.
You're presenting a false choice between two conspiracy theories as the only ways to view this situation, which certainly doesn't make your particular conspiracy theory look any more credible.
Not really. I will admit that it's totally possible that there is no conspiracy. It's entirely possible that people are so naturally brainwashed that they conspire against themselves without the help of the government. Pride is a hell of a drug, so that is totally possible. I mean, people do it with religion so why not this.
> But you don't have to take my word for it. Please, continue to believe that spaceships from other planets have crashed and some elite division within the US government managed to retrieve them and keep it secret for 50+ years. Look past the failing state of our infrastructure and continue to believe that an alien species capable of interstellar travel is interested specifically in Americans, but "they" are keeping you from knowing the truth!
China said they were going to shoot down the US balloon. They lost their lock and never got it back. Meanwhile the US is literally able to shoot down kites.
> “You spend a lot, but you get the best!” sounds a lot better than “You spend a lot, but we still suck!”
This argument doesn't make any sense. The US military is better than the next top three militaries combined. The Ukraine war is showing the superiority of decades old Western tech.
It can show that the best still isn't good enough for some scenarios, including this scenario where unmanned aircraft are entering US airspace unimpeded.
The US military might be better than the rest, but they were still defeated by poor people in the desert with some Casio watches and decades' old AKs.
Similarly, it seems that small drones are another potential avenue of exploitation in asymmetric warfare.
> The US military is better than the next top three militaries combined.
Partially due to institutional experience and economies of scale (for certain capabilities). We probably still exceed what the next top 3 powers (China, Russia, India, BTW) are spending in PPP terms, so it shouldn't be that surprising.
> The Ukraine war is showing the superiority of decades old Western tech.
For every video of HIMARS blowing up a Russian ammo depot, there's a video of Ka-52 helicopters popping M2 Bradleys from 5+ km away.[1] M777s were lauded for their accuracy....until they broke. [2] Ukrainian brigades have been lavishly equipped with Western armored vehicles and they've bounced off a brick wall of positively-ancient minefields and artillery, very similar to the defense-in-depth that the Soviets used to defeat the Germans at Kursk ...in 1943.[3]
This conflict is so complex in terms of difficult-to-measure soft factors that are influencing the battlefield (training, maintenance, corruption, NATO ISR support, information operations/propaganda, etc.), that drawing conclusions about the merits of individual technical systems or especially the overall tech base of the two main powers (Russia vs "the West") as a whole is....unwise.
The war in Ukraine is showing that the "superpowers" aren't so super. It's showing just how much of the military superiority is propaganda and nothing more. But we already knew that, because the US just went through what Russia is now going through.
The US just lost a 20 year war in Afghanistan against cave dwellers with Soviet-era rifles, homemade explosives and random bits from the bottom of a toolbox. You'd think maybe they'd have busted out the ray guns or spaceships instead of taking the L.
The war is showing that Western superpower tech is far in advance of Soviet and post-Soviet tech (in most areas), but that tech can't win all wars. Russia buys drones from Iran which contain parts from many western companies (most of which were manufactured in China), which I think tells you a lot about the relative levels of technology. I doubt the Ukranians would have made it so far with so much relative success without US intelligence and materiel. if we gave them lots more air assets and they used them well, it would give them a huge advantage over Russia, which seems to have somehow lost its air force.
As for Afghanistan, well, of course never get involved in a land war in Asia. But that wasn't a conventional war, and our military is intended to fight conventional wars. Our forces really are not set up to respond to the Taliban.
> The US just lost a 20 year war in Afghanistan against cave dwellers with Soviet-era rifles, homemade explosives and random bits from the bottom of a toolbox.
To be fair the US left Afghanistan and the remaining Afghani army crumbled to the taliban pretty quickly.
I’d say the two situations are very different, the US successfully occupied a country that was ~7000km from them.
The Russians have so far failed to take a city that’s ~200km from their own border in about 1 and a half years.
To be even more fair, the US lost the War in Afghanistan. It's an unambiguous Taliban victory. That's how it will read in every history book that doesn't have an American flag and a bald eagle on it. 20 years there and all the US did was create a whole new generation of terrorists who will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge.
It was a military loss. When one military quits and runs away really fast that’s a loss. And it’s not the first time. When the US loses they hold a parade and say, “We left.” Such a joke. And American citizens never hold their government accountable. Instead they just believe the BS and do it all over again. Kind of amazing, really. No shame.
> This does not track for me at all. I'm sorry but why would anybody in the DOD have an incentive to "make Americans believe in US military and intelligence superiority"?
Especially when NATO hasn't fired a shot in Ukraine, but is supplying real-time intelligence to the AFU.
US cold war era surplus + EW helped break an entire Russian army, and may yet break a second.
Because one of the purposes of flying surveillance aircraft in US airspace is psychological warfare. It sends the message that China/Russia/whoever can send whatever they want into US airspace and there's nothing that anyone, including the military, can do about it. It sows fear, uncertainty and doubt in both the public and even members of the military who can recognize the advanced capabilities of the armies they might have to fight. It sends the message that you are not safe at home, and those who are supposed to protect you can't.
However, if people think they're aliens, that instead turns psychological warfare on its head and into something that inspires awe, wonder and possibility. No one is scared in the ways adversaries want them to be scared, and no one doubts the government is actually capable of handling threats from adversaries.
"Aliens" as an explanation quells the potential for panic, versus adversaries successfully inducing the panic responses they desire. It also gives the opportunity for those who care too much about this to be painted as quacks.
I don't understand your comment. Russia has no real capability to fly surveillance aircraft over US territory. They can barely manage to fly to Syria without breaking down.
As a placeholder for potential US adversaries who might have the motivation do something like this. If you don't like that I said Russia, ignore it and fill it in with China.
Come on, be serious. China can't even get the metallurgy right on turbine engines. Never mind flying saucers. If they are doing any airborne surveillance over the US homeland then it's either with spy balloons, or cheap little short-range drones launched by agents on the ground.
I don't think they're doing anything special other than sending incredibly cheap drones and balloons. Nobody is bending the laws of physics or doing anything advanced here.
If you think people are seeing real flying saucers that are defying the laws of physics, I don't know what to tell you.
>China/Russia/whoever can send whatever they want into US airspace and there's nothing that anyone, including the military, can do about it.
So it's not "whatever they want", it's cheap drones and balloons. You make China out to be some scary powerful Boogeyman (which requires the USG to invent alien stories as a cover) and then admit they don't have such capability.
I personally am not scared one iota about Chinese aircraft threatening US airspace. And I am very confident that if such a scenario did arise, the US military would address it in the most appropriate and effective way. Which could range anywhere from ignoring it, to neutralizing with extreme prejudice.
That's a mockery of real authoritarian countries, where you most definitely wouldn't have the checks and balances of a court that finds a law enforcement agency misused data and with a free press to publicize that fact.
I installed a fresh copy of windows straight from the official ISO a month or two ago and was bombarded with candy crush, tiktok, CNN, instagram, LinkedIn, etc. It took me a few solid hours to get it out of my way as much as possible.
After that, even on my brand new Ryzen 9, it took 15 seconds to open a web browser. I decided to quit my windows-only games and delete windows in favor of Linux (like usual).
It's not just OEM installs, perhaps you got windows a few versions back and updated it avoiding the new bloatware crap.
Then it’s time to move onto other pressing environmental issues, like recycling all the electric car batteries, and the ethics of lithium and rare Earth mineral mining.
CO2 emissions are going to happen, we need to reduce them in a meaningful way. We do that by looking at the breakdown of emissions.
The biggest sector is enery use in the industry (24%), next is buildings, mostly heating (17.5), then transport (16%). Most of the transport emissions is road transport (cars and trucks) and air travel is only 2% of the overall emissions.
And again, air travel is mostly frequent travelers who have no intention to change their habit. That means that as an occasional air traveler, if it makes you happy to visit a faraway country every few years, you should definitely not feel bad about it. Because even if all occasional travelers were to stop flying, it wouldn't make any significant difference.
The biggest change we can make to reduce air emissions is replacing short flights with high-speed rail. There are 400 flights a day between DC and NYC. It should be zero.
