611–620 of 1001 posts
Serious question for those who agree with this petition. Which country's military would you like to see be the most technologically advanced in 20 years?
None. I would like most of them to stay unadvanced.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
After a certain point it's irrelevant. Soviets developed the Tsar Bomba; should the US have tried to one up them?
We did one up them, over and over again - just with strategies other than "make one bigger bomb".
And just because employees at Google refuse, employees in one of the big Chinese firms won’t be able to. If our government does not have this tech then someone else will.
We live in this fantasy, like people aren’t dying everyday from war in so many places around the world. We are not immune to that.
Edit: to all the folks down voting me it’s a good idea to get a different perspective sometimes.
It boggles my mind, with the current state of affairs, the number of people actively organizing to eliminate or curtail our fundamental human rights. It seems to me that 1st and 2nd amendment rights are both under particularly intense bombardment these days.
How do you think the 2nd amendment is under assault? If you look at the list of things our youth were marching for[1], it doesn't say anything about taking guns away. Just like you can't yell "fire" in a movie theater, you shouldn't be able to walk around with a rocket launcher or semi-automatic weapon. Also, there's no way in hell any group of citizens can fight the US army these days so it seems like a moot point.…
> you shouldn't be able to walk around with a rocket launcher or semi-automatic weapon
Generally speaking, this statement speaks to a lack of information regarding what semi-automatic is or what it means. Most firearms sold today are semi-automatic. Banning semi-automatic firearms bans the majority of firearms.
That you later go on to state "You don't need automatic weapons to defend..." implies to me that you've conflated automatic and semi-automatic. You cannot conflate those two terms in good faith and claim to be having a reasonable and informed debate.
You also assert that nobody's saying anything about taking guns away, but Hillary Clinton (and other politicians) repeatedly called for Australian-style gun buybacks, which were mandatory, which are the same as confiscation. I'll broadly agree that it isn't the popular sentiment, but suggesting that nobody's calling for it is disingenuous at the very least.
Moreover, from your link, the following statements are at odds with your assertion that the second amendment isn't under attack.
> Weapons of war have no place in our communities. Our nation requires a comprehensive assault weapons ban
> Limiting high-powered weapons to the military has worked elsewhere to eliminate the opportunity for mass shootings
> These magazines are devastating and need to be banned.
Finally, you make a very common mistake when you assert "you can't yell 'fire' in a movie theater". That has been covered here by me, by others, and by prominent first amendment attorneys all over the map, but despite the common misconception, there's no law or regulation that prohibits you from yelling fire in a movie theater.
Nobody ever believes that, so please enjoy some citations:
* https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
* https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
* http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2013/03/04/please-st...
During world war 2, fan favorite companies like Mercedez Benz were building tanks for the Nazis. If there is a war today don’t you think the government will seize everything and we will all be working for them? This is different in some ways because Google is likely being paid for this but I don’t think they can just refuse nor do I think they should be able to, frankly. That’s not how national security works. And ju…
Wow, we really are insulated from our military today, aren’t we? Yes, the US government is still at war in Afghanistan and with ISIS.
I wonder what Geoff Hinton's position on this is. He seems somewhat anti-military from some side comments in his Neural Networks course.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is funny you mention that actually - as a personal anecdote, I can say that many of my friends who happen to be advocates for free distro of crypto tech - or more commonly, cryptocurrencies - also tend to be fairly strong 2A advocates. TL;DR; - IMO there is some significant crossover between crypto* people, and 2A people.
I have noticed this correlation as well (I am an example of it in fact). I think there is a common thread of decentralization and bringing power closer to the people that resonates with the two groups.
This may be an uncomfortable fact but people have surprisingly short memories: the military funded the majority of the early advances in systems, networking, and cryptography (and especially as a large part of the latter subject area, invested heavily in fundamental, theoretical research). Not saying that I disagree with the employees' opinion, just that DoD/Pentagon involvement in artificial intelligence research sh…
It boggles my mind, with the current state of affairs, the number of people actively organizing to eliminate or curtail our fundamental human rights. It seems to me that 1st and 2nd amendment rights are both under particularly intense bombardment these days.
How do you think the 2nd amendment is under assault? If you look at the list of things our youth were marching for[1], it doesn't say anything about taking guns away. Just like you can't yell "fire" in a movie theater, you shouldn't be able to walk around with a rocket launcher or semi-automatic weapon. Also, there's no way in hell any group of citizens can fight the US army these days so it seems like a moot point.…
Note: the statement above does not choose a side.
This may be an uncomfortable fact but people have surprisingly short memories: the military funded the majority of the early advances in systems, networking, and cryptography (and especially as a large part of the latter subject area, invested heavily in fundamental, theoretical research). Not saying that I disagree with the employees' opinion, just that DoD/Pentagon involvement in artificial intelligence research sh…