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Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

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81–90 of 193 posts

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#81

Playing out as Naval Ravikant predicted on the After-on podcast: https://after-on.com/episodes-31-60/044 Eventually cheap drones, anonymous assassination markets, etc. will make commercial flying a thing of the past. Written summary of podcast - https://podcastnotes.org/2019/03/20/after-on-naval-01/

Today it's basically a week-long project to train a neural network to fly towards a jet engine in a 3D simulation. Then you just need to hook that to the drone control software.

No amount of jamming helps you here, this is radio control off, GPS off, entirely visual "guided missile" approach.

And this approach scales, with 20 drones, 2 drones assigned to each engine, you can engage 5 taking off planes in a row off a busy airport. And you can pick the direction which will make the planes crash in the nearby city.

With a "hire people to do stuff for bitcoin" project (there are several) you can prepare this in a bunch of countries (you just tell them you need some drones setup for an aerial shooting/light show or something).

The future is scary.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#82
post #42
post #2

The use of drones in this way by rebels makes me rethink the media image of a rebel. They are educated, lawyers, doctors, engineers.

Iran funds this. The advanced rockets by Hamas, the drones by the Houthi. Proxy war like usual. They are using Yemen for themselves uncaring of lives, we are killing so many innocent in Yemen. Life’s complicated but after the Iran deal, funding these groups by Iran increased significantly, and so did our subsequent killing of innocents.

It is the Saudi's that are killing innocents in Yemen. Saudi Arabia started the war in Yemen simply because they wanted to impose a hated dictator on Yemen. If the Saudis let the Yemeni choose their own leader, or even imposed a dictator that is not as hated, or had the basic decency to force dictator on Yemen that is the same religion as most Yemenis this would not have happened.

The Saudis are blockading Yemen, a nation that needs to import most of its food to survive. They are directly and intentionally causing a humanitarian catastrophe there. There is not need to blame Iran for this.

The Yemeni rebels are cornered and as any cornered people they will take any help they can, including Iran. But this is not the cause of this. The cause is the Saudi led war and blockade.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#84
post #2

The use of drones in this way by rebels makes me rethink the media image of a rebel. They are educated, lawyers, doctors, engineers.

Yemen is a really poor country, they don't have this capability. This is a proxy war, we had a lot of them in the past 100 years.

The Houthis are genuinely fighting for their own country. Iran may help them but Iran is not commanding them, so I do not see this as a proxy war but an internal affair to Yemen.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#85
post #9

An unusual (and worrying) part about this incident is how drones are being used, not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation. Like terrorist operatives, drones are relatively cheap and expendible. But unlike terrorism, which seeks to grind away at the enemy's resolve, this kind of attack attempts to deprive an enemy of the money needed to fund its operations. Like…

> not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation.

In the context of a military conflict, which is what is going on, this was a bone fide target.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#86

Environmentalists say they might shut down Heathrow airport with drones because they dont like new construction. They would announce an hour in advance such a demonstration. Authorities warn of severe prison sentences if they catch some doing this.

Already done, 19 arrested, and it's a climate change protest: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-49696973

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#87
post #42
post #2

The use of drones in this way by rebels makes me rethink the media image of a rebel. They are educated, lawyers, doctors, engineers.

Iran funds this. The advanced rockets by Hamas, the drones by the Houthi. Proxy war like usual. They are using Yemen for themselves uncaring of lives, we are killing so many innocent in Yemen. Life’s complicated but after the Iran deal, funding these groups by Iran increased significantly, and so did our subsequent killing of innocents.

I stated already in a previous comment: the Houthis are fighting for their own country. The Houthis may be helped by Iran but Iran is not commanding them. Since the Houthis fight for a Yemen without the appointed president, they fight for their own country. Saudi Arabia choose to have a war with the Houthis (not with Iran!) so this is not a proxy war at all.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#88

Has there, will there ever be peace in the middle east? feels wrong to say middle east... arab world... don't want to box them in by religion either.

Just to educate, “Arab” isn’t a religion, it is an ethnic group. A majority of Arabs are Muslims, which is the religious designation. The Middle East is no more warlike than the west. Remember is only been a couple generations since World War 2, and sectarian violence has been around within the last two decades in the west.

You don’t refute “the Middle East is a violent place” with “there has been violence in the west in the last 20 years”. Violence is a spectrum, not a binary, and there is a chasm between the Middle East and the West with respect to how violent each place is.

We can find non-racist explanations for the violence disparity without forsaking reason.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#90

Playing out as Naval Ravikant predicted on the After-on podcast: https://after-on.com/episodes-31-60/044 Eventually cheap drones, anonymous assassination markets, etc. will make commercial flying a thing of the past. Written summary of podcast - https://podcastnotes.org/2019/03/20/after-on-naval-01/

Today it's basically a week-long project to train a neural network to fly towards a jet engine in a 3D simulation. Then you just need to hook that to the drone control software. No amount of jamming helps you here, this is radio control off, GPS off, entirely visual "guided missile" approach. And this approach scales, with 20 drones, 2 drones assigned to each engine, you can engage 5 taking off planes in a row off a…

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