171–180 of 310 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I imagine what the possibilities would be if we funded general non-military projects with the kind of money that goes into the military." Amen. China is. They are building a new silk road that they will control. What's our answer? A bomb?
So china does not have a big military budget, too?
Anyone work this technology and can talk about it (without breaking whatever NDA of course)? I'm a former infantryman and ... let's just say I'm _extremely_ skeptical of this kind of technology for all but the most niche use-cases (think, AR for the driver in the hole of the truck). Obviously for pilots stuff similar to this has been around for a while, but the article is not really clear about how exactly this would…
From what I've seen the two key use cases are 1) being able to see a "gun's eye" view, enabling you to poke your weapon out of cover and fire without exposing yourself 2) faster friend-foe identification through the AR overlay. Both of those seem like significant upgrades and arguably worth pursuing, but you can be sure a bunch of other nonsense will probably get tacked on that may make it worse than useless (like gi…
I don't look like a hippie, but I totally subscribe to the idea of "make love, not war". I imagine what the possibilities would be if we funded general non-military projects with the kind of money that goes into the military. Trillions have been spent on wars or war preparation, and of course the net result is worsening for humanity. What if instead that money were spend on helping humanity? Do we really need a confl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When we say "military spending", much of it is not actually spent on wasted resources - it is sort of welfare for the military industrial complex and its dependent people. It is just like social security, medicare etc, some amount is earmarked for a different group. What we shouldn't assume is that "not spending on military" automatically implies spending on stuff that is actually good for the country.
> When we say "military spending", much of it is not actually spent on wasted resources - it is sort of welfare for the military industrial complex and its dependent people. And what if instead of paying those people to develop weapons, we paid them to develop tech and infrastructure that would provide utility to every day people?
Anyone work this technology and can talk about it (without breaking whatever NDA of course)? I'm a former infantryman and ... let's just say I'm _extremely_ skeptical of this kind of technology for all but the most niche use-cases (think, AR for the driver in the hole of the truck). Obviously for pilots stuff similar to this has been around for a while, but the article is not really clear about how exactly this would…
People on the ground never have use for such tech. These deals are all political and the actual equipment arrives by the truckloads and sits unboxed. When people rant about ridiculous military budgets and spending it isn't about cutting soldiers' salaries but shit like this.
The army has a little under 500K active-duty soldiers. As a gross overestimation, if they were delivering one headset per soldier, napkin math shows: $22B / 500K = $44K per headset. Even if the tech were super useful and every single soldier got one, that price tag seems absolutely absurd. How can anyone be okay with this?
So, it is a bit strage to suggest we should reduce the military, to then fund someone's opinion of a worthy cause. (Yet i fully agree that current military spending is out of control and needs to be reined in massively)
Aside from assumptions made on what is worthy are truly eye of the beholder, what about letting people decide for themselves?
We are willing to explore our altruistic desires first....instead of putting others first.
That's likely why we need a military in the first place.
As a taxpayer this seems like a waste of money. AR is just a novelty. If I were a solider in a firefight, I don't think I'd want some annoying UI in my eye telling me were to shoot.
"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." - Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps)
I don't look like a hippie, but I totally subscribe to the idea of "make love, not war". I imagine what the possibilities would be if we funded general non-military projects with the kind of money that goes into the military. Trillions have been spent on wars or war preparation, and of course the net result is worsening for humanity. What if instead that money were spend on helping humanity? Do we really need a confl…
> If you liquidated both Bill Gates & Elon Musk too, you could get to maybe ~180 days
> Throw Zuck into the grinder & you squeeze out another ~45 days
> You’d still need ~$200B+ to finish the year
Source: https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1291970792293425152
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (I don't think there was really hunger in europe pre WW1 for example) IIRC gaining and ensuring continued access to food production centers in central Europe was one of Germany's primary motivating factors leading into WWI.
I learned it a bit different, but in either case - you don't have to starve if you can buy food. And the market was working in europe. So it was more about hunger for power. Because sure, owning something is better than having to buy something.
I would still consider WWI the last hurrah of prestige wars (where an essentially divine monarch instigated war for personal reasons and had the authority to enforce his will over the entire nation) but the hardships were real going into it.
Content people tend to lean away from conflict - the marshall plan in europe seems to bear that out pretty clearly in my eyes. I think it's a rather successful demonstration of the fact that stability breeds peace and, honestly, the US military agrees with me... a decent chunk of money in Iraqi Freedom was invested into infrastructure repair and, especially, education.
To achieve peace you need to make life worth more than death.