[flagged]
[flagged]
U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
551–560 of 1001 posts
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#552I have been in "no politics, no news" mode for over a month. I try to do this about once a year. I have yet to tell my wife I do it, but when I am on this limited media consumption she always comments how pleasant I am to be around. I think it is a good thing for all of us to do once in a while, until 80 years ago most news was at best three or four days old, go back 120 years and you're getting only last weeks top t…
I highly recommend this. Just stop bothering with Twitter and the news if you suspect it affects you negatively at all.
You don’t really need to be that plugged in. The people commenting on every issue aren’t really helping anything.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what they did to Tibet for example and they absolutely are an extreme ongoing threat to Taiwan
What did they do to Tibet? The CIA tried to establish an independent Tibet so the US could have bases there, and later engaged in “Free Tibet” rhetoric meaning US weapons in Tibet, and China went to great expense to build a railroad to Lhasa to keep American weapons out of Tibet. China doesn’t want US military bases on their side of the Himalayas. It remained an autonomous region until a bunch of clowns proposed putt…
Tibet was independent from 1913 to 1950 invasion. You are talking about stuff that happened after the invasion. Tibet was part of Qing dynasty, rebelled when it collapsed, and was never part of ROC. It wasn’t recognized as independent but was definitely invaded by China.
It has similarities to Taiwan which is de facto independent but claimed by PRC.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#554Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if the pilot gets to paint a balloon silhouette on his plane.
I don’t think F-22 pilots get to paint their aircraft. It would destroy the stealth coatings, which are so specialized they are measured to the milligram when removed (to ensure an adversary hasn’t taken some for analysis).
Where do stories like this come from? Simple logic would tell you there is no possible way to weigh an aircraft coating to a milligram and verify that it matches a somehow measured precise amount applied to the aircraft. The concept is ridiculous.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favorite Russian joke of 2012 was this: — Daddy, which camp they are taking us to? — I don't know, son, I am not interested in politics.
It's one thing to be interested in politics, and a whole different story whether you can make a tiny bit of difference with the knowledge you get from spending time listening to all the politicians out there on a daily basis. Besides, most of the time the system is designed in a way that you have neither a say nor healthy representation of your political views in the elected government.
> the system is designed in a way that you have neither a say nor healthy representation
America is the most powerful civilisation in the history of humanity. In almost every election, nonvoters could swing the outcome. On almost every issue, practically nobody reaches out to their representatives.
Participation is hard. Many of us have more important matters to tend to. That’s fine. But don’t characterise participation as sour grapes.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#556Why didn't they use machine guns? Perhaps one reason was the risk that if they used machine guns, they would hit the balloon and crash the fighter. In that case, it would have provided China with the worst possible performance of shooting down a U.S. fighter with a Chinese balloon. On the other hand, if they used missiles and shot down the Chinese balloon with flair, we could advertise a strong and brave U.S. The U.S…
They probably wanted to bring the balloon down as quickly as possible once the decision to do so, and using an exploding warhead makes it easier to keep it in sight as it descended to make recovery easier. Projectile holes would likely just slowly leak for a while making descent take too long.
I already see similar comments in other comments and agree with you and them.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#557Why didn't they use machine guns? Perhaps one reason was the risk that if they used machine guns, they would hit the balloon and crash the fighter. In that case, it would have provided China with the worst possible performance of shooting down a U.S. fighter with a Chinese balloon. On the other hand, if they used missiles and shot down the Chinese balloon with flair, we could advertise a strong and brave U.S. The U.S…
Haven't verified it but former congressman Adam kinzinger claimed Canada did just that. It took over 1000 rounds and 4 hours to accomplish.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#558I have been in "no politics, no news" mode for over a month. I try to do this about once a year. I have yet to tell my wife I do it, but when I am on this limited media consumption she always comments how pleasant I am to be around. I think it is a good thing for all of us to do once in a while, until 80 years ago most news was at best three or four days old, go back 120 years and you're getting only last weeks top t…
I highly recommend this. Just stop bothering with Twitter and the news if you suspect it affects you negatively at all. You don’t really need to be that plugged in. The people commenting on every issue aren’t really helping anything.
I could tell this was a dumb story from the beginning. The US gov deciding to make it super-important by not sending a top official to China was a natural fire-starter for regular people, not just news junkies.
Ultimately, the only interesting conversation I got from it was why it might be hard to shoot down:
A standard 50cal as used circa WW2 to shoot down balloons would be sufficient but too short ranged
A fighter jet with an 20mm autocannon would easily deal with it but they also shoot 2000+ rounds a minute which would result in tons of dangerous rounds going right through then possibly hitting the ground near civillians.
Modern autocannon bullets that will safely auto-destruct in the air but there wasn't an US airforce craft that had them available.
etc, etc, etc.
https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1621960968375877632
So even totally wasteful stories can generate interesting thought experiments. Even when the total sum of human attention is a million times out of whack of the IRL value of caring in the first place.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#559Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the implication is not that the cost in this specific case was very high. I think the point was that there is an assymetry in cost. So, if someone wanted to have balloons over the USA, it would be much cheaper for them to try than it would be for the USA to stop them. By the time someone starts sending 1000's of balloons, the costs to destroy them may add up.
'someone' I mean it would be pretty easy to figure out who it was, if at nation state level enact things like embargos against them which would cost them quite a bit more. If not at nation state level they'd likely be taken care of much more quietly.
Agreed, but consider wartime.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#560Earlier quoted context omitted.
From your point of view, I can see how China is bad and the USA is good. But ask someone whose country got invaded by the USA or whose bloody dictator got supported by the USA. Over here in Latinamerica we still remember the horrible things that the USA did. It seems to me (but I could have a false perception) that China is a horrible bully in their corner of the world (nine dash line and, of course their will to inv…
Life isn't a marvel movie. There are no good guys and bad guys. The USA doesn't have to be "good" for China to be "bad".
You say that there are no "good" and "bad" guys, but then go on stating that there are "bad" guys. Careful, almost committed a thoughtcrime here.
You people are impossible.