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U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

cnbc.com

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Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#671

Post by brookst »

effingwewt wrote: post #584
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 participat…

It's not that participation is hard , it's that more and more see it as completely ineffective. Every year more of my friends and family abstain from voting. The system is broken, many choose not to play a fixed game.

Yep. Same way most shareholders don’t vote in annual shareholders’ meetings.

Management has a vested interest in maintaining the illusion of inevitability.

Shareholders have a vested interest in maintaining the illusion of powerlessness.

It works in both parties’ interest, in a way, but only shareholders complain.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#672

Post by colinsane »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #555
ghostwriter wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 participat…

> On almost every issue, practically nobody reaches out to their representatives.

the handful of times i’ve been impassioned enough to write or call my rep, i’ve felt ashamed for doing so.

polling and voting is the only system we have deployed that lets near every individual exercise equal influence. to call my rep, and participate in this side channel that’s used by only 1/1000th the population — and far from a uniform sampling of it — is to demonstrate that i don’t value the egalitarian ideals that my nation and most of its citizens espouse: that i think my opinion actually is more important/valid than the other 99.9% of ordinary voters.

i don’t know how you reconcile this. i can see how sharing “unopinionated” factual information — if such a thing can really exist — with your rep could be generally good, but calling to share my opinion seems a blatant contradiction: curious if anyone has an explanation for it that doesn’t feel so icky.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#673

Post by guhidalg »

moomoo11 wrote: post #463
SergeAx wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, all comms of that balloon would be satellite. I don't think it is easy to jam, let alone intercept.

I’m sure in 1970s nobody nobody thought GPS would become a reality within a decade. “They will never be able to pinpoint position that way!” My guy. It’s the United States military. All the shit we use is a by product of their first move. If it seems impossible today they’ve already figured it out. Not to mention they made a nuclear bomb and the Manhattan project was an insane achievement.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted… it’s true. Any seemingly feasible idea has already been tried in secret by DARPA or one of its friends. We only know about the ones they’ve declassified.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#674

Post by IMTDb »

moomoo11 wrote: post #446
ck2 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Must be nice being so privileged to talk down the very thing that maintains global trade channels (diplomacy) and keeps most of the world in check. Most of the world is backwater nations who oppress the shit out of their population making whatever faults you find in the US seem trivial. And yes the world isn’t fair and entropy exists. EU is basically a forced alliance after thousand years of constant fighting that le…

The danger for the US are inside, not outside. The military spending is already far sufficient to guarantee the safety of the country against external state nations.

The issue is that it does not spend enough to maintain internal peace. The dudes that took over the capitol aren’t Chinese or Russian.

Now of course, you could use your military power to control your population and prevent it from rebelling even if it is unsatisfied by the government. But wouldn’t that turn the US in an oppressive state.

Less military spending and more social investments is the way to go if you want to prevent the US from turning into a backwater nation.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#675

Post by brookst »

brabarossa wrote: post #513
49531 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if the joke is the man is foolish or wise for not being interested in politics.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

“The only people absolutely convicted that they are the good guys are the bad guys”

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#676

Post by JumpCrisscross »

colinsane wrote: post #672
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 participat…

> On almost every issue, practically nobody reaches out to their representatives. the handful of times i’ve been impassioned enough to write or call my rep, i’ve felt ashamed for doing so. polling and voting is the only system we have deployed that lets near every individual exercise equal influence. to call my rep, and participate in this side channel that’s used by only 1/1000th the population — and far from a unif…

> is to demonstrate that i don’t value the egalitarian ideals that my nation and most of its citizens espouse

No less than voting when not everyone votes.

More pointedly, not everyone is equally knowledgeable on every issue. And not every issue can be brought to a vote.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#677

Post by brookst »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #659
photochemsyn wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sputnik 2.0 It's a serious warning that the U.S. is dangerously behind China when it comes to balloon technology. Note also, balloons are one way of colonizing Venus (floating high in the atmosphere without having to approach the dangerously hot surface). Clearly we need a Venus Balloon Program to show who's the technological leader on this planet, just like with the Apollo Mission. Mars is for wimps, real explorers…

> the U.S. is dangerously behind China when it comes to balloon technology. Mr. President, we must not allow a balloon gap!

chipmunk voice

*gentlemen! You can’t fight here! This is the war room!

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#678

Post by brookst »

notjoemama wrote: post #670
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I'm not sure this is healthy; you should be able to consume news without having it effect your mood so negatively. Might be time to talk to a therapist about it.

I disagree and while I think I understand what you're saying I'm surprised by it. News is often intentionally devicive, misleading, and salacious for a reason. Being affected by propaganda does not come anywhere near a need for therapy. In fact I'd say it is a sign someone has critical thinking and a likely a fair base of information. In the face of the facade of trust clearly lying or engaging in rhetoric, hyperbole…

I think you’re saying you don’t trust yourself to be an adult. Which is a healthy observation if you struggle with that, or an unhealthy one if you can process biased info.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#679

Post by perryizgr8 »

Someone should do a cost analysis of this incident. How much did the balloon cost to build and operate. And how much did it cost to get an F22 in the air and shoot a sidewinder rocket. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a 10x differential. Maybe this is a good DDoS strategy against the US military.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#680

Post by aragonite »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #171
cududa wrote: post #25

I had seen reports that the balloon was the length of 3-4 school busses but it appears that was misreported and just repeated. The PAYLOAD was the length of 3-4 school busses. I haven’t been following this much until today/ vaguely aware as an amusing background story. But, has anyone seen high res photos of the balloon or someone doing back of the envelope math on the size of the balloon portion? I ask simply becaus…

It looks like the large size is mostly just solar panels (I'm assuming that's what they were; they could have been 'sails' to help steer it) and their scaffolding. From some of the available photos there's two wings, each with eight panels. There's a tradeoff between the weight of the solar panels vs simply using batteries (though batteries don't like the cold, and solar panels do), so I think maybe they were hoping…

> I don't particularly like the precedent we just set

especially in view of the fact that the upper limit of sovereign airspace is not defined by international law. In fact there are proposals to treat the 18-160km zone as a transitional region of reduced sovereignty akin to EEZs.

https://iaass.space-safety.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2...

> Legally however, it is an indistinct region where it is not clear whether the operations that take place are covered by aviation or space conventions and treaties, in particular with reference to the freedom of overflight that applies to space orbital operations

Also:

> Although outer space is free, if states are allowed to claim vertical sovereignty up to the point where orbital dynamics are possible, other states will be precluded from having free access to space

> John A. Johnson, General Counsel of [NASA] and [of USAF], said in 1964 "there should therefore be no legal basis for protesting, merely on grounds of unpermitted presence, the overflight of national territory by ascending and descending spacecraft, regardless of altitude."

https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1126&con...

Also see:

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/43439/is-there-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_sovereignty

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