Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s up with Maga people using LotR names for their military/panopticon companies? Anduril, Palantir, Lembas have I seen so far.
Is it a MAGA thing, or is it just a Palmer Luckey thing?
Peter Thiel too
The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
311–320 of 527 posts
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of time, this delay is in peacetime, it makes sense to do a ton of testing, wait until testing results then go to full production. Your primary concern is not spending a ton of money and not getting a bunch of people killed. It's basically waterfall in fighter development. Wartime is more agile, you quickly close the loop but downside is sometimes does not work and when it does not work, there might be a people…
So then what value does the bureaucratic process add if it's the first thing that gets shitcanned when good results in good time matter? At the end of the day it's all people cost. Just because it's fractional lives wasted in the form of man hours worked to pay the taxes to pay for unnecessary paper pushing labor instead of whole lives doesn't actually make the waste less (I suspect it's actually more in a lot of cas…
> what value does the bureaucratic process add if it's the first thing that gets shitcanned when good results in good time matter?
This is like asking what good do reserves do if you spend them down in a crisis.
The bureaucracy aims to keep waste and corruption to a minimum during peacetime. In war, the aims change--you're now not only ramping up production, but the penalties for fucking with a war are typically more drastic than lining one's pockets during peacetime.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the ban is because an architect thinks they're icky, sent in a request to ban it, and the building code people take any suggestion to ban anything that anyone sends them. Safety regulations are written in blood, you know! https://bsky.app/profile/stephenjacobsmith.com/post/3m3xpe3n...
The ban on windowless bedroom is at least partly about fire safety. A window provides an escape route for low floors, or a means for firefighters to rescue the occupants.
> ban on windowless bedroom is at least partly about fire safety. A window provides an escape route for low floors, or a means for firefighters to rescue the occupants
New York City's fire engines can't reach its skyscrapers' top floors. Not saying you can achieve similar resuls with office-to-residential conversions. But windowless bedrooms aren't a non-starter because of fire safety, they're a non-starter because they make wealthier residents uncomfortable.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the executive had the power to rename existing departments and map landmarks. That's why we got "DOGE" disgused under the USDS and the "Gulf of America". If that's not legal, I'll do my best to act shocked.
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AKA - it’s the department of defense in the same way Robert Kennedy was named Robert but went by Bobby sometimes. Trump doesn’t get to change the name, just assign an unofficial nickname that he thinks sounds more tough. Sort of like his pretend tough guy Secretary of defense that dresses up as a Secretary of war for TV moments. The fact they drag along the entire military and its leadership in their charade is embarrassing, and the asinine nickname is expensive and likely causes operational confusion.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
The GP's point is that levelheaded cost-benefit analyses on things like that seem to escape regulators, and everything is greatly skewed towards "it's worth it if it saves even one life". Sure, fire safety in homes is a good thing to have. But is it so good that we can't economically build buildings to meet them, and people end up with no home at all?
We can economically build buildings with windows on all the bedrooms. That has virtually zero impact on the final price to residents so complaining about it is a total red herring. The actual problem is high land prices, slow permit approval processes, and restrictive zoning codes.
> We can economically build buildings with windows on all the bedrooms
There is a lot of space inside buildings and blocks that must be kept open to permit windows in every bedroom.
When I first moved to New York, I illegally subletted a windowless bedroom. That let me save enough money to (a) enjoy my twenties and (b) launch a start-up. When I got a windowed bedroom, I wound up putting sound-absorbing black-out curtains on them for years.
> The actual problem is high land prices, slow permit approval processes, and restrictive zoning codes
These are bigger problems. But the the blind window requirement is a part of the second two. On its own, it isn't prohibitive. Tied together with a million other petty requirements and your minimum costs balloon.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can easily build them without windowless bedrooms, yes. The problem is you can't easily convert office buildings to housing without these, because the floor plates are too different.
That's only one of many problems with converting office building to residential. While a few conversions have succeeded, usually it's cheaper to just demolish the building and start from scratch. Allowing windowless bedrooms won't change that.
> While a few conversions have succeeded, usually it's cheaper to just demolish the building and start from scratch
Do we have cases of Japan or China converting industrial or office spaces into residences?
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#317> Design For Rapid Scale In a Crisis One of the things that I think Anduril (Palmer Luckey and other founders) is doing right is designing for manufacturability. The invasion of Ukraine has shown that future conflicts will use up weapons at a very high pace. And that the US capability to build them at the rate needed to sustain conflict isn't there anymore. But that one thing that could help is making them easier to…
> sustain conflict ...this turn of phrase in relation to goal-setting really makes you think twice.
Welcome to war. If you can't sustain a conflict, you will lose to anyone who can.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody uses statutory titles for anything to be honest; when’s the last time you referred to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act instead of “Obamacare”? When’s the last time you referred to the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program instead of “Social Security”? I’ve never heard anyone say Title XIX of the Social Security Act instead of “Medicaid,” or Title XVIII of the Social Security Act in…
I say ACA, Obamacare is politically charged. And the cases you've mentioned all shorten a long name into a colloquial name. This is not the case for Department of War/Defense. That said, let's call it what it is... it's a war machine. Just as we should refer to Israeli Occupation Forces and not "Defense" forces, since genocidal occupation is just about the furthest thing from defense.
I’ll always remember the turn around phrase that was a Yankee Doodle dandy moment “Obamacare because Obama cares”
It’s not a war machine, it’s a pork processing system for Congress.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right now USA is cpintry that threatens others and is primary threat to stabilily. Its rhetoric is not building up to defense.
I don't know to me it sounds like Isreal and Russia if you ask, well anyone. NK wants a lot of people dead too.
Although Israel is committing genocide, it is not a threat to worldwide stability. NK is not threat to world wide stability either, as evil they are, they are no where near to that. USA half switched alliance to Russia, so yeah. Current American leadership admires how Russia does things and wants to be more like them.
There is a reason why USA is currently seen as the biggest threat to stability - because USA is intentionally trying to make the world unstable.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
> sustain conflict ...this turn of phrase in relation to goal-setting really makes you think twice.
Welcome to war. If you can't sustain a conflict, you will lose to anyone who can.
There's no need to welcome me to war. I'm not in one, despite the fact that the powers that be are hellbent on getting me (and everyone else) into one.