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Nowhere is safe

steveblank.com

31–40 of 329 posts

Re: Nowhere is safe

#31

Hmm... Interestingly one does not look at the solutions to de-escalate conflict. Despite the proxy wars we've had a relatively peaceful world since WW1/WW2. Please humor me here, I'm not saying the world is horror free. The emphasis I would hope would also be for improved negotiation tactics, better resource sharing and goal alignment between groups of people. Why is it that we can dream up more conflict but not peac…

The US spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. When all you have is a hammer…

The theory behind the US having a large military is that it acts as a sort of fleet in being - that the US prefers other methods of engaging with countries, and having a stronger military precludes other countries from engaging militarily. In turn, having stable global relations and protected global trade provides the US with a huge economic boon to fund its large military.

That's the theory anyway - our Idiot King and his idiots have completely missed the point of the US military existing and are using it as a primary method of engagement, which is causing the economic boon used to fund the military to evaporate.

As an aside, it's not a huge issue, but China's military costs use different accounting than the US, and seem lower by comparison. Apples to apples, China probably spends about half what the US does on military.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#32

There is a layer over this that should be noticed. Nowhere is safe, because international order is a joke. You can conduct invasions for land, to exterminate population, to whatever Trump is doing, every instrument of international law was just useless, or even cooperative with the stronger offender. Which will be the ones taking advantage of this situation? China, Brazil? Everything is forgotten or accepted with the…

Precisely.

I think it's sort of laughable when people try to invoke international law about the strait being closed when the country closing it was being bombed in the first place. Once your civilian infrastructure is being attacked all gloves are off.

What people fail to understand is that international order being respected favors the stronger and more developed countries first. Those are the countries that depend more on complex supply chains, on more expensive infrastructure, etc.

That the US of all countries would be the one dismantling an order that favored it first and foremost is sort of fascinating to watch, especially when it is replacing it with nothing. Definitely not something I would have guessed even a few years ago.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In orbit? Probably not. No country has operational satellites designed to attack ground targets. They would need to launch missiles or send drones. In a total war you absolutely do target factories and industry. But this is easier said than done; they tend to be deep inside enemy territory. And drones are made out of commonplace consumer electronics parts, which could be made in thousands of factories around the worl…

> No country has operational satellites designed to attack ground targets. Why are you so sure of that? It would be very surprising if at least the United States and Russia didn't have orbital weapons. They've been in sending large stuff to space for decades. Of course they wouldn't have told you or anybody else who isn't supposed to know. > In a total war you absolutely do target factories and industry. And that's w…

No idea how actually efficient that would be even in theory. I guess it's not technical technicaly impossible, but would it really bring any benefit compared to launching possibly many more cheaper transcontinental rockets from earth were maintenance and control is definitely easier.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#34

It’s a shame there’s inherent performance cost to homomorphic encryption. If there were not it could make sense at least on the compute front to treat it as a commodity and just put it everywhere l, importantly including untrusted locations and have a control plane handle coordination for low latency. Otherwise why not wipe out these gigawatt dcs? They don’t employ many and are of high consequence for rich countries.

Even biology doesn't cross check that much. Cells are happy to copy virus materials.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the "people are more respectful when everyone is armed" theory.

I think handguns in the US has shown that it doesn't work.

Well at the risk of making a "hasn't been tried" argument, the vast majority of people in the US don't walk around with guns.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the "people are more respectful when everyone is armed" theory.

I think handguns in the US has shown that it doesn't work.

Why not? The friendliest people in the US are exactly in the open carry states.

NYC on the other hand has the biggest number of jerks per capita I ever seen. (No offence to all nice people from NYC, which there are still plenty.)

Re: Nowhere is safe

#37
post #9

I often see these angles, how we should have prepared better or attacked this instead of that, or the unexpected strategy from the adversary. What about not bombing? The best safety trick the US can use is not bombing others.

Who did the US bomb before 9/11? Who did the US bomb before Pearl Harbor? Who did the US bomb before its embassies in East Africa were attacked? https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/east-african-embass... Who did the US bomb before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 ?

I would love for nobody to bomb or kill anyone. Did Ukraine bomb Russia? Is Taiwan bombing China that declares it is going to take Taiwan by force?

There isn't a single conflict in the world today where I can see that someone can just say "we're going to stop" and they'll be safe. There is always something more to it. If Ukraine says we'll just stop attacking Russian soldiers is that war over? If Russia says we'll just stop attacking Ukraine and stay where we are is that war over? Is there any other conflict where the answer is simply stop and it'll be fine?

Re: Nowhere is safe

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think handguns in the US has shown that it doesn't work.

Why not? The friendliest people in the US are exactly in the open carry states. NYC on the other hand has the biggest number of jerks per capita I ever seen. (No offence to all nice people from NYC, which there are still plenty.)

This really depends on what you look like. Open carry states can be very unfriendly if you look a certain way.
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