181–190 of 405 posts
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Keyhole founder John Hanke also went on to found Niantic and develop Pokémon Go.
yes, one of the most successful psy-ops of all time: https://thecradle.co/articles/gotta-scan-em-all-how-pokemon-...
There has to be a viable lawsuit in there somewhere. One of the last remaining tools of us plebs...
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, maybe they will be more efficient than the usual defense contractors whose main goal is to charge as many hours as possible. Similar to SpaceX who have accelerated innovation while also lowering prices for launches. On the other hand, it looks like Silicon Valley has run out of ideas for consumer stuff and are now looking to merge with the government to extract tax d…
The U.S. military spends about $800bn a year [1]. That's up about $300bn from ten years ago.
American consumers spend about $21 trillion a month [2].
If you look at VC, most of it still goes to B2C and B2B. DefenseTech is a headline because it's novel.
[1] https://www.warcosts.org/us-military-budget-2026
[2] https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&categor...
Serious question: should companies not participate in contracts from their country's defense department? Or is the argument that it's only US companies which shouldn't, because the US is uniquely evil?
There is an undeniable conflict between "Don't be evil." and "Evil pays.". A lot of what militaries do can be best described as the lesser of two evils. Murdering people is bad, but sometimes a little murder can prevent a lot of murder. However ethically or unethically a state uses force, there's usually a lot of money to be had in supplying that state with the means of force. Is there room for ethics in military res…
Idk, there's something unethical in outsourcing ethical grey areas to other people while reaping the benefits of the peace (or war far from your home) it brings.
Predatory monsters exist. A wealthy society that demilitarizes learns the lesson Europe is now. (If Ukraine didn't have a domestic defence industry, it wouldn't have been able to fight the fight it has been able to.) Put another way, you'll sleep easier, but it's a false security, even if it's one that may last for the rest of your own life.
I'd also note that you can absolutely contribute to parts of the military where you actions are highly unlikely to directly result in anyone dying. Air-defence radars and munitions, for example, particulalry those designed to take out missiles and ballistics.
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Work for defense but elect better leaders. Your leaders decide where and when the military is used.
Hard to elect better leaders when you do not have multiple billions of dollars to spend.
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If you’re referring to Ukraine as one of the two, we already heavily reduced our support under Trump and there is no chance in hell that removing the leftover support causes Ukraine to capitulate by tomorrows, especially after recent territory gains and destruction of Russian logistical supply lines with Wildberries and their refinery infrastructure. Also if the other is Iran, lol at “stopped supporting respective be…
I think the other example is Israel which seems like the much more obviously belligerent, actively colonial nation state that the US is largely propping up (and wouldn't exist otherwise) also, arguably, the half-century of creating, establishing, funding, and build-up of NATO largely supersedes the point that Trump cut spending there temporarily. that all came from American coffers and the current conflict there is a…
This is a baseless, American-centric notion I've heard frequently in New York and San Francisco.
If America pulled support from Israel, it would find partners in other countries. India and China are at the top of the list–they want Israeli weapons technology and intelligence. Russia would probably play too. And depending on the kind of mess we leave Iran in, some Gulf countries may also find a way to come to a nuclear technology transfer deal with Tel Aviv.
The game is always the same. Josh Kushner leads a funding round, then someone in the Trump environment boosts the company: It happened with Cursor, where Musk completely overpaid (what will he get in return? a new kind of circular deal?) It happened with Anduril (topic of this submission). Kushner led a round and days after Anduril got a huge Pentagon contract: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-admin-hands-me…
It's been an open secret for over a year that a cheque from Thrive buys tariff exemptions.
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Why isn't it? The change was clearly made to indicate the posture of the department. Either to US citizens or to powers abroad. Even though its "just" words it indicates intent.
It was originally entitled “Department of War” and was changed after World War II for better PR. Whether it is called “Department of War” or “Department of Defense”, it’s still the same organization maintaining the same mission operating under the same budget. Personally, I view “Department of War” as more honest, because War has always been its business.
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TIL an intelligence agency spying on a foreign adversary is human rights abuse. I would be super upset if my country of residence did the same to a neighbor sending rockets my way, would make me sick to my stomach
> TIL an intelligence agency spying on a foreign adversary is human rights abuse. It is when it's an intelligence agency for a country that's actively committing genocide. Answer a question for me: is the lesson you took from the Holocaust something like "if there are going to be holocausts anyway, I want to be the one committing them"?
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Other countries probably focus quite a bit more on the defense aspect. How many times has the US military countered a hostile attacking force? Instead, I can think of significantly more instances where the US was instigating the situation.
The US stopped countless wars from starting in the first place due to deterrence. Look at Ukraine to see what happens to a country that isn't part of an alliance like NATO.