The F-35's $400k helmet • Hacker News Board

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#131

Post by fapjacks » Tue, Apr 07, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

njharman wrote: post #129

fapjacks wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but there's a reason the US government won't let me drive an M1 to work. Which is unfortunate, because I would love to. I'm just saying, let's not make inaccurate assertions about the purpose of some of our tools.

You're being beyond facile. The other purposes wasn't driving your ass to work. Rather - Deter war - Protect people from being killed - Provide strength to negotiations / treaties - Liberate conquered people

As someone with a lot of combat experience, all of those things you listed are a subset of same purpose as "kill people". You seriously just wrote "liberate conquered people" with a straight face implying that it doesn't involve killing people. These are tools of force specific to the physical and psychological domination of an opponent. You're reducing this to semantics, and you know I'm right.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#132

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:06 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #130

ajuc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to be from eastern Poland. I know people that lost family members to Russians in Katyn, to Ukrainians in Wolyn, and to Germans in whole Poland. That is history. I see no connection between W2 and Majdan. But I see connections between 1938 and Crimea. BTW Bandera had nothing on Stalin when it comes to murdering civilians, and there are 1000s monuments of Stalin in Russia, and your president called the fall of…

>BTW Bandera had nothing on Stalin when it comes to murdering civilians Bandera was doing ethnic cleansing of a region and killed 60000-100000 Poles, Stalin doing military occupation of half of the country - 150000 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland#After... Percentage-wise Poland probably got easier than USSR itself during the same period under Stalin. Not that it wasn't a tragedy, just that it…

[deleted]

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#133

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:08 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #130

ajuc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to be from eastern Poland. I know people that lost family members to Russians in Katyn, to Ukrainians in Wolyn, and to Germans in whole Poland. That is history. I see no connection between W2 and Majdan. But I see connections between 1938 and Crimea. BTW Bandera had nothing on Stalin when it comes to murdering civilians, and there are 1000s monuments of Stalin in Russia, and your president called the fall of…

>BTW Bandera had nothing on Stalin when it comes to murdering civilians Bandera was doing ethnic cleansing of a region and killed 60000-100000 Poles, Stalin doing military occupation of half of the country - 150000 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland#After... Percentage-wise Poland probably got easier than USSR itself during the same period under Stalin. Not that it wasn't a tragedy, just that it…

[deleted]

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#134

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:09 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #130

ajuc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to be from eastern Poland. I know people that lost family members to Russians in Katyn, to Ukrainians in Wolyn, and to Germans in whole Poland. That is history. I see no connection between W2 and Majdan. But I see connections between 1938 and Crimea. BTW Bandera had nothing on Stalin when it comes to murdering civilians, and there are 1000s monuments of Stalin in Russia, and your president called the fall of…

>BTW Bandera had nothing on Stalin when it comes to murdering civilians Bandera was doing ethnic cleansing of a region and killed 60000-100000 Poles, Stalin doing military occupation of half of the country - 150000 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland#After... Percentage-wise Poland probably got easier than USSR itself during the same period under Stalin. Not that it wasn't a tragedy, just that it…

[deleted]

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#135

Post by ajuc » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:11 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #130

ajuc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to be from eastern Poland. I know people that lost family members to Russians in Katyn, to Ukrainians in Wolyn, and to Germans in whole Poland. That is history. I see no connection between W2 and Majdan. But I see connections between 1938 and Crimea. BTW Bandera had nothing on Stalin when it comes to murdering civilians, and there are 1000s monuments of Stalin in Russia, and your president called the fall of…

>BTW Bandera had nothing on Stalin when it comes to murdering civilians Bandera was doing ethnic cleansing of a region and killed 60000-100000 Poles, Stalin doing military occupation of half of the country - 150000 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland#After... Percentage-wise Poland probably got easier than USSR itself during the same period under Stalin. Not that it wasn't a tragedy, just that it…

Stalin did ethnic cleansing of Poles, and I mean specifically Poles, even before he invaded Poland: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD_...

And then he also ordered massacre of prisoners at Katyn. And I don't understand your point about only counting killed Poles against Stalin. He is responsible for millions of deaths, Bandera can't compete.

Not that it matters, you brought up history to political discussion.

Yatseniuk and Poroshenko aren't nazi nor nationalist, and they weren't leaders of Majdan, they were chosen in elections afterwards, after Janukovych lost power after ordering shooting to protesters.

He also illegally changed constitution, and introduced law against protesting, and against independent media. I'd say the only way they could avoid Putin and Lukashenko style authoritarian state was through revolution, and they did OK.

Saudis are irrelevant to the subject, it's natural that people react to bully next door more than to bully on other continent.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#136

Post by plug » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 11:59 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #66

plug wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that high tech war machinery precludes collateral damage - to use that stomach-churning phrase. I appreciate your point on one hand - conventional weapons can be inaccurate and that can result in tragic, horrifying mistakes. But, I'm not aware of any high tech war technology that explicitly tries to prevent risk of injury to non-combatants. The only thing that stops civilians from being fired on is…

> A weapon is a weapon, and it can be easily used > negligently - or malevolently. It's plainly obvious that, all other things (like the negligence/malevolence) being equal, some weapons are far more indiscriminate than others. Something like a guided cruise missile is designed to destroy a single building. There can be operator error, and obviously you could intentionally (malevolently) target a civilian building wi…

Good points. I wonder if the two World Wars are outliers though. I don't know if there was anything comparable before them before - there really hasn't been anything since. Of course the ability to rain thousands of tons of bombs on cities in WWII was due to technological advancement at that time. Thank goodness at least that technology has advanced beyond those horrors.