Fake Orwellian wars....just like fake conpetiton via price fixing that typical people won't admit to because they need to do a 2-minute hate on someone/something.
U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
271–280 of 1001 posts
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? It's not derogatory. It's just shorter and in some ways better specified than 'American'. I also used the word 'American' in the same post! Just didn't feel like writing the whole thing out the second time. -_-
It is derogatory. Virtually no Americans call themselves "USians". It's nigh unpronounceable (it sounds like "US Asians") and only seen on the internet in the context of somebody with an axe to grind against America (as above.)
USAmerican is what I use to make it clear I don’t mean Canada or Mexico or Latin America. Some people don’t like it, because they think it’s unnecessary as most people assume you mean the USA, others don’t like it because they think the US is the center of everything so how dare you attempt to be inclusive of other non US American countries.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#273I 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…
> they could have been 'sails' to help steer it
Sails are useless in a balloon. The only way to steer a balloon without a propeller is to raise and lower its altitude seeking a wind blowing in the right direction.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're wasting your time trying to explain this to somebody who uses the derogatory "USian" to describe his supposed fellow countrymen.
What? It's not derogatory. It's just shorter and in some ways better specified than 'American'. I also used the word 'American' in the same post! Just didn't feel like writing the whole thing out the second time. -_-
I don't care either way, but generally the term is used in specific context where the writer feels "American" would be too imperialistic as it excludes all others that live in the Americas. It devolves into debates about whether the US "stole" the demonym. Right or wrong, it's going to trigger some people.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#275I am so tired of China being used to stoke American jingoism, of politicians making a contest of who is really 'tough on China' and, most horrifyingly, of seeing other USians online practically salivate as they fantasize about a war with China. It's some cold war boogieman horseshit. And it's depressing to watch here on Hacker News, too, any comments that question the beating of those war drums go dead. Yesterday I h…
jeez, all they did was blow up a balloon near myrtle beach. is that really comparable to invading iraq and afghanistan?
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
From your point of view, I can see how China is bad and the USA is good. But ask someone whose country got invaded by the USA or whose bloody dictator got supported by the USA. Over here in Latinamerica we still remember the horrible things that the USA did. It seems to me (but I could have a false perception) that China is a horrible bully in their corner of the world (nine dash line and, of course their will to inv…
Every major country has their faults, but the US definitely has a larger surface area for these faults as the only superpower left. On the other hand, as the only superpower left, we're fortunate the US exists as a stabilizing factor for world peace, rather than colonizing the rest of the world like every superpower before it.
Colonialism still exists in a sense, but explicit force became unnecessary with the creation of the IMF and loan terms that allow for American and European firms to both extract resources and keep all the profits.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#277In previous times, the US would ignore these balloons and quietly take them down. Instead they made a big deal out of it and milked it. Brilliant and opposite of what china expected
The US state apparatus did not make a big deal of this. The media and the public did, and the US state apparatus answered to the media and the public, as is their duty.
The media is the US state apparatus.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#278Narrator: "A job well done by the US Military" I'm glad we have sufficient technology and capability to shoot down a balloon. What happens next?
Now we need to develop a high altitude needle gun for popping balloons. I knew all those games I played in school would come in handy one day.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#279I am so tired of China being used to stoke American jingoism, of politicians making a contest of who is really 'tough on China' and, most horrifyingly, of seeing other USians online practically salivate as they fantasize about a war with China. It's some cold war boogieman horseshit. And it's depressing to watch here on Hacker News, too, any comments that question the beating of those war drums go dead. Yesterday I h…
Assuming this is all due to America is, with apologies, typical American jingoism, that assumes the world revolves around Washington. Read some material from the Chinese side. The CPC sees itself in a life and death struggle with liberal capitalism as (allegedly) championed by the EU and USA. One or the other will triumph. The two orders are fundamentally incompatible. A new cold war is here, whether the Americans wa…
> The CPC sees itself in a life and death struggle with liberal capitalism as (allegedly) championed by the EU and USA. One or the other will triumph. The two orders are fundamentally incompatible. A new cold war is here, whether the Americans want it or not.
I'm pretty sure the CPC has one enemy: losing control of China. That is the ultimate bogeyman, and when you view China (or Russia) from that point of view, you can understand them much better.
> What would you say it implies about how he sees the USA?
A potential cause of losing control.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meh. Complaining about the cost of shooting this down is pretty silly. F22s are already flown on a daily basis. And munitions are spent regularly in training excersises. It would cost far more millions to set up a training excersise even half as valuable. But that is just the cost of maintaining a capable fighter fleet. There's probably been sports event flyovers that have technically cost many times this.
ahh yea i forget that the amount we budget every year for training is basically the cost of a war
Train hard means fight easy.
The US has always had excellent pilot training, and it paid off handsomely in war after war.