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Where things stand with the Department of War

anthropic.com

271–280 of 862 posts

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#271
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not think that anyone but the US and Israel have assassinated leaders in the last 30 years. I also question their autonomous drone advancement. Russia and China did not have the means to help Venezuela and they do not have the means to help Iran.

Russia and other states have demonstrably conducted targeted killings.

[flagged]

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Awkward and bureacratic" is literally the point of naming conventions commonly adopted by democracies. Titles like "president" or "prime minister", departments like "Department of Defense", referring to government employees as "civil servants", etc. are all intentional measures meant to strip away the prestige and egotism associated with positions of authority in an effort to avoid it going to people's heads, and to…

"Service member" is awkward, because it has too many syllables. People won't use it when shorter alternatives are available. And it's bureaucratic because it's unspecific. It doesn't tell anything the service those people are members of, and it doesn't tell what kind of work they do.

It has one more syllable than ‘warfighter’, which also doesn’t do any of the things you said.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#273
post #39

Nothing brings home the Orwellian nature of USA 2026 more for me than the word "warfighter".

Just remember, we're not at war with Iran. The House Speaker said so.

The president's club says that we are. Did the house vote for starting it?

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#274
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members at risk. Obviously anyone who has used LLMs know they are not on par with humans. There also needs to be an accountability framework for when software makes the wrong decision. Who gets fi…

Doesn’t this just lower the bar on going to war? Putting real lives on the line makes war a costly last resort.

  > Putting real lives on the line makes war a costly last resort.
Be grateful that you live in a culture that feels this way, and protect that culture. Not all cultures share this value.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#275
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one where he accuses Trump of retaliating against Anthropic after failing to solicit a bribe? That should be the headline here. We know Trump personally made $4B last year, and we know he's been using the full power of the US gov't to retaliate against people that don't "support" him. Come 2029, when there's an opportunity for the corruption trials to start, this sort of behavior needs to be front of the public m…

I find it frustrating that apparently we just gave up on Trump giving up his tax returns, or putting his businesses into a blind trust. This was a big deal in 2016~2019, but I guess the entire world just decided it wasn't worth it. Now we have a president who doesn't even hide his bribes, and instead starts multiple cryptocurrencies and has a publicly traded company in order to optimize the bribery. Maybe this is thi…

> I find it frustrating that apparently we just gave up on Trump giving up his tax returns, or putting his businesses into a blind trust. This was a big deal in 2016~2019, but I guess the entire world just decided it wasn't worth it.

When you give a guy who started a coup the keys to the kingdom, instead of a life-long prison sentence, arguing over what his taxes were a decade ago is... Splitting hairs.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#276
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as Trump and Hegseth would like it to be called the Department of War, it still takes an act of Congress to change the name of the Department of Defense. No reason to call it by anything else until that happens.

This is such a foot stomping childish thing to get caught up on. It does not at all matter what a dept is called. Try to get over the extremely superficial.

On the other hand, the parent post is entirely correct.

What, I ask, is the point of having laws and rules if you can just ignore the ones you don't like?

Its just a name, who cares?

Not me.

…but, if you break the law, you break the law. Not maybe maybe who cares, its not me being water boarded, I dont care…

If you break the law. You break the law.

Otherwise, who gives a duck what congress says?

Just fire them all and crown Trump King of America.

I’m being facetious. …but maybe its more of a big deal than you superficially pretend it is.

It’s just another case of the administration blatantly breaking the rules.

…so, you know. If youre ok with no laws or rules, I guess its fine.

Seems a bit chaotic to me. I prefer my governing body to be… marginally bound by some kind of responsibilty to something or someone.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#277
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safe for whom?

Safe for the aggressors, I mean. If war is easy and cheap for us to wage, we will do more of it, and likely make the world a worse place.

Your post reads as if you would rather those aggressors who threaten America to not be disposed of. How is the world a better place with the aggressors than without?

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#278

Nothing brings home the Orwellian nature of USA 2026 more for me than the word "warfighter".

I continue to be surprised how many people haven't heard term until now, it's been in common use in the US for 20+ years. To me the most Orwellian thing is everyone using the newspeak name for the DoD.

I went to a military high school up until 2011 and never remember hearing it. My dad and grandpa were military for 20 years each and I've never heard either say it. It definitely hasn't been used broadly in the US for very long (maybe in very specific circles). Even my friends who work as engineers for defense contractors now have never called people "war fighters" around me.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#279
post #22

> Our most important priority right now is making sure that our warfighters and national security experts are not deprived of important tools in the middle of major combat operations. > we had been having productive conversations with the Department of War over the last several days, both about ways we could serve the Department that adhere to our two narrow exceptions, and ways for us to ensure a smooth transition i…

Exactly, it’s all marketing seems to get new customers. And it worked.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#280
post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

And probably some of the same companies where you could get fired for publicly expressing some mildly controversial sociological theories like James Damore did are also companies that would not hesitate to work with the CIA or the Pentagon on mass surveillance or weapons systems.
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