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US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

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Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, people would be more receptive to you if you wouldn't talk down on them. I mean, for gods' sakes, parent specifically partially agreed with you(!) and yet you *still* talked down to them.

"Partially agreeing" while baselessly denying the central point is what exactly in your book? You fall for rhetoric tricks at your own expense here. This matter has a host of important consequences and implications. Treating it at the same level of effort as every other infotainment piece is a failure of judgement.

>"Partially agreeing" while baselessly denying the central point is what exactly in your book?

It means partially agreeing, and quite respectfully, I might add. You, however, were only *dis*respectful, downright rude in fact.

>Treating it at the same level of effort as every other infotainment piece is a failure of judgement.

I'm not treating anything as the same as any level of effort. All I'm saying is if you act like a dick, people will be much less likely to give you any attention, even if something you say is correct.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#362
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The citizens of South Korea might have some thoughts on that.

The South Korean government was a military dictatorship at the time. And the North was wealthier. Without the power of foresight, you couldn't justify the war as bringing democracy or economic prosperity, it was purely a geopolitical struggle. It took a lot of historical revisionism to erase that inconvenient little fact from western consciousness.

The majority opinion at the time, in the west, was that communism led to less economic prosperity, less democratic institutions, and less freedom. So maybe it wasn't a guarantee that the south would become a democracy or prosperous, but doing nothing would guarantee the opposite.

Also, the North wasn't democratic either so it was two nondemocratic groups fighting.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a big thing for drone people based out of Eppley AFB in Omaha. Wake up, drive to work, attack enemies, drive home, sit there eating dinner with your family trying to pretend you didn’t kill someone and can’t talk about it. Combat troops get to lean on each other after a firefight: “dude, good shot. That guy was about to get us!” You get validation that you did something to safe you and your friends, and it’s…

[flagged]

I talked about the CIA very negatively after having a top secret clearance (never actually used it but it gives useful context). They then showed up in my commune and after a while of unusual behavior and psyops and pretending to be hippies (they couldn’t quite get that right) they resorted to drugging me to get answers they were convinced were true.

I never ordered off the dark web, I do believe my [usa] government can be terrorists, I have purpose and meaning to want to surface truth to find peace because that’s what I believe.

It was a scary time (in Jan - May 2023), and I fled back to parents in VA after which for a while they’d show up with similar personas of odd-people in open community gatherings attempting to get close to me.

I’ve never thought of suicide before and even today have not. When I started sharing about this last spring on hacker news I got a slew of “random” messages and downvotes and people claiming I was sick. I am not mentally ill, I do not need a therapist. It took me several years to process the traumatic experiences and feel the courage to share because I hope it might help someone else going through something similar. I’m thankful for the one person who validated my experience and didn’t gaslight me or attempt to ad hominem/discredit through attack. These suicides very much can occur and I hope can begin to happen less.

Here’s to a random stranger if you read this and are going through something similar, I hope you find peace and safety from these abusers!

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel more compassion for the innocent people they killed and it's not even close.

[flagged]

"War crimes" is something of a shorthand for being involved in an aggressive war; they are a surprisingly minor influence on the discourse because they are small in comparison to the decision to go to war at all.

I think the more baby-steps approach to western cognitive dissonance is to at least get them to be consistent about when it is a good idea to go to war. I'm more than happy to get downvoted pointing out that killing 100s of thousands of Russians and welding them strategically to China was a terrible policy, uniting Asian manufacturing and resource giants is catastrophic for western power. But people were grumpy and didn't want to talk about realpolitik because the Russians are so evil.

Now we have the US attacking Persians in Persia for trying to govern Persia because the US sphere of influence covers the whole world and doing serious damage to the West's access to global oil markets and we have this muted and philosophical response from the powers that be. It isn't just immoral, it is also actively stupid - if we can tolerate this behaviour from the US, why can't we also tolerate Russia on a far smaller and easier to understand scale? How are all the sanctions and weapons deliveries to Ukraine actually justified in the minds of the people making the decisions? It clearly isn't a moral calculation and it seems to be stupid strategy.

If we got some thoughtful and transparent thinkers in power there'd probably just be less wars, they seem to be the fast path to poverty and the upside is hard to spot. There are serious questions about why any of the major conflicts right now looked like a good idea to the people in Washington and wherever NATO is in Europe. Brussels I suppose. Can we try peace and prosperity as a strategy?

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there somewhere I can read more about what you are claiming in these comments? How did you learn about these housecleaning activities?

Of course there is, but what difficulties can you possibly have finding it? Part of the problem with events like these is people's "incredulity", which is fundamentally rooted in them not being force-fed with the topic by the media despite the importance . The other way around, while people baselessly believe to be told everything of importance by their news-feed, in reality they are entirely being left in the dark a…

I want to read your original claim but it was censored. I am aware of the IC community being active on these forums and using algorithm/actors to downvote and hide information.

Would you share it again here or send it via DM?

Sorry you’ve had to face this.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News just in: talking about your mental health, especially for men, does not improve your mental health. For the majority of men, most of the time. If it did, shouldn’t we see mental health improving by now?

Wait, it doesn't? Genuine question. Where can I read about this theory more?

rephrased for ease of interpretation - venting about a problem is nice just as stretching a muscle is nice. stretching doesn't fix the root cause of muscle soreness though, just as venting does nothing to fix the issue. emotionally re-reacting is likely to result in strengthening of existing associations, which is more likely to cause repetition of a problem scenario, as opposed to leading to scenario avoidance.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they shouldn't because "death to" is simply a mistranslation. "Death to" is an idiom in Persian that means approximately "down with"- and in fact the official translation by the Iranian government itself is "Down with the USA". But I'm curious what you thought it meant.

So rather than wanting to kill the USA, they merely want to bring it down? That sounds like a distinction without a difference if you're a military tasked with ensuring that your country continues to exist.

I would say "down with Palantir". That doesn't mean I want every member of that organization dead. In the same way, it's absolutely fine to say down with a state. States/corporations don't have rights. People do.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Is there somewhere I can read more about what you are claiming in these comments? How did you learn about these housecleaning activities?

I’m not him, but I did see this post after his post was censored via [FLAGGED]

I have first hand experience being targeted by the CIA after negatively criticizing them and having a former clearance (Pakistani American also, we know how the brass feels about Muslims in terms of racism and the like).

Curious if you’ve heard of the documentary everything is a rich man’s trick and the author who published it spent a lot of effort investigating for it. There’s probably content you can read from him. Do you trust that sort of information?

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#369
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the most damaging part of direct combat is watching people that you consider to be family die or be maimed. I've heard from various places over the years (documentaries, friends) that soldiers really fight for their comrades at the end of the day. As in when asked "why are you here fighting" if they are in front of a news crews or something where they have to say "we're bringing democracy to ..." they'll just say s…

I was in the military and in my experience people that chose to go into war zones, it's optional, are fucked in the head and literally enjoy killing people, I've seen it a dozen times. They want to kill.

You are absolutely fucking full of shit.

I chose to "go into war zones" many times and none of it was to "enjoy killing people".

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These deaths are most likely due to "housecleaning", as I said. No, it’s not. It’s very obvious you have no idea of how US military personnel work and live, and the stresses that can be imposed on a person by the function of being in a military. Among those functions such as deployments which can come as a surprise and up root anything you having going on in your life. Or, having to live for several years in highly…

You might want to actually read the article, then you would see how your descriptions don't actually apply. Part of the shitty work conditions (that remarkably persist despite incredible amounts of money vanishing in the DoD/W) is your employer being out to kill you should they get the idea of you being insufficiently free of morals or independent thought. I would argue, that part should worry you far more than your…

stop lying.
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