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Where things stand with the Department of War

anthropic.com

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Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#401

Post by XorNot »

dotancohen wrote: post #378
godelski wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the funniest part is the fact that all the western countries are even afraid to recognize Taiwan's independence. It's a much better argument to say Korea or Japan are ruled by the US (and Korea and Japan absolutely hate one another!). Does the US have influence in Taiwan? Certainly! But if that meant Taiwan was the US's puppet then Taiwan would simultaneously be China's puppet. Schrödinger's Vassal

> afraid to recognize Taiwan's independence. Does Taiwan claim independence? I thought that both the government in Beijing and the government in Taipei both claim that all of China is united, and that they are the legitimate government of that united entity.

Taiwan buys military equipment and operates it's own military very much like it is independent of China and views Chinese troops in it's territory as a threat.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#402

Post by DANmode »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #287
BryantD wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also in Good Will Hunting , when Will (Matt Damon) delivers a scathing job rejection to the NSA. 1997. The War on Terror has a lot to answer for. https://youtu.be/tH0bTpwQL7U

The late 90s were full of media that questioned reality and authority - like X-Files, The Matrix, Dark City, all sorts of websites about conspiracy theories and UFOs, etc. The zeitgeist was full of speculation about hidden truths. The cultural mood was defiant and sardonic. There was rap, rap-rock, Beavis and Butthead, Fight Club, Office Space... One of the most popular pro wrestlers in the world played a character w…

The release date of the show 24 is fun.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#403

Post by [deleted] »

regularization wrote: post #250
fwipsy wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attitude towards war depends on context. In 2007 "war" meant "Iraq" which was extremely unpopular, pointless, and had an imperialist flavor. Today "war" means Gaza, Iran, and Venezuela, but it also means Ukraine and Chinese aggression, possibly ramping up to an invasion of Taiwan. I suspect Amodei and many Anthropic employees are thinking of the latter.

> Chinese aggression, possibly ramping up to an invasion of Taiwan. It's amusing amidst the US bombing Iran, incarceration the president of Venezuela and his wife after slaughtering everyone who was in the room with him, seizing oil tankers off Cuba, continuing the siege of Gaza and on and on to start getting sanctimonious about China. Taiwan is Kinmen island in Xiamen harbor, so a mainland invasion of Taiwan would b…

[deleted]

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#405

Post by queenkjuul »

dotancohen wrote: post #366
queenkjuul wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran has no nuclear weapons and no weapons capable of striking the US

Iran has a strong nuclear weapon development program. Negotiations could not halt it - they stall negotiations and continue development. So if they continue development during negotiations, why shouldn't the US continue her own parallel military route? As for delivery, Iran does have missiles capable of launching a nuclear weapon at American assets in the Middle East, or American allies. Or even to just float it over…

Negotiations did halt it. Then Trump went back on the deal.

There's reports Iran agreed to limit themselves to only medical grade centrifuges as recently as last week.

And no, Iran does not have weapons capability to reach the US, period.

They fundamentally did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. A threat to American strategic goals is not an imminent threat to the American people.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#406

Post by dismalaf »

godelski wrote: post #354
komali2 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep making this strange claim about Taiwan, the only liberal democracy in the East without a single American soldier on its soil. Almost like Taiwan is a sovereign nation uninterested in participating in the PRC and USA's fight for global hegemony.

I think the funniest part is the fact that all the western countries are even afraid to recognize Taiwan's independence. It's a much better argument to say Korea or Japan are ruled by the US (and Korea and Japan absolutely hate one another!). Does the US have influence in Taiwan? Certainly! But if that meant Taiwan was the US's puppet then Taiwan would simultaneously be China's puppet. Schrödinger's Vassal

> afraid to recognize Taiwan's independence

No one is afraid. Taiwan themselves still claim to be the Republic of China and not separate from the rest of China.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#407

Post by MagicMoonlight »

postalrat wrote: post #115
doom2 wrote: 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.

Department of peace sounds even better than defense.

No it doesn’t, it sounds like newspeak.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#408

Post by XorNot »

Fricken wrote: post #209
fwip wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the opposite. The human cost of war is part of what keeps the USA from getting into wars more than it already is - no politician wants a second Vietnam. If war is safe to wage, then it just means we'll do it more and kill more people around the globe.

The troops were told they're headed for Armageddon this go round

And that is entirely the fault of American voters. The government is doing exactly what they said they would.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#409

Post by YZF »

dotancohen wrote: post #378
godelski wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the funniest part is the fact that all the western countries are even afraid to recognize Taiwan's independence. It's a much better argument to say Korea or Japan are ruled by the US (and Korea and Japan absolutely hate one another!). Does the US have influence in Taiwan? Certainly! But if that meant Taiwan was the US's puppet then Taiwan would simultaneously be China's puppet. Schrödinger's Vassal

> afraid to recognize Taiwan's independence. Does Taiwan claim independence? I thought that both the government in Beijing and the government in Taipei both claim that all of China is united, and that they are the legitimate government of that united entity.

You're arguing semantics. The west refuses to recognize Taiwan as the legitimate government of China and refuses to recognize it as an independent country.

Whatever they claim, the west (and most of the world) due to Chinese leverage/power refuses to recognize.

Taiwan meets all the criteria for being a state. It controls land, population, it has a military, it has a government, currency, passports etc. etc. It's a de-facto country/state.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#410

Post by fzeroracer »

hereme888 wrote: post #400
agigao wrote: post #140

Around 10 years ago, in college, in Calculus class I had a very ambitious classmate, wanted to go to DARPA and work on Robotics. I asked if he was thinking it through solely from technical perspective or considering ethics side as well. Clearly, he didn't understand the question and I directly inquired - what if the code you write or autonomous machine you contribute to used for killing? His response - that's not my…

That's just patently false. Tons of executives and board members in industry absolutely care. Some are in it just for philanthropic purposes.

Where are they? The vast majority of executive and board members are kissing every inch of this administration's ass.
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