Where things stand with the Department of War • Hacker News Board

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#411

Post by scotty79 » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:44 AM UTC

jadar wrote: post #369

yoyohello13 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of our current leaders as using God to justify their terrible actions. So religion doesn’t seem to be very good at teaching morals either.

Either god is me (secularism) or god is something outside me (Christianity). One is going to be better than the other. It matters which one. Everyone has an answer, and it affects your morals. Whether or not you are consistent brings you back to that same question: “who says?”

> who says?

Only people can say things. And following people that start by lying that they have unique and superior insight into what things ought to be is not a good strategy. Secular is just saying, we are all in this together as equals, let's figure things out, here's what we got thus far.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#412

Post by HerbManic » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:47 AM UTC

CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #34

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

Everytime I hear 'Department of War', it just saddens me. Warfighter is the same.

"When the way prevails in the empire, fleet-footed horses are relegated to ploughing the fields; when the way does not prevail in the empire, war-horses breed on the border." Tao Te Ching chapter 46.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#413

Post by saulapremium » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:47 AM UTC

rmm78 wrote: post #60

cyberax wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

we are though, they plotted to assassinate the US president, not to mention being the #1 sponsor of terrorism in the middle east, attacking our allies

I will bet that before the election, you were one of the many shouting that voting for Kamala would mean war with Iran.

It's pretty wild to observe you all getting firmware updates in real time. At least it proves, once and for all, that any attempt at reasoning is futile.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#414

Post by abustamam » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:48 AM UTC

fluidcruft wrote: post #264

abustamam wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true but changing the department's name can only be done with an act of congress, which has not been done yet. Thus, the name is still officially and legally Dept of Defense. Just because a name is more accurate doesn't mean that it's its new name. Otherwise we wouldn't be the United States of America (we are literally not united bc Hawaii and Alaska are not contiguous, and we are figuratively not united…

All of that's irrelevant for what "newspeak" means.

Maybe, but the comment I was replying to wasn't talking about newspeak.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#415

Post by shevy-java » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:48 AM UTC

Everyone knows that the companies have to comply, so a company trying to convince the public that they can choose to not comply, is just telling a lie. I don't understand why Anthropic tries damage control here. Why not just admit that all the data given to them, is also used for war-purposes? We currently see the build-up of a much larger warfare. These things are inter-connected. Even more so when some of it is done for politics (e. g. re-election or simple election "boosters"; reminds me of the old movie Manufacturing Consent or the follow-up "brother" Wag the dog).

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#416

Post by I_am_tiberius » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:49 AM UTC

_2d30 wrote: post #327

nickvec wrote: post #4

Not sure why Dario apologized for the internal memo leak. Seems like an odd thing to backtrack on.

Because optically it makes him look terrible. One of the things that Altman does great is that when he writes he writes as though it will be read by the public every time. It’s why he is able to constantly post his own internal memos/posts on twitter. It’s great too because it makes him look “transparent”.

Sam?

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#417

Post by catlifeonmars » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:49 AM UTC

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #393

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…

[flagged]

That sounds like a false dichotomy. A race to the bottom like you describe serves to benefit no one in the long run.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#418

Post by abustamam » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:50 AM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #243

hamdingers wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, it’s common alright. Commonly used as a joke by every veteran I’ve ever met to mock try-hards.

Oh good, I've always had respect for soldiers, but never the govt. I'm glad to hear that soldiers are not buying into this name BS.

Edit: not sure if you're talking about the term warfighters or dept of war. Either way, warfighters just sounds silly, regardless of how long its been in use, and dept of war also sounds silly. It's like what my 5 year old nephew would call his fictitious military agency.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#419

Post by YZF » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:51 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #295

regularization wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Also mainland China does not recognize Taiwan By this logic, America not recognising by the sovereignty of Venezuela, Iran and Cuba—and Israel of Palestine, as well as vice versa—makes everyone an a-okay actor! > there's absolutely nothing those western powers can do about it. Just like Russia's assertion over the West tring to nove it's NATO armies to its western borders in the Ukraine Russia is a spent power and…

Palestine is only a state due to international recognition. It meets no definition of a state, it controls no land, has no currency, government, military, etc. It meets no criteria for statehood yet is recognized by most of the world as a state. Taiwan (and e.g. Somaliland) meet all the criteria for statehood and yet are not recognized as states. Venezuela, Iran and Cuba meet the criteria for statehood and ofcourse are actually recognized universally as states. State (pun intended) of the world.

I would like to believe there's no chance Xi would invade Taiwan but I also didn't think Putin would invade Ukraine. Those leaders are full of themselves. If we learnt much over the last few years is that anything can happen. China has both declared the intention and built the capabilities to invade Taiwan. As the saying goes if a loaded rifle is introduced in the first act of a play, it must be fired by the final act.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#420

Post by iJohnDoe » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:54 AM UTC

simonw wrote: post #12

Raised an eyebrow a little at this sentence: "Anthropic has much more in common with the Department of War than we have differences."

I was actually very impressed with their post. It’s a work of art for how carefully it was worded.

My takeaway is that they are bending a knee to smooth things over. It’s business and it’s human behavior. They are actually furious and would love to tell Trump to crawl up his own ass, but that doesn’t help anyone in the long run. It’s in everyone’s best interest to get back to work and hope for the best tomorrow. It’s the adult thing to do. However, it's exactly why humanity is the shitshow it is right now. One side is trying to keep the world going by adulting while the other side keeps acting like complete fucking idiots.