Earlier quoted context omitted.
lol I am guessing that was an autocorrect error.
I once saw the word nickel autocorrected incorrectly into something far worse. It was funny given the context (metals, not coins) but I wondered why someone would even have that word in their autocorrect dictionary.
Where things stand with the Department of War
581–590 of 862 posts
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#582It 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…
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#583Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you mean Venezuela or Iran? Because there are actual technical impediments why neither China nor the Russians could have blown a US carrier in the Caribbean.
>"actual technical impediments" I do not believe so. Not unsurmountable at least. The consequences are however far from pleasant for each side
Furthermore, you mentioned this in response to "helping Venezuela", but even damaging a carrier (something technically very, very difficult for Russia or China) would not have helped Venezuela one bit.
It'd be more technically feasible for them to help Iran than Venezuela, and even that is not particularly feasible now, other than very indirectly.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#584Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No one is afraid. You seem to have trouble reading. Here's a map that shows countries that recognize Taiwan's independence[0]. That's a lot of gray... > Taiwan themselves still claim to be the Republic of China and not separate from the rest of China. You seem very confused... but I get it, it is confusing Mainland China's current government is called the "People's Republic of China" (PRC)[1] Taiwan calls itself th…
The Taiwanese government still officially considers itself the government of all of China, not just of Taiwan and a few outlying islands.
You will finally google this claim you've been repeating without evidence, and realize there's no supporting evidence for this claim. I guarantee it, because there is no evidence for this claim.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#585It 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…
There's an old German short film called Nicht löschbares Feuer (Inextinguishable Fire, 1969)[1] that I'm fond of. It was a protest film against Napalm and how some companies wouldn't really let their employees know what they were actually working on. "I am a worker and I work in a vacuum cleaner factory. My wife could use a vacuum cleaner. That's why everyday I pick up a piece. At home I try to assemble the vacuum cl…
Consider a hypothetical scenario where one spy chinese or russian programmer working in Google or Meta might have siphoned off (copied and uploaded) all the important code (Monorepo) to the Mothership and all of us are now sitting ducks.
I am sure, this question might have crossed your minds. I have no idea. if blueprints for the TPU chip design could get leaked, imagine what might have already happened?
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#586Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taiwan does not consider Taiwan and mainland China to be separate countries. This is false. Both the government of Taiwan, and the people here, obviously consider the two countries separate, and neither have made any overtures challenging the sovereignty of the CPC in nearly fifty years. Not to mention the fact that the last government to do so has been overthrown in the 90s (the overthrow of the KMT settler coloni…
There's a distinction between countries and governments. Both sides officially consider themselves to be China, the country, but under different, competing governments. They're the product of a civil war inside China, after all. The current ruling party of Taiwan would like to change that, but they haven't done so for the obvious reason that the PRC would not accept it (and most Taiwanese people prefer to just leave…
There is no "China, the country." "China" just means, essentially, "Empire." It's like a country claiming to be Europe, or maybe better, The Roman Empire. Many States may try to make claims for the title to support their legitimacy and heavenly mandate to rule, but that doesn't make it true.
> They're the product of a civil war inside China, after all.
Only one side of that conflict still exists. The other was overthrown by the people of Taiwan in the 90s. Descendants of those overthrown maintain government positions under that party name, but it's essentially a different government, given that it's a multi party democracy now, not a single party military dictatorship.
> The current ruling party of Taiwan would like to change that, but they haven't done so for the obvious reason that the PRC would not accept it (and most Taiwanese people prefer to just leave things as they are).
This is mostly true, with caveats: Most people in Taiwan prefer independence, but don't want to declare it to trigger a war, so therefore they only prefer status quo because it involves independence without war. If they could get it, most Taiwanese would prefer declared independence with no threat of war, but pragmatism rules out.
I'm also not sure I agree the DPP is necessarily pro-overt independence, just the current president tends to use more aggressive language than normal.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#587Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger#Sexual_...
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#588Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? I'm not questioning whether the weapons research actually happened. I'm questioning the sincerity of people claiming they didn't know what they were doing. I've seen plenty of weapons programs. They aren't a secret to the people working on them . My point is, the government doesn't need to lie to researchers or even pay them very well to get them to develop weapons because there are plenty of intelligent-enough…
I've worked as a contractor for a safety system that turned out to be for a foreign military. I was given a signal, and told to write software to fit it. The signal could plausibly be collected for a wide variety of civilian purposes. What I realized later was that none of the civilian markets could possibly justify the cost of the project. The particular type of signal fitting I was doing was only achievable by a fe…
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#589It 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…
> they have to couch it in language clarifying that they would love to support war, This is what baffles me when I see people flocking to them for subscriptions based on these events.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#590Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like these stories are apocryphal. They're not. But if it makes you feel better to believe that, everyone has their own coping mechanism.
What? I'm not questioning whether the weapons research actually happened. I'm questioning the sincerity of people claiming they didn't know what they were doing. I've seen plenty of weapons programs. They aren't a secret to the people working on them . My point is, the government doesn't need to lie to researchers or even pay them very well to get them to develop weapons because there are plenty of intelligent-enough…