661–670 of 862 posts
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.
> newspeak name for the DoD. They changed the name and it matches the intention. It is not a newspeak name anymore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No conspiracy necessary. The CIA bought the rights to the 1954 film Animal Farm, modified the ending to fit propagandist ends, and it went undiscovered for four decades. The original Top Gun was intended to recover the image of the US Navy after the Vietnam War. Etc etc etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93entertainment...
Please lets also not forget computer games. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, oh what a glorious thing to be an american soldier...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
this isn’t true either, 2024 election saw the highest number of people voting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
So what happened to those 34.7% voters that had better things to do than cast a vote? https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2024-pre...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a false dichotomy. In the words of the post-war US strategic bombing survey: "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russi…
I don't think regarding it as a "demonstration" is accurate either. Nuclear bombs appear as uniquely horrifying and requiring special justification only in hindsight. Back then, it was just another type of bomb. The thought process behind dropping it was simply "let's hit them as hard as we can until they surrender".
To some of the military leaders, sure. To the scientists and politicians, it wasn't viewed through such a simplistic lens.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Try decoupling how you feel about people and what you think objectively about them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that isn’t what my comment suggests at all, on any level. I don’t think you can have intelligent ethical opinions if you disparage and ignore the field that studies ethics (philosophy.) Seems pretty straightforward to me. I think there are definitely many positions with which I disagree, but are nonetheless well-thought through and coherent. But it seems pretty clear that the people making these decisions haven’t…
> No, that isn’t what my comment suggests at all, on any level. I don’t think you can have intelligent ethical opinions if you disparage and ignore the field that studies ethics (philosophy.) You're not suggesting that, but then put up your own requirements for someone's ethics to be "valid". So in the end you are filtering others ethical choices by your own requirements. And your logic seems to work backwards: someo…
No amount of words will change that.
It is my experience -- after seeing the quality of thinking from those philosophically trained (I am not) -- that learning philosophy is learning how to think, and by extension figuring out for oneself what is capital g Good.
Morals and ethics are different and you conflate them. That is the crux of your confusion. Someone can understand morality inherently without ever thinking about it; but ethics requires actual intentional thought over years and years of reflecting on lived experience. What is good for you and your small circle can be grasped intuitively, but to grasp what is good "at scale" must be reasoned about. Without having seriously grappled with this, one is liable to have simplistic views, and in many cases hold views that have already been trodden through and whose "holes" have been exposed and new routes taken in unveiling ethics.
Without seriously having interfaced with it, it's like talking to someone about the exercise science when all they know is do steroids, lift weight, and eat. Sure, that works, but it lacks nuance and almost no thought has gone into it.
Anyway, this is tiring. Philosophical discussions are not something to do with strangers. It requires intimacy and is a deeply personal conversation one should have with those close to them and explore together.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of the recently attacked countries posed an imminent threat to the US. In what kind of deranged world are we living that people are fighting against the notion that waging war on another country should be a costly decision !? My, the Overton window has indeed shifted far.
[flagged]
Which it is well known that it hasn't been the case since the revolution, where the republic inherited the nuclear program the US pushed the king to pursue. The shia leaders consider such weapons immoral, and hence it seems like the main aim for the aggressors is to remove obstacles in Iran and rush them into getting nukes. It also has the side effect of increasing proliferation in Europe, with several states now moving towards extending or developing nuclear weapons.
This rhetoric about them getting nukes is a deception, it's for people who know little to nothing about Iran that are constrained to a rather racist world view. The animosity towards Iran mainly has to do with them having tried to move away from a monarchical type of government towards a more democratic, unlike US and israeli allies in the region, who are mostly kingdoms and extremely autocratic.
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…
The core of the issue here is having a private company which is trying to dictate terms of use to the military, which is not really something that has been done before afaik
Originally this contract was signed with these terms included, and it wasn’t until Anthropic started investigating how its tech was used by Palantir in the Maduro operation that this became an issue.
On a surface level it seems like Anthropic is doing the right thing here but this is really at the root of this & the outcome of the case (and whether or not Anthropic is a legitimate supply chain risk) depends entirely on the details of those conversations they had with Palantir.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a false dichotomy. In the words of the post-war US strategic bombing survey: "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russi…
I don't think regarding it as a "demonstration" is accurate either. Nuclear bombs appear as uniquely horrifying and requiring special justification only in hindsight. Back then, it was just another type of bomb. The thought process behind dropping it was simply "let's hit them as hard as we can until they surrender".
I disagree slightly with that take. Decisionmakers knew that those singular bombs were gonna glass an entire city each, and previously almost untouched targets were selected to better show and observe the effect.
If you're at a point where you can afford to slash the primary target (Kyoto) because of nostalgic value to your secretary of war then it becomes difficult to rationalize the whole thing as "normal genuine war effort" and makes the thing look somewhat of an optional choice.
But from my point of view much more questionable decisions were made than the atomic bombings, and hindsight is always 20/20.
> I apologize for the tone of the post What a world we live in now where private companies are apologising for the "tone" of their speech while official representatives of the government daily express blatant lies and misrepresentations without the slightest fear of consequence. It really is incredibly sad that what was one of the most respected countries in the world has descended to this - an utter mockery of a fun…
He lashes out, accusing others of lies, spin, gaslighting and peddling. He refers to "Twitter morons", takes a swipe at Trump (who doesn't) and self-delights in the belief that Anthropic are seen as "heroes" while the competition "sketchy".
Not a great post. It's in the own goal zone.