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Where things stand with the Department of War

anthropic.com

691–700 of 862 posts

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#691
post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gen-X was making the popular new art at the time. It was a strong reflection of the feelings of our generation. We were (maybe still are?) known for not liking authority.

> Gen-X was making the popular new art at the time. It was a strong reflection of the feelings of our generation. I posted this in a thread about the 90's film 'Hackers'..... In the 1990's and for us Gen-X'ers, the worst thing you could do was to sell out; to take the mans money instead of keeping your integrity. Calling people and bands 'sell outs' (sometimes without justification!) was to insult them. With the rise…

Ethics are easy when you can afford food.

Post 2000s there has been a pretty fundamental change in the US economy. Things like rent and food were far cheaper. There was also a lot of potential income to be made by individuals by connecting buyers and sellers. Typically if you wanted to sell something like a car, you either went to a dealer that screwed you, or you put and ad in the local paper. If you watched around you could quickly buy cheap cars and turn them quickly for more than enough profit to make it worth while.

The internet quickly flattened this. First by pulling all the buyers and sellers on one advertising site it quickly turned into the fastest with the most capital won. Then the sites themselves figured out they should be the middle man keeping buying up the stock and selling it.

There has also been a huge consolidation to just a few players in many markets. This consolidation and many times algorithmic collusion has lead to the general ratcheting of prices higher. When you start adding things in like 'too big to fail' the market becomes horrifically unbalanced to large protected capital with unlimited funds from the money printing machine.

It's no wonder we quickly dropped ethics, most of us would starve to death in the system we've created.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#692
post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> They have both an active nuclear program and a means to deliver a nuclear weapon. No, they do not

Iran launched a 1-ton payload (e.g. nuclear capable) rocket with a 2000 km range two days ago. That rocket can threaten US assets and allies even into Europe. And, of course, and small ship or container ship even could carry a nuclear weapon into an American port.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#693
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?”

Option C: God doesn't exist as far as is currently known

Option D: God may exist but has no perceivable after consequence and doesn't take part in any aspect of our day to day lives which are governed by physics (Deism)

Option E: God may or may not exist but once again, has no effect on our lives. (agnosticism)

So all option C), D), E) [I don't think that the concept of hell/heaven exists in it] have the same impact IMO that esentially there isn't any consequence on our day to day live and we are all gonna be just void when we die. Nothingness,

From here, we can approach towards what is the meaning of life and add onto the existenialism to find ones own meanings and that itself becomes a bedrock of morality

I personally fall somewhere along C), D), E) myself but I don't like to wonder about where exactly because it doesn't really have an impact on my life. I also sometimes fall into B) (God is outside me) in times of troubles to somehow get out of trouble or find strength if I am unable to find within myself during that time.

Logically, it might not make sense for me to believe in god during times of troubles if I can't have logic find the same meaning during not times of troubles. But I do think that humans are driven by emotions not logic at its core so its best to be light on yourself.

Also I feel gratitude towards the universe rather than god and the things which help me in my life during times of joy sometimes.

I also sometimes believe in rituals/festivals because they are part of my culture/community and it brings me joy at times.

But I have enough freeway leverage within all of this that I dictate this as my choice of life and If I see any religious figure person or anything being misused or see faults in any rituals being cruel. I don't feel dear to them and can quickly call anything out and be secular in the sense that I respect other people's rituals to be in co-existence with mine as long as they are peaceful about it because the element of coexistence is only possible within the elements of being peaceful/society being cooperative at large and I hold both people of my community/outside my community to the same standard and am quick to call out if new faults start to happen from my community but also from any other community. (Calling spade a spade)

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#694
Anthropic: totally cool if you use our tech to kill women and children if you do it the right way, but not totally cool if you use it for certain types of surveillance.

The public: Anthropic are so noble, we should give them ever more praise and money.

Is that the synopsis? (Not really paying attention.)

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#695
post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not perceive a threat from a country with nuclear capability that chants "Death to America, Death to Israel" to be a threat to America? Venezuela I don't know about, but Iran was (is) most certainly a threat to America.

North Korea engages in no less saber-rattling. Why is the US not attacking Kim Jong Un?

I'm not familiar enough with Korean culture to know if suicide-for-ideology is culturally acceptable and expected. In Islamic ideology that is the highest honour.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Fun fact: DOW Chemical was producing Agent Orange, but was getting a ton of public pushback - so bad it decided to stop production, forcing the Pentagon to look for an alternative supplier. That supplier? A German privately owned pharmaco called Boehringer-Ingelheim. It's Chairman at the time? Richard von Weizsäcker, future President of Germany. The production site was in Hamburg, is contaminated for the next thousan…

Nitpick here:

They didnt produce the final Agent Orange, they produced on of the materials needed for Agent Orange:

2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#697
post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been on thr MRE's for decades, hasn't it? At least that's what I remember seeing after disaster relief came in.

Idk, it might've been used on stuff in the past. My point was that it wasn't a thing that normal people (even normal people in the military) would say. The person I'm responding to described it as "common use" for the last couple decades and that just doesn't match up with my experience at all.

The actual warfighters probably don’t use the term, but it has been common for at least 20 years among the staff and contractors supporting them.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: DOW Chemical was producing Agent Orange, but was getting a ton of public pushback - so bad it decided to stop production, forcing the Pentagon to look for an alternative supplier. That supplier? A German privately owned pharmaco called Boehringer-Ingelheim. It's Chairman at the time? Richard von Weizsäcker, future President of Germany. The production site was in Hamburg, is contaminated for the next thousan…

Nitpick here: They didnt produce the final Agent Orange, they produced on of the materials needed for Agent Orange: 2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic

That's one of the herbicides used to defoliate trees in the agent orange.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's in a reply chain that's talking about newspeak. You compacted your context way too early.

The reply chain is talking about newspeak but the parent of the comment I was replying to was

> DoW is newspeak. Thats not it's name.

I understood that comment I was replying to was responding to was replying to the latter part of the comment.

Discussions and threads can evolve. They are not static.

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