Adobe Photoshop, the most used tool for professional digital art, especially in raster graphics editing, is was first example of a perfectly fine commercial desktop application converted to cloud application with a single purpose - increased profit for Adobe.
Master Collection CS6 still works excellently, and is now (relatively) small enough to live comfortably in virtuo. Newer file formats can be handled with ffmpeg and a bit of terminal-fu.
Many America's are not rich, so it's understandable that they are sad.
"The costs of inequality: When a fair shake isn’t"
"One measure of American inequality is the percentage of the nation’s overall wealth owned by different parts of the population. The graphic above shows that the richest 20 percent of the country owns 88.9 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 40 percent owes more than it owns."
I would like to note that the expertise of the main author of the paper, Lingxi Tang from ETH Zürich, is in solar technology, not fusion power or plasma physics. I know people outside of a research field can provide fresh look into a problem, but I think his credentials are insufficient to answer the main question he poses:
“If you’re talking about decarbonization of the energy system, is this really the best use of public money?”
Palantir employees should understand that they are not regular employees at a regular company. They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company.
Also Palantir customers should understand that by buying Palantir services/products they are doing business with U.S. defense company.
I don't say that this is positive or negative, it just clarifies the relationships and it should set the expectations.
> They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company.
We should stop using the word "defense". They're war contractors at a war company.
The Department of Defense is the Department of War. They changed the name and then immediately started taking military action against other countries. We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate, but it certainly has nothing to do with "defending" the country.
On the changes to US military organization and thinking post-WW2 (and the name change):
> […] The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.”
> These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies.
Ah yes, the administration’s love of Axis of Allies, or is it allies of axis? They don’t know, they got distracted by the mustaches and the desire to conquer the world.
You do realize that the Axis (Nazi Germany, Japan) were attacking everyone with the explicitly stated goal of conquering the world (and subjecting it to the holocaust, we might add), and US stopped them, conquered Europe, North Africa, half the Pacific, and nothing has been able to stop the US military since.
And the US ... retreated.
We might add, the Soviets, the other axis, did not retreat. China did not retreat. Both of them started killing people to keep their conquests.
I mean, there's no shortage of stuff that the US did wrong and US made mistakes. This was not one of them.
The US did not retreat. We fought multiple wars to maintain our power and influence. We toppled multiple regimes to maintain puppet governments. Very much the same as the USSR and China have done.
Vietnam, Korea, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, etc.
US conquest was quiet similar to British conquest. They didn't make their conquered people citizens (that'd make things tricky for exploitation) so instead they make sure the "democracies" they spread elected the right leaders who just so happen to align with US interests.
There's a reason the US has military bases across the globe. It's not because they've retreated from their subservient states.
> The US did not retreat. We fought multiple wars to maintain our power and influence. We toppled multiple regimes to maintain puppet governments. Very much the same as the USSR and China have done.
As much as I am critical of the US, until now the US did behave very differently from other superpowers. Consider the end of WWII. The US did not inflict reparations on the vanquished nations but rather, invested huge sums in their rebuilding, in the process making stalwart allies of them. These were not puppet governments, they became thriving democracies.
This is not to excuse the many bad things the US has done in Latin America, Vietnam, etc. But there is really no comparison between US behaviour and that of the USSR (or of colonial European countries, for that matter). People in Soviet-controlled East Germany were quite keen to go to the west and did not perceive the presence of US military bases there as evidence of American totalitarianism.
That, of course, has changed and now America is seen as a predatory hegemon. But that has not always been true.
The US did not keep bases in all of West Germany though.
There were different sectors. The US had essentially the South. There were also the British sector and French. The Soviets were the fourth sector but we all know how that one was quite different from the other three.
While the French and British have mostly left, the US stayed. Though to be fair even the British still do have some bases it seems as NATO troups. But no more large garrison in many larger cities.
The US on the other hand is still there with much larger force. Like think back to "Air Force One" (the movie with Harrison Ford) which used Ramstein Airbase in the movie (though they didn't actually film there) and that airbase has come up in the Iran conflict as a conflict of its own. Meaning Germany didn't want the US to use it as a hub for US operations (supply logistics) for the Iran war.
> The US on the other hand is still there with much larger force.
To provide for European security! That’s the deal in terms of Europe and NATO and also specifically to handle Germany. The idea was that America would provide security to Europe including the nuclear umbrella, and one benefit - among many others - was that Germany would not need to have a powerful military.
Can you perhaps guess why people might be concerned about a heavily armed Germany in the postwar period? Those same concerns are bubbling up in European capitals right now, as Germany rearms due to the loss of the US as a reliable partner.
And yes I definitely remember Colbert quite some time ago quipping about exactly that (paraphrased from memory): US no longer reliable NATO partner and nuclear deterrent. So Europe needs to step up. Let's have Germany have nukes. What could possibly go wrong!
The obviously funny thing being, that the US has, for a long time and Trump doubled down, asked Europe including Germany to spend more on military. And the "moderate forces" in Germany are not an issue in that regard. Those are the ones not wanting Trump to use Ramstein airbase in a war he started.
But would you want the AfD to come to power and wield those ramped up, potentially now nuclear, forces? The party that was ruled as "definitely extremist right wing aka neo nazi" in some federal states by Germany's own "Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution". Oh and also was that not the party a certain Elon Musk and Trump were trying to prop up? Which is doubly funny because of the AfD's alleged ties to Putin (sometimes more than alleged).
> But would you want the AfD to come to power and wield those ramped up, potentially now nuclear, forces?
Totally! That’s what makes the situation doubly maddening. It would be one thing if these actions were bad for the world and good for the US. But they’re bad for the US too!
I forget who it was that said this, and I’m sure my paraphrasing is bad, but I listened or read something I found chilling. It was something like, ordinary Americans are totally unprepared for the level of danger they will experience over the coming decades.
The only reason Trump is able to destroy global institutions so easily is because Americans take their security for granted. But that security is the result of institutions developed in the aftermath of an utterly devastating war. Now those institutions are damaged and America’s friends are alienated, right when they are most needed to deal with China, Russia, AI, drones, cyber, nuclear, climate…talk about bad timing.
> As much as I am critical of the US, until now the US did behave very differently from other superpowers. Consider the end of WWII. The US did not inflict reparations on the vanquished nations but rather, invested huge sums in their rebuilding, in the process making stalwart allies of them.
That is also how Rome routinely dealt with the border tribes that it defeated. It's not a new idea. That's just what superpowers do.
Spain, France, the entire iron curtain following 1992 dissolution of USSR, Taiwan, Phillipines, Costa Rica, Panama ... and speaking of central America, Venezuela isn't doing so bad either. Perhaps more expansive lists could be produced once the definitions of "meddled with" and "treated well" are more refined.
I generally take the word "conquest" to mean some outside force coming in and taking over. That didn't happen in either Vietnam or Korea. You could argue that the USSR used conquest to take over territories for the soviet union. However, that's not something really arguable about Vietnam or Korea. Vietnam, in particular, was the native population overthrowing their conquerors, the french, and then deciding they wanted to be communists. They got support from both the USSR and China, but they weren't ultimately under the umbrella of either regime.
Now, I'd agree that Vietnam and Korea both had civil wars supercharged by the US, China, and Russia. But I disagree that these were wars where the US was stopping conquest. We see that in the modern state of Vietnam and North Korea. Vietnam, funnily, became a closer ally to the US than China after the war.
Cuba is very much the same way. It wasn't conquered by an outside force. Yet they did ally with the USSR once the dust settled. They were still an independent nation from the USSR.
The Communists. Would you rather live in North or South Korea?
Vietnam is interesting in that they're still politically authoritarian but willing to be more economically open; see also China. (Just don't say the wrong thing about the wrong people.)
Today obviously the South. In 1950, probably the North. Throughout the Korean war, it's a wash. The US obliterated the north, but the south was completely insane towards their own civilian population. The ROK was not a "nice" government to live under during the korean war.
If you lived in the north there was a good possibility that you were getting bombed. It was best to live near china.
If you live in the south, there was a good chance you would be conscripted and sent to the meat grinder as a man.
The subsequent cease fire, the south has rebuilt and become the better place to live. The north has mostly struggled due to international sanctions. They have never fully recovered.
"The Communist" were a faction in a civil war, that's not an invasion. And the split in both cases (Vietnam and Korea) was recent and artificial, in the sense of no tradition of there being two countries. It wasn't one country invading another country, but two halves engaged in a civil war.
Where one wants to live is irrelevant. It wasn't about stopping an invasion, which was the initial claim. The US was meddling.
> Vietnam and Korea were technically wars to stop conquest, no?
No.
For example, the US got involved in Vietnam to help the colonizer (France) stop an independence movement. Yes, because they feared the resulting Vietnam may become communist and USSR aligned (something they helped happen, since Ho Chi Minh quite admired the US and expected them to help him at first), but even if this was the case, it's still not about stopping an invasion, because commie Vietnamese are still Vietnamese.
> Russia has 12, mostly in former Soviet countries. China has 3
To be fair, you're comparing land powers–that tend to annex their holdings–with a maritime power, who tend to trade with and maintain favourable ports at their conquests/allies. So yeah, China doesn't have any foreign bases in Tibet. But that's because it annexed it in the 1950s.
Put together, America obviously has a larger military than China or Russia. But before Russia became a rump, the Soviet Union could marshall military resources comparable to–and for one decade, in excess of–those of the United States for much of the post-War era.
How many "foreign" bases did Russia have a few years after WW2, before revolutions kicked them out? Before Russia annexed countries and destroyed the populations?
Because that's, of course, the real question.
It's literally thousands.
You need thousands of military bases if you're going to do "thought police". Because that's what you'll never read here. Russia HAD a (military) thought police. It was Putin's job when he got started, by the way.
To be fair, if you stand in the middle of The Netherlands, 260km in any direction and you end up outside of the country. Which base are you talking about?
Was that on a country that went on a genocidal rampage just before and lost the war after killing millions all around Europe, which was decided to be divided in several parts, of which USSR got to control one, and which still developed into an independent country less than a decade later?
Yes, but you're leaving out the other 9 countries the Soviet Union occupied, and immediately started killing the population to keep their conquests: Poland, Austria’s Soviet zone, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
By contrast, the US retreated. And also didn't start killing any population.
"Killing their population" as in executing some Nazi collaborators, of which there was no shortage in all, down to full cooperation? Like the ones involved in the Axis alliance and in the eastern front offensives that caused the deaths of millions of their own people?
>And also didn't start killing any population.
Yes, just Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, and anybody who leaned national sovereignity/left in the Latin America and later the middle east.
> Very much the same as the USSR and China have done.
The expressed goal of Communism (USSR, later China) was to spread its ideology to the entire world. The US chose at its goal the containment of Communism:
This is what drove Korea, Vietnam, Cuba/Castro, and many other countries with left-leaning governments. In many cases this ended up with the US supporting the right-wing people, e.g.:
> There's a reason the US has military bases across the globe. It's not because they've retreated from their subservient states.
Yes, containment and power projection to keep the sea lanes open for trade (which benefits the US financially and life-style-wise, but also benefits countries who export things, to the US and other places):
If you don't think having peaceful sea lanes is useful, see Houthis/Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz. What we're seeing with Trump's worldview is a return to how things tended to be earlier in history:
US did not stopped Axis alone, Allies did. Even in Pacific Soviet participation was very important in defeating Japan.
And the US did not retreat, it kept its military all across Europe (and the world), brought its nuclear weapons to Europe (not for the Europe, but for the US to be used with Europe as a launching pad).
The Allies stopped them. The US was one of the major contributors, but they were far from alone. The Soviets, Britain, Canada, India, Poland, France, Netherlands, Kenya, etc etc all contributed to various extents. The Indian army was one of the biggest by number of men. The Poles and French were crucial in setting the ground work for the British decrypting Enigma, alongside their purely military contributions.
Japan did not take part in the Holocaust. Not the goal of Germany nor Italy was the holocaust. Their objective was not to conquer the world. They were empire builders, plain and simple, and they were trying to expand their trade networks, like Britain had done and monopolized. They took over each European state and replaced its leadership with one that benefitted themselves. Their objective was policy frameworks for the purpose of trading. The holocaust was a later addon (1940).
No one calls the japanese persecution of the Chinese a holocaust.
For generalplan ost, “The plan, prepared in the years 1939–1942, was part of Adolf Hitler's and the Nazi movement's Lebensraum policy and a fulfilment of the Drang nach Osten” which still makes it a later development.
They didn’t even retreat from places like Italy because... the communists might be successful. So the CIA backed fascists to sabotage them.
And the US ... retreated. harumph And interferred, and supported right-wing militias, and invaded countries by themselves, and supported coups, and so on.
Most simplistic would be _Divide and Conquer_ (Axis) vs _United we stand, divided we fall_ (Allie). This administration is going down the divide and conquer path.
I recommend _Culture in Nazi Germany_ by Michael H Kater. [0] The current US administration has numerous similarities to 1930s Germany. The way they support banning books and the treatment of the LGBT+ community. Working to take over media organizations with proponent operatives, financial corruption, and _please the leader_ are also present in both. There are more ... read the book for them.
And a lot of dissimilarities, like the lack of mass executions of the disabled for example or a missing mass extermination plan of millions, maybe also kidnapping teenagers from the street and shipping them to brothels for soldiers, shooting babies? but apart from that exactly the same
Are you looking for and only accepting isomorphism between the two?
There are no governing bodies in history that have ever been isomorphic. Only similarities exist between them. Japan never assisted with extermination of Jews and they are in the Venn diagram of Axis and authoritarianism.
I have high confidence that Adolf Hilter, Bentio Mussolini, and Emperor Shōwa never were part of a child trafficking ring that catered to the wealthy and assisted them with raping and torturing of youths on a privately owned island. There are simulates though with _human trafficking_ between all parties.
Didn't Donald Trump state that immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country? Didn't Adolf Hitler say Jews are poisoning the blood of the country? Aren't both simulates?
There never can be two states that are exactly the same; from policies to events. Iceland and Germany are classified as democratic countries and they have dissimilarities.
> Didn't Donald Trump state that immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country? Didn't Adolf Hitler say Jews are poisoning the blood of the country? Aren't both simulates?
That is actually something that is pretty popular with anti-immigration rhetoric before and after Hitler, although there are probably over a hundred such politicians who used that rhetoric, not many have killed millions, that's hardly enough to think you have found Nazism.
> I have high confidence that Adolf Hilter, Bentio Mussolini, and Emperor Shōwa never were part of a child trafficking ring that catered to the wealthy and assisted them with raping and torturing of youths on a privately owned island. There are simulates though with _human trafficking_ between all parties.
As far as I can tell apart from guilt by association, there is no definitive proof about Trump being part of their pedophile ring, nothing that can't be said about Clinton, Chomsky or Gates or many others for example. The relation to Hitler in any case is no relation at all, so this segue is confusing
In any case, this examples are redundant as similarities are not enough to establish a category, as I could establish similarities between Hitler and Gandhi (Vegetarianism, cult following, theatrical rhetorics and meta-narratives) to say Hitler is actually a pacifist. That's of course absurd.
Ignoring the Nazi anti-morality and national scale paranoid schizophrenia which are major missing points, the rapid takeover of a single party of the state, destroying the parliament, making the Executive into the law, creating a party's army and using state violence against political enemies are some of the hallmarks of the beginning of third reich germany. This is simply not Trump USA after 6 years, not close.
I am sorry but these false comparisons are simply a social media convention of getting engagement by turning the volume to 11, and nothing works better than misusing categories through superficial comparisons
My point was that this administration seems to like the axis plan more than the original US/Allied plan. I'm fully aware of which side was which. Tell that to Hegseth and Miller.
> The Department of Defense is the Department of War
No, it is not, at least not technically. That would require an act of Congress, which hasn't happened. Despite what the idiots "in charge" seem to believe.
But those idiots "in charge" are what matters, right? Since they set the tone for the department, and lately they sure are acting more like a DoW than a DoD.
Even Hitler's army, which attacked large parts of Europe in WW2, was called the Wehrmacht ("defense force" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht). But, as a famous German who was almost 150 years older than Hitler already knew, "Namen sind Schall und Rauch" ("names are but sound and smoke").
> nobody can quite articulate, but it certainly has nothing to do with "defending" the country.
It's not hard:
* They're trying to build nuclear weapons, and they're one of the worlds leading sponsor of terrorism (if not the sole leader).
* The country ran out of water, people started to protest their government, and were killed by the thousands (some say tens of thousands potentially more).
Water is one of the most basic human needs, if they're willing to kill their own people protesting for the most basic human need, what would they do with Nuclear to the rest of the world? I feel like people don't understand the gravity of Iran with nuclear.
Iran having nuclear will not end well for its citizens or the world.
* Their nuclear program was obliterated in June 2026, says even the White house (1)
* The worlds leading sponsor of and spender on terrorism (including financial aid to Hamas) is Israel, by a wide margin (2)
* Claims that “thousands” or “tens of thousands” were killed specifically over water protests are not supported by widely accepted evidence
Now I'm wondering which country is a bigger threat to us and peace in general.
A country on the brink of financial collapse, with a severe drought and one of the last remaining opponents of our greatest ally?
Or a country that "provides funding to both Democratic and Republican leadership teams, often supporting over 90% of targeted caucus members" (3) and constantly wants us to fight their wars?
Should also keep in mind the secretary of war publicly stated the department's aim is "maximum lethality, not tepid legality".
Politics aside, anyone in the supply chain shouldn't be surprised they have a role in illegal killings, because that's literally what they said they're doing.
> No one likes war, everyone loves defense. Something something expanded surveillance under the guise of counter-terrorism post-9/11
It was renamed after WWII. In part because smart minds realised that war between industrialised civilisations had ceased to be an accretive endeavour since sometime between Napoleon and the Kaiser.
It went hot in proxy wars. It only didn't go to total war because of threat of nuclear war and even then nuclear incidents nearly happened on multiple occasions.
I originally discussed "war between industrialised civilisations." "Korea, Vietnam, etc" were not that.
The World Wars drove home the argument that direct confrontation between industrialised socieities is a lose-lose proposition. Since WWII, what I think we've been experimenting with is whether industrialised civilisations can wage war by proxy and still come out ahead. ("Ahead" here measured in relative and absolute power and wealth.) The answer appears to be no–unless you can bog down another who was stupid enough to engage without a proxy. But I don't think it was obviously no until somewhere between the Iraq War and now.
What law are you thinking of? Some tools used in riot enforcements would be illegal to use in wars, so it actually seems to be the other way around to me.
I was being sarcastic clanker and/or throwaway account.
It’s obviously the law but this admin doesn’t respect the law, as they believe we’re in a post Constitutional era. It’s looks like they are manifesting their beliefs since so many people support them, both sides them, or decide it’s not that big a deal when the executive branch of the American government starts executing American citizens and trying to EO away the 14th amendment on farcical grounds.
War and defence are the same thing in the US, so the naming doesn't really matter. To go after enemies, real or otherwise, with overwhelming force (to also the scare the ones not bombed this time), is to "defend" the US. That is how they justify it to themselves.
the current administration is using the war name, it doesn't matter what it technically is because they are using it to plainly state their ambitions for it
I was under the impression the name was not actually formally changed, just like how the “Department of government efficiency” was never actually a department but was just a rebranding of an existing department done totally by mouth (like a lot of nonsense this administration does)
Regardless of what the Trump administration will tell you, that's not it's name. The executive branch is not empowered to unilaterally change the name of a department.
As a Russian emigrant, I feel this whole war is a severe case of déjà vu. It's as if the US government is going through a stolen Russian playbook, appropriating everything.
"Special operation"? Check. "$EnemyCapital in 3 days"? Check. "We haven't even started yet"? Check. "Goodwill gestures"? Check.
(It's actually a common joke on the Russian Internet. So common, in fact, that it has already stopped being funny.)
The president isn't empowered to declare war, but as Commander in Chief he is empowered to send the military anywhere he wants and start whatever "conflict" he wants, for whatever reason he wants, including no reason whatsoever. After which Congress can retroactively declare it a war if they so choose. But the US hasn't fought a declared war since WW2, because declarations of war don't really mean anything when the missiles have already been fired and the bombs have already been dropped.
I hate Trump as much as anyone with a moral core should, but the President's capacity for creating arbitrary military violence and expenditure has always been unchecked.
If that’s true, that’s insane. Forgive me, I’m not a PolSci scholar. Nobody in the cabinet can speak up and overrule his whimsy? It always annoys me when the headlines are “Trump invaded this …” or “Trump slapped a tariff on…” while effectively it’s the US government that’s doing that, they are letting him to do as he pleases? Then the fault lies not with him. He’s not a king but surely seems to have absolute discretion if you believe the headlines.
There was a widespread belief that U.S. government has an elaborate system of checks and balances but it was not evidence-based. Kind of Flat Earth period of American political science.
The checks and balance are between the 3 branches of government. If congress wanted to stop the war, they could. If the supreme court wanted to hand the power to start wars back to congress they could.
Just because they don't, doesn't mean they aren't able. The real flat earth theory is thinking that unwritten rules and institutions were protected from a president that insists on pulling every lever of power at once, but that's separate from the checks and balances.
If one person in executive position is able to effectively override the nation's rules and institutions it sounds awfully close to saying there are no checks and balances.
Its because the president used to have a modicum of respect for the house and the Senate.
So the president did have the sole right to send military anywhere on the planet and even launch nukes without any need for congressional permission. This is by design. But the other presidents were a bit less crazy so we never noticed.
The system relies on people acting in good faith. It is impossible to make a constitution that can deal with people at all levels of power not acting in good faith.
In this case, Congress has completely abdicated their duties.
No it doesn’t. Checks and balances is explicitly setting branches against each other because it is assumed everyone is a greedy abusive MF’er only out for their own benefit.
The challenge is all 3 branches are owned by the same group right now.
> Nobody in the cabinet can speak up and overrule his whimsy?
Who will be overruling that "someone in the cabinet", when things start going the wrong way again? There is always someone on top, and in the US it's the sitting President.
This is simply not true and it's disappointing fear-mongering from Vice (or anyone else who publishes this stuff). The reason you know it's true is because Trump doesn't care about precedent, yet in court case after court case that he or his administration lose they follow the law, even if it is imperfect or later attempted to be argued under a different standing.
The same thing that is true for Donald Trump now was true for pretty much all past presidents. Nothing has meaningfully changed here, yet we did not have these same articles before, nor did we have folks who are so caught up in political fervor that they are happy to go along with any ole' article or reporting that aligns with their current beliefs.
In other words, articles like those are click-bait, and their sole intention or at least their effect is to cause chaos and doubt in the American government.
> The only thing stopping US presidents from acting like kings is precedent.
Now if we're talking reality, the realty is that new precedents were set (president acting like a king) which revealed that there are not effective legal checks on US presidents acting like kings (or else we would not have a president acting like a king).
Sorry, I just don't agree with your assessment. Anyone can just say "well so and so is acting like a king or queen". Trump, as despicable and annoying as he is certainly says a lot, but he's not doing anything from what I can tell that isn't at least poorly argued that he has a right or legal justification for doing. A king or queen needs no such justification, and if one is going through the motions and being forced to respect the law (again there are shades of gray here) than there is no "acting like a king".
But if your focus is on whatever he tweets and therefore he acts like a king, sure. Whatever. I mostly care about what actually happens, actual policy, actual laws and rules, not the theater around it which so many seem to want to indulge in instead of watching reality TV.
Sure they do! Take the king that the US's predecessor governments rebelled against, King George III. He was very much bound to the dictates of Parliament. From his Wikipedia article:
> Meanwhile, George had become exasperated at Grenville's attempts to reduce the King's prerogatives, and tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade William Pitt the Elder to accept the office of prime minister.[45]
Does this sound like something that would be said of an absolute monarch?
Donald Trump is also bound by the dictates of Congress and the courts. If that’s your criteria as to who is “acting like a king” and your reference is yet another king who is constrained by the Congress and Courts, I’m not really sure what point your trying to make here.
He isn’t a king nor does he act like one in the office of the President precisely because he is following the law (generally speaking, I don’t think it’s pertinent to get into specific details else we get into those same details with all presidents) and because he is constrained by Congress.
Your argument just makes “king” George out to be constrained in the way a president is. It’s a bad argument. Don’t let the reality TV fool you.
> Your argument just makes “king” George out to be constrained in the way a president is.
Your placing of King in quotes is bizarre. Like, you see a resemblance between the current president and an actual king, and your takeaway is to try to retcon history and claim the king was not a king?
Your argument that someone can't act like a king unless they're breaking laws is a bad argument (and ignores the fact that this one is doing both). Don't let your reality tv fool you.
If that's your criteria as to who is "not acting like a king", I’m not really sure what point you're trying to make here.
> Like, you see a resemblance between the current president and an actual king
No, I don't. An actual king isn't constrained by checks and balances, or the law, for the most part. You're just adjusting the definition of king here to fit your argument.
For example, you refer to King George being stymied or frustrated by some act of Parliament. Is he a king or president? Our president today (and since the founding of America) is similarly stymied and frustrated by some act of Congress. Are the presidents kings or are the kings presidents?
It seems like people are so hung up on the Twitter reality TV sports of politics that they've forgotten what a king is.
> An actual king isn't constrained by checks and balances, or the law, for the most part.
This is demonstrably false: King George, who was an "actual king", was constrained by some checks and balances, yet he was still a king. We know that much is correct. Therefore your personal definition here must be what is incorrect. And indeed, it is. You're just adjusting the definition of king here to fit your argument.
It seems like people are so hung up on the Twitter reality TV sports of politics that they've forgotten what a king is.
Ok then all presidents were acting as kings or King George was just acting more like a president.
> It seems like people are so hung up on the Twitter reality TV sports of politics that they've forgotten what a king is.
Yes I agree that you are doing that here. And now you've reached the point to where you're shifting definitions and cherry-picking various historic world leaders to draw inane conclusions and comparisons.
> Ok then all presidents were acting as kings or King George was just acting more like a president.
You're confusing how someone acts with which laws they are subject to, and as a result, you've been reduced to inane wordplay as your only argument.
Previously, even though a US president theoretically had the power to act like a king, they have mostly maintained a precedent of not doing so*.
Now, a new precedent has been set: A president acting like a king*.
Hope that clears things up.
* - I realize you may personally disagree with this. That's okay. I'm open to hearing arguments otherwise, but the ones you've put forth so far were unsuccessful at swaying people from the consensus stated above.
Sorry, but I just can't agree with your assessment:
> Anyone can just say "well so and so is acting like a king or queen".
This does not mean that anytime someone says it, it is false. If many folks are saying a thing, there is more evidence of it being true than if "anyone" says it. The consensus here seems to be that the current USA president is acting like a king. To alter the consensus, make a successful argument to that effect.
To wit:
- "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."
- "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance."
- "He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures."
- "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power."
- "For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us"
- "For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States"
- "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world"
- "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent"
- "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury"
- "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences"
For someone in the USA, some of this might ring a historical bell.
> This does not mean that anytime someone says it, it is false.
You're right, it doesn't mean that. But it belittles the accusation. Folks sometimes refer to their children as little tyrants. Conservatives would say Obama or Biden were acting like kings issuing edicts.
If you want to argue about this because you're interested in the mudslinging, that's fine but that's a separate discussion: a discussion about reality TV, not reality in offices of the government.
> The consensus here seems to be that the current USA president is acting like a king.
Current consensus is usually wrong, doubly so in this case. He might tweet a bunch of things, yet he's still constrained by the rule of law and the Congress, and the Court.
>> This does not mean that anytime someone says it, it is false.
> You're right, it doesn't mean that. But it belittles the accusation.
Does it? I don't think so. Like we should refrain from ever saying it when it is appropriate, because there will always exist at least 1 person in the world who disagrees and thus the accusation is belittled in their eyes alone? Pass.
> Conservatives would say Obama or Biden were acting like kings issuing edicts.
Sure, and they can say whatever they want! It's not like people would agree with them if they said it, unlike in this example, in which they would.
> Current consensus is usually wrong
This nonsense sounds like a slogan of somebody who is usually both wrong and against consensus.
> yet he's still constrained by the rule of law and the Congress, and the Court
Yep, totally irrelevant, as we've already covered: someone being theoretically "constrained by the rule of law and the Congress, and the Court" does not mean "cannot act like a king", as we've now seen.
This is demonstrably false. In the case of removing migrants, the court ordered the practice halt and flights get turned around. The court also found evidence of contempt from the federal government due to noncompliance, although another appeals court stopped the contempt investigation.
In the Kiyemba decision, the court identified a pattern of 96 violations across 75 or so cases. Detainees were held despite release orders
In family separation cases, courts have required legal representation reinstated and the government refused to comply.
In the case of NY vs Trump, courts ordered funds to be unfrozen and the administration refused to comply.
I'm not trying to be pedantic, but can you cite the specific court cases or provide an up to date article discussing them so we have somewhere to start? The reason I am asking for this (and no worries if you don't want to dig any of this up) is because each case has specific nuance that is worthy of discussion, and in some cases (pardon the pun) the court order wasn't the final say pending appeal or actual Constitutional authority arguments were pending or legitimate.
Separately, if you want to claim that the Trump Administration is acting like a king because they've refused to comply with a single court case, then of course you have to extend that same categorization to any president who has ignored or circumvented a court order. But why stop there? Why not governors or private persons? Why do some have the luxury of seemingly ignoring Congressional subpoenas?
The Trump Administration has also lost quite a number of court cases and he has failed to prosecute his political enemies. If he were a king he would be ignoring much more than just a few court orders, folks would be in jail, &c.
The rate is different but at the end of the day they still go through the process and when his administration loses cases they just shut up and lose the case. You mostly don't hear about the, I believe hundreds, of cases that the administration has lost. As long as they follow the rule of law (obviously there are at times gray areas and he is expert at identifying and challenging those) I'm not too concerned. Again the media just whips people up into a fervor because it's really good advertising business.
Why would you think it’s not that way? Virtually all of the power of the executive branch of the US Goverment is in the Office of the President. There are mechanisms in the Constitution to remove the sitting president, but it requires the other branches to act in the best interests of the nation instead of their own personal interests.
Look at the history of every single war we’ve been involved in since WWII, no declaration of war. Korean War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, Balkans, GWOT, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Iran.
I’m not a fan of the president, but Trump only started two of those. Korea was Truman, Vietnam was LBJ, Grenada was Reagan, Panama was HW Bush, Somalia and the Balkans was Clinton, GWOT was Bush, Libya and Syria were Obama, and the last two were Trump. That’s 7 total presidents, add in Bay of Pigs and JFK for 8 and the only two presidents who didn’t start a war are Nixon, who fucked up negotiations with the NVA that may have prolonged the war to win an election, and Jimmy Carter, who tried to rescue hostages in Iran with military assets.
> Korea was Truman, Vietnam was LBJ, Grenada was Reagan, Panama was HW Bush, Somalia and the Balkans was Clinton, GWOT was Bush, Libya and Syria were Obama
I think this is at least a little misleading. How many of these conflicts were started by that president/the US (as opposed to "joined")?
You sound like you’re from a country with a parliamentary system? In the US, the “cabinet” is simply the President’s handpicked subordinates, not MPs. The President is the head of the executive, the government, usually understood as the executive, answers to him. They are not in a position to legally stop him.
There are measures Congress could very easily take if they chose to, but modern Congresses are very much do-nothing and frankly regard the President taking unilateral actions as relieving them of accountability and the need to take action themselves on important matters.
No, I am from the states, just been ignorant until it started bugging me. I'm sad that one geezer can turn the rest of the world against us without our say so and now we are wholesale opted in as villains. Not that the past was rosy, but it was more gentleman-ish? I am out of my depth here, just frustrated.
It’s not just one geezer, Congress also agrees with him (at least in the sense that they aren’t willing to take advantage of any of the leverage they have to stop him). The midterm elections will be the people’s chance to express how they feel about it all.
It's not really that insane. Don't overreact to Trump stuff - it leads you to make bad decisions and assumptions.
This archaic and formal "I do declare war upon theee" is not flexible enough for the modern world and so we have found, perhaps an unhappy middle ground where the President can indeed take military action, for a limited period of time (60 days) without congressional authorization. The President is the civilian commander of the military and regardless of whether it is a Democrat or Republican we, like in other cases, give the President the discretion to make these choices. You may not like their exercise of power, but it is legal, Constitutional, and intentional and even if it is Donald Trump (much to my displeasure) we as a society trust him and his office to use this power responsibly and for the good of the American people. Even in the case of Iran and Venezuela, frankly, I think he has used power responsibly (if less effective than it should be) and for the good of the American people. We can't have a nuclear Iran in the Middle East, nor can we or should we accept thugs like Maduro running a country into the ground and causing mass migration to the US and causing problems here and breaking our laws.
There are folks in the cabinet that can take action, or resign, &c., but as the Executive the president selects his cabinet and they serve at his pleasure, once they are confirmed by the Senate. This is true for all presidents and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
I think sometimes we forget, these are just people. We give them broad authority and they get to, by virtue of being elected, exercise that power as they see fit though ideally if or when a law is broken we deal with it through the judicial system.
What's the recourse when they fall into a natural senile abyss like with the previous POTUS? Wait and see? I naively lived under an assumption there was a system of checks and balances that's not a coup d'état.
It's just up to those that we elected to make a decision or enact legislation. If they decide tat the president isn't senile enough, then that's just what they get to decide. Sometimes I think folks are expecting there to be an ever increasing system of accountability or authority to appeal to, but no it's just those people and they get to decide. If you don't like their decision, outside of the ballot box or whatever other means you have available to protest their decision, then you just have to live with what they say or decide. They are the authority. They decide to invoke the 25th Amendment or not. Not you.
I'll bite. What's in it for them ("They are the authority")? Weathering the weather until the next election? I'm prone to assuming that people higher on the totem pole are smarter, more experienced, more nuanced, better educated, that's on me.
The POTUS is funny /s. Read his remarks about Tim Apple, pure comedy if was intended as such. He needs to take an ESL course. "3 or 4 "BIG HELPS". "I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to ‘kiss my ass.’”
He's surrounded by the creme de la creme of our society, at least in terms of influence. Many of these folks come from old money, West Point, Ivy League, whatever. No matter how egomaniac one has to be to raise through the ranks of our the political system, they are still highly intelligent and connected tribe and should be able to read the future we are leaping into. Am I giving them too much credit? Why isn't their horizon decades long?
> What's the recourse when they fall into a natural senile abyss like with the previous POTUS?
Congress should tighten up the War Powers Act, including but not limited to making the Secretary of Defense personally liable for breaches. (We do this with CFOs under Sarbanes-Oxley.)
It's not, and the evidence for that at least partially rests in the War Powers Act as Congress itself realized it wasn't enough. Who am I to argue with Congress? :)
Just "doing war" and calling it something else because you find the "right" way inconvenient or impractical is ridiculous, immoral, and illegal.
If the government acts on behalf of and derives its authority from the will of the people then do it according to our shared governance. If not then the people claiming autocracy or oligarchy or techno-feudalism has supplanted our democracy are probably on to something.
Tl;dr - no shit following the law is less convenient than just doing whatever you want
Is there something about the War Powers Act that's unconstitutional? If so, what specifically? I'm struggling here to understand what is being alleged to be unconstitutional.
Separately, I actually think Congress has been dysfunctional and has been outsourcing its power to the Executive and Judicial branches, but these claims about constitutional breaches seem to be, at best, wrong.
Because soft power is a real phenomenon and by going along with the illegal name change, we are giving legitimacy to an illegitimate act. Its anticipatory obedience.
Do not obey in advance. It signals to the regime how much power they actually have.
I'd agree in principle, but they're already killing people. The worst-case scenario has been happening for a while; treating this as a procedural stance rather than a description of reality is blinkered.
If we adopt their language because things are already bad we are saying that their power is now the only reality that matters, we are giving up any form of resistance. We killed people under the name of Department of Defense too.
Giving them the name is giving them the legitimacy to continue to justify the violence, and signals to the rest of the population that no one is coming to help and the new order is absolute. Mind you, this is mostly the fault of complicit media going a long with the name change rather than individuals here on HN, but whether its a true description of reality or not isn't important, whats important is any form of resistance to stop giving legitimacy to the regime.
As a non-American, I think that Americans treating concrete problems as less important than linguistic games does an awful lot more to legitimise the violence.
I don't think parent claimed that simply using certain words is more important than dealing with the real problems.
You sound frustrated with the American situation. I am too but that doesn't mean someone saying "resist" is somehow condoning or ignoring the important issues.
I think the message of "don't submit in advance" is a great one and it actually makes sense to me to include that ethos in all things, including your speech. I think we all agree that speech alone is not enough.
Controlling language changes the way people think, and therefore act. Both of the things you mentioned are bad, glossing over real problems and the attempt to control language, they are not mutually exclusive.
Just (re)read 1984 and focus on Newspeak, controlling language controls the way people think and act.
The body of water that borders Texas, Florida, Louisiana, and other states along with Mexico is the Gulf of Mexico. The US cabinet-level department responsible for the military is the Department of Defense.
As a third party to your discussion, I observe that you are both engaged in exactly the same "linguistic game" with each other, if you prefer to use that dismissive terminology, and I'll add that writing is not mutually exclusive with action.
it's far more than that. By giving into the television like hyper-reality they create you're giving up base reality. That power and legitimate institutions are derived from the people and due process.
To surrender to the rhetoric is the entire point of the obscenities. War department, thugs with badges pretending to be police etc. The provocations are intentional and the offensiveness is the point, if you're just opposed to the concrete violence you're missing the forest for the trees. You have to reject their entire grammar they're trying to impose on you.
It's as if I put on a robe, went to Rome and claimed I'm the Pope (taking bets on this happening in the US too). You shouldn't then try to argue with me if I'm a good or bad pope or if I'm committing bad acts, but you should reject the entire non-reality circus I'm trying to pull you in.
> To surrender to the rhetoric is the entire point of the obscenities.
No, this is what I am complaining about. The obscenities are the point, the rhetoric is cover. Ignoring the rhetoric does not stop the obscenities, and treating the problem as 'they are using the wrong name' rather than 'they are doing the wrong thing' dismisses the real harm being done.
If you claim to be the pope, rejecting your constructed reality is the way to help you out of your delusion. If you do so while leading a crusade to sack Jerusalem, it's not the priority.
Let's clarify further that they are working for the clown Gestapo known as ICE, and they are enabling them to violate judicial directives and Constitutional protections for an adminstration speed running American anarcho-fascism.
Palantir used to be an effective augmentation to counter-insurgency and international terrorism.
Karp has gleefully pivoted to enabling authoritarian pogroms in American cities, and if you keep working there you have blood on your hands.
There's the "hilarity" of Operation Epic Fury. E.F. Epstein Files. It's either someone's private joke or the most clueless name you could imagine (not to mention sounding like it was taken straight from a COD Lobby).
> Obviously the Iranian government are not good guys
I'll believe this when it comes from someone other than the Epstein people. As it stands, the worst people in the world do not like Iran, so they're definitely doing something right.
It's not really a distraction, it's just it's own stupid, horrible thing.
The most sane reason for "why now" would be because Iran was in a relatively weak position (domestic unrest, severely weakened proxies due to Israel) and the hawks saw an opening
That and Trump was more easily moved now that he's developed a taste for military shows of force after the Maduro thing. He probably thought it would make great content.
The Iran hawks and Netanyahu probably didn't have to push him very hard
The Iran war started to provide a distraction from the Epstein files. Let's not pretend we don't know why, or more absurdly, can't quite articulate. It's very simple.
Why is this getting downvoted? How is this any less ridiculous sounding than the multitude of other, ever-shifting reasons Trump gave for starting the war.
Trump publicly mulled about going to war with Iran for weeks before it started. Iran had been killing its own citizens by thousands, stopping the massacre was a leading factor.
I am aware of one obscure Democrat that spoke out against the action at the time. I believe that man is the only one that should be criticizing the decision, because he didn’t wait on the fence to see how things turned out.
If you know of more Democrats that spoke out—- especially big name ones—- please provide credible, contemporary sources. I’ll be glad to give approval to any that acted bravely at the time.
Right, but Trump has stated he can accept working with the regime without consequence, like in Venezuela, as long as they cooperate on key issues e.g. oil and Israeli security concerns. He couldn’t care less that the regime is killing its own people. Like he couldn’t care less about Israel’s illegal occupation and murder.
To think Trump did this war to save Iranian lives from its own government is hopelessly naive. It was not at all a leading factor.
It doesn't seem fair to require people to speak out publicly about every random, crazy things communicated by Trump and his regime. In my view, it gives legitimacy to his ramblings and certainly feeds into his narcissism to have people react.
It seems more reasonable and practical to speak out against his war once action has actually been taken.
(As a UK citizen, I don't even understand why Trump is being allowed to unilaterally start wars without Congress agreeing)
Politicians are supposed to lead. To present courses of action. Not to criticize other politicians after some event has already occurred and outcomes are visible.
It’s as if you were riding in a car with a friend, speeding. If you tell the friend “slow down, this is dangerous” then you are acting a little bravely and this is virtuous. Waiting to see if you get to your destination or have a crash before opening your mouth is definitely not virtuous.
I'd liken it more to regularly getting a lift from a friend, but they are often speeding, tailgating, using their phone etc. You could complain every single time, but after a while, you have to just treat that friend as very unreliable and you should stop getting a lift from them.
With the Iran war, there didn't seem to be an opportunity to provide leadership before the event from other countries as the decision wasn't exactly well considered. There still doesn't seem to be a strategic objective to it that makes sense to me.
The US has always used its military for global terrorism. Only just now, it is more in your face. There is no doubt: the US is responsible for some of the most sickening crimes against humanity the world has ever seen, including directly being the inspiration for the Holocaust, as well as US companies providing logistics for the Holocaust!
I hate the idea that it was ever the DoD. It was always a terroristic, offensive force.
Sure. The unnecessary nuclear bombing of two civilian population centers is proof enough. Do you know the ratio of civilians to military deaths in those bombings? Nagasaki is particularly bad: 0.25% military personnel, 99.75% civilian deaths, and that's the most generous count. Not to mention Tokyo, or the numerous other cities which were firebombed. The idea that nuking civilians saved lives is a statement so stupid that only an American could believe it.
Let me ask you a question, directly, UltraSane. Is killing 60,000(minimum) civilians in an instant not terrorism?
While I agree there's not a universally agreed upon definition of terrorism, I want to hear more about why you think bombing with novel munitions expressly delivered to dense urban areas which killed 250k people 90% of whom were civilian, in an attempt to scare them into surrender, is not "terrorism".
Killing people while trying to scare them into surrender is a feature shared by both terrorism and wars. A big bombing campaign done by an army is a war, not a terrorism.
Even when they specifically target civilians? What would you call a bomb exploded in times square? What if it were placed there by Iranian soldiers? Is that war, or terrorism?
If those soldiers are in full uniform bringing in an unconcealed bomb, and it's part of a broader campaign that's also going after military targets, I would not call that terrorism.
There is no distinct line between war and terrorism. Even before World War II, leaders would proudly and openly call for terrorism against their enemies and civilians. Most notably communist leaders like Lenin, who didn't shy away from using the word "terror" and "terrorism" to describe their own campaigns.
As for allied bombings, there is a chapter here on the term "Terror bombings":
The war was won by systematic, deliberate terror bombings, these weren't accidents or rare incidents.
From the great general Patton:
"We then went to the town hall and saw the Mayor, the Chief of Police, etc. I told Truscott to do the honors as he had captured Messina. The town is horribly destroyed – the worst I have seen. In one tunnel there were said to have been 5,000 civilians hiding for over a week. I do not believe that this indiscriminate bombing of towns is worth the ammunition, and it is unnecessarily cruel to civilians."
As for the Germans, they were among other things conducting terror attacks on civilan ships with their submarines, and openly calling their population to "total war".
The allies won the war by conducting terrorism of the largest level in human history. That might have been the only way for them to win. I don't think anybody here is a better general than Eisenhower or McArthur was, to be able to suggest a better way.
All sides of WWII were conducting outright terror attacks on the civilians of their enemies, with the allied terror bombings of German cities and terror nuclear bombings of Japanese cities being the most devastating of these.
Senate Democrats have made at least 5 attempts to stop this. Every Democrat voted in favor except Fetterman. Every republican opposed the attempt except Ron Paul.
The Republicans are entirely responsible for the war in Iran - they started it and have opposed every attempt to reign the administration in. Don't play this "both sides" game when one side is clearly causing the issue here.
I mean. The side voting while knowing they can't stop it that way, the definition of optics, thought this was worth it to not cater to their anti-war voters, no?
Both side bad yeah, you seem to think the solution is still to cling to the lesser of two evils. Hell, dem presidential candidates were praising Trumps Iran policy up until the bombs started falling. There is no evidence they _actually_ care about a war with Iran outside of, just as you do, saying OH this is THEIR doing.
Look, I would love to reply to this but you don't even articulate a coherent position here.
It seems like you trying to claim that the democrats actively opposing and trying to stop the war are somehow just as culpable as the republicans who are actively supporting the war just because the democrats don't have enough power to actually stop it? I want to be generous in my interpretation here, but I can't make heads or tails of your statement.
No-one supports the war now. But Palestine just had to go? It can't be about _war_ or loss of life, and the people caring can get f-ed we don't need your votes.
But sure one side is extremely against anything like this but unfortunately only get to demonstrate it when in opposition and unable to do anything.
The difference might be there in regards to Iran, with it's global market impact. But it's not there in regards to human life or suffering. That was made _very_ clear during the electoral campaign. But now it's _very different_ because it's "them" doing it and we can say we were always against this.
We have to say "us good, them bad" because we're voting the same way next time, and we're not planning to vote for something bad, right?
> But it's not there in regards to human life or suffering. That was made _very_ clear during the electoral campaign.
I don’t know what to say but to call this retarded at best or evil at worst.
Trump ran on a platform that included purposefully harming people. He continues with it. Look at his response to Mueller’s death for instance.
Inb4 you mention something about a genocide in Guzah, and ignore how Trump is backing everything Netanyahu wants done in the region compared to the democrats attempts at holding him back.
> We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate
(1) Nuclear proliferation.
We once had a deal that looked as though it was holding. Trump's nixing of the deal and the happenings in Ukraine accelerated Iran's desire to have nukes.
As I've been reading, this might be a second order play to stall China's invasion of Taiwan. If China has to dip into strategic oil reserves to smooth out impact to its economy, it may forgo its Taiwan invasion plans for a bit longer.
It's also throwing a wrench into the CRINK alliance.
Those are incredibly thin justifications that don't really hold up to scrutiny.
1) The deal was holding. And even if we take Trump's word for it that it wasn't, he told us that he destroyed their nuclear capability a year ago. So either he was lying about that, or there was no serious nuclear capability in the first place. Regardless of how that shakes out, there's no reason we should believe this justification today.
2) This is incredibly speculative, and no serious intelligence analyst or military strategist would suggest "war with Iran" as a solution there. And the joke is on us, anyway: China may be feeling an oil crunch, but we're depleting our stock of a bunch of materiel that we'll need if it comes time to defend Taiwan. On top of that, China's military leadership is seeing how incompetently the US is prosecuting this war, and is likely feeling a lot more confident about their ability to fend off a US defense of Taiwan.
The US military is prosecuting the war just fine, US losses of materiel and personnel have been minimal (not zero, but close enough). China's takeaway from this is not going to be that the US military is incompetent.
The fundamental problem is that the declared objectives of regime change and securing control of the Strait of Hormuz cannot be achieved through air power alone. And this is the fault of the president, not the military.
How many is the right number of personnel and materiel to lose for this war that isn't war and seems to have been either purchased for a few hundred million by political bribes or is just a distraction from the administrations involvement in a monstrous child sex ring? Also didn't we already win this war last year, last month, and last week? It is really easy to wave away our fellow dead citizens (and Iranians, including a school full of children!) from an internet comment form but damn, real people are dead here and it's an actual tragedy.
For me, zero deaths seems like the right answer for these objectives and anything else is egregious abuse of power.
I'd love it if everyone stopped being happy with people lying to them. When you catch people lying to you, be angry and stop trusting them!
I hate to interrupt a good rant, but we actually agree on this. To spell it out: the abject failure of the war is not a failure of the US military, it's a failure of its executive leadership, meaning Trump and his coterie of yes-men.
> the abject failure of the war is not a failure of the US military, it's a failure of its executive leadership
It's a bit of both. Our lack of mine-clearing and anti-drone technology is a legitimate weakness, as are our defence-production gaps. The damage done to our system of alliances, moreover, directly weakens our military standing.
Even if we destroyed it, RU would be happy to resupply. What has this war that nobody wanted cost just at the gas pumps all over the world and who stood to benefit? I really do think I’d be better off having had been born a century or two ago reading books under a candle and digging outhouses when needed.
The reasons are very clear: Bibi owns Trump, Israel will unlikely have a US president as supportive again, they want as many facts on the ground as they can get whilst they have him.
I don't know if Trump could walk and chew bubble gum at the same time, but he sure seems able to screw Ukraine and bomb Iran at the same time. He just finished sending Vance to Hungary to stump for Orban, too. The love affair between far-right authoritarian leaders is not a 2 person relationship.
Is he doing anything that is hindering Putin? That theory still very much holds. Both Putin and Netanyahu can realistically have kompromat on him, seeing how incredibly brazen and stupid he is.
Do you mean the replacing of the old Khamenei with a younger, more vigorous and extreme Khamenei? Utterly destroying the world economy (as well as the environment, but who cares about that) for what gain specifically? Or do you mean decimating the US allies in Europe and the West?
Yeah, we didn't want Iran to have nukes, so we rugpulled the JCPOA and murdered the guy who declared a fatwa against nukes.
We wanted to save the Iranian people from the regime that murdered 100,000 peaceful protestors (don't ask for evidence) so we butchered 170 school girls and didn't apologize.
We wanted to stabilize the region, so we greenlit Israel's rampage in Lebanon and directly induced Iran to close the Strait.
> We wanted to stabilize the region, so we greenlit Israel's rampage in Lebanon
Consider this hypothetical situation. Iran funds a terrorist group operating in Tijuana to fire rockets across the border into San Diego. Assume the Mexican government is not organized enough to stop the terrorists from firing rockets.
What do you think the response of the US Government would be? Please recall what we did after 9/11 before answering.
Israel isn’t invading Egypt and Jordan, I wonder if it’s because there’s no Iran-funded terrorist groups firing rockets from those countries or if there’s some other reason.
Israel definitely has blood on their hands, but how do you suggest they deal with terrorist groups funded by Iran operating in lawless areas of neighboring countries that are firing rockets at civilians in Israel?
Israel has been invaded by all of its neighbors simultaneously more than once, it’s a pretty complex situation that spans over a hundred years. Europeans and Arab nations (aside from the Ottomans) treated Jews like shit for centuries, pogroms and holocausts and expulsions and forced migrations. No wonder they want to keep the nation of Israel around, everyone else has tried exterminating them. Just try not to be so reductionist and polarizing about it, it’s a complex historical situation with many shades of gray.
I know my opinion is probably unpopular around here, but it’s how I see it. Israel has done some horrible shit, but they aren’t just rampaging against any non Jew in sight, there were Hezbollah operatives constantly firing rockets into northern Israel for years. What’s happening in Lebanon (and Syria and may other places) sucks, and that massive pier explosion certainly didn’t help.
> Israel definitely has blood on their hands, but how do you suggest they deal with terrorist groups funded by Iran operating in lawless areas of neighboring countries that are firing rockets at civilians in Israel?
What they do is stop raping and murdering people, settling on their land and then acting shocked that the country they are taking over is reacting in a violent way in response.
Israel are the terrorists who invaded Palestine and have committed crimes against humanity all across the Middle East. Your hypothetical situation is nothing at all like what's going on in reality. Iran is our ally against Zionist occupation of our own government.
Yes, an aggressive regime that develops nuclear weapons (otherwise why all this enrichment?), stockpiles missiles and drones that, funds terrorists like hezbolla, hoothis and hamas, should be stopped.
Yes, when you apply military force, civilians die. Nobody is happy about it, at least in US.
Yes, Iran closed the strait, because Trump taco'ed again and can't use force against it.
Yes, Israel bombs hezbolla, because what else should they do to people that shoot rockets at Israel? Send them fresh water and electricity? They tried it with Gaza, didn't help.
Nitpick: the analogy is an open-air prison. Because prisons usually have ceilings. Open-air concentration camp is just a concentration camp, which doesn't really appropriately describe a siege.
It's (was) neither prison nor concentration camp. It wasn't even "occupied" by Israel. Last Israelis were forced to move out 20 years ago, and never came back.
That piece of land could be heaven on earth with all support that they received.
Many reason were articulated, including the threat on an immediate attack on the US. That reason ran counter to defense assessments. Also, the reasons and goals stated by Trump (“President of Peace” and inaugural awardee of the FIFA peace prize), Rubio, and Hegseth have not been consistent.
Was the reason to open the Strait that was already open, prevent an attack, to prevent Iran from making a nuclear weapon, or to change a regime?
I believe Rubio stated the reason at the very beginning of the war. The US learned that Israel was going to attack and jumped in. Everything after that is bullshit.
The reasons given were complete bullshit. So maybe it's not true that they weren't articulated, but the reasons that were articulated don't hold up to scrutiny.
And, yes, on top of that, the action itself was poorly planned and executed, which just adds insult to injury.
> Palantir employees should understand that they are not regular employees at a regular company. They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company
I can't imagine any of them are confused about this. I'd expect most are proud to support our military.
The line that's been crossed is the military being turned against Americans. Palantir helping ICE surveil and round up folks who turned out to be, in many cases, innocent American citizens, seems to be what's prompting–correctly, in my opinion–the crisis of faith.
They're defense contractors the same way IBM and Oracle are. Palantir has a huge USG business, but they're also widely used across the Fortune 500. From the coverage of Palantir online you'd think the company actually manufactured Palantirs, but they are in fact a database consultingware company; one person described them to me as "Oracle but with the benefit of the Web 2.0 technology stack".
People read things like this and a switch flips in their brain, that they're being told to be more charitable to Palantir, and that's not at all where I'm coming from. Rather: the attention paid to Palantir does a very effective job of running cover for Oracle, IBM, and Cisco.
Obviously, the ludicrous marketing/communications operation Palantir is running doesn't make any of this any simpler to reason about. Imagine getting a manifesto from AWS alongside your S3 bill urging you to reconsider Apostolic succession in the traditional Catholic church; that's the vibe they've managed to create.
Palantir also deliberately choose a name with sinister overtones, they're just short of calling themselves "torment Nexus builders Inc" or something. I used to think their logic was that someone would build it so it might as well be people who saw the moral hazard, but now I think they're just going all in on the evil overlord brand. Summer kind of pied piper thing maybe.
We all get that Oracle has literally the same naming provenance, right? Actually more so: they took the name from the Central Intelligence Agency project they started the company with.
Every time this comes up, I find myself asking, "what do you think a secret phase conjugate tracking system is for?" Maybe it's just that I'm older than the median here, but when I was a kid, the mere concept of a relational database was something that stirred disquiet in the press; people were worried databases were going to take over society. It was not a completely crazy concern!
One throughline of history is database-ization. Some of our older writings are records of ownership and tax liabilities. We keep moving information from the real world into a database. We have done it so much that the database is sometimes more important than the real world. Someone marked “dead” in a database can have a hard time living!
There's at least one company that straight-up reverses a pacifistic cultural reference: a Ukrainian autonomous weapons company called The Fourth Law, as in Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics to prevent humans from coming to harm.
Apart from my own thoughts on the Ukraine war and autonomous weapons, that name makes me feel like the company's founders either haven't engaged with the moral questions of their technology, or want to mock them.
A reference to "The Fourth Law" in that context is quite ambiguous, because not only did Asimov introduce a "Zeroth Law" that is sometimes also called the Fourth, but also subsequent fanfic introduced "Fourth Laws" that had different texts and different objectives, including one by a Bulgarian author. So there is no singular or canon "Fourth Law of Robotics".
The way I see it is that sousveillance is the correct response to surveillance.
If people feel threatened by this organization and the people who make it up they should start doing to them what they're doing to everyone else.
Who specifically works at Palantir? What do they look like? Where do they live? What kind of vehicle do they drive? How do they spend their free time? Who do they associate with?
These are all very interesting questions.
Questions that can be answered and answers that can be distributed online, forever.
Also wrong. Palantir itself does not do surveillance. It sells software to government agencies, who use that software to conduct surveillance.
If the IRS uses Excel, that doesn't mean Microsoft is actively catching tax evasion. Microsoft is selling spreadsheet software, and one of the users of that software is the IRS.
Yeah, for sure. Defense contracting is as good or bad as the policies of the government which is going to change over time. All else being equal, if we want to live in a safe and successful society we want good/talented people working in defense. The trick is holding the government accountable for its policies and profligate defense spending.
> Defense contracting is as good or bad as the policies of the government which is going to change over time.
This is true sometimes. But many times the companies and the government get together to kill people for money (The dead people's money or the taxpayers money - they don't mind which, money is money)
I don't agree with this. Just because the DOD says it is ethical doesn't mean it is so contractors have a duty to maintain ethical standards in the face of changing DOD standards. To me this means a DOD contractor decides before they go in that they will have limits and sticks to them. I think anyone working for Palantir right now should be considering the limits they have and if the company is going beyond them or not. I know that I for one do not consider their work ethical and would not work for them even though the DOD says it is ok. Understand before you sign.
To a large degree you can't choose how the DoD or other letter agency uses what they buy from you. Obviously you can set some contractual guardrails but realistically if you build drones that can mount hellfire missiles you have to know that it can be misused by some 22 year old. Its tempting to believe that software is different, but once its on-prem its out of your hands.
The difference is scale and accountability. Surveillance tech is impacting everyone and is part of every kill chain but its not what people see so there is very little accountability for it. Building a drone that launches something has far less scale and far more accountability since its effects are visible. I personally think there is a big difference between being part of something with at least some accountability and limited scale compared to unlimited scale and no accountability. Of course many people would disagree and set their levels lower (mine are actually lower than this now) but I think that DOD contractors can think in at least this level of terms and decide to be apart of some things and not others in a meaningful way. No matter what though, a problem being hard isn't an excuse for throwing your hands up and saying 'I'm good because the DOD says it is ok'
In isolation your clarification is right, but considering that US department of War actually kills hundreds of thousands of people, there should be no question about negativity of that department
I have had an active hand in designing weapons at a defense contractor (I was at one time an expert in external ballistics simulation) and I'd feel uncomfortable with the morality of working at Palantir.
How do you reconcile having worked in this capacity mentally? Not being snarky or judgemental, genuinely curious as to the mindset of someone who has been in this position.
> How do you reconcile having worked in this capacity mentally? Not being snarky or judgemental, genuinely curious as to the mindset of someone who has been in this position.
I don't work at defense contractor, but it would probably help to imagine the situation Ukraine is in. If no one in the West was comfortable working in this capacity, it would all be Russian territory now (and more besides).
Reading this, I was surprised to learn that I now consider the idea of working on old-school conventional weapons almost, like, quaint.
What with all the ways our new military/techno-industrial complex is working to automate murder, surveillance and terror at scale ... it makes me nostalgic for that old-fashioned artisanal state-sanctioned murder, made in small batches by real humans.
That reminds me of a sci-fi quote, where one of the main characters is discussing a murderous antagonist, putting their evil into a broader context:
> "He was just a little villain. An old-fashioned craftsman, making crimes one-off. The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present--they are real."
You may have gotten caught up in the hype. It's still intelligence, logistics, bullets, missiles, and airplanes (etc.)
The beginnings of "automated murder" were anti-aircraft weapons that implemented a kind of mechanical computer that beat humans in predicting where aircraft were going to be (you have to shoot at where the plane is going to be when your bullets get there). Look up Norbert Wiener.
For a century it's been automation assisted, none of this is new, it's just been improving consistently. They had UAVs in WWI for gods sake. (flying things without people in them, used in war)
I have been in the same position. Maybe I was naive but I believed that weapons design wasn't the most moral thing in the world, but sadly necessary, and I actually trusted the military to .. I guess act in legitimate and legal ways. That if those weapons were used in a conflict, it would be defensive and defendable morally.
Of course that was before the inexplicable adventurism in the Middle East.
There's usually a bit more accountability in using a missile than using palantir systems. At least legally, a missile could only be used in defense or in a war authorized by the congress.
Until recently, most of the population believed that the vast majority of America's military actions were somewhat just and legal, for noble reasons.
> At least legally, a missile could only be used in defense or in a war authorized by the congress.
Some Iranians might disagree with you on that point. They can't, though, as they're dead, killed by missiles used not in defense and not in a war authorized by Congress.
> Until recently, most of the population believed that the vast majority of America's military actions were somewhat just and legal, for noble reasons.
That's naive. The US has been using its military for unjust actions (of dubious legality, often "made legal" after the fact) longer than I've been on this Earth.
"At least legally" It doesn't matter if this is true for this situation, as an employee you only need to have been convinced this is true.
"Most of the population believed" - Again, even if they were mistaken, if they believed it, and let me tell you, a lot of the people STILL believes it, that belief is enough to enure you'll have a good night of sleep after a shift in a Lockheed office or factory.
Pragmatism. We live in the real world, one where threat of violence and actual violence is indeed sometimes necessary. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was peaceful and we could all get along happy and free? Sure, but that's not the world we live in and sticking my head in the sand and leaving the necessary dirty work to other people would bring me no more peace than helping do the necessary things as well as possible.
The most weaponlike thing I worked on was a sniper rifle program, and to me precision weapons are one of those best you can do in an imperfect world kinds of things.
Under the name of the* same government. You can’t equate 1940s US govt with today’s government. Different people different priorities different actions. Not necessarily saying good or bad one way or the other. But ‘same’ is reductionist way of interpreting the situation. There’s plenty of nuance.
I'm unsure of how this information is being presented. But it's entirely possible for the majority of people on Earth to avoid all those things. And it's entirely possible for many people who are (perhaps unwittingly) funding U.S. defense companies to stop doing so.
This makes it sound as though doing business with Palantir is akin to doing business with Lockheed Martin, RTX Corp (Raytheon), Northrop Grumman etc. This ignores important, qualitatively different ways that Palantir is worse: eg intentional white supremacist goals from Karp (Oswald Mosley fan) and Thiel (dismantling of multiculturalism), as well as Palantir's role in the surge of surveillance capitalism that treats US citizens as the opponent, rather than the more classic statist-aligned goals of US Govt/US Capital whose contempt for human life and human rights was pointed externally - so, while harmful, was still esstentially compatible with democratic principles.
> Also, China doesn't invade countries half around the world and bring them to utter destruction and misery for generations to come, killing thousands to millions of civilians and creating breeding grounds for things like ISIS. They do their own thing, quietly and patiently, with laser focus and for outsiders its at most 'not great not terrible' category.
Here are a list of things that definitely don't fall under 'not great not terrible' category:
Great Leap Forward - estimated 15 million to 55 million people death
Leaders of countries which want to do business with China, most countries in the world, have to talk only very quietly about these "sensitive issues", or better not mention them at all.
There is so much hydrocarbons and coal underground we would transform the Earths atmosphere to hell, if we would mine and burn it all.
"Natural gas and oil could last for about 50 years, uranium for around 100 years, and coal reserves, which are the most abundant, roughly 150 years at current consumption levels."
In case of uranium, it's possible to extract it from seawater. This technology was developed and tested, but at current low prices of uranium it's cheaper to mine it.
Australia’s uranium resources are expressed as Economic Demonstrated Resources (EDR), Subeconomic Demonstrated Resources (SDR) and Inferred Resources. Refer to Appendix 3 for definitions of these terms and further information on the National Classification System for reporting of Identified Mineral Resources.
Based on 2023 production rates, Australia’s uranium reserves have an estimated life of 71 years.
What's all this fuss about words? What are resources, what are reserves? Do we really only have 71 years worth of uranium in Australia?
I just wanted to signify that there is so much available hydrocarbons and coal underground that humanity will run out of atmospheric CO2 budget before it runs out of hydrocarbons.
> humanity will run out of atmospheric CO2 budget before it runs out of hydrocarbons.
I agree that is very much all that's needed to be said.
I confess to a shuddering dislike of statements of the form "we only have {x} left", a dislike exceeded by my revulsion to statements of the form "we have {X} amount left in the crust or ocean - we can just use that".
Call it a side effect of a couple of decades of geophysical exploration work across the globe :/
The reserves of any mineral are basically the amount someone spends the effort to find and document. And spending that effort is an economic decision. There's little economic incentive to find reserves beyond a certain period of time so the reserves of any mineral are going to be only fairly limited amount of years out.
The article tries to make the impression that generated hydrogen in China's Inner Mongolia will be "green", produced only from solar and wind electricity. In China's Inner Mongolia all the solar and wind electricity production is supplanted by local coal electricity production.
This is not an example which should be followed in the West.
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