WayeeCool [comrade/them] @ WayeeCool @hexbear.net

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46

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254

Joined

4 yr. ago

As brutal as the last civil war was... Sherman's march to the sea but with nukes?

my first thought was that this must be because Microsoft recently surpassed the $1 trillion mark.

Microsoft recently surpassed the $3 trillion mark.

Ironic that Israel is repeating a lot of the very same rhetoric and rationalization made by 1930s Europeans (and Americans). Spinning genocide and exploiting laborers trapped in an ghetto open air prison as humanitarian programs. Work sets you free vibes.

Iirc research has shown adults with shaved heads are perceived as more confident and assertive. Seems to be the case for both men and women. Something about just shaving your head or a Patrick Stewart (or is Lenin more iconic?) close cut rather than trying to hide balding makes a person seem more mature, higher status. Maybe it signals that a person isn't filled with existential dread about aging and has the self assured confidence to age with dignity rather than butchering themselves in an attempt to look like a child their entire life.

Male pattern balding is a direct result of testosterone, the drugs to prevent it are testosterone blockers, so maybe human psychology at some subconscious level associates it with masculinity and maturity.

I found a dictionary of this newfangled NATO slag the kids are using: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiservice_tactical_brevity_code

It's entertaining to think about how Biden might not be competent enough to properly hold the reigns on JSOC. Like for fks sake, JSOC is a military arm separate from the rest of the chain of command and congressional oversight that answers only to the executive branch.

I guess because computational power is near unlimited and they are well past quantum computing... maybe the security scheme involves more than mathematical encryption, maybe the transmission medium? Could also be expensive because they have to use one-time pad encryption for every secure transmission. It's the only encryption scheme that cannot be cracked regardless of advances in computing but requires every transmission use a unique one-time cypher that is expended upon use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad

In some science fiction secure encryption ends up returning to one-time pad encryption because computational capabilities have become so advanced. An entire economic niche is created where interstellar ships travel in-between star systems delivering shipments of one-time pad keyrings that are used for secure transmissions. Any transmissions using public-private key schemes or any scheme with reusable cyphers is considered crackable by state actors and large corporations who care enough to task the necessary computational resources. As a result secure transmissions of a sensitive nature become extremely expensive.

Is funny because sports psychology has been a thing in professional sports for a while now. They make the players read philosophy books and try to coach them on how to get into the right mental state. Mental state is actually a big deal when it comes to peak physical performance. None of this is for altruistic reasons but about winning.

Also checking a players cognition and mood during games can probably help spot signs of injury. Entire reason coaches and owners started giving a fk about all the brain damage and stroking out is losing an investment. Everything from heat stroke to brain injury often comes with behavioral symptoms like confusion. Spot that shit immediately by doing basic neurological assessments, you can treat a player soon enough that you might not lose your investment.

In addition to spotting signs of internal physical injuries or degraded performance... mfkers, spotting signs that a player has deteriorating mental health and intervening also protects the investment. If they attempt suicide, successful or not, that's a problem. If they become emotionally unstable and commit an act of violence in their personal life (crime) or in-game (foul), that is a problem. Not just losing them to penalty, injury, prison, or death but the damage to the teams brand from the public relations fallout.

Saudi Arabia isn't the only nation with a lever to pull which can manipulate global fossil fuel markets. The US also has a lever and is the largest producer on earth, able to punish nations like Saudi Arabia whose entire economy depends on oil being profitable enough and whose oil infrastructure is the only thing they have that can bring income into their nations. This is exactly what the US has been doing under the Biden administration, pushing its own oil production to record levels higher than any other nation in the history of the world while stroking instability (wars, coups) in oil production regions of the world. Remember that the US has the capacity to produce enough oil to meet its own domestic and export needs while maintaining the ability to start destroying the oil infrastructure of smaller nations. What makes the US different from other major petroleum producers is the US government can only increase their own production (or blow up other nations production capacity) while most other governments maintain the ability to decrease their own oil production rather than merely increasing it.

Everyone thinks about gulf states when it comes to oil production but the US is actually the largest player in petroleum. The US can produce more than enough oil domestically to meet its own needs, international markets only effect the US domestic price of fuel because the US government allows their oil companies to maximize profits within reason. Those US firms like Exxon and Chevron understand this, that there are unspoken limits. The US cares about nations like Saudi Arabia to ensure oil prices on the international market stay high enough for US oil firms to be profitable but still within enough reason that the US government can maintain the pretense of free market economics.

This is also why many people who say US wars are about oil are still wrong. They tend to believe the US destroyed Iraq or Libya because they wanted cheap oil, when the real reason was to control global supply and ensure US oil stays profitable. The two levers are increasing US domestic oil production or ordering the US military/CIA to destroy the oil production infrastructure of nations who don't play ball.

Funny because US presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution, have always had it, but when other countries set their laws up the same way it's dystopian.

That's a funny thought. The sister is the one that gives extreme bureaucrat vibes, right?

Right wingers seem to like Dune

Dune is actually rightwing, a conservative morality play and distant future. Frank Herbert was what today would be called a chud and was very open about it. That being said, Dune is still amazing space opera and something unique.

I do find it funny when leftists who don't know the background of the author and his own interpretation twist themselves into knots trying to make Dune into some kind of leftist agitprop.

I was going to say... does Ukraine think everyone has somehow forgotten that Russia is the nation that has had globe spanning satellite surveillance longer than anyone else? To make this claim about the US, Russia, China, Iran, or India is ridiculous.

I guess Ukraine forgot which nations maintain fully integrated domestic space launch capability and large military satellite constellations. Then again they aren't one of those nations and it's a capability exclusive to great powers. Ukraine isn't even in the slightly larger group of nations that have bought a few commercial mapping satellites.

Does Hexbear have a matrix chat server?

The tech CEO?

I thought I remembered seeing accounts that the US 'disabled' them somehow

They didn't even do that, at least in some instances. There were videos of Taliban fighters confirming they functioned along with finding documentation, tools, and supplies. I'm sure someone did the math and decided it wasn't worth the cost to transport out all that stuff.

The US seems to have only taken their helicopter gunships and left their Blackhawk transport helicopters rather than taking the time to load them onto cargo planes. I say this because there are videos floating around the internet of Taliban fighters finding lots of them sitting around abandoned US bases and outposts. There were also videos of them learning through trial and error how to fly Blackhawks, so they apparently left them in working condition instead of at least sabotaging them by ripping out key components.

Didn't see any Chinooks but iirc they have a lot more range than regular helicopters and with refueling can make the trip without being loaded into cargo planes. One of the reasons the US military is replacing their Blackhawks with the V-280 Valor is for that extended range compared to regular helicopters.