Putin in a Leather Jacket and Button Down. He looks like a surprisingly normal guy. Like a White Collar Office guy who just got off shift.
Also. I’m now 100% certain AI is here to stay. Including AI generated content. Which is probably going to cause further problems with the fact a not insignificant portion of people on both sides of the proverbial aisle. Already are more or less completely divorced from any form of observable reality.
Contrast modern Boeing Designs with their older designs like the B-52. With some B-52 Airframes going on 50-60 years of active service albeit with repeated upgrades and refurbishment. But at their core they’re still the same Aircraft that started rolling off Assembly lines in the 1950s.
And they’re predicted to remain into service well into the 2050s. It’s actually disheartening the drop in quality.
It is at this point the 1911 of Military Aircraft. Stubbornly hanging on as literally everything changes around it.
Hell. We’ll probably be fighting a war with Martians and the B-52 will still be doing Shock&Awe bombing
I mean the country would likely need to be a signatory of the treaty governing international warrants. And then decide to honor it.
Nations can and have ignored such warrants before out of political convenience
Sounds more like someone trying to justify his Jobs existence.
Though I’d venture that belief is part of the problem. As frankly unless you’re the CEO or a Senior Executive.
You don’t set long term goals. Whether or not you can set and meet a goal isn’t up to you as the grunt or low/mid-ranking management. Someone else hire up the chain handles the goal setting.
And your desire to keep collecting a check and putting a roof over your head. Handles taking care of the desire to achieve whatever goal is set by the superiors.
And ability is something you frankly either have or don’t. What you learn doesn’t influence it heavily. You can have a dozen fancy degrees and still be a stagnant Middle-Manager. As people just have caps on much they can improve and excel in certain roles. And eventually they’ll hit a role where they might not be bad enough to justify firing. But they certainly aren’t good enough to justify promoting past it.
All the pieces of paper and theoretical knowledge and qualifications can’t fix that.
Cool. Now are they going to do something about it? Or send another strongly worded letter?
Only reason I’m currently in College is an aborted career in the trades made me realize I wasn’t particularly fond of it. Even then I’m looking to get my FAA Pt. 107 and try my hand at commercial drones via the courses at the college.
A question we should ask though. Is why a degree essentially became mandatory for so many fields. When it doesn’t even need to be a degree relevant to the work you’d actually be doing.
My Brother in law has a degree in psychology. He sells Pipes for a living. My Cousin also has a degree in Psychology and overseas a Warehouse and supply chain. I had a Manager with a Degree in History at my last job. He managed a retail store. My Dad had a degree in Computer Science. He managed Logistics for a Construction Company.
And then we load degree programs down with functionally useless classes. That would at best be something people could pursue on their own time if they had a desire. Like the Arts and like 60-70% of the humanities.
I’m told though it’s a requirement because it’ll show you have drive to see something through or some crap.
Somewhat ironically we’re running into a Catch-22. In that we know these ideas are ultimately detrimental by every measurable metric.
But we can’t reliably stop the spread of them. Without violating our own founding documents and principles. Such as Freedom of Speech.
Though you’d think people would be cautious against encouraging mass involvement. As no small part of our system ultimately relies on a “Silent Majority” that shifts the balance of power back and forth in an equilibrium of sorts.
You force people to get involved and pick a side. You could very well find yourself and your values rapidly sidelined by the people you demanded start speaking up. While they chart a course you may disagree with. And previously lessons in History would seemingly indicate the will of the “Silent Majority” doesn’t often follow notions of “Liberty and Freedom” but more “Order and Stability” when they are forced into direct action
Given Men like Caesar, Napoleon, Franco, Hitler among many others. Saw their rise at least in part from “Silent Majorities” deciding to be silent no longer
Part of the reason why the American Revolution ended the way it did. Aside from the involvement of the French. Is a large majority of Colonists never got involved enough to the point of taking up arms in favor of either side. Even if they may have been largely sympathetic to one side or another. They just kept their heads down and tried to stay out of the way.
At this point. I can’t help but wonder how Governments and Leaders remembered in our Modern historical records. As Vicious, Tyrannical, Stupid, cruel and all other manners of adjectives.
Somehow all seem to be reliably more intelligent, competent, and less tyrannical than the vast majority of our modern Governments and Leaders.
It amuses me how often people don’t realize how much he plays to “Classical Americana” and lingering nostalgia for a bygone age.
Way back when. Many stores and Restaurants didn’t have revolving doors of barely trained hourly help. Retail and Restaurant work was a skilled trade after a fashion. Not necessarily in the literal sense of Carpenter or a Machinist necessarily. But skilled after a fashion nonetheless. And the staff there in could become fixtures of the community. Such as the stereotypical image of a kindly old clerk in nice long sleeve shirt and tie wearing an apron.
Most of what we take for granted now. Like retail and Fast Food being a Job for Teenagers just starting out. The Elderly trying to cover unexpected costs or medical bills. Or losers, fuckups, and Highschool Dropouts who couldn’t hack it anywhere else like the Trades. Is a comparatively recent development historically speaking.
Trump evoked the image of that bygone “Professional Era” to a T. No pun intended. With his McDonalds stunt.
I like how people are suddenly pretending elections are principled competitions of ideas. And haven’t been corrupt messes for well over century.
And in the grand scheme of things. Paying people who sign a petition isn’t even in the Top 100 of stunts American politicians have pulled over the years.
Now it’s only a problem because people who are aligned against the Establishment and the Narrative of “Free and Fair” elections. Are using their own tactics against them.
Found it for under a dollar once during his term. Granted it was an out of the way station practically in the middle of fucking nowhere.
But still 98 cents for Gas. I thought I was seeing things at first.
The McDonalds was closed to the general population.
Man’s been almost assassinated 3 times in like 4 months. Anyone who thought they’d be letting just any random member of the public through that drive through there is foolish at best. Stupid at worst. He served some rally goers and supporters though.
But yeah. It was a controlled environment. No random member of the public or pothead with the munchies was getting in there for the duration of the event.
Ain’t that the Truth. I’ve lost count of the amount of Jobs where a refusal to spend money on improvements and new equipment in the short term. Blew up in the Owners or executives face. And ultimately cost them more in the long run than implementing the proposed upgrades and changes they refused in the first place would have cost.
I can 100% believe they had bad security and no strategy.
A disturbing amount of major companies while they have nice and slick forward facing UIs. The backend is a hodgepodge of spaghetti code, ancient systems, and code written in archaic languages only a literal handful of people still alive can understand. Let alone code in. Stitched together by Duct Tape, The software code equivalent of Black Magic, happy thoughts. And coders fueled by Massive amounts of Caffeine, Spite, and perhaps a bit of self-loathing.
It costs a lot to keep systems up to date. And upgraded. So it regularly falls far behind on the budget.
Detroit has been the butt of as many Crime and shithole jokes as Chicago.
Last I heard about this guy and the Stanford experiment. Was claims by participants that Zimbardo cooked the data, and introduced biases to the experiment and even bribed and encouraged participants to act in ways to achieve the results he wanted to confirm his hypothesis.
Edit: Sauces
https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/2019-letexier.pdf
https://gen.medium.com/the-lifespan-of-a-lie-d869212b1f62
Archive of above source with no paywall https://archive.is/K7gMN
It’s like no one understands Opsec anymore. “Here’s a detailed list of likely things this Special Operations Team will likely be expected to undertake in the event of armed conflict. And they’ve been training as such for over a year.”
Though a Cruise Missile at the 3GD as soon as hostilities begin would essentially neutralize a significant portion of Chinese Industry and the Economy. For months if not years. And trigger a humanitarian crisis that would make the clusterfuck that was Helene look minor. As there’s something like 400 Million people at a conservative estimate downstream from the Damn and a few Dozen major urban and industrial centers. Not to mention likely catch more than one Military Unit either in their barracks or on the Road as they’d be in the process of redeploying and shifting around.
It would most certainly be classified as a War Crime though by any but the most ardent of pragmatists and War Hawks though. As the death toll of non-combatants would almost certainly be staggering to put it mildly.
Alternatively. And likely at a far lesser cost to the Civilian Population. Dump a few pallets of Semiautomatic Rifles. Ammunition. Maybe a few RPGs for anti-tank duty. And maybe some Spec Ops instructors. And the CCP would likely be dealing with Rebels in short order. They’re already having issues with exercising control over some of the more rural Villages and Towns. Not to mention some cities. Give them weapons and the know how. They could cause all hell across the interior and redirect Chinese troops to internal police duty.
Indeed. At this point I’m increasingly convinced one of the biggest internal threats to this country and to a lesser extent the West in General is ultimately Liberal Feminist White Women.
As 9 times out of 10 it seems like they are the primary people or Primary Puppets. Depending on how you wish to define things. Behind the overwhelming majority of DEI and Woke crap. And the primary spearhead behind attacking Men’s spaces. Academic and Stem programs specifically meant for Men. And just Men in general.
Huh. We had a local school due to the same thing.
They almost immediately got sued for discriminating against Women. And the club shut down.
Archived page with no paywall for those interested
Many Organized Media outlets. Both Mainstream and otherwise aren’t doing particularly well. So it’s not overly shocking they’d start locking stories behind a subscription model.
Venture Capital and excess investing that fueled a “Free” internet are drying up. Leading to more and more companies adopting subscription models in some form to keep the lights on.
That and any dude in their basement can start a “News” site now. So Media and Journalism are the first sites to really feel that pinch.
Probably a mix of prevailing messaging and advertising. And Social Contagion. Combined with a growing and relatively unchecked Mental Health Crisis. Particularly affecting the young and those on the younger side of middle-aged.
So not MK shit in that people are being dosed with a metric fuckload of LSD. And other shit. More just manipulation of an increasingly vulnerable population. Which I suppose you could label MK shit. But frankly people are applying labels like that way too broadly imo. To the point where it’s diluting the original meaning behind the term.
Allegedly rumored to have been seen destroying electronics prior to. Nothing confirmed though
Can we get Ford to update the Crown Vic or the Mercury Grand Marquis?
Those two were the work horses of countless American Police Departments for years
But yeah. The Teslas could probably work for community outreach/D.A.R.E programs. Things that ordinarily are of minimal risk to Officers and the general public.
But actual Police work no sir. They try and pit a car and the damn thing can be bound for the scrap heap if the Battery is fucked. One of the old crown Vic’s. Or even the newer SUVs and assorted Interceptors can be right as rain after some Bodywork. And maybe a couple replacement parts.
They plan on keeping the B-52 around into the 2050s and They’ll be retiring the B1 and B2 in the early 2030s. Meanwhile the BUFF will still be chugging along. Having outlived its replacement. And its replacements replacement.
Though I really wouldn’t put it past them to retrofit them again in like 2040 to extend the service life till 2100.
Much like how one of the first guns that’ll probably get strapped to the first Space Marine dropships will be the Browning 50.