Israel wants to completely destroy Iran so than no one would be willing to in any way challenge its occupation of Palestine, nor its ambition to expand into Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and beyond.
Then there's an element of extremist Christian ideology from Pete H. etc.
Hormuz has little to do with it, it's just an excuse to destroy Iran.
Trump has been convinced that the Iranians are after him, plus there's the Epstein kompromat that the Israelis have on him. He's the only US president compromised enough to destroy Iran for them, war crimes and all.
I don't know about progressives specifically, but I don't think 'cannot empathize with their opponents at all' is what articles like this are doing. It's more that the more people like Alex Karp talk the more they prove that their morality is something which should be opposed by the general public. IMO the more Palantir talks the better.
I can only guess but I'd think maybe it's more for playing out scenarios i.e. in such and such situation, if x, y and z are true on the ground, how would you expect this to play out, while playing with x, y, z and then maybe working to get x, y, z as close to be what we roleplayed on the ground before going in, rather than an exact 'how to'.
I perhaps get where the author is coming from at a very surface level, but the US is acting like a drunk Culture where the Minds face credible accusations of all sorts of abuse, are named something like 'I Got Small Dick, Wannu Make Everyone Think Is Big', have no goal beyond self-enrichment and ships that dump their human passengers into empty space with the promise that if they somehow survive the next time they come onboard, everything is going to be even more BIG, GREAT and BEAUTIFUL!
This behavior predates Trump. He's just an accelerationist of where this sort of behavior was always bound to go.
But he does perfectly demonstrate that you can't have operational efficiency if you're ignorant about your enemies because you're being advised by religious fanatics, if your goals are constantly shifting and your motives are purely selfish.
> This behavior predates Trump. He's just an accelerationist of where this sort of behavior was always bound to go.
Idk if I agree with this. First off, your initial verbiage is distinctly Trumpian. Second, I think Trump, like Hitler, activates latent sentiments that are largely kept at bay with "normal" post-WWII world leader politics. I think it's anomalous and once we get out of it things will normalize.
But really, my main point was that the politics and the "whys" of these decisions (capture Maduro, bomb Iran) are outside the scope of the article. It assumes that the decisions have been made and is looking only at the impact of specific technology on the operational outcomes.
It seems like a lot of the commenters are responding as if the article is making the point that "the US is like the Culture" but it's much more narrow and specific than that.
Yeah, I emotionally disagreed with this article, because I like the Culture, mostly.
That being said, it's possible that AI is helping here.
Mind you, given the sycophancy of current models, it's also possible that commanders are making worse decisions based on the results of these AI outputs.
Finally, if the US manage to get what they want without completely destroying the balance of power in the Middle East or sending oil to 150 a barrel, then I'd be much more likely to accept the authors speculation.
I think it's safe to say that whatever products the military is using are vastly different from what's available to and designed for everyday consumers. DARPA may be past its heyday and certainly the private sector has caught up in a lot of ways but I don't doubt for a second that they have been investing heavily in weaponizing AI for some time.
> It seems like a lot of the commenters are responding as if the article is making the point that "the US is like the Culture" but it's much more narrow and specific than that.
Right, however that narrow point of essentially (overwhelming) technological superiority and 'efficiency' can be made using a very large number of science fiction. The Culture explores specific themes that make it what it is.
If you completely dismiss them, I am not sure you are left with even a whiff of Iain Banks' Culture.
And to be clear, the point I am specifically making is that a lot of what the US is currently doing is not exactly rational, or even a supper efficient way to achieve their stated goals and a lot of it seems to be made up as they go along.
One thing Apple seems to do very well compared to other vendors is make all their hardware available in all markets on release. Companies like Dell, Asus, Lenovo, they have a confusingly large array of models, and they never release the best ones worldwide, or it takes so long to get to New Zealand that I already gave up and bought an Apple computer instead.
I, too, am a dinosaur, but touchscreens on removable screens/tablets are the way to go!
My friend, just imagine: Slide screen out of laptop, it's a standalone tablet. Connect some wires to it and you have an oscilloscope. Do some diag. Connect USB buses to it, and read some codes. Carry it around in your garage and take photos of your stuff, the images get recognized by AI and you've updated your garage inventory, it's uploaded to your Homebox running on a mac mini in a shelf somewhere. It has a built in cellular and you can be out in a park taking a picture of a baby owl, mark it with GPS, upload.
When you are done roaming the world loading in data and snapping pics, sit back down, connect the tablet to a keyboard, or even a thunderbird cable for your external display and peripherals, and write up some code or a report. Then in the evening, go play some games, all on the same computer.
You might want to actually click the links and spent a couple of minutes before typing comments. This is not a laptop with a touch screen - it's a tablet with a kickstand and detachable keyboard.
That's just a broken, compromised Windows laptop. A true "master of nothing" device. Windows is a miserable tablet OS and a tablet that uses a kickstand makes it a pain to use in desktop mode.
I accidentally got a pair of ThinkPads that happened to have touch screens, and I absolutely love the touch screen, often it's easier than the touchpad or keyboard nub.
Then there's an element of extremist Christian ideology from Pete H. etc.
Hormuz has little to do with it, it's just an excuse to destroy Iran.
Trump has been convinced that the Iranians are after him, plus there's the Epstein kompromat that the Israelis have on him. He's the only US president compromised enough to destroy Iran for them, war crimes and all.
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