My understanding is that the drill is fixtured in position in procedures as delicate as this, so that it really can’t move and drill anywhere except where it needs to. Likely why Dad thought (wrongly) that it was harmless.
It does not take much effort to throw some 3rd party troll farm a few dimes a post.
One, it does give some room to dismiss accusations, even if just rhetorically.
Two, when you are able to coerce your subjects to say the sky is green, the sun sets in the East, and Dear Leader won the election, its an exercise of power over them. It feeds the ego and it becomes a litmus test for the disloyal.
Understand that some or most of the key posters there are literally pawns of Russian or Chinese intelligence. Troll farms, wumao, what have you. Whether they are literally government employees or contracted through a third party, their purpose is to astroturf positive optics of their employer and negative optics of the US/the West as a whole. A more sinister interpretation, they are trying to destabilize the West by doing things like trashing Biden, now Harris, hoping to secure a chaotic and inwardly destructive Trump presidency.
Anything they say is to service these goals, anything they believe is mutable to these goals, and nothing they argue is in good faith.
It probably was fake. I’d imagine the people who are selected for these assignments are borderline or complete sociopaths who don’t have problems putting their mission above their entanglements.
If these kids are old enough to have any sense they aught to flee the first chance they get.
As an American I think that would all be reasonable…if the official US position was that Mexico has no right to exist, the Mexican people should be forcibly integrated into our society as 2nd class citizens, and the US Army was in the process of a “peacekeeping operation” in Mexico to carry all this out.
For all our flaws, we respect the borders of our neighbors and don’t have irridentist aspirations that belong in the 19th century. Russia is the aggressor here, and they have demonstrated that they have little interest in global peace or human rights, only increasing their sphere of influence.
Continually rolling over for thugs because it’s what avoids nuclear conflict will only lead to a global order based on thuggery, and it likely won’t even avoid nuclear conflict in the end.
And conservative voters see any measure to tackle this issue, no matter how benign, as “weak liberal nonsense” and “a waste of time” that cheapens our fighting ability. Of course I’m sure their hearts are set on what’s best for our military, and not that they’re sexist, racist abusers who don’t want their sexist, racist abuse to be challenged.
This issue goes back at least as far as living memory for the US. We were particularly vicious to German women at the end of WWII. GI’s having illegitimate children with local women in Asia during our multiple wars there was so common it’s basically a trope.
I’ve thought about this a lot. I think its more the sheer oversaturation of “culture” than it is a true lack of imagination. People alive today consume exponentially greater amounts of “culture” (for the broadest term possible) than anyone ever before, and it’s not even close.
When tech enables you to experience a movie or a video game or a performer 30 years after the death of everyone involved, in essentially the same fidelity as the day it debuted, “old culture” has a much harder time making way for “new culture.” If Star Wars exists, why care about Rebel Moon or whatever that movie was called?
I think the public consciousness can only maintain cognizance and interest in so much, but at the same time creatives are constantly adding to the Culture Pile. But the more tech enables us to hold on to our past, it becomes more and more difficult to move on, and the majority of new stuff goes unwanted and unappreciated. And so the mass market dives into keeping the old alive with reboots, remakes, remasters, and now AI recreations, because that’s what people respond to.
They wanted to impede the soft power of China in the region. It does make sense in a realpolitik kind of way, but someone with a fucking conscience in the command chain should have stopped this.
The only thing Bethesda is motivated to do, frothing, absolutely chomping at the bit, is figure out a way to successfully monetize modded content.
No, they absolutely used it as a ground-attack incendiary and have admitted as such. They were not flushed out by being illuminated, they were flushed out with choking smoke and burning shit raining down on their positions.
Even if they did only use illumination flares, there are considerations against using them in civilian areas in ways that can start fires or otherwise cause injury to civilians.
The legal issue is moot because the US was not an adherent to these laws until 2009.
The US used the same weapons in Fallujah and likely elsewhere. They called it “shake and bake” when they first fired WP artillery to draw enemy fighters out, then followed up with conventional artillery to kill them.
Nobody can hold the US accountable, so they’re not going to hold their rabid dog accountable either.
Even back then, once the public support died down a bit they just had the NYPD bulldoze the whole thing. Since then the police have only gotten more brazenly violent against protests that are not in the establishment’s interests.
Shit will get “wild” when instead of picket signs and bullhorns, people start bringing rifles and pipe bombs. Otherwise the outcome of any meaningful protest will be the same no matter how many people show up: an unforgiving police crackdown.
Imagine ripping off the fucking US Army for…9mm handguns.
And naturally it’s a reverse-engineered BD Spot, likely even down to the software. Why put money into R&D when your adversaries do it for you?
This is hardly the only sketch thing AK Guy has done, and certainly not the worst.
I think that honor goes to inviting Kyle Rittenhouse on for a video.
A lot of the pilgrims were the fundamentalist crazies that Europe didn’t want, and the towns they founded had laws like this and more.
AI’s most successful accomplishment is going to be its ability to parse the astronomical amounts of personal data corporations and governments have been collecting for the last 20 years. Enshittification and the identification, surveillance, and targeting of dissidents.
Or they just keep quiet and lie and do whatever they want. Hard to prove guilt in the sticks if there isn’t a game warden nearby.
Here’s an anecdote from an American outdoors industry leader where he admits he doesn’t give a shit about conservation laws and admits to seeking out and killing at least one bear, against the advice of fish and wildlife, because he deemed it to be dangerous. https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=108