Lord Ratner
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Posts posted by Lord Ratner
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1 hour ago, HeloDude said:
“Starved of the weaponry”? Is Ukraine trying to produce their own weapons that the rest of the world is keeping them from producing? Or is Ukraine trying to purchase weapons from the rest of the world, with the rest of the world saying they will not sell?
This is the same argument I’ve heard that goes something like this: “If you stop giving welfare to X people then you’re starving them”.
If you establish that you are going to feed someone, then stop feeding them without sufficient time or opportunity to feed themselves, then yes, you are starving them. You can argue whether you should have fed them in the first place, but once you establish a relationship, what you do in that relationship matters.
We could have let them fend for themselves from the beginning, but we didn't. Maybe we should have, though I disagree. Doesn't matter, we did. And you now have to operate from that reality.
For everyone calling for a negotiated settlement, that's not going to happen unless Russia has something to lose by refusing. And that's not going to happen without a re-armed Ukraine. I agree with all of the complaints about a feckless administration with no strategy and no goals. That's the hand we've been dealt.
12 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:do you honestly think ukraine could defeat russia on the battlefield with unlimited weaponry?
The North Vietnamese couldn't defeat us with unlimited weaponry. They didn't need to. This is unidimensional thinking.
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1 hour ago, BashiChuni said:
they have not been starved of the weaponry.
you could give ukraine 600b and it wouldn't matter. it's a numbers game. russia has far more men to fight ukraine.
and the russian industrial base is ramping up to full speed. russian army is 15% larger now than when the war began. some of you guys need to brush up on your history about how the russian bear conducts war.
let me repeat: there is ZERO chance ukraine will win this war. it's a losing proposition. what we SHOULD be doing is working towards a negotiated settlement.
Sure they have. Artillery is how this war is being fought, and they are out of shells. We are the resupply. Obviously there's a debate over whether we should, but we made Ukraine our proxy in this war, and now we are withholding.
I've said it many, many times before, I don't care what their odds are if they want to fight. And for now, they still do. So arm them up.
I'm a big fan of the negotiated settlement, but neither Russia nor Ukraine seems interested at the moment. And Russia will not be interested until we resupply Ukraine, at which point they may find a newfound interest in peace.
Actually that's another paradox in your reasoning. We should be negotiating a settlement, but not give any motivation to Russia to settle.
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1 hour ago, BashiChuni said:
i'm seeing a familiar trend of the west focusing on small tactical victories and missing the major strategic loss. great they shot down a bomber.
but that won't prevent them from losing the war.
it's amazing that such professionally educated officers can't grasp ukraine is losing. badly. and they have zero chance of beating russia.
This is an ironic thing to say considering they have been starved of the weaponry required to fight. If I were a bit more cynical I would say you are being intentionally disingenuous.
We shouldn't be sending them money or weapons!
*We stop sending them money and weapons.*
See!? They are losing, so there's no point in sending the money or weaponry!
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There are dozens of obvious reasons why they want Biden in the chair. You have to be mentally handicapped to think otherwise, especially considering many of the leaders of these organizations are quite vocal about the topic.
Arguing that they are secretly pulling the strings of the entire government is another issue entirely.
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18 minutes ago, Swizzle said:
Meh, Big Sky/Space theory...what could go wrong!?
(/s) Also, do TBMs or ICBMs have ADS-B out? Or just in? Or not supposed to at all but it got included because that military didn't pay to remove that feature? (/s)
"ICBM69, Miami center, leaving my airspace, change squawk now 3422 and contact Jacksonville center on 132.2."
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7 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:
I will buy Ken a drink wherever I meet him for the rest of my life 😂🤣
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30 minutes ago, Biff_T said:
But my wife doesn't know how small 4 inches is on a measuring tape.
Don't worry, they learn how to read once they hit elementary school.
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10 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:
That video was wild.
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2 hours ago, HeloDude said:
So you want us to no longer trade with China?
Another inevitability. The move to "re-shore" some critical manufacturing capabilities is the only good news these days.
The sooner the better. Trading with China was the biggest mistake of the post-WWII era. We could have pulled the entirety of Latin America into the modern world, instead we funded the buildup of our biggest geopolitical adversary, and got an immigration crisis as a bonus.
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4 hours ago, busdriver said:
If I'm missing any of your point above, apologies.
No worries, internetting is fraught with communication errors. Let's try anyways.
4 hours ago, busdriver said:Nothing is 100%, granted. But an actual war with Russia would be clubbing baby seals level, and an actual existential threat to "the Russian empire". I think the chance Russia tosses nukes is extremely high. Whether we throw them back is another question, but quite frankly irrelevant since Russian nukes are what will kill Americans.
"War with Russia" is a bit vague. We can have an entire war with Russia within the borders of Ukraine. That's very different than marching on Moscow, with very different responses from Russia. We try to occupy Russia, yeah, nukes go from "probably not" to "possibly."
4 hours ago, busdriver said:You seem convinced of the fourth turning. I am not. Without going into that, I don't think America is in decline let alone circling the drain. The next 10-20 years will see massive growth. But I suspect there is zero chance we'll see eye to eye on this one at all.
Definitely not circling the drain, or declining to ruin. We've been through 3 turnings already. We emerge stronger each time. I think you misunderstand the theory.
4 hours ago, busdriver said:I am not talking about appeasement at all, sending money and equipment to keep Ukraine armed and killing Russians and breaking their shit is good. Complete economic isolation, not just sanctions. Anyone that trades with them, isolation. Etc.
I agree with this, however I believe that complete economic isolation will absolutely provoke a Russian response we can't ignore, and thus, escalate. The oil embargo on Japan is a good corollary.
4 hours ago, busdriver said:I am saying a military solution now is the jumping to the worst conclusion, one that we have historical precedent at avoiding. The entire cold war was fought via proxy and economics. It was not appeasement.
We agree on a lot, so I probably had you confused with some other argument on this board. I don't think it's time for American troops to kill Russians. But I absolutely do support Americans killing Russians in Ukraine if it looks like Russia is moving to occupy the entire country. A march on Kiev would be the red line.
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7 hours ago, tac airlifter said:
You think a Russian invasion of NATO is so likely that you’re willing to start war preemptively?
You have to define "start a war." I'm happy to keep dumping weapons, intel, and training on the Ukrainians to keep up the fight. And if The Russians start pushing towards Kiev, then I would be fine if western forces began supporting with airstrikes and other direct support within the borders of Ukraine. A lot of this simply boils down to my belief that what is happening is morally wrong, sovereignty matters, and letting weaker nations fall because of isolationist fears never ends well.
7 hours ago, tac airlifter said:What evidence do you have that:
1. Russia would invade a NATO ally
What evidence do you have that they won't? Doesn't matter. You don't get to "take" sovereign countries. Controlling Ukraine gives Russia a massive strategic advantage if they do invade other countries. So now we have two reasons to stop them.
7 hours ago, tac airlifter said:2. US people support preemptive war, including a possible nuclear exchange, because of something that might happen
I haven't argued for preemptive war. But I agree with some conservatives that continued support of Ukraine, even without direct involvement, will eventually "provoke" Russia into more belligerent action that draws us into a fight. So be it. That still won't be us "starting it," regardless of how much standard political maneuvering existed before the invasion.
7 hours ago, tac airlifter said:3. We could win
Any doubt was extinguished when Russia failed to take Ukraine in 2022. Are we seriously thinking otherwise? I have no interest in occupying Russia, so if you are referring to a land invasion then sure, that would be long, painful, and ugly. But beat them in a war to defend the currently established borders? Please.
7 hours ago, tac airlifter said:Asserting the uncertain as inevitable is the logical fallacy which led us into Iraq circa 2003. In that case, our grasp of the facts and read on Saddam himself was completely wrong; it turned out we were fed BS by liars with an agenda (Curveball among others). If we could do that over again knowing what we now know, none of us would choose to have invaded Iraq. You’re smart, you see where I’m going with the comparison.
We beat the shit out of Iraq, and then the politicians fucked it all up. And yeah, we shouldn't have gone in the first place. But there's not a great comparison. Now, if you are arguing that we shouldn't have kicked Iraq's ass in the early 90's and saved Kuwait... yeah I just can't get on board with "let it all burn." We tried that with Germany and it wasn't great. Limited goals are the key to military success.
7 hours ago, tac airlifter said:And the potential for a nuclear exchange should absolutely change the calculus, holy shit we’re talking about the possibility our cities get incinerated! We need convincing answers to my 3 questions above or it would be wildly irresponsible to escalate preemptively.
Defending a sovereign nation is not escalating. End.
Nukes have been hanging over the world for almost a century but it keeps spinning. It's a pointless paradox:
If Russia is willing to use nukes because their attempt to steal another country is failing, then have to accept that they can take whatever countries they want because we avoid nuclear war at all costs.
Why does the calculus change for Latvia? Are you really telling me you're more comfortable with nuclear war because Latvia is in NATO? Who the fuck is Latvia?
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50 minutes ago, busdriver said:
But starting the war that will result in a nuclear exchange just to get it over with is dumb.
Another area we disagree. The longer we wait, the weaker we will be for the actual fight. As our weak governance racks up increasingly absurd debt, the pressure to divert military spending to welfare programs will only grow. The longer we wait, the fewer war fighting experts we will have coupled with less and less modern military equipment to fight with. I still think we win based on geography and natural resources, but it'll cost more lives and treasure to wait.
Whether or not there is a nuclear exchange, which is not nearly as certain as you propose, does not change the calculus. Will we be better capable of fighting Russia today, or after another 10-20 years of peaceful decline?
I'll be honest. I don't care about you. Or me. I want what is best for my kids. I am not interested in adding WWIII to the list of hardships we are pushing off to the future.
Appeasement does not work. History is clear on this point, and that's exactly what you are proposing.
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7 hours ago, busdriver said:
At the end of the day, yes. They aren't NATO. This was always about making Russia bleed to take Ukraine, and destroy as much of their shit as possible in the process.
This is the spark that will re-arm Europe, and the wall will go back up. This war will be fought economically. Hopefully.
I really really hope. Because all the politicians are in fact stupid children.
EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm saying sending western troops to fight for Ukraine is dumb. Sending more money/equipment is par for the course.
Also Moldovia is fucked too.
So, I'm glad you are at least honest about this. Thank you.
The reason I am against allowing Ukraine to be taken, under your logic, is because I believe that *if* they truly want to take Ukraine, they will not stop at non-NATO countries. Wouldn't make much sense strategically. We're better off just starting the damn war now if that's the case. Unless of course the plan is to let them weaken their military by taking Ukraine and Moldova, at which point we immediately go in an crush them. But I'm positive that's not the plan.
And to be clear, my primary reason for supporting Ukraine hasn't changed. Sovereignty matters, and a stable world order is not possible if it is not enforced. And here we are.
I agree, the right answer is money and equipment, which we are somehow screwing up. And if we are willing to fund the perpetual Ukrainian insurgency, maybe it stays that way after Kiev falls. But it seems like Republicans have forgotten why the world needs police, and why it's better to be the ones in charge.
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10 hours ago, ViperMan said:
Neither. Intelligence requires consciousness. It's nonsensical to call an abacus conscious.
The current "AI" iterations are not AGI, however they are closer to functioning like a human brain than we have ever gotten before. The irony here is that we didn't accomplish this by figuring out how the brain works, quite the opposite, we created an array of associations that is as mysterious to us as the individual neural pathways of a human brain is.
We know that the brain has a combination of biologically-arranged pathways (e.g. for walking, breathing, visual identification of faces, eye position, etc.) and experience-formed pathways (math, music, flying a plane). Right now the AI models crunch tons of mostly-unfiltered data into a model that we do not have the ability to directly adjust because of the sheer volume of parameters, then an overlay is used to do things like prevent swearing, giving directions for bomb making, etc. But this is in it's infancy. Once you can pre-program certain behaviors into the actual model, then leave the rest of the model to continuously adapt the weights based on new data, we will take another big step to AGI.
But since we have precisely 0% knowledge on what is or what causes consciousness, it is entirely possible that we reach a point where AGI is achieved simply by running the models with enough horsepower that we stumble into the solution. That is, incidentally, remarkably similar to how evolution works.
Are humans the only animals that are conscious? What about dolphins, octopi, crows, or chimps? If not, does that mean there is no intelligence other than human intelligence? That seems like an arbitrary definition. Where is the line, and how smart does a computer need to be before it is considered intelligent? Smarter than all humans, or just smarter than any human? Do people born with Down Syndrome have consciousness? What if an AI surpasses the intellectual ability of someone with DS?
Calling even the current models an "abacus" is like calling the human brain a glutamate sensor. Sure, it's kind of true, but it's the scale of the apparatus that makes it interesting.
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3 hours ago, herkbier said:
@ClearedHot What did you end up going with?
My requirements are pretty minimal.. was thinking of just going with their cheapest single bay and a reasonable hard drive. Mostly just want to backup family photos and videos, organize and manage them, view/distribute as necessary.
I would have said I am technically inclined.. but those penguins have long ago jumped off the iceberg. Synology definitely looks user friendly.
Being able to expand and store home security footage in the future would be nice too. But maybe that needs to be a whole separate system?
You want at least 2 drives for redundancy. Tons of 2-bay options.
No need for separate systems. Backup and storage are mostly-idle processes, so adding security recording won't tax the system. If you start running multiple services that simultaneously access the hard drives, that's where you start getting into more advanced requirements.
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I will start by saying that I hate that news outlets are using the term "Russian friendly Republicans."
I do not believe the Republicans against this funding are necessarily Russian friendly. I do however believe they are idiots.
Not a single one of them seems willing to answer a simple question. What do we do if Russia marches on Kiev? The argument before was that Russia was just taking historically Russian territory in East Ukraine with a majority Russian population. But now that Russia is advancing, and making some moves towards Kiev, he's the new position that Russia should be allowed to annex the entire country?
We have a group of phenomenally stupid legislators on both sides, and it now appears increasingly likely that we are in fact going to go to war. Would have been cheaper to just send them the money.
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40 minutes ago, Standby said:
Inspired by @Lord Ratnerpost about Udio…
“San Francisco Turned Me Gay” by Jag. This AI masterpiece had me actually laughing out loud.
Incredible!
Before, I don't think this is going to make the world a better place or be particularly lucrative, but the world of parody music just got a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart.
And of course every graduation video from here on out is going to have a customized audio track. "Good Riddance" by Green Day may have just lost it's biggest market.
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2 minutes ago, Danger41 said:
Your description of a a "hyper sophisticated search engine" is very accurate. I've worked on a bunch of AI things and the annoying part about AI is the assurance that people think it will get to "general" artificial intelligence because it's growing so fast. It's very similar to saying we'll have time travel in the next 10 years because tech is changing so fast.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674278660 - "The Myth of Artificial Intelligence" is a good read to understand this subject.
Yup. There's some interesting discussion about using the "holes" in the weights to use AI to discover new things. Basically, the AI uses data to find the most common connections and build answers based on those weights. Reverse it and you can find "answers" that are the opposite... the least common connections. Problem is, how do you filter good things from an infinite supply of "wrong" answers?
Anyways, using Udio I finished a full-length song that I think is better than most country music produced today. Enjoy!
Crumbs and Chrome Hearts
https://www.udio.com/songs/5g1enYTaTmMCYMbrAxzDVi -
It's getting a bit difficult to keep up with The many new manifestations of artificial intelligence, but if you do there's a new one out for open testing that is fairly astonishing, if or nothing else than for the simplicity of producing something functional.
The service is called Udio, and right now you can make a whole bunch of 30-second clips just to play around with the technology. Here is a song clip I created with my standard AI testing subject: a dinosaur that falls in love with a toaster.
https://www.udio.com/songs/hveSQTSVkKQ5NnfCUx5Q2s
However as I was playing around with this thing, and based on the market action over the past couple years, I'm coming to the conclusion that AI is going to have big and profound social effects on the world (fake news will have a whole new meaning), but I don't think it's going to be the economic game changer everybody is making it out to be, and I think the Nvidia stock is going to be the poster child of this frenzied bubble. That's not to say I think Nvidia is going anywhere, I just think they're going to be the next Cisco of the early dot com bust.
This technology is amazing, but even before we get into the inevitable landscape of government regulation, it just doesn't seem to me that it will be capable of creating something new, which is ultimately what produces generational leaps forward in wealth. What we have right now is a hyper sophisticated search engine that can output the results in a wide range of multimodal formats.
Anyways, if you have some time put together some songs and share them here, and if people are interested this thread can be a repository for the many different types of AI products that are at least amusing, if not particularly useful.
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5 hours ago, FourFans said:
Interesting. No offense to you personally, but I have never, and will never trust a single word concerning real world level details I I hear from any staff...because I worked on multiple staffs. As of 2020, the line guys doing sim cert for the C-130J sims at both LRF and BIX disagree with your assessment, seeing it's was possible to gain and maintain currency in the sim. Granted, that USAF checking USAF and the FAA doesn't care. However that was backed up by the FSDO at both Little Rock and Birmingham as I asked them that exact question in person. However, I don't doubt that that they could have been wrong. I've met more than one federal staff expert who knew nothing about C-130J stuff while being responsible for C-130J stuff. Is your work AMC wide or specific to an airframe?
Beyond that, I completed and passed eight airline interviews from 2019 to 2021. Sims and sim training came up in three of them and I asked the exact question about sim time counting, and one guy told me that if he saw nothing about sim time in a logbook he saw it as a sign the applicant was either fibbing or lazy. The other guy in that interview agreed and acted as though the other guy had just given away a secret. That's where I come up with my 'log your sim time' advice. It ain't total time, but it is training.
It is what it is, but C-130J sims are currently still the best I've ever flow, and I got a different type rating in one FAR worst while training at MIA.
I reserve the right to be corrected. What exactly do you do on staff concerning simcert?
I have never heard that Air Force Sims have equivalency, unless those Sims are not actually part of the Air Force.
But I also think we are getting off on different paths here. Logging your sim time as sim time is one thing. That's literally what it is. Counting it towards your hours for the purposes of qualifications is an entirely different issue.
I have never heard anyone say that Air Force simulators count towards flight hour qualifications, for example, an ATP.
Also at American Airlines they did absolutely nothing with my hours. Are you military? Are you breathing? You're hired. I made a single cover sheet with a summary of hours, and handed that over with my Air Force records. I let them do the rest.
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43 minutes ago, Biff_T said:
We need to bus our national leaders to a concentration camp.
You ever seen Joe Biden reading a teleprompter? Can't concentrate more than that...
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11 hours ago, FourFans said:
Sad part is that if we decided to take the non-nuclear gloves off, the US could shut the ayatollahs down permanently in about a week and let the Persians have their country back.
No way. We'll just end up with a bunch of complaints about the Israeli failure to do more for the Iranian civilians.
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2 hours ago, herkbier said:
It counts for nothing
Yep. Don't include it in any of your calculations. On the flip side, the airlines are well aware of what resources military pilots have, and they will adjust their requirements based on what they see your history is. Like I said, just get as many real flying hours as you can between now and getting out. As long as the economy holds out, you won't have a hard time getting an offer.
World War III Updates
in General Discussion
Posted
Right, you know, except for the whole invasion of Ukraine thing. I wonder if there are any other "historically Russian" parts of Europe...
Definitely doesn't compare to Hitler targeting historically German parts of Europe for "reunification."