FLEA

Forget Delta or United. Here's your future boys😱 https://nypost.com/2022/06/27/inside-giant-flying-luxury-hotel-that-can-stay-in-the-air-for-years/

There's a lot of "explanation" out there for the 90s crime drop. I'm not going to dive into the abortion debate but in short people have said it's everything from the reduction of led on the atmosphere after led gasoline was banned to the expiration of the assault weapons ban. Point is, noone really know what caused the 90s crime drop, but people sure do love to target it for political purposes.

Maybe their plan is he will eat all of the Ukranians food and try to starve them all? Does Putin even know this guy is on his side? He may be pissed Putin lost McDonalds for Russia.

That's a lot for us man, and many of us escaped an unfortunate fate by going to the military. The fact is though, for 99% of millinneals the traditional career plan didn't work. You simply can't build a career with jobs that don't exist and when the only thing the labor market can offer is entry level positions for a decade that causes a problem. We can't even say they could have just joined the military because between 2008 and 2012 or so we were kicking people out left and right for shit as small as failing a PT test. I remember half the class that graduated the year after me was told they wouldn't have enough AD billets and they needed to find guard/reserve jobs or lose their commission. Many successfully went on to find other paths but not everyone can be a small business owner either. A town only needs so many McDonalds franchises, so many coffee shops, so many laundry mats, whatever.... Not to mention having nothing for a small business investment and a complete inability to get a small business loan due to the lack of collateral. We can't expect everyone to be the next shark tank discovery with some awesome phone app that can bring billions. Don't look at these people as quitters, but try and have some empathy that they graduated college with the same ambition and excitement you did only to be let down their 5th year at Chipotle because the associate manager position still wasn't open and that was literally the best they could do as far as job market goes. I don't find our peers are entitled. I don't think they believe the world owes them anything. Rather, it appears more me the other way around. They don't believe they owe the world anything. Their time, their efforts, their labor, their skills, their son's birthday, their holiday weekend, whatever..... And actually, they are right. We don't owe the world crap, because life between society and workers is very much a transactional relationship. Some of us don't care and we will go forth and put forward our best efforts anyway. It has paid off to some extent. Others tried this only to fall flat for decades. We can all day success is about continuing to try but there is a very unfortunate reality that you only have about 40 working years. What happens if you fail all 40? I would use to think that was impossible but we have tons of people now that have fallen flat for 10-15..... They will really only start their careers at 35. You hit peak earning potential at 45 (meaning your career trajectory is more or less set and vertical movement isn't impossible but much harder), and only having 25 years to build a retirement. What's that going to look like? Is retirement event tenable? Regarding student loans, I'm similarly unhappy I paid all of mine off. I also never got PLSF because I never knew I needed to be on an income based repayment plan. I did standard repayment so I'd finish them quicker. I agree there is a salt to paying them off only to have other people get the equivalent of a $50K gift or whatever. I would be more forgiving with targeted forgiveness that looked at say 5 years of earnings and paid less the longer you were out of school. By the way, if anyone reading this does have student loans, you should know there is an executive order in effect until October that allows you to get back credit toward PSLF for all payments you've made as long as you convert to the correct loan type by the end of this Fiscal Year.

Also lots of people don't realize things like gender studies degrees are pulling six figures now as fortune 500s try to sweep up every advocate they can for their D&I initiatives to prevent another C-suiter from being front page times for sexual impropriety. Or that philosophy majors with tech knowledge are going on to be AI ethicist that are documenting the moral boundaries of next generation computing. Its difficult to classify a persons aptitude or value based solely on a degree. As it is, degrees aren't incredibly vocational and are more indicative of a person's problem solving technique and critical thinking capability than actual industry experience.

There was a huge culture shift I think when millennials had their "come to Jesus moment" following the 2008 recession and started to carve their own rules into society. You had an entire generation raised to believe they could do anything, be anything and mean something to the world. Then the 2008 financial collapse happened, most couldn't role into the corporate world, and there was this sudden realization that 99.99% of people in the world are cogs and nothing else. I think this was hard to swallow for a lot of my generation. It certainly was for me and I "made it." (House, cars, 6 figure job, etc...) This prompted a change in the idea of success. Generally companies want employees with high engagement and motivation. But younger people see this as a wasted effort. It's not going to make them the next CEO in an industry they don't really care much about, and when companies talk about high engagement all millennials here is worker exploitation and people willing to pull weekends and holidays without bonus pay. So for younger people they changed the work bargaining position to one with a higher emphasis on self, and work life balance. They only have one life, why should they slave it at a job they hate to make the next Jeff Bezos rich. Jeff Bezos really believes in a Utopia where everyone works in a circular service industry and production is completely mechanized. But that doesn't drive engagement with today's society. Driving delivery vans without piss breaks is not going to make people feel valued to society.

Not convincing myself of anything. And if I have said something that was taken by you to be so hurtful that you feel compelled to be this defensive than I'm truly sorry and I wish to re-baseline the professionalism. That said, I legitimately think you should reflect on your own vitriol which I've often felt was unfair and politically motivated as a means to uphold your points without a serious attempt to engage in a more meaningful or complex discussion.

I have no problem providing equipment and materiel resource. We are committed at this point and that can't change. For better or for worse, the security in Europe is permanently altered and changed, and the most likely outcome is over the next decade we recede into another Cold War as Russia and China push new multi national ties to collaborate power against the West. In fact since the invasion became imminent, proxy war is the strategy I've advocated and I've repeated that multiple times, seemingly ignored each time I say it. Our opportunity for diplomacy ended in January. What I object to is this idea that we can act wontonly and brazen under the misbelief that the US or NATO is some undefeatable military power and that people who disagree with our world view need to go or we will kick them off the planet. It's not reality. I can't keep the FSS open four Thursdays a month, HTF am I going to attend state power warfare. But I thought we had already moved passed this and largely agreed that proxy war with politically numbed accelerated contributions was the best strategy given the situation.

1.) I never said Putin wasn't in the wrong. I said he was working toward his country's interests. I've also said American holds some responsibility for aggression. That's a big difference. I don't like Putin, I don't particularly find him an admirable person and I generally detest dictators. Doesn't mean I don't think they can behave rationally which they often do to protect their power. Your inability to deduce nuance in this is telling. But I guess this is another "hoorah with us or against us freedom fries" issue for some isn't it? You think you're being absolutist pro American but all I see is people who are willing to squander limited national resources on foreign citizens instead of protecting the rights, security and interests of those at home. 2.) You're the one being hostile. I haven't been active here for quite sometime, deliberately allowing time and space for cooler heads; all I did was post highlights of a dudes bio. Somehow that deserves name calling? Self reflect.... Maybe you need to take a timeout. Instead of professionally approaching it and saying "I'll just take this at face value" you decide to read into it and sling insults.

Bro, I was called a simp for Putin. Get the f*** out of here with your non-sense and go reflect on your hypocrisy.

Has nothing to do with a $100K education. But people that do this often work in the circles of the NSC, lecture GOs, and advise. So they are privy to a lot of the higher level decision making complexes that frankly most won't see ever in a military career. Like any college education, it just gets you in the door. Experience is the real driver here, just like any job, and the fact of the matter is that most people in the military never work at the strategic level. However people who build their career in national security with education often publish books, get invited to panels, lecture higher level officials, work on think tanks, and otherwise big brain some of the nations problems. They often serve in temporary appointments to higher level billets, etc... There seems to be an inmate disdain for higher education in some circles of the AF. I get that there are some valid criticisms of the sector. Some schools carry strong political bias, academia abandoned the DoD after Vietnam, and education has often been inaccessible by many Americans due to cost. Everyone needs to build their own career path. You're certainly capable of getting there without education, but the road is going to be much less clear and attaining the requisite experience is going to be difficult. Regarding your logical assessment on the Baltic, I'll just offer you some thoughts to chew on, and maybe they can help you think of reasons Russia may not have targeted the Baltic states when they ascended. Is the terrain in the Baltic as strategically important as Ukraine to Russia? How does Kaliningrad change the situation of that strategy in the Baltics? When the Baltic states ascended was Russia capable of launching a war? Did they have the political will? Was there a possibility that a path for diplomacy was looked at first? What conversations with DC did the Kremlin have when the first states ascended? How did Russia react after that ascension? Statement? Hostilities? Etc... What was the effect of the first and second Chechnyan war on Russia's Calculus?

Yes. Political hypocrisy is a symptom of extremism and tells me someone isnt interested in a just, equal society, they are interested in exploiting those values to achieve their political utopia, which fundamentally, is a dystopia for many others. I don't necessarily uphold Ashley Babbit as a wonderful person. But just as we had to exercise ourself to see passed George Floyd's criminality to recognize him as a human being, we need to do the same thing with her. Justice is about ensuring just ends are met, even if they are ends that as a society make us uncomfortable.

Bro let's be clear what happened in the last 48 hours. Someone posted a video lecture but admitted they didn't know the bio of the dude. I took the time to look it up and posted some highlights. Im asked to defend said lecturers opinion by Prosuper. Not sure if he meant it personally or not, but I don't really feel the need to defend his opinion, he had a 2 hour lecture posted here of him doing that. If you disagree with it fine, go do your own lecture series. You come down my throat as a "Putin simp" because you house internal anger issues or whatever. Once again.... All I did was post a dudes bio. I haven't been active on this thread in a debating format in weeks.

Bro I'm willing to listen to any coherent argument you make but so far all you've done is call me a Putin simp. You're just acting like an asshole.

That's fine. As long as a country we agree that in every instance when an unarmed black person is killed for resisting arrest that they were playing a stupid game and won a stupid prize. I don't believe we really think that though.

No my friend. Your reading comprehension is poor. You butted on a conversation between two other people, myself and Prosuper, in which Prosuper asked about the Baltic states. You jumped into a fight without your prebrief and now you are frustrated you don't understand what's going on. Get lost.

I don't think I'm the only one. But when you ask "why didn't Russia do this with the Baltic states" that's a pretty clear knowledge gap. What's your answer to that question based off your literature review. If you cant answer it, then stfu. Because there are plenty of people that can.

You're welcome to express opinions but when you can't comprehend the nuance and complexity of geopolitical matters expect people who do to call you out. If you don't comprehend the chain of events from the ascension of the Balkins to the current situation in Ukraine, then yes, I'm going to trust the PhD's opinion over yours, while you go back and do some more reading on an area and geopolitical theater you clearly know little about. I saw this "keep simping for Russia" bullshit before. Except it was 2003, Freedom Fries were on the House dining menu, and the academically illiterate like yourself were accusing a huge proportion of the country that was critical of the assertion there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq of being simps for Saddam Hussein. Today those people all look like assholes. Consider that for a moment in context of your biased Russophobia. If your heart bleeds for Ukraine, fine. Absolutely noone stopping you from volunteering for their foreign legion. By all means go. I'm not stopping you and really don't care.

What does this have anything to do with the speakers background? If you disagree with him go get your PhD and write a dissertation on it. I look forward to reading it.

Wouldn't that have been a good move up for Sully after he finishes as Ambassador to ICAO. Also random question, is Ambassador to ICAO a DoS or DoT position.

He teaches at Harris, which is a pretty lofty credential considering something like half the faculty there are Nobel laureates in either peace, security or economics. He's also founded and written on some theories guiding great power conflict. On his wiki bio he was also a Westpoint graduate and Army officer. Honestly, I'm reading his wiki bio now and this dude has been in the international security circles quite deep. Edit: the real hero here though is the European dude at 2:03:00 who just shit talks the EU and NATO for like 5 minutes (and he's an EU employee lol).

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/buttigieg-power-force-airlines-workers-travel-delays Industry relevant and interesting. Discuss.....

We always used to do the great Ambien challenge while staying in Camp California at Manas. You pop your Ambien in the camp, then need to walk the 20 minutes down to the bar, chug your two "#9" beers, then cross the street to the Green Bean and get the strongest coffee you could, because the challenge wasn't over until you made it back to Camp California. Many tried, few survived.

Ive never understood this sentiment. You are essentially posting the millennial job paradox. LF: Experienced leader to be President of US. Must have 10 years experience running countries. Who are you going to find like that? A state is literally the next lowest executive echelon in the US. Like if you want someone with public service executive experience, a governor is literally your most qualified candidate.

Dude in our class easily broke the ice on day one for us when we were choosing flight roles. He self identified as not needing SOS DG and not particular gunning for it. When I went your class had to decide their own flight roles, including the flight lead which is usually a shoe in for DG if you don't screw it up. This was usually an awkward moment because noone wants to come off as someone who is not going to try but noone wants to come off as pushy or start conflict on the first day. Anyway, that sort of broke the tension in the room and everyone else admitted they weren't looking for DG either. Made the rest of the course either. That said, another approach is don't immediately look down on anyone who is gunning for DG. There are a lot of c*** blowers for sure but there are some people that are riding a glass tight rope in their home squadron and they are hoping something like a solid SOS performance might turn it around for them. If you have anyone like that, feel free to advocate for them taking the flight lead role so they have the opportunity and giving them chances to prove themselves.