Political Podcasts

[Lord Ratner]

Anyone listen to Dave Smith on Coleman Hughes' podcast? It's loonnnggg (3.5 hours), and I can't understand how Coleman can stand to play nice with one of the most dishonest "pundits" in media right now, but it was fascinating to hear how full of shit Smith is. 

 

Despite his ignorance, Smith is a pretty good example of why libertarianism is an unworkable political philosophy and is more of a starting point for American thought. 

 

There's definitely too many comedians parading around as political historians and analysts. 

[bfargin]

Coleman is a brilliant young thinker along the lines of a Victor Davis Hanson, Thomas Sowell, or William F Buckley type figure.

His podcasts never disappoint, even with a weak debate partner like Dave.

Edited October 6 by bfargin
English

[BFM this]

At the end of the day, they're all just grasping at a different part of the elephant.  Still blind.

If I hear Rogan say one more time that the Fire Department (public utility) is socialism (central planning the means of production) again...

[Lord Ratner]

Palmer Luckey on Rogan is pretty good. Hearing a defense contractor talk about designing weaponry that can be manufactured in an auto factory is refreshing. At the end of the next war I don't think the current defense giants will be on top anymore. How many F-22/35s are we going to crank out in the next global conflict?

Edited Friday at 10:11 PM by Lord Ratner

[uhhello]

6 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Palmer Luckey on Rogan is pretty good. Hearing a defense contractor talk about designing weaponry that can be manufactured in an auto factory is refreshing. At the end of the next war I don't think the current defense giants will be on top anymore. How many F-22/35s are we going to crank out in the next global conflict?

Don't listen much to Rogan anymore but this one is pretty good.  I had been reading about the Eagle Eye system prior to his appearance.  It's pretty cool but lots of questions obviously.  He's definitely on the right track of MORE for LESS (money and time)

[brabus]

22 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

How many F-22/35s are we going to crank out in the next global conflict?

 Not a lot. The simple problem is we’ve let “perfect” become the enemy of good (and industry is greedy as fuck and doesn’t give a shit about the country). The days of pumping out war materiel like WW2 will never return.

[Boomer6]

Eh, I have full confidence that these companies will be threatened into submission, or nationalized if democrats are in power.

[brabus]

17 minutes ago, Boomer6 said:

I have full confidence that these companies will be threatened into submission

Zero chance. If you get enough time in/around industry, you’ll understand. 

[Lord Ratner]

58 minutes ago, brabus said:

(and industry is greedy as fuck and doesn’t give a shit about the country)

This is the Crux of it. You either have to believe all of them are stupid, which is true for the majority but not the entirety of our executive and general officer class, or they just don't care.

 

The ugly reality is that the F22 is a completely useless airframe in a great conflict, purely by merit of its scarcity. And the F32 is most likely not far behind based on how difficult it would be to ramp up production.

 

And just like all the bankers during the great financial crisis, these "leaders" will skitter away into the shadows like the cockroaches they are, never to be held accountable, while dudes like Luckey end up being the secret ingredient to winning the next war. 

Edited yesterday at 05:05 PM by Lord Ratner

[Lord Ratner]

55 minutes ago, Boomer6 said:

Eh, I have full confidence that these companies will be threatened into submission, or nationalized if democrats are in power.

That's not really the issue though. I agree with you that they will do us they're told (and right now they are just being told to make money).

 

The issue is that what they produce is fundamentally unhelpful in a great war.

 

China will be in a better position to manufacture the precision components required to mass-produce F-35s. That's a result of companies like Apple funding both the industrial capabilities and the intellectual capabilities required. They can convert their existing infrastructure towards wartime production.

 

We can too, just not for the types of weaponry that we currently procure. 

 

One of the more fascinating things lucky pointed out was how China mandated all of the civilian Maritime assets be designed to military spec. So a ferry that is used to shuttle cars and semi trucks from Port to Port still has the ability to handle tanks. That type of foresight simply does not exist in America.

[Boomer6]

2 hours ago, brabus said:

Zero chance. If you get enough time in/around industry, you’ll understand. 

Can you explain? Are we talking defense CEOs refusing to do what the government asks of them during an existential crisis, or they won't be capable of doing what's asked because they lack the manufacturing capability/personnel etc., or something else?

[brabus]

- I’ll give them one thing before I bash them: current day tech is insanely more complicated than the 1940s. Our manufacturing advances are awesome, but somewhat “nullified” by how complicated our products are. So to even match 1940s manufacturing rates of current day tech is a pipe dream.

- Industry is very bureaucratic and moves slower than molasses. They suffer the same bloat as the gov. They would have to fire thousands of middle managers to start to even have a chance at actual efficiency. They would have to substantially overhaul their processes, from R&D to production. They would need to shelve a lot of attorneys - litigation and legalese adds years to the overall process. Basically, imagine how badly the fed gov needs to be gutted and apply the same level to industry. Example: there is a thing that I was working on in 2015 - it’s nearly 2026 and it’s still a thing, but it’s still not in production. 11 years, still nothing operational to show for it. And it’s a very important, needed thing. I’ve got many examples just like this one; this type of situation happens routinely - a “straighten up guys!” from the gov will not fix that malaise. We’re basically at a burn it all to the ground and rebuild state.

- The C-suite down to middle management  are driven solely by profit; there is no patriotism involved. This mindset is woven deep into everything the company does, including slimy contracting tactics that the fed gov seems too stupid to ever see. They’re not willing to lift a finger on a fix to their fuck up until max, additional profit is extracted. Contracts and processes are purposely dragged out to max profit (e.g. they know problems will arise from X, but they will purposely let it happen so they can achieve the aforementioned). It is criminal negligence at some points in my opinion; they’re basically stealing taxpayer dollars and not doing what they’re paid to do. The “worker bees” are patriots, they just don’t have any say. Could these upper guys be shaken awake and become patriots over profit? Sure, hopefully - but it is this problem that has built the monolithic beast they now have. It will take years to undo, and they’ll be the proverbial “a day late and a dollar short.”

- There are smaller, more agile companies (subs) that are decent at what they do, but they cannot overcome the above that the primes have. They don’t have the capital, size, etc. to be the solution.

Those are the highlights.

 

 

[Boomer6]

So when these companies are nationalized we just fire/kill their bobs and lawyers. Easy fix 🤌