Anduril Founder Luckey: Every Country Needs a 'Warrior Class' Excited To Enact 'Violence on Others in Pursuit of Good Aims' 268
Anduril founder Palmer Luckey advocated for a "warrior class" and autonomous weapons during a talk at Pepperdine University. The defense tech entrepreneur, known for his Hawaiian shirts and mullet, argued that societies need people "excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims."
Luckey revealed that Anduril supplied weapons to Ukraine two weeks into the Russian invasion, lamenting that earlier involvement could have made "a really big difference." He criticized Western hesitancy on AI development, claiming adversaries are waging a "shadow campaign" against it in the United Nations. Contradicting his co-founder's stance, Luckey endorsed fully autonomous weapons, comparing them favorably to indiscriminate landmines.
Luckey revealed that Anduril supplied weapons to Ukraine two weeks into the Russian invasion, lamenting that earlier involvement could have made "a really big difference." He criticized Western hesitancy on AI development, claiming adversaries are waging a "shadow campaign" against it in the United Nations. Contradicting his co-founder's stance, Luckey endorsed fully autonomous weapons, comparing them favorably to indiscriminate landmines.
For Every Swole Jeff Bezos (Score:4, Funny)
Re:For Every Swole Jeff Bezos (Score:5, Informative)
And you're saying these pale VR-besotted couch worms are this warrior caste?
I mean, yeah.
What are you imagining it would be? An ancient Greek hoplite phalanx, full of ripped dudes obsessed with honor, yet harbouring a gentle disposition for their family back home?
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No, I was thinking more of Brown Shirts.
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Considering position of women and children in Ancient Greek civilizations, "gentle disposition at home" is highly unlikely.
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Maybe this turning point was reached way back with artillery in WWI.
Re:For Every Swole Jeff Bezos (Score:5, Insightful)
They're Russian. They're invading someone else's country. Does it matter how they're killed?
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They're Russian. They're invading someone else's country. Does it matter how they're killed?
Yes, it does.
EVERY country? [Re:For Every Swole Jeff Bezos] (Score:3)
So, when he says "Every country needs a warrior class excited to enact violence on others..." he includes Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc. in the list of countries that need a warrior class? (You know that "pursuit of good aims" means whatever the dictator or the ayatollah or the imam says is good.)
Re:EVERY country? [Re:For Every Swole Jeff Bezos] (Score:4)
Ends justify the means, is what he's saying. Which is generally considered a bad philosophy. Because the "good" is incredibly subjective, and whether the good outweighs the bad that occured to get there is nonsensical math.
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Yes, who can forget when the US's dictator, who gained power by staging the bombing of apartment buildings and assassinating journalists and his foes, launched a series of war of conquest against Canada, flattened Canadian cities to the ground, kidnapped a bunch of Canadian children for reeducation, annexed one province after the next, used widespread torture to suppress dissent, and worked to ethnically cleanse Canadian English, Canadian culture, and Canadian identity from the face of the Earth.
Man, those
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I have seen a video of a drone with an AK47 lashed to it but it didn't seem to have an effective aiming mechanism and was in testing not combat.
There is also a whole new genre of drones flying up high to intercept and then crash into surveillance drones - a battle between pale VR-besotted couch worms on both sides.
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And you're saying these pale VR-besotted couch worms are this warrior caste?
Uh, yes. With appropriate amounts of focus on those autonomous solutions. Fire, forget, and order pizza. All right from the comfort of a basement couch.
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With a datalink, not only would a weapon be able to find and engage targets, but report targets in excess of what it can engage to other weapons systems. Which in turn might find *more* targets en route, and so forth. Of course, a datalink significantly increases cost and complexity.
Seems you'll need a mix of prop-propelled (long loiter time) and rocket-propelled (rapid response time), but should probably be able to use the same seeker system for both types.
Free open source multimodal models like Molmo alre
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Yes, and that's extra frightening because they're divorced from the killing. If you don't have to deal with the consequences and you're distanced from the experience of your actions by telepresence, it's a LOT easier to do monstrous things.
On the other hand, I guess they're less likely to snap in the heat of combat and do monstrous things, so there's that.
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Yeah, honestly, I'm a lot more worried about soldiers on the ground in the heat of battle doing monstrous things than drones.
Re:For Every Swole Jeff Bezos (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes. They're the ones with by far the highest success rate at destroying enemy men and materiel in Ukraine war right now. A very large percentage, probably a significant majority of FPV pilots are nerds.
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Yes. They're the ones with by far the highest success rate at destroying enemy men and materiel in Ukraine war right now. A very large percentage, probably a significant majority of FPV pilots are nerds.
Not saying they aren't nerds but they are soldiers, working close to the frontlines. You can't just show up a km from an actively assaulted position with a video game controller and no military training.
let's play global thermonuclear war (Score:5, Insightful)
let's play global thermonuclear war
What side do you want?
Define "Good Aims" (Score:5, Insightful)
The defense tech entrepreneur, known for his Hawaiian shirts and mullet, argued that societies need people "excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims."
So, for example, if the "wrong candidate" wins the U.S. 2024 presidential election, it's OK for the losing side to enact "violence on others in pursuit of good aims"?
movie (Score:2)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1... [imdb.com]
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You can't be arsed to protest, but expect us to believe you'll sign up for a civil war?
Re:Define "Good Aims" (Score:5, Informative)
Funny tho, when that violence in the US happens, it's always one side committing it. Never the other.
If my candidate loses there will be much grumbling and bitching and flipped fingers from my side. There will be no riots from our side.
Conservatives lost that moral high ground on January 6th, 2021. Whether or not you believe it rises to the level of "insurrection" or no matter how many people were non-violent, that does not change the objective fact that there was a fucking riot at and in the Capitol building and that those engaging in said rioting were supporters of the alleged conservative candidate.
I ate a fuckton of crow after the 2020 election because I said the exact same thing you did above (well, not the "my candidate" part because I'd never vote for Darth Cheeto, but certainly that there wouldn't be rioting if he lost).
Re:Define "Good Aims" (Score:5, Interesting)
I laugh at the "they were just tourists" excuse being said on top of videos showing police being beaten with sticks.
Re: Define "Good Aims" (Score:2)
And the person was acting as what? As a Fed, stirring up the riot for the right amount of backlash or asa a rioter believing in his own (and Trumpâ(TM)s) ideas?
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So Jan 6, 2021 never happened? Or it was secretly the Democrats?
Re:Define "Good Aims" (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if you want to compare the two, the January 6th insurrection was about trying to end our democracy and way of life by overthrowing a free and fair election. The BLM protests are about wanting to expand our democracy and way of life equally to all citizens.
That is to say January 6th was about doing the wrong thing in pursuit of an evil goal. The violent BLM protests were about doing the wrong thing in pursuit of a noble goal.
I have no idea what mental gymnastics one has to go through in order to believe this kind of tripe enough to post it outside of a partisan echo-chamber. This type of reasoning requires a combination of alternative facts and alternative logic.
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There was no leadership saying "meet at Capitol Hill and go fuck up government buildings".
"Meet me at the Capitol"
and
"Fight like Hell!"
- Fearless Leader
Re: Define "Good Aims" (Score:5, Informative)
"Funny tho, when that violence in the US happens, it's always one side committing it. Never the other."
True. Only the Republicans have mounted a violent coup and invaded the halls of government trying to kidnap and/or murder government officials including the vice president.
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Up until Jan 6th, 2021, it was common to hear from a particular political faction just how dangerous someone could be without guns or without any kind of weapon & that shooting them was justified.
What happened to change that?
Re: Define "Good Aims" (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Define "Good Aims" (Score:5, Insightful)
Coups are not defined by the number of guns. People being beaten and crushed to death does prove that there was violence. Coups are defined by illegal attempts to change the results of elections. Try a dictionary, kid.
Meanwhile Democrat lawlessness kills and maims in the big cities, and criminals flow over our lawless border.
Crime is down from what it was under Trump, noob.
Re: Define "Good Aims" (Score:3)
There have plenty of conviction for conspiracy, assult, and obstruction of an official proceedings. (you can check the records yourself, nor has a detailled database.)
When the official proceedings is the certification of an election. I think the description as attempted coup is fair.
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There will be no riots from our side.
"Your side" burns, loots and murders indiscriminately. The others, whether they are morally justified or not, go after what they percieve to be the root of the problem. If you can explain how smashing the windows of a few Starbucks or robbing pot shops will advance the welfare of mankind, I'm sure many here would be interested.
Civilians on his side not only drove into crowds of protestors, they tried to make it LEGAL to do so
Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be good to eliminate psychopaths from society, so let's send the first warrior to this guy.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is just another chickenhawk. Lots of them around.
You rarely hear someone who actually saw combat who talks like this.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is just another chickenhawk. Lots of them around.
You rarely hear someone who actually saw combat who talks like this.
Yup. There's always someone who is willing to shed someone else's blood ...
Re: Great idea (Score:2)
Biden is a pretty great example too.
Let's face it, we are not permitted to have decent candidates.
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From the perspective of us non-Americans living over here in not-USA, the GOP tends to be the less massacring of the two parties. Not always, mind, Bush definitely being a point outside the curve. But by and large, if one's criteria is how many cubic meters of brown, and other ethnicities, people's blood has been shed, the DEM almost always win by a significant margin.
That isn't to say that having a pro-war US President is always bad. Case in point, pro-Ukraine Biden is much better for global democracy than
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Re: Great idea (Score:2)
In my discussions with military members who served in wars I have learned that there are plenty of shit stacks among them. The army ranger I talked about Vietnam with told me that he was outnumbered by child rapists, for example.
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Yes, there are thieves and shitbags in the service. Just like in any other large group of people. The Army for instance, did a lot of recruiting of PTI people who were facing convictions and took enlistment as an alternative during the recent endless wars.
There are a lot of great people also. It's a mixed bag.
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The problem is that it's a mixed bag armed with howitzers.
(I definitely don't want to single out the US military in specific here for criticism, BTW - far from it.)
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Iraq 07/08 didn't turn me into a pacifist but certainly convinced me that acting as global police is horrific. Being a colonial warrior sucks. Fighting for the defense of your own home is not comparable.
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"A famous singer/songwriter back in the 60's portrayed all members of the military as 'morons, psychopaths and mental defectives' "
Was that a reference to McNamara's Folly?
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Re:Great idea (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, during the USA's recent adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, they had such a hard time getting recruits that they did loosen standards, unfortunately. That only hurts the military, but, you know, politicians (and never forget or think otherwise anyone who is a General or an Admiral is a politician)
Competition (Score:3)
He's... not wrong.
We should be really scared of people who are excited about finding ways to kill people we (or our allies) are in conflict with, but they're a necessary evil as those people exist on the other side of the conflict.
They are weapons, ideally to be controlled by more measured and compassionate people, and deployed in self-defense against people who aren't quite so restrained.
For instance, the people finding new ways to kill Russian troops in Ukraine. They're getting lots of people killed, but it's justified because Russia invaded and started indiscriminately killing a lot of innocent people.
Re:Competition (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can try to be the mournful moral guy who regrets firing every round, but you'll go nuts faster than the guy propagandized into hating the enemy as subhuman and enthusiastic about shooting 'monsters'.
People (surprisingly) really don't like killing people. You will not have an effective military if they're worried about the people they're supposed to be killing.
What you want them to do is to care about collateral damage and avoid conflating enemy combatants and civilians and compartmentalize their motiva
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A lot of people would agree with "necessary evil." Being "excited about enacting violence" though...? No, that's no good. Even in military units, the dutiful warriors recognize a distinction between themselves and the psychos.
Warriors have to have a warrior ethos, and they have to be motivated to be better warriors than the ones on the other side that want to kill you and yours. They have to like what they do. This isn't hard to understand. I don't want soldiers and Marines that hate being soldiers and Marines. They wouldn't be very good at their duties.
Writers from George Orwell to Rudyard Kipling were quick to point out the hypocrisy of people that condemned the warrior class:
“Those who ‘abjure’ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.” - Orwell, 1945, from Notes on Nationalism
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He's... not wrong.
We should be really scared of people who are excited about finding ways to kill people we (or our allies) are in conflict with, but they're a necessary evil as those people exist on the other side of the conflict.
They are weapons, ideally to be controlled by more measured and compassionate people, and deployed in self-defense against people who aren't quite so restrained.
For instance, the people finding new ways to kill Russian troops in Ukraine. They're getting lots of people killed, but it's justified because Russia invaded and started indiscriminately killing a lot of innocent people.
Like the Training Day [imdb.com] quote...
"To protect the sheep you gotta catch the wolf, and it takes a wolf to catch a wolf."
Re: Competition (Score:2)
It takes a man with a couple of dogs to catch a wolf. Wolves don't take orders as well, they have their own shit to do.
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No, he's wrong, you just don't think so because you can only think of yourself. "More measured and compassionate people" don't view others as "weapons" to be "deployed", though clearly you do.
"For instance, the people finding new ways to kill Russian troops in Ukraine. They're getting lots of people killed, but it's justified because Russia invaded and started indiscriminately killing a lot of innocent people."
Where in that example is there a "warrior class" that is "excited to enact ‘violence on oth
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He's... not wrong.
We should be really scared of people who are excited about finding ways to kill people ...
I have to think that armies are a good way to keep thugs off the street: think mafia, hoods, etc. Give them a home that keeps them away from the rest of society.
Re: Competition (Score:2)
Unfortunately they get trained to do violence and then eventually released, and they become more of a problem. Unless of course you get them killed first, how moral.
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It's sad and unfortunate... (Score:5, Insightful)
...that barbaric people like that exist
Hopefully, someday, we will evolve beyond violence and war
Nope, just evolution, thank the US military (Score:2)
...that barbaric people like that exist Hopefully, someday, we will evolve beyond violence and war
Ukraine seemed pretty peaceful. I don't think the occupants of the World Trade Center in 2001 "deserved" violence. The shitty fact about life is you have to be ready to enact violence or else you will have violence enacted on you. I don't fear for my safety and have been able to live in peace and prosperity because my country has a long history attacking people when provoked.
/. will point out a list of all the terrible things the US military has done, but on balance,
Of course, every contrarian POS on
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The military doesn't do coups... (Score:2)
So you think China is keeping out of Taiwan out of the goodness of their heart?...same with North Korea staying out of South Korea? What about the disputed islands in the Philippines? China hasn't seized them because they're kind people only concerned with peace and prosperity?
You
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Yes, of course, Ukrainians only revolted because of a shadowy CIA coup, and not, of course, because the Berkut was beating up and murdering their children on behalf of the backroom deal with Russia of a leader that was so corrupt that he had his own private zoo and pirate ship at his secret palace. No, Ukrainians definitely don't care about their kids and definitely can't turn out onto the street without everyone secretly being on the dole from the CIA.
You people are honestly astounding.
(Cute the Russian r
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...that barbaric people like that exist Hopefully, someday, we will evolve beyond violence and war
Right now we lift people like this up. Deranged psychopath? Promote that motherfucker to the C-Suites, or better yet, have him run for office!
We're headed the wrong direction to move beyond violence. We've let ourselves be led down a path where hate is our prime motivation, and violence is the end-result of hate as an ethos.
Re:It's sad and unfortunate... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it would be nice if we evolved beyond violence. But consider this analogy...
Ralph sees a $250 pair of heavy selvedge denim jeans that he absolutely loves, and he thinks is worth every penny. The store has all sizes in stock. He has a size 44 waist right now, but has been trying to lose weight for the last two decades, and doesn't want to buy a size 44 because then if he loses weight, he'll have a useless pair of jeans.
So he buys a size 36, all excited about how his new jeans are going to look on him.
Is this a good or bad decision? I think most of us will agree that the nice new jeans are going to gather dust in his closet, most likely permanently.
That's the same thing modern progressives are doing when they make all their plans around a world free of violence. Right now, people with guns effect change - from way before I was born, when they were storming Normandy. Even Karl Marx was an advocate of arming the workers. And I doubt it's going to change in my lifetime. So make plans that work, not plans that rely on rosy visions of enlightenment.
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...that barbaric people like that exist
Hopefully, someday, we will evolve beyond violence and war
We're humans, and thus, have Human Nature. There is no "evolving" out of it. This is real life, not a shitty Star Trek script. Humans are not programmable blank slates that can be written and re-written as politics sees fit. The impulse and instinct for violence and self preservation is built into us at our deepest level, and will always be with us.
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you haven't yet, read TimeOday's comment above.
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Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
What you are saying is basically true, but is not the argument he put forth. You are saying violence may at times be needed to run a country. He is saying we need people "excited about enacting violence on others". That is a world of difference. A police officer may need to shoot someone at times, they should not be excited about getting to shoot someone. Violence should be looked at as a last resort. If they people able to do violence are excited by being able to violence, you have the wrong people allowed to do violence.
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I know there are those people out there, and those are the people I am most worried about. You claim they would come save me, but would they? If they think I am against them and am "the enemy" they will also not hesitate to kill me. These are the people that do things like Abu Ghraib and Haditha. They do not only kill "bad people" they kill anyone they see as a "bad person", which invariably means civilians and anyone else that they think isn't on their side. This should never be encouraged.
Re: So? (Score:3)
I would agree with you if the quote was "willing to enact violence" but the quote is "excited to enact violence". While the former is necessary imo, the latter is much more disturbing.
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The headline itself seems to be meant to elicit outrage, but only amongst people who refuse to live in the real world.
Correction: The original quote from Palmer was meant to elicit outrage. Partly from causing offence, partly by appealing to people who want to go around inflicting violence.
For the rest of us, who understand that the role of a state is to hold the monopoly on the use of violence in society, it's hardly a shocking idea.
Virtually no one disagrees with that. But look who he wants to enact that violence:
a warrior class that is enthused and excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims,”
You see all the comments from military folks talking about why they try to weed those people out. The reason is that they start looking for opport
Is perfidy against machines legal? (Score:2)
Lately I've been pondering the question of perfidy in relation to autonomous weapons. Is fooling a machine into thinking you are a friend the same as wearing your opponents uniform? Or is it perfectly acceptable like a decoy used to distract seekers?
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A few years back, I was writing a term paper about autonomous weaponry (more from a legal viewpoint), but I really hate the concept of them in general. I'm going to have to go dredge it up and reread it.
What a tool. (Score:4, Informative)
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Nicolas Cage in Lord of War said it best: There's nothing more expensive for an arms dealer than peace ... There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11? ... You know who's going to inherit the Earth? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other. That's the secret to survival. Never go to war. Especially with yourself.
Is this guy an idiot? (Score:2)
Incentives, incentives... (Score:2)
The old "when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail" issue is bad enough; but if all you have is a hammer and you really enjoy hammering it will be a full time job keeping you from finding nails everywhere and getting out of hand.
Not really the violent type (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy looks like he's an 18 year old programmer with chin pubes. Probably never been in a fight in his life.
This pampered rich guy is advocating for warfare because *he is going to profit off it*, and because *he likes it*. Is that a good reason to commit violence? Because it'll make you money and you like it?
For most of the development of "civilized" culture, there has been a focus on warfare as a means of _survival_, in addition to increasing personal and national wealth. Western Europe (and probably Asia as well) developed civilization further in the middle ages mostly in order to fund warfare (paying for professional soldiers, weapons, food and supplies is expensive, so you have to start taxing and developing your civilization more in order to better organize your expensive complicated wars).
It's only in the the last 50 years that the idea of obligatory military service and drafts have begun to end. It's mostly through the expansion of global trade and intwining of global markets that global war has become less feasible (you hurt other countries and you end up hurting yourself). We don't need to wage war to survive anymore, and we don't need to increase our borders to increase our profits. Capitalism is the new battlefield. It's not without its victims, but we don't have to bomb hundreds of thousands of people anymore.
We should invest ourselves more into stopping the war in Ukraine. But moreover, we should focus on preventing the next one. Not building bigger bombs and more vicious killing machines.
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The only reason the world has been relatively peaceful is because we put an end to wars of conquest. Let's not restart the whole countries trying to annex other countries, WW3 would suck really bad.
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This guy looks like he's an 18 year old programmer with chin pubes. Probably never been in a fight in his life.
This pampered rich guy is advocating for warfare because *he is going to profit off it*, and because *he likes it*. Is that a good reason to commit violence? Because it'll make you money and you like it?
Agreed. Palmer looks like a complete caricature here.
We should invest ourselves more into stopping the war in Ukraine. But moreover, we should focus on preventing the next one. Not building bigger bombs and more vicious killing machines.
Recall the options in Ukraine:
1) Russia wins and Ukraine is forced to surrender. You're looking at massive refugee crisis and a generation or two of genocide and really nasty oppression in Ukraine. Plus a high likelihood of more wars like a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
2) Russia gets a partial victory like a big chunks of Ukrainian territory. Same as one except confined to those chunks. And the Chinese invasion is a bit less likely.
3) Ukrainian victory (the
This is correct (Score:2)
Luckey lives in the real world (Score:2)
AI and robotics are coming with or without your approval. It will be better if the US is at the forefront
We will need it given what Biden/Harris has unleashed on America [x.com].
Nominations (Score:2)
I hereby nominate fucktard Palmer Luckey to be the first recipient of this "enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims."
Let him have a taste of his own medicine and see how it goes down.
"Rough Men" (Score:2)
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
Maybe someday that will no longer be true--we can only hope. But that day is not today.
Military contractor advocates for more war (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't need a gods-be-damned fuckin' """warrior class""". We should be working towards acting like a real grown-up sentient species that doesn't make war on themselves anymore.
Seriously, we're an embarassment as a species right now, positively cringeworthy, claiming we're 'civilized'.
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Which guy is that?
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all his "red lines" have been crossed yet no nukes have flown.
why is that?