this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
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SneerClub

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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.

AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)

This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.

[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]

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[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

this kinda happened with antitank weapons and highest iteration now is antitank missile paired with anti-anti-antitank missile. it's rpg-30, russian wunderwaffe manufactured in symbolic numbers which only caused western militaries to develop countermeasures and was never used on large scale in any war

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 11 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Not really what I meant, but interesting.

That reminds me of the star wars missile defense system, which according to some stories was never real and just intended to make the Soviets waste a lot of resources on trying to counter it.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

which according to some stories

this was cope, it was a defense funding scam

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps the same could be said of all ~~religions~~ of America.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"look, not everything is a defense funding scam"
"well that is"
....

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 4 months ago

it funded some fundamental research, fine by me

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

from what i understand, it was real as in r&d was real, but not much came out of this. in regard to nukes, maybe this programme provided some new fancy sensors. one of the logical responses to things like SDI is to increase number of ICBMs and decoys, which is exactly what soviets did, it doesn't require developing similar ABM system. (nukes are ultimately tools of diplomacy, not really tools of war) of other things, we know that neutral particle beams work. some western weaponeers are toying with idea of high power lasers, but star wars era stuff were chemical lasers and what is used now are fiber lasers, so it's not directly transferable

also Teller was insane and x-ray lasers never worked

[–] grumpybozo@toad.social 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

@skillissuer Used in Ukraine. Possibly because they were running out of basic antiweapons.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

all 20 of them?

everything that goes boom was used by now, but i doubt it'll make a major difference

[–] grumpybozo@toad.social 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

@skillissuer I have no idea how they could have been *needed* against Ukrainian tanks. My impression was that they didn’t have any tanks with active defense until they got EU/NATO models, but I could be wrong.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 months ago

what makes me think that APSs are not a real factor either way is that everyone slaps ERA and anti-drone mesh on everything, which would interfere with radar. APSs historically had a huge blind spot on top, which is a bad thing in a war with drones. also, major user of APSs, IDF, slapped anti-drone grids on top of their tanks at the beginning of current Gaza war, so kinda probably that means that they are not really sure that it works good enough

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 months ago

Ukrainians have this thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaslin_Active_Protection_System but i've never seen something like Drozd/Arena used, nor western APSs. plenty of ERA everywhere tho