The Dawn of the Clone Wars

Clearly you have never heard of Von Neumann probes or self-replicating machines, lol The second guy has a lisp like the guy on the big bang theory. It's hilarious.







It doesn't matter what Klatuu or any other science fiction entity is for or against.

What matters is reality and trajectory of human evolution and possibility.

 

I just think it is a new asymmetric type of warfare that "second tier" (no offense meant, just not the same tech as say US/Rus/Chi) systems simply haven't caught up to yet.

Drones are tiny, and UAV's can be tough with certain missiles systems. The better way nations are finding to deal with such threats is with EWF systems and soon to be quantum systems.

Neither of which Saudi Arabia is well ahead of. As to the "cruise missiles"? That I still don't know, I still have no clue what to believe as all sides have stories but no sides have proof

 

The Houthis have used cruise missiles repeatedly hitting targets in Saudi Arabia -- and Iran regularly tests and showcases them. Indeed, no offense intended either, but Iran claims its cruise missiles are better than anything in anyone's arsenal, including the US Tomahawk missiles.

This report predated the attack on the Saudi oil installation, published something like 10 days before it. The report wanted combat proof for Iran's claims and you have it. While the cruise missiles were actually fired from Yemen, not Iran, they did their job better than your Tomahawks.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/iran-says-its-cruise-missiles-are-better-america’s-78681
September 6, 2019 Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Tags: IranCruise MissilesMilitaryMiddle EastWar
Iran Says Its Cruise Missiles Are Better Than America’s

And it isn't just 'cruise missiles' either. Around 10 days before Iran shut down American's most expensive UAV, flying at an altitude that America believed made it immune from even detection, you had this article in the same vein (trying to ridicule or cast doubt on Iran's claims).

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/b...aft-missile-system-wont-shoot-down-f-35-62107
June 11, 2019
Why Iran's New Anti-Aircraft Missile System Won't Shoot Down an F-35

Since then, the reports are a bit more balanced, although the publications like "National Interest" who cover Iran's military program but often use chest beating kids as their journalists and military analysts (occasionally they give the forum to adults too) would ordinarily have to suffer in their credibility reporting so much nonsense. So close to actual events that prove them wrong.

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/middleeas...-much-better-than-us-patriot-s-300/ar-AAGffY9
Iran says its missile defense system ‘much better’ than US Patriot, S-300

https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...ition-of-irans-new-air-defense-system-report/
Syria allegedly considering acquisition of Iran’s new air defense system: report

 

The main arena that US (and Russia) have a significant qualitative edge over what Iran produces, at a mere fraction of what it costs the US/Russia and those that purchase their equipment, is manned aerial platforms. And a few other things, mostly again large platforms. Even there, the gap is narrowing significantly: using its edge in missile technology, Iran has begun equipping its older platforms with newer avionics, radar and missiles which make them a lot more effective than people imagine. Take the modernized Iranian F-14AM carrying an air-to-air missile that can hit targets from far away, long before the opposing aircraft will have anything to reach it. Or the interesting systems to launch missiles from underwater being deployed on Iranian submarines. Or Iran's Karrar tank as well as its stealth destroyer, the new Sahand (named after the frigate the US sank in 1987) or its quite capable new submarine, the Fateh. Advancements in truly combat effective drones, in fact, are merely a reflection of advances in other technologies which Iran has worked on through years of sanctions and the like.

 

Why Man will not destroy himself—he’s too damn good because he’s brilliantly brilliant.

Why Man won’t destroy himself or go extinct—being a being who is brilliantly brilliant, he’s too damn smart to surrender his world to brutes and mystics.

A Call to Stand

One man at war with Man’s deprecation
Calls out to all men to seek no salvation,
To pick themselves up from self-immolation,
To turn from the gods of their own creation,
To stand up and face the day—
To reclaim their birthright to say—
I am that I am, before nothing I kneel;
I mastered the fire, invented the wheel;
I cast the bells true and set them to peal;
I am Man, for whom all else is clay—
I am Man. I make my own way.
~ Quent Cordair
https://quentcordair.com/2017/07/20/a-call-to-stand/amp/

A species that produces men such as Quent Cordair, those referred to in his poem, never need fear self-destruction nor extinction.

 

I believe the real threat is what they call "Autonomous weapons" small drones that can penetrate the skull... after they've used Facial recognition to track their target or target range... ie white males 25 years plus wearing blue jackets.... that may or may not be rude to Scarlet

 

The real threat are those who believe Man must be controlled by the mystics and brutes.

 

What malarkey. You speak of mystics yet you suggest we live by the utopian delusions of a terrible science fiction writer who was also a certified crackpot who economists mock as a lunatic.

We are clever I'll give you that but we are not wise. It is as Ronald Write said, you are deluded by a progress trap and your own worship of crass materialism and consumer culture which you think is morality.

You should read Ron or even listen to his podcast. Here, I'll give you a sample:

"In A Short History of Progress, I suggested that worldwide civilization was our greatest experiment; and I asked whether this might also prove to be the greatest progress trap. That was 15 years ago.
What has happened — and not happened — since then to alarm or reassure us?


First, our numbers have risen by 1.4 billion, nearly a hundred million per year. In other words, we’ve added another China or 40 more Canadas to the world. The growth rate has fallen slightly, but consumption of resources — from fossil fuel to water, from rare earths to good earth — has risen twice as steeply, roughly doubling our impact on nature. This outrunning of population by economic growth has lifted perhaps a billion of the poorest into the outskirts of the working class, mainly in China and India. Yet those in extreme poverty and hunger still number at least a billion.

Meanwhile, the wealthiest billion — to which most North Americans and Europeans and many Asians now belong — devour an ever-growing share of natural capital. The commanding heights of this group, the billionaires’ club, has more than 2,200 members with a combined known worth nearing $10 trillion; this super-elite not only consumes at a rate never seen before but also deploys its wealth to influence government policy, media content, and key elections. Such, in a few words, is the shape of the human pyramid today.

The 2008 crash triggered by banking fraud was staved off by money-printing and record debt. This primed a short-run recovery, which has in turn revived illusions we can borrow from nature and the future indefinitely — illusions fed by corporate think-tanks, irresponsible politicians, and Panglossian cherrypickers such as Steven Pinker. But what about the long run? In 1923 the great economist John Maynard Keynes famously answered, “In the long run we are all dead.” By that he meant, let’s deal with the problems we see now and leave the unforeseeable to those who come later."

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/09/20/Ronald-Wright-Can-We-Dodge-Progress-Trap/

Here is a link to the CBC podcast of Wright discussing with Nahlah Ayed:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/savi...nald-wright-on-extricating-humanity-1.5288833
Just click on the "play entire episode" tab.

What makes you think that our civilization is any different than any of the others that have collapsed before us. Because we are brilliantly brilliant? We have elected Donald Trump president of the most powerful nation on the planet and are in the midst of starting another uncontrolled arms race. Brilliant!

You are like the guy who cut down the last tree on Easter Island or the Mayan king who leveled the last of the jungle in Tikal - deluded into magical thinking that your god (Rand) will save us from our own hubris.

As Wright said, we may yet get out of this but not without drastic change from the course we are on now and we are rapidly running out of time.

 

Doomsday scenarios have been forecasted since Man first appeared. They never happen. Why? Man’s ability to think. In other words, reason.

Capitalism: From bicycles to spaceships, from log cabins to skyscrapers, from poultices to vaccines, capitalism has lifted Man from despair, death, and deprivation. And all it took was freedom of thought, freedom of trade, and freedom to live

I’d much rather live in world of skyscrapers, cars, jets, spaceships, filet mignons, 3D movies, cruise chips, and iPhones then in one of teepees, caves, oxen, oil lamps, tribal war paint, pyramids, communal outhouses, gruel, and bubonic plague.

And the only requirement to live in such world? Reason. I like it.

 

And civilizations have collapsed ever since man first appeared. Can you think of one that has not? And keep in mind the Egyptians were around in one form or another for at least two-thousand years and even the Ottomans for over 600. How long has capitalism been around in one form or another......?

There is no evidence to suggest that capitalist empires will be any different. We are following the same time-worn path of all the other empires; exhausting resources, destroying the ecosystems that sustain us, impoverishing the vast majority of the vassal states and our own citizens for the enrichment of a few dandy elites who revel in their own privilege and hubris, living in illusion of their own infallibility even as the social and economic systems around them succumb to the overwhelming problems they have themselves created.

Your comments are a perfect example of the progress trap that Wright was discussing. Did you read the link or watch the podcast. Your blind faith in the power of a capitalist system that is obviously failing that vast majority of the world's citizens and mans supposed reason is exactly what he was talking about.

And I hate to tell you this but we are not rational creatures. Yes, we are great at problem solving and clever, even ruthless in terms of our own survival but given the last century of wars and upheavals, there is nothing to suggest we are rational and not driven by illusionary magical beliefs and illogical emotional responses to what we perceive and believe to be true.

The Earth is a finite system with a limited carrying capacity for any species - that is science. We are coming right up to the edge of that carrying capacity and destroying the capacity of the Earth to sustain life for wild species. There cannot help be dire consequences for our own civilization by the destruction of the natural world for our own extraction of resources. It is not sustainable. That is science.

Do you think capitalism on it's own has the capacity to adapt to all the problems we see gathering around our poor little planet? Based on what evidence? The manner we are addressing those problems now?

Or do we, like all the civilizations that have collapsed before, engage in magical thinking that our idols and gods can save us from our own hubris just because we are so darn brilliant and reasoned?

 

And the reason they failed? Abandonment of reason.

 

So it wasn't the overextension of military power, corruption of the political class or the exhaustion of resources?

Do you think the American capitalist system is operating on reason at the moment? Remember, we have a president who thinks trade wars are easy to win and wants to build a space force.........

 

The capitalists are. The pull peddlers? The politicians? The culture? The artists? The intellectuals? Foreign policy? Education? Oh, hell no—they neurotic post-modern nihilists.

 

The Saudi's know now to use their missile defense system. You are making an "appeal to stupidity fallacy".

 

It is very difficult to believe that Iran is ahead of the Russian's - which is now pretty much the Russia- India- China consortium. That they are ahead of the US is quite doubtful as well - but, it can be said that the US has some work to do - and in some cases - catching up.

 

Who knows - certainly not you - missile technology has been, and continues to rapidly advance and the lines are starting to blur.

 

The ban I was referring to was for military purposes and giving them the ability to kill in general. That is a bad bad path.

I do find decrease in the ability of the of the world Empire to project power - due to the increasing cost - interesting from a historical cycle perspective .. and in this respect you have hit the nail squarely. This rise of rebel groups and assymetric warfare was predicted rather accurately - and the rational given for why this would happen - in two books written 1987 and 1994. "Blood in the Streets" - "The Great Reckoning" - James Dale Davidson and Sir William Reece Moog - by second book Will had been lorded so "Lord Moog"

It was by no crystal ball or soothsaying that they made these predictions - it was simply what this phase of the historical cycle suggested. They go through what happened in various other Empires - the factors that led to the rise and subsequent fall.

One of the principles is that technological innovation leads to military superiority which leads to economic hegemony. Then however, over time, this technology spreads. When those that the empire is trying to subdue get hold of this technology - the cost of projecting power rises.

One example given is the gatling gun. With one gunship the Brits could take over an entire African Nation - fighting back with sticks and stones. When that African nation gets the gut its a different story - you need to send not just one ship but an Armada - and that is expensive - also you are going to take far more casualties which is also expensive.

It does not take a mathematician to figure out that spending 6 Trillion or more on Iraq/Afghanistan was a horrendous waste of treasure - with a negative return on investment.

Iraq and Iran are nothing compared to Iran. It is not that Iran is so great - just that Iraq was so pathetic. Further - a good deal of time has passed and technology has spread further.

 

The rate at which we are advancing is going way faster than the ability of individual liberty to keep up. This technology is being used in many different ways to increase Gov't power - and the natural tendency of Gov't is to increase its power.

 

"Dawn of the Drone Wars" - does work rather well - and is more in keeping with what is actually happening where - clones are more futuristic - albeit not that far off.

There was an incident that happened just a short time ago. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...nut-farm-workers-in-afghanistan-idUSKBN1W40NW
U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

The workers were living in tents - as fruit pickers and pine nut pickers normally do. Crying out - oops - we thought they were "ISIS" or some other Islamist plague - does not cut it.

 

I was talking the use of drones for military purposes and/or using them to kill people in general.

 

Our beliefs are mainly formed by the marketing campaigns, and those who fund them, which provide us their tainted rendition of information and 'facts'.

In the meantime, not directed at you necessarily, but for the Russophile posters here: All hail to to the Russians. Just let me know where they stand as I may want to stand there too!

p.s.
Some random reports and videos which I like to post -- and this might be as good a place as any
https://www.memri.org/reports/struggle-between-russia-iran-control-over-syrias-centers-power

September 23, 2019
Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 1475
Struggle Between Russia, Iran For Control Over Syria's Centers Of Power



https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-five-most-deadly-drone-powers-the-world-12255
The Five Most Deadly Drone Powers in the World

 

I know, but history shows when terrorists use something it gets banned or heavily regulated.

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

You are on to something - and though I maintain my "we should ban military drones as we do chemical weapons" position- Utilitarian justification for law is a huge problem - something that is at plague proportions in this nation.

There are hundreds of examples - Super Size - would be one - because some person eats to excess - the rest of the population is punished.
Pot, Alcohol, Prostitution, numerous recreational activities, municipal bylaws a plenty and so on. These arguments are generally of the "if it saves one life - harm reduction" form.

Then you have the infringements on privacy and free speech - justified by the same type of Utilitarian/Commie garbage.

If have not read any of my posts on Utilitarianism - let me know and I will explain a bit further.

 

I realize that Iran is a major power with respect to missiles and drones. While this is the case - I do not think they are at the level of Russia - USA.

 

Really? Either the weapon returns home after the attack or it doesn't. Very straightforward.