America world’s sole cyber superpower, ten years ahead of China, says Brit think tank:
The United States is comfortably the world's most powerful nation when measured on "cyber capabilities that make the greatest difference to national power," according to British think tank The International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The institute on Monday published a document titled "Cyber Capabilities and National Power: A Net Assessment" that covered 15 nations and considered the following criteria:
- Strategy and doctrine;
- Governance, command and control;
- Core cyber intelligence capability;
- Cyber empowerment and dependence;
- Cyber security and resilience;
- Global leadership in cyberspace affairs;
- Offensive cyber capability.
The two-year research effort saw the institute examine 15 nations and define three tiers of capability.
America was ranked the sole Tier-One Nation, meaning it possesses "world-leading strengths in all the categories in the methodology".
The report says America's "capability for offensive cyber operations is probably more developed than that of any other country, although its full potential remains largely undemonstrated".
An interesting observation given the recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident is that "The US has moved more effectively than any other country to defend its critical national infrastructure in cyberspace". That opinion is tempered with the observation that the United States "recognises that the task is extremely difficult and that major weaknesses remain".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @12:37PM (23 children)
I thought that was the most dangerous cyberweapon of all?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday June 29 2021, @12:54PM (19 children)
Do we really believe that?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 29 2021, @01:13PM (16 children)
Of course we don't believe that. The US led the world in putting critical infrastructure online, where it is vulnerable.
I can't help wondering how China handles their infrastructure. Is it connected, or do they assign people to watch gauges and flip switches? How about Russia? Off the top of my head, I don't recall any major ransomware stories from either country. Looks like a western phenomena, that depends on stupid efficiency metrics and corporate greed.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @01:28PM
Woud it be international news if/when it did happen? I'm pretty sure China and Russia keep those stories out from the press.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 29 2021, @01:40PM (12 children)
I have to agree with the AC. How would you hear of major ransomware stories from either country?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @01:45PM (3 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:55PM (2 children)
Because? Should we also be hearing about Xi's health problems with similar detail? You should recognize that some secrets are easier to keep than others.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @10:23PM (1 child)
The biggest perps are atate actors (Russian, Chinese sponso). But who wants rubles or yuan? Hard to move compared to dollars. So companies that pay in dollars are targeted. If the ruble was as easily money-laundered, you'd be reading about ransomware demands against Russian business. Ditto yuan and China.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday June 29 2021, @10:56PM
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:27PM (7 children)
News about an attempted poisoning of Navalny escaped Russia. And, he still seems to be communicating with the world from the gulag where he is imprisoned.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:59PM
Which is much bigger than ransomware stories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @05:59PM (5 children)
I heard Kim Jong Il hit 18 holes in 1 on his first ever game of golf. Much superior to Trump who has only a handicap of 3.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 29 2021, @06:13PM (4 children)
I heard that Kim is a fat bastard who hasn't been able to find his putter for years.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @08:20PM (2 children)
He just popped out some kids so at least his peepee works. Still taking those little blue pills before you visit Rosy and her five sisters?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 29 2021, @08:49PM (1 child)
Did he, now? So medical science in North Korea is way ahead of the west, and men are having their own babies now. Interesting.
Presuming that you meant his wife, mistress, girlfriend, or sex slave popped out some kids - how do you KNOW that they are his? Just because State Propaganda said so?
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 30 2021, @03:32AM
Well the Supreme Leader is their own gender.
(Score: 2) by NickM on Wednesday June 30 2021, @12:42AM
Then why North Korea is supposedly crying over his recent weight loss ;-)
From https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/29/slimmer-kim-prompts-heartbreak-in-north-korea [aljazeera.com]
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 3, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:54PM
If by "we" you mean the people who are technically literate and actually understand the situation you are 100% correct.
Sadly most of the people on Earth are complete clueless idiots when it comes to cyber security, and a lot of other things too. They don't think they are important enough for some government or mega-corporation to spy on them personally. They have zero understanding of situation.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 29 2021, @08:32PM
Homer Simpson or Russian hackers, which do you think leaves people safer?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @09:36PM (1 child)
Is the Colonial Pipeline "national infrastructure"? It seems to be privately owned yet the federal government is responsible for protecting it?
Without knowing what everyone's definition of "national infrastructure" is it seems hard to discuss the details of it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 30 2021, @03:39AM
What does this federal government responsibility entail?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 29 2021, @01:56PM (1 child)
China may have the TikTok but Microsoft has the NSAKEY and NSAKEY2.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @06:01PM
And the BingBing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:17PM
No joke, Libs of TikTok [twitter.com] is 2021s most terrifying horror series.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by VLM on Tuesday June 29 2021, @12:59PM (12 children)
Theres no point in reading a study without determining who funded it to meet a predetermined conclusion.
Well then...
Oh great "deep state" propaganda, just what I needed.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 29 2021, @01:11PM (11 children)
Yes, so, this is the "Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?" situation, except the U.S. cyber power capabilities might be a dozen elephant sized mosquitoes vs a million mosquito sized elephants.
Sure, one mosquito sized elephant doesn't seem like much of a threat, but when it crawls up your nose and gets lodged in your Colonial Pipeline - you're gonna pay a few million dollars to get it out, and the elephant sized mosquitoes might be able to perform surgically targeted powerful retaliatory strikes, but they're unlikely to stop all the mosquito sized elephants.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:01PM (10 children)
Nothing fundamentally prevents the US from building 100 dick sized horses or a million mosquito sized elephants. It is only a question of priority of resources and spending. We could continue to maintain our dozen horse sized dicks or mosquito sized elephants.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:19PM (3 children)
>> Nothing fundamentally prevents the US from building
What if the factory workers are all out getting gender reassignment surgery that day? The decay comes from within.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 29 2021, @03:43PM (2 children)
Can't Immigrants take up the slack? They don't always get gender reassignment surgery. And usually not more than once. Or twice at most.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @06:04PM (1 child)
The immigrants are getting their reassignment surgeries done at emergency care who can't turn them away. It's bankrupting the nation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @10:28PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:56PM (5 children)
I see a fundamental cultural problem in that the US criminal element is primarily occupied cooking meth, distributing all forms of narcotics along with the usual prostitution, small weapons, etc. that goes along with all that. Our STEM educated population is mostly gainfully employed (some of them cooking meth, LSD, etc.)... so... we don't have the bulk cyber-criminal population that seems evident in China, Russia, Nigeria, etc.
I mean, sure, we've got the odd credit card skimmer operation, and your usual domestic fraud - and, again, our domestic targets are more attractive to our domestic cyber criminals - especially since most of them have zero clue about how to masquerade as "local" in a foreign culture.
Meanwhile in Russia, China, etc. they're watching reruns of Miami Vice, Friends and 1980s Wall Street buyout movies, not to mention the latest releases before we see them, and studying our infrastructure information that's openly available online. Not only do our exposed attack surfaces reveal more valuable targets than their domestic ones, not only do their governments turn a blind eye to their international criminal activities, they also understand our culture well enough to be better exploiters of it than our criminals ever will theirs.
Meanwhile in U.S. cyber command, we're paying a military bureaucracy to develop these skills with budgetary oversight committees, ethics committees, long term strategy committees, public relations committees, congressional lobbying committees, committee strategy committees, etc. For every actual field working U.S. cyber warrior, the overhead is supporting dozens of managers with trailing spouse soccer moms and their kids.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @03:44PM (4 children)
That's one of the most interesting posts I've read in a while, but perhaps not why you think. Most of our STEM population is *not* gainfully employed, at least not proportional to their education. 74% [census.gov] of those who major in a STEM field, do not work in STEM. The one possibly confounding variable is that the Census seems to have counted social science majors as STEM which is nonsensical. It's unclear if that was only the person writing the article or also the research it was based upon. But even then, that alone probably can't account for the 74%.
I've been increasingly wondering if we've been accidentally pulling a Roman Empire on ourselves. There are innumerous factors that played into the collapse of the Roman Empire but one of the most interesting is their revolutionary plumbing and water transit system. It was made out of lead and lead poisoning was likely ubiquitous. That's been linked to reduced IQ, irrational behavior, and a million other factors that can affect a civilization on a macro level but remain mostly invisible on a micro level. Drink lead contaminated water and you get a stomach illness? Easy to connect cause and effect. Drink lead contaminated water and your offspring have reduced IQ, irrational behavior, etc? Easy to fail to connect the dots for arbitrarily long periods of time.
The US is getting seriously weird. A huge chunk of the population (1 in 6 per year) is now on prescribed psychotropics, there's the weird stuff with everything from trans people to 'we must all hate ourselves', and more. But you pointing out that educated criminality has also all but disappeared is also something that makes just no rational sense whatsoever, especially given widespread underemployment, disdain for corporations (who have amazing security protocols like using passwords such as "solarwinds123"), and more. Yet...? Nothing. It's literally like there's something in the water, or the air, or our food, or whatever else. I'm not even suggesting a conspiracy because politicians are increasingly seeming at least as retarded as everybody else. I'm suggesting we're doing something to ourselves, inadvertently, that is collapsing our civilization at an incredibly rapid rate. Even starting in the 90s, IQs started declining in the western world - even after controlling for things like immigration.
We truly live in the weird timeline.
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 29 2021, @04:56PM (3 children)
While you are technically correct, and emotionally valid to be outraged, the point remains: our STEM educated are mostly gainfully employed - even when they are not employed in a STEM field (legal, or in rare cases illegal.) Yes, they would make more money if their STEM education got them a STEM job, but at least they have a job - unlike the MBAs without family connections who thought that their degree was all they needed to get a management track position in the corporate world.
Of course. Do you think Rome imploded on purpose? It's the human condition. If we manage to hold on to a historical record for another couple of cycles, the record will show that despite the best efforts of think-tank analysts, groups of people with power tend to lose their advantage to competing groups over time.
Maybe not as differentially significant vs the Barbarian Hordes as you're intuiting. Fresh pipes leach significant amounts of lead into the water for a short time, but unless the water is acidic, a neutral coating forms in a matter of days which all but stops the contamination. Even modern brass fittings have "acceptable levels" of lead in their alloys, and it is trapped there by the same mechanisms. An abundance of caution has been driving "acceptable levels" of lead down over the decades, but I think our little episode of burning millions of tons of leaded gasoline in our cities and everywhere else was far more damaging to public health than the Roman water system was to them in their time.
The U.S. has been seriously weird. Changing social norms, particularly the expression of thought online in relatively anonymous forums, has just exposed the weirdness and allowed it to organize into larger clusters than the old Klan meetings. Time was, I was having a conversation with a new neighbor and when I mentioned my parents being divorced as an equivocal fact of life rather than a stigma to be hidden, he identified me as "politically incompatible" with his ideals - quickly broke off the conversation, and in the ensuing 8 years he now only smiles and waves and occasionally compliments my car. Our more modern neighbors who share their thoughts on Facebook? Oh, man, I learn all kinds of things that way that people would NEVER say face to face in any kind of setting except perhaps a blackout drunk bull session. If you went to public high school, think back to your classmates: the junior year cross section before the 18 year old dropouts left. You may not have had too much to do with those kids, or maybe you were one of them, but I'd say more than half of my classmates were seriously weird, socially destructive, self destructive, and just plain dumb.
I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that our educated criminals (particularly the ones in C-suites and Wall Street) have plenty of time-proven highly lucrative criminal schemes that they focus on, rather than innovating in the area of cyber-crime. Would-be super hackers are getting jobs building robo-trading algorithms for Wall Street starting at $350K/yr straight out of college. You (and I) might consider that a criminal endeavor, but it doesn't involve unwanted access of systems in other countries, and the skillset is significantly different - even if the aptitude profile for developing those skills is the same.
Look at the U.S. un and under employed. How many even speak Chinese or Russian? Maybe a small minority speak Spanish, if that. The majority are hardly aware of the larger world.
Like Rome, it's champions' complacency. We're so great we don't have to worry or try.
I thought Ronnie made that clear for everyone: the man (rarely woman) you are electing to office doesn't think for themselves. They are propped up by a group of backers who tell them what to say. Trump didn't quite fit that mold, at first, but as soon as it was clear that he had a chance of winning they and their influences started appearing. Donnie was a slow learner, but his little quip-slips like "why can't we just give everybody Medicare?" did become fewer and farther between as his tiny mind came to grips with the realities of the office he had won. It's not a conspiracy, it's lobbying. They've lobbied to have lobbying legally defined as "not a conspiracy," even when they lobby both sides of the aisle and back every candidate in the races.
At the risk of stating the obvious: autism runs in our family, clearly identifiable 100 years back and more. Thing was, in times past, we were functional in society - held jobs, owned homes, (somewhat obviously) fathered children, etc. This generation, all across our family hedge, the autistic children born post 1990 are almost entirely non functional, barely verbal, incapable of independent living. There were borderline cases back to the 1970s, but before that there's a pretty clear line of "weird" vs today's "dysfunctional."
So, yes, there's a strong genetic component to autism, just as there's a strong genetic component to being h. sapiens, but something in the environment is making life, particularly socially organized life, much more challenging.
I think that's a perspective flawed perception. Put yourself in 1970, how was society looking back then - not just moon landings, but racial tensions, the draft to Vietnam? How about 1945? 1918? 1865? 1812? The only thing I see different today is that humanity is so powerful that we're impinging on the global ecosystems in ways that are very likely going to be viewed as highly regrettable in the future.
IQ is such bullshit. A single dimension number is no more capable of defining the potential value of a person than it is capable of describing a bridge over a river.
I'd be hard pressed to describe a realistic-believable timeline that isn't weird.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday June 30 2021, @04:35AM (2 children)
IQ is a measure of general intelligence. It is not the only measure of general intelligence. Why are you trying to assign to "IQ" an irrelevant definition?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 30 2021, @12:12PM (1 child)
IQ is a single number, a one dimensional quantity. General Intelligence, if you wish, is a bullshit concept. No single dimension can describe intelligence, much less general intelligence. If the value of people in today's "information economy" is based on intelligence, as opposed to how much they can lift or how fast they can run, then the value of a person correlates with many dimensions that might be called intelligence. Lumping those together under a quantity "General" is as useful in describing the intelligence of a person as a single number is in describing a bridge.
How much bridge do you have? 7, this is a 7 bridge. 7 what? Traffic lanes? Meters clearance to the water? Meters clearance to the water over the shipping channel? Length from shore to shore? Length of maximum span? Load capacity? Design service life?
A single number tells you very little about a bridge, or a person's intelligence - even if you give it a label "General."
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 30 2021, @04:40PM
You're begging the question. IQ provides a major predictive boost in "practically" (weasel word: to my knowledge, there are zero exceptions) all pursuits where success is primarily driven by cognitive ability. It would indeed be a bullshit concept if high IQ correlated primarily with the ability to solve riddles, word games, or other such things. But it generalizes to practically any application of cognitive ability: success in STEM, lifetime earnings, academic success, even whether you will fall victim to self inflicted and entirely preventable conditions like obesity.
IQ is, without doubt, the one major achievement of the social sciences simply because its predictive power is in no way disputable, and because it generalizes to any population - anywhere. Rich, poor, white, black, brown, America, Africa, Mongolia, whatever, wherever, whoever - it ends up applying to. If you're going to call it a bullshit concept, you need to provide some form of an argument other than "I just think you can't measure intelligence." Because IQ offers extremely compelling evidence that you can, and relatively easily.
I'd also add here that one of the first things just about any modern military in this world will have you do if you aim to enlist, is take an IQ test. And that test will be used to determine your fitness for various roles. In general society this would be dystopic and undesirable, but in the military (which is an opt-in scenario), it has proven incredibly effective and driving optimal performance outcomes. Fun factoid there - about 1/4 of applicants (in the US) will be immediately rejected due to insufficient IQ.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @01:33PM (3 children)
some have hosting and datacenters, some have routing centers where different ocean spanning cables meet and get routed and connected, but amerika has all the oversea military bases ...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 29 2021, @03:45PM (2 children)
Wouldn't it be fair and a welcoming gesture for America to allow all other countries to host military bases here?
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @04:17PM
there is a story by f.pohl where the whole world declares war on amerik@...
if you think a violent story now unfolds, you prolly ARE an amerikan (no violence ensues).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 30 2021, @01:24AM
Ecuador tried that. U.S. wanted a base in Ecuador, and President Rafael Correa said fine, if Ecuador gets to put a base in Miami. Surprisingly, the U.S. refused their offer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday June 29 2021, @01:34PM (5 children)
Sleep comfortably, United States.
Like you slept in scientific research and technology and engineering for the last 10-15 years, when the best MIT was able to do was to suicide Aaron Swartz, Affective Computing and Poetic Justice [wikipedia.org] (ah, yes, sorry, and a spray that makes your snickers omniphobic [mit.edu]), when most of the American researcher names are Li, Xing and Huang (buh-bye brain drain with the salaries in research today [zippia.com] and when the highest paying research companies are FinInd and Facebook [indeed.com]).
And when America needed a South African mildly autistic kid to restart their space program and give them an electric car.
Ah, yes, and the most brilliant mathematical discovery turned out to be "house prices never go down" - aka Gausss copula [wired.com] (by David X. Li)
Buzzwords abound: blockchain, quantum computing, machine learning, deep fake... great, let the material advances to China, they actually need them.
And why is this? Because:
- it doesn't matter how if it makes money now...
- ... and what makes money is the regimentation of the populace in warring tribes because, see?, it increases "engagement"
- MiC is happy to offer a subpar war plane after decades of paid delays, 'cause who's gonna punish them? There are endless wars to fight against low tech combatants and we'll keep inventing others.
- Boeing is happy to adjust an old plane and cut the redundancy in critical systems and no training, 'cause it makes money now. Also happy with the SLS pork barreling
- half of the population is convinced that the colleges are lefty indoctrination places and their ignorance is as good as a researcher science. Because 15 years earlier the church chorus was singing "teach the controversy".
- and many others
Uhu, ummm... yeah. Probably.
Meanwhile, the East Coast starts stocking gasoline in plastic bags, because a group of hackers only wanted $5M in ransom, like, "just business, man, nothing political or military".
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:51PM (2 children)
On this, nobody else's space program is even going anywhere - I include Russia and China. And when's the last time a significant car company with the volume that Tesla presently has was created in the world? I think we'd probably have to look for Chinese car companies established in the 1980s or 1990s. What's missing here is not that an allegedly "mildly autistic kid" did what couldn't otherwise be done by a placid US, but rather who else would have enabled Musk to do what he just did?
We shouldn't expect top down, centralized structures that do so poorly with so many things you mention (science and technology, military developments, etc) to do any better with selecting people like Musk to make things happen.
Sorry, it's because there's decades of nuttery coming out of colleges, and it's getting worse (aristarchus's journals talk about critical race theory which is a classic example). I attribute this as well to the top down, centralized structures such as funding, regulation, groupthink, etc. If colleges keep that crap going, then the portion of the population which thinks colleges are lefty indoctrination places will just go up.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 29 2021, @06:22PM (1 child)
Yeah, khallow, I know. I don't show arguments for any problem, so there's no problem.
That is, none until there are.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 30 2021, @02:28AM
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @05:32PM
America's cyber capabilities were annihilated by Qatar and Russia in August 2014. They forced nearly every American website off of the internet except for 8chan and Kiwi Farms which they are still going after. Every site that was left up is run by a corrupt British Lord who is taking payoffs from one or another Islamic state to allow the International Solidarity Movement to spy on the users, and they use GCHQ and MI6 to find and smack down anyone who talks bad about them. The masterminds of all of this include the Russian Jewish mafia Alfa Group, Maurice Levy, Sir Ronald Cohen, and the Rothschilds, which is why the security agencies are being ordered to stop anyone from talking bad about "the Jews".
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 29 2021, @08:35PM
To hear the likes of Temple Grandin tell it, the world has relied on autistic kids to bring them everything from the early space program to the smartphone. From my personal observations, she's not wrong.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday June 29 2021, @01:57PM
Thanks for the article. It made me laughing beyond all expectations.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:20PM (4 children)
Leaving top secret pink "eyes only" military documents at the bus stop is their latest in a long line of security blunders unmatched
even by drunken Russian agents.
Briefcases of top secret documents left on trains and buses, and in bars frequented by journalists, are amongst previous success stories.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:25PM (2 children)
Another reason why public transport is unamerican
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:36PM (1 child)
It's unamerican because we don't generally like inflexible, dirty, third rate services provided by the government if we can go private instead. Own your own transportation = go wherever, whenever you want without strange criminals in the back seat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @06:21PM
>we don't generally like inflexible, dirty, third rate services provided by the government if we can go private instead.
If there were good public transit in my city I absolutely would use it. I hate owning a car, it is expensive and I hate driving.
Public transport in the US is shitty because it gets massively under-funded and bills to fix that get assassinated by auto corps.
>Own your own transportation = go wherever, whenever you want
Sure, unless there's a traffic jam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @04:01PM
Oh come on. Do you not see what this is? You can go read mountains of classified documents at Wikileaks. And the one thing I can say is that 99.9% of all of it is incredibly mundane.
Yet this "accident" left a mountain of some of the most damning data. It shows the US "withdrawal" in Afghanistan may just be a role-swap with the UK, and much more - perhaps most damning that the recent UK incursion in the Crimean sea was an active, intentional, and premeditated provocation of Russia. And why you'd want to provoke a hostile response and then create propaganda about being attacked? Well, that enters the domain of speculation - but it's not difficult to imagine. And it's not a scenario 99.9999% of people would ever want to see.
This was not an accident. It was a leak with plausible deniability so the leaker needn't throw his life away as normally happens to people who leak things that don't paint the political establishment in a positive light.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday June 29 2021, @02:59PM (18 children)
What the article is curiously omitting is how many years ahead the US was 10 years ago. My hunch is "20 years".
Because while China is moving, the US is at best not sliding off. At best. Because in many areas, it is sliding. The US has changed from a society that celebrates achievement and striving for excellence to a society that celebrates ignorance and striving for a pain-free quick buck. The American dream used to be "work hard, climb the ladder, get educated, better yourself, and you'll be living like a king soon". But by now, pretty much everyone should have finally realized that this dream is over. You can work your ass off and never get anywhere, and the only thing a college degree gets you is a mountain of debt you can never recover from. The new American dream is "try to get by somehow while waiting for a lottery jackpot".
Whether that lottery jackpot comes in the form of an actual lottery jackpot or being able to sue someone, who gives a shit?
In the 60s, kids wanted to be astronauts. And they knew that this is something they can only do by learning and being the best the can be. The heroes of the past were people who had the smarts and the physical excellence to be the best they could be. Today, the heroes are mostly known for being known. Can anyone please tell me what the fuck Kim Kardashian can actually do but "being famous"? Or what the hell makes some mumble rapper who can obviously not even talk, something I would have expected to be the bare minimum qualification for someone who wants to make something that is generally considered music, so special? But that's the role models. And with good reason, because they are what the kids of today can actually hope to be.
Because the school system has been ruined, partly due to a lack of funding, partly due to politics and partly because of the ridiculous notion that religion should in some way be involved. The net result of this is that people come out of our schools that don't even have enough education to tell when someone is telling them utter and total bullshit. Opening the floodgates for even the most harebrained conspiracy bullshit that anyone with even a modicum of education should laugh out the door. But when a school system mostly relies on "believe what I tell you because I know better than you" rather than teaching how to tell information from bullshit, well, what do you expect?
Which in turn means that the few (and ever fewer) people we do have who have an education worth the name spend a ridiculous amount of their time trying to counter the flood of bullshit peddlers who either want to make a quick buck with the dimwits or use them for a political agenda (domestic and international, welcome to the wonderful world of the internet), which does amount to holding back the springtide with a broom, and which right now actually, and if you ask me, finally, costs us lives.
Maybe it takes a few corpses to make people wake up. But it seems that isn't enough, even.
But hey, we're still 10 years ahead of China! No need to worry or change anything, let's continue deteriorating our education, wasting time on bullshit peddlers and generally slide into insignificance. Worked for the Roman and the British empire, should be good for the US as well.
The US is like a huge oil tanker. Even with the engine off, it will continue forward for a long, long time. The problem is, when you finally notice that the speed is lacking, it will take an incredible amount of fuel to get the juggernaut moving again, and a lot of money will have to be invested with very little return in any forseeable future.
And try to get THAT past the shareholders.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday June 29 2021, @03:10PM (12 children)
Corruptions is just that, a lot of money invested with very little return in any forseeable future. The US has been doing that investment thing for many decades. The problem is that it's not investment. And now we're supposed to do that thing again that hasn't been working for longer than you've been alive? Tell me more.
Here's my take. The things that have kept the US ahead are all in the private, profit-making sector. Everything else is a shitshow. Sure, put in enough regulation to keep business relatively honest and non-polluting, but otherwise, just get out of the way.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by js290 on Tuesday June 29 2021, @03:50PM
Govt expenditures should count against GDP... "turn the poorest, most dense neighborhoods into free market zone, wealth would be created within the weekend... I'd turn to crime too if I had to bribe [bureaucrats]..." Karl Hess [bit.ly]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @06:34PM (5 children)
>The things that have kept the US ahead are all in the private, profit-making sector.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the financial sector utterly ruin the economy in 2008? And wasn't total disaster only averted by a massive cash injection from the government? And didn't all the people who acted dishonestly and more or less screwed over the whole world mostly not get punished for it at all?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 29 2021, @07:13PM (4 children)
Well, if you are right, then why does our utterly ruined economy seem to be humming along today?
That depends. How much utterly ruination needs to happen before total disaster occurs? Is it a little or a lot? My take is that we're worse off today because we let those "too big to fail" firms not fail.
Well, that massive cash injection no doubt completely discouraged them from ever doing it again!
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday June 30 2021, @10:11AM (3 children)
Because your government used your money to bail those fuckers out and prop the whole shit up, essentially ruining what was left of any kind of social services. Why do you think the huge social problems the US has were curiously facing just now? Nothing's more desperate than people who have literally nothing left to lose. And now they really have nothing left to lose.
It's worse than that. Because until now, they held the government on a leash. Now they got it by the balls. Because now, they don't wait anymore for the bailout. They just flat out blackmail them with the fact that the government can't let them fail because that would essentially cause the whole system to break down, so you better dance to my tune or I stop whistling.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 30 2021, @11:55AM (2 children)
I don't see this alleged ruining of social services. Or for that matter, the alleged value of social services either. Seems to me that the primary purpose of them is to bribe voters to go along with the status quo. I would think you'd be for something that disrupts that, right?
I grant that there are problems. I also grant that they aren't huge. We're already exiting this stage of the coronavirus pandemic. Maybe it'll come back with new variants, but the vaccine happened and was distributed in a timely manner. The economy is already recovering. We just do it again, if we need to. This one weird vaccine trick works.
Cool fantasy, bro. I continued to be more concerned about corporations like the NSA or the IRS than corporations like banks because it's quite clear who holds the leash.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 30 2021, @05:10PM (1 child)
We know, reality is hard for you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 01 2021, @12:37PM
It is for everyone. The real question is what are we going to do about it? My take is that at least two dead ends have been described in this thread. First, the empty bragging of the story that "America is ten years ahead" in a race the status quo is losing. Second, the obsession with "social services" - that emphasizes safety and risk avoidance over ambition or education. My take is that it's not a coincidence that our era of social services and too big to fail coincides with the disinterest in science or entrepreneurship (or the empty praise of the story for US cyberwarfare capabilities) - the very things being complained about in this discussion.
So often when people and organizations are in safe cocoons, then they don't do anything. Imagine that.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday June 30 2021, @09:48AM (4 children)
The private sector only works out as long as you can ignore its fallout. Because there is only one goal in the privat sector: Profit. At the expense of everything else. Population, country, hell, even the rest of the economy. You think a corporation would have a problem leaving behind a wasteland if it meant a 1% increase in profit in the short run?
That might still have worked when it was mostly domestic companies that exploited the country, because the people working in them had a concern for the viability of the country they're in. Do you think the new owners from overseas (and yes, take a closer look at who actually owns US companies these days) give a shit about whether the US is a wasteland when they're done with it?
And I'm not even talking about ecology. I'm talking economy here.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 01 2021, @04:25AM (3 children)
Soulless corporations? Regulate them. But regulate them no more than needed to prevent said wasteland.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday July 01 2021, @07:06AM (2 children)
Laws are to corporations two things: If the fines are large enough, they are something to be examined, dissected, circumvented and avoided.
If the fines are not, they're basically part of the cost calculation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 01 2021, @11:22AM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 01 2021, @11:46AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @04:35PM (2 children)
I don't follow the Kardashians at all, but this is a bad example, I think. I heard Kim is actually trying to become a lawyer in California. She's put some thought into her post-celebrity life.
She failed the pre-test, barely, but claims she is going to try again. In some ways she actually is a good role-model.
Take that with a huge grain of salt, though. As I said, I pay almost 0-attention to the Kardashians (I only know the above because I watch some US-Law youtube channels), so if somebody else points out her horribleness... then sure, okay.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday June 30 2021, @10:17AM (1 child)
Whether that's genuine or just a feeble attempt to stay in the news, what the hell is that woman famous for? I still never got an answer to that. Can she sing? Dance? Hell, ANYTHING?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 30 2021, @02:06PM
She's a rich woman with a big ass from an aristocratic family. Go worship your betters like the TV tells you!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 29 2021, @09:02PM
Kuntry 'n proud of it has been a thing since before the 1960s, and the "wise guys" mobs were notoriously thick in their heads, wouldn't trust a smart guy - lots of other examples if you think about it.
The pain-free quick buck has been the goal of the majority for a long time.
However, I'll agree, it's only recently that the myth of Arbeit macht frei has been exposed to the masses in the U.S. and I'll also agree that it's even more mythical today than it was 50 years ago - although 100-200 years ago "climbing the ladder" through hard work also wasn't nearly as effective as getting lucky with risky ventures, and before that simply being a European in the Americas was an inherently risky venture. What's happening in the US today is not so different from what happened in Europe in the time of Malthus: limited opportunity for risky ventures for the poor. When the US frontier was open, you could claim some land with little more than the clothes on your back (more often a small sum of money that you could fairly easily earn and save) and maybe build up a thriving homestead. In the 1960s-70s, the "new frontier" of university educated young people was a rare safe path to success - until everybody started getting degrees.
Fame is the new aristocracy.
For some (sadly too many) people, following appealing bullshit is better in their minds than any harsh realities. There's also comfort in numbers, if enough of them follow the bullshit together, they believe maybe it won't be bullshit anymore...
Sic et ad homines semper just because the idiots are out there doesn't make it any particular person's duty to correct them. Certainly our "leaders" should be trying to get people to behave in the interests of the greater good, but the bulk of "good people" should be minding their own business and being productive rather than mimicking XKCD 386 [xkcd.com].
As you say, leadership acts like the US is like a huge oil tanker and we can just tap the onboard stores whenever we need to.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29 2021, @09:22PM
NJP! NJP!
https://nationaljusticeparty.com/ [nationaljusticeparty.com]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday June 29 2021, @05:14PM
The world, unfortunately, used Windows which is what gives the U.S. it's "Cyber" abilities: just open a backdoor and BAM!, Bob's your uncle.
If the world ever grabs a brain and uses something like linux everyday and in business, the "Cyber" abilities will go downhill because they won't have that advantage.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday June 29 2021, @06:30PM (2 children)
Why is America so easily hacked? Why don't the idiotic billionaires who run oil pipelines, hospitals, etc require that all date be backed up? Everyone here knows that if your data is backed up offline, nobody can delete it, but the moronic super billionaires who own and run everything keep paying extortion money to get their data back?
Have you read the Nooze [nooze.org]?
(Score: 2) by YeaWhatevs on Tuesday June 29 2021, @09:44PM
From one pocket and into the other. Tax deductable!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 29 2021, @09:54PM
Too much detail for an idiotic billionaire to worry about.
Then, at some level the middle managers strangle all the cash flowing to lower levels, into their bonuses with the excess and make sure the worker drones are operating at 150% nominal capacity 60 hours per week. That way they have high turnover and can keep replacing their people with fresh, cheap blood instead of giving raises to retain talent.
The edicts from the top to "make things secure" get barked down the chain, but the dogs that pull the sled have neither incentive, nor skills, nor time to know if they're "doing it right" or not.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday June 30 2021, @04:37AM
Why is South Korea not even considered?