Joel Shepherd Author
@ShepJoel
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Author of 21 Science Fiction & Fantasy novels, most recently 'The Spiral Wars'. Volunteer firefighter. International Relations, science, cool stuff.
Australia
Joined February 2013
@clairlemon Clearly the Gazans expect the UN to rebuild everything, but neither Trump nor Israel will let that happen. So they'll be sitting in that rubble for years, OR they could move. There will never be more leverage, and it's not nearly as silly an idea as is being portrayed.
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That's because modern AI can't reason, it can only reproduce and re-combine.
Rare that I hear something new in the AI debate, but this is one such case.
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The Indian defence establishment is discovering that Chinese modern fighter development does not move at the same pace as India's ponderous programs. Self-reliance is great, but even against Pakistan, if there's a war in the next 10 years, the IAF will get annihilated.
Lets think about this for a moment from the standpoint of Capability First without blaming one another in the millionth import vs make in India debate. China presently has 250 odd J-20 stealth fighters operational. Pakistan has announced its intention to acquire the J-35 stealth fighter. Our first AMCA stealth jet, per the official release below, starts getting inducted ELEVEN years from now. By this time, China will have operationalised and upgraded its new ''6th'' generation stealth fighters recently spotted. The Tejas Mk-2, once inducted, will likely be better than the Mirage 2000I in most respects, but a generation behind modern stealth platforms. A harsh critic would say that the Mk2 is already obsolete as a platform give the nature of the stealth-threats we face. The IAF needs to fill this stealth gap now. As I had mentioned in an earlier tweet - with the F-35 not on the cards (sadly), the Su-57 will need to meet that need. Not a squadron or two. The need is for several squadrons. And if the Su-57 is assessed as being inadequate for our needs, then we will have to live with a glaring hole in our defences ... as our foes continue to up their game. #AeroIndia2025
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@PalmerLuckey I wrote something back in the day about what a pity it was they messed up the script, but I can't find it now. Was nearly a good movie.
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@RichardHanania For people like her, journalism is like therapy where she works out her personal issues by projecting them onto everyone else. People like it because they think it's psychologically insightful, which I suppose it is, but only about herself.
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@nayibbukele I regret to inform you that Dear Leader Kim Jong Un's popularity is 112%. But you are welcome to grovel in second place.
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@oldbooksguy Someone who prefers the complex version of something to the simple one. ie; old cars over new ones, instrumental versions over pop songs, the long way home over the short, etc. High intelligence is no guarantee of accuracy, but it's addicted to complexity.
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@MichaelAArouet India has been run from independence until Modi by ‘pro-poor’ parties. They only survive if there are enough poor people to vote for them. Thus, the number of poor Indians exploded.
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Indians occupy a middle space between Western and non-Western. Chinese have neither the government nor the language to do so, but Indians can move into traditionally Western spaces while still being ‘other’, and in huge numbers. Some Westerners will like it, some wont. Indians should recall that the mark of a truly powerful people and culture is to not care what others think. Like most Americans don’t.
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I recall long ago people said Singapore was boring. Seems like Singapore heard them and made some changes.
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Good analogy. Government agencies don't need to survive in the real world, thus are not subject to the brutal competitive pressures that would destroy private organisations. They must be placed under extreme scrutiny and internal pressure to keep them healthy.
Government and Bureaucracy run the risk of multiplying infinitely until someone actively works to optimize.
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The fact that an obvious minimum of $50 billion in fraud was considered no big deal until now shows how this is largely a cultural problem. People in government need to care about taxpayer dollars as though it were their own money.
To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following: - Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible. - All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING! - The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily. The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from @DOGE. It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already! Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious. When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!! This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.
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@clairlemon We need more cities, joined by massive infrastructure, but environmental regulations and myopic government have made this basically impossible.
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