Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Cringe of the day: US military spawns yet another UFO investigation workgroup, logo contains a "Latin" motto seemingly made by butchering a stoic motivational poster quote.
I want to put this on the record to have a sign to tap anytime someone brings up "officials at the DoD" as a particularly trustworthy authority on anything. Consider what must have gone wrong for this to pass muster - the individual(s) in charge are so childish to think that slapping on a random Latin motto makes you look legit, they are not skilled or diligent enough to construct a motto that is actually correct, not resourceful enough to hire or ask someone who could do it right, nor capable of sufficient reflection to anticipate that they would fail at it and the result may be embarrassing. (It's not like show-offs like me trying to decipher random Latin is a rare occurrence!) If any other employees looked over the materials at all, either those people also failed the attention or skepticism check, or there is not enough of a culture of criticism that they could report it upwards. What sort of useful contribution can a group of people like that make on the topic of sifting through blurry and contentious footage and deciding if it is evidence of UFOs or some other explanation has been missed? All that is really evidenced is that under the aegis of the US military, there is space for amateurs to do whatever with little oversight.
(Fun thread because there isn't really much that falls along standard CW battle lines here. Happy to move if the implications are too contentious after all.)
OK, the US military is not well-endowed with the cerebral sort. Many abstract tasks like strategy or military-political coordination elude them. They have produced some real masterpieces of silliness in past years: https://x.com/DefenseCharts/status/1321799395571097601
But the US military do have powerful radars and cameras pointed at the skies. They have lots of space assets, they are very interested in space. There's no way of getting to the bottom of this without their resources.
To build, maintain, and coordinate these interests would imply a great deal of cerebral endowment. You may become king of the skies by luck, but you sure as hell don't keep the kingdom that way.
If they throw $800 billion or so around every year for decades and decades, they'll have all kinds of cool toys. Are they getting the right systems, are systems developed efficiently, are wars managed proficiently or planned out properly? Absolutely not. But if you're a big, rich incumbent, even regular blundering doesn't cause that much harm... until strong competitors emerge.
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