quote:. The whole "venerating the ancestors", "never question your teacher", "do as you are told", "never disobey your parents" line has gotten so overwhelming that they just can't think outside the box, so to speak.
this drives my girlfriend insane. her parents are desperately trying to find a way to make their activism group viable in the states, and she knows exactly what they're doing wrong (it's a lot of things) but those four exact statements, almost verbatim, are what she gets when she sits them down and explains in perfect detail why their ideas aren't sticky and why they won't be able to bring in fresh blood. I got to see some of this in action. I was completely confounded. It's a strange cultural throwback.
Of course, I don't think it's as monolithic as its made out to be, but the pervasiveness is ridiculous.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I want to make a blog but various mental roadblocks prevent me as well as the fear that no one would read it.
And this was supposed to be specifically a rebuttal to Lyrhawn's post a year or so ago about his skepticism about the Russians/Chinese building a capable 5th gen fighter anytime soon.
BTW, nothing in your post or link addressed the feasibility of a domestically (China) produced Fifth Gen Fighter in the near-term. Russia might have one in the next few years, and if the Chinese copy it or buy it, well, that would certainly mirror their track record wouldn't it? But building their own? Most guesses are somewhere around the end of the decade. That'd put them 15 years behind the Raptor. There's already talk of the US Sixth Generation Fighter being put into service between 2020 and 2025, which would literally put the Chinese a generation behind.
They'll catch up, a lot faster at this rate than the Russians will I bet, but not yet.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:I'd be happy to link to a few dozen articles about this happening
So... why didn't you? Not for me. For your argument which at the moment still stands at the "accepted wisdom" stage. I don't deny that people are ignorant of modern China (or modern Asia in general) but I don't accept their ignorance as proof of what China is like.
I'm not saying necessarily that either of you is particularly right as I know absolutely nothing about the topic, only that Blayne's argument is at least supported and yours (and other people's) seems to be based on anecdotes. We have no idea whether a parent's control of their daughter means that same daughter won't invent something new-- perhaps not point out a flaw but then that would go against this whole "adaptation and improvement" that people admit occurs.
THe only thing I know (from having read a book at somepoint, possibly Outliers) has been a problem in this kind of culture is air traffic controlling and co-pilots who don't point out to their superiors when the wings come off. However, I'm pretty sure engineers are capable of fixing said plane post-wing-off-disaster.
I was in a bad mood, but I'm glad I was annoyed enough to speak up or else I probably wouldn't have at all. I don't, usually.
quote:I want to make a blog but various mental roadblocks prevent me as well as the fear that no one would read it.
Okay, now read this again and imagine you're reading somebody else's (e.g. a third party's) comment.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Teshi, defend Blayne all you want. It doesn't make anything I said less true. I didn't accuse him of lying. I didn't accuse him of being a "douchebag", I didn't call "bullshit", and not one thing I said was false. Most of it was most certainly not even opinion on my part, it was fact.
Hell, most of it is common knowledge to everyone in this thread.
Except Blayne.
I also, if you bother actually reading what I posted, said he DOES get picked on, and that it is only partially his fault. I said that he has improved, not only in his posting style but in his writing ability, and that I even agree with him on some points now and then.
None of this changes the facts though. At least part of what happens IS his own fault, even thought he refuses to accept that. Many people DID leave, and while he isn't the sole reason for a lot of them, he WAS a major factor/reason for many of them.....and they have not avoided mentioning it.
I don't like being called a liar. Even if the person calling me one is one of the least respected people I have ever met online.
Lock the thread, or not. I could care less at this point. Either way I am done with it.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: "OK, first, I'll believe the Chinese can create an OS from the ground up when I SEE it."
Should we insist that they reinvent the internal combustion engine, too?
Um, those two things are way different things and the same incentives for designing one from the ground up for an OS are not present in an internal combustion engine?
Oh, w/e, this is all ancillary. as per the core point (blayne's assertion in the OP) nothing indicates it's at all true, including the attached article.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I think as quality of life continues to improve in China, and more time can be spent just tinkering and brain storming, that you will start to see Mainland Chinese innovating.
If you consider the sheer number of Chinese that have immigrated to America or just gone to college here, and then gone on to work for engineering firms it's perfectly obvious they have the mental know-how to innovate.
But right now, they still have a long ways to go economically.
It's not that they're poor, Blackblade. It's that they are still stuck in the past. The whole "venerating the ancestors", "never question your teacher", "do as you are told", "never disobey your parents" line has gotten so overwhelming that they just can't think outside the box, so to speak.
In Mainland China those ideas are deteriorating, and fast. Two other equally pervasive ideas that in the latter's case is virtually gone are, "Be unfailingly polite, even if you hate somebody's guts." and "No public displays of affection."
In China they already talk quite a bit about the concept of, "Little Emperors". Children who completely control their parents, rather than vice versa.
China has just too much exposure to the outside world for those ideas to remain in place unchanged. The Beijingers I interacted with were in many ways radically different from the Beijingers I did the same thing with about 14 years ago.
Posts: 1194 | Registered: Jun 2010
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While Blayne's posts may be a turnoff to many of the longer established members here, it's equally a turnoff to new members to see each thread devolve into the same conversation regarding what Blayne should do to improve his life. It's about as fun as seeing the same religious debates over and over again. It's as if some people only post when they have something negative to say, and then they complain about how negative the Hatrack atmosphere is. It gets old very quickly and is likely one factor for why some people don't contribute more often around here. I'm not trying to place blame here; I'm just saying that we all contribute to the atmosphere here, for better or worse.
Anyway, regarding the original topic, Blayne's examples may not be the most convincing regarding China's status as innovators, but can anyone claim that China cannot innovate at all? Sure, they may not come close to US standards, but I don't think anyone can disagree that their government is spending a lot of money and effort on R&D and promoting innovation. They've invested a lot on cutting edge infrastructure, they are rapidly increasing their knowledge, and they certainly have a population base large enough to at least come up with a few innovative ideas.
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I know enough Chinese researchers to know that China can definitely innovate. There are at least two major effects promoting the idea of China as not-integrators (leaving aside that for many people promoting it is a political move). First, it is much easier to adopt existing technologies, so a lot of profit is being made in China by people who do that successfully, just as has been in every country that has had to make the transition from third world to first world. This has never been a sign that the people in the country are not innovators (the charge has been leveled in the past at places that are quite good innovators nowadays, such as France and Japan). Second, institutional effects do make innovation more difficult in China (though not especially more than any other country at a similar stage of development). Capital markets have only just been modernized, there's still a lot of harmful government interference in markets, cronyism is still a notable problem in making business connections, and many other things that increase the difficulty of going from a good idea and willingness to work at it to game changing technologies and businesses. I know from direct observation that there are many Chinese researchers developing technologies that have huge business potential, but it is difficult for them (or, more usually, a student of theirs) to take that all the way to a successful business, much less to grow that business into a much larger business. This too is changing, of course.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Heh, very good point shadow. I shouldn't opt for the bait when he gets plaintive OR when people start pilin' on. In any event, whenever someone attributes an entire community's problems (or most), something's wrong. That goes for everyone.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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In Blayne's own link there was a great quote about innovation. It ran counter to his point though, which to me actually proves the point that when you are talking about innovation it is very hard to define what you mean, let alone come to a consensus.
quote: Even though Japan's innovation output surpassed those of all the other countries, a majority of 485 senior global executives taking an Economist survey cited the U.S. as by far the best place for innovation.
"The common view among executives is that Japan is not the most conducive place to innovate," the report says, noting that only 2 percent of respondents saw it as having the best conditions for innovation, compared with 40 percent for the U.S. and 12 percent for the second-place country, India.
For some people, innovation can be found in any tech advance. It could be an improved operating system, or improvement in a car's gas mileage. For other people, it means high tech applications. Other people take into consideration the political environment, and the risk of foreign investments as well as the infrastructure in place to educate workers and advance knowledge.
I don't think China is incapable of innovation, but I don't think they are world leaders in it yet. Although in the next 30-40 year they might be.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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Muahahaha, tuesday I am back!
quote: BTW, nothing in your post or link addressed the feasibility of a domestically (China) produced Fifth Gen Fighter in the near-term. Russia might have one in the next few years, and if the Chinese copy it or buy it, well, that would certainly mirror their track record wouldn't it? But building their own? Most guesses are somewhere around the end of the decade. That'd put them 15 years behind the Raptor. There's already talk of the US Sixth Generation Fighter being put into service between 2020 and 2025, which would literally put the Chinese a generation behind.
They'll catch up, a lot faster at this rate than the Russians will I bet, but not yet.
About 2017-2019 according to some sources, which is only 6 years away at earliest to 8-9 years at latest, considering that the US killed the F-22 program I am highly skeptical that they would without a significant realignment in priorities and politics could the US really afford to put out a '6th' gen plane when so many of their probably strategic competitors are still struggling with getting 5th gen's out into the pipe.
quote: It's not that they're poor, Blackblade. It's that they are still stuck in the past. The whole "venerating the ancestors", "never question your teacher", "do as you are told", "never disobey your parents" line has gotten so overwhelming that they just can't think outside the box, so to speak.
The Chinese might eventually innovate, but it won't happen until their culture shifts and changes through exposure to the West.
This is actually borderline racist at worst and narrowminded at best, Confucian morality and ethics are so widespread because that is their own domestic source of ethics and morals, do you think the whole world should automatically adopt ethical systems that developed from judeo-christian principles? Asking them to drop confucianism is like asking the Americans to abandon judeo-christian secularism.
What they are doing and should continue to be doing is to evolve it so it is practical for the modern day the same way Christianity through protestantism and the reform movement and the liberal revolution evolved to its current state of secularism.
I mean whats wrong with venerating ancestors? The Japanese do it, they're doing fine, it's practically speaking akin to how catholics pray to their Patron saints to watch over them.
Other parts of these were also most likely highly and heavily damaged during the Cultural Revolution.
But this doesn't change the point of asking why are these bad? And ultimately the answer is cultural relativism, we percieve them as bad things because our North American and by extension Western culture inherently stresses individual egalitarianism sees the ultimate core concepts of Confucianism, such as its stresses upon order as being alien, and thus 'bad' because ingrained cultural indentity says so.
Objectively speaking this is crud, since we lack an objective standard aside from say the United Nations Declaration of Human rights and nothing in Confucianism outright violates it then there is thus nothing inherently wrong with it, only that its cultural persuaviveness and practice have had centuries of medival feudal baggage accumilated with it and it needs to shake off that excess and evolve to a proper form.
Ultimately they may not right NOW be world leading innovators but they ARE innovating.
quote: OK, first, I'll believe the Chinese can create an OS from the ground up when I SEE it.
Since there are many well documented practical and convenient reasons why the Chinese would see no marketable or lucrative reason to develop their own OS when Microsoft can so easily beat whatever Domestic competition could develop I think it ludicrous for you to suggest and assume that the only possible reason could be lack of innovation when a far simpler and accurate reason would be simply a matter of disadvantageous market forces, Linux, the Mac OS, and Windows are simply easier, already exist, have a billion programs and utilities, have gone through decades of product cycles and China can strong arm Bill Gates into giving them preferencial treatment.
I think it is you who needs to find a source stating point blank that "The Chinese are incapable of innovating a new OS and here's why".
quote: Blayne, Communism isn't a natural disaster. The Chinese ALLOWED it. Granted, Mao was never elected, but the Chinese people have revolted many times throughout history. They chose not to overthrow him. Communism was, in part, their CHOICE. Would Americans have tolerated it? I doubt it. Those are two very different cultures. One innovates well now, one USED to, about a thousand years ago. Things can change in a thousand years.
They didn't innovating during the Late-Ming because they, and by they I mean the Imperial Bureaucracy and the Eunachs decided that they were pretty much perfect and no more development, especially development and innovation that could upset the centralization of power into Beijing/Nanking whatever the capital was then was unneeded and allowed the infrastructure to deteriote, and the education of elites who could have innovated or had the wealth to spread and apply it to retard to the point that it would get progressively more and more difficult, against increasingly entrenched political powers to make any significant effort at reform.
By the time foreign and domestic forces had finally realigned in a position to reform the system it was too late, they (China) had fallen behind and either massive revolts, uprisings or foreign invasion would conspire to prevent stability from allowing China to modernize until the end of the civil war in 1949, by this point China was now barely industrialized with 400 million people and utterly devasted by war, of COURSE they're is not much innovation in the definition of "inventing something new" because everything had already been discovered by someone else.
Thus from 1949 to 1970 they were catching up and at a decent pace, from the mid 60s to late 70's all of this had been rerailed by the Cultural Revolution and its attacks on both educational institutions (thus putting R&D and their intellectual establishment behind by a generation) and on Confucian values that Mao felt was bourgosie/feudal.
And during that period despite a very large pool of talented and western education Chinese living overseas the political climate, the police state, and suspicion of them and their loyalty would prevent many of them from returning to bring their talents to China's use, especially during the CRev when it was mostly hippies that came back.
Whether you could make the argument or not that Confucian Culture Lead to [-->] Chinese People [--->]Accepting Communism you would still need to find a direct link between their Culture [--->] Communism, aka what is it specifically about their culture as the root cause under your logic, leading to a lack of innovation?
As discussed above, nothing specifically about Confucian values inherently restrictive on innovation, clearly there is a inherent deference for superiors, older family members, and teachers but I don't see how this can automatically mean it'll leapfrog from deference/respect to "unyielding lockstep obedience".
quote: Have you ever asked yourself why people smart enough to invent gunpowder couldn't figure out inventing, oh, I don't know, the GUN? The Chinese didn't suddenly get dumber. Their culture attained a critical mass of baggage, ruining innovation.
Some very basic ignorance here, they DID invent the gun, including a Mobile Rocket Launcher, rudimentary napalm/greek fire and sailing ships that could cross the oceans and in numbers that would put the RN of 1820 to shame.
There was nothing culturally that preventing their spread, only politics while you could try to make an argument regarding an inherent link between culture and politics and the Mandate of Heaven system I would argue that the simple geopolitics of China having an imperial autocracy with absolute political power consolidated in the hands of a single emperor and his circle of elites that saw no need for continued development of arms, or inventions that could in the long road upset that powerbase (afterall widespread firearms in the hands of the peasamts would make absolute imperial military control difficult, especially with unassimilated minorities) was simply not in their best interest.
Power politics, simple to understand technological and societal trends, clearly they were capable of innovating enough to GET to the point of nearly undisputed global dominance and regional hegemony and then practically overnight let it all fade away down the drain.
An unfortunate result of a coin flip, while the culture may not had been able to resist this political pressure on the other hand had those elites insisting on this obediance had more forsight or had a lucky string of enlightened monarchs akin to the first Han Emperor or Yongle of the Ming or had ZhengHe been more political adept and powerful it is also entirely possible that the Confucian Bureaucracy could have been encouraged to see the middle class not as a source of competition but as a source of energetic manpower and taxable wealth, the navy as an instrument of power and invention as simply a way of constantly affirming their superiority.
These 'What Ifs' from any detailed reading of China's decline were certainly possible, and had they happened there's nothing specific to that culture that would insure that the flip of opinion would have happened, only that there's no way of reversing it without a more englightened Monarch or a change in Dynasty.
quote: Your first link doesn't list one remarkable innovation that the Japanese have made. You can patent things all day. That doesn't mean they are interesting, useful, or profitable. Lots of patents does NOT necessarily mean lots of useful innovations.
I believe that one cannot narrowly define innovation as "making a new revolutionary toy", but as any significant development of existing technology, or the formulation of new techniques or processes, or the development of new technologies, or the discovery of new concepts, ideas, etc.
Thus making an old idea new, ie such as the Japanese revolution in quality control in their adaption of the assembly line, is a notable innovation.
The Zero-sen fighter, while a fighter plane wasn't a new idea the Japanese manage to take existing technology and a Canadian prototype plane and create a plane that managed to wipe all its competitors out fo the sky until newer models could be developed and produced to match it, followed by the Japanese simply not having the RESOURCES to design, develop and test new designs in sufficient numbers or in fast enough time frames, ie by 1945 planes such as the Shinden and other new planes were certainly capable on paper anyways in the hands of a skilled pilot (such as Saburo Sakai) of matching or even surpassing allies planes but y'know, 1944/45, blockade, etc, desperation, etc, time tor retool factories, etc.
And hey, once more, a little louded although I claim no responsibility if your brain explodes, but; VOCALOID hey, look, voice software that can sing! A culture that immediatly obsesses over them and they become overnight internet celebrities! Hey look, HOLOGRAM VOCALOID SINGERS AT A LIVE CONCERT Have Americans done this? I don't think so.
quote: Your second link suffers from the same problem. I don't care HOW much money the Chinese throw at innovation. The fact is, they're still stealing ideas like babies drink milk, which is to say, as much as they want, as often as they want. They have no concept of fair play.
Not really, you can't really for example steal ideas for say a 5th generation stealth fighter, you need to have a large industrial and research and development complex for many of the things you'ld allegedly accuse them of stealing, and how many technologies do you honestly think they should be trying to develop and invent on their own? In every case learning how to reverse engineer something provides just about every advantage, and confers every step of the development and inventing process as inventing it yourself does except at a fraction of the cost, they still need engineers who can do X, universities to produce them, government to tax people and invest the money into those faculties, large complexes to house them and their work, and to produce these inventions they may have alledgedly stole or bought they need to understand them and the process that gone into developing them in the first place.
Which gives them experience, gives them know-how how to make and develop and improve sophisticated technologies and gadgets, thus it helps provide the foundation for when they have begun developing things themselves they know how to start, what questions to ask, etc.
Also they know require it that many businesses have to share the technology when they do business in China so they're now a large and lucrative enough market that they can easily get the technology through open and fair business.
And also, I object to the idea that they have no sense of fair play, they have in fact gone to phenomenal efforts to play by the US's rules, the rules of the WTO, and GATT, etc to play the PR game but have had the door slammed in their face repeatedly in the name of "national security" such as when Congress intervened to prevent them from buying a US oil company as documented in "China: Fragile Superpower" by Susan L Shirk, who was one of the original team of the Organization of Concerned Asian Scholars and co-authored "China! Inside the People's Republic".
quote: As far as improving the assembly line, sure, yes, the Japanese improve almost everything America invents. That doesn't mean they invent it. If you can't see the difference between Ender's Game fanfic and the original novel, what can I say? Even if the fanfic is better, it still isn't the original idea. That's why OSC gets paid, and fanfic writers get...kudos, at best. The genius of the Japanese is that, even though they can't invent anything useful, they manage to work hard and still make money anyway. That's fairly impressive.
This... Sounds encredibly condenscending and narrowminded you realize that right?
Leaving aside the already discussed topic of what the definition of innovation is....
Not ignoring of course the obvious fact that a huge amount of Gaming is Japanese invented or developed far beyond the expectations of their original designers, consoles I'm pretty sure were pretty much invented by the Japanese or they developed their own at just about the sametime given the length of development cycles then.
This isn't a difference between fanfic and an original work, one is copywrited the other can't be (generally) but taking something that may have a patent, making or doing something new with it, and then getting a patent on that, still innovation.
For example, I could take the iPhone and I might not be able to make a newer better iPhone, but I could make an App that I could sell, that is still innovation.
And to make it closer to your analogy I may not be able to publish fanfiction for say Dragonlance, but I could take the Draconian race invented by the Dragonlance authors, rename them and take them in a completely new direction, in a new setting, with a history I create myself from scratch and I could then publish that using the original source as inspiration.
quote: And yes, it is the accepted wisdom that the Chinese can't innovate. Do you want proof? Every person who hears that the Chinese invented gunpowder, paper, etc. thousands of years ago says to themselves "then what happened next?".
Developed them to the point that they were nolonger needed and then stopped.
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quote:About 2017-2019 according to some sources, which is only 6 years away at earliest to 8-9 years at latest, considering that the US killed the F-22 program I am highly skeptical that they would without a significant realignment in priorities and politics could the US really afford to put out a '6th' gen plane when so many of their probably strategic competitors are still struggling with getting 5th gen's out into the pipe.
Well, they didn't kill the F-22 program before it pumped out a few squadrons of planes. The F-22 has a single real purpose: Air superiority. They've decided to mass produce the F35 not only because it is cheaper, but because it serves a multi-functional role that the F-22 can't really match when it comes to things like VTOL, CATOBAR, and AtG attacks. But in the air? Nothing beats it. And that's fine, because that's all it was meant to do. But the US has to question how much money it is worth spending on Air Superiority when China and Russia, the next closest possible competitors working on an AS fighter, won't have one on the air for a decade. Perfectly reasonable in my mind, plus the F35 Air Force variant is no pushover. You're questioning the reduction and cancellation of the F22 program as a measure of US determination to stay ahead of the pack, but are ignoring the fact that they are already well ahead of the pack, and know that they will be for a decade. Why waste the money creating more 5th gen fighters when you can save it and reinvest it in the NEXT generation of fighters, so that when China rolls out their fifth gen, we'll be doing trial runs on our sixth gen?
There's actually some really interesting stuff out there right now about the replacement program for the F-18 Superhornet, about the Sixth Gen fighter, and about what they have working for newer, better UAVs. Some neat stuff.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Blayne, you did make one good point that I'd like to address. you mentioned that the quality of monarchs made a big difference in whether innovation would happen or not. I agree with that. The Chinese people do still deserve SOME blame for not overthrowing bad (or just very incompetent) regimes, but the luck of the draw does make a difference.
I wouldn't place too much weight on that, though. The West dismantled its monarchies in favor of democracy, which removes this problem, mostly. OTOH, The Chinese treated democracy, and still do, as if it has multiple incurable deadly STDs. Not the best analogy, I realize, but it does display the antipathy that people in China seem to have toward democratic systems. And yes, their whole Confucian system DOES INDEED lead to a rejection of democracy in favor of monarchy.
I do have to say that the CCP seems to be changing leaders semi-regularly. Gone are the days of "ruling until you die". That's an improvement.
I'm not saying that China will never be able to innovate. That was never my point. Neither am I saying that they don't have the intelligence. What I AM SAYING is that it's not going to happen today, tomorrow, or next year. It might happen in 20-25 years, if I had to pick a time frame.
Blayne, have you ever actually studied Chinese culture? I'm talking about a close-up view, not a historical view. I think you might start to understand what we are saying about the resistance to change if you did. Their culture is extremely complex and ornate in every way possible. Every single aspect is planned and has multiple traditions that go along with it. I'm just as likely to blame the total mass of little traditions/expectations as I am Confucianism.
You can't turn around in China without running into some thousand-year-old tradition or expectation that defines peoples' lives. The simple mass of all of those simply doesn't leave TIME or ENERGY to do the "what-if?" daydreaming necessary for innovation.
People in China are too busy following the defined paths laid out for them from birth to really "think outside the box", or think for themselves at all, really. Look how they treat their dissidents. THAT'S the Chinese attitude toward independent thought.
Any culture that gets that old runs into these problems. Imagine if the US lasted another 4000 years. We'd be much less capable of innovation than we are now. Traditions and expectations multiply, century by century, until they stifle the possibility of change.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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As logical as it sounds, as good as the reasons may be, these are specificially the exact kind of trends that Paul Kennedy pointed out as essentially confirming Great Power decline and overstretch, the moment you start repositioning forces around and worrying about cost cutting and cutting programs and rationalizing killing programs that could keep you militarily competitive is when butter has been eclipsed by guns for too long and its showing.
Suppose they develop a 6th gen plane, say the F-302 and only dole out a few squadrons but China, Russia, India all have 2000 or so 4th gen planes and 500 or so 5th gen planes as well as state of the art radars and airdefense nets.
Suddenly only having a few air superiority fighters is no longer reassuring regardless of how advanace they are, because the nature of the renewed arms race, of the resurgence of Russian power and the growth of Chinese power and their research trends all point to those two countries as very probably soon being able to match and keep pace with US technological development by reasonable margins.
Stealth technology isn't perfect, and isn't likely to be and very soon if not already the most advanced Russian and Chinese radars are expected to be able to detect them, having such a force multiplayer technology like stealth does no good if you don't have enough of them and attrition and maintanence renders most of the air fleet unuseable during a war.
For example, a 80% increase in the airforce budget under Reagan for only a 9% increase in the number of planes, at some point technological parity will make up for the quantitative weaknesses of Chinese and Russian air doctrines and your gonna find that the 22:1 (enemy planes destroyed for every f22, I believe for the Su-35 and J11 this is down to 4:1) won't hold for much longer.
Very quickly the F-18/F-16 airfleet is not going to be useful in any significant role over or near Chinese and Russian airspace, leaving only stealth bombers and stealth aircraft with any significant role and how is only a couple hundred going to make up the slack? The F-22 has notorious operation problems such as requiring 22 or so hours of maintanance for every hour of combat operations or so I've heard and the F-35 won't be as good as the F-22 in combat engagements with the PLAAF or the Russian Airforce.
I so far don't see information that shows 6th gen as being head and shoulders above 5th gen, more of a refinement of 5th gen concepts, meaning that even crappier 5th gen planes with the right logistics, tactics, and doctrine should still manage a 2:1 ratio against 6th gen.
Actually its only UAV's really I see the US keeping the gap any kind of width at all vis a vis China and Russia but I don't see them as permanent replacements for piloted planes only a measure to buy time.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Actually its only UAV's really I see the US keeping the gap any kind of width at all vis a vis China and Russia but I don't see them as permanent replacements for piloted planes only a measure to buy time.
Now that's wishful thinking. UAVs are the future of air combat. No lives are risked, training is 100 times cheaper and quite a bit faster, and the tech just gets better and better. Eventually, in 15 or 20 years, humans won't even be needed to pilot UAVs remotely.
Besides, all this babbling about air superiority is silly. Anti-terrorism weapons/gear and cyber-warfare are far, far more relevant for the conceivable future. Fighter planes might be cool, but they're not nearly as practical as really good cyber-security software and know-how. This is why talking about being able to develop OS is so relevant to a military discussion. The US has an unbeatable advantage in this area. The US literally invented both computers (ENIAC) and OS.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Actually its only UAV's really I see the US keeping the gap any kind of width at all vis a vis China and Russia but I don't see them as permanent replacements for piloted planes only a measure to buy time.
The insane amount of practical wartime and tactical use for UAV's coupled with the reduction in cost and risk for human asset absolutely crush the notion that this is 'only a measure to buy time' — UAV development actually acts as a stark point in favor of western innovation in this sphere, and you can bet that it's something that China is going to be imitative of for decades.
The stated notion of this being the only indication of any width in the gap is, well, favoritism so great that it is imperative you be disabused of it. The only thing is, I honestly don't think you can?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Regarding UAVs and other robotics used in current and future military operations, the book, Wired for War, by P.W. Singer, was pretty informative. Jon Stewart's follow-up comment was also illuminating: "Blew my f***ing mind. . . This book is awesome." --Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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Yeah Blayne, I'm afraid UAV technology is probably on par (if not ahead) with say bunker busting technology in terms of importance for future warfare.
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I might have to check that out then. Thanks for mentioning it.
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Blayne Bradley
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I have never been in favor of UAVs and removing the human factor from war as inherently dehumanizing war and making the decision to start wars easier to stomach of politicians; Also, UAVs can be jammed, their programs hacked, their theater control installations compromised and destroyed, it is a dead end technology that at best is useful for support, it can never effectively replace manned airmen in the skies.
quote: The US has an unbeatable advantage in this area. The US literally invented both computers (ENIAC) and OS.
And China invented gunpowder and we see where that went, just because the US was in a position to invent that stuff in the past doesn't mean they are still in a position to make best use of and keep that lead indefinetly, especially in consideration of US crumbling infrastructure and educational institutions.
Also, People's Armed Police (PAP), China has its own terrorism and insurrectional problems in the periphery they're clearly making due deligence in the counter terrorism sphere.
As for cyber warfare the literature at places such as DEFCON and overwhelmingly of the position that China has a nearly invulnerable edge here and are making consistently bigger and longer strides in cyber warfare and computer hardware technology.
For example, as I pointed out earlier China now has the world's most powerful supercomputer, this is something that the US currently seem unwilling to fund, this is a disadvantage that will without any major expenditure on the US's part is definately somewhere China will if not already taken the lead in WILL take the lead and will soon have encryption/decryption abilities beyond the US capabilities.
All the brilliant scientists in the world won't help the US if they won't fund them or provide the tools.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: For example, as I pointed out earlier China now has the world's most powerful supercomputer, this is something that the US currently seem unwilling to fund, this is a disadvantage that will without any major expenditure on the US's part is definately somewhere China will if not already taken the lead in WILL take the lead and will soon have encryption/decryption abilities beyond the US capabilities.
What makes you think that the US is unwilling to fund R&D of supercomputers?
Sure, the fastest computer may currently be in China, but the claim for the fastest computer changes fairly often, and over half of the top 500 still reside in the US.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I have never been in favor of UAVs and removing the human factor from war as inherently dehumanizing war and making the decision to start wars easier to stomach of politicians; Also, UAVs can be jammed, their programs hacked, their theater control installations compromised and destroyed, it is a dead end technology that at best is useful for support, it can never effectively replace manned airmen in the skies.
quote: The US has an unbeatable advantage in this area. The US literally invented both computers (ENIAC) and OS.
And China invented gunpowder and we see where that went, just because the US was in a position to invent that stuff in the past doesn't mean they are still in a position to make best use of and keep that lead indefinetly, especially in consideration of US crumbling infrastructure and educational institutions.
Also, People's Armed Police (PAP), China has its own terrorism and insurrectional problems in the periphery they're clearly making due deligence in the counter terrorism sphere.
As for cyber warfare the literature at places such as DEFCON and overwhelmingly of the position that China has a nearly invulnerable edge here and are making consistently bigger and longer strides in cyber warfare and computer hardware technology.
For example, as I pointed out earlier China now has the world's most powerful supercomputer, this is something that the US currently seem unwilling to fund, this is a disadvantage that will without any major expenditure on the US's part is definately somewhere China will if not already taken the lead in WILL take the lead and will soon have encryption/decryption abilities beyond the US capabilities.
All the brilliant scientists in the world won't help the US if they won't fund them or provide the tools.
quote:I have never been in favor of UAVs and removing the human factor from war as inherently dehumanizing war and making the decision to start wars easier to stomach of politicians; Also, UAVs can be jammed, their programs hacked, their theater control installations compromised and destroyed, it is a dead end technology that at best is useful for support, it can never effectively replace manned airmen in the skies.
...Blayne, the first is not even slightly an argument against UAVs as an instrument of warfare, either ethically or as a practical matter. Historically, you have a huge order to fill if you're going to say that politicians are stopped from waging war by the human costs involved. As for practical considerations, you really need to actually point to cases where, you know, UAVs have actually been overcome in the ways you describe in significant numbers instead of suggesting hypothetical ways that are easy typed out but much more difficult in execution.
I can, after all, say of a manned fighter, "Well, after all, just train a better fighter pilot!" I know you read military news from time to time, Blayne. I cannot believe you just said, with a straight face, that UAVs are dead-end technology useful only for support. Can you find anyone credible in a military institution that shares such an outlook?
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The world's most powerful supercomputer is largely a meaningless title. Researchers in the US have pretty much stopped asking for more powerful supercomputers (that is, more powerful than ones that currently exist). While there are some algorithms that can use the collected power of a single large supercomputer, almost all of them are very fault intolerant, creating a natural upper limit on the size of supercomputer they can use: if a node fails, the algorithm must be restarted (now, many algorithms checkpoint, but it is still a big setback). Also, most supercomputer algorithms are susceptible to errors that do not necessarily halt the algorithm, such as bits flipped in memory
Luckily, the US has numerous private clusters that are not supercomputers, but have awesome compute power nonetheless, using approaches capable of dealing with those problems. China, however, does not.
The US also still funds lots of supercomputers (total supercomputing power in the US dwarfs total supercomputing power in China, by a lot), and will keep funding them; we're just not likely to vie for the (expensive but with low returns) top spot.
In other words, this is so much nonsense:
quote:For example, as I pointed out earlier China now has the world's most powerful supercomputer, this is something that the US currently seem unwilling to fund, this is a disadvantage that will without any major expenditure on the US's part is definately somewhere China will if not already taken the lead in WILL take the lead and will soon have encryption/decryption abilities beyond the US capabilities.
Additionally, I hate to break it to you, but having the most powerful supercomputer has almost nothing to do with encryption/decryption capabilities. Even the parts of that involving massive compute power (the least parts) are trivially parallelizable: that is, they don't need something as closely connected as a supercomputer. Perfectly normal clusters are fine, and I'm quite sure the NSA has clusters that are very competitive .
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Historically, you have a huge order to fill if you're going to say that politicians are stopped from waging war by the human costs involved. As for practical considerations, you really need to actually point to cases where, you know, UAVs have actually been overcome in the ways you describe in significant numbers instead of suggesting hypothetical ways that are easy typed out but much more difficult in execution.
I believe there was an instance of Iraqi insurgents hacking the video feeds of Predator drones. Not quite Radical Edward, though.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by steven:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I have never been in favor of UAVs and removing the human factor from war as inherently dehumanizing war and making the decision to start wars easier to stomach of politicians; Also, UAVs can be jammed, their programs hacked, their theater control installations compromised and destroyed, it is a dead end technology that at best is useful for support, it can never effectively replace manned airmen in the skies.
quote: The US has an unbeatable advantage in this area. The US literally invented both computers (ENIAC) and OS.
And China invented gunpowder and we see where that went, just because the US was in a position to invent that stuff in the past doesn't mean they are still in a position to make best use of and keep that lead indefinetly, especially in consideration of US crumbling infrastructure and educational institutions.
Also, People's Armed Police (PAP), China has its own terrorism and insurrectional problems in the periphery they're clearly making due deligence in the counter terrorism sphere.
As for cyber warfare the literature at places such as DEFCON and overwhelmingly of the position that China has a nearly invulnerable edge here and are making consistently bigger and longer strides in cyber warfare and computer hardware technology.
For example, as I pointed out earlier China now has the world's most powerful supercomputer, this is something that the US currently seem unwilling to fund, this is a disadvantage that will without any major expenditure on the US's part is definately somewhere China will if not already taken the lead in WILL take the lead and will soon have encryption/decryption abilities beyond the US capabilities.
All the brilliant scientists in the world won't help the US if they won't fund them or provide the tools.
Have you ever read Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy? So far his observations of US trends seem to be holding true, in fact they may even be deteriorating faster than predicted, if the US slides from superpower status will it truly be able to field said fleet of 6th generation planes or UAV's? Can it keep ahead of the new technological arms race when its economic prospects are so bleak? Its political institutions deadlocked into partisan ideological bickering? When its educational infrastructure is being looted of funds? Starved of attention?
In short do you have a reasoned response or you just gonna keep wwwwwww~?
quote: ...Blayne, the first is not even slightly an argument against UAVs as an instrument of warfare, either ethically or as a practical matter. Historically, you have a huge order to fill if you're going to say that politicians are stopped from waging war by the human costs involved. As for practical considerations, you really need to actually point to cases where, you know, UAVs have actually been overcome in the ways you describe in significant numbers instead of suggesting hypothetical ways that are easy typed out but much more difficult in execution.
I can, after all, say of a manned fighter, "Well, after all, just train a better fighter pilot!" I know you read military news from time to time, Blayne. I cannot believe you just said, with a straight face, that UAVs are dead-end technology useful only for support. Can you find anyone credible in a military institution that shares such an outlook?
I am not a technitian trained in that field, so I wouldn't know for sure but I believe that logically it should be possible that at a minimum the operational flexibility of UAVs should be reasonably restrictive under normal combat conditions if, say, the overhead coordination of the AWAACs was removed, or CIIS centers knocked out or the GPS network of orbital satellites are destroyed with ABM missiles, of which the DF-21 is being developed for that capability.
I do not believe I need to specifically prove this point, the point itself is, at its most basic a reasonable assumption, that it is possible to compromise the network security of UAV's controlled remotely, that it could be possible to jam them (it is after all, well known in analyst circles that during the 80's at least 50% of NATO communications would have been jammed, this has changed quite a bit recently with new technologies but many of the same principles are still valid) or otherwise infringe their operational capacity.
There's I think a whole thread somewhere on SDN where some retired analysts were discussing it and the consensus was that it is possible that UAV's could be operationally restricted, if you wish I can head to SDF and post the question there regarding UAVs (a technology that China has had since the 1990's).
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I have never been in favor of UAVs and removing the human factor from war as inherently dehumanizing war and making the decision to start wars easier to stomach of politicians; Also, UAVs can be jammed, their programs hacked, their theater control installations compromised and destroyed, it is a dead end technology that at best is useful for support, it can never effectively replace manned airmen in the skies.
Describing UAV technology as 'dead end' is absolutely, absolutely ridiculous. UAV utility has only increased every year that they have actively been used in theatre.
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Blayne Bradley
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Which doesn't contradict what I said, I object to the idea that they could seriously replace manned aircraft not that they couldn't be of use in their current support role.
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quote:I believe there was an instance of Iraqi insurgents hacking the video feeds of Predator drones. Not quite Radical Edward, though.
I don't grock the Radical Edward reference, so bear with me, but this doesn't address my point that isolated instances of groups of Predators being attacked in specific ways doesn't bear on my point.
quote:I am not a technitian trained in that field, so I wouldn't know for sure but I believe that logically it should be possible that at a minimum the operational flexibility of UAVs should be reasonably restrictive under normal combat conditions if, say, the overhead coordination of the AWAACs was removed, or CIIS centers knocked out or the GPS network of orbital satellites are destroyed with ABM missiles, of which the DF-21 is being developed for that capability.
Blayne, the part in bold is the most important, most true part of what you've said. You're not a trained technician in the field. You're a guy who reads Internet news and some publications. That's largely what most of the people you talk about this with are as well, and the same can be said about the people you're talking about this with right now, in this conversation. You really ought to keep that in mind when you start making such definitive statements as 'UAVs are dead-end technology' because the folks who are trained in the field, who actually make their living and who even have some lives and welfare depending on the quality of their work seem to very much disagree with your perception of reality.
You can either continue insisting that they're wrong, that UAVs are just a few years short of being trumped by older military technology...or re-evaluate your own conclusions. Generally speaking, Blayne, ask yourself this question: who's more likely to be right, Internet Critic, or trained professionals? Anyway.
Removal of AWAACS: this isn't an easy proposition, Blayne. I mean, it simply isn't. It's possible, yes, but lots of things are possible in war, and in the event a war actually happened it would take more than love and admiration of the People's Republic to bring down those aircraft.
Knocking out a CIIS center? That's another easier-said-than-done thing. So too with your idea of shooting down GPS satellites. Possible, yes, particularly that last, actually. Though someone would have to ask themselves when they started shooting our satellites out of the sky what we would do in response. But your plan for negating the enormous advantages granted by UAVs as they stand right now hinges on many different very difficult things going very right, Blayne.
Basically, for UAVs to be as easily trumped as you so blithely suggest, the PRC has to roll 20s every time while the party using UAVs must critically fumble or at least roll 10s each time. You need to engage the critical thinking muscles and ask yourself how likely that really is. Ask yourself how likely they think that is. That's just not how serious people plan for warfare, Blayne. And strangely when you're talking about it from the other side, that's not how you talk about it.
quote: I do not believe I need to specifically prove this point, the point itself is, at its most basic a reasonable assumption, that it is possible to compromise the network security of UAV's controlled remotely, that it could be possible to jam them (it is after all, well known in analyst circles that during the 80's at least 50% of NATO communications would have been jammed, this has changed quite a bit recently with new technologies but many of the same principles are still valid) or otherwise infringe their operational capacity.
No, you don't need to prove it because of course you can't. But in order to be taken seriously you need to provide something approaching credible plausible ideas in support of it, Blayne. Otherwise it's just the expected Blayne rah-rah PRC enthusiasm. That's not a shot, that's simply a candid assessment.
quote: There's I think a whole thread somewhere on SDN where some retired analysts were discussing it and the consensus was that it is possible that UAV's could be operationally restricted, if you wish I can head to SDF and post the question there regarding UAVs (a technology that China has had since the 1990's).
*sigh* Of course it's possible. That's not the point. You're moving the goalposts, unsurprisingly after you got called on your bizarre 'dead-end technology' claim. Can they be 'operationally restricted'? Yes! So can manned aircraft, by other fighters! And if you win the electronic warfare against manned fighters, too, they're not going to be nearly as much good either, and on and on.
If you'd really like to go to another forum and post something, I'd love to see a link of you posting your 'UAVs=dead-end tech' remarks, just to see how that goes over.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Which doesn't contradict what I said, I object to the idea that they could seriously replace manned aircraft not that they couldn't be of use in their current support role.
You really just picked up and hauled those goalposts, son.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote: Basically, for UAVs to be as easily trumped as you so blithely suggest, the PRC has to roll 20s every time while the party using UAVs must critically fumble or at least roll 10s each time. You need to engage the critical thinking muscles and ask yourself how likely that really is. Ask yourself how likely they think that is. That's just not how serious people plan for warfare, Blayne. And strangely when you're talking about it from the other side, that's not how you talk about it.
Firstly trained professionals aren't always right and often enough in the past military establishments tend to be starkly divided over the debate of any significant new change or technology, with a camp supporting one side and one another, which my point here would be that I am skeptical that the entire defense industry is fixated on them as a revolutionary new way of fighting rather than simply a new force multiplier like Radar systems were, support can still be a radical new force multiplier.
Also I never said easily, in fact, I do not believe I had said anything that could have RAW being likely or highly probably, only that it was possible was all I ever claimed so, either your talking to someone else or your "projecting so hard that you could point yourself at a wall and show off powerpoint presentations."
quote: You really just picked up and hauled those goalposts, son.
Derp herp dogpiling herp-a-derp.
quote: No, you don't need to prove it because of course you can't. But in order to be taken seriously you need to provide something approaching credible plausible ideas in support of it, Blayne. Otherwise it's just the expected Blayne rah-rah PRC enthusiasm. That's not a shot, that's simply a candid assessment.
But where's your evidence that they can't be jammed? It's common knowledge that communications can jammed, it's common knowledge that China is a pioneer in ASAT technology, for example did you forget their facility that can dazzle US spy satellites in orbit?
I am framing this discussion in terms of the next 15-20 years, assuming current trends continue, obviously right now its only an unlikely but plausible occurrence, in 15 years it could be a viable and everyday option, it's not very fair to ask me to "prove" that.
Also knocking them out is no different from bombing key communications infrastructure, it warrants only a the measured and calculated response or escalation according to the rules of engagement.
Oh and I just double checked it's C4ISR not whatever I randomly typed.
quote: No, you don't need to prove it because of course you can't. But in order to be taken seriously you need to provide something approaching credible plausible ideas in support of it, Blayne. Otherwise it's just the expected Blayne rah-rah PRC enthusiasm. That's not a shot, that's simply a candid assessment.
I believe your misinterpreting what I mean by 'dead-end', I mean it the same way Yahtzee consider's the Wii-mote an evolutionary dead end, sure you can do all sorts of fancy stuff from it now but 15 years down the line we'll all be laughing "Did they actually think waggling a stick around would actually be fun?"
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quote:Firstly trained professionals aren't always right and often enough in the past military establishments tend to be starkly divided over the debate of any significant new change or technology, with a camp supporting one side and one another, which my point here would be that I am skeptical that the entire defense industry is fixated on them as a revolutionary new way of fighting rather than simply a new force multiplier like Radar systems were, support can still be a radical new force multiplier.
I didn't say trained professionals are always right. Please indicate where I did so. I did, however, suggest that they're often right. And in any event, do you know who's right much less often than trained professionals? Internet Critics. Much less often.
But anyway, you're once again radically changing your previous statements. Maybe this is your point now, and of course I dispute the notion that the 'entire defense industry' is fixated on them as a 'revolutionary way of fighting'...though truthfully I don't dispute that since I'm not even sure what you mean by it. I think you mean to suggest that the 'entire defense industry' (a strange idea, the entire defense industry doesn't think one way about anything, Blayne) is geared towards phasing out manned fighters entirely in the long run.
This is a long way from UAVs as dead-end technology. A long way. But instead of manning up and simply admitting, "OK, yeah, I said something pretty silly there," you're shifting the conversation. We all remember you said it, Blayne. It's been, what, two days? Less? You'd really establish some credibility as a decent participant in such discussions if you'd just cop to it. We all slip up sometimes when we get passionate. But anyway.
Radar systems as a 'force multiplier'...interesting. I suppose that's one very, very literal way of looking at it. They did act that way on air combat, it's true. I guess.
quote: Also I never said easily, in fact, I do not believe I had said anything that could have RAW being likely or highly probably, only that it was possible was all I ever claimed so, either your talking to someone else or your "projecting so hard that you could point yourself at a wall and show off powerpoint presentations."
No, you didn't say easily. But you rattled off these suggestions as though they were simple. "Oh, to overcome UAVs all the PRC or Russia would need to do would be..." And when you combine that statement with statements such as 'dead-end technology', and your strange ideas about Chinese computing 'superiority' in some fields, well, you convey an idea that it would be a lot 'easier' than people think it would be, Blayne. Maybe you're right. Maybe I am projecting. Or perhaps this is one of those times, again, when many, many (a majority?) people are reading your posts a certain way...but the problem is with them, not the way you're communicating.
Take your pick which you choose to believe here.
quote:Derp herp dogpiling herp-a-derp.
Blayne, you did. You changed the discussion radically. Your issues with Samprimary aside, that's what you did. It's a fact.
quote:But where's your evidence that they can't be jammed? It's common knowledge that communications can jammed, it's common knowledge that China is a pioneer in ASAT technology, for example did you forget their facility that can dazzle US spy satellites in orbit?
No, no, no. That isn't how these discussions work. That's like saying to an atheist, "You can't prove God doesn't exist, HA!" Yes, Blayne, I'm aware that it's possible a UAV's communications can be jammed. Obviously. Signals can be jammed. My question for you is simply this: what is the United States doing while the PRC does these things to interfere with UAVs in this hypothetical war? Not reacting? Alright. How many facilities does the PRC have, for example, that can dazzle US spy satellites in orbit? How easily can they be destroyed with what assets?
quote: I believe your misinterpreting what I mean by 'dead-end', I mean it the same way Yahtzee consider's the Wii-mote an evolutionary dead end, sure you can do all sorts of fancy stuff from it now but 15 years down the line we'll all be laughing "Did they actually think waggling a stick around would actually be fun?"
Perhaps I am. If so, you really need to communicate quite a bit better, Blayne.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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It's kind of funny . . . UAV's are the only key defense sector seeing strong growth right now. You think that the government's defense analysts would be so far off base? They don't fill the traditional roles . . . they supercede them.
You can jam anything. UAV or conventional.
Wii-motes are cool.
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You did exactly what I said you did. You can either respond to or acknowledge that, or you can gun for a complete deflection like this one.
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Come on Blayne, your original statement was,
quote:Actually its only UAV's really I see the US keeping the gap any kind of width at all vis a vis China and Russia but I don't see them as permanent replacements for piloted planes only a measure to buy time.
Now ignoring the audacity of the statement that the US will never be able to stay ahead of Russia and China in anything but UAV technology. Your statement essentially says that the one thing the US has that those two countries don't have isn't important and is more of a showy knick knack, at a time when UAV is seeing nothing but increased use and deployment.
You are the first person I've read to make that statement, and I have a read quite a few analysts talk about how they were surprised by the emergence of sustained UAV deployments in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.
How hard is it to say, "Hmmm maybe I overreached when I said that? Or would you really like to stand by that statement forever and ever?"
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That would involve actually admitting he was wrong.
Blayne, every person I know in the US Armed Forces disagrees with you. Sure, they are worried about their assets being compromised by hackers or jammers, but if you think there aren't countermeasures for those sorts of things you are wrong.
quote:Originally posted by Teshi: The only thing I know (from having read a book at somepoint, possibly Outliers) has been a problem in this kind of culture is air traffic controlling and co-pilots who don't point out to their superiors when the wings come off. However, I'm pretty sure engineers are capable of fixing said plane post-wing-off-disaster.
That chapter was in Outliers and it was one of the more fascinating looks into the effects of high-power-distance culture that is extremely prominent in places like Korea and Japan. In this case, causing the Koreans to crash dozens of their airline jets because of korean cultural communication systems and deference to pilot authority.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote: Blayne, you did. You changed the discussion radically. Your issues with Samprimary aside, that's what you did. It's a fact.
And doesn't change that you said it first and I am speaking to you and discussing this with you not him, I am having the dialogue with you, him saying it is dogpiling, an unnecessary addition to the conversation.
quote: This is a long way from UAVs as dead-end technology. A long way. But instead of manning up and simply admitting, "OK, yeah, I said something pretty silly there," you're shifting the conversation. We all remember you said it, Blayne. It's been, what, two days? Less? You'd really establish some credibility as a decent participant in such discussions if you'd just cop to it. We all slip up sometimes when we get passionate. But anyway.
Didn't I say from the beginning something along the lines of 'I just don't like the idea of unmanned automated fighters'?
But alright I will concede that they're not "dead end" technology but I stand it is too early to tell if they'll ever amount to an effective replacement for manned aircraft and will also stand on record that if they develop free will and rebel against us I reserve the right to say "I told you so" from underneath Yanatau.
quote: The fact of the matter is that this type of tech IS the future of warfare, or at least have the strong possibility of becoming the future of it. For heaven't sake, Blayne, even CHINA disagrees with you!
When did I ever say they were useless? Seriously, this is pathetically sad if your just putting words into my mouth, I know China has them and has been pursuing them as well, and was one of my biggest complaints about "Bear in the Dragon" which not only had them having none but had no idea what they even were.
Now lets go back to the topic of innovation which I was clearly winning.
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quote:And doesn't change that you said it first and I am speaking to you and discussing this with you not him, I am having the dialogue with you, him saying it is dogpiling, an unnecessary addition to the conversation.
I'm not sure what this means. You're also discussing things with him, and in any event the 'UAVs as a dead-end' is something I'm discussing with you. I really don't parse this paragraph.
quote:Didn't I say from the beginning something along the lines of 'I just don't like the idea of unmanned automated fighters'?
Yes, you did, and your reasons in support for that statement were pretty dubious if you'll recall. There's the bizarre idea that UAVs 'dehumanize' war, another strange idea that politicians are impeded from starting wars by the consideration of the human costs involved (a case that you haven't made at all; it seems to me that other, more selfish political considerations are much more often likely to play a role), and then you went on to make the statement that raised so many eyebrows and elicited such amusement, and ironically contradicted even itself: "Also, UAVs can be jammed, their programs hacked, their theater control installations compromised and destroyed, it is a dead end technology that at best is useful for support, it can never effectively replace manned airmen in the skies."
So...what you said at the beginning was pretty garbled, Blayne. A pretty compelling case for better communication being helpful if I ever saw one to be honest.
quote: But alright I will concede that they're not "dead end" technology but I stand it is too early to tell if they'll ever amount to an effective replacement for manned aircraft and will also stand on record that if they develop free will and rebel against us I reserve the right to say "I told you so" from underneath Yanatau.
Thank you for saying so. I'm happy to agree that it's too early to tell if they'll ever amount to an effective replacement for manned aircraft, but frankly I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did eventually.
quote:When did I ever say they were useless?
Blayne, you called them a dead-end technology. That's a direct quote. You can't get frustrated with other people when they literally hold your own words against you. Well, you can, but you look rather silly doing it.
quote:Now lets go back to the topic of innovation which I was clearly winning.
Which aspect of that conversation? The one about supercomputers? Perhaps you didn't read fugu's post. I suppose you could say you were winning, Blayne. The conversation, at least, with folks who weren't very informed about the specific current events of supercomputers. But winning the topic? For that to be true you'd need to actually be in the ballpark of correct, and I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true.
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This seemed kinda interesting in light of this thread.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote: Blayne, you called them a dead-end technology. That's a direct quote. You can't get frustrated with other people when they literally hold your own words against you. Well, you can, but you look rather silly doing it.
And I explained that that was a misinterpretation of what I meant, that they were evolutionary dead ends meaning they could be doing spiffy things now especially against third world dirt countries with obsolete Soviet kit but in modern battlespace against countries who are also developing UAVs and will have enough experience with them to develop countermeasures? I'm skeptical.
quote: Which aspect of that conversation? The one about supercomputers? Perhaps you didn't read fugu's post. I suppose you could say you were winning, Blayne. The conversation, at least, with folks who weren't very informed about the specific current events of supercomputers. But winning the topic? For that to be true you'd need to actually be in the ballpark of correct, and I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true.
Specifically the one between me and steven who went awfully quiet.
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posted
Blayne: Since there are always going to be those without modern tech, UAV will always have a use. Against modern armies, well, lets just say we haven't seen a modern army go up against another modern army in a few decades. I think a lot of strategy has yet to be written were that to happen.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong about it being a few decades since a first world country's army fought another first world country.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
I'ld argue that Iraq was fairly close but just missed being a good battle by little things like having training rounds instead of AP ammunition a lack of spare parts, not enough training, a lack of morale etc etc.
In short the equipment was mostly there but everything else wasn't so we could only stand back and learn a few things compared to alot of things.
Such as: The US is currently going to have great difficulties fighting any protracted war against any modern and decently sized army, 90% of the US stocks of smart precision ammunition was used up in a few weeks of campaigning, a lesson from the Yom Kippur war apparantly not fully learned.
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Thought you might find this interesting Blayne. Despite the alarmist tone, I'm still not impressed.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Pretty sure I already read it, so far still no plan however to revive the F-22 meaning that China will probably only field a few hundred while focusing more on CIS3R and logistics until the economy allows the military gap to more naturally close.
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