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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2954 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 15, 2024

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.

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.

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.

It's somewhat relevant to the discussions about the federal government workforce. The federal government employs a lot of people, and those people aren't being spewed out by a magic high-IQ-only people factory; they're just regular people, from the regular population. Some are really smart and capable; others, less so. Different agencies have different dynamics that draw from different subsets of the population.

There is a legend in the research community of a new director taking charge of one of the national labs and saying in his first appearance in front of the workforce some form of, "We know that 50% of you don't want to do anything. That's fine. We're not going to make you; we won't fire you. Just don't get in the way of the other 50%."

The reason for this legend is not overly linked with any dynamic particular to the federal government, but it has a slightly special form in such places. There is a long, complicated story about the inherent difficulty of evaluating research efforts. In every industry, you'll have people who frankly do not have the skills or ability to contribute to the actual mission/bottom line, but they obviously don't want to have that figured out. They might lose their job! So, they try to make it kind of look like they're doing something, even if it's dumb/not productive. In industries where it's harder to evaluate whether something is actually contributing, there's a lot more room for this to flourish. Also in industries that are so bloody rich that they can sort of afford to scattershot all over the place a little and not worry too much about economy. See also the tech industry in some recent times. The federal government has a bit of both floating around. Depending on the agency, their mission may be more/less well-defined. Some pockets clearly think that their mission is approximately everything. Some defense orgs definitely think this, as it's extremely easy to slide down the slope of thinking that you have to account for literally every possible situation, every possible contingency, every idea that could be used against you or by you to gain an advantage.

Couple these two things (a workforce so large really isn't drawn from just the best and brightest) and such a broad mix of groups being more-or-less mission-focused and more-or-less clear on what contributes to that mission, and you inevitably get allllllllll sorts of pretty random crap. Some is really really good; some is, well.

I'm riffing on all this in part to say that there will definitely be some obvious low-hanging fruit for Elon/Vivek, but there is also just such a massive diversity of agencies that have such different missions, different needs, different levels-of-evaluability, that it will likely be a lot more difficult than Elon just rolling in to Twitter and saying, "Everybody bring the code you've written in the last year directly to Elon." Sure, if they have the time and inclination to scratch and sniff down to small groups like this, they'd find some set of people who say, "I take the Latin from the internet and put it in the goddamn logo!" But a lot of times, they'll get some mountain of hazy documentation about 'work' that is supposedly in line with a mission that may be extremely sprawling, unclear, and questionable in the first place. But it might actually be good-ish! Hard to tell without a deep dive and lots of expertise... multiplied over and over again in thousands of different domains that require all different sorts of expertise. Godspeed, Elon... godspeed.

I mean, there was a recent fiasco with a guy shooting his gun with the scope on backwards. And it wasn’t some low-ranking cannon fodder recruited for Operation Human Shield; he was captain of a big ship! And he wasn’t a diversity hire, either—he’s a white male!

Like, just ponder for a moment the level of smoothbrain it takes to do this: looking through the scope backwards would make your target smaller.

I would not trust these people to run a lemonade stand.

And then he was replaced by a lesbian, and many an article was written about it.

Surprised I never heard of this on the Motte.

The federal government employs a lot of people, and those people aren't being spewed out by a magic high-IQ-only people factory;

There used to be a standard for federal bureaucrats - IQ tests, essentially.

Bunch of UFO unsolved mysteries science fiction fans grew up and joined the DoD / MIC / Congress, and now they’re powerful enough to commission and staff these “investigations” where they get to sperg over found footage and can demand to be taken on tours of Area 51 outbuildings to forage for aliens in long unopened refrigerators.

There is nothing more to it.

Nah, it's a grotesque postmodern psyop.

The psyop overproduction theory isn’t invalid, but it doesn’t explain the widespread genuine belief among some kooks in defense / the mic that aliens r real.

The belief is explained by people wanting to believe and the psyop.

Senator Gillibrand recently said about UAPs: "We don't know whose they are. We don't know what propulsion they use. We don't know the tech. We don't know it. It's not off the shelf stuff."

Hearing in the senate on UAPs scheduled for the 19th of this month.

Exciting times!

Who's "we"? Is she supposed to know such things? I don't see in her assignments much that would require her being briefed on the latest propulsion tech, for example. So, she not knowing what it is may just not mean much. I don't think she even knows what stuff is on the shelf (not to be critical of her, most people that do not specialize on studying this probably wouldn't know, a lay person would know nothing about it) and I'm pretty sure there's a lot of stuff off the shelf being tested of which only select people are aware and know the details. She is on Armed Services committee but the military does a ton of stuff, and I doubt they brief every person on that committee about every single project - nobody would have time to follow on that, especially given it's not even their main or only job.

If somebody who really specializes on military R&D and propulsion systems and is fully knowledgeable on all current projects and technologies said something like that, it'd be interesting. But I am not sure Sen. Gillibrand, with all due respect, is that person.

For Gillibrand, another way to look at it is that is anyone were to be on a deception scheme, she'd be one of the best candidates to play along.

Gillibrand is not only on the Armed Services committee, she is specifically on the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, which is to say she has considerably influence on how the military gets to do research and development and against what. Gillibrand is also on the Senate's Select Intelligence Committee, which is to say she has far greater access than most Congressional leaders. She would be one of the highest cleared persons in the US Senate to know and access things, from both military and intelligence understanding, and while that doesn't mean she has exercised the power it would take quite a bit of exceptional circumstances to try and stop her.

It also means, however, that Gillibrand would have incentive to play along with any 'this totally isn't us' ploy. 'Oh, we don't know who's flying these things- that's why we need more money' is a basic needs-justification for her committees to get more influence over the budget, just to give one incentive. Not spoiling her relationship with her executive branch interlocuters is another.

I respect your reasoning and you're not wrong to have skepticism, but in this context (a) she probably is among the best person in Congress best placed to know, and there are reasons who might not forthcoming even if she did. (If she does- it could also be that she doesn't.)

I really don’t like this sudden government panic over UAPs. Either they really exist and the government has no clue what’s going on, or the government really wants us to think they exist. Both possibilities make me uneasy.

Next thing you know, they’ll be appointing antivaxxers and naming departments after crypto.

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