Americans love to role play at having a democracy, but when push comes to shove the public is never consulted about such monumental decisions like ending human civilization.
Wait sorry, Palantir saying this somehow reflects upon the US? Like I’m not saying that the US is good or bad but Palantir is definitely fucking bad
Honestly yeah, a fascist billionaire's policy thinktank trying to help gin up a war is reflective of US policy, especially US government policy since they help write it.
it’s certainly on brand but this isn’t the official policy of any country, it’s a billionaire who owns a defense company trying to gin up business. Again, on brand but acting like this is tantamount to or evidence of the US actually doing these things is kind of silly. It’s Palantir, they aren’t a reputable source of anything other than RFPs.
Government tied "independent" think tanks and NGOs are part of the cycle of consent manufacturing that turns the avarice of billionaire ghouls into government policy. The US government is a bunch of banks and weapons manufacturers stacked on top of each other in a trench coat. A government is not a faction: its a tool, a weapon, it has no intention other than the intention of whoever carries it. This one is in the hands of the ultra wealthy and always has been. The desires of rich fucks to make more money is not separable from the actions of the US government: it always informs it. They start wars and genocides for profit. There is no other heuristic guiding the actions of the US empire because there is no faction other than the bourgeoisie that is allowed to control it.
You might as well say "Sure, the shooter is pulling the trigger, but it would be silly to think that reflects on the intentions of the gun."
So anything any billionaire says is the official policy of the US? What about all the shit they say that doesn’t happen? I get your point but it’s over generalizing
The US government fundamentally represents the interests of the capital owning class. What the billionaires want inevitably becomes official US policy sooner or later. Don't take my word for it though https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
Anything a critical mass of US billionaires agree on is US policy, yes.
As much as I like shitting on the US, I think all of the comments here are forgetting that this wouldn’t be a 1v3. It would be a world war. There would be no winners.
Yes, it would be cataclysmic. In the longer term though, I would argue that just about everyone on the planet would be a winner if the US empire were finally put down. You can’t really overstate how much of an impediment the US is to global human welfare and development.
There would be an immense toll, but it would mean the destruction of the US, Israel, NATO, and neoliberalism generally, which I think means there is also room for optimism. If I may gesture towards Mark Twain, there are two Reigns of Terror here, and though we have reason to fear the latter one, it will not last as long or kill as many as the former one that it puts an end to. If there is not a nuclear holocaust, anyway
If there is not a nuclear holocaust, anyway
That's a pretty fucking big "if"
So you better buy that thing my company sells. To be safe .
- Show
I'm kinda feeling the "c'mon, go see the titanic" meme, but regarding a total war that Amerika has literally no hope of winning. Just one of those countries routinely low-tech kicks the shit out of our forces without the war games having to get railroaded by the peckerwoods just to "prove" an 'Allied' victory; what the fuck do they think tackling Russia and China too will accomplish?
I guess "The US will very likely end the world in nuclear hellfire" doesn't roll of the tongue as well.
I mean, they at least got their reference but it wasn't supposed to be manual guide.
“I think we’re in an age when nuclear deterrent is actually less effective because the West is very unlikely to use anything like a nuclear bomb, whereas our adversaries might,” he added. “Where you have technological parity but moral disparity, the actual disparity is much greater than people think.”
What kind of reality does this guy live in? Like every adversary he mentions has either adopted a "No First Use" Policy or officially states that nuclear weapons are only to be used when the very existence of the state is threatened via a conventional military force or when being attacked by nuclear weapons. Contrast this to the US which "'reserves the right to use' nuclear weapons first in the case of conflict" or the UK which reserves the right to use nuclear weapons against "rogue states" (source: wikipedia article detailing all the above mentioned first use policies). How can you claim to have any moral superiority when your fucking bloc has these murderous policies in place? The western bloc has enshrined first use into its official policy and then this guy claims that only the adversaries of the West are determined to use nuclear weapons. The hypocrisy is beyond me.
Not to mention that US is the only country to have used nuclear weapons, and they didn't do it for any military purpose. They dropped them on civilian population to show USSR the level of depravity they were capable of.
US is the first and only country to ever use an atomic bomb. And not just one bomb: two. So of course we wouldn't launch a preemptive strike, right?
“I think we’re in an age when nuclear deterrent is actually less effective because the West is very unlikely to use anything like a nuclear bomb, whereas our adversaries might,” he added. “Where you have technological parity but moral disparity, the actual disparity is much greater than people think.”
There's a moral disparity alright, but it's not the US who has the moral high ground.