4 ms·

If you really were in the defense industry for 25 years and you're making takes like that, I can only imagine you never worked on anything of consequence. This

If you really were in the defense industry for 25 years and you're making takes like that, I can only imagine you never worked on anything of consequence. This is like saying you worked in tech for 25 years and don't get what the big deal is about version control or CI/CD. Or at least that you have no idea how your business makes money or what your users want your code for. Explainable for a new hire, but for a 25-year vet, such a lack of understanding and perspective is really inexcusable.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> can only imagine you never worked on anything of consequence “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals talk about logistics,” Robert Barrow, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, echoing Eisenhower, echoing Cæsar. In all likelihood, the person you’re responding to had no strategic remit.
mark_l_watson 2y ago
I once spent 25 minutes having coffee with the CIA director (just the two of us) and once Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird slapped me on the back after I gave a presentation, giving me effectively an ‘atta-boy’. I was just a computer programmer, but I did OK. My friend, times change, and we need to re-evaluate the world situation, and what is in our best interests. Someone in this thread mentioned England’s reach of power. I am not an expert on history but I think England did a fairly good job of disengaging from being the world’s hegemony. It seems like we need to calculate our own exit strategy sometime, and hopefully several years from now.
- lolinder 2y ago
  > giving me effectively an ‘atta-boy’. I was just a computer programmer, but I did OK. I'm a highly respected computer programmer in my organization, but if I went in to the CEO and tried to advise him that his business strategy was wrong and he needed to do something different, he'd listen to me politely and then explain all the ways in which I misunderstood the situation. And he would be correct. You can have been a very good computer programmer within the DoD without having absorbed enough understanding of the geopolitical situation to have credible expertise in military strategy.
  - mark_l_watson 2y ago
    True enough, that is why I never talked about high level strategy at work, it wasn’t my job, I was a pure tech guy, and in very narrow areas. But this is not work, this is HN. I posted some unpopular views here and most people here disagree with me. I am good with that! It still feels good to express my opinions.
- pmontra 2y ago
  England disengaged because they could not afford to run their empire anymore. They ended up as a vassal state of the USA. They were lucky because they remained in the same general cultural area. I wonder whom the USA will be a vassal to. BTW the UK and France resisted that disengagement when they attempted to keep Suez from Egypt in 1956 but that expedition failed, also because the USA didn't like it.
  - mepian 2y ago
    Putin's propaganda really likes to portray allies as suzerains and vassals to turn them against each other.
    - pmontra 2y ago
      I know what Russia says about reduced sovereignity. Every world and regional power pulls the strings of their allies in their sphere of influence, Russia too.
  - mark_l_watson 2y ago
    re: “”I wonder whom the USA will be a vassal to.”” I hope not (!) and don’t think so. We have major natural resources and advantages. I can’t imagine a future where, assuming we mostly withdrew from the world’s stage, that any country would mess with us.
    - exceptione 2y ago
      Indeed, I think the country will mess with itself. America is not a cozy, isolated community that lives a happy and simple life with mostly internal trading. America lives of a constant influx of the best global talent and a global market for its products. I would bet my money that American democracy would not survive when that ecosystem collapses, especially not as the American system has already transitioned into an anocracy according to some. Collapse in itself would create opportunities, but not for a simple programmer as you refer to yourself.
  - tim333 2y ago

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> can only imagine you never worked on anything of consequence “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals talk about logistics,” Robert Barrow, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, echoing Eisenhower, echoing Cæsar. In all likelihood, the person you’re responding to had no strategic remit.

mark_l_watson 2y ago

I once spent 25 minutes having coffee with the CIA director (just the two of us) and once Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird slapped me on the back after I gave a presentation, giving me effectively an ‘atta-boy’. I was just a computer programmer, but I did OK. My friend, times change, and we need to re-evaluate the world situation, and what is in our best interests. Someone in this thread mentioned England’s reach of power. I am not an expert on history but I think England did a fairly good job of disengaging from being the world’s hegemony. It seems like we need to calculate our own exit strategy sometime, and hopefully several years from now.

lolinder 2y ago
> giving me effectively an ‘atta-boy’. I was just a computer programmer, but I did OK. I'm a highly respected computer programmer in my organization, but if I went in to the CEO and tried to advise him that his business strategy was wrong and he needed to do something different, he'd listen to me politely and then explain all the ways in which I misunderstood the situation. And he would be correct. You can have been a very good computer programmer within the DoD without having absorbed enough understanding of the geopolitical situation to have credible expertise in military strategy.
- mark_l_watson 2y ago
  True enough, that is why I never talked about high level strategy at work, it wasn’t my job, I was a pure tech guy, and in very narrow areas. But this is not work, this is HN. I posted some unpopular views here and most people here disagree with me. I am good with that! It still feels good to express my opinions.
pmontra 2y ago
England disengaged because they could not afford to run their empire anymore. They ended up as a vassal state of the USA. They were lucky because they remained in the same general cultural area. I wonder whom the USA will be a vassal to. BTW the UK and France resisted that disengagement when they attempted to keep Suez from Egypt in 1956 but that expedition failed, also because the USA didn't like it.
- mepian 2y ago
  Putin's propaganda really likes to portray allies as suzerains and vassals to turn them against each other.
  - pmontra 2y ago
    I know what Russia says about reduced sovereignity. Every world and regional power pulls the strings of their allies in their sphere of influence, Russia too.
- mark_l_watson 2y ago
  re: “”I wonder whom the USA will be a vassal to.”” I hope not (!) and don’t think so. We have major natural resources and advantages. I can’t imagine a future where, assuming we mostly withdrew from the world’s stage, that any country would mess with us.
  - exceptione 2y ago
    Indeed, I think the country will mess with itself. America is not a cozy, isolated community that lives a happy and simple life with mostly internal trading. America lives of a constant influx of the best global talent and a global market for its products. I would bet my money that American democracy would not survive when that ecosystem collapses, especially not as the American system has already transitioned into an anocracy according to some. Collapse in itself would create opportunities, but not for a simple programmer as you refer to yourself.
- tim333 2y ago