This. I remember hearing about how terrible the F-22 was, how Americans are duped into paying for it, how its all flaws and sci-fi tech that would never work, e

This. I remember hearing about how terrible the F-22 was, how Americans are duped into paying for it, how its all flaws and sci-fi tech that would never work, etc and now it dominates the skies. Propaganda works. The F-22 and F-35's success is scaring a lot of autocratic nations hoping to catch up to US air power. Meanwhile, Russia and China's stealth attempts are laughably terrible, yet we never hear about those. They're not at the top of reddit and HN. I think sites like HN and reddit encourage a groupthink because of the upvote mechanic at play. Certain narratives win out. Typically what a white suburban college-aged male thinks how the world works. Hence, long diatribes about how awful the US is how wonderful China, Iran, and Russia are. Its concentrated angst, not intellectual discourse. College age identity politics wins out, per usual on the internet. That includes a strong anti-military aspect and a bizarre pro-autocracy/anti-democratic aspect as well, usually sold under the threat of political correctness. Of course Iran, China, and Russia are just as good as the EU/US in terms of human rights, economies, public policy, etc. Anything else would be racist. Pretty much any voting based forum will become a lowest common denominator crapfest. Some topics are just more hot button than others and someone is going out of his way to make sure the F-35 is one of those topics.