other subredditsDiminishedGravitas
It's a constant state of "Idgf right now" or "How did I allow things to get this bad?!?" for me. No in between. No normalcy.
DiminishedGravitas |1 pointwritten 5 hours ago ago
I find this utterly relatable. I've long accepted that I can't bother doing something or learning something if the motivation isn't easily derivable from first principles, or externalized into pleasing someone whom I respect and understand.
It is a blessing as well as a curse, in my opinion: while I mostly spend my time on various nonsense, I never work on anything that doesn't make sense. Every solution I create is crafted with clear purpose and little waste; innovation comes very naturally when you begin every project with a clean slate from first principles. Efficient productivity, not so much, but there's demand for more creative approaches as well.
The key for me has been to figure out how to get out of as many IDGAF-responsibilities as humanly possible, because that still leaves plenty of important things to do that I do get excited about. It does mean you can't go it alone, personally or professionally, but I don't think that is a bad thing at all.
Finnish snow camouflage. Picture from @Varusteleka [1080x1221]
DiminishedGravitas |2 pointswritten 5 hours ago ago
Finland was the only nation that waged war against the Allies alongside the Axis that was not occupied or annexed. Remaining independent was arguably the primary objective of the Finns throughout the era, and in this they succeeded.
The Soviets had planned for the annexation of Finland, in which they failed. The result of the war ended up very close to the terms of the antebellum ultimatum the Soviets made, so perhaps their objectives were indeed also met.
Finland certainly wasn't a victor, but there is more nuance there, still.
DiminishedGravitas |1 pointwritten 18 hours ago ago
For me, psychedelics have always been the opposite: they force me to confront and accept my issues, which is painful but makes it easy to start fixing the ones I can and live with the ones I can't.
DiminishedGravitas |16 pointswritten 18 hours ago ago
I don't believe that's actually the root of it, although it can be what it grows into.
I think that this is an executive dysregulation issue, where our subconscious has a very high threshold of proof that a possible threat is worth the energy investment required to be acted upon.
Let's normalize this behaviour before analyzing it: it is normal and good to stay in "IDGAF"-mode until there is something that is so critical that it does need attention. When attention is given to something, the response can vary from being very modest, or an all-out assault on the issue. A sliding scale from 1% to a 100% importance, if you will.
Now, what I think happens in an ADHD brain is that it doesn't really consider the troubles of our modern life very important at all.
While a neurotypical brain is better calibrated to begin taking action when the issue can be corrected with a light commitment to fix an issue of perhaps 10% importance, an ADHD brain remains in "IDGAF" standby until a much higher threshold of, say, 90% is reached.
Almost nothing is actually an existential threat in modern society -- until suddenly something is! You can bend the rules very far without much negative feedback, but once you cross the line the proverbial shit hits the fan with gusto. Artificial deadlines are not something nature evolved our brains to deal with.
DiminishedGravitas |8 pointswritten 18 hours ago ago
I think that's actually their CEO in the picture!
The effect of the wars was that neither Finland nor the USSR achieved their antebellum objectives, but the compromise that was reached through war proved somewhat appealing to both. Defining victory is not straightforward at all: because both sides fought valiantly and achieved limited objectives, you might equally say that both sides won or that they lost.
It is debatable whether the same conclusion might have been reached through political avenues alone. They might have been, in hindsight: the Red Army absolutely could have marched all the way to Helsinki, the FDF was much, much closer to collapsing entirely in 1944 than the Soviets thought, but they found the ROI of such a commitment lacking. While they did plan for annexation (a puppet government for Soviet Finland was founded in advance) they simply didn't bother after they felt the northern front was secured and the Finns were put back in their place.
Ultimately I feel that the popular sentiment of a Finnish "defensive victory" is correct, because the stakes were much higher for the young Nordic nation. Once hostilities were commenced, were it not for the resilience of the FDF, the nation would surely have suffered the fate of the Baltics. Furthermore, an offensive victory would only have been possible on the coattails of a total Axis victory over the USSR, regardless of Finnish successes or failures.
Low-Dose Melatonin to Advance Sleep Cycle and Higher Dose to Fall Asleep ok?
DiminishedGravitas |2 pointswritten 2 days ago ago
Melatonin is not a sleep aid. It is a circadian hormone that you really shouldn't supplement carelessly. Taking melatonin at varying doses and timings can be like inducing chronic jet lag on yourself.
Melatonin can be used in larger doses for short periods to help reset the circadian timings, or taken in small doses (0,25mg) at a consistent time every day to correct chronic deficiencies.
Biking (MTB) shoes that don't make my feet feel so constricted
DiminishedGravitas |1 pointwritten 3 days ago ago
I hope your experience is as positive as mine! Hit me up if you have questions about the heat molding, it took me a couple tries to get right.
I've struggled with this quite a bit. I have very wide feet, and my toes splay out even further. Bottom line for me is that cycling shoes have entirely different requirements than shoes you walk or run in.
The best by far has been a Bont Cycling Riot+ SPD shoe with a carbon fiber sole of a bathtub design. Bont uses true anatomical lasts, not the italian pointy ones. They are also heat moldable, and after a few rounds of molding them to my feet, they fit incredibly well with no insole. Because they are very stiff and there is no padding, my feet don't really tire at all. Not a lot of wiggle room, but you don't really need it if the shoe fits this well.
I ride MTB and gravel, as well as long touring days in the saddle, both in the summer heat and winter snows. Not a single issue for 1000s of happy kilometres. Not really shoes I enjoy walking in at all, but if I get off the bike for any extended period mid-ride, I just go barefoot anyways.
CMV: Human beings crave ritual, purpose and sense of connectedness to a greater whole. Until non-religious paths recognise and deliberately address these needs they will always struggle to compete with religion.
I'd like to offer another perspective that I think hasn't been discussed here as of yet. I pondered at some length the essence of science and religion, and here's what I came up with.
Religion and science are two frameworks for explaining the universe that we observe, or methods of defining the truth about things, from two very different perspectives. Although both describe precisely the same things - the observational data is the same, after all - at least the end result feels very different. Both science and religion are in odd superpositions of being both wrong and correct in their explanation of the world, but in very different ways.
Science is deterministic, predictive and error-conscious. Science is a closed system, so with complete information, you can predict the future entirely. However, due to imperfect data, the scientific truth about the universe is only ever a theory, so in a sense it is always wrong about the future it relentlessly prophesizes. Science knows and accepts this, so belief in science requires you to embrace the unknown.
Religion is the opposite. Religion is always correct, it is never wrong, but it cannot predict the future. It is essentially a perfect explanation of the past. This is because the religious truth adapts in an orwellian fashion: if it would appear that religion was incorrect in light of new evidence, the error is in the previous interpretation, and new facts can easily be explained by the core tenets. However, as it was all in God's plan for you to misbelieve in the first place, the error is not a grievous one, as long as you keep faith.
Ultimately, then, one must choose between the tantalizing promise of science, where you almost understand everything but never quite reach the absolute truth; or the comforting certainty of religion, where you are never really wrong, but don't ever really understand everything, either.
In the modern world I see religiousness manifest in very unspiritual ways: in a world of fake news truth is transient for many people, picked and chosen after the fact to fit their view of the world. Perhaps it was better when we had actual religions with well intentioned core tenets, rather than reactionary belief systems that flirt with fascism in their struggle to find purpose.
META: An Historical Overview of 9/11, as the 20 Year Rule Enters 2021
DiminishedGravitas |0 pointswritten 14 days ago ago
No ordinary job has the requirement to be ready to sacrifice one's life without a seconds hesitation because your superior says so.
Very few ordinary jobs have superconstitutional power over you in other less drastic ways, like assigning you to live and work anywhere in the world, or the nature of your work, or even the duration of your work -- one doesn't simply quit the military, as they say. Once you're in it, they own you for the duration of your contract, which can also be extended regardless of your opinion on the matter.
Finally, no other job's end product is the death of other people. Every person in the military is forced to endeavour for the destruction of lives.
In my mind the reverence for military service is not about the nobility of their work, but rather the opposite: theirs is a vile and inhuman profession in so many ways, but because of their sacrifice, the rest of us can lead civilized and peaceful lives. For that I am eternally grateful.
CMV: "Life is unfair" and "That's the way it is, just accept it" are worthless in discussions about changes in society and laws.
DiminishedGravitas |1 pointwritten 16 days ago ago
There's always two sides to the coin.
Consider if the roles were reversed in your implied scenario: that the conservative side is arguing for action against the new status quo, one that leaves them in a disadvantageous position. Wouldn't you say that they should simply suck it up and accept it?
Perhaps technological progress threatens someone's livelihood, and through no fault of their own, they will become destitute unless they adapt to the changed circumstances. Might it not be prudent to point out that life is, indeed, unfair, but there's no turning back the clock?
Finally, there are some laws that are unyielding: you can rage against the bounds set by the physics of our world all you want, but life is unfair until the day you die, and that's just the way it is, as you said.
Certainly these phrases can be misused, but they do have their place as well.
Do Autonomous trucks dream of C.W. McCall? The end...
Thank you for writing!
I really loved this story. You paint an uncomfortably relatable dystopia, but then show how you still could slip through the cracks of the system and reach for the American Dream in the lee of the panopticon. The odd mix of cooperations and defections and flaws and virtues of your characters feel very much like the dilemmas we all face in modern society.
There's that certain comfort in the ebb and flow, like there is in your pseudoautobiographics, but the action is sharper, yet still restrained enough to feel immersive.
I hope you continue to build and weave your new world!
Operation Goatfuck: Failing to Plan then Planning for Failure (LONG)
DiminishedGravitas |17 pointswritten 22 days ago ago
Super interesting, thank you for sharing!
Foreign Policy Reports: Corruption in China facilitated massive CIA penetration in the 2000s, discovery catalyzed reform.
You are correct, of course, but that's not exactly what I'm talking about. From the 1940s to the end of the century I feel there was a very strong sense of shared fortunes among Americans, despite the emphasis on individual achievement. It's not so much about the power of the state over its citizen, but national unity.
The narrative of America bullying China into retrenchment is very, very tempting to buy into. Was there a push-counterpush causality like that, or simply a power vacuum that the Chinese decided to fill?
They also believe the Chinese government actually "cares" about its citizenry unlike the other places they've lived and especially their country of origin.
I think this is an incredibly overlooked source of national strength and cohesion in the anglosphere.
You give your family a lot more slack than you do to strangers, because you have a very firm prior on them caring about you, in the end. You might even accept them sending your farm cousin to a re-education camp, because perhaps they know best.
Similarly, if you believe your state is fundamentally working towards your best interests, you're willing to sacrifice much more of your personal interests for the common good.
I think that American libertarianism of the past decades has eroded much of that strength, and continues to do so. I don't believe it is sustainable in the long run.
Army Will Let Makers Decide How Many Soldiers to Fit Inside New Fighting Vehicle
I think you're right on the money in the near term, and going further forward there are some big unknowns, especially in how battlefield networking can deal with advanced jamming, that will define what is and isn't feasible.
My worry is that we'll eventually see more and more independent AI weapons systems, because battles will be won in the margins of reaction time where meatbrains can't keep up.
Thanks for taking the time, I learned a lot here.
HELP I need to stop ghosting my boss
I'm super glad, good job! Finished work is often a great balm for sore bosses.
I've been there, and it sucks. I hope you bounce back. I've also been there as the boss in this scenario, and that's not ideal, but it happens.
In the future, you need to be honest with yourself and admit that you can't reliably hold yourself accountable. If you could've, you would've. That's not a bad thing, just a true thing.
What it means is you need help to do it, which is also not a bad thing. Almost nobody gets around to doing everything they need to without someone else pushing them to do it.
Helping you work is actually your boss's job! You just need to *let* them do it. Don't ignore them reaching out to you. All of these problems are ten times bigger inside your own head, but once you air them out, I promise you they won't be so terrible after all. Projects come and go but it's you we should care about here.
And next time, call your boss the first time you have trouble getting started. Call them every morning if you need to. It's part of their job, and personally I much prefer giving pep talks to rescheduling projects.
Does taking melatonin affect concentration in the next day?
If you take too much melatonin it won't all metabolize during the night, and part of your circadian rhythm will be off -- you'll be sleepy after waking up. I'm not sure how exactly it builds if oversupplementation is very slight but chronic, but essentially I think you've just taken a bit too much.
AI assisted systems will require much less manpower than traditional equipment. You won't have a driver so much as you'll have a vehicle systems operator, who can direct the whole suite. You don't need to drive a modern car, you simply tell it where to go; the military applications aren't far off. Perhaps there's a weapons specialist, who rapidly plans fires based on the targets spotted by the sensor suite.
I imagine that future infantry will resemble armored units, in a way. The difference is that the semi-autonomous nature of their systems and individual tech like helmet mounted heads-up displays etc. will allow the crew to dismount and do what infantry does best, but still leverage their vehicle systems effectively.
Such a squad will have absolute overmatch over a traditional infantry unit. Small arms pale in comparison with the firepower that you can deliver from numerous sources, including the numerous infantry vehicles, that can be directed by targeting data generated by every squad member, the drones and the vehicles themselves. Finally, their most important job will be generating targeting data for the heavier weapons systems on call.
All of it does sum up to much more money. The logistics will be less than you'd expect, because the frontage of units will be much larger. Infantry will essentially be a skirmishing net of forward observers with just enough organic close-in firepower to handle low value targets in their vicinity, while still remaining relatively low value targets themselves.
Mind, this is all from peer conflict perspective. In a COIN or ROE restricted urban environment we've seen small UGVs augment infantry operations in the past decade, but it will take a while longer until the human frontage shrinks in those arenas.
I appreciate your insight, you made some good points.
Physical separation could also be a good thing: you don't want your entire unit to be targetable with a single munition when you are discovered. Modern fires can be unpredictably devastating, so I think we will aim for increasing dispersion of assets.
If you equip a squad with 3 vehicles, you can multiply the ground they can cover with their sensors. Firepower can also be multiplied, since each vehicle can carry eg. an AGL and a Javelin, perhaps in a configuration that allows them to be fire remotely when mounted on the vehicle, or alternatively deployed by the troopers in separate positions. Each vehicle can be a carrier for a short range drone that allows the use of said weapons very effectively.
I agree that completely autonomous medevacs are far off, but having organic mobility for transporting casualties without compromising the mobility of the entire unit could be a huge.
In any case, I think that there isn't much left to improve in the traditional IFV concept. There's a reason they haven't evolved dramatically over the past decades. Nobody needs a better Bradley.
The next step will be something entirely different, and I believe it will be something that leverages new technologies to enable infantry with more dispersion, firepower, mobility and sensors than thought possible before. Any new vehicle system needs to be a platform that these new types of systems can be built upon.
You're correct, but all that has little to do with replacing rifles.
I imagine in the future we'll have smart mortars and grenade launchers that put rounds on target that the infantryman's job is to lase targets for. Or to just press OK on the targeting computer that's working on data from remote sensors the grunt deployed.
Modern communication tech might well allow for more physical dispersion of the squad while retaining cohesion. A unit split into three vehicles is less vulnerable than one packed into a single target.
Furthermore, as remote control and AI tech develops, we could see semi-autonomous vehicles that can provide support for and follow the fire team after it has dismounted entirely. You could even use them for automated medevacs, where the wounded are loaded into a single vehicle that scurries off on its own, leaving the squad with 1-3 vehicles to continue the fight with.
Good points! I'm still going to maintain that without the armor penetration upgrade, there is no point to upending the small arms logistics. 5.56 is very good, so there needs to be something of a wow-factor to a successor.
I'm not sure if the present tradeoff is worth it, though, for exactly the reasons you laid out. However, the US military does sometimes value overmatch capability irrationally high, so you never know.
A constant recoil, lightweight, belt fed bullet hose of a rifle, firing an upgraded caseless 5.56, could indeed be an interesting iteration if this program follows in the footsteps of the XM8 and G11. Perhaps something combining characteristics of the Textron bid and the Knight's Armament constant recoil automatic rifle, topped with a powered smart scope.