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US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

276 points - yesterday at 10:04 AM

Source
  • YesThatTom2

    yesterday at 11:09 AM

    I suspect the Cold War of cyber warfare that is happening is orders of magnitude bigger than the public knows.

    Imagine knowing this and not being able to get emotional support from your friends and family.

      • kstrauser

        yesterday at 5:22 PM

        This was a big thing for drone people based out of Eppley AFB in Omaha. Wake up, drive to work, attack enemies, drive home, sit there eating dinner with your family trying to pretend you didn’t kill someone and can’t talk about it. Combat troops get to lean on each other after a firefight: “dude, good shot. That guy was about to get us!” You get validation that you did something to safe you and your friends, and it’s still a heavy burden, but you have people who were there telling you that you’re a good person and did the right thing.

        The Air Force did something shockingly reasonable (according to the newspaper coverage): they require all pilots to attend mandatory counseling sessions. Then there was no sign of weakness or any of that toxic nonsense. “Ugh, guess I have to go talk to the doc today, and I don’t want to, but guess orders are orders.”

          • greedo

            yesterday at 8:23 PM

            Some minor quibbles...

            It's Offut AFB, home of StratCom. Eppely is the municipal airport. And Offut doesn't have any drone units, nor do they manage any. They due process reconnaissance for sure, but actual drone strikes aren't conducted from there.

            Creech AFB is where most of the drone units operating Reaper/Avenger etc are based.

              • kstrauser

                yesterday at 8:35 PM

                D'oh! Yes, Offut, of course.

                My Google-fu is failing me right now, but when we lived in Nebraska, there was a long article in the Omaha World-Herald (I'm fairly sure) talking about the mental health problems of the local drone pilots. This would've been at least 15 years ago or so, and things have very likely moved around since then.

                  • greedo

                    yesterday at 8:39 PM

                    It was definitely Creech. I remember the spate of articles discussing how the officers (the USAF requires drones to be piloted by officers) were both struggling with the close up nature of drone strikes combined with fewer or even non-existent flight hours affecting promotions.

                      • tolien

                        yesterday at 10:24 PM

                        It didn't help that there was a sense that it was a non-job compared to direct flying duties - "what do you mean PTSD, you spend all day playing DCS!" etc.

                        • kstrauser

                          yesterday at 8:56 PM

                          Huh. My memory's slightly different on that, but I can't find the source to cite so I'm can't argue it.

              • senderista

                yesterday at 6:26 PM

                I feel more compassion for the innocent people they killed and it's not even close.

                  • victorbjorklund

                    yesterday at 7:59 PM

                    They probably didn’t kill just innocent people.

                      • swat535

                        today at 3:50 AM

                        So far about 3,000 of them, including 160 children (the 3.00 includes more children than 160 but I'm singling that out).. in this war alone.

                        I promise you that you didn't kill 3,000+ IRGC members.

                          • today at 4:01 AM

                        • senderista

                          yesterday at 8:12 PM

                          Did I ever claim they only killed innocent people?

                      • brandonagr2

                        yesterday at 7:35 PM

                        Which part of "attack enemies" implies they were targeting innocent people?

                          • probably_wrong

                            yesterday at 8:09 PM

                            Some searching led me to this report from an NGO called "AirWars" [1] which, in connection with The Guardian, reports that "at least 22,679, and potentially as many as 48,308 civilians, have been likely killed by US strikes".

                            You can't bomb an apartment without also hitting the neighbors. And while we know the US has the the technology to hit a car driver without (physically) hurting the passenger, we also know that this is not the type of technology deployed regularly.

                            I don't think a drone operator would be naive enough to believe that they are killing exclusively military targets and no one else.

                            [1] https://airwars.org/tens-of-thousands-of-civilians-likely-ki...

                              • senderista

                                yesterday at 8:12 PM

                                Israel will happily flatten a whole apartment complex to get one guy.

                                  • throw488426

                                    yesterday at 9:38 PM

                                    Israel actually has the capability of targeting a single apartment in an apartment building, and has done so dozens of times in the current war against Hezbollah.

                                      • lazyasciiart

                                        yesterday at 9:42 PM

                                        Doesn’t that make it even worse that they also choose to flatten entire buildings?

                                        • Sabinus

                                          yesterday at 11:43 PM

                                          Does Israel actually have the capacity to target the whole of Hamas with those small accurate bombs, as they get intelligence on them? If Hamas is in the basement can the small bomb get them? And if they forgo the opportunity will it be possible to target that person again soon without civilians nearby?

                                      • ajmurmann

                                        yesterday at 9:50 PM

                                        They also have been giving civilians warnings to leave areas before they "flatten a whole apartment complex"

                                      • isr

                                        yesterday at 11:57 PM

                                        The real truth is that Israel is happy to flatten entire, crowded, apartment complexes. That "one guy" is just an excuse.

                                        Most recent example (out of at least 100,000 examples in just these last 3 years alone) would be their "defence" (hah!) minister delightedly boasting how they have Gaza'fied South Lebanon and destroyed over 15,000 structures.

                                    • someothherguyy

                                      today at 12:03 AM

                                      seems small when compared to the overall effects of war

                                      "An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting."

                                      https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/human

                                        • monkpit

                                          today at 4:15 AM

                                          What point are you trying to make, exactly?

                                  • netsharc

                                    yesterday at 7:47 PM

                                    Obama's department of defense classified every male between 16-65 hit by drone attacks as enemy combatant until proven otherwise...

                                    So the war crimes are bipartisan.

                                    And I write this as someone who likes Obama.

                                      • JackFr

                                        yesterday at 8:16 PM

                                        GWB got heat for extralegal extraordinary renditions. Obama solved it by just killing them. I guess we can’t ask the dead guys if they’d prefer to go to Guantanamo.

                                        • sitzkrieg

                                          yesterday at 10:18 PM

                                          obama also drone striked killed us citizens with no due process in the name of the game

                                            • Sabinus

                                              yesterday at 11:54 PM

                                              Why would they need due process? They weren't the targets and their deaths were accidental collateral damage.

                                    • hiddencost

                                      yesterday at 11:45 PM

                                      US military standard for "did we kill civilians" with drone attacks is "do these appear to be combat aged males, based on satellite photos".

                                      It's monstrous.

                                      • isr

                                        yesterday at 11:53 PM

                                        Let's see. They were part of the US military, right? In just this war alone, they started by triple tapping an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, murdering nearly 200 little children.

                                        And on the same day, they attacked a SPORTS STADIUM, completely vapourising a women's volleyball team who were in the midst of a game.

                                        And that was just ... DAY ONE.

                                        By now, we should be asking - if you're a member of the US military on active duty in an active war - prove that YOU DIDN'T kill a child, mother, handicapped person in a wheelchair, or a grandpa.

                                        Truth hurts, doesn't it?

                                    • fryanyway_swe

                                      yesterday at 8:10 PM

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                                      • OsrsNeedsf2P

                                        yesterday at 6:35 PM

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                                          • Hilliard_Ohiooo

                                            yesterday at 6:45 PM

                                            Yes, the US government is literally everywhere.

                                            • superkuh

                                              yesterday at 6:46 PM

                                              We sure do. They mostly work in federal government and government contracting corporations. There are multiple clearly documented repeated drone strikes on US citizens, even US citizen minors, who never were even indicted with a crime, that ended in assassination. Like the two intentional strikes it took to kill 16 year old US citizen from colorado, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awla... . See also the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix executive program in general.

                                                • Sabinus

                                                  yesterday at 11:49 PM

                                                  Why are you citing these as cases of terrorism and murder when the American citizen wasn't the target? Collateral damage happens in missile strikes.

                                                  • victorbjorklund

                                                    yesterday at 8:00 PM

                                                    Are American citizens always innocent? From what I have seen many Americans are guilty of a lot of bad stuff.

                                                      • superkuh

                                                        today at 1:43 AM

                                                        This american citizen minor certainly was. And the claim of collateral damage is already shown false by the fact that they went after the kid (16 years old) intentionally, twice. Even after they knew his father was already dead. Oh, and by the way, they never indicted the father or showed evidence against the father either. Neither were in a war zone of any sort.

                                                        The other examples on the second wikipedia link were literally non-US citizen journalists who later sued the US in a US federal court he brought where he showed up and wasn't arrested because he didn't do anything wrong.

                                                        I'm with you that being a US citizen doesn't mean someone is "good". But in this case I've literally given non-US citizen examples too that you passed over for this mistargeted aside.

                                                        • xanthor

                                                          yesterday at 8:02 PM

                                                          Until proven guilty, yes they are always innocent.

                                                            • victorbjorklund

                                                              yesterday at 8:04 PM

                                                              That is true for all people. Not just Americans. It’s just disgusting to say that all Americans are innocent but we can assume others are guilty. As far as I know Bin Laden was killed without ever being tried in a criminal court.

                                                              Are school shooters in America innocent if they are killed before getting a trial?

                                                                • xanthor

                                                                  yesterday at 8:07 PM

                                                                  I’m speaking with regards to the American legal system. Yes the endless foreign wars are also unconstitutional.

                                                      • iluvcommunism

                                                        yesterday at 7:16 PM

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                                                    • cineticdaffodil

                                                      yesterday at 6:45 PM

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                                                      • mx7zysuj4xew

                                                        yesterday at 7:14 PM

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                                                    • constantius

                                                      yesterday at 6:45 PM

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                                                        • senderista

                                                          yesterday at 8:10 PM

                                                          I admire Aaron Bushnell, but that page unironically uses phrases like "Satanic Talmudic supremacy"

                                                            • constantius

                                                              yesterday at 8:47 PM

                                                              Thanks, updated link below: seems to have been changed since last time I saw it back when it all happened, sorry!

                                                              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Bushnell

                                                                • faidit

                                                                  today at 3:16 AM

                                                                  Looks like a clever little psyop to discredit him.

                                                              • bijowo1676

                                                                today at 3:19 AM

                                                                its a quote of a person, so the usage is justified

                                                                • drekipus

                                                                  yesterday at 11:41 PM

                                                                  It's a good phrase

                                                              • blackqueeriroh

                                                                yesterday at 8:24 PM

                                                                Were all US soldiers in the Revolutionary War war criminals? What about the North in the Civil War? Or WWI/WWII?

                                                                Nearly every soldier in any war will have directly or indirectly killed an innocent civilian. Which ones are war crimes and which aren’t?

                                                                How do you decide and who gives you the authority to do so?

                                                                  • FrinkleFrankle

                                                                    yesterday at 8:58 PM

                                                                    I'd say anyone who chooses to kill a civilian, whether based on an order or not, is a war criminal. I really don't care if they thought they were there for a noble cause or not.

                                                                      • akoboldfrying

                                                                        today at 3:46 AM

                                                                        What if they choose to kill a person who was a civilian until they were drafted into the enemy army the day before?

                                                                        What if the civilian they kill has a substantial effect on the enemy's military capabilities, for example by being someone famous who loudly endorses the honour of signing up to fight for one's country, thereby motivating thousands of young men to do just that?

                                                                          • iamnothere

                                                                            today at 4:51 AM

                                                                            What if killing a soldier’s children might make him lose his resolve or act erratically? What if destroying an entire city full of millions of civilians might make the enemy lose hope and surrender? What if poisoning the land and water for decades could prevent the enemy from reconstituting itself? What if killing all the women could prevent the production of future soldiers?

                                                                            Once you open the door, where do you draw the line?

                                                                    • ciupicri

                                                                      yesterday at 8:45 PM

                                                                      What does indirectly killed mean?

                                                                        • tough

                                                                          yesterday at 9:07 PM

                                                                          Sounds like a weird way to phrase collateral damage?

                                                                            • crote

                                                                              yesterday at 9:57 PM

                                                                              Collateral murder.

                                                                                • Sabinus

                                                                                  yesterday at 10:53 PM

                                                                                  Civilians die in wars, and that's with the best intentions of all parties to the conflict. If one or both has got radicalised, then a lot of civilians die in war.

                                                                                    • bijowo1676

                                                                                      today at 3:21 AM

                                                                                      you are justifying 9/11 attack on the US, the similar logic to yours was used by Al-Qaeda

                                                                                      • drekipus

                                                                                        yesterday at 11:46 PM

                                                                                        This is the Israeli take that is continually pushed to normalize their approach to "removing baby terrorists"

                                                                        • megous

                                                                          yesterday at 9:01 PM

                                                                          Who gives US president authority to just murder whoever he wants?

                                                                            • throwaway902984

                                                                              today at 4:20 AM

                                                                              Nobody. He just seized it. No one gave it to him; hence their upset that people like duterte are being kept in the Hague.

                                                                              • singingtoday

                                                                                yesterday at 11:34 PM

                                                                                US voters

                                                                                  • SturgeonsLaw

                                                                                    today at 12:16 AM

                                                                                    A group which has been known to collectively make a mistake or two

                                                                            • kelseyfrog

                                                                              yesterday at 8:31 PM

                                                                              Correct. Either all soldiers are war criminals or none of them are. The world is black or white, without nuance.

                                                                          • woodruffw

                                                                            yesterday at 9:47 PM

                                                                            The author of that page appears to be a Holocaust denier[1]. Not exactly the example I would put forwards, especially if I want to make an unannealed appeal against Israeli war crimes.

                                                                            [1]: A search for that name mostly brings up links to pages for SS apologia.

                                                                              • constantius

                                                                                yesterday at 10:06 PM

                                                                                Yes: the content is very different from what I remembered it as from back when I first visited it after Aaron died, I don't know how the website went where it went, and I'm sorry I didn't check prior to posting.

                                                                                Updated link:

                                                                                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Bushnell

                                                                            • fryanyway_swe

                                                                              yesterday at 8:11 PM

                                                                              >someone defending their country

                                                                              Can be used to justify anything.

                                                                              • 0xdeadbeefbabe

                                                                                today at 2:25 AM

                                                                                Hey is friendly fire a war crime?

                                                                                • roenxi

                                                                                  yesterday at 11:21 PM

                                                                                  "War crimes" is something of a shorthand for being involved in an aggressive war; they are a surprisingly minor influence on the discourse because they are small in comparison to the decision to go to war at all.

                                                                                  I think the more baby-steps approach to western cognitive dissonance is to at least get them to be consistent about when it is a good idea to go to war. I'm more than happy to get downvoted pointing out that killing 100s of thousands of Russians and welding them strategically to China was a terrible policy, uniting Asian manufacturing and resource giants is catastrophic for western power. But people were grumpy and didn't want to talk about realpolitik because the Russians are so evil.

                                                                                  Now we have the US attacking Persians in Persia for trying to govern Persia because the US sphere of influence covers the whole world and doing serious damage to the West's access to global oil markets and we have this muted and philosophical response from the powers that be. It isn't just immoral, it is also actively stupid - if we can tolerate this behaviour from the US, why can't we also tolerate Russia on a far smaller and easier to understand scale? How are all the sanctions and weapons deliveries to Ukraine actually justified in the minds of the people making the decisions? It clearly isn't a moral calculation and it seems to be stupid strategy.

                                                                                  If we got some thoughtful and transparent thinkers in power there'd probably just be less wars, they seem to be the fast path to poverty and the upside is hard to spot. There are serious questions about why any of the major conflicts right now looked like a good idea to the people in Washington and wherever NATO is in Europe. Brussels I suppose. Can we try peace and prosperity as a strategy?

                                                                                  • MagicMoonlight

                                                                                    yesterday at 9:42 PM

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                                                                                    • hereme888

                                                                                      yesterday at 7:45 PM

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                                                                                      • ifwinterco

                                                                                        yesterday at 9:37 PM

                                                                                        The US hasn't fought a just war since WW2 and even that is actually somewhat questionable

                                                                                          • XorNot

                                                                                            yesterday at 9:59 PM

                                                                                            The citizens of South Korea might have some thoughts on that.

                                                                                              • chabska

                                                                                                yesterday at 10:28 PM

                                                                                                The South Korean government was a military dictatorship at the time. And the North was wealthier. Without the power of foresight, you couldn't justify the war as bringing democracy or economic prosperity, it was purely a geopolitical struggle. It took a lot of historical revisionism to erase that inconvenient little fact from western consciousness.

                                                                                                  • ImJamal

                                                                                                    yesterday at 11:13 PM

                                                                                                    The majority opinion at the time, in the west, was that communism led to less economic prosperity, less democratic institutions, and less freedom. So maybe it wasn't a guarantee that the south would become a democracy or prosperous, but doing nothing would guarantee the opposite.

                                                                                                    Also, the North wasn't democratic either so it was two nondemocratic groups fighting.

                                                                                • MarkMarine

                                                                                  yesterday at 6:19 PM

                                                                                  Can’t speak for others but the most damaging part of direct combat is watching people that you consider to be family die or be maimed.

                                                                                    • rdtsc

                                                                                      yesterday at 6:33 PM

                                                                                      > the most damaging part of direct combat is watching people that you consider to be family die or be maimed.

                                                                                      I've heard from various places over the years (documentaries, friends) that soldiers really fight for their comrades at the end of the day. As in when asked "why are you here fighting" if they are in front of a news crews or something where they have to say "we're bringing democracy to ..." they'll just say something like "those fuckers blew my buddy up and I am here to pay them back".

                                                                                        • akiselev

                                                                                          yesterday at 8:16 PM

                                                                                          That's a well studied topic in military history/science called unit cohesion. The saying goes that morale gets the soldiers to the battlefield, cohesion is what keeps them there. In order to withstand the psychological horrors of combat, soldiers need that comradery otherwise they'll run off at the first chance they get. There needs to be some anchor keeping the soldier in the way of danger, whether that's social pressure or years of intense training together.

                                                                                          Brett Devereaux has talked about it multiple times on his blog in various different contexts (most recently two weeks ago)[1][2][3]:

                                                                                          [1] https://acoup.blog/2026/07/24/collections-pre-modern-armies-...

                                                                                          [2] https://acoup.blog/2022/07/01/collections-total-generalship-...

                                                                                          [3] https://acoup.blog/tag/cohesion/

                                                                                          • Hilliard_Ohiooo

                                                                                            yesterday at 6:47 PM

                                                                                            I was in the military and in my experience people that chose to go into war zones, it's optional, are fucked in the head and literally enjoy killing people, I've seen it a dozen times. They want to kill.

                                                                                              • MaxikCZ

                                                                                                yesterday at 8:13 PM

                                                                                                Id recommend anyone to give "Generation Kill" series a watch.

                                                                                                • jki275

                                                                                                  yesterday at 11:26 PM

                                                                                                  You are absolutely fucking full of shit.

                                                                                                  I chose to "go into war zones" many times and none of it was to "enjoy killing people".

                                                                                                    • joeywas

                                                                                                      today at 1:13 AM

                                                                                                      Not sure what military is being discussed. In the US military, you do not choose to go into combat zones. You receive orders to deploy you to a combat zone.

                                                                                                      • 0xdeadbeefbabe

                                                                                                        today at 2:34 AM

                                                                                                        Then you aren't one of the dozens he has seen?

                                                                                                    • michaelmrose

                                                                                                      today at 1:04 AM

                                                                                                      You ought to be able to back this up with sources other than trust me bro

                                                                                                  • MarkMarine

                                                                                                    yesterday at 6:35 PM

                                                                                                    No one runs into machine gun fire to bring democracy to someone else I can assure you of that.

                                                                                                      • breppp

                                                                                                        yesterday at 7:18 PM

                                                                                                        That's probably false as you can see historically that ideological armies have far better morale and better effectiveness

                                                                                                          • throw310822

                                                                                                            yesterday at 7:26 PM

                                                                                                            "Bringing democracy" is a very weak ideological motivation. I would rather call it plausible deniability. As in "we're doing this to bring democracy" and people might be left with the doubt that it's true.

                                                                                                              • breppp

                                                                                                                yesterday at 8:30 PM

                                                                                                                It is a very weak ideological motivation for people who would never enlist in the first place.

                                                                                                                However, I think people are generally too cynical towards a very real belief system. There are multiple examples of US pushing for democracy against its own interest. Bush with the Hamas Gaza elections, Obama with the Egypt Muslim Brotherhood government and Carter with pre-revolution Iran are such examples

                                                                                                                  • today at 1:27 AM

                                                                                                                    • yosefk

                                                                                                                      yesterday at 9:36 PM

                                                                                                                      Bush knew what he was doing - Hamas has the influence it has because the US wants it to have it. When Trump decided he wants them to release Israeli hostages he forced them to do it rather quickly, all things considered, showing who really controls Hamas. Restraining American "allies" is key to how America understands its interests and Hamas is an excellent lever to pressure Israel, or Hamas-controlled Gaza wouldn't be flooded with American and European money.

                                                                                                                      Similarly, Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood because he did; in Ukraine for instance the same admin supported a coup against the elected government (this is not to say that Russia's actions in Ukraine are "justified", it's just a fact.) Democracy has nothing to do with any of this

                                                                                                                        • breppp

                                                                                                                          yesterday at 10:01 PM

                                                                                                                          > Hamas has the influence it has because the US wants it to have it

                                                                                                                          I doubt this is backed by US intentions and actions historically

                                                                                                                          > Similarly, Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood because he did

                                                                                                                          That seems like a tautology to me, care to expand? I vividly remember Obama throwing his autocrat ally under the bus

                                                                                                                          > in Ukraine for instance the same admin supported a coup

                                                                                                                          The protests in Ukraine hardly seem like a US coup and were organic according to my understanding, but maybe you can point exactly to the US involvement

                                                                                                                            • scythe

                                                                                                                              yesterday at 10:36 PM

                                                                                                                              >The protests in Ukraine hardly seem like a US coup and were organic according to my understanding, but maybe you can point exactly to the US involvement

                                                                                                                              Most coups are organic. The US involvement in the Iran coup of 1953 was not very much, but the signal of support was meaningful. Ditto Chile in 1973. Ukraine's overthrow was not like those coups. It relied on popular support from the region near the capital. However, this support was not uniform across the country, and support for the protests hovered around 50% and never reached 60%.

                                                                                                                              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan#Public_opinion_abou...

                                                                                                                              >According to a January poll, 45% of Ukrainians supported the protests, and 48% of Ukrainians disapproved of Euromaidan.

                                                                                                                              >In a March poll, 57% of Ukrainians said they supported the Euromaidan protests.

                                                                                                                              The polling variation was large. The government was overthrown in February. But the western regions were massively in favor, and surrounded the capital, while the southeast was mostly opposed. Well-functioning states rely on political processes instead of simply overturning the government whenever a majority of citizens opposes it.

                                                                                                                              Given the polling data and the division of public opinion, I don't support what happened in February 2014. But that doesn't make it a coup -- a coup is a transfer of power that originates specifically within the government, and Ukraine's protests weren't like that. Nor does it justify Russia's invasion. What happened was more like a feudal power struggle. It doesn't help that before new elections could be held, the interim government banned several political parties. Maybe they were "pro-Russian", but democracy means voters deserve a say in a country's geopolitical alignment, so that doesn't seem like a valid reason to ban a political party to me.

                                                                                                                              >but maybe you can point exactly to the US involvement

                                                                                                                              Now this sounds like a joke. US politicians, including Vice President Joe Biden and several senators, attended the protests. This makes American support pretty obvious. US media at the time also tended to minimize domestic opposition to the protests, even though this was a significant position within Ukraine.

                                                                                                                                • breppp

                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 10:59 PM

                                                                                                                                  > Now this sounds like a joke.

                                                                                                                                  OP alluded to the Euromaiden protests being an orchestrated Obama-led coup. I still don't see how this is the case. There's some difference between diplomatic reactions to proactive overthrow

                                                                                              • jambalaya8

                                                                                                today at 1:08 AM

                                                                                                that's because they were the ones being threatened, they were at risk, and they did the kill shot as self-protection (putting aside whether they should have been there in the first place). Drone warfare isn't the same thing. People who kill by drone aren't "at war", more often than not now, just killers. Their buddies aren't there, they aren't there, and they were really never at risk of much but being sent to the brig if they defied orders.

                                                                                                  • infinite_spin

                                                                                                    today at 1:34 AM

                                                                                                    This seems like rage bait. You could just as easily make the claim that all soldiers, regardless of their support role, could refuse orders long before they were put in a position that risks their own safety, knowing that in all cases their role would be to support the killing of others.

                                                                                                • perpetuallunch

                                                                                                  yesterday at 10:08 PM

                                                                                                  News just in: talking about your mental health, especially for men, does not improve your mental health.

                                                                                                  For the majority of men, most of the time.

                                                                                                  If it did, shouldn’t we see mental health improving by now?

                                                                                                    • singingtoday

                                                                                                      yesterday at 11:38 PM

                                                                                                      This is a fascinating assertion. I would love to read more about it.

                                                                                                      Can you please provide some sources?

                                                                                                        • kstrauser

                                                                                                          today at 12:32 AM

                                                                                                          Narrator: They could not.

                                                                                                            • thin_carapace

                                                                                                              today at 12:50 AM

                                                                                                              a quick search engine query 'is venting healthy' leads to results suggesting that venting (emotionally talking about things that affect mental health) is not necessarily an entirely positive behaviour. so the challenged statement is at least partially true. just wanted to share that the sarcasm looks abit silly coz it's not a clear cut situation

                                                                                                                • kstrauser

                                                                                                                  today at 1:12 AM

                                                                                                                  Venting and talking to a counselor aren’t the same thing, though.

                                                                                                                  If someone says “taking medicine is bad”, and I say “that’s silly”, then “smoking crack can be harmful” doesn’t weaken my position.

                                                                                                                    • thin_carapace

                                                                                                                      today at 2:28 AM

                                                                                                                      the problem statement regarded 'talking about mental health'. venting is one form of talking about mental health. paying therapists is another form of talking about mental health. neither of these weakens the other. concomitantly, neither of these can have their positivity be extrapolated to the overarching point, as their positivities contradict. final result = ambiguity, we cannot conclusively state that talking about mental health is a universally positive pursuit. hence I pointed out you looked a bit funny coz sarcasm is best employed for that which can't be argued ... and we just argued. thanks & all the best

                                                                                                          • perpetuallunch

                                                                                                            today at 2:34 AM

                                                                                                            I dunno man, just, like, use your preferred tools to, like, ”do your own research”.

                                                                                                            Don’t believe me, I’m just a random stranger with an opinion. Often a contrary one.

                                                                                                            • andsoitis

                                                                                                              today at 12:44 AM

                                                                                                              Can you think of a single person who has cured their mental health problem?

                                                                                                                • Morromist

                                                                                                                  today at 2:01 AM

                                                                                                                  Yes, I know many. Of course everyone has minor mental health problems but I know many who have basically cured mental health problems from depression to crippling OCD. None of them did it purely with counciling but with a vast combination of life experiances, including becoming more prosperous and being able to afford to excercise and enjoy a good diet and not have to worry about losing everything and starving to death (this was a big one for mental health), having children, success giving them self confidence, growing older and having their hormones change, having time seperate them from trauma, drugs, legal and illegal, hooking up with someone who somehow made them feel better, study of human culture, history and psychology to get a new perspective on themselves, and finally finishing their dissertations.

                                                                                                                    • perpetuallunch

                                                                                                                      today at 2:29 AM

                                                                                                                      > Of course everyone has minor mental health problems

                                                                                                                      I think this is an extremely dangerous position to take.

                                                                                                                      We’re all flawed, the human condition and all that, but I don’t believe that necessarily translates to ’minor mental health problems’.

                                                                                                                        • joshuamorton

                                                                                                                          today at 3:17 AM

                                                                                                                          On the other hand, you're approaching tautology with what you seem to be implying here, which is "flaws or challenges that you can fix yourself aren't mental health problems".

                                                                                                                  • thin_carapace

                                                                                                                    today at 1:01 AM

                                                                                                                    I'm personally acquainted with multiple people who figured out that their mental health symptoms were downstream effects of natural phenomena (diet incompatible with genotype, insufficient sunlight exposure, excessive work stress, etc), with resultant drastic improvement of mental condition after root cause rectification. any reason in particular for you to have asked?

                                                                                                                  • fatbird

                                                                                                                    today at 4:22 AM

                                                                                                                    I've successfully addressed several issues with a therapist. I know other men who've also done it. It's about the same as getting a doctor's help with a physical issue--some easily fixed, some taking time and effort, some stubborn that seem to resist all attempts.

                                                                                                            • debesyla

                                                                                                              yesterday at 10:14 PM

                                                                                                              Wait, it doesn't? Genuine question. Where can I read about this theory more?

                                                                                                                • throwaway173738

                                                                                                                  yesterday at 11:01 PM

                                                                                                                  At the He-Man club of course. We all face our challenges with stoicism like Odysseus when his sailors got eaten.

                                                                                                                  • thin_carapace

                                                                                                                    yesterday at 11:21 PM

                                                                                                                    rephrased for ease of interpretation - venting about a problem is nice just as stretching a muscle is nice. stretching doesn't fix the root cause of muscle soreness though, just as venting does nothing to fix the issue. emotionally re-reacting is likely to result in strengthening of existing associations, which is more likely to cause repetition of a problem scenario, as opposed to leading to scenario avoidance.

                                                                                                                      • tunesmith

                                                                                                                        yesterday at 11:46 PM

                                                                                                                        "talking about your mental health" does not mean re-parroting your trauma. there's understanding, re-framing, forgiving, all kind of other things that go beyond the limited belief that talking just calcifies trauma.

                                                                                                                          • andsoitis

                                                                                                                            today at 12:44 AM

                                                                                                                            Do you know a single person who has cured their mental health problem?

                                                                                                                              • pezezin

                                                                                                                                today at 4:36 AM

                                                                                                                                Yes, me. I suffered some serious depression that I cured through therapy and medication. Discussing it openly with my family and friends certainly helped.

                                                                                                                                As the saying goes, recognizing that you have a problem is the first step to being able to solve it.

                                                                                                                                • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF

                                                                                                                                  today at 3:55 AM

                                                                                                                                  Yes. What point are you trying to make?

                                                                                                                                  • today at 1:00 AM

                                                                                                                                • thin_carapace

                                                                                                                                  today at 12:57 AM

                                                                                                                                  venting is a form of talking about mental health. there are other forms that the problem statement doesn't apply to, like your examples. but the statement does apply to my example, therefore we can't say that talking about mental health is exclusively a positive behaviour.

                                                                                                                      • kstrauser

                                                                                                                        yesterday at 10:32 PM

                                                                                                                        LOL, I’d love to see that peer reviewed paper. Which one are you citing?

                                                                                                                          • drekipus

                                                                                                                            yesterday at 11:39 PM

                                                                                                                            Nothing ever happens unless there's a paper to back it up

                                                                                                                              • kstrauser

                                                                                                                                yesterday at 11:59 PM

                                                                                                                                More like: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That wild claim needs some backing, lest we all be justified in making fun of it.

                                                                                                                                  • perpetuallunch

                                                                                                                                    today at 2:13 AM

                                                                                                                                    The extraordinary claim is that talking to a ‘counsellor’ or ‘psychologist’ has any net positive benefits that are measurable in any way.

                                                                                                                                      • jibal

                                                                                                                                        today at 2:57 AM

                                                                                                                                        The extraordinary claim at issue is YOURS:

                                                                                                                                        > News just in: talking about your mental health, especially for men, does not improve your mental health.

                                                                                                                                        > For the majority of men, most of the time.

                                                                                                                    • jojobas

                                                                                                                      yesterday at 11:42 PM

                                                                                                                      It appears to be a huge lapse on the part of command. These people should have eaten dinner thinking "I got them good, these fuckers".

                                                                                                                      • AndyMcConachie

                                                                                                                        yesterday at 6:20 PM

                                                                                                                        [flagged]

                                                                                                                          • Hilliard_Ohiooo

                                                                                                                            yesterday at 6:49 PM

                                                                                                                            America has been an evil empire for a long time the people making money don't want to admit it.

                                                                                                                        • Hilliard_Ohiooo

                                                                                                                          yesterday at 6:45 PM

                                                                                                                          [flagged]

                                                                                                                            • naikrovek

                                                                                                                              yesterday at 6:52 PM

                                                                                                                              > Therapy for normal people is one of the absolute worst things that feminism has done to society.

                                                                                                                              No, people who think and say things like that are one of the absolute worst things to happen to society.

                                                                                                                              If you think treating women as human beings is bad, you’re one of the worst things that has happened to society, end of statement.

                                                                                                                              This is so unbelievably crystal clear to people who think that it isn’t even a topic of discussion anymore.

                                                                                                                              “Women belong in the kitchen” is colossal ignorance and/or active and intentional desire not to learn in the same sphere as flat earthers, witch hunters, and anti-vaxxers.

                                                                                                                              Go stand in a corner until you believe that women should be able to do what they want to the exact same degree as men.

                                                                                                                                • throw10920

                                                                                                                                  today at 12:30 AM

                                                                                                                                  > “Women belong in the kitchen”

                                                                                                                                  They never said anything remotely like that in their comment. You're actively lying about their words in addition to badly breaking the HN guidelines. You should re-read them:

                                                                                                                                  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

                                                                                                                                    • naikrovek

                                                                                                                                      today at 2:17 AM

                                                                                                                                      Thanks, throwaway account. I’m glad you’re brave enough to name yourself. [whispers: lotta people hiding around here…]

                                                                                                                                      Do you really think that someone who says feminism is bad does not have a very strong idea that women should be subservient?

                                                                                                                                      He didn’t say that, you’re right. Nor did I say that he did.

                                                                                                                                      Reading comprehension is at an all time low among Americans and English speakers in general. I can’t wait to leave this hellscape planet that people like you seem to dominate.

                                                                                                                          • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:57 PM

                                                                                                                            [flagged]

                                                                                                                              • mannanj

                                                                                                                                yesterday at 11:14 PM

                                                                                                                                I talked about the CIA very negatively after having a top secret clearance (never actually used it but it gives useful context). They then showed up in my commune and after a while of unusual behavior and psyops and pretending to be hippies (they couldn’t quite get that right) they resorted to drugging me to get answers they were convinced were true.

                                                                                                                                I never ordered off the dark web, I do believe my [usa] government can be terrorists, I have purpose and meaning to want to surface truth to find peace because that’s what I believe.

                                                                                                                                It was a scary time (in Jan - May 2023), and I fled back to parents in VA after which for a while they’d show up with similar personas of odd-people in open community gatherings attempting to get close to me.

                                                                                                                                I’ve never thought of suicide before and even today have not. When I started sharing about this last spring on hacker news I got a slew of “random” messages and downvotes and people claiming I was sick. I am not mentally ill, I do not need a therapist. It took me several years to process the traumatic experiences and feel the courage to share because I hope it might help someone else going through something similar. I’m thankful for the one person who validated my experience and didn’t gaslight me or attempt to ad hominem/discredit through attack. These suicides very much can occur and I hope can begin to happen less.

                                                                                                                                Here’s to a random stranger if you read this and are going through something similar, I hope you find peace and safety from these abusers!

                                                                                                                                  • nradov

                                                                                                                                    today at 3:54 AM

                                                                                                                                    Has a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist ever evaluated you for paranoid schizophrenia?

                                                                                                                                • Barrin92

                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 6:33 PM

                                                                                                                                  >The concentration of deaths is entirely implausibly described as "suicides",

                                                                                                                                  The article talks about 19 people. Given the size of those organizations that's statistically elevated but too small a number to descend into conspiracy theories. As the article points out they apparently had internal warnings and studies about lack of mental support for people in signals intelligence and cyber related roles.

                                                                                                                                  Given that this cluster of deaths seems to have happened in June/July, the Iran war and how the American government has conducted itself I don't find it surprising there's elevated numbers of suicides. You don't need to be on the frontline, if you're in sigint and involved in that attack on the school that casually blew up 150 girls and probably the stuff we don't know about I wouldn't be surprised people off themselves.

                                                                                                                                    • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 7:40 PM

                                                                                                                                      You supplant your lack of knowledge in statistics with unfounded assumptions and overt bias.

                                                                                                                                      The relevant metric here is number of deaths per size of the specified group and per time.

                                                                                                                                      You compare to completely different numbers and confabulate entirely unconnected "explanations".

                                                                                                                                      These deaths are most likely due to "housecleaning", as I said.

                                                                                                                                        • today at 2:22 AM

                                                                                                                                          • jonnybgood

                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 8:01 PM

                                                                                                                                            > These deaths are most likely due to "housecleaning", as I said.

                                                                                                                                            No, it’s not. It’s very obvious you have no idea of how US military personnel work and live, and the stresses that can be imposed on a person by the function of being in a military. Among those functions such as deployments which can come as a surprise and up root anything you having going on in your life. Or, having to live for several years in highly undesirable locations like Cannon AFB in the middle of no where. These can have a substantial effect on a service member’s mental health. Add in work conditions like working 12 hour shifts in a windowless room. Compounded even further by crappy leadership that you’re stuck with and continuously denies your leave.

                                                                                                                                            No, housecleaning is not more likely. You’re just ignorant of the military life.

                                                                                                                                              • ciupicri

                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 8:55 PM

                                                                                                                                                > Cannon AFB in the middle of no where

                                                                                                                                                From what I see there are only 10 kilometers to a town which has a zoo, mall, church etc. It's not a walk in the park, but with given the zoning laws and car-centric culture of the US, it's not very much.

                                                                                                                                                • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 8:17 PM

                                                                                                                                                  You might want to actually read the article, then you would see how your descriptions don't actually apply.

                                                                                                                                                  Part of the shitty work conditions (that remarkably persist despite incredible amounts of money vanishing in the DoD/W) is your employer being out to kill you should they get the idea of you being insufficiently free of morals or independent thought.

                                                                                                                                                  I would argue, that part should worry you far more than your other points.

                                                                                                                                                    • jki275

                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 11:28 PM

                                                                                                                                                      stop lying.

                                                                                                                                      • CircuitSeuss

                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 7:23 PM

                                                                                                                                        Or maybe… Things are really fucked right now.

                                                                                                                                        I agree that this is an abnormal number of suicides- I don't think anyone is disputing that. I disagree with your suggestion of “housecleaning” though.

                                                                                                                                        I would speculate that the answer is simplier:

                                                                                                                                        DoD “Hacker stuff” kills people. And worse. At scale. The psychological stressors of intelligence work alone is real and extremely high; Cyber Command’s role is not just to know, but to act.

                                                                                                                                        Cyber warfare is escalating faster than they can keep up, global consequences for their actions are high— and they understand the risks better than anyone [1](and can’t talk about it), but they are extremely under resourced, and because of leadership decisions or other factors outside their control, they feel unable to complete their work effectively [2], or are being told to do things they feel are immoral [3].

                                                                                                                                        The most plausible cause of these suicides, and the takeaway I get from this story, is that under the surface of US global military operations, things are bad. If things are even more stressful than normal under the surface at CYBERCOM and personnel are feeling hopeless enough about it to end their own lives, this should be a red flag for the rest of us.

                                                                                                                                        -

                                                                                                                                        [1] maybe you can imagine having a hands on understanding of the real world impact of critical OT exploits, and being both unable to disclose specific details and also yelling into the void about it for years while no one listens. US water treatment cyber vulnerability is a great example of industry and government lagging so hard that it took an enormous volunteer effort and a decade to begin to address fixing issues which should have been a “fix it yesterday” all hands on deck priority. https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/08/07/water-system... As another example, the US and Israel hacked “nearly all” traffic cameras in Tehran and used them to target and kill Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now think about the proliferation of internet connected doorbell and traffic cameras in the US… now imagine having an intimate understanding of how cameras can be used to kill people, while watching that risk grow exponentially over a decade, and being helpless to do anything about it because you aren’t allowed to talk about it and no one would believe you that doorbell cameras are a national security threat anyway. https://www.wired.com/story/from-ukraine-to-iran-hacking-sec... https://www.safehome.org/resources/home-security-industry-an...

                                                                                                                                        [2] https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/25/us-cybersecurity-agency-ci...

                                                                                                                                        [3] e.g. disrupting Venezuelan or Iranian civilian infrastructure. Would you feel okay about developing the capability to cause a nuclear meltdown in Iran? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrv0p37k8jo https://cybernews.com/cyber-war/us-confirms-cyber-role-carac... https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1163519987825...

                                                                                                                                          • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 7:52 PM

                                                                                                                                            The US intelligence community engaging in murdering suspected "weak links" in order to "send a message", "clean the house" etc. is a regularly recurring phenomenon.

                                                                                                                                            The fiction, that intelligence community (among many other places in US government) was some harbor of angelic superior morality, capable of restraining themselves in spite of total lack of effective oversight is certainly "simple". That doesn't make it true.

                                                                                                                                              • derektank

                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 8:12 PM

                                                                                                                                                USCYBERCOM is not the IC, it’s DoD. The majority of CYBERCOM tasked units are cyber protection teams, primarily focused on securing the DoD’s own vast and bloated network infrastructure from attack by foreign adversaries. The rest are split between hunt forward teams, cyber support teams, and the combat mission teams, the latter of which are the only ones that conduct offensive cyberspace operations. This is all literally 101 stuff

                                                                                                                                                https://www.cybercom.mil/Media/News/Article/3206393/cyber-10...

                                                                                                                                                  • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 8:31 PM

                                                                                                                                                    So?

                                                                                                                                                    "Housecleaning" isn't part of USCYBERCOM, obviously, it belongs to several arms of the (military) IC and is even partly sourced out to private contractors. Obviously, it's not exactly official.

                                                                                                                                                    Did you expect them to announce those activities on their website?

                                                                                                                                                • CircuitSeuss

                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 7:58 PM

                                                                                                                                                  Absolutely! But I don't think that’s the most plausible answer here.

                                                                                                                                                    • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 8:06 PM

                                                                                                                                                      [flagged]

                                                                                                                                                        • encrypted_bird

                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 9:10 PM

                                                                                                                                                          You know, people would be more receptive to you if you wouldn't talk down on them. I mean, for gods' sakes, parent specifically partially agreed with you(!) and yet you *still* talked down to them.

                                                                                                                                                            • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 10:27 PM

                                                                                                                                                              "Partially agreeing" while baselessly denying the central point is what exactly in your book?

                                                                                                                                                              You fall for rhetoric tricks at your own expense here. This matter has a host of important consequences and implications. Treating it at the same level of effort as every other infotainment piece is a failure of judgement.

                                                                                                                                                                • encrypted_bird

                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 11:13 PM

                                                                                                                                                                  >"Partially agreeing" while baselessly denying the central point is what exactly in your book?

                                                                                                                                                                  It means partially agreeing, and quite respectfully, I might add. You, however, were only *dis*respectful, downright rude in fact.

                                                                                                                                                                  >Treating it at the same level of effort as every other infotainment piece is a failure of judgement.

                                                                                                                                                                  I'm not treating anything as the same as any level of effort. All I'm saying is if you act like a dick, people will be much less likely to give you any attention, even if something you say is correct.

                                                                                                                                                                    • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                                                      today at 12:15 AM

                                                                                                                                                                      No, it doesn't: it means to mislead people like you into getting the appearance of agreeableness while actually still baselessly denying the salient point.

                                                                                                                                                                      Denying without giving any rational reason is again a rhetoric trick to gaslight people not trained in applying formal logic into believing something in spite of contradicting evidence.

                                                                                                                                                                      How do you act here? You attack me personally while adding nothing to the actual topic at hand.

                                                                                                                                                                      You're right about people who appear more likeable getting more attention. Does that make their standpoint actually more valid or valuable?

                                                                                                                                                          • bruckie

                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 9:49 PM

                                                                                                                                                            Is there somewhere I can read more about what you are claiming in these comments? How did you learn about these housecleaning activities?

                                                                                                                                                              • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 10:40 PM

                                                                                                                                                                Of course there is, but what difficulties can you possibly have finding it?

                                                                                                                                                                Part of the problem with events like these is people's "incredulity", which is fundamentally rooted in them not being force-fed with the topic by the media despite the importance.

                                                                                                                                                                The other way around, while people baselessly believe to be told everything of importance by their news-feed, in reality they are entirely being left in the dark about truly important matters simply by not "pushing" them in headlines.

                                                                                                                                                                The stories exist, you simply don't get them effortlessly.

                                                                                                                                                                That attitude of passive complacency has to change.

                                                                                                                                                                Look in this thread, the good links are usually those far down.

                                                                                                                                                                  • mannanj

                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 11:21 PM

                                                                                                                                                                    I want to read your original claim but it was censored. I am aware of the IC community being active on these forums and using algorithm/actors to downvote and hide information.

                                                                                                                                                                    Would you share it again here or send it via DM?

                                                                                                                                                                    Sorry you’ve had to face this.

                                                                                                                                                                • mannanj

                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 11:25 PM

                                                                                                                                                                  I’m not him, but I did see this post after his post was censored via [FLAGGED]

                                                                                                                                                                  I have first hand experience being targeted by the CIA after negatively criticizing them and having a former clearance (Pakistani American also, we know how the brass feels about Muslims in terms of racism and the like).

                                                                                                                                                                  Curious if you’ve heard of the documentary everything is a rich man’s trick and the author who published it spent a lot of effort investigating for it. There’s probably content you can read from him. Do you trust that sort of information?

                                                                                                                                          • throw93939e0

                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:59 PM

                                                                                                                                            Not bombing weddings could help as well...

                                                                                                                                        • cushychicken

                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 3:10 PM

                                                                                                                                          Used to work in this field. You're correct: not being able to talk about it is the worst part.

                                                                                                                                          This is equally true of successes as well as challenges.

                                                                                                                                          I did some cool, very impactful stuff in that job. I will go to jail for a long, long time if I ever go into detail about it.

                                                                                                                                            • grubbs

                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 3:33 PM

                                                                                                                                              Is there any type of internal support where you're allowed to chat about it?

                                                                                                                                                • cushychicken

                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 5:29 PM

                                                                                                                                                  It’s hard to say exactly what the folks in the article are grappling with, not working with them personally. I never got to the point where I was anywhere near personal crisis from my classified work. These folks sound like they were associated with some kind of wet ops or drone programs. Not fun to deal with.

                                                                                                                                                  I know cleared psychologists are a thing. I never tried to speak with one but I’m told demand is high, and the ones out there are typically very oversubscribed.

                                                                                                                                                  I may be a bad counter example to this article. I never had to cope with super severe depression or crisis, or conops that would bring me a ton of personal crisis.

                                                                                                                                                  I just see a commonality in struggling with not being able to talk about it. Work is too big a part of my life to not be able to discuss it freely. That did cost me something, personally. I’m glad it didn’t cost me anything as dear as what it cost the people in the original article.

                                                                                                                                                    • ghastmaster

                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 6:23 PM

                                                                                                                                                      In all of my years messing with computers, I have met very few people who are as fluent with the technology and the terminology. There is virtually no one I know that I can talk to about the things I do. I do not work in IT. I do not know people in IT. I also do not go out of my way to find IT folks. For a while this bothered me a little.

                                                                                                                                                      On pondering this, I suppose everyone with a hobby has this same lacking. For that matter, anyone with a mind that contains unique thoughts has the the same lacking. A desire for comradery seems pretty universal.

                                                                                                                                                      That said, not being able to talk about it and not being allowed to talk about it is quite different!

                                                                                                                                                  • halJordan

                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 5:04 PM

                                                                                                                                                    There are chaplains and in-agency psychologists, both can have classified conversations with you. The problem is that you cannot change the underlying causes of any illness/sickness

                                                                                                                                                • amarcheschi

                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 3:17 PM

                                                                                                                                                  What can you say, if anything, without going into detail?

                                                                                                                                                    • cushychicken

                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 4:37 PM

                                                                                                                                                      It was, on a technical level, the most interesting work I’ve ever done. What people say about the US government being ahead of the commercially available technology curve is certainly true.

                                                                                                                                                      The work I did absolutely had positive impact on the world.

                                                                                                                                                      People rush to criticize and write off working in the defense sector, but it can be a very rewarding place to work. There are absolutely problems in that sector - bad management and regulatory capture being primary among them. (Ultimately, those are why I left.)

                                                                                                                                                      It’s hard to judge accurately from the outside. That’s the nature of classified work: by definition, you can’t know what you’re getting yourself into until you’ve jumped with both feet.

                                                                                                                                                        • Demiurge

                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 7:13 PM

                                                                                                                                                          > What people say about the US government being ahead of the commercially available technology curve is certainly true.

                                                                                                                                                          Is that what they say?

                                                                                                                                                            • singingtoday

                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 11:41 PM

                                                                                                                                                              Yes, and it's true. Not in every field. For example, defense contractors have material science well beyond what is commercially available. I'm a nobody, and what I've seen is world changing.

                                                                                                                                                              And that isn't even the half of it.

                                                                                                                                                          • amarcheschi

                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:28 PM

                                                                                                                                                            Thanks

                                                                                                                                                            • alexashka

                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 5:00 PM

                                                                                                                                                              [flagged]

                                                                                                                                                                • jckahn

                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 5:10 PM

                                                                                                                                                                  Is the implication here that we should take the moral high ground and let our adversaries murder us first?

                                                                                                                                                                    • justsomehnguy

                                                                                                                                                                      today at 12:22 AM

                                                                                                                                                                      It's quite strange what your adversaries become them after you travel to other side of the planet and kill, maim and destroy them.

                                                                                                                                                                      • Teever

                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 8:43 PM

                                                                                                                                                                        Is Canada an adversary of America? Or Greenland?

                                                                                                                                                                        What position should Canadians or the people of Greenland take with regards to the people in the US military who are currently working to annex and invade their countries?

                                                                                                                                                                        What position should the US military take with regards to the people in those countries who are currently working to resist those efforts to annex and invade their countries their homelands?

                                                                                                                                                                        Do you consider Canadian and Icelandic civilians your adversary? If so, how did that come to be?

                                                                                                                                                                          • jacquesm

                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 10:15 PM

                                                                                                                                                                            I think you meant to write Greenland.

                                                                                                                                                                              • Teever

                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 10:37 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                Indeed I did, my brain was a bit foggy when I wrote after a night of partying.

                                                                                                                                                                                Thanks for catching that.

                                                                                                                                                                                  • jacquesm

                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 11:53 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                    The times are wild enough that I first checked if Trump had been making any moves on Iceland, just in case I had missed something...

                                                                                                                                                                            • Sabinus

                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 11:01 PM

                                                                                                                                                                              Should the whole of the military quit because the American people were x enough to elect Trump?

                                                                                                                                                                                • jacquesm

                                                                                                                                                                                  today at 12:24 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                  There is a Godwin in there somewhere.

                                                                                                                                                                                  • Teever

                                                                                                                                                                                    today at 2:07 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                    I can’t speak to what the American military should do in this situation but I’m curious to hear what HN users think the people of Canada and Greenland should do in this situation.

                                                                                                                                                                                    What would the American response to these kinds of actions be if the shoe was on the other foot?

                                                                                                                                                                                    Given the asymmetry in power how should Canada and Greenland respond?

                                                                                                                                                                                    If the American response to Iranian actions against American allies and interest in the Middle East is to spend half their missile stockpile to assassinate the leadership of Iran how should Canada respond to American threats of annexation and Greenland of invasion?

                                                                                                                                                                                    What’s proportional and sensible here?

                                                                                                                                                                                    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/08/greenland-iwar...

                                                                                                                                                                                    https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/alberta-separatism-trump-ad...

                                                                                                                                                                            • iso1631

                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 5:40 PM

                                                                                                                                                                              Well that would be fine if it was defence. But it's now the department of war, led by a person who has attacked two countries this year alone.

                                                                                                                                                                                • jckahn

                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 6:09 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                  I'm against the U.S.'s broken leadership as much as any sensible person. But even in normal times with sane leadership, national defense is often a matter of "kill or be killed." This is certainly an uncomfortable truth, but that's the way of the world.

                                                                                                                                                                                    • ryandrake

                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 10:09 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                      In what "normal" times is a country down to the "kill or be killed" choice? It's only "kill or be killed" if you are under attack by an actual aggressor. When was the last time, say, Canada or New Zealand, felt their national defense choices were "kill or be killed"?

                                                                                                                                                                                      • alexashka

                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 7:24 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                        > national defense is often a matter of "kill or be killed."

                                                                                                                                                                                        You and Israel's current leadership are in agreement.

                                                                                                                                                                                          • mpyne

                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 7:58 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                            Ukraine is also running headlong into the reality of kill or be killed.

                                                                                                                                                                                • culi

                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 5:55 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                  I mean it's not like we know those "adversaries" ever wanted to murder us. For example, the US has a long record of assassinating labor leaders in South America to protect our Banana Republics on behalf of Chiquita. I think it's absolutely fair to bring in skepticism towards the secrets our military keeps from us

                                                                                                                                                                                    • jckahn

                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 6:12 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                      Do you believe that "death to America" chants should not be taken seriously?

                                                                                                                                                                                        • dofm

                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 7:35 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                          In short, yes. They should not be taken seriously. You should take Iranian actions on the ground seriously, and ignore that which is essentially compelled political theatre.

                                                                                                                                                                                          • culi

                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 6:48 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                            I'm saying it is foolish and historically uninformed to hold a blind faith that everyone that the US labels an "adversary" is evil.

                                                                                                                                                                                            Would you like to engage with the comment I left?

                                                                                                                                                                                              • jckahn

                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 6:57 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                I agree that blindly assuming that all "adversaries" of the U.S. (per labeling by the U.S. government) want to kill us. But it does seem that some indeed do. It would further seem that proportionate countermeasures would be appropriate for those cases.

                                                                                                                                                                                            • Planktonne

                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 9:17 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                              If they have no practical way of acting on the chant, then it's just bluster.

                                                                                                                                                                                              • throw310822

                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 7:44 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                No they shouldn't because "death to" is simply a mistranslation. "Death to" is an idiom in Persian that means approximately "down with"- and in fact the official translation by the Iranian government itself is "Down with the USA". But I'm curious what you thought it meant.

                                                                                                                                                                                                  • theodric

                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 8:38 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                    So rather than wanting to kill the USA, they merely want to bring it down? That sounds like a distinction without a difference if you're a military tasked with ensuring that your country continues to exist.

                                                                                                                                                                                                      • culi

                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 11:22 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                        I would say "down with Palantir". That doesn't mean I want every member of that organization dead. In the same way, it's absolutely fine to say down with a state. States/corporations don't have rights. People do.

                                                                                                                                                                                                • mx7zysuj4xew

                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 7:18 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                  Yeah

                                                                                                                                                                                                  To the younger generations it's just political theatre and gets laughed at as being the equivalent of boomer cringe

                                                                                                                                                                                                    • fryanyway_swe

                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 8:15 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                      [flagged]

                                                                                                                                                                                          • alexashka

                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 6:49 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                            [flagged]

                                                                                                                                                                                              • jckahn

                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 7:25 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                I'm genuinely not sure how else to interpret your previous comment. Do you see any situations where defense by lethal force is appropriate?

                                                                                                                                                                                                  • alexashka

                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 7:33 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                    [flagged]

                                                                                                                                                                                        • oh_fiddlesticks

                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 5:08 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                          A bit of an unconstructive, unwarranted jab, if I may say so.

                                                                                                                                                                                            • iwontberude

                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 5:55 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                              [dead]

                                                                                                                                                                                          • halJordan

                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:12 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                            Ah. Cool story bro. Meanwhile private equity doctors let their private corp owners kill people over insurance denials. But complain only when their malpractice copay rises.

                                                                                                                                                                                            Tech workers for Silicon Valley daily enable and positively contribute to the pervasive surveillance and exploitation of the majority of the world. To the point the poors cant even open the app or walk into the store without an algorithm raises prices to the mathematical max this person can afford. But they only complain when free bananas are removed from the snacks.

                                                                                                                                                                                              • kingkawn

                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 5:27 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                Maybe everything you listed and nation state murders are all bad?

                                                                                                                                                                                    • lesuorac

                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 3:25 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                      Everybody here is all so small minded.

                                                                                                                                                                                      The government has spent centuries doing spycraft and has a budget in the billions.

                                                                                                                                                                                        • yndoendo

                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 4:06 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                          When you know you can't kill the message, kill the messenger.

                                                                                                                                                                                          This is the tactic used when journalist Gary Webb started reporting on the USA involvement with selling crack to Americans so they could fund Contra insurgents in Nicaragua.

                                                                                                                                                                                          They did this so well that other news organizations turned on the journalist.

                                                                                                                                                                                          I could easily imagine the USA not wanting to patch holes so they have access to the systems and these experts know this.

                                                                                                                                                                                            • anonymousiam

                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 6:32 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                              The US agency that we entrust with evaluating and recommending our encryption standards is the same one (albeit a different branch) that focuses on breaking encryption. There is an obvious conflict of interest with this arrangement.

                                                                                                                                                                                              Many examples of deliberate weakening are documented, especially with the "export approved" stuff that we sell to our allies.

                                                                                                                                                                                              This problem goes beyond just encryption, and also involves deliberate data leaking (with plausible deniability).

                                                                                                                                                                                              So yes, you don't need to imagine it at all -- the NSA works to create and maintain access to "everything everywhere."

                                                                                                                                                                                                • edoceo

                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 7:09 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                  Does this mean the NSA could open things I've encrypted using libsodium crypto_box?

                                                                                                                                                                                                    • veeti

                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 10:16 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                      The used algorithms were designed by DJB, not US agencies.

                                                                                                                                                                                                  • woodruffw

                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 7:05 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                    What does this mean? NIST and NSA are not even in the same federal department.

                                                                                                                                                                                        • bigyabai

                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 4:07 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                          If they worked there recently, they probably grappled with this in some capacity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Typhoon

                                                                                                                                                                                      • yesterday at 8:24 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                        • Hilliard_Ohiooo

                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 6:50 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                          Took me a year to get my secret clearance in the military, I promise you no one gives a s** about anything you say once you're out. It is a fun way to feel self-important though :-)

                                                                                                                                                                                          I was a part of the world's largest illegal operation in history and again I promise you no one gives a s**.

                                                                                                                                                                                            • sitzkrieg

                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 10:21 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                              everyone seemed to nonchalantly care because you all got blanket secret clearance in mil. if you had TS/SCI and an interesting SAP you would not be saying this

                                                                                                                                                                                              • afro88

                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 7:25 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                Well go on then...

                                                                                                                                                                                                • breppp

                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 7:27 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                  Sounds like a good tip if someone wants to find themselves in jail

                                                                                                                                                                                              • epolanski

                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 5:53 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                [flagged]

                                                                                                                                                                                                • throwaway-11-1

                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 4:52 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                  [flagged]

                                                                                                                                                                                                    • rozap

                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 4:54 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                      Plenty of people work at Meta.

                                                                                                                                                                                                      • techpression

                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 5:18 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                        I think most people think the ethical values are far higher in those jobs than most random startup bs just wasting resources.

                                                                                                                                                                                                        I definitely do, I would rather work in the military than Meta/Amazon/Microsoft/Any online gambling/and loads of other shit companies.

                                                                                                                                                                                                          • archagon

                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 6:55 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                            Thou shalt not kill is pretty straightforward.

                                                                                                                                                                                                    • constantius

                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 6:48 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                      [flagged]

                                                                                                                                                                                                      • jas-

                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 3:21 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                        If you speak to the correct people about illegal activities and unlawful orders you will not.

                                                                                                                                                                                                          • itsdesmond

                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 4:02 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                            It’s wild to, in a thread about an unusual number of suicides among a branch of government doing secret stuff, say that folks talking about that secret stuff would be a good idea.

                                                                                                                                                                                                            I am absolutely not saying that is what’s happening here, suicide of folks put in stressful situations is to be taken seriously. But like… c’mon guy, surely this exact premise has been a direct-to-Amazon-Video release.

                                                                                                                                                                                                            • jagged-chisel

                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 3:30 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                              … you might not.

                                                                                                                                                                                                              Have you noticed the current executive administration in the US?

                                                                                                                                                                                                              • subscribed

                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 6:43 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                Cool things are not necessarily illegal. You ever done anything cool in your life?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                • MarkusQ

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 3:50 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Way to pull a Tokyo Rose; the GP was alluding to "cool" and "impactful" things they had done to keep us all safe from malicious actors and you try to twist it into "illegal activities" and "unlawful orders".

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Do not think we aren't catching on to this kind of nonsense.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • jas-

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 5:30 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      If the activities were truly cool and impactful, and not illegal or unlawful as you suggest, wouldn’t it be possible that the suicide could be due to a culture of not speaking out and then left to deal with the after effect of guilt? A slanderous retort vs a different lens to review the events isn’t helpful

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • MarkusQ

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 6:06 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I seriously doubt the GP (who was proud of their work) was one of the suicides. If they were, the mere fact that they are able to post here after taking their own life would be the far bigger story.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • runtime_terror

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 4:49 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        So we're to trust an anon supposed ex officer saying they're doing good things there despite all the clear evidence to the contrary?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • vkou

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:45 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            It's possible that they think they are doing good things according to their moral framework. There are hundreds of millions of people with truly insane moral frameworks.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            It's possible that their particular job was, as far as they know, doing good things according to most moral frameworks.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I have strong doubts that everyone who kills people by clicking on them on a computer screen thinks that what they are doing is wholly compatible with their personal moral framework. Presumably, some of those people feel very guilty about what they do.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • MarkusQ

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 6:13 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Kills people by clicking on them? WTF?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                This is about network security, defending against cyber attacks. You may or may not agree that we should have people doing that, but conflating it with imagined nonsense like this is counterproductive.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • vkou

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 6:57 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    What do you think drone operators and their support staff do?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • MarkusQ

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 8:06 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Why do you think this has anything to do with drone operators?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • onemoresoop

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 3:47 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      You’d likely get Snowdened in.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 3:50 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I don't see anywhere that OP mentioned illegal activities or unlawful orders. Sounds like they're quite proud of what the accomplished.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • yesterday at 3:50 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • cco

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 6:37 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Counterpoint, industry cyber security is so generally weak, if there were actually a secret "huge cold cyber war" on-going, we'd see real world impact.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Since we don't, it probably isn't happening.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • skitsofrandom

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        today at 2:40 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        There are a lot of documented small scale hacks on American infrastructure by state actors. The prevailing theory I have heard was that the point is to find as many vulnerabilities in our internet-connected critical infrastructure, then sit on it until it’s needed. It doesn’t make news when a few water tanks overflow in a random tiny Texas city, but the principle is that these kinds of exploits may generalize to the infra of major cities.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Example: https://texasstandard.org/stories/russian-hackers-muleshoe-t...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        So there is no need for a highly visible active cyber war. We have tons of cyber professionals working on this stuff day in and day out to help keep up prepared.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • DaiPlusPlus

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 9:21 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > Counterpoint, industry cyber security is so generally weak, if there were actually a secret "huge cold cyber war" on-going, we'd see real world impact.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          But we do: ransomware stories are in the news all the time; while they likely aren’t being directly executed by the Russian or Chinese governments they are being allowed to happen because they aid state interests: for example, https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          …or more insidiously: political influence campaigns, which are very much a cyber concern, and even easier to deny.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • impossiblefork

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 8:47 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I like the argument and it seems valid, but I have heard the opposite from people working in commercial cybersecurity.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • 0xdeadbeefbabe

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                today at 2:45 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                People who work in commercial cybersecurity might have a vested interest in looking like warriors at least.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • nullpoint420

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 6:46 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I mean, isn't that all counter-intelligence? They wouldn't want to be seen?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • markus_zhang

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 4:21 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          This thing probably never stops and doesn’t have holidays. I read about Operation Gladio back in the day, which was not a cyber operation, but a preparation of guerrilla operations in case the WP occupied EU. But I got the feeling that the war in darkness (cyber is part of it) is non-stop.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • beloch

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 7:30 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          This could be a factor, but there are other things that probably do more to explain the uptick in suicides.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          1. There's a new hot war with Iran, a country that has put a large amount of resources into its cyberwarfare capabilities after previous U.S. cyberstrikes (e.g. stuxnet). Iran is likely a lot tougher target than it was ten years ago and that means pressure for members of the U.S.'s cyber command to perform.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          2. Computer nerds probably struggle with getting respect from the rest of the military even at the best of times. That just got a lot harder with Hegseth as secretary.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          3. The U.S. is likely not targeting just Iran right now. Imagine being called upon to go to work against countries you consider to be allies, like Denmark, Greenland, Canada, Spain, etc..

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • fryanyway_swe

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 8:08 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Regular Cold War people could not disclose anything to their families either...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • bijowo1676

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              today at 3:26 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              or they just got tired of feeding data into Palantir that results in hundreds of civilians being butchered

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • YesThatTom2

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 11:16 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                (Replying to my own post). Also, it’s gotta be mentally draining to be told by the president they have to win but also always let Russian attacks though.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/defens...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • rbanffy

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 11:20 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Presidents come and go and, hopefully, this one will be held accountable.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • aeortiz

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 1:06 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I'm an agnostic, but when I read about what he does, it makes me devoutly wish that hell exists. He has made countless people's lives hell on earth, and he doesn't care at all. No one is holding him accountable in this life: it's inconvenient for those in power.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 1:52 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            It's a systemic issue, not due to one man.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            What gets overlooked here is the US IC itself being a probable cause: the habit of "housecleaning" by killing individuals suspected to be possible (even only prospective) leaks of inconvenient information is very real.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            The recent cluster of weird deaths and disappearances of scientists linked to secret military research has a similar pattern to it: a statistically highly unlikely density of "suicides, accidents & mishaps".

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            The assumption, those actions were "justified" somehow is entirely baseless: there is no transparency and no effective oversight. What is supposedly being kept secret there might simply be illegal corruption or embarrassing and inconvenient to those in power.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • TFNA

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 3:57 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Almost every discussion here on HN about those "deaths and disappearances of scientists linked to secret military research" has been about how, when you actually dig into the data, they have been very statistically likely.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • mikestorrent

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 5:50 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Calling things "systemic" is unfortunately often just a way of offloading the problem into the pile of Things We Can't Fix. It removes individual accountability, in an era where we are increasingly able to assess the effect an influential individual actually has - because their dialogue is public and recorded, and the consequences of that can be studied.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I think there are plenty of individual men who are absolutely responsible for things becoming worse, and we do the world no favours by helping them shrug the burden of their actions.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • andrewflnr

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 4:56 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    There are long standing systemic issues, and then there's also one man making things dramatically worse in new, stupider ways.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • ajsnigrutin

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 3:23 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  So have many others before him.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The only difference is, is that before him we had "Iraq has weapons for mass destruction! we must attack them, before they attack us, we're in danger!", and now there's "we're going in and we're taking the oil!".

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  So from "we can do whatever we want if we lie" turned into "we can do whatever we want", not really relevant to all the people killed.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  But hey, some americans would say that "It's worth it" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP_VnVlFhXU

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • fn-mote

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 4:28 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Nobody is holding up those other guys as shining paragons of virtue either.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      “Other people did it too” is not an excuse for immoral behavior.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I think the parent and I basically agree.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • ajsnigrutin

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 7:42 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          But pretty much every US president did something like that, killed people somewhere, usually half the planet away. No US president is in jail for that. OP above me is just blaming this particular one for something that everyone has done before, and many of them even got reelected again by the same people complaining about.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Trump attacked quite a few countries in his first term, even killed the Iranian general (Soleimani), and you guys reelected him after all that. You guys clearly weren't bothered by that enough to vote for someone else.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          If nothing else, Iran has learned that they really need those nukes, because you guys will never leave them at peace otherwise.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • SubiculumCode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 3:10 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Not every nation survives a tyrant by the virtue of patience.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • DivingForGold

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 3:47 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Especially in Russia...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • dboreham

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  today at 12:18 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  There may eventually be a Nuremberg II for the henchmen but the ship has sailed on bringing the dear leader to justice.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • epolanski

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 5:54 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Yeah, January 2021 says no.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • iso1631

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 5:53 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      This was wasn't after January 2021, and hasn't been during his second term. There are methods to hold presidents accountable, there are institutions to prevent the harm from happening.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      These have failed.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • squidbeak

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 11:30 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Just as important, the US will need to figure out exactly what strings Putin's managed to attach to Trump - kompromat? threats? bribes? elaborate man management? something else? - or this vulnerability could be exploited again.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • estearum

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 11:43 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            It's almost certainly just that Trump is a fundamentally fragile, insecure man. He has proven over and over that he will happily fellate (proverbially speaking) any man who says nice things about him, and at least refrain from assaulting most women who say nice things too.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Putin (and everyone else) knows this.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • lesuorac

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 11:38 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Idk maybe there is something nefarious but afaik Putin's always been cordial with Trump as well as let him do various investments in Russia. I'm not sure there's much reason for Trump to alienate his friend; if you've ever see Trump's staff meetings you'll know how much cordiality is important to him.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • TheOtherHobbes

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 12:29 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                All of the above, plus death threats.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Trump isn't the weakness. The weakness is the almost complete collapse of the checks and balances around the president. If those were in place Trump would have been in prison by the end of 2021 at the very latest.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                The DOJ, the military, both houses, the AIPAC wing of the Democrats, and corporate media are all fully captured. So are "independent" organisations like the NRA.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                The Supreme Court is mostly captured. The lower levels of the judiciary are still holding out, but have limited enforcement ability without the DOJ.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • noir_lord

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 12:37 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    It's why I don't see the US making the course correction it actually needs - realistically the "best" feasible outcome is that a presidential election is held and a business as usual democrat is elected who will immediately not address any of the problems for whatever reason (part of the system/paid by the same people pick one).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Candidates come and go but the system endures and it is the system that is rotten at every level all the way down to the core.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Then 4-8 years later the GOP candidate wins subservient to the same interests as Trump and the US Gov is back there again.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Not really sure what the outcome is for the US at this point, things will have to get a great deal worse before enough Americans decide this is unacceptable but that state can last years/decades before the dam breaks.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • SubiculumCode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 3:18 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The winning Presidential campaign message would be this: I promise to work to reduce the power of the Presidency via supporting and campaigning for legislation and Constitutional amendments. It is time for Congress to once again be ascendent like it was in the first century of our great Republic.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        We need a G. Washington, who refused more power than he was offered, setting precedents and expectations.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • don_esteban

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 4:44 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            No, that is your wishful thinking.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Based on recent years and the power of personalized AI influence campaigns, the winning Presidential campaign message (after 4 years of 'change nothing substantial Democrat' would most likely be 'I need real, full (silently: fascist) power, to finally drain the swamp'.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • inigyou

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 12:14 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  None. No vulnerability. The population and the RNC just voted for a known Russian asset for some reason.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • SubiculumCode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 3:14 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Our vulnerability is an open internet that includes Russia, leaving our populace completely open to Russian influence campaigns of micro targeted propaganda, recruitment, and incitement.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • analognoise

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 4:02 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I like how the “Chinese propaganda” against datacenters was found to be mostly a collection of facts.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          While Russian propaganda is more clumsy and emotional, we’ve produced such an unequal society with such low regular education and outright corruption that people fall for it. That says something negative about US, not them.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          If we admit our system cant even survive an open internet, it should be dismantled or reformed rather than free exchange closed.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • don_esteban

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 4:37 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              This.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I lived in a communistic country, where BBC/Voice of America/Radio free Europe were banned/jammed, under the pretext of 'your feeble minds will not be able to resist the insidious allure of western burgeois propaganda'.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Seeing the same argumentation from the west's side is disheartening. We are now in the west, but (almost) full circle back where were before.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • SubiculumCode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 4:25 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Education would blunt, but not eliminate the threat of nation-state funded micro targeted influence campaigns. Moreover, it would take years, and we have the problem now.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                In terms of data center propaganda and fact. Both are true. China is funding anti data center sentiment for geopolitical power, while at the same time, there are legitimate reasons for people to not like/ or fear AI. The problem is we (the U.S.) have to solve both. We cannot let China have significantly better AI models than we have because that is a real national security threat, while AI also threatens potential mass destruction dangers and an avenue of utter concentration of wealth, etc

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • analognoise

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 8:40 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I’m not buying the “AI security threat”, and I don’t really care if the best models are open source - and Chinese. If everyone can buy enough hardware to run the best models, what’s the threat? The same tired arguments as banning books on encryption or chemistry?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I see the crazed AI investment as worthless financial gambling, a house of cards that will eventually crumble, and the argument that “we need to fund AI” really is “your tax dollars should bail out our financial mistake, because security”.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    It’s nonsense all the way down. Covid showed we didn’t even manufacture basic drugs in the country anymore, and were openly threatening our biggest/best/longest allies (Canada, Mexico, NATO). AI is so far down the security list as to make it noise, compared to our recent missteps.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • CamperBob2

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 5:02 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I like how the “Chinese propaganda” against datacenters was found to be mostly a collection of facts.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  That's not my understanding. Got any credible links that back up this point?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • ajsnigrutin

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 7:44 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                You guys do know that the same thing is said about americans in "the rest of the world"? Remember the "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" thing?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • pjc50

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 5:33 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Propaganda and bribery. Things like the Hungarian funding of CPAC and the NRA holding a July 4 celebration in Russia some years ago.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              The weak spot was the conservative prediction to fascism - worship of force and masculinity - which was easily retargeted against other Americans.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • AngryData

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 4:06 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I think Trump is just that naturally that stupid and always has been.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • oneshtein

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 12:42 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Epstein files?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • MBCook

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 4:26 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            You’re kidding right?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • dismalaf

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 3:16 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > always let Russian attacks though

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          The article doesn't say anything of the sort. Literally just said to put a halt on OFFENSIVE operations.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          If I were to guess I'd say it was an overly ambitious negotiation tactic.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Also, that was a year and a half ago. The current status quo is that Ukraine is producing more drones than Russia can deal with, bombing Russian targets daily and the US-Ukraine relationship is much closer, with Ukraine sharing drone technology and intel with the US.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • exe34

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 3:04 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            The US and Russia are allies.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • aetch

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 4:36 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                No, despite what the conservatives and Fox News say, we are not

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • exe34

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 7:24 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    In what sense? Removing the embargo on russian oil? Inviting the gremlin from the kremlin to Alaska (of all places!) and rolling out the red carpet?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • PunchyHamster

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 5:13 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Does US know it ? Coz it certainly acts like one for most part of the war

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • manoDev

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 11:53 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                The new US policy under Trump is giving up trying to win the world and instead focusing on internal market and dominance over the American continent. Causing and sustaining friction everywhere is aligned with this policy.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                This is the result of a shift of power in the US politics, from the global financial capital of the last decades back to the military and industrial sector.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • atmavatar

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 1:50 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    The new US policy under Trump is to burn everything down while extracting as much wealth for himself and his cronies as possible.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • onemoresoop

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 3:48 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        And creating so much chaos afterwards that it becomes impossible to recover any of it

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • mx7zysuj4xew

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 7:32 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            That's more of a side effect if anything

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • Forgeties79

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 12:23 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      > The new US policy under Trump is giving up trying to win the world and instead focusing on internal market and dominance over the American continent.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Is that why he bombed Iran and single-handedly caused a global energy crisis? A shift of focus to “dominance of the American continent”?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • serf

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 1:30 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Well yeah, probably -- during this self made crisis oil prices in the US are some of the most well controlled.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Destabilizing everywhere else is a potential step taken toward achieving continental superiority in certain regards.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          ( not a GOOD step, mind you)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • exe34

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 3:05 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            He's just doing his best to make everybody switch to renewables!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • anon7725

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 3:55 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Blocking foreign-made solar power inverters must be part of that master plan:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-423682A1.pdf

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • iso1631

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 5:55 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    That's just deliberate damage to the US, his actions have increased move to energy sovereignty globally and done more for net zero than any president before him.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • today at 1:08 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • manoDev

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 6:24 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Unfortunately this slows down adoption of renewables even more, China produces most of world’s renewables and batteries but bootstraps this industry with oil.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • manoDev

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 3:03 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                > Is that why he bombed Iran and single-handedly caused a global energy crisis?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Yes. Oil price hurts China industrial capacity more than the US economy. Oil companies made a $93 billion profit amid the war [1]. The US is a net oil exporter, while China halved their oil imports [2].

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                ExxonMobil and Chevron are US-incorporated. TotalEnergies (French) BP (UK), Shell (UK) also have significant US-based ownership (~50%, ~25% and ~25% respectively), including BlackRock, Vanguard, mutual funds, and US pension funds.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                > A shift of focus to “dominance of the American continent”?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                1. Venezuela was under embargo and selling oil to China. The Nicolas Maduro hijack and the country's political realignment with US will have the double effect of negating oil to China and securing large nearby reserves.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                2. Argentina has a Trump-aligned president, who is vocal about undermining the Mercosul agreement and is currently in diplomatic attrition with Brazil. Recently signed a $20 billion loan from FMI.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                3. Paraguay signed a treaty for a US forward operation base in their territory. The Paraguay border is home to a large hydroelectric, a major power source for 3 countries: Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                4. Colombia has a new Trump aligned president. It's a young president with no political background. The US State Department announced a $1 billion assistance upon his election for military investment.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                5. Peru’s new president Keiko Fujimori is Trump-aligned.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                6. Chile’s new president Jose Antonio Kast is Trump-aligned.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                7. US retaliated against the prosecution of former Trump-aligned Brazil president for attempted coup by announcing an 50% emergency tariff (which didn't hold legally), then crafting a Section 301 investigation to justify a 25% tariff in July 2026.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                8. US is giving asylum to the former president's son, who is vocal on social media about defending the US tariffs as retaliation, defends military intervention of the US in Brazil, as well as stating (but without proof) that Brazilian polls are rigged – not the one his father ran and won, apparently.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2026/aug...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/EconomyCharts/comments/1uxdx8p/chin...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • lesuorac

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 3:33 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    > The US is a net oil exporter, while China halved their oil imports [2].

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    This seems to be the opposite point you want.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Everybody is going to have increased expenses for everything due to their oil dependency _except_ China. Which will raise the price of Chinese exports to the market price but giving China a lot of producer surplus.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Or China can keep doing it's Belt & Road plans and grant other countries money to help with their oil problems in exchange for territory. Or also keep prices lower to continue hollowing out other countries manufacturing capabilities.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    --

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    The leaders of South America claiming to be "Trump aligned" is good for Trump. Trump is not the average american citizen. And boy will those leaders flip the second he's out of the presidency.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • manoDev

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 4:25 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        It's believed China managed to halve oil imports due to large (undisclosed) reserves, emergency public policies and overdriving coal use, but this can't last. China is also extremely dependent on Russian oil, which is a country at conflict and having its key infrastructure destroyed. China is building their renewable energy capacity fast, but this has to be quick started on oil.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Increasing oil prices have the double effect of slowing China expansion and energetic transition long-term while increasing dollar demand in the short term - just look what happened to gold prices once Iran war started.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The new Trump-aligned leaders of South America are puppets to secure cheap, nearby materials and food in a future world in conflict, where the US has to re-industrialize rapidly. The US navy would be spread too thin, and the US currently doesn't even have capacity to build its navy - the US recently sought the help of South Korea in this matter.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Please note none of this my opinion, the current US foreign policy strategy is a public fact. [1]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donroe_Doctrine

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • Forgeties79

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:10 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            > Please note none of this my opinion, the current US foreign policy strategy is a public fact.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            This is beyond arrogant and makes discussion impossible. Your opinion is not automatically a 100% accurate reflection reality because you have citations.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • Forgeties79

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 3:24 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      that’s a lot of words about South America in order to paper over what we are all currently feeling at the pump and in the economy at large. Between his incoherent tariff policies and the paltry job numbers we are seeing, I think you’re going to have a hard time convincing me he’s doing things that are good for us domestically. I’m not even touching the heated social issues he’s been pouring gas all over.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • saidnooneever

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        today at 1:02 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        it is very harsh pressures both professional and personal

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • jambalaya8

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          today at 1:14 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yeah, I can't imagine how stressful.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • AlexCoventry

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 8:42 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I suspect Hegseth's atavistic attempt to turn the US military back toward a culture of machismo is resulting in misery for anyone who doesn't fit the part, whether they're skilled at their duties or not.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • cookiengineer

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 1:31 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              There's lots of people working for NATO and federal agencies in Europe that have been assassinated by the luckystrike branch of the FSB. The name comes from the Telegram account with underscores in between, and they're essentially recruiting kids or former inmates for GTA style missions.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Starts with simple stuff like package rerouting, then goes on to gathering intel about places, people, putting in USB flash drives to their laptops, theft, death threats, arsony, and actual murder. Each step of the way the kids get deeper into trouble because they have to prove that they have done it for the payout, making photos of themselves... which gives the other end increasingly more doxxing material on them.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              It's a real problem, and they use the luckystrike branch also to go after witnesses in big lawsuit cases, which then fall off due to all witnesses accidentally dying under seemingly random causes.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • impossiblefork

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 9:25 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I have heard of zero murders of NATO and EU agency people, and I think you're quite wrong.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  There are of course people like this, recruited on the internet in the many criminal networks that exist, but I don't think they've had any notable successes.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • cookiengineer

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      today at 4:24 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      "I was never mugged on the train station, therefore muggings at train stations never happen"

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Basically your argument right now.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Check my sibling comments, I provided enough evidence across multiple countries and multiple jurisdictions that came to the same conclusions that the FSB is involved.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 1:42 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    What gets overlooked here is the US IC itself being a probable cause: the habit of "housecleaning" by killing individuals suspected to be possible (even only prospective) leaks of information is very real.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    The recent cluster of weird deaths and disappearances of scientists linked to secret military research has a similar pattern to it: a statistically highly unlikely density of "suicides, accidents & mishaps".

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • strictnein

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 4:02 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > "is very real"

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Except it's not.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • quickthrowman

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 3:18 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > The recent cluster of weird deaths and disappearances of scientists linked to secret military research has a similar pattern to it

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          The pattern being that the deaths and disappearances among people with top secret clearances is lower than the national average would suggest.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > According to science writer Mick West, more than 700,000 people work in top-secret-cleared positions in the U.S. aerospace and nuclear sectors. When viewed against existing mortality rates and causes, this would suggest around 250 persons in the industry would normally succumb to homicides and suicides over the time-period during which the 10 or 11 alleged "missing scientists" had died or disappeared, with thousands more dying of natural causes.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists_conspiracy_...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • neuroticnews25

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 5:37 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Just think how many ordinary people they have to randomly kill to keep it that way.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • polotics

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 6:08 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            can you prove it? and if you can, you being still alive kinda contradicts...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • SubiculumCode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 3:09 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              If so, then the family members of the president are in danger!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • XorNot

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 2:55 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                You have absolutely no information on whether this is probable or likely, and the recent news on scientists was a conspiracy theory powered as usual by a cherry picking facts and exaggerating biographies.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists_conspiracy_...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • wbl

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 3:24 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The US doesn't even kill foreign leaders. Our intelligence service doesn't have the skills or appetite, let alone citizens. The resulting scandal would make the Church commission look like nothing, not to mention the impact on recruitment.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • a2800276

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 3:35 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Yes, they only kill random fishermen in the Caribbean, foreign leaders get kidnapped and tried in kangaroo courts. Except Iranian leaders, those do get killed. But that's just the last 6 months.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • wbl

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 3:38 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Those were military not CIA. The distinction really matters!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • a2800276

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 8:26 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Regardless that you said "the US doesn't...", there's no way the CIA was not central to kidnapping Maduro and as for Khamenei: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/us/politics/cia-israel-ay...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I'm not sure why the distinction matters, the Navy and Coast Guard also need to recruit. I could imagine at least an occasional sailor is troubled by shooting drowning seamen, even if they are suspected smugglers.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Perhaps even a few civilians are troubled by the lack of regard for human life of the psychos running the show, eliminating any moral standing the world pretended the US had.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • krapp

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 4:41 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                >The distinction really matters!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                to whom?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • polotics

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 6:10 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    to recruiters explaining: we are the good guys!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • ddq

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 8:01 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  >The US doesn't even kill foreign leaders.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Is the US military somehow not "the US"? Do you not have any shame just blatantly lying like this?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • TheMayorOfDunce

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 3:59 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Surely you've reached the conclusion by now that "resulting scandal" no longer steers policy, or even any noteworthy degree of public outrage.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • iso1631

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 5:51 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      > There's lots of people working for NATO and federal agencies in Europe that have been assassinated by the luckystrike branch of the FSB. The name comes from the Telegram account with underscores in between, and they're essentially recruiting kids or former inmates for GTA style missions.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Iran too

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyqggvyp1do

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/29/norwegian-te...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • fryanyway_swe

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 8:20 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          EU is already under attack by Iran and has been for a while yet the american zoomers on TikTok/Reddit/here state everything is fine and Iran/China/Russia just wants to be left alone uwu

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          >The Swedish Security Service has established that the Iranian regime uses criminal networks in Sweden to carry out violent acts against other states, groups, or individuals in Sweden that Iran regards as threats.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          https://sakerhetspolisen.se/ovriga-sidor/other-languages/eng...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • breppp

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 4:07 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Haven't found a lot about it online, other than https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7786/artykul/3438674,russian...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Do you have any references about it?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        This is very reminiscent of Iranian intelligence modus operandi in Israel and world wide lately, currently with not a lot to show for

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/06/how-iran-sough...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • mannanj

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 11:31 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The open AI engineer who was ready to testify in a copyright case against them, also died in weird circumstances. His mom is out on an anti-Altman campaign.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Man this stuff sucks to be so out in the public and out of darkness. I mean we knew these things were happening but they’ve accelerated so much now and what are we going to do about it?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • salemh

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 2:00 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Unjust wars and enabling genocide is probably the more likely factor here, realizing there is no honor in defending these things overseas.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      This has been an issue for decades: overseas, not knowing 'why' Americans are dying for nothing, and, the veterans being treated as refuse when they return.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Edit: that may have come across too callous.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The crushing of ones consciesness for unjust foreign wars, protecting a global network of the worst crimes (Epstn files and the international group within it, operating under the umbrella protection network of the US vis a vis NATO).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The most immoral army in the world, the IDF, also has a very high suicide rate - ones conscience cannot be destroyed, it can only be atrophied and dulled, and then depression hunts you.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • aaron695

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        today at 12:10 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        [dead]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • varispeed

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 9:52 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          How can you fight such fight if the government at highest level is compromised by the enemy - Russia?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • rightbyte

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 3:28 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            How about that they do bad stuff and feel bad about it? You make it sound like they are taking a bullet or something. Desillusion is probably way worse.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • someothherguyy

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 10:39 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          "Between early June and early July, as many as five individuals who worked in or closely with US Cyber Command died by suicide, based on internal communications, public records and sources. The deaths have raised concern among lawmakers and military leaders within the highly secretive command, which is responsible for defending US networks and conducting offensive cyber operations."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          According to https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-25-107121.pdf there are ~17,000 authorized positions

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • paulmist

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 11:08 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Assuming a predominantly male population, the suicide rate should be around 20 per 100000 per year. 5 people in a month gives 18x higher rate. Too short period to draw any statistical conclusions but it’s a large blip.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • getnormality

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 11:09 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  From a life spent on count statistics, one thing I think is interesting is how definitively you can reject perfect randomness from a very small sample like this.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The expected event count from 17,000 people exposed to a month of constant uniform event risk with an annual hazard rate of 20 per 100,000 per year is 0.28. The p-value for observing a count of 5 from a (Poissonian) mean of 0.28 is 1 in 100,000. So it's pretty unlikely by perfect random chance.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The other thing you see in a life spent in count statistics is a lot of statistically extreme events that turn out to have no deep or predictive significance.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • chmod775

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      today at 4:27 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      You hinted at this in your last sentence, so I assume you're aware, but I feel like spelling it out anyways:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      There's many slices of ~10-20k people you can divide the US (military) in, many of them overlapping.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      What is the chance that in some year at least one of the slices will say "Hey, we had excess suicides!" - much higher.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • acdha

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 1:12 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I think you’d have some statistical complications around stress: beyond the inherent pressure of the job itself, it’s highly likely that they were understaffed even before losing a lot of support when the DOGE chainsaws were in “cut first, measure later” mode — I know multiple people in the military who are still running at like half productivity because telework was cancelled so everyone’s day is a couple hours longer commuting into an office where they’re sitting on the floor because there aren’t enough desks — and if they were married to another federal employee they might be dealing with loss of income or childcare (DOGE closed the GSA office which handled that, apparently to pressure parents into resigning) at the same time.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • dcanelhas

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 11:47 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The suicide rate isn't uniformly distributed given gender. There are likely screenings (previous mental health history) and rejection of the most affected age group (70+) that should lead the baseline to be even lower. Meaning 18x is probably on the low end.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • paulmist

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 2:01 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Definitely a rough estimate! I recon base rate is also higher amongst military personnel & it’s not uniformly distributed there either.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • Rebelgecko

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 6:10 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Suicides are not independent statistical events and sadly often come in "clusters"

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • AussieWog93

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 10:11 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I mean, let's be real for a second. It's cybersecurity.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Yes, it does skew male, but you're probably looking at 10x the standard population density of Autistics, and 20x the density of trans women.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I'm sure there are other "sociologically valid" ways you can measure this too, but there is absolutely a correlation between having the type of brain that is able to perform offensive cybersecurity operations and mental illness/social rejection/isolation.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • harimau777

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 4:15 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I think that it would be necessary to correct for things like income and education level since engineers in cyber command are likely not representative of the general public.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • raffael_de

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 4:26 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                i'm pretty sure that segment has lower than average suicide rate. well paid, well educated.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • y-curious

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 4:29 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I agree with you generally but a lot of professions that are well-paid and educated still have high rates. Dentists, for example, are 2x the general population

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • raffael_de

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 4:42 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        most medical professions have higher rate. it's usually attributed to being constantly subjected to pain and suffering plus physicians can source pharmaceuticals to exit softly. never heard that it professionals are particularly prone to suicide.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • Detrytus

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  today at 1:16 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The main thing they should correct for is "how much China and Russia want them dead, and can they make it look like a suicide"?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • jandrewrogers

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 2:00 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                This particular population is highly selected because of the work they do and the types of clearances they hold. I would expect the suicide rate to differ significantly from the general population.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • hylaride

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 4:09 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Stress, PTSD, and overwork can and do aggravate mental health issues. All of these are probably hitting these people - probably at the same time.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • yesterday at 11:27 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • davesque

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 8:51 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      That's not saying much. The real distribution is probably heavily skewed by risk factors such as poverty, age, drug abuse, etc.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • moustache_hn

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 6:00 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        [flagged]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • 01100011

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 3:13 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      > In some cases, they suffer from insomnia, memory loss, rumination and physical illness,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      So, like most middle-aged desk jockeys then?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      > “There’s always a crisis and everything’s always a priority,” said Schoka. “We would burn people out faster than we could produce them.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Sounds a lot like my job...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • halJordan

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 5:19 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Ah yes- your old job where your boss could put you on twelve hour shiftwork indefinitely while making you pt while denying you adequate housing or food all under the threat of military justice and telling you if you tell anyone anything you're breaking a dozen national security laws.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • singingtoday

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 11:47 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I have worked places with mandatory overtime and I can confirm after a few months I didn't want to be on earth anymore.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              But it wasn't military so I just quit..

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • talon8635

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                today at 12:42 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                lol exactly. The emergency of most “desk jockey” jobs is artificial. In national cyber com for the biggest cyber target on the planet, not so much.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • bluefirebrand

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 4:27 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              > > In some cases, they suffer from insomnia, memory loss, rumination and physical illness,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              > So, like most middle-aged desk jockeys then?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Is this really so common? I'm 38 and had some medical issues this past year, but one of the big things I've been grappling with is severe brain fog and memory loss. I could not tell you any of the projects I worked on in my previous three years, honestly. Maybe longer. It's been pretty demoralizing

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • tough

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 6:26 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I like to think the brain is doing its work and just trashing info it doesnt need and making space for new info when i forget stuff... I guess if it was truly important i'd be worried, but work stuff usually isnt important once its done, emotional/personal stuff would be more worrisome, like alzheimer and others, but work stuff? Im happy to forget it if its done lol

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • podocarp

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      today at 12:49 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Yea that's why good commit logs are actually helpful for your own career lol. I always forget what I did last week so team retros I usually just pull out all my commits and summarize into a paragraph for others.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I too can't remember jack and get brain fog during work, yet it's odd because I can remember very specific things in some experiences before I started working. For example I can recall some contents from my analysis class despite not using any of it for basically all of my career. But I can't recall what my boss said yesterday if I don't write it down. I guess it comes to a personal idea of "importance" too, I can generally remember things I'm interested in. I can remember which port number my home lab server and router is plugged into my switch but I can't remember my work intranet URL and rely on bookmarks.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • bluefirebrand

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 6:40 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Well, I'm only 38 so alzheimers is unlikely. It does run in the family though

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        But no, my real worry is I'm going to wind up having to interview and talk about stuff I've done and I can't seem to remember any of it. That's a real problem and probably not good

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • matt123456789

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 11:31 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Do you work on, like, 100 different projects and have slightly different roles in each one (i.e. PM at a startup)? Or do all the projects look roughly uniform from your perspective (eg. IC at MAAANGOS)? Do you take work home?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • bluefirebrand

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                today at 12:13 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Eh. More along the lines of a senior IC. Lots of meetings and discussions, not as much actual building as I'd like. Projects are I guess roughly uniform, but even so, I'd expect myself to remember what they were

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • nosmokewhereiam

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 4:24 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Glad to see this brought up! My entire Air Force experience is blocked to comment on besides basic training...Tech school and forward is NDA'd, read in, etc

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          You don't really get to sneak a glimpse of operations and write a book like the SEALs seem get to (jk!)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • jawiggins

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 7:25 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              What is it about being a Navy Seal that makes you want to become an influencer? From the books, podcasts, and misc media appearances you'd think that the Seal Teams were made for media like the Blue Angels.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • jcranmer

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 8:38 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Citing from the Behind the Bastards podcast, it seems that the guy who started Seal Team 6 wrote a book about his time in special ops (which was mostly lies, AIUI) after he left the military, made a lot of military, and so everybody who has similar dreams gravitates specifically towards the Navy Seals.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • podocarp

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    today at 1:01 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Unfortunately, probably narcissism with a small dash of psychopathy. That and also due to the prominent Osama assassination by the Seals. A prime example being "American sniper" Chris Kyle who openly writes in his book how happy he is to shoot people and was sued for defamation. He also claims to have shot a couple of carjackers in a gas station and was let off by the police because he was a badass (???). Couldn't find a primary source for it but see e.g. https://www.mpmacting.com/blog/2014/7/19/truth-justice-and-t...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    As a disclaimer I'm not making the claim that all seals, special forces, or military members are mentally ill. I'm just saying that the arch from being able to take the toughest training on earth and going into active combat to influencer sprinkled with some lies and fabrications is not a healthy psyche. There are plenty of seals that have retired and gone on as normal functioning members of society.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • austin-cheney

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 9:22 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I should write a book about being a fobbit in the Army who sits around all day bored as hell. I suspect it would sound strikingly similar to Catch 22.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • mapotofu

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 8:05 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        There’s a constant cultural stream of validation for their job, and the more narcissistic ones come to collect from it. You’re missing the many who don’t do that.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • yesterday at 9:52 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • le-mark

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 8:36 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > You don't really get to sneak a glimpse of operations and write a book like the SEALs seem get to (jk!)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        My understanding is their books are reviewed by the pentagon and don’t reveal the real secret operational details and that’s how they get away with it. Presumably someone like yourself could also write a book and have the pentagon redact it in a similar manner?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • nosmokewhereiam

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 9:52 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            ...that's what's being said here: nothing gets out. Cyber doesn't equal direct action regarding declassification or piecing together bits of unclass doesn't lead to the book.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            For every 1 million cybers, three books are written lol

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Every manned operation gets a book mention, eventually.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • downrightmike

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          today at 12:27 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Just write a fiction book

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • halJordan

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:20 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Your tech school is not nda'd.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • zbentley

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 6:18 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I’ve worked with folks from The Citadel who had parts of their studies they were not allowed to talk about. When doing a hiring reference check that was confirmed by school staff. I don’t know if it was an NDA in the traditional sense; I was just a tech interviewer.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • nosmokewhereiam

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 7:40 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    1N4X1 technical training is classified for most portions, but yeah not an NDA.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Great clarification!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • johnnyApplePRNG

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 4:33 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              So just suffer in silence because you signed some papers when you were too young to understand what they really meant?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              That's horrible.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I almost signed up for the Canadian Military back in the early 2000s and I think my lucky stars every day that I skipped that last recruitment meeting.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • roysting

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 9:56 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  [dead]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • Arun2009

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 6:17 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I wonder whether any American civilians are losing sleep over how the current administration and its supporters' robust "race realist" rhetoric and worldview might be used by adversaries for some very cruel and effective psychological warfare on military and bureaucratic personnel from minority groups in the US.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • harimau777

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                today at 3:29 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Honestly, at this point I think that people are just holding on and helping others where they can.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • aga98mtl

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 12:22 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              There is a tv show about in-the-know government employees dying by suicide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormwood_%28miniseries%29

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • throwaway89864

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                today at 4:15 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Can this simply be an LGBTQ issue, unrelated to the occupation? There've been attempts by the new administration to require the personal to declare their gender, and then get non-conforming genders out of the army, I understand?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • matt3210

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 10:44 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Is this higher than the general public?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • duxup

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      today at 1:37 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      About 18x higher.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • somenameforme

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 4:28 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I'm curious if LLMs have a role here. They're phenomenally capable at cyber stuff, and the military is without doubt taking full advantage of this. For people who's sole identity is tied into something that LLMs become better than them at, it seems easy to imagine that zooming straight on over to existential crisis territory.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • halJordan

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 5:01 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Absolutely not. The problem is solely op tempo since the Iran war started. Leadership in cyber is famous for "surging" It's quite normal. But cyber specifically refuses to allow the surge to end. It becomes "the new normal." This was already straining the force before the Iran war but the civilian leadership now demand constant cyber effects and that pressure cascades down. It's hard to emphasize how effective cyber is, bc of course you want proof. But the proof is in the optempo and you can see that leadership is literally killing their Soldiers to get more and more of it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • jerrythegerbil

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 5:24 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          The LLMs play a part, but it’s the tempo; the pace.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Fully autonomous w/LLM isn’t true. Leadership wants it true. The technological capabilities and acceptance of scapegoating a machine got rejected by society, so that leaves perfectly capable individuals as the gatekeepers of decision making, completely overloaded by the amount of information they need to deal with.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          If you as a human can’t keep up, but the onslaught continues, and you’ll be held responsible for the outcome regardless… yeah. People will punch their ticket out. It’s not unique to LLMs, but LLMs have certainly automated the process of reaching the worst possible conclusion.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Don’t for a second try to hold the computers accountable or blame them for this outcome. This is a leadership issue and always will be. Believing otherwise is just allowing suicides to be scapegoated as a computer’s doing.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • strictnein

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 4:15 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        It's sad how many people are commenting on this with insane conspiracy theories and that people are actually responding in support of them. Really shows how falling into echo chambers online and buying into conspiracy theories can cause significant harm to ones ability to think rationally.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • dijksterhuis

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:59 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            it's pretty much impossible to engage with people in a sane way in threads like this. hide and move on.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • talon8635

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                today at 12:44 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                HN wasn’t always this way, and was one of the last to fall. But yeah, it’s a shame

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • fhdkweig

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              today at 12:08 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Conspiracy theories thrive in environments of silence. If no one can talk about their time in government organizations (military, CIA, etc.), speculation is all we have left.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • graemep

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 5:03 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Its only a conspiracy theory if people on the other side of politics believe it

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Nothing like politics to make people miss the beam in their own eye

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • strictnein

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 7:07 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    People who believe nonsense about the government assassinating our own citizens come from all across the political spectrum, especially on the fringes. I legitimately don't know the politics of the people commenting here, nor do you know mine.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • graemep

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 8:34 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I confused by this comment. You do not know the politics of people here but I should before making a comment that agrees with yours?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > come from all across the political spectrum

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        My point is that people are far more likely to call something a conspiracy theory if it comes from the other side to their own

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • strictnein

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            today at 12:22 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Being that this is the internet I mistook your statement for saying that I was just calling this a conspiracy theory because I was on the opposite side of the politics of the people I was speaking ill of.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            If that wasn't the case, I apologize for my misunderstanding.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • DANmode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 7:47 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Were Anwar al-Awlaki, and the three other U.S. citizens they smoked at the same time also fringe conspiracy theory?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          or maybe you’re just not fully familiar with the rules of engagement Continuity of Government sets for itself.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • strictnein

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              today at 12:32 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I'm well aware of Anwar al-Awklaki. Lived in Yemen and was a recruiter for and a senior member of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group we are at war with, connected with a number of terrorist attacks against the west, as well as kidnappings and assassination plots. And thats kind of just scratching the surface.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              He wasn't working at US Cyber Command in the US.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I'm assuming you understand the vast difference here. And that waging war against the US puts you on a different playing field.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • DANmode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  today at 1:37 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I assumed you would assume that.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I was specifically replying to

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  > People who believe nonsense about the government assassinating our own citizens

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  ensuring the reader knows the US definitely kills US citizens (without / in absence of trial) depending on the circumstances.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Brings me no joy to report, but many falsely believe otherwise.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • derektank

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 8:39 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Officials in the US government confirmed to reputable reporters that al-awlaki had been killed in a CIA drone strike almost immediately after it happened.[0] Speculating that the US government is secretly assassinating US citizens that are not members of a foreign terrorist organization that the government has been authorized by Congress to wage war against is a huge leap that requires justification

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                [0] https://abcnews.com/Blotter/anwar-al-awlaki-killed-officials...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • glimshe

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 10:44 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Wasn't there something similar with scientists recently? I wonder how much of that is just statistical noise.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • YesThatTom2

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 11:07 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      That turned out to be false. Normal attrition / vacation time.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 1:55 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          That's gross disinformation and patently untrue.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • duxup

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              today at 1:37 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              What's the truth?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • dijksterhuis

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 11:04 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yep, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyw9rpdl4po

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > "The US Top Secret-cleared aerospace and nuclear workforce is ~700,000 people," science writer, investigator and pseudoscience debunker Mick West wrote on 16 April on his Substack.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > "Ordinary mortality over 22 months predicts ~4,000 deaths, ~70 homicides, and ~180 suicides. The list has 10 … The deaths are real. The families' grief is real. The pattern is not."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > Louise Grillmair, similarly, says that - while her husband "would laugh" at speculation that the deaths might be connected - he would also "probably talk statistically" to squelch conspiracies.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • anigbrowl

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:18 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I'm not sure how much value there is in comparing it with ordinary mortality considering the fairly strict selectivity on handing out TS clearances. You're definitely not going to give one to anyone who looks like an alcoholic or habitual drug user. You'll be less likely to give one out to people who struggle with cravings like heavy smokers or the morbidly obese. Gambling and financial instability are are also exclusionary factors. You would prioritize people who are highly disciplined and exhibit a preference for fitness and a survival mindset in general. So before you get into psychological issues at all, your population will be significantly healthier than the median, less likely to fall victim to homicide, and have fewer life problems than the general population.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            A useful comparator is military suicides, which are a growing problem; among enlisted ranks (E1-E4) the rate is about 26/100k. Enlisted personnel tend to be younger, less well educated, have less personal autonomy, and earn less money etc. Among commissioned officers (with command authority) and warrant officers (occupational specialists) the rate falls to ~14/100k, nearly half. Non-combat morbidity exhibits similar disparities. I would guess that the selectivity for TS clearance is more rigorous that the occupational qualification alone.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • ghastmaster

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 6:46 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                > fairly strict selectivity on handing out TS clearances

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I have known two people with clearance(not TS). One was an EOD in the army, whom was one of the last people I would have trusted with explosives back then. The other did IT work for a defense contractor in the middle east. The latter did lots of drugs of all kinds and stole close to $5k of my gun and ammo. He's now in the military repairing helicopters.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                End anecdote.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • DANmode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 7:48 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Did you forget to report him, or was it squashed?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • ghastmaster

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 8:30 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I told his recruiter. Unfortunately there wasn't sufficient evidence for him to be charged. I also submitted a report to Army CID.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • DANmode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            today at 1:48 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Brutal. Thank you for trying.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • inigyou

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 12:15 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              AI wrote the second quote

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • Loquebantur

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 1:56 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Probably, more importantly: it's a lie.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • yesterday at 10:58 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • cyanydeez

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 11:07 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Yes, there was a lot of statistical noised amplified by the conspiracy theorist media.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • Danox

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:54 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            The sad part is no matter how good they do their job whatever they do is only as good as the head at the top of the pyramid in the executive office…

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • AndrewKemendo

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 3:51 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              For what it’s worth suicide prevention was probably the number one initiative during my 17 years in the USAF from 2002 to 2020

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I think the flu vaccine and sexual assault prevention were about equally as focused on

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              To the point where it was at least a weekly conversation between commanders and staff officers

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              All those issues usually were prioritized over readiness (Ready to go to war) or PT which were also huge pushes.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • TychoCelchuuu

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  today at 2:15 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  [dead]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • yesterday at 8:20 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • jmyeet

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 4:32 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the significance of "cluster" here. It's not just a statistical anomaly where a disproportionate number of deaths happen in a short space of time. Clusters also happen because suicide by one member of a group can influence other people in the group to do the same thing. This is also why details of how people went about it are scarce in reporting. It's also a big reason why the infamous scene from 13 Reasons Why got removed later on.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  It's hard to determine what the expected rate should be. The military as a whole skews younger and more male. But people with mental health issues tend to leave or wash out eventually. So you see a disproprotionate rate of suicide among veterans. It's where the "22 veterans a day" [1] number comes from (although later research seems to indicate the real figure is now lower).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The US military is a difficult psychological environment. Arguably, this is completely unnecessary. There are many jokes about this like having to come in on the weekend because somebody wore the wrong color socks or having to show up at 3am for a 10am formation ("hurry up and wait"). Also, the US military constantly moves servicemembers around (ie PCS). Other militaries don't necessarily work that way. It's conformity taken to an extreme level.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  One author (Daniella Mestyanek Young, a former Army intelligence officer herself) has written two books claiming the US military is essentially a cult.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  [1]: https://www.npr.org/2015/10/01/444999996/the-number-22-is-th...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • jongjong

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 3:42 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Whenever I hear some big AI CEO say that AGI/ASI might end humanity, I imagine it doing so by conditioning people to commit suicide or some kind of massive-scale manipulation. Probably setting people up into complicated bad situations and then blackmailing them.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I don't know if this is it here. These sorts of jobs can have tough moral implications. But it seems like a hierarchy of blackmail has been set up in our society and it seems like a dangerous vulnerability.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • firefax

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 12:17 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Anyone have a non-paywalled source?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • ck2

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 1:44 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      go read about what they are doing to people in the Navy over in Iran

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      * https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/04/16/iran...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      their families had to throw a huge protest

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      now imagine they aren't even allowed to talk about it and/or being given illegal orders

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      but the thing about military bases around Iran, all their defense missiles are being taken away and given to Saudis etc. which is why deaths are happening and massive number of wounded not reported

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • SubiculumCode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 3:20 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I doubt that was more than a blip due to a logistics failure, and was henceforth used by a bunch of foreign propagandists.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • yesterday at 3:24 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • jauntywundrkind

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 5:29 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Please, a reminder that OPM shredded/chainsawed longstanding Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, which monitors federal workers satisfaction & requires public reporting. https://ourpublicservice.org/know-the-facts/resource-library... This doesn't impact military personnel directly, but it does impact a ton of civilian DoD and DoD adjacent people who work alongside military personnel every day, making them good reliable signals. And these people have been sending up distress flare after distress flare after distress flare, at meltdown levels of dissatisfaction. Workers and enlisted care, and our government now is anti caring, is vice signalling, through and through. The tension is real. There are consequences. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2026/03...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          IMO the state has become a reckless lawless force. One that knows nothing it's doing is any good, and which is concealing itself to keep doing bad anyways.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Cyber in particular has been absolutely gutted, by what naively to an outsider here looks like treasonous acts designed to destroy our ability to monitor and handle cyber issues. Gabbard disbanded Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC), all but destroyed Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC)'s role, and cut 40% of Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI, the directorate for intelligence!). Our nation has been flying part way blidnfolded, and it can't be anything but deliberate. And I expect people in the vicinity, people who've taken this job seriously, to have incredible woe at seeing the chainsaw fall so, for what they know to be fairly vital functions.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down. -Russel Vought

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          IMO again, it's even worse than that. I think we are giving quarter to enormously bad forces, because they are friends to the ultra wealthy right wing wackos who have seized power in the United States. That these moves propel the grift and propaganda and malign forces that some in this administration feel great affinity for and have mutual benefits with.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I fully expect many of these Cyber people have been told to target patriotic Americans at home (and other leftist forces) too, who want nothing more than life liberty pursuit of happiness and brotherhood. I'm speculating deeply here, but of all "abuse of power comes as no surprise" times, a treasonous-to-democracy mis-use of otherwise crucial Cyber systems to go after ICE protestors, having them using Palantir or whatever to track them would be all too likely an outcome for this administration by insurgents. I truly feel it extremely likely that many of the cyber and mil people have been made to face impossible situations, which will likely never be reconcileable. (Worse even than the pointless other wars we have started, the lawless murder of boats.) Ordered by this nation to violate their oaths to the constitution, and to betray their loyalty to actual America, by wicked sinister evil forces. There is no escape from the torment placed upon them by having to follow a malign domestic command.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          There's a lot of conspiracy brained posts here already, and I apologize for the glonzo. But we have conspiracy level bad people doing multiple conspiracies a week right now, and they are our leaders. It must be hell to be so torn, to have to work under such nepharious lawless psychopaths who have such a warped injurous to America views and machinations. Cyber probably sees a lot, is probably asked a lot, and to be torn, between such a clear mission and these domestic hounds of hell is a forever nightmare that will torment good men and women, who deserve to serve a military that has not been warped to being a force for din and bedlam on earth.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • tibbydudeza

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 4:12 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I have always wondered how the Ukrainian FPV drone operators cope - some of footage is pretty gruesome - esp when the drone chases some hapless Russian running away before zeroing in and then blowing him up.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Some even shows double tap mortar rounds being dropped on Russians and then gravely wounded they drop another one to finish them off.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • Sabinus

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 11:32 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                A firm belief that one is doing the right thing is incredibly protective of mental health in war.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Ukrainian drone pilots have few doubts about what future they're working towards and what one they're preventing when they kill Russian soldiers.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                US soldiers coming home from Iraq 2 (or Vietnam) don't have anywhere near that ideological buffer.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • golemiprague

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    today at 12:01 AM

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • polotics

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 6:26 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The operators know they are in danger themselves, most notably from gliding bombs on their bunkers, so it's a clear him-or-me, makes things simpler. Also: Bucha.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  ps. do you to watch all these videos? how is it affecting you?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • debo_

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 9:04 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                "American Special Forces tried to burn out the Russian Computer Network at Kiernsk. Basic assault module was a Nightwing microlight... A matrix deck, a jockey, and a virus program called Mole..."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                https://williamgibson.fandom.com/wiki/Screaming_Fist

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • qaq

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 4:28 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  If one wants a conspiracy theory in USSR a First Deputy Chairman of the KGB offed himself when an investigation he was coordinating led to the daughter of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • 4gotunameagain

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 10:59 AM

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • grommz

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 12:34 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Once you know about the NSA backdoors you become a walking security risk. Forget about that vacation in beautiful China, you will be held on a short leash for life.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • dewyatt

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 3:12 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            It seems to me that if you end up adjacent to an operation that exposes you to certain technologies, you will be harassed and attacked with covert directed-energy weapons until you are suicided or institutionalized and discredited.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • uejfiweun

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 4:23 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Yeah, this most certainly isn't happening.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • Biganon

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  today at 2:47 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  That's just schizobabble / TI bullshit (not saying their suffering is not true and worthy of empathy).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • DANmode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 7:50 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    “will be” is too strong.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • cedws

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 12:57 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Russia’s ok though. As Tucker Carlson pointed out they have bread and shopping carts.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • wartywhoa23

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 11:07 AM

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • babafoo

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 12:55 PM

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • babafoo

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 12:23 PM

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • ddxv

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 12:25 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  What does not alone in our minds mean? Also, you mention America, do you think this is bounded to the physical US?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • babafoo

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 12:50 PM

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • eth0up

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 1:38 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Are these references to things such as:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project_(U.S._Army_un...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McMoneagle

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology_research_at_SRI

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I was researching related subject areas ~1.5 decade ago and had the chance to present some of the resulting thoughts to Dr Lawrence LeShan. He was already in his 80s by that time and didn't seem to agree with my angle. I didn't have the chance to follow up, and unfortunately he died not too long after.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          From everything I have seen on the general subject of PSI, his work seemed the best of all, specifically the appendix work in The Medium, The Mystic, And The Physicist from the unabridged edition.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          But your description reminds me more of the Arhcons[*] from gnosticism, which is astonishingly wild for ancient historical text.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Edit: If you consider some of the soldiers who've documented their struggles with suicidal tendencies, eg Shawn Ryan, their descriptions seem a bit otherwise, but that does not discount your considerations. However, Ryan (and others) do attribute their recovery to DMT experiences, which seems more in the direction of what you seem to be describing vs away.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon_(Gnosticism)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • babafoo

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 1:59 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Those things you mention are cargo cult games to the true Truth of this. Every experience of the human mind may be curated by those far far fewer (from old lines, uplifts every one of them) who carry this ultimate secret of secrets through time.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Many are families, many are incarcerated condemned men serving decades to life. Many are spook remnants of those elder programs you describe.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Everything you describe is cargo cult handled by “thought controls”, and they are as much a slave army as a lascivious mob. The very few now safe and secure from us in national security insulated containments are their puppet masters. And no one knows who their “handlers” are, not even tools of controls. Everyone has their own dirty inner reasons for doing whatever they are doing, yet they have all “realized” and “pay for” and go along with their “controls”, no matter what it is.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              They rape you, they break you, they remake you, they are White American Thought Control. The mastermind of the voices in our heads driving us insane from within.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • hnuser123456

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 3:22 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Maybe cliche, but I think a lot of this is just trauma being passed down from one generation to the next. A lot of those people have an easy time imaging an angry puritan god in their head, and taking it out on others (and themselves). Cultural dogma is advertized as a unifying force, but is often implemented with unsavory methods. I think a lot of people would be fine with dropping much of the rhetoric, if only the rest could suppress their instinctive reaction to use the faux pas for their own gain, of someone else being the first to admit the dogma is smoke and mirrors.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  While the way you talk is captivating, I don't think it's quite so direct, or at least not on the grander scale. Once you know that everyone is fallible, you are free.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • babafoo

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 3:35 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I was press ganged into a hooligan army. American thought control is a raping murdering suiciding extortionist.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      We are not alone in our own minds. There is a secret war among us.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Enjoy your not knowing, do not be a denier.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • yesterday at 1:47 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • sandworm101

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 3:28 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  This isn't Russian assassins. They kill specific notable people, not functionaries. Nor is this about not being able to talk about work. Working in these fields becomes your life. You talk about it all day. They don't want to talk about it more, certainly not at home.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  This is about over-qualification in a narrow field. These are people for whom there is only the one job. Then ... something happens that threatens that existence. Think of a young airline pilot being diagnosed with an eye problem. His flying days are over. His entire experience is meaningless to any other jobs and he must start from scratch: a 40yo with no qualification beyond highschool.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Dig into these people and I think you will find something related to their security clearances. Something bad, or something totally innocent, that threatened their clearance. They are faced with a professional reset, something that will impact them and their family in a negative and permanent way.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  From the article: Sergeant Kevin Stallings ... He took his own life the month before he’d have turned 37. ... grew up in a military family ... enlisted in the Air Force right out of a Virginia high school ... earned a degree in intelligence analysis

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  So he had no qualifications outside of intelligence. He had little to no perception of any life outside his field. So anything threatening that job, real or imagined, would be instantly existential.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • anigbrowl

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 5:40 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I see your point but I think you're overstating it. To be sure, if a pilot is suddenly cut off from the thrill of flying, that's a big psychological blow. OTOH if you're a pilot at 40 it's probably because of diligence and reliability, not the pursuit of thrills - such a pilot would already be mindful of the risk of ocular degeneration with age and have a plan in place to move over to training or operational management in case of having to retire early from flying. There are a lot of transferable skills and career professionals to asist with transitions like that, even individual employer doesn't maintain those support structures.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      So he had no qualifications outside of intelligence.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Again, working in the civilian sector certainly means fewer pure thrills than working in military intelligence, but the professional skills are massively transferable to other contexts absent a dishonorable discharge. I find it much easier to imagine some issue that didn't comport with his whole-life military ethos - a personal failing, grossly anti-meritocratic discrimination, repeated subjection/exposure to unconscionable command decisions or somesuch.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • qaq

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 4:17 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Only one job ? Worked with a ton of ex NSA and CIA people in a large cybersec company.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • sandworm101

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 4:34 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Cybersec is not intelligence. The people suiciding in the article seem to be from intelligence rather than cyber. The fields are often conflated but they are different communities. One feeds data to the other.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Clearances are under more scrutiny for intelligence operators than cyber because, generally, the cyber people should not have access to finalized intelligence, the assessments and recommendations passed to decision makers. Cyber people also only work in cyber and know nothing about other sensor areas (ie human spy programs).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • qaq

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 4:40 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                there was pretty large intelligence side that did attribution and investigative type work into orgs money movements etc. some of those people def came from non tech backgrounds.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • yesterday at 6:12 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • breppp

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 3:58 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            That's an interesting theory and I am not saying you are entirely incorrect, but I'd imagine that the vast personnel of cyber-adjacent roles in the US Military have better civilian prospects in tech than a Air Force pilot with an eye problem.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • sandworm101

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 4:16 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Well, I did say airline pilot. An AirForce pilot is still a military officer and can find work inside or outside the military as a team leader. A modern airline pilot is an infamously hyper-specialized job where all they do is operate the aircraft. They don't even do real flight planning anymore as that is a separate airline trade.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • DANmode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 7:53 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Here’s another list up dig into and prove no foul-play:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/deaths-disappearances-scien...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Good luck.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • casey2

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 7:09 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Suicide means you killed yourself, and we frankly don't/can't know if they did or not.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • bluealienpie

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 10:12 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Shoot and cry

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • mycall

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 4:03 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Were any of these suicides by falling out of a window? That might imply involvement of certain foreign actors.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • slim

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 4:47 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    no, which obviously implies involvement from US government

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • genxy

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 4:58 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Suicide or closing the loop?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • throwitaway222

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 8:08 PM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Is it weird that I read the title differently:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    "A number of cyber command unit personnel found the secret files and had to be dealt with"