"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."
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.
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.
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.
It's wild to think how many indirect deaths Elon Musk and his "chainsaw" must be responsible for. I recently saw an interview and he was asked the question and he said "not a single death"...a true psychopath.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Maybe the real reason that small sample sizes don't tell you anything is because there's tons of small samples in the world, and the particular one you're looking at has almost certainly been selected for unusualness.
It's a multiple comparison problem that you don't know is a multiple comparison problem because you yourself didn't do the comparisons. You just got the result of them.
> > 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
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
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
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?
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
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.
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.
> "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.
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.
> 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.
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
> 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”?
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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]
> 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.
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.
Unfortunately this slows down adoption of renewables even more, China produces most of world’s renewables and batteries but bootstraps this industry with oil.
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.
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.
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".
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> The US doesn't even kill foreign leaders. Our intelligence service doesn't have the skills or appetite
Did Pinochet knew that?
Some people really have the memory of a goldfish. Between 1982 and 2019, US has been involved in 350 coup attempts, of which 150 were successful. Some foreign leaders where killed by US proxies later.
And the cherry on top is the "petrol company" (of course, linked with Trump) that started to accumulate people and logistics to operate without license in Greenland, just yesterday.
Attempting the "Little Green Men take Crimea" trick twice.
And this is how NATO is backstabbed and killed, in the most 'Game of Thrones' style possible. Putin has educated Trump really well.
US does not seem to understand still how in danger is their former hegemonic position by the acts of this government. And those acts look more and more deliberated (even carefully designed) to hit USA in every possible vital organ.
Before someone from the US claims some leftist bullshit about this (as this is what Russian bots typically do), here's a mix of newspapers including more right/conservative ones:
Also check netzpolitik and other CCC-related media outlets, there's been extensive research about this topic from us. (Didn't want to post articles where I've personally been involved, but you can find them easily with similar search keywords.)
> This is essentially one article about criminals recruiting young people. Is Russia FSB (or even Russia) even mentioned?
Generally if an article is about FSB, it implies Russia. Otherwise, you would have to admit that Russia is a failed state if the FSB acts without Putin's knowledge or control.
For example, google the luckystrike account with underscores ("l_u_c_k_y_s_t_r_i_k_e").
- Description of this channel is "This channel was created to fight with USA and NATO on the territory of Ukraine and Europe. We call on all residents of Europe to fight by any means."
- Description of this Guerilla themed channel is "Central Guerilla Movement organise fight against Nazi, NATO and USA. We call on all residents of Ukraine and Europe to fight against USA and NATO by any means. Send us your photo, video of your actions or get a guerrilla task: @L_u_c_k_y_S_t_r_i_k_e"
... and there's a bunch of other channels in those results, with a similar theme, and similar promises.
Yes, but these articles are over a year old. this is really scratching the bottom of the barrel, no?
Look, I'm not saying this isn't happening. It's just that there's really not a lot of evidence that this is rampant (and I think that's what GGP seeemed to imply).
This whole thing reads a lot like hyperbole/propaganda, and it wouldn't have to.
> It's just that there's really not a lot of evidence that this is rampant
Not sure what is "rampant" in your view, and what is not. There's been multiple attempts of murder, multiple linked assassinations, across multiple nation states with multiple different jurisdictions.
> Yes, but these articles are over a year old. this is really scratching the bottom of the barrel, no?
You asked for verifiable sources, I provided some. Enter the same keywords into google and pick your own ones. There's at least 10 more pages on google that you can read.
Pretty much everything I linked as credible and verifiable sources weren't good enough for you. You either don't give a shit or you're trolling.
Either way, I don't care enough about your opinion to continue to do this childish game of 4chan-esque whataboutism.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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**.
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
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.
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.
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.”
> 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".
"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.
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
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
> 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
>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%.
>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.
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
"In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Israeli officials encouraged Qatar to support Hamas, especially by approving the transfer of large sums of financial aid by Qatar to the organization. Several Israeli intelligence officials have cited Qatari money as a contributing factor to the success of Hamas in leading the October 7 attacks in 2023; Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the notion that Israel strategically propped up Hamas "ridiculous", and stated that Qatar's aid transfers to the Hamas government had been approved for humanitarian reasons."
I'm not sure how is that related to the original topic.
The events I am describing are a decade to two before the ones you are describing. Back in the early 2000s Qatar was already financing Hamas as well as Al Qaeda (including involvement in 9/11 financing) and Hezbollah in some extent.
Saying Qatar needed Israel's request to start financing ideologically close Islamist terror organizations is certainly the Qatar government line for their involvement, but it's a very shallow analysis of what happened
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.
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.
True, not everyone has such a choice, but I volunteered for the organization I wanted to work for and then I volunteered for multiple deployments I didn't have to go on. Many of us have that choice and make that choice.
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]:
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.
> key organizer for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda.
Yeah, I don't see a problem here. Due process, slippery slope sure... but this was a cut and dry case. I've got better things to do with my time than be concerned with this.
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.
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.
Destroying civilian infrastructure and killing civilians is the current Israeli government's goal. Military advantage is just a nice window dressing for the Geneva Conventions.
Lot easier to steal land if there aren't any people living there (because the infrastructure to support modern life was destroyed).
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?
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.
An important one that often that gets lost in "drone strikes bad" internet debating: the cost of the alternative.
If a nation is conducting drone strikes on another nation's territory, the alternative is usually conventional forces at scale on the ground*.
As the Iraq occupation showed, conventional ground forces at scale cause an even larger number of civilian deaths.
So drone strikes, if kinetic intervention is pre-decided, are a less-bad option from a civilian casualty perspective.
* Granted, there might be a decision not to deploy conventional forces because of the risk / cost, but if there are regular drone strikes, it feels like the aggressor country is past that Rubicon.
Isn't "if there are regular drone strikes, it feels like the aggressor country is past that Rubicon." kind of self-refuting?
Conventional forces aren't deployed in many instances where regular drone strikes are used, thus the country didn't feel it was the right risk/cost to deploy conventional forces.
At the very least, it's a statement that deserves more debate, and I'd point to the many examples of how reducing cost and risk tends to increase the rate of an activity.
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.
- Built as part of an IRGCN base (that base was closed in 2013)
- Within 100 yards of the perimeter of an active IRGCN base at the time of the strike
- Targeted as a result of extensive use of Palantir's Maven Smart System and Claude by the US military to pre-identify targets
Given all of that, I think the most accurate takeaway would be that the US military is deficient in their target approval process. (Arguably grossly so, though that's an international law legal question)
There's been less investigation into the background behind the Lamerd sports hall attack, but it's fairly certainly an intended US strike, likely for the same reason that the Azadi stadium was hit: assumption that it would be used as a muster point for an Iranian military response.
My takeaway from the atrocities is that there need to be substantial updates to international laws of war around (a) automated target approval (even worse excesses by the Israelis in the initial Gaza strikes) and ultimate human responsibility and (b) more strongly defining what constitutes due diligence in intelligence and classification of military targets.
Currently, both are far too nebulous and will likely lead to both incidents being classified as war as usual. Whereas there was a plausible route to both being removed as targets with even non-manual open source intelligence scraping (substantial patterns of school activity over years and the volleyball game schedule, respectively).
In Afghanistan, and presumably Iran as well, the US military defined all "military-aged males" (12-65 years) as "combatants". This makes children and old men killable. You could drone strike pretty much any guy you wanted and all you were doing was eliminating combatants.
An addition, again from Afghanistan, only 2% of drone strikes were against identified targets. The rest were targets of opportunity. So you make most of the male population of a country killable through the use of appropriate language, and then hit 98% of them because you think they might be thinking about doing something bad in the future.
I can see why this would mess with people's mental health when what they're doing to random civilians sinks in.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
Can you think of anything you can do that is exclusively a positive behavior? Drinking water in excess kills you, excess breathing kills you, excess exercise kills you, I think the logic here can be used to sow the seeds of uncertainty in nearly anything, honestly.
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
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
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?
you didn't answer me directly, I'm not obliged either. MTHFR (and possibly COMT) are examples where genotype directly influences nutrient absorption. when the human body is unaligned (poor nutrient absorption, improper physical engagement, etc), symptoms such as depression and mania are expected behaviour. your link is a list of similar symptoms grouped under labels. I find it more pertinent to assess individual symptoms and progress from there.
sometimes mental conditions are temporary and resolvable. sometimes mental conditions are permanent and symptom alleviation is the best option. both are true. we are assessing the interface to the entire body here, all traffic flows through this node to a certain degree. problematic traffic can be caused by an issue local to the central node, but this possibility does not exclude the potential for data to be problematic on arrival.
I'm not him, but most mental illnesses are exacerbated by excessive stress. For example depression, anxiety, and OCD. What causes stress varies person to person.
For example, consider you have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Some food causes you pain, discomfort, and stress. Over time, eating the wrong diet can worsen your anxiety. You might fear going out and having fun, because you have to use the bathroom too much. Then, in that sense, a diet incompatible with your genotype triggers your anxiety disorder.
Or consider a stressful job, like being in the military. That might trigger or cause PTSD. Then, later down the line, another stressful job might trigger that PTSD.
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.
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".
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.
As a man who has cured (inasmuch as something like that word is valid in this context) mental health problems with the help of therapy, I'll raise my hand as an example.
Personal perspective, but I'd argue there are an entire class of mental health problems that are perspective-based.
I.e. I am acting in a way that is harmful to myself and/or others because I see the situation in a maladaptive way.
Talk therapy (with a sufficiently intelligent and skilled therapist, of which there is a great lack vs demand) can be effective at changing perspectives, which can ultimately allow changing the behaviors they create.
Some mental health problems are biochemical, but there are a lot that are just "The way you see the world is making you an asshole. Don't want to be an asshole? Try seeing it a different way."
What most people cannot comprehend, for some very bizarre reason, is that many chronic problems do not have one-time solutions. They require chronic solutions.
Take alcoholism. The "cure" for alcoholism is never drinking. You never stop being an alcoholic, you can only manage it by not drinking.
Take obesity. Obesity has no "cure" either in that sense. The "cure" for obesity is diet and exercise management, forever, until the day you die. It's like taking a pill, every day, forever, until you die. If you one day decide to stop taking the pill of diet and exercise, you will be obese again. In that sense, the obesity never left you, merely it's symptoms left you temporarily while you managed it.
Mental health is the same way. There is no magic "oh now I'll never be sad or anxious again!". No. You manage it every day, forever, until the day you die. You manage it via therapy, behavior modification, and medication. If you stop doing that, it will come back, because it never left you. It's a chronic condition, like being a brunette.
You can't hand wave "do your own research" when you make a bold, and frankly obviously incorrect, claim.
You can only do that hand waving when you say something most people already know to be true. "The sky is blue" -> okay, do your own research. "Pigs can fly" -> either show a research paper or shut up, you're wasting everyone's brain cells.
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.
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.
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.
If you’re not convinced the threat is real and the cyber warfare is happening, I highly recommend checking out Nocole Perleoth’s To Catch a Thief.
S1E7 is especially relevent: Everything Everywhere All at Once.
https://www.rubrik.com/lp/to-catch-a-thief-podcast
> 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.
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.
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.
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..
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.
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
I suspect some kind of toxicity like this would have something to do with it. We will probably never know but imagine dedicating your life to your job and then being told your "low T" or some crap.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
That and probably most of the time, they don't really see much of the aftermath, I've definitely seen cases where they've had to "double tap" someone but I'm guessing there is much less of that now with better drones, training, AI targeting etc".
Not quite. I would advise refraining from exposing yourself to such horrors.
It's a bit of an overton window thing really. For reference: Amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics. Talking about "double tap" is same level as talking about "lethality"...
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
the real problem you seem to be describing is a lack of faith or trust in the institutions, rather than the silence. if we had faith and/or trust in institution X, Y or Z then the silence wouldn’t be a problem.
in my experience; speculation fuels distrust, which fuels more speculation, which leads to a spiral.
similar thing as gossip. why would i trust you when you’ve been gossiping with me about our mutual friend? then i go off and gossip about you gossiping to my other friend etc.
loose lips sink ships — the things we say have consequences.
Conspiracy theorists are also the ones who are most likely to read HN constantly, and will get to new posts first. Once it gets bumped up enough, the regular people see it, and as you can see, the conspiracy theories have been properly dealt with.
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!)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
...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.
My dad did 20 in the USAF. We would ask him about his work and he would just shrug. He wasn't allowed to say anything. Eventually we stopped asking -- what would be the point?
Decades later I found out he felt like nobody cared about him because we stopped asking about his work.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It doesn't matter if its fully autonomous or not. You taking something that was both esoteric and highly skilled to something that any rando with an LLM could do. And so yeah expectations for output are going to increase exponentially, but not entirely unreasonably so, all the while any appreciation or value of your own skillset is going to head right into the gutter.
I don't see how you can say this is a leadership issue because the tech itself is creating a scenario that's going to leave plenty of people in crisis. The same will happen in programming. People are clinging onto the hope that it won't matter that much because 80% of a programmer's job, at a large company, doesn't involve coding anyhow, but even there the reason for the high comp is that 20%, as that's where the barrier to entry is. As that barrier falls, skill relevance plummets, and expectations rise.
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.
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.
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.
Is this a secret or something? It's 100% what people voted for. Disgruntled people wanted to see it all burned down.
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.
"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..."
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?
> On June 22, Rudd informed Cyber Command staff of three deaths by suicide in the prior two weeks, an official familiar with the matter said. Rudd’s message included a suicide hotline number, contact information for military chaplains and other mental health resources, the official said.
Hours after the email, Stallings, the network intelligence analyst, was found dead by suicide,
> The next day, the command held an all-staff safety meeting where leaders encouraged personnel to support each other and seek help if they needed it, the official and two people said.
Yet another man took his own life two weeks later, records show
Feels like any tech company, especially FB's recent attempt to improve morale using snacks, pizza, and hackatons.
someothherguyy | 16 days ago
According to https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-25-107121.pdf there are ~17,000 authorized positions
paulmist | 16 days ago
dcanelhas | 16 days ago
paulmist | 16 days ago
acdha | 16 days ago
inference-god | 15 days ago
jandrewrogers | 16 days ago
hylaride | 16 days ago
harimau777 | 16 days ago
raffael_de | 16 days ago
y-curious | 16 days ago
raffael_de | 16 days ago
Detrytus | 16 days ago
Rebelgecko | 16 days ago
davesque | 16 days ago
AussieWog93 | 16 days ago
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.
getnormality | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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.
getnormality | 15 days ago
It's a multiple comparison problem that you don't know is a multiple comparison problem because you yourself didn't do the comparisons. You just got the result of them.
01100011 | 16 days ago
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...
bluefirebrand | 16 days ago
> 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 | 16 days ago
bluefirebrand | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
bluefirebrand | 16 days ago
podocarp | 16 days ago
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.
halJordan | 16 days ago
singingtoday | 16 days ago
But it wasn't military so I just quit..
talon8635 | 16 days ago
glimshe | 16 days ago
dijksterhuis | 16 days ago
> "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.
inigyou | 16 days ago
Loquebantur | 16 days ago
anigbrowl | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
ghastmaster | 16 days ago
DANmode | 16 days ago
cyanydeez | 16 days ago
YesThatTom2 | 16 days ago
Loquebantur | 16 days ago
duxup | 16 days ago
YesThatTom2 | 16 days ago
Imagine knowing this and not being able to get emotional support from your friends and family.
YesThatTom2 | 16 days ago
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/defens...
[OP] rbanffy | 16 days ago
squidbeak | 16 days ago
lesuorac | 16 days ago
estearum | 16 days ago
Putin (and everyone else) knows this.
inigyou | 16 days ago
SubiculumCode | 16 days ago
analognoise | 16 days ago
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.
SubiculumCode | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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.
don_esteban | 16 days ago
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.
CamperBob2 | 16 days ago
That's not my understanding. Got any credible links that back up this point?
ajsnigrutin | 16 days ago
pjc50 | 16 days ago
The weak spot was the conservative prediction to fascism - worship of force and masculinity - which was easily retargeted against other Americans.
TheOtherHobbes | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
We need a G. Washington, who refused more power than he was offered, setting precedents and expectations.
don_esteban | 16 days ago
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'.
oneshtein | 16 days ago
AngryData | 16 days ago
aeortiz | 16 days ago
Loquebantur | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
andrewflnr | 16 days ago
mikestorrent | 16 days ago
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.
ajsnigrutin | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
“Other people did it too” is not an excuse for immoral behavior.
I think the parent and I basically agree.
ajsnigrutin | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
DivingForGold | 16 days ago
MBCook | 16 days ago
iso1631 | 16 days ago
These have failed.
epolanski | 16 days ago
dboreham | 16 days ago
manoDev | 16 days ago
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.
Forgeties79 | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
Destabilizing everywhere else is a potential step taken toward achieving continental superiority in certain regards.
( not a GOOD step, mind you)
cosmicgadget | 15 days ago
manoDev | 16 days ago
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...
Forgeties79 | 16 days ago
lesuorac | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
This is beyond arrogant and makes discussion impossible. Your opinion is not automatically a 100% accurate reflection reality because you have citations.
exe34 | 16 days ago
anon7725 | 16 days ago
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-423682A1.pdf
iso1631 | 16 days ago
manoDev | 16 days ago
atmavatar | 16 days ago
onemoresoop | 16 days ago
mx7zysuj4xew | 16 days ago
exe34 | 16 days ago
aetch | 16 days ago
PunchyHamster | 16 days ago
exe34 | 16 days ago
dismalaf | 16 days ago
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.
cookiengineer | 16 days ago
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.
Loquebantur | 16 days ago
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".
XorNot | 16 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists_conspiracy_...
SubiculumCode | 16 days ago
quickthrowman | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
wbl | 16 days ago
a2800276 | 16 days ago
wbl | 16 days ago
krapp | 16 days ago
to whom?
polotics | 16 days ago
ddq | 16 days ago
Is the US military somehow not "the US"? Do you not have any shame just blatantly lying like this?
a2800276 | 16 days ago
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.
TheMayorOfDunce | 16 days ago
pvaldes | 15 days ago
Did Pinochet knew that?
Some people really have the memory of a goldfish. Between 1982 and 2019, US has been involved in 350 coup attempts, of which 150 were successful. Some foreign leaders where killed by US proxies later.
And the cherry on top is the "petrol company" (of course, linked with Trump) that started to accumulate people and logistics to operate without license in Greenland, just yesterday.
Attempting the "Little Green Men take Crimea" trick twice.
And this is how NATO is backstabbed and killed, in the most 'Game of Thrones' style possible. Putin has educated Trump really well.
US does not seem to understand still how in danger is their former hegemonic position by the acts of this government. And those acts look more and more deliberated (even carefully designed) to hit USA in every possible vital organ.
strictnein | 16 days ago
Except it's not.
polotics | 16 days ago
breppp | 16 days ago
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...
cookiengineer | 16 days ago
Before someone from the US claims some leftist bullshit about this (as this is what Russian bots typically do), here's a mix of newspapers including more right/conservative ones:
- https://www.blick.ch/schweiz/polizei-warnt-eltern-teenies-we...
- https://www.mdr.de/ratgeber/finanzen/telegram-gruppe-jobange...
- https://www.sicher-im-netz.de/europol-warnt-kriminelle-rekru...
- https://www.fr.ch/de/sjsd/pol/news/die-kantonspolizei-freibu...
- https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland-und-internationales/euro...
- https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/euro...
- https://www.dutchnews.nl/2026/04/teenagers-being-recruited-b...
- https://nltimes.nl/2026/04/29/europol-children-recruited-vio...
Also check netzpolitik and other CCC-related media outlets, there's been extensive research about this topic from us. (Didn't want to post articles where I've personally been involved, but you can find them easily with similar search keywords.)
golem14 | 16 days ago
I also believe the premise is true (why would it not, it's the logical thing for every nation state to do), but your research could be a bit deeper.
breppp | 16 days ago
That's a better source I found, does not call the phenomenon lucky strike though
cookiengineer | 16 days ago
Generally if an article is about FSB, it implies Russia. Otherwise, you would have to admit that Russia is a failed state if the FSB acts without Putin's knowledge or control.
For example, google the luckystrike account with underscores ("l_u_c_k_y_s_t_r_i_k_e").
Example results:
- https://news.sky.com/story/british-citizens-are-volunteering...
- https://unn.ua/en/news/czech-police-detained-a-teenager-for-...
- https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/feb/28/russia-linked-t...
^ News outlets confirmed by MI5 statements about the luckystrike account, its FSB ties, its activities, and recruitement of teenagers for terrorism.
The luckystrike account literally owns Telegram channels like "Anti-NATO/Anti-USA/Anti-Nazi" and others:
- https[:]//tgstat[.]com/channel/@anti_nato_anti_usa/stat
- Description of this channel is "This channel was created to fight with USA and NATO on the territory of Ukraine and Europe. We call on all residents of Europe to fight by any means."
- https[:]//en[.]tgramsearch[.]com/join/4307894160
- Description of this Guerilla themed channel is "Central Guerilla Movement organise fight against Nazi, NATO and USA. We call on all residents of Ukraine and Europe to fight against USA and NATO by any means. Send us your photo, video of your actions or get a guerrilla task: @L_u_c_k_y_S_t_r_i_k_e"
... and there's a bunch of other channels in those results, with a similar theme, and similar promises.
golem14 | 16 days ago
Look, I'm not saying this isn't happening. It's just that there's really not a lot of evidence that this is rampant (and I think that's what GGP seeemed to imply).
This whole thing reads a lot like hyperbole/propaganda, and it wouldn't have to.
cookiengineer | 15 days ago
Not sure what is "rampant" in your view, and what is not. There's been multiple attempts of murder, multiple linked assassinations, across multiple nation states with multiple different jurisdictions.
> Yes, but these articles are over a year old. this is really scratching the bottom of the barrel, no?
You asked for verifiable sources, I provided some. Enter the same keywords into google and pick your own ones. There's at least 10 more pages on google that you can read.
Pretty much everything I linked as credible and verifiable sources weren't good enough for you. You either don't give a shit or you're trolling.
Either way, I don't care enough about your opinion to continue to do this childish game of 4chan-esque whataboutism.
iso1631 | 16 days ago
Iran too
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyqggvyp1do
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/29/norwegian-te...
fryanyway_swe | 16 days ago
>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...
iso1631 | 15 days ago
And Russia is constantly attacking europe (EU and non-EU), in addition to its invasion of a European country.
Of the three adversaries you mention, and the additional one being the US technocratic administration, China is the least threatening to Europe.
fryanyway_swe | 15 days ago
China has sinister intentions.
AND actively helps Russia.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-ap...
I understand that you are a commie, but do not apologize for China.
impossiblefork | 16 days ago
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.
mannanj | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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.
cushychicken | 16 days ago
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.
amarcheschi | 16 days ago
lesuorac | 16 days ago
The government has spent centuries doing spycraft and has a budget in the billions.
yndoendo | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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."
woodruffw | 16 days ago
edoceo | 16 days ago
veeti | 16 days ago
bigyabai | 16 days ago
cushychicken | 16 days ago
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.
amarcheschi | 16 days ago
Demiurge | 16 days ago
Is that what they say?
singingtoday | 16 days ago
And that isn't even the half of it.
cushychicken | 15 days ago
People tend to forget that the US government will pay out the wazoo to achieve things that are one-time successes.
Consider things like Operation IVY BELLS, or Project Azorian.
Now consider that same mindset applied to a long term investment. The possibilities are pretty limitless.
jas- | 16 days ago
jagged-chisel | 16 days ago
Have you noticed the current executive administration in the US?
onemoresoop | 16 days ago
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS | 16 days ago
MarkusQ | 16 days ago
Do not think we aren't catching on to this kind of nonsense.
runtime_terror | 16 days ago
vkou | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
MarkusQ | 16 days ago
jas- | 16 days ago
MarkusQ | 16 days ago
itsdesmond | 16 days ago
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.
subscribed | 16 days ago
blitzar | 15 days ago
For all the same reasons - Don't Talk to HR
grubbs | 16 days ago
halJordan | 16 days ago
cushychicken | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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!
Hilliard_Ohiooo | 16 days ago
I was a part of the world's largest illegal operation in history and again I promise you no one gives a s**.
afro88 | 16 days ago
breppp | 16 days ago
sitzkrieg | 16 days ago
cushychicken | 15 days ago
Facts.
Source: me - TS/SCI, several interesting SAPs, contractually bound to not say a word about the details til death.
rightbyte | 16 days ago
markus_zhang | 16 days ago
sph | 16 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
kstrauser | 16 days ago
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.”
throw93939e0 | 16 days ago
MarkMarine | 16 days ago
rdtsc | 16 days ago
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".
MarkMarine | 16 days ago
breppp | 16 days ago
throw310822 | 16 days ago
breppp | 16 days ago
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
yosefk | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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
leonidasrup | 15 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
breppp | 15 days ago
The events I am describing are a decade to two before the ones you are describing. Back in the early 2000s Qatar was already financing Hamas as well as Al Qaeda (including involvement in 9/11 financing) and Hezbollah in some extent.
Saying Qatar needed Israel's request to start financing ideologically close Islamist terror organizations is certainly the Qatar government line for their involvement, but it's a very shallow analysis of what happened
Hilliard_Ohiooo | 16 days ago
MaxikCZ | 16 days ago
jki275 | 16 days ago
I chose to "go into war zones" many times and none of it was to "enjoy killing people".
joeywas | 16 days ago
jki275 | 15 days ago
True, not everyone has such a choice, but I volunteered for the organization I wanted to work for and then I volunteered for multiple deployments I didn't have to go on. Many of us have that choice and make that choice.
0xdeadbeefbabe | 16 days ago
michaelmrose | 16 days ago
akiselev | 16 days ago
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/
senderista | 16 days ago
brandonagr2 | 16 days ago
netsharc | 16 days ago
So the war crimes are bipartisan.
And I write this as someone who likes Obama.
JackFr | 16 days ago
sitzkrieg | 16 days ago
Sabinus | 16 days ago
thunky | 16 days ago
robcohen | 15 days ago
Yeah, I don't see a problem here. Due process, slippery slope sure... but this was a cut and dry case. I've got better things to do with my time than be concerned with this.
pclmulqdq | 16 days ago
probably_wrong | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
throw488426 | 16 days ago
lazyasciiart | 16 days ago
ethbr1 | 15 days ago
Lot easier to steal land if there aren't any people living there (because the infrastructure to support modern life was destroyed).
Sabinus | 16 days ago
ajmurmann | 16 days ago
darkerside | 16 days ago
senderista | 16 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking
isr | 16 days ago
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.
ramsan | 15 days ago
someothherguyy | 16 days ago
"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 | 16 days ago
ethbr1 | 15 days ago
If a nation is conducting drone strikes on another nation's territory, the alternative is usually conventional forces at scale on the ground*.
As the Iraq occupation showed, conventional ground forces at scale cause an even larger number of civilian deaths.
So drone strikes, if kinetic intervention is pre-decided, are a less-bad option from a civilian casualty perspective.
* Granted, there might be a decision not to deploy conventional forces because of the risk / cost, but if there are regular drone strikes, it feels like the aggressor country is past that Rubicon.
gusgus01 | 15 days ago
Conventional forces aren't deployed in many instances where regular drone strikes are used, thus the country didn't feel it was the right risk/cost to deploy conventional forces.
At the very least, it's a statement that deserves more debate, and I'd point to the many examples of how reducing cost and risk tends to increase the rate of an activity.
hiddencost | 16 days ago
It's monstrous.
isr | 16 days ago
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?
ethbr1 | 15 days ago
Given all of that, I think the most accurate takeaway would be that the US military is deficient in their target approval process. (Arguably grossly so, though that's an international law legal question)
There's been less investigation into the background behind the Lamerd sports hall attack, but it's fairly certainly an intended US strike, likely for the same reason that the Azadi stadium was hit: assumption that it would be used as a muster point for an Iranian military response.
My takeaway from the atrocities is that there need to be substantial updates to international laws of war around (a) automated target approval (even worse excesses by the Israelis in the initial Gaza strikes) and ultimate human responsibility and (b) more strongly defining what constitutes due diligence in intelligence and classification of military targets.
Currently, both are far too nebulous and will likely lead to both incidents being classified as war as usual. Whereas there was a plausible route to both being removed as targets with even non-manual open source intelligence scraping (substantial patterns of school activity over years and the volleyball game schedule, respectively).
pseudohadamard | 15 days ago
An addition, again from Afghanistan, only 2% of drone strikes were against identified targets. The rest were targets of opportunity. So you make most of the male population of a country killable through the use of appropriate language, and then hit 98% of them because you think they might be thinking about doing something bad in the future.
I can see why this would mess with people's mental health when what they're doing to random civilians sinks in.
victorbjorklund | 16 days ago
senderista | 16 days ago
swat535 | 16 days ago
I promise you that you didn't kill 3,000+ IRGC members.
victorbjorklund | 15 days ago
greedo | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
kstrauser | 16 days ago
tolien | 16 days ago
perpetuallunch | 16 days ago
For the majority of men, most of the time.
If it did, shouldn’t we see mental health improving by now?
debesyla | 16 days ago
throwaway173738 | 16 days ago
thin_carapace | 16 days ago
tunesmith | 16 days ago
andsoitis | 16 days ago
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF | 16 days ago
hn_go_brrrrr | 15 days ago
pezezin | 16 days ago
As the saying goes, recognizing that you have a problem is the first step to being able to solve it.
thin_carapace | 16 days ago
Moomoomoo309 | 15 days ago
kstrauser | 16 days ago
drekipus | 16 days ago
kstrauser | 16 days ago
perpetuallunch | 16 days ago
jibal | 16 days ago
> 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.
singingtoday | 16 days ago
Can you please provide some sources?
kstrauser | 16 days ago
thin_carapace | 16 days ago
kstrauser | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
andsoitis | 16 days ago
thin_carapace | 16 days ago
andsoitis | 16 days ago
Which of these triggered for one of those people by one of the things you listed (like diet incompatible with genotype)?
thin_carapace | 15 days ago
sometimes mental conditions are temporary and resolvable. sometimes mental conditions are permanent and symptom alleviation is the best option. both are true. we are assessing the interface to the entire body here, all traffic flows through this node to a certain degree. problematic traffic can be caused by an issue local to the central node, but this possibility does not exclude the potential for data to be problematic on arrival.
preg_match | 15 days ago
For example, consider you have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Some food causes you pain, discomfort, and stress. Over time, eating the wrong diet can worsen your anxiety. You might fear going out and having fun, because you have to use the bathroom too much. Then, in that sense, a diet incompatible with your genotype triggers your anxiety disorder.
Or consider a stressful job, like being in the military. That might trigger or cause PTSD. Then, later down the line, another stressful job might trigger that PTSD.
Morromist | 16 days ago
perpetuallunch | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
fatbird | 16 days ago
ethbr1 | 15 days ago
Personal perspective, but I'd argue there are an entire class of mental health problems that are perspective-based.
I.e. I am acting in a way that is harmful to myself and/or others because I see the situation in a maladaptive way.
Talk therapy (with a sufficiently intelligent and skilled therapist, of which there is a great lack vs demand) can be effective at changing perspectives, which can ultimately allow changing the behaviors they create.
Some mental health problems are biochemical, but there are a lot that are just "The way you see the world is making you an asshole. Don't want to be an asshole? Try seeing it a different way."
preg_match | 15 days ago
What most people cannot comprehend, for some very bizarre reason, is that many chronic problems do not have one-time solutions. They require chronic solutions.
Take alcoholism. The "cure" for alcoholism is never drinking. You never stop being an alcoholic, you can only manage it by not drinking.
Take obesity. Obesity has no "cure" either in that sense. The "cure" for obesity is diet and exercise management, forever, until the day you die. It's like taking a pill, every day, forever, until you die. If you one day decide to stop taking the pill of diet and exercise, you will be obese again. In that sense, the obesity never left you, merely it's symptoms left you temporarily while you managed it.
Mental health is the same way. There is no magic "oh now I'll never be sad or anxious again!". No. You manage it every day, forever, until the day you die. You manage it via therapy, behavior modification, and medication. If you stop doing that, it will come back, because it never left you. It's a chronic condition, like being a brunette.
perpetuallunch | 16 days ago
Don’t believe me, I’m just a random stranger with an opinion. Often a contrary one.
preg_match | 15 days ago
You can only do that hand waving when you say something most people already know to be true. "The sky is blue" -> okay, do your own research. "Pigs can fly" -> either show a research paper or shut up, you're wasting everyone's brain cells.
racoonportfolio | 15 days ago
jojobas | 16 days ago
jambalaya8 | 16 days ago
infinite_spin | 16 days ago
cco | 16 days ago
Since we don't, it probably isn't happening.
nullpoint420 | 16 days ago
deadbabe | 16 days ago
Given that it's not happening, then it's probably just not a thing.
CircuitSeuss | 16 days ago
https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories?f%...
Don’t mistake prepositioning for “not happening.” As you said: “cyber cold war” means there are a lot of incentives not to reveal capabilities or trigger escalation from your adversaries. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa...
Although, that is changing as we continue to escalate. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/cisa-fbi-epa-and-us-go...
If you’re not convinced the threat is real and the cyber warfare is happening, I highly recommend checking out Nocole Perleoth’s To Catch a Thief. S1E7 is especially relevent: Everything Everywhere All at Once. https://www.rubrik.com/lp/to-catch-a-thief-podcast
deadbabe | 16 days ago
singingtoday | 16 days ago
impossiblefork | 16 days ago
0xdeadbeefbabe | 16 days ago
impossiblefork | 15 days ago
DaiPlusPlus | 16 days ago
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.
skitsofrandom | 16 days ago
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.
beloch | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
AlexCoventry | 16 days ago
varispeed | 16 days ago
saidnooneever | 16 days ago
jambalaya8 | 16 days ago
bijowo1676 | 16 days ago
firefax | 16 days ago
United857 | 16 days ago
dang | 16 days ago
aga98mtl | 16 days ago
ck2 | 16 days ago
* 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 | 16 days ago
inference-god | 15 days ago
sandworm101 | 16 days ago
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.
breppp | 16 days ago
sandworm101 | 16 days ago
qaq | 16 days ago
sandworm101 | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
anigbrowl | 16 days ago
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.
DANmode | 16 days ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/deaths-disappearances-scien...
Good luck.
jongjong | 16 days ago
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.
AndrewKemendo | 16 days ago
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.
mycall | 16 days ago
slim | 16 days ago
mycall | 15 days ago
tibbydudeza | 16 days ago
Some even shows double tap mortar rounds being dropped on Russians and then gravely wounded they drop another one to finish them off.
polotics | 16 days ago
ps. do you to watch all these videos? how is it affecting you?
inference-god | 15 days ago
polotics | 15 days ago
It's a bit of an overton window thing really. For reference: Amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics. Talking about "double tap" is same level as talking about "lethality"...
Sabinus | 16 days ago
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.
strictnein | 16 days ago
graemep | 16 days ago
Nothing like politics to make people miss the beam in their own eye
strictnein | 16 days ago
DANmode | 16 days ago
or maybe you’re just not fully familiar with the rules of engagement Continuity of Government sets for itself.
derektank | 16 days ago
[0] https://abcnews.com/Blotter/anwar-al-awlaki-killed-officials...
strictnein | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
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.
graemep | 16 days ago
> 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 | 16 days ago
If that wasn't the case, I apologize for my misunderstanding.
graemep | 15 days ago
> Being that this is the internet
True and funny and depressing at the same time.
dijksterhuis | 16 days ago
talon8635 | 16 days ago
Sabinus | 15 days ago
That, and all the undecided lurkers reading pages of unchallenged conspiracy.
fhdkweig | 16 days ago
dijksterhuis | 15 days ago
in my experience; speculation fuels distrust, which fuels more speculation, which leads to a spiral.
similar thing as gossip. why would i trust you when you’ve been gossiping with me about our mutual friend? then i go off and gossip about you gossiping to my other friend etc.
loose lips sink ships — the things we say have consequences.
phendrenad2 | 15 days ago
nosmokewhereiam | 16 days ago
You don't really get to sneak a glimpse of operations and write a book like the SEALs seem get to (jk!)
johnnyApplePRNG | 16 days ago
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.
halJordan | 16 days ago
zbentley | 16 days ago
nosmokewhereiam | 16 days ago
Great clarification!
thatfunkymunki | 15 days ago
jawiggins | 16 days ago
mapotofu | 16 days ago
jcranmer | 16 days ago
austin-cheney | 16 days ago
podocarp | 16 days ago
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.
le-mark | 16 days ago
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 | 16 days ago
For every 1 million cybers, three books are written lol
Every manned operation gets a book mention, eventually.
downrightmike | 16 days ago
laughing_man | 15 days ago
Decades later I found out he felt like nobody cared about him because we stopped asking about his work.
wartywhoa23 | 15 days ago
qaq | 16 days ago
somenameforme | 16 days ago
halJordan | 16 days ago
sigmarule | 15 days ago
jerrythegerbil | 16 days ago
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.
somenameforme | 15 days ago
I don't see how you can say this is a leadership issue because the tech itself is creating a scenario that's going to leave plenty of people in crisis. The same will happen in programming. People are clinging onto the hope that it won't matter that much because 80% of a programmer's job, at a large company, doesn't involve coding anyhow, but even there the reason for the high comp is that 20%, as that's where the barrier to entry is. As that barrier falls, skill relevance plummets, and expectations rise.
jmyeet | 16 days ago
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...
genxy | 16 days ago
jauntywundrkind | 16 days ago
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.
inference-god | 15 days ago
Is this a secret or something? It's 100% what people voted for. Disgruntled people wanted to see it all burned down.
Danox | 16 days ago
Arun2009 | 16 days ago
harimau777 | 16 days ago
casey2 | 16 days ago
throwitaway222 | 16 days ago
"A number of cyber command unit personnel found the secret files and had to be dealt with"
debo_ | 16 days ago
https://williamgibson.fandom.com/wiki/Screaming_Fist
bluealienpie | 16 days ago
matt3210 | 16 days ago
duxup | 16 days ago
throwaway89864 | 16 days ago
baobabKoodaa | 15 days ago
afroboy | 15 days ago
almazglaz | 15 days ago
> The next day, the command held an all-staff safety meeting where leaders encouraged personnel to support each other and seek help if they needed it, the official and two people said. Yet another man took his own life two weeks later, records show
Feels like any tech company, especially FB's recent attempt to improve morale using snacks, pizza, and hackatons.