Derringer Dick

An idealistic cynic. Texan.

Views my own. RTs, likes etc. aren't endorsements.

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@eigenrobot Both parties doing pretty well at the things they optimized for!

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@ryanpatrickauth I can only imagine that makes it *more* annoying when you get lucky guessing ;)

[Tom Whipple @whippletom]

TIL A U2 nearly crashed because the pilot confused a cyanide pill for lemon drops.

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@eigenrobot my heart has long desired a friendly little parasitic wasp you could keep in your bathroom to kill all the cockroaches

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@DumbMoneyCapitl @matthewswspence Although the asymmetry is a real issue, it's relatively trivial to do cheap soft defenses around many of these, you don't actually need HPMs or interceptors to defend every site.

Over the long run, such things may simply get built with the soft defenses integrated.

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@mattparlmer even if that's not the most cost-efficient play in theory, I'm not sure I trust the US .gov to procure a drone operator munition that isn't ultimately more expensive than just mass-procuring SMASH anyway

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@mattparlmer tbqh I think there's a good chance that rifles remain the primary weapon, they just cost 10x as much

a smart rifleman who can shoot the drone and the its operator > the drone and its operator

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@sheevposter @MartinSkold2 Now we have lasers (as if you needed more evidence we were living in the cyberpunk future already).

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@DougTenNapel I don't think this is correct either, Missler and Heiser were probably the foremost exponents of this theory in modern times, and they both referenced the early church beliefs in their writing on it while rejecting the canonization of Enoch.

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

I agree with @DougTenNapel's concern about "cool" theology obscuring more important matters, and I don't think "Justin believed it" settles the question, either, but "Gen 6 refers to angels" is a common position in early Christian apologetic writings, not a modern fad,

[Doug TenNapel @DougTenNapel]

The whole modern fad of Nephilim has nothing to do with scripture, and nearly all of classic Christianity didn’t believe the way it’s been interpreted in the last 40 years. It also runs contemporary with a rise in conspiracies like Roswell, interdimensional beings, lizard aliens and flat earthers.

And time a biblically illiterate contemporary group misinterprets the Bible against 2000 years of Christian practice, grab your wallets.

Saying aliens are fallen angels is pagan and we have almost no belief in angels hanging humans for the vast majority of church scholarship. It’s probably more of a deviant wishful thinking of modernity.

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@DougTenNapel Again, whether or not the view the early church held is *correct* is a different question, but I think it's misleading to characterize a view that was favored by a number of Church Fathers (and is older than the Sethite view) as a "modern fad."

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@MartinSkold2 They don't need torpedoes to sink Maritime Militia ships.

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@MartinSkold2 "...and we're going to need to have some sort of platform to launch the next-gen drones from."
"Maybe with, I dunno, a catapult for drones with large payloads?"
"Good idea!"
"Perhaps even they could launch *manned* aircraft, for when you need decisionmakers closer to the action?"

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@ryanpatrickauth @joshuachuminski ...and in that spirit, (+to your point) I don't actually think making ~good guesses is hard. If someone went "...what if they overcame that engineering problem, though?" x20 years I think you could have a very banger RSR 2.0. But as you say, that's a niche skillset.

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@ryanpatrickauth @joshuachuminski Yeah - frankly I think there are very few people with the right combination of clearances + experience to get *everything* right, even if they could write about it. I think the key is to make bold mistakes. Most of the time you'll be wrong, sometimes you might get lucky.

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@joshuachuminski @ryanpatrickauth One of the things that is funny to me about the entire genre is the degree to which "Chinese use superweapon to overcome US superiority" is a trope, 2034 does it too.

IMHO the US is the party more likely to pull something crazy out of a SAP to deal with PRC conventional power.

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@ryanpatrickauth @joshuachuminski Today I think the problem isn't that you can make guesses, it's that the open source world *seems* so seductively complete that people aren't tempted to run with fun ideas like that. They want to wargame it.

Did you ever read Ghost Fleet?

[Derringer Dick @Derringer_Dick]

@ryanpatrickauth @joshuachuminski Clancy didn't always get it right, though - I think .mil types still liked reading his stuff because he was willing to make bold but logical guesses. Even when he was wrong, it was interesting.