Lord Ratner

I think talks about mandatory service miss the point. I don't think the Israelis have a heightened sense of purpose because of their mandatory service, they have a heightened sense of purpose because there is an immediate and obvious threat nearby. And even then, a lot of young Israelis were succumbing to the same aimless malaise we are in the West... Until October 7th. We're fat, dumb, and (un)happy. From everything I've read, the 1920-30s were the same. Then economic crisis, then total war. WWII was so catastrophic that it provided the West with meaning and identity for the next 70 years. I think WWIII will have the same effect.

The Democrats are absolutely terrified that the polls still skew in favor of Democrats, as they have for the last couple election cycles. If that's the case, Trump has it in a landslide (by modern standards, not like Reagan).

Here's the video of anyone wants to watch. Also, if you have kids that watch YouTube, this is a channel to add to their whitelist.

Smarter Every Day on YouTube did a presentation (I believe to NASA) on this. It's a complete lack of seriousness within the space bureaucracy. There's no way this goes to plan, and a very good chance the decisions made will end up getting the program cancelled when budget woes rear their ugly head. Better hope Elon can carry the entire mission on his shoulders.

He's old and probably losing his marbles. I too am ok with a President Vance.

Yeah, I remember. I just didn't see how that was a differentiation between the KC-10 and 135. In pretty much every other way, however, the -10 was a better platform 🤣😂. Also, what you quoted was a response to this: Kinda true, if you are being hyper literal.

4 A/R pumps...

Uh, is two pumps better than four?

If the limited goal of killing some terries took 20 years, that's a failure in my book. And the fact that the Taliban won (and they did) makes it pretty hard to see Afghanistan as a win. I think it might be our Vietnam... And before we decided to kill Saddam, they were a key check on Iranian power in the region. So... why are we there in the first place? Bad intel. That's a loss... Like Saddam, Gaddafi kept Libya under relative control. Now? How has "let them figure it out" worked for us so far? It was figured out, then "we came, we saw, he died." Is that better? I know what we could do. We could have won in Afghanistan too. The question is what actually happened/happens. Yes, Isis, the Islamist psychodrama that was only possible because we destabilized the region by removing or attempting to remove the strongmen in charge of their countries. There is no ISIS if we didn't kill Saddam. That's the best example of "we created that problem." We did excellent work at the tactical level in all of your examples. But all of your examples are exactly what I'm referring to. The pre-US-involvement status quo was better than how we left it. We did a lot of good work for ultimately worthless (or in some cases counter-productive) endeavors. I do appreciate the dialog.

Did the operation you participated it result in an improved regional/global situation. A better world. For example: WWII - 80 years of global prosperity and relative peace Korean War (South Korea is undoubtedly better off) Civil War - End of slavery Revolutionary War - 'Merica, Fuck yeah! Second Barbary War - Regional stability and economic growth Mexican American War - Good for America at least Panama (minor, but Panama was better off after than before) Gulf War I - Regional/economic stability I don't think it's our fault that our service was mostly background noise, I was just commenting on what type of leadership you get during these periods of irrelevance.

They never have the nuts to demand it in person. The only time I address someone (or myself) with the airline title is when calling a pilot I've never spoken to, since it immediately establishes the call as work-related.

I always get a kick out of saying "dude" to someone, which I use ubiquitously like you do, and realizing from the response that some captain has his panties in a wad from being called dude instead of "Captain." There's a subset of these tools that refer to each other online by "first officer" and "captain" in every interaction. Obviously you don't see a lot of the ex-military guys doing it, because they all realize that their airline title doesn't represent a fraction of what their military title (as a bunch of drunk twenty-something year olds) represented. But it's still strange to watch.

And that's great. But that's not really the threshold for "making a difference." Obviously everyone is glad you did that. But it didn't change the status quo, it didn't move the ball forward towards worldwide stability, and it certainly won't be considered as historically significant. Again, I'm glad I served. But the organization I served in, and the strategic objectives of that organization don't seem to have done... anything. Or with a more cynical perspective, made things worse. And I 100% blame the political leadership for that. It's not about blame, just results. And I'm not sure I see what was accomplished by OEF/OIF/OFS/OIR, other than the first few months of annihilating the Taliban as revenge. I enjoyed serving. But I didn't make the world a better/safer place in the long run because those in charge failed to use our efforts effectively (or with any particular goal in mind). Afghanistan is still run by the Taliban, with newer, better weapons and equipment. Saddam is gone, and Iraq is a bigger mess. Libya is a mess. Tunisia, meh. Iran is still exporting terror and chaos all over the Middle East. Pakistan is still a shitty ally. Syria is more of an enemy than before. Turkey is belligerent to any Western interests, but can fuck up NATO votes. Islamic extremism has spread through more of the West than when 9/11 happened. And all of that added to a catastrophic debt situation. Tactically, I agree. But a huge amount of the threats we neutralized were threats directly related to our presence. That's not to say we were at fault and caused the threats by being there, but it was still a self-fueling war. I'm not mad about it. I just see an organization that has resoundingly failed at every major endeavor (again, strategic level, not warfighter level) and yet those who led us through failure have never been held to account. It should surprise no one that an organization with no real goal, no real accountability, and no remaining identity (modern-day DOD) would create and attract the types of leaders we talk about here every day. This is not what successful organizations look like.

I get what you're saying, but I don't think what you did matters. I mean that broadly. Your efforts were directed and used by an organization with no overall philosophy or objective. I joined in 2003 and left in 2017. I don't really see what the military did in that time that left us with a better world. Or even a different world. Yes, that is the fault of the political class, not the military members. But it doesn't change the result. What I did was, effectively, for nothing. I don't regret it one bit, but I also don't see it for what I wish it to be (useful), and rather see it as it ended up: driving in a big expensive circle to nowhere.

Have any of you guys felt that the things we're/you're doing in the military, broadly, actually matter? It sure didn't feel that way when I got out in 2017. What type of leaders do you expect to rise in an organization that isn't doing anything meaningful. Who sticks around? Who sets themselves apart?

I got fired at in the MC-12 when I was in Afghanistan. Night time, I look out and sure enough big bright ball of fire tracking towards us. I can even see the smoke trail a little in the dark. I jammed my finger on the yoke button and fire off a bunch of flares as my brain catches up and realizes that this missile is coming from above us, which seems like a pretty advanced weapon system for the Afghans. Turns out it was a space-launched munition, and while I'm not entirely sure which planet is responsible, I suspect Mars, but my gut tells me Uranus is responsible...

Agreed. It did the same for my expectations: - Expect that your path to retirement will involve periods of backtracking. - Do not expect to be making more money than you are currently making today (buy what you can afford now, not what you think you'll be able to afford later) - Expect to retire having made less money and accrued less seniority than the projections indicated when you were a new hire - Expect someone else to get a better deal than you thought you were getting when you were hired (2001 TWA vs 2013 USAir, America West vs AA) It's a strange job.

2001 hires who were furloughed very shortly after being hired at a dying airline (under a contract that did *not* allow for years-of-service accrual while furloughed), many of whom were still furloughed when they were slotted behind the 2013 pilot who was actively flying for their airline. That's not to say it was fair or justified, but it's a lot more complicated than just 2001 vs 2013. I've read through the integration documents and it's a much more nuanced picture than is often presented. "Career expectations" is the factor that few people consider, but matters the most in the integrations.

Trust or individual application?

AA reduced fleet size in 2020 when the entire industry was convinced that the pandemic would forever decimate travel. The E190, 757, 767 and A330 were all immediately retired. This was in part because AA was planning to receive a bunch of 737 MAX and 787 aircraft, and in part due to fear. At the same time, AA offered Early retirements to 62-64 year old pilots. That particular issue has worked out of the system now, but it mattered in 2021 and 2022. AA then furloughed in September, still convinced that travel would recover slowly. They were wrong, and by 2021 things were picking up, leading to the 2022, 2023, and 2024 travel booms. These booms created more flying for AA than the Jan 2021 pilot count could support, until 2024. During that period, AA had to ramp up hiring/retraining to: Get all the furloughed pilots retrained and flying Make up for the early-retired pilots that were suddenly not a surplus Cover the still-huge number of age-65 retiring pilots Increase the pilot force to account for dozens of anticipated 737/787 deliveries. So we did, hiring thousands of pilots. This would be all well and good, except: Turns out we didn't get the aircraft we expected. But we did hire the pilots required to fly them. Travel is starting to cool off, with forecasts for next year dropping. This became apparent to me recently when AirBNB got hammered on their declining reservations. So now we have too many. 1,300 from what I was told personally by a chief pilot. I hope that makes it more clear. I don't think anyone cares what I think AA should have done during the pandemic, so I'm just pointing out what the reality is. We hired too many pilots. That's why we stopped entirely. My subjective point is that it doesn't make sense to hire 2,000 pilots in 2025 when we will be ~1,000 pilots overstaffed on Jan 2025, and that assumes another year of record-setting passenger traffic. There are ~850 forced retirements in 2025, which would still leave us slightly overstaffed on 1Jan2026 if we hired zero pilots next year. Reduce the passenger traffic and that pilot overage goes up. So that's my guess. Happy talk right up until the point of calamity, then an existential crisis that requires the unionized groups to make contractual sacrifices to "save the company." That's the game they played before, and I think we will see it again. Hopefully the pilots don't fall for it. Just ask yourself, what incentive does an executive who is paid in stock options have to announce bad news earlier than absolutely necessary?

Sorry I don't know how calendars work. 2026, not 2025. I don't think any of the airlines are going to do a meaningful amount of hiring next year. I don't know the numbers at Delta or United, but American is absolutely overstaffed on pilots based on the number of planes we have and the passenger traffic. I think passenger traffic is going to decrease next year, not by some catastrophic amount, but it only takes a little to hit the airlines pretty hard. We have about 850 retirements next year. If we hire less than 500 pilots then I would consider that bad news. Less than 259, really bad news. I expect the really bad news. I couldn't put my finger on it because I'm not an industry analyst, but all year I've been hearing about how passenger traffic is higher than it's ever been, but it just *felt* slower. My scheduling strategy is pretty dependent on pilot manning, and this was the first year that felt like the pre-pandemic norm. Turns out you can still be overmanned during the biggest travel season in human history. AA really fucked itself when it got rid of all those airplanes in a panic during the pandemic. It was a dumb idea on its own, but it has turned into a catastrophic idea given Boeing an airbuses difficulty with delivering airplanes. It's entirely possible Delta and United and Southwest are in different spots because of their fleet size, but unless you believe Boeing is going to suddenly get their shit together and deliver dozens of airplanes per month, AA is in a jam. And none of that considers our heavy debt load. I think our executives are just praying for a massive rate cut cycle by the Fed. I tend to have a negative bias on these types of things, so take it for what it's worth. But you also have to remember we have by far the weakest executive team of the major airlines. I think the only thing they know how to do is imitate the other airlines poorly.

Yup. We are getting the same mixed messaging on our side too. Hiring 2,000 next year on all the official sites, but every chief pilot behind closed (cockpit) doors says 2025 at the current overage. Ask yourself why you would stop hiring in its entirety if you are planning to start hiring at the fastest pace possible in just 3 months. Our training center is not even remotely close to capacity. It looks like a ghost town compared to a year ago. At 2000 new hires per year, the training pipeline is completely slammed and pilots go non-current regularly due to a lack of slots for if someone calls out sick, or any other minor deviation. This is the airlines. There's almost never a time that you can trust what they say over what they do. I hope I'm wrong, but even for September (Feb and Sept are always the slowest months) we are sllooowww. Even rain on DFW hasn't been enough to shake the schedule. Usually it's a calamity. And Boeing isn't getting airplanes to anybody anytime soon.

Yup. I don't know which is worse, that we are at the phase where political violence becomes normal, or that Trump will almost certainly piss away another opportunity to be presidential (and win votes as a result).

I don't think the conversation is as useless as you suppose, though I agree in the in the short term it won't change. But there are periods of great conflict that usually are accompanied by great changes. These could be social like the civil Rights movement, since we are in fact in a country where many people thought it inconceivable that black people would be treated equally. Or it could be economic, such as coming out of the Great depression where the government took on power that most people thought impossible. Or it could be political. When it happens, time will not be taken for the debate it deserves. It rarely is. The most prominent idea on the table will be adopted. Having ranked choice voting take hold at the local and state level makes it a visible and viable alternative should we encounter the type of Great conflict that will motivate change to the political system. And the next generation of politicians are almost certainly spending their younger years on forums and social media conversations just like this one. Change is not a process. It's an explosion. I think we can pretty easily tell that the fuse is lit, but no one knows how long it is.

Correct. Aside from demonstrating that you do not understand RCV, or even a present system where a runoff would not help the candidate "clearly beating everyone" when the new votes come in, what you are saying is that you are okay with the system where people don't vote for who they actually want because everybody is simultaneously trying to game the election to get the "least bad option." Your way gets us what we have now. A lot of us are over that. Also, did the 615 vote guy win in Alaska? The detractors of RCV always seem to have hypothetical problems with it, yet those problems never manifest. That's a problem entirely independent from trying to apply traditional voting logic on RCV ballot logic.