Majestik Møøse

Which COCOMs aren’t thinking about how to fight their future wars as well as their current ones?

Europe is as soft as they’ve ever been because they don’t feel threatened. But conquerors arrive via different ships these days. https://www.politico.eu/article/mo-money-mo-pandas-chinas-influence-in-europe-by-the-numbers/ https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/05/09/on-china-s-expanding-influence-in-europe-and-eurasia-pub-79094 https://chinaobservers.eu/how-china-is-buying-influence-in-europe/

Dude that’s still because the bureaucrats suck. The JTR is 690 pages long, but they can’t make an app that works on an iPhone that allows you to just enter expenses in real time. If there was some finance airman manually entering all that shit based on a piece of paper you filled out, you’d be spending a lot of extra time telling him to fix it. Sort of like filling out a paper 175 and faxing it to Baseops so an airman can translate that to the actual system. Foreflight solved that ridiculousness, and a real travel expense app worth a shit would make you never want to go back to an 18yo attempting to translate your intent.

Nah. The problem isn’t technology, it’s bureaucrats. And that applies to the dinosaur civilian companies as much as it does to the government. This dude is talking about sending emails and attachments, FFS. Dinosaur shit. More tech just makes bureaucrats demand more bureaucratic activities be accomplished. For organizations that actually get shit done, collaboration software accelerates their accomplishments. In the end it’s all about leadership.

Are EWOs also ineligible for the bonus?

HAF/A1 devises these policies (with the agreement of all the MAJCOMs and CSAF); AFPC just administers it. Direct your hate in that direction.

No bonus for 11Rs?

I can’t keep up with forum drama, but I think he’s either a known troll or an actual idiot. His posts remind me of the Facebook comments that high school dropouts post.

Clearly the anti-Tesla crowd is more religious than the pro Tesla ones. Though I fully intend to build a house someday with a Tesla solar roof (makes sense if from built scratch) replete with power walls and a car plugged into it. Might as well skip the $35k models and go right for the Plaid+ ones so I can roll up to [literally any muscle car] at stop lights and watch them avoid eye contact. Self driving? Sure I’ll watch it do it’s thing as a lark, but I’ll trust it less than even airplane automation. MyCS, I mean this wholeheartedly: you really come across as an argumentative clown that no one would ever want to be around. Ty some chill. I’m out of votes for the day, but I’ll catch up to your posts I promise!

You’re having an emotional argument against whatever caricature is against you in your imagination. Is the hang-wringing environmentalist your foe?

They make the world’s quickest cars that never need servicing and can drive themselves if you don’t care to. Things that all of the antique automakers are unable to do. You can charge them using the goddam roof of your energy-independent Powerwall system that they also build. It’s the most American thing ever, built here, and the envy of the world. But yeah, I can’t see how that’s revolutionary.

Suck it old people, you’re on your own! I believe in survival of the fittest!

So that’s exactly my point. The X6M and Model X Plaid both cost $120k and the Tesla goes 0-60 in 2.5s. And it’s American. To each their own, but new gasoline cars might as well be powered by steam engines. Old ones are cool, though.

America only classifies technical facts, but the bulk of the information and culture that gives us a strategic advantage is out there for everyone to see. In fact, we can help but to advertise it so everyone can know how cool we are. It’s only a matter of time until they change themselves from a day, VFR, GCI Air Force to the night, all-weather self-determining force we once were...

Yeah, Ferrari used to say, “But Ferraris aren’t about the numbers, it’s about the passion!” when Lamborghini or even Corvette would make a car faster than them. Then, of course, when Ferrari had an objectively faster car they’d sure let everyone know. Now, to be clear, I’m a car guy. Have been my whole life, I guess. With some racing here and there. I’m half-assed in the market for a 1960s Alfa if I run across a good one (especially the big 2.0s, lol). If I had Cleared Hot-level money, it’d be an old Ferrari instead. Today’s cars aren’t like the old ones. Due to customer demand, everyone makes smooth, fast, roomy, efficient, automatic-everythings with enough electronic wizardry to keep everything firmly on the rails. For lack of a better word, they’re all super-tight luxury rides. And heavy as hell. Even the Ferraris - shifting and drifting in a red barchetta has turned into pulling g’s in a laser guided spaceship. And that’s totally cool, I love speed and g’s. While every manufacturer has been electronically tightening up their mechanical watches, the full digital Teslas come out and out-do the entire industry. Every year they improved and now there’s an 1100hp model that can outdrag a $3m hypercar. They’re beating everyone else at their own game and making the newest reciprocating engine cars look totally pointless.

Dude, I think you have scales on your eyes. Not everything is political or about wokeness. How much do you expect a performance car to cost? Dodge gets people to pay $100k for a Challenger. Double that for a 911 Turbo. The Plaid+ has 1100 horsepower and is the quickest production car ever made. Estimated to be an 8 second car that you can put 200k miles on. For 10% of the cost of hypercars - that are slower and require $50k of mx every 10k miles. I don’t know if there’s a cost/horsepower equation, but no gasoline production car will ever catch up. They’re antiques. Which is fine, I like old things also. If you only want the world’s second fastest car just get the regular Plaid and save $35k.

A steam engine sounds much more iconic than a diesel-electric freight train. That’s why I’d like to buy an old Alfa someday - the sound and the feeling. But my next new car will be electric. And American. People spend $2-3m on cars that are slower, soooo

Well the Model S Plaid+ will do <9s quarter mile and >520 mile range. Quickest production car ever built and completely American. Makes supercars look kinda dumb. What’s not to like?

Nah, maybe they just like going faster than gasoline cars

Yeah, I get it, $3m is the new $1m. But there is a surprising divide, even amongst military officers, between those with no investments and those who know how to make money work for them. So I never know which one I’m talking to, although I guess it’s the latter in this thread. Some pilot friends of mine were giving Biden shit for having a $9m net worth - as if it were indicative of corruption - even though he has made the equivalent of six figures since the 1970s.

How could you not? Investing 10% of that salary at 7% ROR yields $1m liquid in 23 years. Not even counting real estate appreciation, which is how most people get there. Inflation not accounted for. https://smartasset.com/investing/investment-calculator#OCfdEpDGFU

Yeah, blue collar workers - aka the world’s most common jobs - are even more brutal. A high school friend’s dad retired from the factory line after 40 years of literally the same job (wrapping a wire around a wire) and died of a heart attack 2 weeks later. An anecdote for sure, but...holy shit I’ve got a pretty good life. Will I die if we get into a no-shitter with China? Maybe, but everyone will be fucked in that case anyway.

I used to have a civilian job before I decided one day to apply for an OTS pilot slot. I don’t know your background, but to those here that have only known the Air Force as a job in their adult lives (or a kush airline pilot gig afterwards that was enabled by your AF job), I would caution that the civilian world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, it can be unimaginable doldrums where entire years run together into the same memory, and then you die. Even a non-flying AF job has more excitement than 99% of the jobs out there. It’s like an Air Force staff job, except that the things you’re doing are not important whatsoever. Maybe at staff you’re just a cog in the military machine (“Why am I working on Afghanistan stuff, we shouldn’t even be there. Balancing this stupid $690m budget”) but as an average civilian you’re more like a cog on a worn out typewriter that has already been donated to Goodwill and no one’s told you. You’re certainly not doing stuff that kids would be interested in during career day. Plus the constant financial stress of things like a recession, COVID, and company underperformance that has nothing to do with you. Some kind of Neutron Jack comes in and deletes entire divisions overnight, college grads first. Civilian workers are cast offs and liabilities that take money directly from their bosses wallets. Your Air Force boss might be an asshole, but not like that. All I’m saying is the grass ain’t greener, and I wouldn’t stop any of my kids from joining the military. Well maybe except the Army.

People, tactics, equipment; in that order.