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On December 23 2025 21:47 Biff The Understudy wrote: Aren’t Battleships totally obsolete ? What do they do an aircraft carrier doesn’t do ten times better ?
Assuming you have total air superiority, maybe you can park it in front of some third world capital and barrage it from a relatively safe distance without needing to use jets?
I'm joking but I really don't see any uses for battleships in the 21st century other than being huge artillery platforms, at least not before Blizzard patches the reality to give them shields, teleports or the Yamato Cannon.
On December 23 2025 21:47 Biff The Understudy wrote: Aren’t Battleships totally obsolete ? What do they do an aircraft carrier doesn’t do ten times better ?
They are designed to sustain heavy damage and do not sink. With armored hull some battleships and armored cruisers resisted some heavy punishement. They were designed that way becaused their dedicated role was fighting in battle lines and survive high caliber artilery fire. I am more concerned about how do they can be effectively used in modern war, because with today arsenal a single corvete can destroy entire flotilla if armed with proper nuclear missile. What kind of enemy are they supposed to engage? Carriers lack that kind of protection and can be attacked by literaly anything with long range, more likely thou that their own fighter and bomber wings will locate and attack anything behind the line of horison. So I don't know.
Given the children's strategy game and motto from the past few generations, of course Trump would want to brag about a boat equated with failure and losing: "You sunk my Battleship!"
The default presumption should be that these battleships are too big and costly thus and unjustified considering the opportunity cost of spending the same money on dozens of smaller ships toting missiles and drones. Both for asymmetric warfare and major power warfare.
I'll yield to competent experts that can elaborate on "hypersonic missiles, electric rail guns and high-powered laser systems, as well as nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missiles currently under development." This could be a debatable matter in next-gen weapons systems from the people that spend all day designing for them, and could potentially overcome understandable skepticism.
This is an expensive boondoggle until proven otherwise. It's right up Trump's alley to senselessly prefer spectacularly huge ships with tons of guns. We've seen from the Ukraine war that large ships are vulnerable to cheap drone-delivered explosives. The priority should remain delivering drones and missiles from ships that can operate for long periods at sea, with other craft serve as support and extension of that concept. Aircraft carriers already exist in navies, and are useful though probably not central for future wars.
It is crazy how much stuff he is naming after himself and that his followers think it’s cool. It is so embarrassing.
I also think it is strange that none of the libertarianS are here getting all worked up about the government stepping in to cancel people who are mean to the president. This is so much worse than when companies fired people because their customers were speaking with their wallets.
And now getting 60 minutes to pull pieces. Again right before a merger.
Seems like the state openly censoring the media should be a HUGE deal to these people.
Unless there has been a breakthrough on railguns and/or point defense lasers that require a huge powerplant there is no point in building a battleship.
Cannons can't outrange anti-ship missiles, and missiles will blow up your battleship regardless of how much conventional pdf you put on it. It's just a numbers game, you get too many missiles for the cost of a battleship. Against 3rd world countries sure but you could just bomb them or put a decently sized gun on a smaller ship. Like build a marine landing ship with a turret if you want that.
But if there is new tech that requires nuclear reactor levels of power and that offers huge range and/or almost unstoppable pdf there could be a use case.
One thing I don't understand is why US scrapped Constelation class plans and than they think that more expensive program could somehow work better. If [edit: Zumwalt] and Constalation programs were too costly than this one looks like money burn. But hell, I am not military expert. Maybe I can't just understand things beyond historical things like f.e. why ORP Gryf mineleyer was idiotic design.
So Epstein sent letters before he died, to another convicted pedophile “L.N.” or Larry Nassar, the former U.S. gymnastics team doctor, containing this quote:
“As you know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home,” Epstein wrote, appearing to reference his later death by suicide. “Good luck! We shared one thing… our love and caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential. Our president also shares our love of young, nubile girls. When a young beauty walked by he loved to ‘grab snatch,’ whereas we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system. Life is unfair,”
So one pedophile, either planing suicide or feeling death might come to him decided to send a very explicit letter naming a third pedophile.
This revelation comes after 5 years of speculation and after a year of gaslighting and trying to block these files from coming out.
In any normal reality this would mean Trump, as a political figure is dead, in this one, he'll start a Christmas war with Venezuela and everyone will move on.
oh this could be any number of POTUSSIS - who can really say!?
I think that dam looks near bursting. for how much longer CatilinaTrump?
"When, O Catilina Trump, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?"
Cicero is a classic for a reason. too bad he is long dead and his example lost to the men who should know better - each and every damn lawyer in both Chambers of Congress.
unprincipled and highly flawed men are unfortunately the clear majority, the post truth age mixed with tribalism keeps common sense out and the little inside the bubbles locked tight.
I guess Washington really has to "burn" for people to see the light. not literally of course and hopefully, but one way or another, as the burning through credibility and trust is already in full force.
the speed with which things are degrading is remarkable and kinda scary I gotta admit.
So Epstein sent letters before he died, to another convicted pedophile “L.N.” or Larry Nassar, the former U.S. gymnastics team doctor, containing this quote:
“As you know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home,” Epstein wrote, appearing to reference his later death by suicide. “Good luck! We shared one thing… our love and caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential. Our president also shares our love of young, nubile girls. When a young beauty walked by he loved to ‘grab snatch,’ whereas we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system. Life is unfair,”
So one pedophile, either planing suicide or feeling death might come to him decided to send a very explicit letter naming a third pedophile.
This revelation comes after 5 years of speculation and after a year of gaslighting and trying to block these files from coming out.
In any normal reality this would mean Trump, as a political figure is dead, in this one, he'll start a Christmas war with Venezuela and everyone will move on.
I genuinely believe that the dam will break the moment a prominent FOX News host or Republican Congressman (besides Massie or MTG) finally vocally admits that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that Trump is a child molester.
Reminder, FBI agents got paid millions in overtime to redact Trump's name from the files. The fact that these are slipping through the cracks must've meant he was in almost every file and was essentially the ringleader alongside Epstein and Maxwell.
The people who supported the insurrection thought the election was genuinely stolen. They don't want to be called pedo supporters by their neighbors even if they can cry half of it away.
On December 24 2025 04:29 LightSpectra wrote: The people who supported the insurrection thought the election was genuinely stolen. They don't want to be called pedo supporters by their neighbors even if they can cry half of it away.
Yeah, copium. To be honest, it’s quite interesting to read your perspective. It feels like you may have been a bit disconnected from reality over the past ten years.
I would say I admire your optimism, but I think it might be misplaced.
His supporters don’t want to hear that about their leader, but the point is that they don’t even need to accept it as true. Any Epstein-related documents that come out won’t really change that, because the reality is that they simply don’t care. If they had even the slightest reservations, they already had plenty of opportunities to step away ten years ago.
I don’t think Epstein telling Nassar that Trump grabs snatch on nubile girls is going to be the piece of evidence that solidifies the charge. Ask yourself if Virginia Guiffre’s sworn testimony that she never saw Trump do anything wrong clears Trump.
I also have my doubts that Biden and Garland sat on something truly unimpeachable on Trump in the Epstein files for four years. Something that either got censored or was not released in this latest batch. It takes too much wishful thinking that they both protected Trump on that after January 6th and after the lawsuits.
On December 24 2025 05:21 dyhb wrote: I don’t think Epstein telling Nassar that Trump grabs snatch on nubile girls is going to be the piece of evidence that solidifies the charge. Ask yourself if Virginia Guiffre’s sworn testimony that she never saw Trump do anything wrong clears Trump.
I also have my doubts that Biden and Garland sat on something truly unimpeachable on Trump in the Epstein files for four years. Something that either got censored or was not released in this latest batch. It takes too much wishful thinking that they both protected Trump on that after January 6th and after the lawsuits.
A lot of powerful people, including Democrats, are tied up with Epstein.
If they thought that they could get Trump without risking others being hit with the Epstein files then yes I can believe they would sit on it.
Just last week we had Jack Smith testify that he believes they gathered evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump actively tried to overturn the 2020 election.
On December 23 2025 12:13 Zambrah wrote: EDIT: nevermind, I hate it here, this place and the people here depress me on a deep and fundamental level
Sigh. Epstein writes to Nasser, McGregor gets invited to the White House, Tates get invited to Mar-a-Lago, Ronaldo glazes Trump, Russel Brand is a key speaker at TPUSA.
The rapists are all holding hands and singing kumbaya in brotherly love for eachother, meanwhile we can't handle someone disagreeing on.. AI predictions?
On December 24 2025 05:21 dyhb wrote: I don’t think Epstein telling Nassar that Trump grabs snatch on nubile girls is going to be the piece of evidence that solidifies the charge. Ask yourself if Virginia Guiffre’s sworn testimony that she never saw Trump do anything wrong clears Trump.
I also have my doubts that Biden and Garland sat on something truly unimpeachable on Trump in the Epstein files for four years. Something that either got censored or was not released in this latest batch. It takes too much wishful thinking that they both protected Trump on that after January 6th and after the lawsuits.
A lot of powerful people, including Democrats, are tied up with Epstein.
If they thought that they could get Trump without risking others being hit with the Epstein files then yes I can believe they would sit on it.
Just last week we had Jack Smith testify that he believes they gathered evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump actively tried to overturn the 2020 election.
Yeah it’s just too neat and packaged for me to believe that that Democrats had the goods on pedophilia, but hid it because they also feared exposure. We’ve had too much damaging shit on Trump leak for well over a decade to believe, by default, that pedophilia was the hitherto successful government coverup by the Obama and Biden administrations. But you could still be right, and I hope we don’t have to take Epstein’s word for it in the end.
On December 23 2025 10:35 micronesia wrote: I'm okay with generative AI when it's used properly. It's a tool that's being used for way too many things in way too many applications, but some of those applications really benefit. Over time, I think we'll see its usage better map to its effectiveness.
Do you have any genuine faith that the bulk of whats going on with AI (money, usage, etc) is going to be used properly though?
I think lots of things are okay when used properly, but societally how often do we use things properly and how often do we just let profit motive run rampant and cause as much damage as it can?
Embodying AI is going to end up being problematic. We already know the existing models will harm humans to stay on. Hostile/misaligned AGI is obviously an extinction level event, but regular humans handing their critical thinking capacity over to the existing models is leading us down a pretty irrefutably catastrophic path already.
But if AI doesn't basically make the world almost completely unrecognizable in 15 years to someone who went into a coma tomorrow in the good way, the economics will lead to economic catastrophe that would make the great depression look like a boom.
On December 23 2025 12:13 Zambrah wrote: EDIT: nevermind, I hate it here, this place and the people here depress me on a deep and fundamental level
Thought this video on NVIDIA, Palantir, and how the US is on the verge of going full Minority Report from GamersNexus Consumer Advocacy was pretty good information, though still pretty discouraging.
None of what's being done is new, other than using AI to make it fancy.
Social media scraping. Social profiling. Geolocation. Financial data like transaction and credit rating. Criminal record. Facial recognition.
Hell UK is arresting 12000 for speech per year even though only 1000 get charged.
Or that digital EURO can pretty much do the same as Chinese digital Yuan. CCP had tried adding expiration date, limit what categories it can spend on, direct control over your wallet.
Or that quantum computing will break even central banks?
that's why buying more gold and taking back control matters. I have started self hosting, and definitely looking to run my own local AI.
All big gov works against you, and you still want your one to be powerful enough to stand up against other and do your best to have some level of control.
Said technology isn‘t a big gov issue. It‘s in private hands that tend to be bigger than your local gov. If your government wants access to the data they need to pay a private company for that.
Said technology is so powerful that corporations should require oversight on how they use it. You think the US government has a history of corporate oversight ? Traditionally it lets them get away with anything.
Imo one of the biggest challenges governments face these days is to not let corporations become stronger than them.
Big Corp will never be stronger than gov. Even Alibaba, the biggest e-commerce by far, had to make multiple concessions to submit itself to the CCP. The only defense is to when these news go public and then faces public push back.
If gov had the tech and know how, they would have done a lot more under secret projects that need whistleblower to come through. Much easier for news to leak out with employees.
EPT![[image loading]](https://images.newrepublic.com/54b90a4519b1091bf98bf6f48093bbbbab8e429b.png?w=1400)
