US military shoots down fourth flying object over North America | Hacker News Reader

US military shoots down fourth flying object over North America

bbc.com

36 pointscolinprince21 comments

Meanwhile, major controversial news is being pushed down to cover this stupidity. Look over here folks! Nothing to see over there!

The train and the economy?

This feels like some Chineese college level advance engineering capstone project.

The air force sure can't complain about the "excuse" for target practice and cycling inventory.

And the military missed with a $500k heat seeking missile!

[0]https://www.foxnews.com/us/us-military-first-shot-unknown-oc...

If Chinese college students are flying unknown advanced tech around the world, the US has a major education problem.

I think you can eliminate the former and still keep the later.

I had friends (at a no - name university) that could have flown balloons around the world if you told them too. They deliberately designed them to pop, b/c when they went across the border into Canada it made for uncomfortable phone calls with the FAA.

China has over 300 satellites of which over a 100 are known to be military. These balloons have been around for a long time. Why do they care now?

Maybe:

1) Distraction from bad domestic economy news 2) Distraction from bad Ukraine news 3) Preparing public for war with China, as that general said. 4) All of above.

Distraction from the chemical spill in Ohio which is a direct result of failure of congress to regulate.

Being discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34767096

Damn, those california condors have no chance. /s

All of a sudden. After admin drops the ball in a really obviously way. I don't buy it. This is theater.

There's absolutely some theatre going on. The only reason we know about the ones over Alaska and Yukon is that they told us. As several articles are noting, the US has recorded ~10 such balloons over the last year. None of which we heard about. Were they shot down without us knowing? Were they allowed to fly over without issue? Either way, why the change with the public statements now being made?

(Did they drop the ball with all those ones we never heard about? What about in previous years? How long has this been happening?)

The best hypothesis I can come up with is that when Americans on the ground saw the first balloon, the administration felt political pressure to act. Now that the American public, and the international community, is broadly supportive of the USA shooting them down, the US feels empowered to make a public statement, with China's leaders as the intended primary recipient, but also playing to a domestic audience to some degree.

How do the realistic, obvious takes end up getting downvoted to grey? It's a consistent pattern on HN.

Because realistic viewpoints are generally disliked, regardless of platform. The whole upvote/downvote/hidden/shadow-ban mechanic is the death knell of discourse. Despite all of our technological advances, humanity has devolved back into tribalism in a big way. You can't even have a decent conversation anymore without some kind of metering, soft-censorship, shadow-action, or reprimand. It is enough to make you want to pour concrete for living, and have nothing to do with any technology short of what it takes to do your job. In fact, I'm not even sure I can make this post because of the dreaded "You're posting too fast."

> The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

I find it more and more agreeable every day.

Because it’s a bunch of bullshit and people are falling for the spin. Previous admin did nothing about the balloons, yet all of a sudden it’s a problem and a failure of the current executive branch that calls for impeachment.

It’s tiresome.

Do we know for sure that the last admin did nothing? Last I heard, that was a made-up blame-shifter.

Previous admin was not aware of any balloons.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/05/politics/chinese-spy-balloons...

> After admin drops the ball in a really obvious way

You’re falling for the spin. Only reason this is even news is because a bunch of GOP politicians want the president impeached while simultaneously ignoring how the previous admin did nothing.

Biden would be praised for actually doing SOMETHING if the GOP wasn’t the party of projection.

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