Mastodawn

myrmepropagandist Mar 8

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@hacks4pancakes/116192434654015384

I have been watching this story simmer for several days. I've been wary of it. It fits too neatly into the criticisms and warnings many of us have been raising. But it's starting to look like, yes, they are using an LLM to make critical decisions.

At the same time I have heard parts of speeches from the US Secretary of War.* I have been dismayed by his shallow thinking. It doesn't help that his speeches also sound like they are also composed by an LLM.

*formerly Defense

myrmepropagandist Mar 8

His speeches sound LLM generated because they are filled with so many cliches and empty sentences. And because they sound nothing like they way he speaks extemporaneousnessly. Of course this could just be a bad speech writer. Or it could be that when your ideas are bad no words can fix it.

The Department of War will not even say if they missed or not. Did they *want* to hit that school? If not the school then what?

myrmepropagandist Mar 8

Right wing war hawk commentators are saying that hitting a civilian target, a school filled with little girls is "good strategy, actually" we, the soft-handed peace-nicks are simply not smart enough to understand the strategic power of this action.

But, if the Department of war won't say it remains unclear if this atrocity is based on incompetence or dim-witted malice.

update: We can infer that they "missed"
https://shakedown.social/@AAronL1968/116193541496761440

AAron Leckinger (@[email protected])

When MAGA suggests Iran bombed their own girls’ school, ask if they bombed their own hospitals, too. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/world/middleeast/iran-school-us-strikes-naval-base.html

Shakedown Social

myrmepropagandist

The events feel unreal but the deaths are very real. This is not a video game. This is not a text adventure.

myrmepropagandist Mar 8

My disgust for war, for the military, is not the result of being sheltered.

I hate your wars because I know exactly what they are and how when violence occurs it reverberates for generations.

Someone has lost a daughter and with her many of their reasons for living. What grim task will they devote themselves to?

What would you do, Pete, if they killed your family? Do you think you are the only person who loves their children?

I think you must.

Roger BW 😷Mar 8

@futurebird If "we" can only win by being as terrible as "them", why should I feel any moral imperative that "we" should win?

James Widman Mar 8

@RogerBW @futurebird related: people cheering on the iranian military after they hit AWS data centers:
https://bsky.app/profile/richard.wickedproblems.earth/post/3mgf7hc3vcs2s/quotes

like, they're not only noticing that it is valid & legal to target enemy data centers during wartime; there's also tons of people writing words to the effect of "dear iran, please hit more of our data centers."

Bluesky

Bluesky Social

James Widman Mar 8

@RogerBW @futurebird i used to think i was anti-war, but really, i was always just anti-aggressor.

When you live in the aggressor country, being anti-aggressor usually translates to political demands to stop fighting. This was true for the u.s.-initiated war in Vietnam; the u.s.-initiated war in Iraq; the 2nd u.s.-initiated war in Iraq; etc.

But this time, i don't just want the fighting to stop; i also want the u.s. military to lose, because a "victory" would mean that evil has won.

James Widman Mar 8

@RogerBW @futurebird (to be clear, that's also what victory meant/would-have-meant for the previous mentioned wars; it's just that now i'm more aware of it.)

Roger BW 😷Mar 8

@JamesWidman @futurebird Also "just because side A are bad guys, which we can all agree on, that doesn't make side B good guys." That falsity is so fundamental to media presentations of any sort of conflict or disagreement that I don't think it's salvageable.

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK Mar 8

@RogerBW @JamesWidman @futurebird

it is no better than an recent incident in my country where a rapist and double murderer killed a child murderer - but at least both of them were already locked up in His Majesty's Prison and not allowed to affect the entire World..

Along with the rest of Northern Europe we are also constantly unearthing UXO at the coast from World War 2 and having to evacuate whole towns, and amongst our multicultural communities are many traumatised by wars from 1990s to present day who end up getting drawn into criminality and violence as they have grown up in an environment where "might makes right"...

Andrew Deacon Mar 8

@futurebird Personally, I doubt that the Trumpistas love any one other than themselves, everyone else is a tool for their use

I am not convinced any inside the MAGA movement views anyone outside their movement as human. They see everyone opposed to them as NPC obstacles to be mowed down with gunfire and bombed into oblivion.

glasspshr Mar 8

@futurebird I think his speeches sound llm generated because a bad speechwriter would use an llm

GhostOnTheHalfShell Mar 8

@glasspusher @futurebird

Consider for a moment that LLMs sound like godless soulless machines because that’s what they are.

Hegseth and the filthy epstein Society he is a member of our current business and political elites have rejected the basis for human community. They are simply bloodthirsty knuckle, dragging dominance hierarchy seen throughout the Animal Kingdom, that humans are uniquely capable of tearing apart

RootWyrm 🇺🇦

@futurebird ah, but that's where you're mistaken.

Kegsbreath, the Fuhrer, etcetera? They all view children as nothing more than property and a prop. Any kid that isn't bringing in billions for them is worthless. Any *family member* that isn't actively supporting Nazism is worthless.

They genuinely do not care in the least about them. Just as religion is nothing but a tool or justification for Nazism.

Annelies Kamran, Ph.D.Mar 8

@futurebird I'd be very surprised if he felt love for his children. Ownership, yes. Love, no.

David Phd Mar 8

@futurebird At some point a War Crimes tribunal will need to rule that the person pressing return on an AI killing decisions is the person responsible for a War Crime. We need an AI weapons treaty now

tuban_muzuru Mar 8

@cmsdengl @futurebird

I have this theory called Sanitizing From Altitude, SFA.

I was an artillery forward observer. I delivered the mail, so to speak. We didn't have drones, sometimes we had FACs to direct airstrikes.

Out in front of the effing infantry.

See, if a nasty old terrorist sets off a bomb in a coffee shop, that's just awful.

But let me put a 155 round downrange, that's sposta be Bronze Star Heroic, eh?

War IS a crime.

GhostOnTheHalfShell Mar 8

@cmsdengl @futurebird

I think we already have those laws on the books. See Nuremberg. It’s not different if AI is issuing and executing the orders.

Researchers have been warning about the danger of this shit for what? How many years now?

Lastly, there’s that old line from IBM, that a machine cannot be making managerial decisions

tuban_muzuru Mar 8

War is as "natural" a state for mankind as two nests of Formica rufa fighting for territory.

Peace is highly unnatural among our species. Peace is achieved through the hard-won efforts of diplomats.

But wars have better music

I can't understand how someone could support war without being pretty damn'd sheltered.

GhostOnTheHalfShell Mar 8

People like Pete Hegseth don’t think of the people they kill as humans as individuals having moral relevance or agency.

He is part, I think, of the seven mountains faction of Christian nationalism. But in any case, he is part of dominance hierarchy of totalitarian control, with all of it religious decoration to legitimize totalitarian rule

Eric Lawton Mar 8

Does he think that survivors will ultimately feel gratitude towards the USA and Israel?

Even if next year there is a democratic régime installed in Iran, the anger will remain for a couple of generations.

They wonder why there are so many "terrorists" in a region full of people who have lived in terror for generations.

Brian Smith Mar 8

@EricLawton @futurebird
At least a hundred years....
Until the last person directly affected and their children are gone.

Mother Bones Mar 8

@EricLawton @futurebird

Same as any abuser who beats and controls others and thinks they'll "love" him if they would just acquiesce to the "rightness" of their own abuse. And then is shocked when a target pushes back.

What would you do, Pete, if they killed your family? Do you think you are the only person who loves their children?

Does he though? I expect that much of the USA's war-supporting population cares about their children like one cares about an expensive status-symbol object.

Replaceable, insultable, without any rights. An object.

Of course insulting a status symbol still involves an ego-based violent reaction, but I don't think they can actually feel the emotions normally involved.

@CAWguy has moved Mar 10

@futurebird Trying to bomb ‘Iranian terrorists’ away has me mentally repurposing artist Lucille Clerc’s Broken Pencil sketch:

Citoyen européen Ray Hindle ✔️Mar 8

@futurebird Too many of them think they can reload, reset, and start again

@futurebird “Not a video game.”

It seems that is how it’s being treated. They are using AI because they fired anyone who understood and was competent in the jobs they are occupying. And killing people has now become a game so they can pretend that they are important and that the US is still a world leader.

War is bad enough when run by experienced and knowledgeable people.

Not a Spring Onion Mar 8

@futurebird
IIRC, the CIA did something similar during the vietnam war.

They were tracking movements of groups of people (because people who don't stay in place and especially go to places that were forcefully emptied are obviously viet cong).

Turns out, it was often elderly and children returning to where they formerly lived, for cultural reasons CIA analysts didn't care to learn about, like to honor their ancestors.

So the US send soldiers to execute old people and small children, because they were obviously viet cong.

@wakame @futurebird

Exhibit A in "ho chi minh was the good guy"

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

@burnoutqueen @wakame @futurebird The only thing Ho Chi Minh ever committed his life to was freedom, unity & sovereignty for Vietnam peoples. He spent his entire life, fighting for that. Freedom from foreign rulers. That's why he was/is so respected & honoured to this day.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

@wakame @futurebird Affirmative. They did that. I've been sharing what US did to our peoples' in a thread, today.

Cedar Fen Farm Cedar Fen Farm Mar 8

@wakame @futurebird

And the resulting pictures fuelled massive protests and pressure on the government.