Posted by bookofjoe 12/22/2025
This fake hysteria over drones is even worse, considering that the drones don't have the means of sending arbitrary data to remote servers.
And whatever it sends can and would have been sniffed by now. It's incredible how much time people have to expend on way-more-obscure snooping than that.
So this whole thing is utterly stupid
America and China will probably find themselves in a proxy and/or hybrid war before 2035 (unless China stops trying to invade Taiwan).
None of that requries a nuclear exchange, nor even conventional strikes by China on the American homeland or vice versa.
The USA is clearly not prepared to sacrifice any of its own cities to prevent an invasion of Taiwan.
All this sabre rattling and military buildup only serves to put money in the pockets of the military industrial complex and/or build military capabilities for each country to exert its will within its own sphere of influence.
I think there are 2 false statements here. First, you could have conventional conflict alone, the same way you had WW2 without extensive use of chemical weapons.
Second, there are possible paths to have a winnable nuclear war, actually, the US did have one a couple of decades ago and it won. I do agree that saying this out loud though is dangerous because the reason for nuclear taboo is also based on the perception of "end of world" it has.
Modern nuclear weapons seem to be very effective, but as you note, it has only been tested once (when only one side had them).
Well yeah because at that time they were the only one who had a nuclear bomb. That situation didn't last long.
I think it's really great that it's such a taboo, otherwise these things would be used a lot, incurring all sorts of pollution, mass casualties and chances to escalate. It's a good thing that these have not been used since WWII though I do think their existence as a deterrent has brought us a bit more peace.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-adds-dji-other-foreig...
Every DJI product I've interacted with has reeked of spyware. Many (all?) of their products brick themselves from the factory until you install an app, create an account, and pair to the device to "activate" it. Both the app installation and PII acquisition are mandatory, regardless of whether they're necessary for correct device function.
Hopefully, this opens the floodgates to a new, more competitive market for drones, where these forms of malpractice don't fly (heh). I'm not optimistic.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/10/29/donald-t...
[2] https://www.unusualmachines.com/about-us/company-presentatio...
edit: I'm speculating here that the supply chain wasn't already state-side for these players without knowing much about their business model
https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-updates-covered-list-add-ce...
Flight controllers? ESCs? Who knows!
If some US drone manufacturer crosses the administration in some way, say in terms of backdoors or lack thereof, it's one less option for the consumer.
Think chat control in the EU but based on executive order in the US, and drones.
Not like a full-on conspiracy or anything but I wouldn't say it's beyond the pale for that kind of conversation control to be SOP for some groups somewhere.
Also, we already know that many foreign countries have intentionally hired people to do specifically that.
Forces drone engineering and manufacturing into the US if they want to sell anything to anyone in the US.