It's strange to me that 30 years later, basic RC Airplanes that I used to build/fly are being used as weapons of war. With the only difference being smaller GPS receivers and small cheap MEMS accelometer/gyro's.

Always figured they'd be easy to track/shoot down, but I guess no one bothered building AA for something that small, which is strange to me.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

When I first started flying FPV it occurred to me real quick that all you'd need is a signal to arm a weapon and a servo to drop the weapon. You can build the damn things out of foam board from the supermarket, use a $20 esc, receiver, and battery, some servos, and a camera. keep it low and fast and have a bunch

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

In ‘10 I went to a talk where some military guys fired a rocket from a drone. This has been a long time coming.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Yeah, I was like, "Shit. Looks like they got their hands on a container of old Eagle II kit planes."

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

With a little help from US SIGINT, I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ukraine was Soviet Union's manufacturing base. It also built the biggest airplane in the world. I think Ukraine can manage by itself

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

OP up there was talking about SIGINT - signals intelligence. That means that we helped them design their bombing run (eg to avoid detection) and probably helped designate a target.

Whether or not they received any assistance in the design or manufacturing of the drone, they very very likely had help from US intelligence.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Yes, that is what I meant. For a drone like this to hit its target, it must avoid being detected by air defence. The only way to achieve this for a simple system like this is to go around it, i.e. it has to know where the air defence assets are. Which is where the US comes in because there is no other way for Ukraine to obtain this kind of information.

[+] [email protected] -72 points 11 months ago (5 children)

A great reminder of why we don't have universal health care here in the US.

[–] ChairmanMeow 41 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Universal Healthcare is cheaper than the current US system. You could switch to it without having to cut anything.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Except you can't use medical coverage as a recruiting tool for the military.

[+] [email protected] -10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Cheaper if you count what consumers pay for health insurance, but you'd still need to find a way to come up with the money.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

The US government spends more per capita on healthcare than any nation does even though it doesn't cover their whole population, people pay for private coverage over that. Get rid of the inability for the government to negotiate prices with service/medication providers, make the government the sole provider of healthcare (meaning they can dictate how much they pay for medications because they have a monopoly) and ta-fucking-da, you just saved trillions every year.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

US tax money pays for 7 separate programs and all that administration.

Medicare

Medicaid

Children's Health Insurance Program

Indian Health Service (IHS)

Tricare

Then all the private insurances for federal employee

Then all the private insurances that corporations pay money to have even more administration.

So that's what 10 times the admin staff that a public program and private option would have?

Compared with Australia: Public (tax money) 1 program: Medicare Private several options such as: Bupas, Medibank, AHM.

Germany also has both public and private.

A crazy part of talking about single payer in America is the hang up over buying out public health providers with tax payer funds.

That never happened in Australia. They simply let private healthcare exist but built new public hospitals that became teaching and training hospitals. By slowly expanding pubic healthcare, which started in Queensland, they simply provided an option for more people to access local public healthcare.

Everyone gets stuck on trying to quick fix all this overnight. If we look at Oz Medicare didn't cover all Australians until 1984. But Queensland became the first state in Australia to introduce free universal public hospital treatment in January 1946. By building public hospitals one by one, training staff, and providing better care Queensland changed the way Australians thought about public va private care.

It costs more to have more administrative staff in America. But we refuse to train new doctors or build hospitals based on the needs of the communities they should serve. Therefore we end up with hospitals that serve shareholders, not doctors, not patients. We provide care for dollars instead of people.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Even if they had to buy all private hospitals, the US government is ready to spend tens of trillions on wars to find two guys hiding somewhere in the middle East, I'm pretty sure they could find the billions required to help them save trillions every year.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago

We don’t have universal healthcare in the US because of the HMO act and regulatory capture.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Care to elaborate?

[+] [email protected] -47 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Because spending a trillion-plus per year on our own wars wasn't enough to satiate the greed of American war profiteers. Now, we pay for other countries' wars too.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So you‘re telling me, you had universal healthcare before Russia attacked Ukraine? I’m pretty sure you already had a fucked up healthcare system before. Don’t blame others for the shit you’ve done to yourself..

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Pretty confident this is Ukrainian engineering and building. Not American.

Also, fuck off with the “we pay for other countries wars” when Ukraine was literally attacked in nothing more than a land grab. Help or shut the fuck up.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Furthermore it's an investment. It's lend-lease which has to be paid back by Ukraine. This essentially means that Ukraine will be USA's little bitch for a loooong time.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I will give astronomical amounts of my money to help Ukraine, but I don’t want them to be our bitch. I want a good regional ally. I want a regional partner with stability. I want them to be able to fight for themselves. They’re people and their own country.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I didn't say all Americans wants to fuck up the world. I just stated the obvious: The US supporting Ukraine with weapons has nothing to do with charity. It's a lend-lease. Eventually it has to be paid back. Before the debt is paid off Ukraine will do as USA wishes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Not to mention the treaty we signed with Ukraine in exchange for them turning over their nukes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This isn't true, lend-lease wasn't used, Ukraine is not paying back the assistance that was given so far. It could be authorized and used later, but hasn't been so far

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Care to elaborate?

The full title of the act is “An act to provide enhanced authority for the President to enter into agreements with the Government of Ukraine to lend or lease defense articles to that Government to protect civilian populations in Ukraine from Russian military invasion, and for other purposes.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_Democracy_Defense_Lend-Lease_Act_of_2022

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

The idea that the only options are defense spending or universal healthcare is a fallacy. It's a false choice. Common in propaganda.

In reality most (if not all) developed countries spend significantly LESS on healthcare than America. So if anything, having (near) universal healthcare would leave MORE money to spend on war.

In other words, America doesn't need to choose between military spending and universal healthcare. Certainly, you don't need to choose between supporting Ukraine (which might as well be a rounding error) and healthcare. America can choose to support Ukraine, maintain a huge defense budget, have universal (and superior) healthcare, and SAVE money.

The reason you don't have universal healthcare, isn't defense spending.

It's partly corporate greed and corporate influence.

It's partly an ideological choice.

It's partly American voters, voting against their own interests, because they've been lied to. Like you've almost certainly been lied to about healthcare.

Perhaps ask yourself who stood to gain from you thinking this was a binary choice.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Ukrainians paid for this

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Ukrainian UAVs are why you don't have universal healthcare? Fucking Ukrainians how could they do this to you

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

What does this have to do with conservatives?