Touché! Good point on "actually" and whether it is qualified, thanks. I guess that word only fits in relation to there actually being a novel which I was referring to? But I agree I should have worded that better. The word "fictionally" might have been a better choice? Glad your comment sparked some tangential discussion by others.

With that kind of resume building, we can expect a new Fast N' Furious sequel where a muscle-bound Austrian convinces Toretto to get his ass to Mars, because Race Wars meets Star Wars.

May the Farce be With Him. Always.

The mods don't block a lot of the box because they want the engagement to grow there forums. Reddit doesn't mind the bot engagement either the problem they're having is that it's become so obvious that it's infecting their data sets and their advertisers can't pretend anymore that the leads they're getting are worthwhile. So they have to clean things up a bit or their business model is at risk

Modern bots can get past most captcha unless it's a huge pain in the ass that starts to impact users.

Reddit has a problem where it adds too much friction it loses users because it's not as useful as site as Facebook.

I'm an introvert so Facebook isn't my thing but people I know who are extraverts or just want to find hobbyists with the same niche hobbies make a lot of use of Facebook to do that. And it does work for that purpose.

But Reddit doesn't have any of that and the bots have kind of made the discussions almost useless.

Honestly I would love the bot spam to go away. Because a lot of the political forums require accounts with high karma and long tenure non-political forums get really low effort shit posts like hey remember this game from your childhood isn't it great upvote me!

So it kind of wrecks any meaningful discussion or nerding out.

The trouble is all that is good for engagement so nobody really wants to take it out completely. What Reddit really wants is to be able to tell the bots from the real people so that they can continue to sell the data the real people generate and advertise to them

Let me guess you passed the test right? Well I guess that just proves how much smarter you are than I am...

You may walk away, but the level at which you assume to have control of “your” content, is truly astonishing.

It’ll be downright comical when AI is asked by the Board how to generate more Reddit revenue, and its answer is to restore from backup.

They do have low speed prop planes for shooting down shaheds, but they have a lot less of them than would have been available during WW2.

The V1s were a lot faster than shaheds, and a bit faster than most fighter aircraft of the day. The allies had to use tactics like steep diving to match their speed.
The shaheds are much slower, closer in speed to WW1 vintage aircraft so modern jets have trouble flying slow enough to keep them in gun range.

There's a major problem with the social media sites that there is so much bot traffic and it is getting so sophisticated that it's making its way into their main data sets and advertisements. It's becoming too obvious to the advertisers and data brokers that the data is being filled with bot traffic.

If this continues sites like Facebook and Reddit won't have dated sell or advertising that they can even pretend it's worthwhile.

This is why you see all those age verification laws. They are heavily pushed by Facebook because Facebook needs to know who you are. In the past they could do this pretty easily but with modern it deep fakes it's becoming very difficult. Age verification works around that letting them track you perfectly. Also think of the children.

Reddit isn't popular enough or useful enough that they can get people in Mass to verify their IDs. They know this and because of it they will try their best to limit the amount of push they do at least until mandatory age verification is everywhere.

Even then that's probably going to be bad for them because readdit again isn't all that interesting or useful so they're bound to lose users.

Children raised by robot educators/philosophers actually worked out well in the fictional sci-fi novel by James P. Hogan "Voyage from Yesteryear":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"The story opens early in the 21st century, as an automated space probe is being prepared for a mission to explore habitable exoplanets in the Alpha Centauri system. However, Earth appears destined for a global war which the probe designers fear that humanity may not survive. It appears that the only chance for the human species is to reestablish itself far away from the conflict but there is no time left for a crewed expedition to escape Earth. The team, led by Henry B. Congreve, change their mission priority and quickly modify the design to carry several hundred sets of electronically coded human genetic data. Also included in this mission of embryo space colonization is a databank of human knowledge, robots to convert the data into genetic material and care for the children and construct habitats when the destination is reached, and a number of artificial wombs. The probe's designers name it the Kuan-Yin after the bodhisattva of childbirth and compassion.
        Shortly after the launch, global war indeed breaks out and several decades later, Earthbound humanity is united under an authoritarian government. It is this government that receives a radio message from the fledgling "Chironian" civilization revealing that the probe found a habitable planet (Chiron) and that the first generation of children have been raised successfully.
        As the surviving power blocs of Earth before the conflict are still evident, North America, Europe and Asia each send a generation ship to Alpha Centauri to take control of the colony. By the time that the first generation ship (the American Mayflower II) arrives after 20 years, Chironian society is in its fifth generation.
        The Mayflower II has brought with it thousands of settlers, all the trappings of the authoritarian regime along with bureaucracy, religion, fascism and a military presence to keep the population in line. However, the planners behind the generation ship did not anticipate the direction that Chironian society took: in the absence of conditioning and with limitless robotic labor and fusion power, Chiron has become a post-scarcity economy. Money and material possessions are meaningless to the Chironians and social standing is determined by individual talent, which has resulted in a wealth of art and technology without any hierarchies, central authority or armed conflict.
        In an attempt to crush this anarchist adhocracy, the Mayflower II government employs every available method of control; however, in the absence of conditioning the Chironians are not even capable of comprehending the methods, let alone bowing to them. The Chironians simply use methods similar to Gandhi's satyagraha and other forms of nonviolent resistance to win over most of the Mayflower II crew members, who had never previously experienced true freedom, and isolate the die-hard authoritarians. ...

I guess it maybe all depends how wisely the robots are programmed initially? Sadly, with several AI companies racing forward in a winner-takes-all hyper-competitive safety-ignoring way to earn a lot of fiat dollars, seems like something needs to change to build a more hopeful future. Still, there is always the "Optimism of Uncertainty" as Howard Zinn called it.
https://www.thenation.com/arti...

Time to trot out my sig again, sigh: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."
https://pdfernhout.net/recogni...
"The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream."

It was awesome ten days ago to see someone else who understands that irony:
"The Real Danger of AI Has Nothing to Do With AI" by Mo Gawdat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
        "Artificial intelligence is often described as a force that will shape humanity's future, yet technology itself carries no intention, morality, or agenda. The direction it takes depends entirely on the values and decisions of the people creating and using it.
        As intelligence becomes more powerful and capable of solving increasingly complex problems, the real question shifts away from what machines can do and toward what humanity chooses to prioritize. Every major technological leap reflects the ethical frameworks of the society behind it, meaning the future shaped by AI will ultimately mirror human behavior rather than machine logic.
        The challenge is not teaching machines to think -- it is learning to think more wisely ourselves."

Mo Gawdat was talking about AI, but the same applies to using advanced manufacturing and supply chains to make hypersonic missiles as in the article. That's US$99,000 that can't otherwise be used to make food, water, shelter, energy, 3D printers, and so on -- and so exacerbating the very conflicts that lead people to want to use hypersonic missiles.

Or for a more humorous take on this by me from 2009 as another "Downfall" bunker scene parody (which coincidentally starts with a mention of rockets/missiles):
https://groups.google.com/g/po...
        "Dialog of alternatively a military officer and Hitler:
"It looks like there are now local digital fabrication facilities here, here, and here."
"But we still have the rockets we need to take them out?"
"The rockets have all been used to launch seed automated machine shops for self-replicating space habitats for more living space in space."
"What about the nuclear bombs?"
"All turned into battery-style nuclear power plants for island cities in the oceans."
"What about the tanks?"
"The diesel engines have been remade to run biodiesel and are powering the internet hubs supplying technical education to the rest of the world."
"I can't believe this. What about the weaponized plagues?"
"The gene engineers turned them into antidotes for most major diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, cancer, and river blindness."
"Well, send in the Daleks."
"The Daleks have been re-outfitted to terraform Mars. There all gone with the rockets."
"Well, use the 3D printers to print out some more grenades."
"We tried that, but they only are printing toys, food, clothes, shelters, solar panels, and more 3D printers, for some reason."
"But what about the Samsung automated machine guns?"
"They were all reprogrammed into automated bird watching platforms. The guns were taken out and melted down into parts for agricultural robots."
"I just can't believe this. We've developed the most amazing technology the world has ever known in order to create artificial scarcity so we could rule the world through managing scarcity. Where is the scarcity?"
"Gone, Mein Fuhrer, all gone. All the technologies we developed for weapons to enforce scarcity have all been used to make abundance."
"How can we rule without scarcity? Where did it all go so wrong? ... Everyone with an engineering degree leave the room ... now!" [Cue long tirade on the general incompetence of engineers. :-) Then cue long tirade on how could engineers seriously wanted to help the German workers to not have to work so hard when the whole Nazi party platform was based on providing full employment using fiat dollars. Then cue long tirade on how could engineers have taken the socialism part seriously and shared the wealth of nature and technology with everyone globally.]
"So how are the common people paying for all this?"
"Much is free, and there is a basic income given to everyone for the rest. There is so much to go around with the robots and 3D printers and solar panels and so on, that most of the old work no longer needs to be done."
"You mean people get money without working at jobs? But nobody would work?"
"Everyone does what they love. And they are producing so much just as gifts."
"Oh, so you mean people are producing so much for free that the economic system has failed?"
"Yes, the old pyramid scheme one, anyway. There is a new post-scarcity economy, where between automation and a a gift economy the income-through-jobs link is almost completely broken. Everyone also gets income as a right of citizenship as a share of all our resources for the few things that still need to be rationed. Even you."
"Really? How much is this basic income?"
"Two thousand a month."
"Two thousand a month? Just for being me?"
"Yes."
"Well, with a basic income like that, maybe I can finally have the time and resources to get back to my painting...""

Sadly we are seeing some real bunker scenes with billionaires and they are not so funny:
https://www.vice.com/en/articl...
        "The men cited potential disasters caused by electromagnetic pulses, economic downturn, disease, or war that might "necessitate them leaving their Silicon Valley ranches and retreating to these fortified bunkers in the middle of nowhere."
        These "luxury bunkers" include features most of us could only ever dream of, like indoor pools and artificial sunlight, allowing them to remain sealed off from the world for years at a time, if necessary.
        "The billionaires understand that they're playing a dangerous game," Rushkoff said. "They are running out of room to externalize the damage of the way that their companies operate. Eventually, there's going to be the social unrest that leads to your undoing."
        Like the gated communities of the past, their biggest concern was to find ways to protect themselves from the "unruly masses," Rushkoff said. "The question we ended up spending the majority of time on was: 'How do I maintain control of my security force after my money is worthless?'"
        That is, if their money is no longer worth anything--if money no longer means power--how and why would a Navy Seal agree to guard a bunker for them?
        "Once they start talking in those terms, it's really easy to start puncturing a hole in their plan," Rushkoff said. "The most powerful people in the world see themselves as utterly incapable of actually creating a future in which everything's gonna be OK.""

The so called "rules of war" are made by the strong to raise the barrier of entry and prevent smaller players from even bothering to go to war with them.
But the reality is there are no rules in war, it's a case of win at all costs. You're only going to face punishment for breaking the rules if you lose, if you win you can make up your own rules.

The US should know that well, during the war of independence they didn't play by the established rules under which Britain and France had been fighting for years, they used guerrilla tactics which proved highly effective.

If your only air defence consists of patriot batteries then you have to use them regardless of what's incoming. UAE may well have been unprepared for this kind of attack.
Their initial effectiveness against unprepared enemies is largely down to them being low tech. Air defences were no longer geared up to contend with low speed flying targets. If you'd launched shahed drones during WW2 or even WW1 they would have been very quickly taken out by fighter aircraft of the day.

Ukraine on the other hand has been facing shahed attacks for several years, and have developed multiple significantly cheaper methods to counter them. Most of these methods would not work against a cheap missile flying at mach 5.

Not worthless at all. They're cheap and can be built quickly, and while they might be easy to intercept, the interceptors are not cheap.

The shahed drones are cheap too, and yet they have done a lot of damage.
Ukraine is launching cheap drones based on converted light aircraft, these are also doing major damage.

If you can build and launch more cheap drones/missiles than the enemy is able to intercept, you can overwhelm their defences and get a few strikes through. The first missiles you send get intercepted, but also give away the launch sites of the interceptors. If you have the resources to keep lobbing cheap missiles then pretty soon the interceptors run out and you score hits.