Much less total death and dying as well, though. Battles were short and small scale until the Civil War (maybe the Napoleonic Wars prior? Debatable). The largest battles of history prior to the industrial revolution were in the thousands, 10s of thousands of people. Forces were usually broken and defeated or fled after brief engagements. Brutal in experience, but smaller in scale.
It was that perception of war as personal, intimate, chivalric, by old men that let to the peak atrocity period (PAP? Did I coin a term?) of ~1850-1950. WWI was really the first modern reckoning of industrialized, globalized war, that led to the staggering scale of suffering. Incomprehensible to the men that commanded it, as they were born and acculturated in pre-modern war era culture.
But then the epoch-defining tool of the atom came along, and war has gone back to smaller scale, focused, targeted, "precision".
So here we sit, straddling two eras again. Pre-drone and post drone. We have not fully reckoned with what the new era means. But it will come quickly, like most modern tool-culture cycles.
Yes brutal, for the defenders of the castles and fortified cities they conquered.
But again, very targeted at key sites so as to assert an Imperial-vassal relationship. Not to really to metamorph the populace, and run the day to day, which was left to local leadership.
Their point was to demonstratively subjugate for the purposes of control and tribute, not to kill, replace, or even miscegenate. They were the mob-bosses of Eurasia, not the crusaders or jihadis.
The ILWU controls labor at all west coast ports, including LALB, which is responsible for a majority of consumer imports from the Pacific. It has bargained effectively to block developing container handling automation systems.
I am trying to use more neutral language when I comment, so that the underlying assertion of facts are more likely to resonate with someone who may disagree with me.
I agree with your characterization, but I just wanted the parent comment to look up the ILWU, where they would probably see some of those facts for themselves and be more likely to understand my position.
As the human internet dies, I feel like it's more important for those of us that want some of it to survive to participate constructively.
Remember, the Cerner acquisition enabled an essentially permanent beachhead for Oracle in the VA. It will pay off over time in 'we already run Oracle' across many dimensions of government.
They had a very kludgy, homegrown, but generally well-liked and cost effective EMR calls Vista.
The fact that it was cost effective, but required internal expertise was exactly what led the Trump administration to kill it.
Now they are transitioning to Cerner, the worse of the two major commerical EMRs by a fair margin, for many billions of dollars to the Kansas-based company, now owned by Oracle.
You can fill in the details of why this is happening by looking at where the CMS appointees at the time have landed in their post-government careers.
I bought the last two units left at any HD for a few hundred miles; drove them up there Monday.
Apparently my friend had to drive in and out of his (utterly destroyed) neighborhood in Swannanoa because it required the app and cell service to set up. And when they returned home it wouldn't work. Took multiple trips back and forth to get it usable in the area where it was actually needed.
Then of course the Helene intro deal requires an extensive form to fill out, so he just paid for it.
And, incrementally, we all give our money to another publicly funded, government protected, privately held monopoly. And yet... it's charity.
Anyway, the entire neighborhood is using it to coordinate resources to dig out their holler. So hey, she'll do for now.
Re your father; wow, what a life. Thanks for documenting that for us.
My grandfather became a Navy navigator, B25s I think, right as the war ended. Chased hurricanes in the Pacific. I was the only person in the family to ever get much out of him about it in the last years before he passed.
Even in peacetime operations, he watched many colleagues die in storms, fog, and from accidents. I think everyone who served then saw how arbitrary death could be, and how the entire service was designed to operate around the necessary assumption that lives would vanish for nothing - and that everything else had to keep humming along.
Provides a very different perspective than the modern era.
Much less total death and dying as well, though. Battles were short and small scale until the Civil War (maybe the Napoleonic Wars prior? Debatable). The largest battles of history prior to the industrial revolution were in the thousands, 10s of thousands of people. Forces were usually broken and defeated or fled after brief engagements. Brutal in experience, but smaller in scale.
It was that perception of war as personal, intimate, chivalric, by old men that let to the peak atrocity period (PAP? Did I coin a term?) of ~1850-1950. WWI was really the first modern reckoning of industrialized, globalized war, that led to the staggering scale of suffering. Incomprehensible to the men that commanded it, as they were born and acculturated in pre-modern war era culture.
But then the epoch-defining tool of the atom came along, and war has gone back to smaller scale, focused, targeted, "precision".
So here we sit, straddling two eras again. Pre-drone and post drone. We have not fully reckoned with what the new era means. But it will come quickly, like most modern tool-culture cycles.
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