The author’s point is that, even if you are correct 100% of the time, fighting every battle is toxic to yourself and everyone around you.

They are saying to look past the fact that you might be right and consider that it’s not worth the effort anyway.

Now, I will attempt to put down my phone and not respond to any replies I get to the contrary.

Sweating intensifies…

Epictetus writes that the truely educated aren't quarrelsome. "The beautiful and good person neither fights with anyone nor, as much as they are able, permits others to fight.. this is the meaning of getting an education - learning what is your own affair and what is not. If a person carries themselves so, where is there any room for fighting?"

What is the goal when you start arguing with someone online? Is that goal achievable?

For me the goal is twofold. I'm arguing for the people reading the comment chain, not necessarily the commenter's sake. I know it's nearly impossible to convince someone you are arguing with. But also I do try and have an open mind. It's not common that I change my position, but it does happen.

For example, I was once a climate change denier. It was debating with people online which caused me to reflect and change that position.

I'm not sure people are reading comment chains deeply enough to be swayed by two strangers arguing online. All too often these days, folks are just engaging in point scoring type arguments and readers just agree with their tribe.

Not saying it doesn't happen, nor that it's a good goal taken with care. But me personally the ROI just isn't there (your calculus is different, and that's okay!)

A lot of times when I engage in arguments online, I think of it more as showing nuance to a person. I'm not trying to persuade them, I'm not trying to win, I'm just trying to show them that the problem space is a bit more complicated than their view is showing them. At least that's how I justify it to myself when I do engage. And of course, I'm no where close to perfect, I engage in petty point scoring arguments because it feels good at the time but isn't fruitful or healthy in the long run.

I do, and I have. I’ve also argued something with someone and come out the other side convinced of their position. (Sometimes immediately. More often down the road. Nevertheless, a valuable exchange.)

There's a whole field of street epistemology which is about persuading people. Arguing with them is one of the least effective ways to do that. Socratic dialogue sometimes works, although for any belief that has an emotional root you're likely to hit a crash out point.

It turns out the most effective techniques are manipulative. The best persuasion doesn't look like argument or persuasion, it looks like something self-evident you can't help agree with.

HN comments sway me more than any other source nowadays. Reading comments not directed at myself probably makes it easier because my ego does not feel attacked.

Counterpoint, literally doing that right now in this thread as I’m considering the merits of online discourse in the context of stoicism.

It also made me go back on my own sources and question where they were coming from. Let's just say the anti climate change positions become a lot less convincing when you dig into their sourcing and find a large number of them literally funded by the likes of Koch industries or Glenn Beck's personal companies.

Data won’t help it at all. It’s available two clicks away, there is no shortage of it.

People want to believe otherwise and you will never actually convince anyone on the internet using data on anything in 99% of the cases.

Persuasion is an art and most of the people on the internet have no clue how to manipulate human mind to instil beliefs.

I can give a short rundown on persuasion as non autistic individual actually having those skills:

1. Always say that you understand somebody point of view. Appear interested in what they have to say and respect their beliefs.

2. Intertwine few uncomfortable questions in their point of view, very gently and non argumentative. These are the seeds of doubt.

You are a farmer it’s like gardening and watering a flower. You must be gentle with new sprouts of doubt. Tend to the garden of new beliefs and one day they will bear fruit.

I agree and this is true. But my opinion and position there shifted around 2010 or so.

It's true the data was there and available in a few clicks. But I wasn't seeking it out and instead was relying on trusted sources that were lying to me.

Now-a-days, though, even my parents are on board with climate change being real. It's just too apparent for anyone that can remember what the world was like 10 or 20 years ago.

One of the best ways humans have developed for information transfer is rhetorical debate. You're supposed to argue for whatever you believe in vehemently, but critically, abandoning it as much as necessary to adopt a better, more accurate understanding or model.

Unquestioned or unchallenged ideas are significantly less valuable than challenged or improved ones. Arguing for and defending what you know is a good thing, holding on to convictions that aren't improving your life or the life of others is fucking stupid. And the idea that you can't learn something from another human because the medium is the Internet, is certainly a take to read from someone making a comment on the internet.

This works only for very narrow set of topics about numbers and data.

Even the same academics that would change their mind quickly about some theory would never actually change their mind on their strong ideological convictions. I know it from real life examples.

Strange that it needs to be articulated so loud and clear.

So I repeat again if you changed your mind under influence of an internet stranger then it wasn’t a very strong conviction.

There's no need to change that kind of strong convictions, what needs to change is the desire to use such convictions as justification for policies imposed onto others.

> Even the same academics that would change their mind quickly about some theory would never actually change their mind on their strong ideological convictions

Again, that wouldn't be a problem if they recognized the right of others to think differently. Their propensity to invoke "science" to justify intrusive policies, one way or the other, is the real problem.

> So I repeat again if you changed your mind under influence of an internet stranger then it wasn’t a very strong conviction.

To paraphrase Keynes here, those who don't change their minds when facts change are simply fools or trolls. And the realization of change may come from a single word, of people known or unknown, or even without words - it doesn't matter, change must take place when change is due.

We could argue about the semantics of "very strong convictions" until the cows come home, but it won't do any good if we haven't beforehand agreed upon "why we argue".

Look, I don’t even know why are we arguing over what exactly? I don’t know. Seems like truisms

I don’t even know what is exactly your opposite view on anything right now and if it indeed exists or what is the point of this exchange.

I just said basic truth - majority of people won’t change mind under influence of online strangers and if they do their convictions weren’t that strong to begin with.

You could of course provide me with data that this is not true and people change mind under online strangers persuasion all day everyday

Actually, it's the other way around - you have to provide data showing that the majority of people won't change their minds under the influence of online strangers regardless of the quality of arguments and the time they spare to participate in discussions. That's how proper studies are done.

> Look, I don’t even know why are we arguing over what exactly?... Seems like truisms

As I said, that depends on the semantics of "strongly held convictions". Do all people have them or are they just for bigots?

See, you fail to convince me not because you're stranger but because the quality of your arguments is lacking - you seem to conflate these and then, instead of finding a productive reason to participate in the discussion, you jump to the defensive "I'm just writing truisms".

I am content with knowing what I know and more people joining this particular abstract group makes no difference to my wellbeing or sense of satisfaction.

that includes other people, ideas, and arguments.

people dont change their mind by considering the evidence, its emotional and you confabulate the new reason for your new preferences

I'm tired, Boss...

The outcome is not foretold. I have learned a lot from being corrected by someone who knows more than me or points out a fault in my assumptions/logic. I have also learned from seeing subject matter experts arguing with each other.

Not always, but it is at least always entertainment. If the alternative you would have chosen is watching a mindless movie then you're no worse off.

> and you don't enrich the other person or those around you by doing so.

It is inherently a solitary activity. You are right that the likelihood of a bystander gaining anything from it is nearly zero, but there was never any reason to think they would. It was never about them. Squabbling, as you call it, happens so you can learn about yourself.

I'm sure this is some sort of confirmation bias, I've noticed fewer stupid talking points for topics where I argue about online. I doubt it has any impact in people's political beliefs, but people end up being slightly less ideological and more hedgey. IMO, establishment figures are too dismissive about engaging with the public because they think they're above it, but this is how you end up with DOGE laying off departments only to beg for them back.

Also, honestly, I just enjoy the feeling of putting a dumb person in their place. Occasionally, I'm the dumb person, but I don't really mind that since I'm not really tied to any viewpoint. Being more informed also satisfies my mild superiority complex. Also, even if I don't learn from others, generally learn from the process of defining my arguments.

I personally wasn't too convinced by scepticism but it was an interesting read nevertheless and I did take some bits away from it.

Most of the stoic writings are letters and aren't super long. They're very approachable!

I disagree, and offer the world of 2026 as anecdotal evidence lol. Most of what you wrote implies that every person participates in arguments honestly, with full faith, and are both cognitively capable of, and actively willing to, receive, evaluate and ultimately accept the argument as a zero-sum "winner". In reality, illogical appeals to emotion tend to win the day.

This also kind of refuses to acknowledge that a lot of people simply don't feel the need to be right; some people move in silence, others just don't care for the friction, or need the accolades. Still others don't enjoy the company of self-righteous, unbending, argumentative people, or have wildly different perspectives on a topic due to life experiences that are unfathomable to the rest.

I believe that multiple things can often be right simultaneously, and it's exactly that kind of positive sum philosophy that drives the most argumentative and need-to-be-right people completely insane haha. Different strokes for different folks man.

Not to a neutral party. Debates and arguments that can change the course of a project happen in front of a neutral committee (ideally) in that case logic can win.

> This also kind of refuses to acknowledge that a lot of people simply don't feel the need to be right; some people move in silence, others just don't care for the friction, or need the accolades. Still others don't enjoy the company of self-righteous, unbending, argumentative people, or have wildly different perspectives on a topic due to life experiences that are unfathomable to the rest.

I didn’t refuse to acknowledge. Did you even read my post? I said people feel both. The need to argue and the need to avoid it. Most people feel it on sort of an even 5050 ground but there are some people who of course swing one way or the other. If you describe the human condition in general and not get into specifics or edge cases. Overall the most apt description is a duality.

> I believe that multiple things can often be right simultaneously, and it's exactly that kind of positive sum philosophy that drives the most argumentative and need-to-be-right people completely insane haha. Different strokes for different folks man.

Did you read my post? I feel you read the first part and felt the need to argue your point without consideration to the topic at hand. My entire post is about a conflicting duality when it comes to arguing. You embody your own stereotype you describe.

For what it's worth, I did read your post twice before I replied, just to see if I didn't get it on the first pass. What I took from it, and maybe I'm thick as molasses, was that humans defacto love to argue due to biological imperative, we stratify social value based on the success of arguments, and ultimately promote argument as a contact sport that you can dominate in for personal gain and personal validation. Dominate instead of mediate, which I've found through life experience to come most often from people who are deeply insecure with themselves.

When I came back to the thread, I noticed that the submission title had been updated to Most arguments are about ego, not ideas and saw your replies to my post + siblings, and felt like that new title encapsulated your responses perfectly. You and I simply disagree on the purpose and value of argument.

Persuasive people rarely argue. Persuasive people do not need to be unequivocally right. The most persuasive people do get what they want in the end, but you often don't even realize you've been persuaded.

Argumentative people leverage power if they have it, and data, and sometimes "win", but rarely succeed in persuasion.

And that's just my opinion! Feel free to disagree, I've no interest in an argument LOL

When you say you persuaded someone it meant you gave a persuasive argument. You’ve turned the discussion into word play but essentially we are in agreement that I am right. No need to argue when we both agree.

There's a lot of sloppy thinking in that post, starting with the pseudo-scientific framing in terms of evolutionary psychology... which is ironic given then ScIeNcE-bro tone... couched against an artificial and incorrect taxonomy of reason into "philosophical, logical and scientific"... in reality those are intersecting at times, orthogonal at others, and the devil is generally in the details... but it certainly doesn't make sense to impose some kind of juvenile "batman vs superman" power scaling hierarchy on top of them...

The reduction of the results of an argument to a binary win/loss between two people is probably the most humorously absurd bit. There are many outcomes of an argument. Sometimes it pivots research in a fruitful direction. Sometimes it leads to compromise. Sometimes parties talk past one another. Sometimes it serves to create an artifact for later analysis/reflection. Sometimes it causes us to pause and re-evaluate before acting. Sometimes it plants a seed that bears fruit later. Sometimes it strengthens both parties by refining their respective views. Sometimes it wastes everyone's time and nothing valuable comes of it.

Pursuit of knowledge or aligning action to truth isn't an arm-wrestling contest with winner-takes-all outcomes. That's just a silly framing that doesn't reflect reality, it's the kind of way you see the world of you aren't actually part of knowledge production and consume "debates" as influencer-slop from Ben Shapiro types.

I argue with people all the time. At work, with friends. It's generally a form of productive commerce. I see things one way and have knowledge/strengths that I bring to bear through my perspective. Others have their own knowledge/strengths. Working together, we might build a scalable data system, prioritize a road map, design a better game, make food decisions at a restaurant, have an enlightening political conversation, improve a speedrun. Whatever, the ends are various. The means are often spirited debate, in which, generally, everybody wins. That's just kind of the first principal of macro economic theory, if you need a bro-system to cash things out into.

This is kind of rude, implying I’m on drugs. It’s a cheap way to win an argument to sort of degrade your opponent before even talking.

I prefer to keep what’s underneath my post is as a discussion rather then play games or engage in arguments like this. So I’m sorry to say, everything you wrote underneath that initial paragraph you can just throw it in the trash because I’m not reading it. Apologies and thank you.

Frequently accompanied by a feeling of despair when you are dominated by another.

> The fact that this thread even exists speaks to the fact of the extremely high survival benefit this behavior confers onto a human.

Dialog brings clarity. Clarity helps build tools. Tools help survival. So, if there is anything to seek, try clarity of understanding - not being right, and being right stands in the way of understanding.

Take a few minutes to read the entire post. I talk about this. In fact the entire point of my post is about this. If you missed the point I can only assume you decided to respond without reading everything.

> Dialog brings clarity. Clarity helps build tools. Tools help survival. So, if there is anything to seek, try clarity of understanding - not being right, and being right stands in the way of understanding.

The dialog itself is not what I’m referring to. I’m referring to empathetic relation. This “dialog” or thread exists because participants in this thread relate to all the emotions described in said topic. Please finish reading my post before responding.

But I also got the feeling when reading this article that this guy loves motte-and-bailey. People don't intentionally set out to do motte-and-bailey arguments, but they often do it by accident. When people realize that they're arguing the losing side but can't admit it, they subtly shift their argument, and shift, and shift again until they're out of the bailey and inside the unassailable motte. Now they're the "winner" of the argument and can maintain their 100% argument success rate. Nice, and since nobody's recording the conversation, nobody can prove that they changed their argument in order to get on the winning side.

Motte-and-bailey is a common strategy for people who think they've won every argument they've ever been in. Nobody is so logically perfect that they actually win every argument without resorting to some kind of fallacy. I can't prove it. I just speak from experience. When I first learned about motte-and-bailey, I realized I had used it myself without realizing it. It's a natural tendency because it's so easy to do without really thinking.

Once we've learned all the fallacies and recognize them in ourselves, we finally realize that arguing is stupid and stop doing it so much. :)

:)

It's a healthy attitude I believe. I think a little argument is fine, but there does need to be a time when you learn to stop. A lot of people want to get the last word in and I'm at the point where I just let that happen generally (though I do often want that last word myself :) )

What I've found is that when an argument feels like it's running in a circle, that's the time to bow out. You don't need to say anything or point anything out, just stop responding. The person with the last word doesn't automatically "win" and you certainly aren't always the one to "win". Winning doesn't really matter, the argument and the persuasion of the readers of the comment chain is what matters more.

But also real life isn't the internet and how you write shouldn't mirror how you talk. I have loads of family members I disagree with, and we do argue about hot button issues. But everyone approaches it with a "we love each other" and we listen and respond to what's being said. In fact, I generally make it a point in conversation to find common ground and agree with the person I'm talking to. Unlike an internet comment train where I know I'm probably going to disappear from memory, with real relationships I know I'll see my family again, a lot.

Probably a sign of something larger if you think this, which OP apparently does.

If he knew so much, he wouldn't be an engineer complaining about how everyone's stupider than him

Care about thing -> learn more about it

Care about thing -> argue about it

Sometimes it's worth considering what the effort is on. Another assumption is that you should effort is in convincing someone rather than understanding them: play dumb on the topic, and perhaps ask the other person questions to see why they think the thing(s) they do.

Knowing other people's cognitive blindspots may help you avoid them yourself. Perhaps make the effort on understanding.

https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-comic-misanthrope-in-a-...

But I guess I should try to be a better person too, ugh.

on edit: I put in the link because while off subject does sum up the misanthropic personality pretty well, and their impulses.

I know you were joking, but you should try it sometimes. It's very cathartic to get things out of your system and then ignore any replies. It's my default mode.

Not because I think I'm right (I think I'm aware of my flaws), but because I realize I don't feel like arguing about it, maybe my reply is closer to a belief of mine I've no wish to defend, and I suspect any snarky replies might incite a bad back-and-forth that never ends well online, bet it HN or elsewhere. So having gotten the reply out of my system, I delete it before anyone has a chance to reply.

Somehow my brain gets tricked into thinking I've replied, and allows me to drop the whole conversation in peace. It's a neat trick.

If you're right, or at least, not making a complete ass of yourself, chances are someone else is going to come along and argue back for you. And besides the benefit that someone else will likely explain your position in a slightly different way, and the multiple POVs might combine more effectively, having a half dozen people explain to someone why they're wrong is a lot more convincing to random bystanders than two morons replying "nuh-uh" to each other a few dozen times.

And if no one jumps in to defend you, it's a pretty good signal to step back and re-read everything and have a good think before you have another go at it, at least to make sure you have something to add beyond what you have already said, even if you think you're still right.

To use a charged example but maybe less controversial than DEI on HN, let’s say it’s some ridiculous claim about vaccines (“they cause autism.”) The reason harmful ideas like that spread is because people throw them out online and other people online read them/hear them. I have a hard time believing that loud, public pushback isn’t important. If it’s not, then making those loud, public claims initially wouldn’t be so effective. Grifters making money off scaring people away from life saving vaccines and towards their snake oil supplements wouldn’t be successful if these platforms didn’t convince people. But I also acknowledge that it’s not necessarily my place and it’s not good for my mental health to participate.

So I don’t really know what the answer is. But it just doesn’t feel right to let some of that stuff just sit out in public unchallenged. I know a lot of what I think comes from being “a child of the Internet.” There’s no doubt my personal experience on the Internet was fundamental to my more progressive values I now hold. So again, I have no clue what the answer is here or whose responsibility it is.

Fighting every battle is toxic. But calling something out doesn’t need to be a fight. I’m still halfway convinced a lot of Silicon Valley’s success derived from having lots of folks on the spectrum who wouldn’t bat an eye at calling out the CEO for making a mistake. (And said CEO, and everyone around them, having to get accustomed to that.)

One day, I happened to read an article that said they were given a free copy of VB6 to review for the magazine.

My 17yo mind was blown! Hundreds of dollars worth of software given away for free? Just for writing an article?! I could do that!

Having nothing to lose, I called Microsoft's PR department and requested a copy. Told them I published a newsletter about computers and was based in Queens, NY. Their only question? Where should they send the software lol

It was literally that easy. A single phone call with zero verification about me, my newsletter, and my so-called publishing company.

And it was Enterprise edition which retailed for over $1,000. For little 17yo me!

Naturally, I kept calling for more software. Office, Windows 98/NT, Encarta... you name it.

I even started calling other companies and published a single edition of the newsletter, in case anyone asked for a copy but no one ever did. All they wanted to know was where they should send the software.

One of my favorite free items was course on VB which came on 6 VHS cassettes. The lessons I learned from those tapes built the foundation of my programming carrier.

Of course, older me understands the economics of sending people a few bits of plastic & paper in exchange for press coverage but the joy I felt getting that software in the mail still hasn't left my mind.

Good times =D

About 20 years ago the Microsoft for Startups program included the full MSDN subscription which was ~5 keys for every product they ever made. 5 keys of Windows XP, 5 keys for windows server, 5 keys for 2000, 5 keys for every variant of Office. Very popular at LAN parties and they never did recall any of those keys. Today it seems they just give you developer tools and office, not the OS.

Back in the early 2000s the company I worked for was a small IT shop and MS software reseller and the MSDN subscription included everything. I remember setting up Windows 2000 advanced server as my home network's router.

The IM portion was simple logic but the real-time voice was a challenge back then because audio compression was in its infancy. The few real-time compression libraries that existed were expensive to license and some even required royalties. Way out of my league.

At the same time, writing a compression algorithm myself was beyond my abilities. There weren't any VHS courses on that topic yet haha.

My solution was to use the recording control that came with VB6. I couldn't set the audio bitrate with that control but, if I had the recorder append the recording to an existing file, it would use the bitrate defined in that existing file.

So I created a teeny tiny wave file with 0 seconds of audio, included it with the program binary, and used a copy of it to seed & set the bitrate of each conversation.

Since they weren't compressed, the file integrity was very forgiving. I was able to pull out a chunk of data from anywhere in the audio file, put it into its own file, and it would play the extracted chunk of audio just fine.

So, that's what I did. I used the VB6 recording control with my low bitrate seed file to record their voice, had my code grab 1 second chunks of audio from that file, "stream" it to the other end of the line, write the data to disk, and use another VB6 control to play it for the recipient.

Surprisingly, the sound wasn't choppy at all. The audio quality was low, since the bitrate was in the low dozens but the conveyer belt of 1 second wave files being played back to back to back was not noticeable at all.

Ended up selling a bunch of copies.

Fun times =D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced-gravity_aircraft

I occasionally get spam from people who took the time to create gmail accounts. Based on this advice, the honey pot email address would get spam from a Gmail account and your script would block Gmail servers.

At low levels, playing is ABC simple and mostly about following basic strategy for starting hands and pot adds for chasing. Don’t get fancy and keep your temperament steady and you’ll win.

To a slight degree, you can do better with reading players and identifying them in broad ways (wild, conservative, confused, etc.) but don’t let that allow you to get fancy. Stick to the basic fundamental strategy for hands, position, and pot odds to crush lower level games.

With regards to the software, it is open source but OP is only providing the code to customers who receive the end product. In part, OP is acting as a distributor of the software and is charging a fee for that distribution.

If anyone else gets their hands on that software, they can choose to become a distributor and make it publicly available. It’s their freedom to do so.

A overly simple way to look at is is that OP is choosing (as a small part of their business) to charge for the distribution of the source code but not the source itself.

In reality, it’s unlikely that OP will have a customer who only wants the source code and is willing to pay a fee for the distribution of it. Their customers are coming to them for the service and support.

Bill pay sends a bank check which is covered by the immediate withdrawal of funds from the customer’s account. In most cases, the customer would be fine with that or even prefer it, to ensure they don’t accidentally bounce a check.

However, I’m wondering if another customer base can be someone who has bank bill pay but wants to float the funds until the check is cashed. Maybe they don’t have the actual funds yet but want to write a check against funds they expect to have soon (risky but people do it).

Do you restrict writing checks that are for an amount greater than the current account balance?

Lastly, I’m wondering how you handle deliberate check fraud. Victims will try to sue all associated parties. How does your liability work in those cases?

>Do you restrict writing checks that are for an amount greater than the current account balance?

There's no reason to. You can already write a check for more than your account balance. The service also generates the checks using your account number, so they're not taking on any credit risk in case your account is overdrawn.

It's not risky at all when using "overdraft protection" via a linked savings account.

And why would I want to not receive any interest while a physical object representing the payment (I'm still not over how bizarre that is in 2025!) is making its way to the payee in the mail?

"Chime is great for everything else, but their check features are absolute trash and will cause you frustration. Just don't do it and find another option."

> Do you restrict writing checks that are for an amount greater than the current account balance? Lastly, I’m wondering how you handle deliberate check fraud. Victims will try to sue all associated parties. How does your liability work in those cases?

That is one of our fraud signals. We have systems in place to review payment amounts, address, frequency, etc that can cause additional KYC checks to be preformed via Plaid before we'll send the check.

Things that are considered small can still have variations in the extent of their smallness.

I checked your source and it didn’t back up this claim.

I’m not a networking specialist but isn’t it possible to detect if something is transmitting a massive amount of data (such as video) to an undetermined destination?

seems like this type of blatant data export would be easy to detect and subsequently ban the device doing it.

I’m just a simple software developer, so the network stuff can go over my head sometimes (heh), but the claim that such a large amount of data is being transmitted in a way that couldn’t be confirmed enough to ban the product seems dubious.

For the transfer part it is much harder as said and easier to detect in peace time.

But then what happen in war or proxy-war time. You have to know how many senior Russians are killed by using a phone …

In the early days of the Afghan (or was it Iraq?) war, people used Strava to figure out the locations of American bases. They'd see a bunch of smart watches suddenly wake up in the morning and start exercising at the same time, a dead giveaway.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/11/europe/russian-submarine-...

The CIA for example drills into their people this same information denial training but they appear to neglect randomness so you end up with a bunch of people with the same peculiar behavioral patterns so they’re ironically rather easy to detect if you have access to click stream data. For example, they’re told not to follow each other on social media, but they still interact so you end up with two people who freely follow lots of people who interact with each other frequently but don’t follow each other. It’s weird, I’m not saying everyone who does this is information hiding but you can extract networks of people who behave in this same weird way with each other.

In order to protect the enigma cracking secret the UK randomly allowed themselves to be bombed with a bias towards less strategic targets. That’s the kind of thing you have to do to hide information, letting yourself be bombed should denote just how serious it is.

A big part of the process in undermining an opposition is promoting the worst aspects in them. Instead of killing off a moron, perhaps secretly encourage them to run for office and donate to their political campaigns, secretly buy media coverage for them, etc.

Incidentally, the blunder in the 1941 in the Red Army was an issue of loyalty indeed. Navy didn't experience the same problem.

There were devices like black berries and tmobile sidekick, and gps trackers from garmin (etc) but I think the incidents you were referring to happened much later (2018 vs 2001/2002).

Also happened across a few American bases across Syria, Yemen, Niger, Afghanistan, Djibouti and more. Some British and Russian bases were highlighted too.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42853072

Because you can doesn't mean you have to, especially when you don't actually have any knowledge on the topic at hand. (And, as people have pointed out, this is both a weird and incorrect assumption, adding nothing to the discussion other than confusion.)

https://www.dji.com/lightcut

What's worse is that I don't think it actually works how you've assumed. The drone has no internet connection itself, the software is instead pulling the files down over wifi, which is something the standard software supports if the drone is close enough. This is the "no need to export from your DJI device" - LightCut can presumably access the drone files directly. None of this requires uploading the videos to anywhere, and doing that wouldn't even make sense - these are large video files, people would notice their data plans being ravaged by multi-gig uploads every time they flew their drone.

As far as being condescending, I think that's less of a negative trait than offering unbacked "I don't know, but" comments which add no value to the discussion.

I did consider the value of my own comment at the time, but I think there is a big problem in tech discussion with people with no actual experience or relevant knowledge feeling that their off-the-cuff suppositions are as welcome and useful as meaningful input from people with direct experience, and highlighting this behaviour as negative and unwelcome is worth risking the inevitable backlash in response.

Holy irony man

So not that many jumps from what I described.

They’re chipped, cracked, and bent. That’s anything but happy.

I bet the balloon and, more importantly, the payload would indeed faze it.

After processing a hundred and fifty pounds or more of human being. If that plane had done so at 30k feet, it'd have been an entirely survivable emergency.