Comment by int32_64
14 hours ago
It seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.
14 hours ago
It seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.
I just couldn't, in good conscience, keep bombing childrens schools under such demoralising conditions.
On the flip side: who if not me and my precision guided munitions, will protect America (and freedom) from the clear and present danger of 8 year old iranian girls.
truly so sad how the troops must feel
"America will bomb you and 15 years later make a movie about how sad the soldiers are based on autobiographies of completely unrepentant sadists" remains true for another decade.
I wonder who the american sniper of iran will be
Imagine doing an easy tour in your air conditioned Kuwaiti logistics office and then getting blown to bits by a ballistic missile because no one bothered to tell you about the war that was being initiated which would cause such missiles in retaliation. Yeah, that's demoralizing too.
There will be derivative contracts of prediction markets to predict if an insider is indicted for betting on a specific prediction.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if an insider in the prosecutor's office bet on that contract.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if a special prosecutor will prosecute the other prosecutor.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if an insider in the special prosecutor's office bet on the other contract.
(additional derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god).
> additional derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god
We already know that Jesus will come back in an election year
> derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god
We already bet on the weather.
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I would offer a small correction to your point: Instead of "ballistic missile", I would substitute "Shahed-type drones". It is much easier to detect (and shoot down) a ballistic missile than a Shahed-type drone.
I don't think this is true at all? A ballistic missile is way harder and more expensive to shutdown (they are flying at Mach 5-10 while you can outrun that type of drone with a mid tier car on the freeway)
Shahed is very primitive in general and not hard to shot down but because its extremely cheap it can be used to overwhelm any type of air defenses. Wasting $4 million to destroy a $50k drone doesn't scale at all.
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start charging congresspeople with insider trading first, before you charge any regular soldier
if rules dont apply universally, then screw these rules altogether
If you are in Kuwait you will find yourself under rockets whether you knew in advance or not
I think the worse aspect is if the news of an attack being leaked to the defender and you are being blown to bits as their ballistic missiles are not decimated in their preemptive strike.
They referred to soldiers that were killed by the start of the war. They thought the situation is normal, war was started without them knowing, got killed.
Not knowing in advance was an important factor
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I mean, surely everyone in the middle east knew a war was on the horizon. Obviously not the exact plan or day, but it wasn't a secret that usa was gearing up for a war.
The war was surprised and host of people said so - goverments, expats living ij region, locals. And were pisssed
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They should have kept an eye on the prediction markets.
> would be highly demoralizing
Those people should quit. Sour grapes isn’t an excuse for putting others’ lives at risk.
I don't think active duty special forces can just "quit", can they?
They get transferred to a different unit - one that is not part of "special forces". A big part of the selection process is to find the soldiers who just won't quit.
One rather famous example is of a BUD/S (usually called SEAL) selectee who drowned himself. When pulled out of the pool and resuscitated, he apologized and thought he failed out of the selection process. The instructor replied something like "heck no, you passed. We can always teach you how to swim. No one can teach you to never give up".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_SEAL_select...
Sort of. Not saying that I think anyone should do this but just explaining for the sake of general knowledge.
I'm simplifying things quite a bit, but almost all military contracts are 8-year (typically split into a 4-year active and 4-year reserve period). If you leave on your own volition during this period, you typically have to repay the cost to the government to train you. And any contract that you're on where you received a signing bonus you have to pay back.
The actual mechanism for doing this is a different between officers and enlisted and they're some paperwork but functionally you can leave if you're really motivated to and for the most part people won't stop you (outside of a few conversations where people advise you against it).
The type of discharge you receive depends on the circumstances but generally there's a way to still get an honorable discharge (hardship, education, family, conscientious objector).
There's also the more practical quitting special forces vs leaving the military entirely. Tier 1 units only want people who want to be there and if you don't you can get transferred to some other job in the military in like a day if you really wanted to.
Or, your brigade’s master sergeant needs the invasion to hit on the 28th rather than Mar 1st.
> It seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.
Why? The enlisted military has never had any issue with similar double standards in the past. George 'AWOL' Bush handily swept the military vote, as did Donald 'Bone Spurs' Trump.
Likewise, veterans routinely and overwhelmingly vote for people who cut veteran support and benefits, over people who don't.
If they think those people are fit to lead them, who are we to tell them they aren't?
Veterans generally don’t need additional support or benefits. Disability is basically a second pension at this point. SCD for veterans under 45 has risen from 16% in 2008 to 39% in 2022 [0]. If you know any young veterans, then anecdotally you will see this is true. You can (and should) get partial disability for all kinds of aches and pains that in a normal career would go ignored.
[0] https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acs-5...
I actually completely agree with your last phrase. Who are you to tell them anything, particularly with such ironic condescension?
In a democracy the citizens decide who leads the military not the military.
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