That video seems like a kind of terrible source to me. A russian drone developer isn’t going to be neutral on the state of U.S. drone manufacturing, he might literally face persecution if he praises the U.S. military.
He praises specific aspects of the Ukrainian forces and goes into technical details in ways which seem much more consistent with ‘guy who is relatively straightforwardly trying to represent reality’ than the model where he’s a mouthpiece. If you didn’t watch it and just bounced off the speaker, consider watching, it’s pretty info dense and feels non fake to my senses (though non zero bias).
(and this is compatible with a bunch of other data points I’ve picked up from elsewhere, it’s just a nice package with more detail)
Ah, that is pretty decent evidence. I watched like 5 minutes then stopped, but if the author also criticizes the Russian drone efforts then that suggests much more freedom to express himself than baseline.
Yeah, he does pretty harshly criticize the slowness and lack of iteration speed that Russia had near the start, and points at several ways Ukraine has lead innovation. Him being commercial selling to the army rather than officially part of the state or military makes him at least think he can get away with this, I think.
he might literally face persecution if he praises the U.S. military
To my best knowledge, it is false when interpreted literally. It is true that public praise for US military happens to be correlated with other activities which are deemed illegal like publicly expressing disdain for Russian military. It is true that public praise for US military gets a public non-thinking push-back which makes the issue worse.
Meta: correction stated under Scott’s IIWYTLIWMTTCI policy.
I don’t understand? Russia does not have stable rule of law. If you praise the US military as a Russian military official, you would almost certainly face serious personal and professional consequences, this just seems really obvious from how Russia operates.
This proves too much. If you consistently require there be no “serious personal and professional consequences” before you trust a source, you’d have to dismiss almost all of them.
And outside the US, statements the government finds offensive often run the risk of criminal prosecution as well. The existence of “stable rule of law” doesn’t preclude this.
This proves too much. If you consistently require there be no “serious personal and professional consequences” before you trust a source, you’d have to dismiss almost all of them.
I think the heuristic of “do not trust a source to accurately report X if it faces serious personal and professional consequences for many plausible beliefs about X” is not a particularly weird heuristic? That seems extremely normal to me, and I am confused what’s going on here. Most people, especially in the US do not face serious personal and professional consequences for most beliefs they express, and when they do, you should absolutely dismiss them as a source.
The US looks way behind from all the major data points I’ve seen. This interview touches on a lot of them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmfNUM2CbbM
That video seems like a kind of terrible source to me. A russian drone developer isn’t going to be neutral on the state of U.S. drone manufacturing, he might literally face persecution if he praises the U.S. military.
He praises specific aspects of the Ukrainian forces and goes into technical details in ways which seem much more consistent with ‘guy who is relatively straightforwardly trying to represent reality’ than the model where he’s a mouthpiece. If you didn’t watch it and just bounced off the speaker, consider watching, it’s pretty info dense and feels non fake to my senses (though non zero bias).
(and this is compatible with a bunch of other data points I’ve picked up from elsewhere, it’s just a nice package with more detail)
Ah, that is pretty decent evidence. I watched like 5 minutes then stopped, but if the author also criticizes the Russian drone efforts then that suggests much more freedom to express himself than baseline.
Yeah, he does pretty harshly criticize the slowness and lack of iteration speed that Russia had near the start, and points at several ways Ukraine has lead innovation. Him being commercial selling to the army rather than officially part of the state or military makes him at least think he can get away with this, I think.
He also says that Chinese drones are low quality and Ukraine is slightly ahead of Russia.
To my best knowledge, it is false when interpreted literally. It is true that public praise for US military happens to be correlated with other activities which are deemed illegal like publicly expressing disdain for Russian military. It is true that public praise for US military gets a public non-thinking push-back which makes the issue worse.
Meta: correction stated under Scott’s IIWYTLIWMTTCI policy.
I don’t understand? Russia does not have stable rule of law. If you praise the US military as a Russian military official, you would almost certainly face serious personal and professional consequences, this just seems really obvious from how Russia operates.
This proves too much. If you consistently require there be no “serious personal and professional consequences” before you trust a source, you’d have to dismiss almost all of them.
And outside the US, statements the government finds offensive often run the risk of criminal prosecution as well. The existence of “stable rule of law” doesn’t preclude this.
I think the heuristic of “do not trust a source to accurately report X if it faces serious personal and professional consequences for many plausible beliefs about X” is not a particularly weird heuristic? That seems extremely normal to me, and I am confused what’s going on here. Most people, especially in the US do not face serious personal and professional consequences for most beliefs they express, and when they do, you should absolutely dismiss them as a source.