Should we be planning for another civil war?

it's an interesting question. we kind of already are.

guns and cars kill a lot of americans. we've equipped so many americans with so many guns, they are doing a great job at killing each other in peacetime, it will be a slaughterhouse at wartime.

anduril's arsenal of weapons are more likely to be used against americans than anyone else. and for that matter, our imagined adversaries - the chinese and russian governments have killed way more chinese and russian people than any of their foreign adversaries. germans have killed lots of germans.

there are powerful VCs in my community, members of Y Combinator, who sincerely believe we should deploy advanced surveillance technologies - they're true believers of the article's broader, very soviet material product system, very IG Farben way of looking at things - despite talking on podcasts about their own families being slaughtered not by petty criminals or foreign adversaries but by their own countrymen, en masse.

americans have killed a lot of americans. not in some facetious sense either.

the best defense is strong representative politics and democratic institutions. the DoD's most powerful weapons are journalists, low interest rates, global shipping and a merciful immigration policy.

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lmz an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> a merciful immigration policy.

In the context of a potential civil war, isn't this basically just importing foreign combatants?

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esseph an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> guns and cars kill a lot of americans. we've equipped so many americans with so many guns, they are doing a great job at killing each other in peacetime, it will be a slaughterhouse at wartime.

From 2005 to 2025, 730,000-760,000 Americans died from firearms related injuries, including police shootings, gang violence, and accidents, however suicide alone is between 55-60% of those total deaths.

From 2005 to 2025, in Europe, around 1,400,000 Europeans died from heat related deaths. Between 70-80% of that number could have been prevent by having air condition based on data from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

	▲	doctorpangloss 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		i don't really know where this air conditioning meme comes from, but if your point is that man made global warming is a greater adversary than any foreign government, and completely impervious to the size of your munitions arsenal, i agree!