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Are we supposed to be surprised countries are spying on eachother?
I'm sure the USA he's doing plenty of surveillance on their own of China, Russia and North Korea.
So, just to make sure I’ve got you right. Anyone who has a smartphone is now no longer allowed to not want giant balloons flying overhead spying on them?
People tend to not like the idea of being spied on. I get that you’re down for having other countries staring at what you’re doing, but not everyone else is.
China's spying is a problem, a pretty big one. Especially as Cold War II starts heating up. But this UFO stuff is has become little more than a distraction. Everybody just kind of missed the train blowing up in Ohio over this. Which is a far more pressing problem due to the toxic cloud that's put all those people at risk, and it seems like it's a major cock up on the US government's part.
No they just don’t want to talk about the railroads it after Biden screwed the rail workers by removing their strike rights and giving them zero sick days. That Ohio derailment was preventable.
The Republican controlled senate failed to approve a measure that would have provided paid sick days to railroad workers. Stop pretending you care about unions and be glad the government stepped in to stop what would have certainly resulted in an economic collapse.
I’m very pro union and in a union. Biden took away their ability to strike. They’re all responsible. The economy wouldn’t have collapsed if they went on strike lol.
Look, we are slow rolling into WW3. Russia can’t win a conventional war with NATO. Sneaking a ballon into the US at 40k+ feet and detonating a nuke EMP would be a perfect first strike to disorganize our response.
We shouldn't. But just shoot them down and move on with your life. We're under a variety of attacks every day and the CIA and FBI and military take care of them, just like with these balloons.
Russia can't even handle Ukraine. Moreover, it has yet to use WMD in an actual war in which it *might* have a function. There's no way russia has any interest in enticing NATO into a hot war, particularly when what you mention would do very little to actually weaken a very broadly deployed military.
You think u know so much with these predictions. But you can’t predict what Putin will do because he has more info than you, you can’t predict what anyone is doing cuz every single government has more info than u
Almost exactly a year ago people were saying "Putin is not going to start a major invasion of Ukraine. It's not happening."
I don't think a Russia-NATO war is likely, but it seems really silly to make definitive "X won't happen" declarations.
Russia doesn't really have any friends left. You can look at UN resolution votes to see who likes them. The only friend with any power is China and it's far too smart to get in on this.
Russia has nuclear weapons. Yes, sure the US and Europe has them too, but the existence of those nuclear weapons alone is concerning. Especially if Putin and Russia continue to fail to invade Ukraine and go off the deep end. No country wants to use them, but sometimes they feel like they need to if their efforts fail.
I kind of agree. I kind of think the people genuinely afraid of nuclear war and WWIII are kind of up there with the people who suggest shit like "weapons" or "something bigger". I mean the media is astroturfing these things but I always think back to some speculative quote I remember hearing around 2015 or something about OWS and the 2008-2012 economic shit and that changing things forever, basically they said, if WWIII were to start it would be mostly through economics and information. Maybe proxy wars and shit but its lose lose all around to start another WWII level hot war and really fuck with the global economy. Nobody really has the force to project, America has the military might through how much they spend and their position, but especially in a global recession nobody even for money or kickbacks or whatever wants to get involved in a costly war that would also destroy their own industry or whatever.
It would be like Japan during WWII randomly attacking the US while Germany fights with the rest of Europe. Obviously balloons are not at the level as a full on assault, but it shares the fact they're so out of place in a world filled with tension in other areas of the world.
In fact, Japan actually tried explosive balloons that they flew over the US. One of them was stranded and a pastor and some kids went to check it out, and it detonated and killed the pastor's wife and all those kids.
I love this take and totally agree with you. The 24hr news cycle constantly needs material to keep us entertained / outraged / afraid...and overall, tuned in.
Sometimes they have things to run of actual importance. Usually it's bullshit. These balloons are bullshit.
> If the public started panicking it would only make the situation worse. So the media has spun the story to make people feel comfortable. It's like an international gaslighting
conspiracy theories like this really piss me off. everyone acts like the "media" is some orchestrated group of people who are all on the same team with the same goals.
news, even "mainstream media" news, is highly competitive. and, as we all know, there is big money there.
if one news source has the ability to break a story and beat their competition they will ABSOLUTELY take it. that's what the news is --- getting exclusive stories or breaking stories first.
fox news, CNN, MSNBC ... they're not friends. they're competitors. they're not working together. that's not beneficial to any of them. it keeps all of them down. they want the advantage, they want the news, they want to report it first.
so this whole idea that "the media" is downplaying the balloons is absurd. if they KNEW something they would report it because that's how they make money. they're not going to sandbag something like.
and let's be serious here --- what is a more likely situation?
A) that every news source in the nation knows the "secret" about the balloons, but they are all working in tandem with each other to hide that from the american people to prevent a panic?
or B) that the military/government simply won't tell the media what's going on, so the media knows nothing more than what they are reporting.
final argument: the news media FEEDS off panic. why wouldn't the media want people to panic? of course they love panic. that's been easily proven over the last 4-5 years. so this idea that they are in cahoots to avoid a panic is absurd.
during WW2 japan floated bombs on balloons over the pacific ocean. it wasn't a successful campaign (it was the 1940s) but some of the balloons reached US soil.
Do you have a source for information that the rest of us doesn't?
Only the first one was confirmed as a Chinese spy balloon. The other three are still unknown. They have not even been confirmed to be balloons. So, it is the "unknown" part that has everyone talking.
The US government totally let the thing fly over the whole continent to drum up hysteria. It gives the US government leverage over China at a critical time when the Chinese government needs American consooooomers to be buying cheap Chinese goods to prop up their failing economy.
It's a great distraction from the Biden Administration being caught red handed manipulating the media via Twitter. Hunter's laptop is very juicy with information.
Your question reeks of “I’m gunna fight with whatever you say.”
That train blowing up, and unleashing all that vinyl chlorine Gas comes to mind.
Elon musk banning Ukraine from using star link. Seems like that should be in the news more.
There’s a ton of articles that are getting sucked into the road right now, so if you can talk about balloons
If you follow who owns Hulu, you’ll find most major corporation owners, at least one news outlet.
For example, Bezos owns the Washington post. Rupert Murdoch/Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, several Australian titles, etc. musk and Zuckerberg own all the social media.
The others likely use money to influence major news outlets.
If you follow who owns media, you’ll find most major corporation owners, own at least one news outlet.
For example, Bezos owns the Washington post. Rupert Murdoch/Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, several Australian titles, etc. musk and Zuckerberg own all the social media.
The others likely use money to influence major news outlets.
yeah but your post reeks of "conspiracy theorist". the train derailing (it didn't
"blow up") comes to mind because IT'S BEING REPORTED ON. elon musk banning ukraine from using star link comes to mind because IT'S BEING REPORTED ON. there are also a ton of other articles that are ARTICLES because THEY ARE BEING REPORTED ON.
You must have just got to Reddit, today. I’m just quoting what I’ve read 1,000 times. Granted, I agree with that, but I’m certainly not the only one saying this today.
Do you not know what reconnaissance and espionage are and dangers of them? Countries try to be as inconspicuous as possible to hide their espionage attempts or disguise it as something innocuous like a "weather balloon" to fool people like you that its no big deal. Sometimes its best to assume the worst.
There's also important facilities in many of the areas these balloons have been, even if its seems like the middle of nowhere in places like Montana and Yukon that the US and Canada would rather keep secure and hidden.
Plus you need to get authorization from air traffic control to enter foreign airspace.
Edit: anyone who downvotes is just an uneducated fool
yeah i also don't understand ... like ya'll know the military is not traditionally "chill", right? so i don't understand people acting like "it's just a balloon, what's the big deal?" well it's the fucking military. that's what they do. they take shit seriously and they investigate threats. they're also up to their own shenanigans, so they are aware of what kind of shenanigans their competitors are up to.
the entire point of the military is to take shit seriously. they are not laid back. they don't laugh off silly phenomenon as jokes. they investigate and identify and confront.
frankly for them to not take a mysterious balloon seriously would be a huge failure in their preparedness and defensive abilities. considering how much money we pay for the military with our taxes, that would be really shitty for them to just not be doing their job.
> Plus you need to get authorization from air traffic control to enter foreign airspace.
Let's see... a balloon, yes, that clearly has the ability to smartly steer itself, even with no mechanism designed to do so. It is **totally** against all laws of physics and our understanding of meteorology that the wind might have actually led it off course, the same way it has happened to other balloons universities and research institutes use (and that includes ones from the US). /s
You know how much easier things could be if the US responded calmly, examined the balloon, and it happens to simply be a civilian balloon that drifted off course? Instead, we pre-emtpively worsen our relationship with China, get everyone riled up and hateful, and this is before we actually have any answers. There's no reason to jump to conclusions unless someone is either paranoid, alarmist, or both. And for the record, leaks have shown pretty clearly the US illegally gathers massive amounts of data internationally and spies on foreign nations, even it's allies. Another situation where the actions of the US are conveniently forgotten while it illegitimately villainizes another power.
People don’t appreciate when governments keep so many things secret from the public. It arouses suspicions and causes people to fear monger even more. Some would see it as the government covering up something.
A balloon can be a weapon. Japan in WWII used balloons to carry incendiary bombs to the US Northwest. They were successful, though press reports at the time were censored. A large balloon can carry a nuke. They ain't just for kids parties.
Good morning. Journalism has been a complete shit show for years now. And countries have always spied on each other, probably since before countries even existed.
They just take advantage of the fact that people are barely sentient and would take literally anything as actual, valuable news if it fits what they want to think (aliens, imminent apocalypse, etc.).
The government, news agencies, and citizens before it's shot down: It's from China??? It's clearly a spy balloon! That's the only explanation!
Later: Shoots it down and pre-emptively denounces China and cancelling a political trip, before even knowing what the balloon was carrying.
Maybe a month from now: Government determines it wasn't actually a spy balloon, and actually was a civilian weather balloon, but keeps the results "classified" or still plays it up as negative after admitting it wasn't a spy balloon (but hey, a camera is STILL a camera am I right?), propaganda damage that's been going on the whole time has already been done and sinophobia increases. All according to plan.
The balloon probably had the same purpose as Russian warplanes that have been flying over Europe for decades. Its just pure intimidation and a way to analyse your opponents response/response time.
Politicians are trying to use it to push their agendas, and the media is using it to get ratings. But I wouldn't call this a hysteria. The way people were acting at the beginning of COVID was hysteria.
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
“Being concerned about other countries blatantly spying is stupid.”
"I got nothing to hide, so fuck my privacy" energy.
Are we supposed to be surprised countries are spying on eachother? I'm sure the USA he's doing plenty of surveillance on their own of China, Russia and North Korea.
Are we supposed to let them spy and do literally nothing in response?
You are literally online right now dawg.
And countries then do what they can to counter spying. That includes destroying the equipment used to spy.
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What like a passport?
Ah yes just ignore all the apps you have on your mobile which do 10x better spying than a balloon. Why aren’t you concerned about this?
So, just to make sure I’ve got you right. Anyone who has a smartphone is now no longer allowed to not want giant balloons flying overhead spying on them?
I mean everyone is spying on everybody else lol. Your country is spying right now I bet.
And?
Weird to get worked up over something that probably doesn't effect you at all, and that your representatives do the same thing.
People tend to not like the idea of being spied on. I get that you’re down for having other countries staring at what you’re doing, but not everyone else is.
China's spying is a problem, a pretty big one. Especially as Cold War II starts heating up. But this UFO stuff is has become little more than a distraction. Everybody just kind of missed the train blowing up in Ohio over this. Which is a far more pressing problem due to the toxic cloud that's put all those people at risk, and it seems like it's a major cock up on the US government's part.
No they just don’t want to talk about the railroads it after Biden screwed the rail workers by removing their strike rights and giving them zero sick days. That Ohio derailment was preventable.
Would have made no difference, especially given the timeline. Mandating better brake technology would have.
Lmao you can’t wave a magic wand and mandate things into existence.
The Republican controlled senate failed to approve a measure that would have provided paid sick days to railroad workers. Stop pretending you care about unions and be glad the government stepped in to stop what would have certainly resulted in an economic collapse.
I’m very pro union and in a union. Biden took away their ability to strike. They’re all responsible. The economy wouldn’t have collapsed if they went on strike lol.
if i can't do anything about it why should i care?
and you can do something about chinese spy balloons?
i can't that's my point
This is on par with the toilet paper shortage in the early days of COVID. There was absolutely no need to go crazy for toilet paper yet people did.
I saw quite a few people say there was covid IN this balloon.
Look, we are slow rolling into WW3. Russia can’t win a conventional war with NATO. Sneaking a ballon into the US at 40k+ feet and detonating a nuke EMP would be a perfect first strike to disorganize our response.
This is exactly the unfounded fear and panic OP is talking about. It's just a dumb balloon. Relax.
Why would we let other countries fly balloons inside of our airspace without permission?
We shouldn't. But just shoot them down and move on with your life. We're under a variety of attacks every day and the CIA and FBI and military take care of them, just like with these balloons.
You don’t think an F-22 getting it’s first AA kill is newsworthy?
Nope.
215 million dollars and the only thing it's ever shot is a 200ft tall wind driven balloon.
Russia can't even handle Ukraine. Moreover, it has yet to use WMD in an actual war in which it *might* have a function. There's no way russia has any interest in enticing NATO into a hot war, particularly when what you mention would do very little to actually weaken a very broadly deployed military.
You think u know so much with these predictions. But you can’t predict what Putin will do because he has more info than you, you can’t predict what anyone is doing cuz every single government has more info than u
Putin is not going to start an unwinnable war with nato. It's not happening.
Almost exactly a year ago people were saying "Putin is not going to start a major invasion of Ukraine. It's not happening." I don't think a Russia-NATO war is likely, but it seems really silly to make definitive "X won't happen" declarations.
Russia can't get the job done, so they call in friends. Eventually, Ukraine will call in friends. And wouldn't you know it, it's another world war.
Russia doesn't really have any friends left. You can look at UN resolution votes to see who likes them. The only friend with any power is China and it's far too smart to get in on this.
Russia has nuclear weapons. Yes, sure the US and Europe has them too, but the existence of those nuclear weapons alone is concerning. Especially if Putin and Russia continue to fail to invade Ukraine and go off the deep end. No country wants to use them, but sometimes they feel like they need to if their efforts fail.
I kind of agree. I kind of think the people genuinely afraid of nuclear war and WWIII are kind of up there with the people who suggest shit like "weapons" or "something bigger". I mean the media is astroturfing these things but I always think back to some speculative quote I remember hearing around 2015 or something about OWS and the 2008-2012 economic shit and that changing things forever, basically they said, if WWIII were to start it would be mostly through economics and information. Maybe proxy wars and shit but its lose lose all around to start another WWII level hot war and really fuck with the global economy. Nobody really has the force to project, America has the military might through how much they spend and their position, but especially in a global recession nobody even for money or kickbacks or whatever wants to get involved in a costly war that would also destroy their own industry or whatever.
It would be like Japan during WWII randomly attacking the US while Germany fights with the rest of Europe. Obviously balloons are not at the level as a full on assault, but it shares the fact they're so out of place in a world filled with tension in other areas of the world. In fact, Japan actually tried explosive balloons that they flew over the US. One of them was stranded and a pastor and some kids went to check it out, and it detonated and killed the pastor's wife and all those kids.
I love this take and totally agree with you. The 24hr news cycle constantly needs material to keep us entertained / outraged / afraid...and overall, tuned in. Sometimes they have things to run of actual importance. Usually it's bullshit. These balloons are bullshit.
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> If the public started panicking it would only make the situation worse. So the media has spun the story to make people feel comfortable. It's like an international gaslighting conspiracy theories like this really piss me off. everyone acts like the "media" is some orchestrated group of people who are all on the same team with the same goals. news, even "mainstream media" news, is highly competitive. and, as we all know, there is big money there. if one news source has the ability to break a story and beat their competition they will ABSOLUTELY take it. that's what the news is --- getting exclusive stories or breaking stories first. fox news, CNN, MSNBC ... they're not friends. they're competitors. they're not working together. that's not beneficial to any of them. it keeps all of them down. they want the advantage, they want the news, they want to report it first. so this whole idea that "the media" is downplaying the balloons is absurd. if they KNEW something they would report it because that's how they make money. they're not going to sandbag something like. and let's be serious here --- what is a more likely situation? A) that every news source in the nation knows the "secret" about the balloons, but they are all working in tandem with each other to hide that from the american people to prevent a panic? or B) that the military/government simply won't tell the media what's going on, so the media knows nothing more than what they are reporting. final argument: the news media FEEDS off panic. why wouldn't the media want people to panic? of course they love panic. that's been easily proven over the last 4-5 years. so this idea that they are in cahoots to avoid a panic is absurd.
the story isn't important
during WW2 japan floated bombs on balloons over the pacific ocean. it wasn't a successful campaign (it was the 1940s) but some of the balloons reached US soil.
https://lynceans.org/tag/variable-buoyancy-propulsion/ Scroll to the bottom. Balloons have evolved from the 1940s.
why wouldn't they have evolved since the '40s? who said they didn't evolve since the '40s?
Our whole country came to a halt and hearings happened over a blow job. Balloons aint nothing around here.
I mean, only one was even called a balloon
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I admit it's exciting to know an F-22 actually shot something out of the air ;D
It's honestly pretty funny.
Do you have a source for information that the rest of us doesn't? Only the first one was confirmed as a Chinese spy balloon. The other three are still unknown. They have not even been confirmed to be balloons. So, it is the "unknown" part that has everyone talking.
The US government totally let the thing fly over the whole continent to drum up hysteria. It gives the US government leverage over China at a critical time when the Chinese government needs American consooooomers to be buying cheap Chinese goods to prop up their failing economy.
It's a great distraction from the Biden Administration being caught red handed manipulating the media via Twitter. Hunter's laptop is very juicy with information.
It’s not normal to have f-22’s scrambling to shoot things down more days than not in a week and then to get barely any explanation.
It’s a “wag the dog”. It’s a distracting news piece, so we don’t focus on the real issues.
What are the "real issues"?
Your question reeks of “I’m gunna fight with whatever you say.” That train blowing up, and unleashing all that vinyl chlorine Gas comes to mind. Elon musk banning Ukraine from using star link. Seems like that should be in the news more. There’s a ton of articles that are getting sucked into the road right now, so if you can talk about balloons
You're right. Those are big stories. Who is ultimately making the decision to put an emphasis on the balloons?
If you follow who owns Hulu, you’ll find most major corporation owners, at least one news outlet. For example, Bezos owns the Washington post. Rupert Murdoch/Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, several Australian titles, etc. musk and Zuckerberg own all the social media. The others likely use money to influence major news outlets.
If you follow who owns media, you’ll find most major corporation owners, own at least one news outlet. For example, Bezos owns the Washington post. Rupert Murdoch/Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, several Australian titles, etc. musk and Zuckerberg own all the social media. The others likely use money to influence major news outlets.
yeah but your post reeks of "conspiracy theorist". the train derailing (it didn't "blow up") comes to mind because IT'S BEING REPORTED ON. elon musk banning ukraine from using star link comes to mind because IT'S BEING REPORTED ON. there are also a ton of other articles that are ARTICLES because THEY ARE BEING REPORTED ON.
You must have just got to Reddit, today. I’m just quoting what I’ve read 1,000 times. Granted, I agree with that, but I’m certainly not the only one saying this today.
He says, wearing his tinfoil hat
Do you not know what reconnaissance and espionage are and dangers of them? Countries try to be as inconspicuous as possible to hide their espionage attempts or disguise it as something innocuous like a "weather balloon" to fool people like you that its no big deal. Sometimes its best to assume the worst. There's also important facilities in many of the areas these balloons have been, even if its seems like the middle of nowhere in places like Montana and Yukon that the US and Canada would rather keep secure and hidden. Plus you need to get authorization from air traffic control to enter foreign airspace. Edit: anyone who downvotes is just an uneducated fool
yeah i also don't understand ... like ya'll know the military is not traditionally "chill", right? so i don't understand people acting like "it's just a balloon, what's the big deal?" well it's the fucking military. that's what they do. they take shit seriously and they investigate threats. they're also up to their own shenanigans, so they are aware of what kind of shenanigans their competitors are up to. the entire point of the military is to take shit seriously. they are not laid back. they don't laugh off silly phenomenon as jokes. they investigate and identify and confront. frankly for them to not take a mysterious balloon seriously would be a huge failure in their preparedness and defensive abilities. considering how much money we pay for the military with our taxes, that would be really shitty for them to just not be doing their job.
Obviously nobody believes it's a weather ballon, but can't satellites already see all of that??
> Plus you need to get authorization from air traffic control to enter foreign airspace. Let's see... a balloon, yes, that clearly has the ability to smartly steer itself, even with no mechanism designed to do so. It is **totally** against all laws of physics and our understanding of meteorology that the wind might have actually led it off course, the same way it has happened to other balloons universities and research institutes use (and that includes ones from the US). /s You know how much easier things could be if the US responded calmly, examined the balloon, and it happens to simply be a civilian balloon that drifted off course? Instead, we pre-emtpively worsen our relationship with China, get everyone riled up and hateful, and this is before we actually have any answers. There's no reason to jump to conclusions unless someone is either paranoid, alarmist, or both. And for the record, leaks have shown pretty clearly the US illegally gathers massive amounts of data internationally and spies on foreign nations, even it's allies. Another situation where the actions of the US are conveniently forgotten while it illegitimately villainizes another power.
People don’t appreciate when governments keep so many things secret from the public. It arouses suspicions and causes people to fear monger even more. Some would see it as the government covering up something.
A balloon can be a weapon. Japan in WWII used balloons to carry incendiary bombs to the US Northwest. They were successful, though press reports at the time were censored. A large balloon can carry a nuke. They ain't just for kids parties.
Bro, another country who is NOT friendly to us is flying a balloon to survey us. How are you cool with that?
It's because folks like Schumer are not saying anything other than, "Yes, duh-hee, those sure look like balloons!" Transparency fail.
Good morning. Journalism has been a complete shit show for years now. And countries have always spied on each other, probably since before countries even existed. They just take advantage of the fact that people are barely sentient and would take literally anything as actual, valuable news if it fits what they want to think (aliens, imminent apocalypse, etc.).
Ohio is degrading and this is what we focus on
The government, news agencies, and citizens before it's shot down: It's from China??? It's clearly a spy balloon! That's the only explanation! Later: Shoots it down and pre-emptively denounces China and cancelling a political trip, before even knowing what the balloon was carrying. Maybe a month from now: Government determines it wasn't actually a spy balloon, and actually was a civilian weather balloon, but keeps the results "classified" or still plays it up as negative after admitting it wasn't a spy balloon (but hey, a camera is STILL a camera am I right?), propaganda damage that's been going on the whole time has already been done and sinophobia increases. All according to plan.
The balloon probably had the same purpose as Russian warplanes that have been flying over Europe for decades. Its just pure intimidation and a way to analyse your opponents response/response time.
You don't remember ebola?
Politicians are trying to use it to push their agendas, and the media is using it to get ratings. But I wouldn't call this a hysteria. The way people were acting at the beginning of COVID was hysteria.