It's not named the Department of War because Congress didn't rename it.
Other than that, good on ya.
Other than that, good on ya.
Defined as the tendency for teams to devote disproportionate time and energy to trivial, easy-to-understand issues while neglecting complex, high-stakes decisions. Originating from the example of arguing over a bike shed's color instead of a nuclear plant's design, it represents a wasteful focus on minor details.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
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I deal with this day in and day out. Thank you for informing me of the word that describes the laughable nightmares I deal with on the regular.
No need to die on the hill, but point out that there's a consistent pattern of lawless power-grabbing.
No, the concentration camps and gangs of masked thugs violating civil rights are that sign. Threatening to treat a domestic private corporation like an enemy combatant during peacetime for not immediately caving to military demands is that sign. Trying to take over the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is that sign. The Executive attempting to freeze funds issued by Congress for partisan reasons is that sign.
Department of War is just little boys being trolls.
Anthropic is in negotiation with Hegseth/DoD. Pointing out all the specific actions that Hegseth is doing are fair game to show that Hegseth is nuts.
Bringing in other complaints against other parties, however bad those other parties are behaving, shows a pattern in other people, which might be helpful too. But hegseth's direct actions are stronger evidence.
If the current congress doesn't take action, in 2027 it's quite likely they will.
Of course the most likely current course is that nobody reins in Hegseth/DoD right now, but even if there's no official consequences at the moment there should be a memory and political will to change the system to prevent such abuse in the future.
That doesn't mean you stop doing the shaming.
From the first chapter of the book On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, an historian of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust:
> Do not obey in advance.
* https://timothysnyder.org/on-tyranny
* https://archive.org/details/on-tyranny-twenty-lessons-from-t...
It's one of the reasons why people get annoyed at jargon or are pissed off about pronouns, because it highlights that they should be putting mental effort into understanding why they're current mental model doesn't fit. It's much easier to ignore and be comfortable if there's not glaring sirens saying you've got some learning to do.
Most of us can't (or won't) be aware of everything that should be important to us, having glaring context clues that we should take notice of something incongruous is important. It's also why the Trump media approach works so well it's basically a case of alarm fatigue as republicans who would normally side against any particular one of his actions don't listen because they agreed with some of the actions that democrats previously raised alarms about.
It's worth noting there's an overabundance of legitimate reasons people get annoyed at these two thing, making them bad examples.
Also while there is an abundance of reasons of varying legitimacy they're both good examples because people often run in to them and are annoyed by the use of the words out of proportion to running into the actual legitimate reasons to be annoyed by the concept.
The number of people annoyed, by words like rizz or are angry that doctor can refer to a female, far out weigh the people legitimately trying to figure out if rizz is something they need to protect their kids from or getting delayed medical care because they needed to wait because they only feel comfortable with their own sex.
The Department of War was responsible for naval affairs until The Department of the Navy was spun off from it in 1798, and aerial forces until the creation of the The Department of the Air Force in 1947, whereafter it was left with just the army and renamed the Department of the Army. All three branches were then subordinated to the new Department of Defense in 1949, which became functionally equivalent to the original entity.
The Department of War is what it was called when it was first created in 1789 by the Congress (establishing the department and the position of Secretary of War), the predecessor entity being called the The Board of War and Ordnance during the revolution.
The Department of "Defense" has never fought on home soil. Ever.
After the Continental Navy was disbanded, there wasn't much of an American Navy to have a department around until... mid to late 1797, when the first three of the Original Six frigates was commissioned into active service.
If you look at the U.S. Constitution you'll find that the 'land' and 'naval' forces were separated quite early on in Art. I Sect. 8. Even the appropriations permitted were treated distinctly.
Obviously new domains of warfare will require new schemes of organization, but the "Department of War" that people think about that conducted military operations against America's enemies up through WWII was the Army's department. The operational Navy was always under the Department of the Navy.
> The Department of "Defense" has never fought on home soil. Ever.
What does this have to do with anything? Who argued otherwise?
But the reason for "Department of Defense" name was bureaucratic. It's also not true that DOD is hard to understand.
At the same time as the NME was created, the Army was split into the Army and Air Force and the Department of War was also split in two, becoming the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force.
If they had called it DoD, then that would have been another finger in his eye.
While this action may indeed cause the DoD to blacklist Anthropic from doing business w/the government, they probably were being as careful as they could be not to double down on the nose-thumbing.
All that matters is that everyone calls it the Department of War, and regards it as such, which everyone does.
What you just described is consensus, and framing it as fascism damages the credibility of your stance. There are better arguments to make, which don’t require framing a label update as oppression.
> framing a label update as oppression
That strawman damages credibility.
Just as one example, they threatened Google when they didn't immediately rename the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America" on their maps. Other companies now follow their illegal guidance because they know that they will be threatened too if they don't comply.
There is a word for when the government uses threats to enforce illegal referendums. That word is "Fascism". Denying this is irresponsible, especially in the context of this situation, where the Government is threatening to force a private company to provide services that it doesn't currently provide.
> they threatened Google when they didn't immediately rename the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America" on their maps
I don’t want to downplay the government pressure you cited in your second example, so I’ll start by acknowledging - that example, as stated, does indeed look like government overreach to me. It doesn’t have anything to do with what I said though.
The stance I was taking is that renaming your own “cool kids” club while you’re in a position to effectively do that - does not amount to Fascism, or anything close to it. No one else is in that club except them, and none of them will be in it later. The moniker will only stick if next group of cool kids carry it.
An important part of remaining credible (imo) is being able to support a point directly. When someone reaches for evidence that isn’t directly relevant to prove a point (e.g. Group A performed action B and it was bad, so if Group A performs action C it must be equally as bad), that’s a clear sign of a weak argument. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not trying to stick up for anyone, I’m just asking for stronger arguments.
Except this administration is certainly fascist, and the renaming is yet another facet of it. That article goes through it point by point.
Then tomorrow it will be the Department of War. Just like When Congress voted to split the old Department of War into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force, and to take both of those and the previously-separate Department of the Navy under a new National Military Establishment led by the newly-created Secretary of Defense (and when it later to voted to rename the NME as “Department of Defense”), things changed in the past.
> They have the votes.
Perhaps, but the law doesn't change because the votes are in a whip count on a hypothetical change, it changes because they are actually cast on a bill making a concrete change.