It's like all those "russians testing our airspace" propaganda a few years back. Everybody tests everyone's airspace. It's only when the elites want it to turn it into "news" that you hear about it. Then it's all forgotten.

It's just manufactured propaganda. The good thing about this is you can see how propaganda ( aka news/media ) coordinates with the pentagon/intelligence/etc.

Are you saying you trust that China is keeping tabs on the US? In what way do you think they are and what is your mental model for deciding who to trust?

My mental model of trust is to not buy a car from a salesperson you like.

Normally, if you are feeling nice and secure, it is because someone has manipulated you to a place of vulnerability so they can take advantage of you.

This story wants me to feel like the US government is prudent, competent and observant. So, naturally, I am scared shitless.

I wouldn't stop there I bet your friends are also out to get you. In fact everyone might be out to get you ;]

I mean of course china keeps tabs on the US. It's good to keep tabs on your investments.

I am not OP, but I must express my belief that the world was a more harmonious and simpler place for the average person when the United States was not a dominant global power. The fear of communism, in fact, was probably one of the driving forces behind the creation of a thriving middle class in the US.

It is probably not a coincidence that since the fall of the Soviet Union, income and wealth disparities have only continued to escalate in the United States, painting a stark picture of the consequences of unchecked hegemonic power.

This. Why do people suspect it's a spy balloon? No reasons are given in the article. Even if it did come from China, it could be nothing more than a mere scientific weather balloon. This smells like propaganda.

It's clearly not a Chinese spy balloon.

China has spy sattelites that can do what this balloon supposedly can, and that's why the US isn't shooting it down. What a load of crap. 1) the US would shoot it down anyway 2) why would China send a balloon when they have sattelites?

The conclusion drawn must be that it's either not Chinese, or not a spy balloon, or most probably not either.

The US is working on their own spy balloon.[1] Why wouldn't China?

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/05/u-s-militarys-newes...

> China has spy satellites that can do what this balloon supposedly can,

Satellites have predictable orbits and are otherwise tracked, but a stealthy balloon might go unnoticed and manage to surveil sites that don’t mask their sensitive activities when they think the sky is currently clear. It’s possible that the ballon is performing signals intelligence gathering, or something else satellites at altitude can’t do.

Also, the perception (true or otherwise) that the US is not fully able to control its national airspace is something China can make propaganda out of.

Even the smallest high atmosphere balloon is gigantic.

There's simply no way one could ever be hidden from radar. So 'stealthy balloons' do not exist.

That’s a bit emphatic, surely?

If you can make a B2 bomber stealthy then perhaps you can do the same with a balloon - the bags are thin polythene [1] and I assume you could combine geometry and radar absorbing material to make a payload disappear.

If it were that obviously visible why wasn’t it intercepted when it crossed into America’s air defence identification zone?

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/scientific-balloons/types-of-balloons

It's very clearly not stealthy, it's got solar panels hanging from it. I'm sure you could make a stealthy box, but this is not that.

If you don't know what your talking about it's usually more polite to admit it, instead of trying to double down.

That's one heck of a weather balloon.

https://archive.ph/DJgKa

Technically, a scientific weather balloon could also be classified as spying on our weather conditions. :)

Those Chinese comrades have to be damn good engineers. They released spy balloon in China and magically fly over US. Just wow. Are they really controlling the weather?

According to Wikipedia, between 2000 and 5000 weather balloons are released daily. China's likely releasing hundreds of those. And there are reports of even regular helium balloons sometimes traveling thousands of miles.

It wouldn't be magical for one to accidentally end up basically anywhere.

Isn't that one particular balloon for spying?

You responded to a post saying

>Why do people suspect it's a spy balloon? No reasons are given in the article. Even if it did come from China, it could be nothing more than a mere scientific weather balloon. This smells like propaganda.

/s

You might want to read up on Poe's law

Where is the "Chinese" part even coming from? Does it have a Chinese return label printed on it or is the balloon a rice-patty shape?!

Well it's highly likely they followed it's trajectory with satellites from launch to where it is now.

In what world would this not be news?

In a world where we have constant satellite coverage of the entire planet doing basically what we think this balloon might be doing.

And China has many satellites that are not in the news, but violating sovereign airspace Matters regardless of whether or not it materially matters.

Violating sovereign airspace matters to the US only when it's done to the US. Because to the US, the US is the only sovereign country in the world. All the others can and should get routinely violated by US planes, if you believe US media. So yeah, get out of here.

This is US news, in a U.S. newspaper, on a US site, in English.

I think sometimes people complain that something isn’t news it’s just US news, while they’re on US channels populated or run by US folks. And you know, what do you expect?

That's not their point. The US routinely violates various nation's airspace. Hell, what do you think the odds are the US is currently violating Chinese airspace in some capacity? Depending on who's definition of Chinese airspace you use, it's pretty damn likely.

How does the statement "The US violates routinely sovereign airspace" make the point that "China violating US airspace" is not newsworthy? If China routinely violated sovereign (US) airspace it wouldn't be newsworthy!

> but violating sovereign airspace Matters regardless of whether or not it materially matters.

So it always matters, but it's frequency determines whether it's newsworthy? I don't understand that position.

This world. If you read the article, it is noted that this is a common occurrence:

> “Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years,” Ryder said

Seems more like someone wanted to stir up some feelings.

common != it has happened before.

also note in the DOD press briefing they stated that this was markedly different than previous incursions due to primarily the duration of loitering.

also what are these comments..? openly lauding an adversarial state which is conducting flagrant surveillance operations in the continental united states? yikes.

Not everybody here on HN is from US. Not everybody automatically likes that US can do whatever they want, wherever they want and its fine because dubious reasons at best, but as soon as anybody else does same its outrage, terrorists and other blahs that look frankly laughable to most folks outside US. TBH its mostly the opposite, world is fed up with that for past 20 years since it brought just tons of evil, death and fucked up whole regions for generations to come. Even most democratic and US aligned countries are fed up with that. Don't forget more than 95% of mankind doesn't live in US.

This is definitely one of those situations. If US can fly spy planes over say Russia or China, why shouldn't they be allowed the same? If you shoot their stuff, they can shoot yours. Fair game I say (not dragging current russian war in ukraine into this, to which I am strong opponent and even donated my own drone to AFU when it started).

The world that doesn’t know history until the end of ww2 would be mad that the world has never been more peaceful to more people.

False extrapolation. No one is "lauding an adversarial state".

And adversarial to whom? The west is as adversarial to China as China is to the west.

You sound put off that the comments don't have enough patriotism. Lacking blind patriotism would in fact be called "neutral".

> common != it has happened before

It would be atypical to say "over the past several years" about a unique occurrence.

It's exhausting how literally every subject of public conversation is an op, isn't it? "The current thing", for any value of "current thing", just isn't worth devoting thought: whatever "the current thing" is, it's just bots and propaganda all the way down.

* * *

>routinely use drones in foreign skies to murder civilians.

Why would you shift the overton window?

If repeating a fact shifts the Overton window, I think some reflection is in order.

You think it’s true that the US has weekly meetings where they decide which specific civilians to murder with drones?

The fact that they don't(as far as I know) have weekly meetings where they decide which civilians to murder with drones doesn't mean that they don't murder civilians with drones.

OP said regularly murdering civilians (intentionally targeting to kill, after meetings on who to target). No one is saying it hasn’t ever happened, but are there weekly/monthly meetings now?

> a nation that routinely use drones in foreign skies to murder civilians

That? The US flies aircraft across the borders of all targeted nations daily and violates their airspace. But the Anglosaxon media always only talks about how others are doing it, deceiving people to think that only 'others' do such things. Textbook example of lying by omission explained by Chomsky.

Do you salute them for the way they treat Tibet and Uyghurs?

China is not exactly pure as the driven snow. Glass houses.

Americans don't have much historical sense but I do. They used to fly spy planes right into USSR airspace- until Gary Powers got shot down.

Typical hypocrisy.