The US didn't steal these 
guys rocket tech.
They stole these 
guys rocket tech.
They are not the same.
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2026
552 points (96.3% liked)
Lemmy Shitpost
42546 readers
3771 users here now
Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.
Anything and everything goes. Memes, Jokes, Vents and Banter. Though we still have to comply with lemmy.world instance rules. So behave!
Rules:
1. Be Respectful
Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.
Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.
...
2. No Illegal Content
Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.
That means:
-No promoting violence/threats against any individuals
-No CSA content or Revenge Porn
-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)
...
3. No Spam
Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.
-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.
-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.
-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers
-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.
...
4. No Porn/Explicit
Content
-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.
-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.
...
5. No Enciting Harassment,
Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts
-Do not Brigade other Communities
-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.
-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.
-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.
...
6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.
...
If you see content that is a breach of the rules, please flag and report the comment and a moderator will take action where they can.
Also check out:
Partnered Communities:
1.Memes
10.LinuxMemes (Linux themed memes)
Reach out to
All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules. Striker
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
"Hey, OP from Germany, why didn't you put a Swastika on there?"
Technically we stole the engineers.
And a few choice prototypes
Just let me have the Schadenfreude. It's the only thing keeping me sane. :P
Remember: "If the flag has yellow, he's a fine fellow. If the flag has white, you're in for a fight."
... I think Hezbollah is gonna put up a fight.
... as well as anyone flying this, at least historically, if not also currently.
Sorry, your vexillologous ditty is dubious.
... also, a purely white flag is the universal sign of surrender.
I don't think you thought this through.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
The formatting on this comment is terrible. Is it because of the app I'm using or just how it is? I use Voyager.
I use voyager too. I shared the post to firefox and it looks the same so I don't think it's voyager.
That's how it's meant to look like, on mobile it's not as pretty (isn't terrible tho)
I never got the issue with tech being "stolen". Free exchange of information almost always helps everyone. The only class it doesn't help is the capitalist class, which wants rent extraction by gatekeeping human advancements.
There are a great many things to criticise the Chinese state for. Allegedly "stealing tech" or "stealing western IP" however, has to be one of the weakest criticisms (even if it's actually happening).
My dad brings this up when China comes up in conversation and I’m always just like “yeah, and..?” Like if we’re so smart why are they the ones with bullet trains and solar panels and not us?
General topic aside: Because having an idea doesn't automatically mean you get to sell it. China is stratehically subsidising promising sectors to create national champions and subsequently crush foreign competition by flooding the market with dumping priced goods. An intelligent strategy but its seems like a double-edged sword as China doesn't seem to freely share own innovations with others due to competitive reasons.
And in the case of AI models it's straight up deranged to act like China is "stealing" from the US because US corporations trained those models on stolen data to begin with
Didn't we actually steal Wernher von Braun?
The whole story is fascinating, if more than a little fucked up.
He and his engineering team decided to seek out US troops to surrender to because he didn’t want the Soviets getting their hands on his rocket tech. The US government got him out of the country, forged documents to get him into the US legally, granted him immunity and shielded him from being prosecuted for war crimes and atrocities he was involved in.
because he didn’t want the Soviets getting their hands on his rocket tech
I think it was more him not wanting to be caught by the Russians because it would be a lot more uncomfortable.
Probably both
He was sitting poolside at a resort when an US agent came up to him and said essentially "we found you, we also know where your family is. You can come with us and we'll get you and your family out, or, you can wait for the Russians to find you, which won't be long, and you can see what they do with you. The choice is yours, but make it right now." So he went to the US because he felt his fate was better there. And he wasn't just a scientist who was being used by the Nazis, he was a hardened nazi. He ran factories with slave labor that had executed corpses hanging from the ceiling. The workers had to go down a hallway to check into work where the bodies of sabotauers were on display and they had to punch them on their way onto the floor. He wasn't just complicit in that and how things were run, those were his decisions. (I did a humongous project on the V-2 rocket when I was younger. Would have won the national competition in DC if I would have just answered one question the judges were essentially begging me to answer)
What was the question?
They wanted me to show that I understood that this was the beginning of space travel.
You know, I've thought of a lot of crazy stuff, but I've never once thought about going to a job and having to walk down a hallway where my dead co-workers were hanging for making some mistake and I had to punch them.
"Have you seen Mark lately?" "He didnt tighten a bolt enough, he's hanging in the hallway i believe."
And that kids, is why you should study engineering in college.
So you can be scooped up after the war.
Or before tbh. Engineers and scientists were very capable of getting out when shit got bad for them. Compare that to the lawyers, doctors, and various other folks.
load more comments
(1 replies)
yes, and so much more. the americans actually took everything and anything rocket related they could get their hands on, trying to prevent the russians from doing the same.
Russians did the same, the Soyous rockets date (with many modernisation) back from stolen nazi V2 motors.
USSR develops the V2 into the R7, design elements from the R7 are used in the Scud. The Scud is exported to Egypt. North Korea trades Egypt for Scuds and base their rocket systems on it. Iran trades oil for Scud tech and develop their own ballistic missile and space program (Libya is in there somewhere too)
The V2 design has legs!
Yep, Saturn IV if I remember correctly
load more comments
(1 replies)
As an American China doesn't have to steal our tech. They've already surpassed America in every measurable metric except for Gdp and consumption which isn't really a win at all.
Oh I don't know. I think America still leads China in school shootings.
Shots fired!
Also obesity.
China stealing technology is the whole reason why the USA doesn't cooperate with them in space like it does other countries. So it hasn't been that long since China felt like it needed to.
load more comments
(1 replies)
every measurable metric except for Gdp and consumption which isn’t really a win at all.
So much of US GDP is tied up in the FIRE sector anyway. Housing is overinflated. Insurance is overinflated. Tech is crazy overinflated. It's something of a joke to say the US is outrunning China when US businesses are touting triple-digit P/E ratios following decades of low-interest borrowing and bailouts.
And with all the consumer goods prices skyrocketing, you have to wonder how long American excess consumption can even last. $4-6/gal gas isn't going to be any kinder to the US Automotive market today than it was during the Bush Admin.
They never tried to steal any tech, they were given tech by the US government for years in return they were to be the one and only source of cheap consumer goods and then trump 1.0 happened and all that was thrown out the window.
China hates trump for a multitude of reason but this one in particular especially.
If your "we" or "us" includes the Nazis then you've probably made a mistake somewhere along the line.
Everyone forgets Goddard. He invented what the German scientists perfected after a lot of government investments. The US didn't want to go that way with Rocketry, until the world saw the Germans make it work.
The US set Goddard to work on Jet assisted take off in WWII.
Yeah, fundamentally science and engineering are internationalist collaborative projects.
view more: next ›