I'd say my argument is also that 'this is how things have been' in trying to show a pattern of hubris getting in the way of recognizing when your adversary actually manages to accomplish something that can do serious damage. History has many examples of peoples typically viewed as backwards or technologically unsophisticated accomplishing something nobody expected they could. At the risk of adding more topics that could potentially sidetrack the discussion, here are a few examples:

- Japan's rapid industrialization to become a naval powerhouse during the late 19th / early 20th century and defeating Russia in the Russo-Japanese war to everyone's surprise.
- Pakistan and later North Korea moving the capital, industry, and talent needed to develop nuclear weapons. Athough in Pakistan's case, some might say this is because the scientists were German and U.S. trained, and North Korea got Paki Help. (But the same could be said about the U.S. who has historically got most of its mindshare for science and engineering from abroad).
- Al-Qaida orchestrating the 9/11 attacks despite there being enough evidence in hindsight to have foreseen and stopped the attacks if we had taken a bunch of Arabs sitting around a campfire in a cave in Afghanistan more seriously as a credible threat.

On that note, stealth seems to be the contemporary equivalent of nuclear weapons in regards to requiring a nation state to devoting vast amounts of its time and treasure into research and development. Except there is no equivalent anti-proliferation effort in place stopping people from developing stealth tech. Any nation with sufficient wealth and a will to do so will be able to develop stealth technology. Their first (or even second, or third…) attempt probably won't be nearly as sophisticated as what the U.S. has after decades of R&D, but it may well be sophisticated enough to be very threatening to a point where you can't just write it off.

The reason I brought up the Iranian RQ-170 incident was to highlight this hubris & underestimation in real time. We all know that Iran will lie/twist & stretch the truth in order to be boastful. All nations will do this for whatever political ends they are angling for — the U.S. included. In Iran's case, they are trying to weave a narrative to their own people of being a world-relevant power that is defiant to the U.S. and can successfully challenge our world renowned advanced weapons. They aren't convincing the rest of the world with those bad photoshops, and they aren't trying to (or I certainly hope not, otherwise that's just insulting.) It's similar to how North Korea told it's populace that it won the World Cup.

In the U.S. case, we're trying to maintain the narrative that we're an indomitable power with unmatchable technical prowess who plays by the rules and is in the best position to protect the world from evil. But, unlike Iran we are trying to convince the world of this, and we're usually pretty successful in doing so (we got some blemishes like Vietnam and Iraq...).

Point is, nations will tell tales to the extent they think they can get away with it. The U.S. initially claimed they lost control of a drone being flown on the Afghan side of the border by the International Security Assistance Force. Only later, after the drone was shown to be in tact and reportedly found deep within Iranian airspace did we admit it was actually being flown by the CIA. But we didn't waver from our claim of it being on the Afghan side of the border, as that would be admitting we 'broke the rules' and violated a sovereign nation's airspace (At least we learned from our mistake about lying "too much" to the point where you get caught and publicly embarrassed like what happened with the 1962 U-2 incident ).

Given Iran's tendency to lie and boast about it's own capabilities, I do not take their claim of having brought down the drone at face value. But the reason I don't outright dismiss the claim as absurd, like how so many others are doing, is because of the circumstances and facts about the event that we do know.

So what do we know? We know that the U.S. lost control of a drone and it ended up intact in Iranian hands. U.S. officials have also repeatedly cast doubt that Iran could get any useful information from the drone's surveillance apparatus with varying claims of the data being encrypted, tamper-proof, and/or set to auto-erase in case of capture or malfunction. U.S. officials and other "experts" have also stated that the drones are programmed to return to base (possibly using inertial navigation) in case of data-link/GPS failure and that the drones are safeguarded against gps & datalink jamming. Furthermore, we have assurances that it is extremely unlikely that Iran possesses the capability to even do such jamming.

Regarding Iranian claims, we know that they have shown video of a RQ-170 replica flying, despite U.S. officials stating that the previously shown replica was just a static replica that can't actually fly, and conventional wisdom that holds Iran does not have the aerospace sophistication to produce advanced airframes like this. This doesn't mean that the flying replica is a true replica that has all the RQ-170's features and more, as Iran is claiming. It just undermines the assertions of those on the U.S. side of the events who declare with so much certainty what Iran's capabilities are. When you get something like that wrong, it makes me question whether you really know what you're talking about when it comes to evaluating the enemy's capabilities, or if you aren't being forthcoming with what you are telling us in order to preserve the narrative of America's state of the art technology being inviolable. And it makes me wonder what other information you got wrong/ are withholding from us.

We also know that after Iran acquired the drone, they said it would decode data from it — a feat that, as noted above, had been described by experts as preposterous and nearly impossible for Iran to do. A couple years later, Iran has released video clips as a sample of what they allegedly extracted from the drone's surveillance footage. The small amount of footage they have shown us has not been verified by U.S. officials who have declined to comment on it (and as long as the released footage remains limited enough for them to maintain plausible deniability in the case that it is genuine, it is unlikely we will ever get any comment). So it is possible that the video is just a propaganda piece by Iran. But, if so, it is of a much higher caliber than that bad photoshop job, as it is allegedly footage of the Kandahar air base that doesn't appear to be from some publicly available source like youtube (according to what I've read. I haven't verified this myself).

Our main point of disagreement, though, is whether or not the drone crashed, as you suspect, or whether it was commandeered, as Iran claims. You think a cyber hijacking is unlikely and that the drone just crashed. I also place a low probability on the cyber hijacking, but I think a crash is also not likely, which is why I entertained the takeover scenario in the previous post to explore the possibility of it happening.

We're talking about stealthy, tail-less, rudder-less airframe, which usually means an aerodynamically unstable airframe that needs precise computer correction to stay airborne, coming from a presumably high altitude to a soft crash landing hundreds of kilometers*(allegedly) away from where it was purportedly operating and remaining in tact. Have you even considered just how improbable that explanation is? Some military analysts also express doubt that it crashed:

Goure said the largely intact airframe ruled out the possibility of an engine or navigational malfunction.

"Either this was a cyber/electronic warfare attack system that brought the system down or it was a glitch in the command-and-control system," he said.
That you are so eager to insist on the unlikely explanation that the drone crashed rather than even consider it might have somehow been compromised by Iran seems indicative of strong cognitive dissonance at work. When all you hear is stuff like "there's no way <somebody> can do <X> or <Y> or <Z>" and then that same somebody goes ahead and verifiably does X, and also potentially did Y and Z, it's time to start thinking "maybe these guys aren't as dumb as we thought and we should take them more seriously". That is, unless it's easier to just deny it rather than change your cognition.

In the end, Iran has a vested interest to boast while making the U.S. look as bad as possible and the U.S. has an interest to maintain it's image, so I approach all the evidence with this in mind. That's why, instead of dismissing Iran as a "witless" adversary as you have done, I've stopped to consider how the rhetoric around this issue has been very similar to other times in the past where we have contemptuously underestimated someone. Iran may be lying about having brought the drone down by cyber means, but I'm not going to dismiss the possibility that there might be some truth to it solely because I'm biased by their historically boastful claims and the apparent gap in technological abilities to the U.S. All the other circumstances in this case make their claim more probable than if it were just taken "in a vacuum" at face value.

Lastly, let me put the J-31 issue to rest. I don't think it will be 'Superior' like the headline claims. That is obviously just click bait. But it will be interesting to see just how close in relevant capabilities the first generation of Chinese 'stealth' planes can get to the U.S. fighters, especially since they managed to steal some (crippled?) 3rd generation U.S. stealth tech and will likely get some more insights from the Iranians if they share the crashed drone's tech with them.

Sorry for the lengthy response.