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Nuclear War, Dieoffs, and Doomer Porn! Pt. 4

For discussions of events and conditions not necessarily related to Peak Oil.

Re: Nuclear War, Dieoffs, and Doomer Porn!

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 19 May 2017, 08:48:51

No one really knows for sure. The only way to positively know is to try. It's an exercise I would rather skip. Although, in some scenarios, a limited engagement would set back cc about 3 years.
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Re: Nuclear War, Dieoffs, and Doomer Porn!

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 19 May 2017, 11:16:57

"War aids capitalism, those who support capitalism support war, that is, the philosophy of death and destruction," Morales said.

President Evo Morales of Bolivia warned Tuesday that humanity was “at risk of disappearing in a nuclear holocaust,” as tensions mount worldwide after U.S. military attacks in Syria and Afghanistan.

“Nuclear power in the United States and Western countries are getting us dangerously closer to a nuclear conflagration,” adding that the capitalist crisis leads the imperialists to “new wars that are in reality military interventions over natural resources, over the control of sea routes or regions with geopolitical, energy, trade or financial value.”

"War aids capitalism, those who support capitalism support war, that is, the philosophy of death and destruction," Morales said.

He recalled the U.S. nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan that left hundreds of thousands dead.

In his opinion, U.S. President Donald Trump, “gave the Pentagon all power,” with his proposal to increase the military budget by US$54 billion.

“The empire is not governed by a man but by the sum of its financial, industrial and technological powers,” Morales explained.

He called on the whole world "to join forces to repudiate energetically any war, any military intervention that does not seek to guarantee human rights, that is not in defense of democracy, and only seeks natural resources."


http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/W ... -0036.html
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Re: Nuclear War, Dieoffs, and Doomer Porn!

Unread postby evilgenius » Wed 24 May 2017, 12:29:29

I think the Chinese are the greatest determinant of Indian nuclear power, not the Pakistanis. China and India, at least when I was paying attention to such things, used to gauge the size of their nuclear arsenals in comparison to each other. That's why the Chinese don't have very many nuclear weapons. If the Indians want to engage in a buildup, it would mean an arms race with China. They have lots of reasons not to do this.

This also affects thinking about first strike options for India, when it comes to Pakistan. If they only have 50 warheads, then what are they going to do in the course of a war when they don't have any left and they could really use them? A first strike that doesn't totally annihilate your enemy, rendering them incapable of retaliation, may contain the element of surprise but might not be all that useful in the end. Pearl Harbor didn't win the war for the Japanese. The risk of overstepping and losing in the long run is great enough, when you have a limited stockpile.

Incidentally, this is also the reason why missile boats are so important. They carry a sufficiently deadly cargo with enough range to ensure retaliation, even amongst adversaries in a nuclear war who do have large stockpiles. And they can wait six months or more to deliver their cargo, ensuring that massed armies in threatening places down the road from the time of the initial conflict will be threatened as well as holding hostage civilian populations.
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Re: Nuclear War, Dieoffs, and Doomer Porn!

Unread postby sparky » Thu 25 May 2017, 08:01:55

.
Big nukes carry a lot of weight , the missile tell you the weaponry used
the missiles now are smaller ,much faster and way more precise
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The Iron Dome America Needs Today

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 06 Jul 2017, 16:35:02

This is a madman:
Image
...watching the launch of his latest toy, a long range ICBM capable of striking the US mainland with a nuclear warhead.

This is the answer to that threat:
Image
The Israeli-made "Iron Dome" ABM system that has protected Israel since 2012. Now being upgraded with enhanced digital electronics and even faster interceptor rockets. To begin our discussion a op ed piece by Ben Stein:

Our Absolutely Number One Priority

By Ben Stein

Of course, Reagan had it right almost forty years ago:

"Just to make this as clear as possible right now, the absolutely number one priority for the United States is to work with Israel to make and deploy a foolproof anti-ballistic missile system immediately." Nothing is more important. We now know that a man as crazy as a loon has nuclear weapons, will very soon have the means to deliver them to North America, and has said over and over that he will use those weapons to incinerate American cities.

We now know that a man who makes Hitler look like a model of diplomatic restraint will soon have the means to turn much of our nation into a glass parking lot.

We know a lot about what the Kim family is like: they like to torture and to kill. They have zero, dead zero respect for human life or world opinion. They respect only force and physics.

The U.S. has some anti-ballistic missile systems. The Israelis are the world leaders in extremely rapid response time anti-missile systems, ballistic and shorter range. It’s time to make this a crash program more important even than The Manhattan Project: make systems that can shoot down the North Korean rockets. There is no excuse to fail to do this. The loony left very largely blocked Reagan’s Star Wars proposals. We may yet answer with tens of millions of American lives. Now, even the most ignorant among us knows that a successful ABM system is more important than tax cuts, more important than “repeal and replace,” more important than the fake news of “Russian collusion.”

The most urgent duty of the government is to protect the nation. The nation is now at high stakes risk. Let’s get the best scientists in the USA and Israel together. Tell them money is no object, that this has to be done yesterday. There’s not a moment for delay: it’s life and death and if our leaders cannot act decisively on this one, it’s High Treason. The Israelis have shown that they can hit a bullet with a bullet. Now, let’s build an Iron Dome for all of America.


Original is at: https://spectator.org/our-absolutely-number-one-priority/
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby Tanada » Sun 03 Sep 2017, 23:12:25

Anyone think the odds are going up with Kim in Korea being such a belligerent fellow?
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Mon 04 Sep 2017, 10:39:09

Tanada wrote:Anyone think the odds are going up with Kim in Korea being such a belligerent fellow?

Absolutely.
What worries me more is China's willingness to let him continue.
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Mon 04 Sep 2017, 12:23:38

Of course, NYC has always been the #1 target in the USA. With The Donald in residence in Trump Tower, doubly so.

The NK hydrogen bomb that we saw on the news is smaller than a Samsung refrigerator. All the NK's have to do is smuggle it into SK, place it in an appliance being exported to NYC - or Chicago - or Atlanta - or LA - or Washington, DC. Most likely target list: NYC plus as many additional cities as he has bombs for.

Then the little fat man has won the first nuclear war. It really won't matter if we destroy his country afterwards, once he has killed over 100 Million Americans.

Everybody, have a nice Labor Day.
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby Plantagenet » Mon 04 Sep 2017, 20:04:29

KaiserJeep wrote:The NK hydrogen bomb that we saw on the news is smaller than a Samsung refrigerator. All the NK's have to do is smuggle it into SK, place it in an appliance being exported to NYC - or Chicago - or Atlanta - or LA - or Washington, DC. Most likely target list: NYC plus as many additional cities as he has bombs for.

Then the little fat man has won the first nuclear war.....

Everybody, have a nice Labor Day.


At first glance that seems like a scary scenario, but its actually very unlikely that North Korea can (1) smuggle nuclear bombs into multiple shipments of Samsung applicances that are (2) being shipped from South Korea to the USA and that (3) enter the USA without DHS detecting the nukes.

DHS screens all incoming cargo, and DHS Radiation detectors are part of the screening in all US ports now, you know.

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DHS agent screening cargo for radioactive material
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Mon 04 Sep 2017, 22:53:26

No, I don't know that. My family for the last 3 generations has served in the US Coast Guard. My (present service) CPO Brother-In-Law who works Port Security says that they physically screen only 5-10% of all cargo containers, on a random basis. Mostly they depend upon the computer source-to-destination tracking and random hands-on checks.

The radioactive "scanning" you are referring to is called "muon detection" and involves bombarding a cargo container with high energy particles and an analyzing the radiation belching out the other side, to see if fissionable isotopes are present. This takes time and expensive equipment, which is why only 5-10% of the cargo at ports and airports is "scanned". A randomly selected cargo container is routed by the scanner, but something like 90 to 95 out of a hundred containers are never scanned. The system is tested periodically, but in 20 out of 20 test cases in 2012-2016, actual fissionables have been missed.

The problem is the budget and if we only had 20X the budget they actually do have, we could make a really good pass at 100% of those containers. The DHS guy in the photo above is using a handheld gamma ray sniffer, and if the fissionables are shielded, he'll miss them.

In a way you are correct, though - we have the technology, we lack the will and the budget.
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Mon 04 Sep 2017, 23:20:35

I expect that the authorities are well aware of all these limitations. I also expect they take a much harder look at ships coming from S. Korea or the Middle East than they do to ones coming from say England.
But what if they fail to detect a bomb that is set off in the middle of one of our port cities? I don't expect them to be able coordinate multiple bombs of this complexity so we might lose one city with perhaps five million killed and twenty million displaced to get away from the radiation.
One day later no city in the country that sent that bomb would be anything but a smoking pile of radioactive ashes.
MAD still works only today with these light weights it is not MAD it is YAD. (Your Assured Destruction).
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby Plantagenet » Tue 05 Sep 2017, 01:37:18

KaiserJeep wrote:No, I don't know that. My family for the last 3 generations has served in the US Coast Guard. My (present service) CPO Brother-In-Law who works Port Security says that they physically screen only 5-10% of all cargo containers, on a random basis. Mostly they depend upon the computer source-to-destination tracking and random hands-on checks.


Think about what "screening" means. You don't have to physically examine something to "screen" it...screening just means (1) : to examine .... in order to make a separation into different groups (2) : to select or eliminate by a screening process

The DHS now tracks every container coming into the US. Using a "screening process" based on reported content, place of origin, etc. etc. they then divide the containers into different groups---some tiny fraction of all the containers will be denied entry for place of origin or other reasons, another small percentage of the containers must be examined upon entry based on the screening criteria, while others are ok to admit without examination but nonetheless will examined randomly to try to catch something nasty in a container. This third group is the 5-10% your post mentions.

I agree with you that the current screening process doesn't inspire confidence, but nonetheless there is a a screening process in place. As Vt. noted in his post, it can be ramped up and down depending on threat levels, with agents physically examining a higher percentage of containers from potential danger spots when the alert level goes to red. I would imagine in their screening they are currently paying close attention to cargoes coming from Korea.

dhs.gov/cargo-screening]

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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby Newfie » Tue 05 Sep 2017, 10:06:25

Damn glad they got the containers down pat.

Good thing no one ever thought of putting it in the spare bed room of some Islamic potentates mega yacht! :-D

8O
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby Plantagenet » Tue 05 Sep 2017, 12:12:31

Newfie wrote:Damn glad they got the containers down pat.

Good thing no one ever thought of putting it in the spare bed room of some Islamic potentates mega yacht! :-D

8O


Or just load "it" in an Islamic potentates mega private jet and fly direct into NYC, LA, or DC. Several of them now use 747s and Airbus 380s as private jets. You could fit a terror army in there and have room left over for several nasty bombs.

The list of nightmare scenarios is endless.

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BONUS: passengers on private jets don't have to go through the normal TSA passenger baggage and weapons examinations
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby evilgenius » Sat 09 Sep 2017, 13:22:35

I said back in '07 that WWI started because of alliances that nobody thought would lead to war. I think, today, it's just as common for people to believe that alliances won't cause a nuclear war. Does anybody think that a US attack on North Korea would cause Russia to attack the US? I bet hardly anyone does. Even I don't think the Chinese would. Even if they trade more with Europe, the loss of the US as a customer would so derail their current trajectory as to set them back decades at a time when that kind of setback would harm them more than a small war. China is good at avoiding war. Which is to say, if they were to be involved in an alliance related attack it would probably only be if they foresaw the confrontation limited to one or two cities, not the entire US. And, probably, not so tied to them, as perpetrators, as to prevent their future trading with the US.

In '07 people could see the housing market imploding, yet they refused to believe what they were seeing. How many experts got on TV in those days and said not to worry? In the same way, there are obvious warning signs telling the US not to be so cavalier over how it treats both North Korea and Iran. One of those is what has transpired in the Ukraine over the past several years. The fact that Russia has realized it is threatened from the south, by a long trend push by the US, such that it has reacted by engaging the linchpin country upon which a further US advance would rely. Iran is just as important to them, as it is effectively their proxy in the Middle East. As far as North Korea goes, how did they get to the point of developing a thermonuclear weapon? That's not easy. Their conventional nuclear weapons barely had a yield. Have they had help?

I suppose it comes down to how much of a threat small nuclear nations really are. North Korea still has to mass produce both warheads and ICBM's in order to become a true threat to the US. Is Iran a threat, if it has a weapon, to any other than an invading army? What if all they can do with it outside their borders is stifle US power projection by holding back the Saudis? Are they a threat worth invading simply because their nuclear capability gave them sway over oil production and transportation, but not almighty sway?

There is also the possibility that Russia eventually sees both Iran and North Korea as its nuclear proxies, giving them the ability to cover themselves in plausible deniability while exercising the kind of power a declining state feels it may need to at a time when it could easily fall into the kind of obscurity from which it may never come back. They haven't done much to address their wholesale oligarchical corruption, and the way it prevents their economy from supporting better democracy. If that were their plan, for dealing with China as well as the US down the road, they might not accept action taken today to short circuit it. It might not come as outright war, but the greater involvement it might induce, by forcing Russia to actually become more involved in overt military and economic activity, could lead to war. The group within the official outer group of legitimate governance, the oligarchs surrounding Putin, could be the one to worry about. It's the one most threatened by the position the US takes toward them. And they are the ones holding the power in Russia now! Their ability to use propaganda, through the official media they own, may be a greater concern as to whether the Russian people agree with war than if they, as Sting sang, love their children too.

The above is why I place my choice at greater than 10%. I think there is probably a 20% chance. It's well avoidable, but could easily be what happens if the US is not wise and blunders its way into the North Korean or Iranian situations. 20% is not likely to happen, but is high enough that you can't discount it.
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sat 09 Sep 2017, 13:52:50

EG, consider this for a moment: Trump has threatened trade embargo to anyone who supports NK. Suppose that China continues to do so and that Trump (seeking re-election perhaps) embargoes all trade with China. This will impact China a lot harder than the USA. I think it would also make nuclear war about 5X as likely in the short term.
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sat 09 Sep 2017, 14:19:04

The likelihood of nuclear war would be a lot less if Obama had manned up and forced regime change on North Korea before they had nuclear weapons and ICBMS, instead of kicking the can down the road to Trump.

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Obama did nothing about North Korea for 8 years as they developed nuclear weapons and ICBMS.....now what will Trump do?
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby evilgenius » Sat 09 Sep 2017, 15:11:35

KaiserJeep wrote:EG, consider this for a moment: Trump has threatened trade embargo to anyone who supports NK. Suppose that China continues to do so and that Trump (seeking re-election perhaps) embargoes all trade with China. This will impact China a lot harder than the USA. I think it would also make nuclear war about 5X as likely in the short term.


The US economy would have to go down the protectionist road for some time in order for that to harm the Chinese more than the US. Protectionism could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I guess that could happen quickly, but what sort of state would the economy be in that people over here would buy that? I guess you'd have to see the end of so many big companies that people only had their own independent contracting or entrepreneurship to fall back on. Shells of big companies might remain, employing people in piecemeal fashion (thus the independent contracting being so viable), but wouldn't they need to have a lot less global exposure? The service sector would have to shrink enormously, and not offer hope of coming back soon. I don't think he could do that based upon propaganda alone. Something that resembles the usual conspiracy theory suggestions would have to take place. I suppose a truly epic California earthquake could do that too, or Yellowstone going off. I don't think AI will come on that quickly, but it does threaten to do some of that. At any rate, things would have to get mean. I hope not, but you could be right.

Imagine that at the hand of the next Democrat president. That one is almost certain to have taken a page from Bernie Sanders' playbook, thus being more in tune with the fears of the people. By then, AI would be big enough to begin destroying employment on a large scale and disconnecting companies from overseas commitments. I don't think they would be a socialist, mind you, but there are so many other ways to entice people. You could see them pulling off protectionism as part of a package designed to 'make America feel great again.' If Trump had been destructive and crazy seeming enough, in response to him, they would probably eat it up with a spoon.
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sat 09 Sep 2017, 15:29:17

I think your analysis is flawed. My definition of "prosperity" is whatever benefits the US working middle class, not the Wall Street fat cats. Being protected from unfair trade with a nation that has an abysmal record of human rights abuses, pays wages barely enough to keep it's workers healthy, while destroying the environment around them - that relationship and dependancy needs to end and be replaced with either domestic manufacturing, or imports from countries with more respect for people and environment.

I realize that the result will be conniptions in the stock market, and perhaps the demise of firms like WalMart and Costco. But (not being a stockholder in those) I'm content to ride out the market gyrations. I take the long term view, not whatever is good for next quarter's profits.
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Re: Probability of nuclear war

Unread postby evilgenius » Wed 13 Sep 2017, 10:30:05

What I'm trying to say is that the Democrats are just as much in bed with big business as the Republicans. They have a different way of showing it, but behind them are a lot of donors who want something back. Their donors are possibly more likely to know what AI can do, and are willing to risk skirting close to the dangers it poses to workers. Some even seem aware of it, proposing things like guaranteed minimum pay, but they haven't got any systemic answers to this disruptive technology.

As for the Chinese, they are not a credible threat. Their nuclear position is built to defend them from attack, not to project power. The sort of detente they have reached with India prevents them from having a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. They have what they need to stop any power from invading them, but they don't have an arsenal designed to project power. Nor are they likely to press conventionally for war. Instead, they have used the power of economics to ingratiate themselves with people across the world.

Russia remains the only power capable of threatening either the US or Europe with nuclear war. Today they are not openly aggressive like they were when they led the Soviet Union and Khrushchev said he would bury us. That doesn't mean they aren't dangerous, especially when cornered. I think they have reason to feel cornered, given what has happened in the Middle East in terms of boots on the ground. Ever since the Caspian Sea region turned out to be a bust rather than the hoped for next big thing, world events have been shaped in a way that doesn't look good for the Russians, who control the regions producing oil that gave rise to the Caspian hope in the first place. People like to diss peak oil as a driver of world events, perhaps because they can't see beyond the next few weeks, let alone the next few decades, but it does seem to lie behind the threat the Russians may be feeling.
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