magic9mushroom
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User ID: 1103
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
· Edited 2mo ago
I think a lot of SJ positions are better described not as "culturally Marxist", but as a bizarro-world ideology created by starting with the cultural positions of Marxism (and there are quite a lot of them) and then going in the opposite direction of the traditional Western paradigm.
Tradition: "Men should be in charge of women", Marxism: "Sex divisions are a distraction and should be ignored", SJ: "Women should be in charge of men".
Tradition: "The white man is the best man", Marxism: "Racial divisions are a distraction from class struggle; be colourblind", SJ: "Whites suck".
Tradition: "White culture is scientifically superior to natives' primitive culture and we should raze the latter", Marxism: "All cultures suck and we should make a new, constructed culture designed by science", SJ: "Indigenous ways of knowing are just as valid as science; traditional Western culture should be razed".
The only real explanation I can see for this pattern is that SJ is the result of escalatory virtue-signalling (plus a game of Chinese whispers over the years with social psych accidentally and deliberately laundering ideology into "the science") oriented along the axis of "Tradition bad, Marxism good" and thus has positions that are "beyond" Marxism in some sense. I'm aware that this is a bulverism and basically calling the ideology meme cancer, and I really don't like being this uncharitable, but it's honestly about all I can come up with.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
No, he's at least partially right.
Nuclear EMP is not the same thing as an electric arc; it's a massive burst of radio waves that induces currents inside devices. Gaps do matter. That's why you need multiple layers, so that there's metal connected between any two given directions (ideally closed circuits, to cancel the magnetic component as well as the electrical one).
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
"With enough layers" would be the key. Not merely wrapping with a bit of overlap, which I think the typical person would mistakenly do. Multiple layers offset or wrapped in different directions.
Yes, there's a reason I bought 60 metres of the stuff. Still under 10 bucks.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
Aluminum is the fourth most conducive metal
It depends on how you're counting it. Resistivity is usually measured by dimensions, and aluminium's #4 by that measure, but aluminium is far less dense than copper/silver/gold, so if your limiting factor is weight (often the case) aluminium is the best.
But merely wrapping something in aluminum foil would leave small gaps that I think would defeat the shield.
There's leakage, yes. But everything I've read suggests that you can achieve very high reduction with enough layers, and "very high" suffices (one only needs to bring the voltage inside below that needed to destroy the device, after all - it doesn't have to be brought to zero).
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
I don't think that is how EMP shielding works.
It is. Nuclear EMP is a (very powerful) radio burst; you shield against that by putting the item in a Faraday cage - an enclosure of conductive material (which, when exposed to EM fields, will generate transient currents that cancel out the field inside it; this is why phones don't work very well inside metal vehicles). Aluminium foil is conductive (aluminium is, in fact, frequently used for power transmission, as it's the most conductive material per mass short of superconductors), so it works, although because you can't exactly seal it into a solid enclosure without significant equipment, you need multiple layers at different angles and you ideally want the items to be relatively small.
(The use of metal foil to block EM radiation is the reason that literal "tinfoil hats" were invented; the physical principle's sound, although of course the schizophrenics' worry about people mind-controlling them with radio waves is nonsense, and Faraday cages need to completely or almost-completely surround the shielded item so a "hat" isn't really that effective.)
Also would your electronic need bmto be shielded before hand, so having materials to shield them later is irrelevant?
Correct, but a) some items, like the emergency radio, aren't useful outside a crisis, so you can just keep them wrapped up permanently; b) nuclear war usually comes out of an existing military conflict, which means that upon hearing about said conflict (WWII was not secret; the Cuban Missile Crisis was not secret; Able Archer 83 and the Soviet concern about it was AFAIK not secret) you can wrap things up then against the possibility of EMP attack.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
This is why power delivery networks are going to be toast and can have problems even from major geomagnetic storms.
It's specifically the transformers that are vulnerable to E3; the extra voltage/current buggers up the assumptions that go into their design, so they lose efficiency (efficiency at transmitting the normal power from power stations) and, yes, overheat. Of course, power grids don't work without the transformers, but the long wires themselves are in no danger (we know that one experimentally due to the Carrington event).
But yes, transformers are metal and they are vulnerable if not unplugged.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
Military targets are:
- Sydney (naval base in the harbour, which is perhaps not the best place to put it)
- Perth (naval base just offshore, which is perhaps not the best place to put it)
- Darwin (US nuclear bombers in airbase there; not going to object to this one since Darwin's low-population and much of that is for the military base)
- Pine Gap (major control station for ABM radar, which is fairly relevant in a nuclear exchange)
- maybe Cairns
- Canberra (capital)
Obvious civilian targets are, yeah, the five state capitals Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide/Perth, especially Syd/Melb.
And, obviously, it only takes one high-altitude nuke to EMP much of the continent, so why wouldn't you?
Agreed that they might not have the nukes to hit all of those.
Adelaide is usually upwind of me (as is Perth, though it's far enough away to be less of a problem), and frankly Victoria's weather is weird enough that I'm not entirely confident in being upwind of Melbourne (I'm in Bendigo). And, well, EMP is still a thing. But yes, fallout is much less of a danger than in the 'States.
WRT number of ICBMs, remember that they have MIRVs (i.e. in some cases "one ICBM" can drop nukes on 12 different cities as long as they're close enough to each other). Australia is also closer to China than the USA, so some of their missiles that can't hit the USA can hit us.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
Doing a bit of googling, the solar panels would probably be the highest risk since they have the longest dimensions and thus highest field strength difference from end to end.
Note that size only matters here if it's the size of a conductor (i.e. metal) attached to a semiconductor, not the size of the semiconductor itself (because the semiconductor's resistance also depends on size and that cancels out).
But that's kind of irrelevant; yes, photovoltaic solar cells are low-voltage semiconductor devices (specifically, they're giant diodes) and are thus likely toast if exposed to EMP. Solar-thermal can be EMP-proof, as there's no specific need for semiconductors and metals don't really care about EMP, but AIUI solar-thermal generators are more a thing for power stations than something remotely portable.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
I know it’s fashionable in some parts of the internet to fantasize about society collapsing and having to build it back, being revealed as a Nietzschean superman in the process or whatever. I guess the aesthetic vision doesn’t appeal to me. [...] The bombs won’t fall.
It's definitely not locked in, which is why I'm not following extreme advice like "manufacture a ghost gun" which would have substantial downside risk. But come on, basic gambler's logic. A 1% chance of avoiding death is worth spending $500 iff my life is worth more than $50,000 to me, which it obviously is since I can't exactly spend my money if I'm dead and I don't have any children yet; a probability of <1% for nuclear war in the next ten years seems pretty risible to me (from base rates: nukes have been used in anger in one conflict in the 79 years they've existed, so 10 years = 1/8 = 12.5%; from Reliable Sources: the Doomsday Clock is set closer to midnight than it's literally ever been; from my own actual Inside View: the West is reeling from the culture war, the PRC shows little interest in playing by the rules, there are intersecting red lines on Taiwan, and the spooks are spooked which has me spooked).
And, um... you do realise how offensive it is to implicitly accuse me of a) adopting beliefs because of fashion and/or hope rather than logic, and b) hoping for a billion people to die, yes? I am not Hitler and I'm not a sheep.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
When Israel was imagined in the late 19th century, the Arabs were a docile people under the absolute rule of Christian Europeans.
Point of order: while there were some parts of southern and eastern Arabia under British control in the 19th century, Western imperial control of the Levant didn't happen until the 20th (specifically with the conquest of the Ottoman Empire in WWI by the British and French, who carved it up into Syria/Lebanon/Palestine/Transjordan/Iraq).
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
No. I mean to live.
Kant's categorical imperative says that we should do those things that we would have all do. If all shirk in such a time, there will be no more humanity, and all we have accomplished will come to naught: the ultimate tragedy. Bentham said we should act to ensure the greatest happiness for the greatest number - which means we need to maintain that number if ever there is to be happiness again.
For all history, mankind has taken the world with all its faults and worked to make it better for the next generation. I will not abandon that proud tradition. If destiny says I'll live in hard times, I want to endure them, so that there may again be good times for me, for the children I hope to have, and for humanity.
I believe in something greater than myself, greater than some momentary pain. I want a better tomorrow, and I can't help build it if I'm dead. Dying for a cause can be worthwhile, if the death achieves enough. But dying for nothing? No, thank you.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
What happens if your own government starts rationing and sends out commissars to take all the food that isn’t nailed down?
Then the stockpile is irrelevant because it would be taken by those commissars.
It's tricky to come up with a situation where both I actually need the food and I get to keep it, particularly since I'm regional, not rural (a cult compound in the middle of nowhere can definitely use the food, but I don't live in one).
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
I think you might be underestimating the sheer scale of Australia's food surplus; we could lose a lot of efficiency without Australians starving (as opposed to Asia starving from our exports stopping), because we've got 2.5 times the arable land/people ratio of even the USA. Transporting it is still an issue, but Australia does have some oil.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
Hmm, hadn't put two and two together regarding 131I having a long enough half-life that I'd need to eat before it was all gone and also being somewhat inhalable. Guess that goes on the list; thanks.
Guns are a legal headache here in Oz, and going the illegal route doesn't seem like a great cost-benefit at present. I suppose I could get a compound bow; those are the most effective fully-legal weapon of which I'm aware.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
What belongs on a nuclear-prep shopping list?
NB: I live in country Australia, so there will be some things notably missing from mine that others might want. In particular, Australia is not going to have a long-lasting food shortage due to our immense food production and paucity of viable nuclear targets, and I don't need to worry about being directly injured by nuclear blasts (this is not a coincidence; it's why I didn't move back to Melbourne).
Here's what's already on my list:
- Bottled water (as in, the cheap huge bottles), in case water supplies get contaminated by fallout (I have 20L)
- A battery- or hand-powered radio, to pick up emergency broadcasts (don't have this yet)
- Aluminium foil, to wrap up electronics (including aforementioned radio) to protect from EMP (don't have this yet)
- Some means of transportation that will work after EMP (I have a bicycle; an ICE car would arguably be better but I can't drive)
What else belongs on such lists? Does something I mentioned not belong on the list?
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
· Edited 2mo ago
Furthermore, you act like they aren't even real. Like they don't even count, without any basis. Just "Nope, you don't get to use citations for that." We doing hate facts now here?
You cited Bing searches; those aren't sources of information but notoriously-unreliable aggregators. I'm pretty sure I rated your earlier comment either "Bad" or "Deserves a warning" on the volunteer page, and part of it was because the only motive I could come up with for citing Bing searches (given that a Bing search is not going to convince anybody) was that you were hoping people would take the existence of the link as evidence without actually checking what the link was.
If you'd dug a bit deeper to provide actual sources, I'd have been much more positively disposed toward your post and I imagine Amadan would too.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
If I really truly believe that something is an existential threat to humans, I’m not going to let petty politics on other subjects get in the way of fixing it.
That is the correct response, given that you are all of: rational, consequentialist, and not convinced that success will occur regardless.
However, most people are not consequentialists, and many people are not rational.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
"Why" is that Data Secrets Lox was founded in the time between SSC's closure and ACX's opening, and not everybody suddenly evicted from SSC's comments wanted to move to the subreddits (this was before theMotte left Reddit). I was a member on DSL before I was a Motte member, for instance, because I didn't have (and didn't want to get) a Reddit account. It's not a "Motte for different politics".
It's also not specifically for culture war, although it allows it.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
Data Secrets Lox, another SSC spinoff forum (which also leans right, although perhaps less heavily than theMotte).
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
Even a place like Nashville is diversifying as it grows.
This seems to be suggesting the opposite causal direction to what you're claiming - that growth/dynamism causes diversity, rather than that diversity causes growth/dynamism.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
China's not exactly doing great.
No, they're quite (horribly) effective at imperialism. Remember that just because Chinese territory is contiguous doesn't mean it's not an empire; China proper, peopled by Han, looks like this. Xinjiang and Tibet, at least (I'm less sure about Inner Mongolia and Manchuria), are not very happy with being ruled by the PRC, but it's doing them little good because they're brutally occupied.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
· Edited 2mo ago
To build on what @Incanto said:
Even without taking OpenAI's charter into account, I have no motivation to buy stock in a company that's trying for singularity. Leaving aside the question of whether I think that company is instead going to end the world (and I do), assuming for the sake of argument that they'll succeed in getting controllable superintelligence...
...what process exactly is paying me my dividends? Control of a singularity event, in a relatively-short timeframe, gives sovereignty. Yes, the law says that I can replace them if they don't pay me, but the law will have no power over them if they succeed, because singularity rapidly means they outgun the government. They can just turn around and stiff me and I've got no recourse; only direct control of the AI matters.
magic9mushroom
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2mo ago
I think that you're mischaracterising the thought process of climate activists. They're not pretending to care about the climate. They do actually care about it. It's just that most of the loud ones also have a bunch of other causes and are unwilling to "sully" themselves by compromising any of their other causes in order to more effectively oppose global warming. You can't do nuclear, because radiation is bad. You can't subsidise corporations without DIE, because DIE is important. And on it goes.
They're absolutely guilty of refusing to accept "impure" solutions, and thus of refusing to think realistically, but it's not intended as a Trojan Horse.
Wait, was this meant to be a reply to something in the "Cultural Marxism" thread a couple of top-level posts down?
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