spiky_fungus
6d ago
claims Western defense capabilities are useless against it.
well, MAD works for nuclear-armed countries
spiky_fungus
24d ago
600-700 tonnes
surely more?
spiky_fungus
27d ago
But I don't think that's enough to change my appraisal on him running his companies mostly on hype.
have you seen orbital launch graphs? launch cost graphs? SpaceX is far from dud (even if there is also enormous pile of hype)
spaceX just dominates, even at spaceX vs all humanity except spaceX
reducing costs with reusable rockets was a joke before spaceX
spiky_fungus
27d ago
That is why I give odds at 1:100, not 1:1000 (note: these are real odds, betting involves extra risks and on bet itself here margin is thin enough to make betting useless for profiting on it)
spiky_fungus
27d ago
But there's still surely a 5% or 10% chance that someone other than Trump gets sworn in next, I would think.
seems huge overestimate and I would bet money against it (up to 1:100 odds, counting transaction costs and risks)
Are you aware that people defended what Hamas did on 7th October?
And that their main tactic is randomly firing rockets into general area and suicide bombings?
Why you think that pre-teen child soldiers would phase them of all things?
Why using children as soldiers would be treated as worse than murdering children and celebrating it?
spiky_fungus
29d ago
yet I could find zero evidence from any organization that Hamas utilized pre-teen child soldiers in the past decade
which steps you have taken in this?
spiky_fungus
29d ago
Most of the easily-accessible coal and oil have been depleted.
offset by known locations of some remaining, some in progress mining operations being left and technology being invented already
Modern farming and transportation would be destroyed
not all of it, enough to bounce back
very possibly leading to Malthusian living conditions and a lack of leisure time necessary to rebuild the machines and infrastructure that we know are possible
seems dubious, but it is unverifiable and there is no known way to verify it
Within a few generations, most of the practical knowledge necessary to build complex machinery, etc., would be lost completely.
seems extremely dubious, I would buy utterly losing CPU production... But outright losing most machinery production? It is not SO hard to bootstrap when you are motivated, knowledge exists and world heavily fragmented. At least somewhere you will have people going to rebuild. And that is even if someone went omnicidal stupid and nuked say Peru and Keyna instead of finishing their main rival. Just to spite survivors.
It also seems likely to me that in the aftermath of a large-scale nuclear war, many of the most intelligent people would be dead
many of [insert group] would be dead, for nearly all descriptions
but even with selective death of top 40% of most intelligent/hard working/insert descriptor here survivors would rebuild. I think that you underestimate resilience of humanity (or maybe I overestimate)
spiky_fungus
1mo ago
Nice, fedposting, consensus building and stupid rolled in one.
Not entirely sure is it trolling or genuinely advocating for civil war. And unsure which one would be sadder.
spiky_fungus
1mo ago
he? I thought that Deiseach is a woman.
Why you expect it to be a high risk? Even if Russia would nuke Berlin and Warsaw - then USA, France and UK would not nuke Moscow back.
And reaction would be likely strong enough (China would join) ensuring that Russia will not nuke NATO countries or even Ukraine, as benefits is not there.
And if Putin/Biden/Kamala/Trump would be insane enough to launch full scale attack... There is not much we can do with that.
It doesn’t get nearly as much as attention as it should, here or elsewhere
Maybe because when I seen it, it was in "Russia has nukes, we must satisfy all their demands" form which does not encourage treating it seriously.
existential crisis
Even full scale use of all nuclear devices would not cause end of civilisation: it would cripple it and set us 50-100-200, maybe 300 years back and kill billions - but would not end existence of humanity.
Yes, people claiming that we have enough nukes to kill all humanity were stupid and/or lying.
spiky_fungus
1mo ago
We would eventually get to the point where a loaf of bread is a million dollars.
At that point you replace old dollar by new dollar at 1 000 000:1 and continue.
Not sure has it happened to dollar already at some point, but it was done for many currencies.
Or print banknotes starting from 1 (million in small print) to say 500 (million in small print).
spiky_fungus
1mo ago
Though say Germany and Canada are clearly on "really avoid" side.
While say France and USA is far from ideal but they at least achieve something.
spiky_fungus
1mo ago
Note than Europe it has not progressed beyond vibes and campaign promises. Still, progress that politician promise to build nuclear rather than promising to strangle nuclear.
had a flood around the same time which looked about equally bad to the NC pictures I'm seeing
I would care mostly population affected, not comparing cherry picked pictures when comparing how many people died.
the European flood
Note that similar area was affected in 1997 floods. Wrocław (major city in area affected by heavy rants) was not flooded this thanks to new dam/polder build after 1997 floods. During 1997 it was catastrophically flooded.
Case where people actually managed to learn from history.
And this region has decent experience and equipment for dealing with floods. It is THE primary natural catastrophe expected to happen here.
spiky_fungus
1mo ago
I was actually uncertain whether that particular portion of the book was Banks critiquing the Culture/minds for prosecuting a war despite being well aware of the costs it would incur, OR he was actually making a small jab at bleeding-heart liberals who want to enact change in the world but can't stand getting their hands even a bit bloody.
why not both at once?
see https://acoup.blog/2020/04/24/fireside-friday-april-24-2020/ starting from
was there post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the ancient (or medieval) world? And I’m going to tilt at that particular question here in a fireside in part because the absence of evidence doesn’t quite make for a riveting collections post and arguments from silence must always be cautious.
spiky_fungus
2mo ago
I feel sad that I am not getting this joke :(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wins_Above_Replacement helped a bit
I would consider deliberate mass murder combined with being an oppressive corrupt empire as worse than treating cretinous well intended idea too seriously and predictably becoming an oppressive corrupt empire.
Germans entirely deliberately planned to oppress/murder others, as a goal. While Russians were more selective (a bit) and it was not entirely whole point. I guess that puts Aztecs also above Third Reich for me.
Not sure where to put Mao, this level of murderous incompetence and tyrany is quite unique and whole class by itself.
(not that I rate USSR high, just a bit above Nazi Germany and Aztecs)
spiky_fungus
2mo ago
Note that "empire more evil than" is distinct from "caused most damage overall". Unless you go with some strict variant of ultrautilitarianism.
Aztecs killed far less people, but they remain strong contender to be more evil. Maybe in a quite tragic way as they actually believed own religion.
Similarly, nazi Germany is in my opinion more evil than USSR.
If you count overall damage and count all communists as one competitor, then yes they caused most damage overall.
spiky_fungus
2mo ago
Thanks! More than expected, but still too low to make "outlawing TVs and bookshelves over a certain size will reliably save the lives of several hundred young children each year" true (as it will not fully eliminate such deaths)
spiky_fungus
2mo ago
Still, "among the most evil empires in history" is far more fitting than "Certainly there has never been an empire more evil than Communism."
spiky_fungus
2mo ago
I have never heard anyone seriously propose bookshelf safety measures.
some reasonable ones are done by producers (many of mine come with stickers/instructions to attach them to wall rather leave freestanding, exactly to reduce risk of failing)
spiky_fungus
2mo ago
outlawing TVs and bookshelves over a certain size will reliably save the lives of several hundred young children each year who are killed when furniture falls on them
several hundred? really? Even worldwide that is surprisingly high (and outlawing large furniture would likely result in more stacked furniture more likely to fall anyway)
first, as second is some deranged babbling
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