Military Running a Parallel Earth Simulator

Fantastic Lad writes "The US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality. Putting supercomputers to an innovative use, the military is simulating our planet in an effort to predict the outcome of different scenarios. They might run tests to see how long 'you' can go without food or water, or how 'you' will respond to televised propaganda. Billions of nodes are created in the system, intended to reflect every man, woman, and child. 'Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a "synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information", according to a concept paper for the project. Simulex is the company developing these systems, and they list pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and defense contractor Lockheed Martin among their private sector clients. The U.S. military is their biggest customer, apparently now running the most complex version of the system. JFCOM-9 is now capable of running real-time simulations for up to 62 nations, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. The simulations gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators, and climactic events in the real world, along with proprietary information such as military intelligence."

Comments

Re:What if Neville Chamberlain had a backbone?

[Nicholas Evans]

So yeah, let's run a simulation where Iran's rulers get their way in the Middle East. How many nukes do you think it'll take them to "wipe Israel off the map"? Hey, that's what they OPENLY SAY they're going to do.

Except, you know, he didn't (the entry is well-cited, so nobody is allowed to give me shit about using Wikipedia as a source - go click the myriad of links it offers). But, haha, why do you warhawks care about that? There's oil to be had! Profits to be made! DIRTY, GRUBBING, EVIL AYE-RABS TO KILL!

and what do "Christians" believe?

[hoyeru]

that after a final confrontation and a world war, Hesus Christe will appear on Earth. There have been reports after reports that evangelical Christians that are in the USA government are trying to hasten to star of WWIII so their saivior can show up as soon as possible.

Shrub Jr himself has often mentioned he speaks directly to Gawd. In the olden days that would surely be a sure sign of insanity.

Re:What if Neville Chamberlain had a backbone?

[Ohreally_factor]

This is the most intelligent thing I've read from a Hawk in a long time. Thank you, it was refreshing. That said, even with the best political and military leadership, going to war is always going to be extremely chancy, which is why elective wars (i.e., wars not required for graduation) are generally not a good idea for a superpower. Sure, limited engagements might be a policy tool (Falklands, Panama, Grenada) if one is careful that they don't get out of hand, but what we (the U.S.) did by invading Iraq was cracked even if we had gone in with sufficient force. Even with a draft and without Afghanistan it is far from guaranteed that we would have been successful. And even if had been successful, chances are we'd still need to occupy Iraq for years.

If I may devolve into a rant, the people in the Bush Administration are lying sacks of shit whose delusions are as bad as those of Hitler's Nazis. It's bad enough that they lied to us so shamelessly. That they believed their own bullshit shows just how insane they are.

And yes, you seem to be one of the few that remember that the saber rattling worked, that Sadam had caved.

I've voted GOP since the middle of my college years (I'm 43 now), and the sooner the GOP loses control of Congress and the Presidency, the better. There really is something wrong mentally with the GOP leadership and anyone who would keep voting for them at this point.

Re:Twelfth Imam

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Yeah, because that worked so well in WWII...the isolationist and "stay the heck out" approach is temptingly simple. Proving how little you know about history apart from the oversimplified government/military coverage presented in high school text books.

The US banking industry, the manufacturing industry, the trade industry, the chemical industry, the investment industry, and on... HARDLY stayed the heck out of the business of Europe at the time of WW-II. A significant majority of what happened in Germany to cause the rise of the Third Reich was an effect of systems which were, in part, controlled by US money moguls. A significant majority of the funding and popularity of the Third Reich was due, in significant part, to the support and contributions of US money and a significant part of it came from the same interest groups who were feeding US politicians.

Could you, and the rest of the crowd, please, just for a moment, spend half a moment to think about anything deeper than the face value bullshit that you picked up in <gasp=shock_and_awe>government funded and regulated<gasp=shock_and_awe> schooling?

Re:What if Neville Chamberlain had a backbone?

[jawtheshark]

WWI was still very fresh in the minds of everybody and all things military weren't very popular.

Oddly enough, after over 60 years WWII is still quite fresh in the minds of the Europeans and all things military aren't still popular. I don't expect that to change anytime in the next 50 years. I'm European, and I'm from the second generation after the war. I have never experience it myself and still I think war is something to absolutely avoid. I know few people willing to join the military, and most of the time the military is despised.

Americans have a very hard time to understand that, mainly because they haven't had a war with enourmous atrocities on their own soil. Wars are events in far away countries for them. Atrocities are done by despots in far away countries, and atrocities commited by the US are labelled as "necessary".