100 Years of Chemical Weapons

Pesticides for humans by riverat1 · 2015-02-23 06:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

Chemical weapons are essentially pesticides for humans.

Re:Pesticides for humans by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2015-02-23 06:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

More than a few are also essentially pesticides. Both the V and G series organophosphate nerve agents were discovered in the course of pesticide research, and VG was even sold for agricultural use for a time, before the safety issues became apparent.
Re:Pesticides for humans by The+Grim+Reefer · 2015-02-23 06:42 · Score: 1

The Spanish flu was a better pesticide. If I recall correctly, it accounted for almost 1/3 of all military deaths during WWI.
Re:Pesticides for humans by sillybilly · 2015-02-23 07:07 · Score: 0

I used to make a living working with organophosphates (basically octyl phosphoric like acids) to run chemical process lines, and I had a hunch of the whole thing being an experiment for getting gassed with less than lethal weapons, of possibly phosphate nature, different from the above mostly benign chemicals, me being the lab rat getting gassed, and should I show at a hospital, detected organophosphates can be ascribed to exposure on the job to the benign stuff, possibly allergy to it. That was the only place I ever worked at by buying COBRA health insurance from my previous job, it was obvious during the interview tour that it would be needed. Second time around I wasn't as chicken, went without insurance. Third time around they talked me into it when I said I did not want to waste their money. Still, I got sick three times and they let me quit three times, they emphasized, they emphasized that I came there out of my own good will and nobody was forcing me to come there. I did not even have to do the two week notice. It's kinda like making a living through stealing the cheese from the mousetraps, if you're a mouse. The rewards are high. Yeah. Whatever. At least the rewards were high, unlike at the very next job, getting near minimum wage where I got a whole lot sicker from mandatory hand sanitizer use, and some kind of floating fuzz airborne infection, plus being left all alone sitting in a chair working with nobody for yards around me, for 12 hrs, and just got insanely sick sitting there, even without hand sanitizer, felt kinda like a deep sunburn, my best guess was xrays. So it's like, what's the difference, it's mousetraps everywhere anyway, except some traps have cheese, and some have some bitter green grass. Which one do you prefer choosing? So they say fourth time is a charm.
Re:Pesticides for humans by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:07 · Score: 0

Not cool to joke about pesticides for humans. Some of us have family members who died at Auschwitz. My Grandfather was one of them. Fell right out of a guard tower. :(
On behalf of him and every other victim of that horrible place I demand an apology for your insensitivity.
Re:Pesticides for humans by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:18 · Score: 0

Go suck a pig turd.
Re:Pesticides for humans by plover · 2015-02-23 07:19 · Score: 0

As I recall, the agricultural pesticide industry was initially derived from the chemical weapons industry, not the other way around. Poisons had been known for centuries, but weren't widely applied as they were toxic to both humans and pests. Large scale agricultural applications of pesticides began with DDT, which wasn't developed until 1939.

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John
Re:Pesticides for humans by Dutch+Gun · 2015-02-23 07:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yep. I've also heard that there's essentially zero difference between a pesticide factory and one that produces chemical weapons. This was one of the problems the inspectors in Iraq had. Not sure of the veracity of that info, but given the historic link between pesticides and military chemical weapons, it doesn't sound all that far fetched.

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Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Re:Pesticides for humans by riverat1 · 2015-02-23 07:34 · Score: 1

What makes you think my comment was a joke? It was a straight up expression of my opinion.
Re:Pesticides for humans by SEverts · 2015-02-23 07:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

Hi - This is Sarah, the reporter on the chem weapons package. You are absolutely right that factories for producing seemingly OK/useful chemicals (dyes, pesticides) can easily be converted to making chemical weapons. After WWI, many chemists argued that there was no point making treaties against chemical weapons because you'd effectively have to outlaw the entire chemical industry... Chlorine gas & phosgene were both part of the dye industry. (Of course these chemists may have been swayed in their opinions by the promise of amazing funding for the weapons research.... but they did have a point on the factory front.)
Re:Pesticides for humans by SEverts · 2015-02-23 08:00 · Score: 5, Informative

This is Sarah, the journalist who wrote the chem weapons package. One of the interesting things (in a macabre way) about Tabun (the first nerve agent that then spawned Soman and Sarin) is that it was originally discovered by a chemist trying to create a pesticide to improve food storage. After nearly killing himself and his lab mates, he decided it was probably too potent for the food industry...
Re:Pesticides for humans by fnj · 2015-02-23 08:36 · Score: 4, Informative

Your recollection does not align with history. DDT was far from the first significant agricultural pesticide.
In the real world, pesticides and specifically insecticides date back thousands of years. Sulfur was burned to produce a noxious gas, and various naturally occurring substances, biological and mineral, were gathered and used. Hydrogen cyanide gas was used to fumigate citrus trees in California in the 1880s. Zyklon A, which was a compound designed to release hydrogen cyanide on the application of heat and water for pesticidal purposes, dates back to before WW1. It was banned after a similar compound was used as a chemical weapon in WW1.
Zyklon-B was a cyanide-based pesticide with an irritant additive to serve as a warning, dating back to the early 1920s. It was used for delousing clothes and controlling pests in ships, warehouses and trains. It was co-opted for more infamous purposes later. One of the inventors was executed in 1946 for knowingly providing the substance to a certain evil state actor.
Organophosphates were used as pesticides, followed shortly by use as nerve "gases".
Re:Pesticides for humans by DerekLyons · 2015-02-23 09:51 · Score: 1

Equally macabre... chemotherapy for treating cancer was developed in part after the autopsies of victims of an accidental release of mustard gas in WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cancer_chemotherapy
Re:Pesticides for humans by Dutch+Gun · 2015-02-23 10:47 · Score: 1

Thanks for the interesting articles Sarah. I was familiar with many of the more commonly known facts, as I watch a lot of war documentaries, but I still learned quite a few things as well.

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Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Re:Pesticides for humans by serviscope_minor · 2015-02-23 11:43 · Score: 1

After WWI, many chemists argued that there was no point making treaties against chemical weapons because you'd effectively have to outlaw the entire chemical industry... Chlorine gas & phosgene were both part of the dye industry.
Not only that but chlorine prodiction is utterly trivial: it might not be the cheapest way, but you can get it by electrolysis of brine.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:Pesticides for humans by Luckyo · 2015-02-23 13:37 · Score: 1

That would be a biological rather than a chemical weapon if weaponized.
Re:Pesticides for humans by tehcyder · 2015-02-23 22:25 · Score: 1

One of the inventors was executed in 1946 for knowingly providing the substance to a certain evil state actor.
Godwin's Law doesn't mean that you can't ever refer to Hitler by name at all, you know.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Pesticides for humans by gatkinso · 2015-02-24 03:22 · Score: 1

Too bad there isn't an obvious meta tag.

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Re:Pesticides for humans by luis_a_espinal · 2015-02-24 08:59 · Score: 1

One of the inventors was executed in 1946 for knowingly providing the substance to a certain evil state actor.
Godwin's Law doesn't mean that you can't ever refer to Hitler by name at all, you know.
Probably he omitted the name for literary effect, not to circumvent Godwin's.
Re:Pesticides for humans by plover · 2015-02-24 15:20 · Score: 1

My point was that DDT was the first large scale agricultural pesticide that was engineered specifically to be less toxic to humans. You could use cyanide gas on a field, but your farm hands or animals would die if they wandered into the cloud. That meant a farmer wouldn't apply those kinds of poisons except in severe infestations.
DDT made the application and use of pesticides measurably safer, and led the way to routine applications of pesticides on all kinds of crops. Today's pesticides can be deployed on a schedule as a preventative measure to ensure reliable crop yields, and not just applied on an as-needed basis. For that matter, GMO crops are now engineered to express all kinds of toxins throughout the plants, with the plants' own cells serving as microscopic pesticide factories from germination through harvest.

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John
Re:Pesticides for humans by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2015-02-25 00:09 · Score: 1

The history gets a little muddled because different classes of chemicals were developed with different primary purposes at different times.

Various primitive fumigants (burning sulfur, various other 'noxious smoke' type stuff) date back approximately forever, and have been used to discourage pests; and also 'discourage' the guys digging a tunnel under your castle; but are pretty tepid war gasses in the open, more suffocating than overtly toxic.

Some of the WWI war gasses were substantially tailored for effect on humans(or, even where previously known, like Chlorine, pretty expensive and annoying to deal with as agricultural agents), though at least the arsenicals also overlapped with pesticide developments.

Nerve agents started as pesticide research(and to this day, the lesser organophosphates are used for the purpose); but(thanks to lousy benchtop practice that nearly killed a few of the scientists involved) it became clear that the peppier flavors were also...eminently suitable...for getting rid of large mammalian pests. Thankfully, in WWII, the Germans overestimated allied knowledge of nerve agents, based on a misreading of the patent literature, and didn't want to risk reprisal. Had this not been the case, V-2s full of sarin would have been technologically feasible, which would have really ruined some days.
Re:Pesticides for humans by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2015-02-25 00:12 · Score: 1

I'm no industrial process chemist, so I don't know how different the factories look; but my understanding is that that is part of why the lists of scheduled chemicals, and the multiple schedules, for the Chemical Weapons Convention, are as messy as they are. There are some that we've decided nobody has any legitimate reason to be playing with; but loads of dual-use chemicals.
Re:Pesticides for humans by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2015-02-25 00:17 · Score: 1

The other problem with chlorine is that it's among the cheaper ways of bringing a semblance of sanitation to a municipal water supply.

Really classy first-world jurisdictions can use Ozone systems(which have the advantage of basically perfect decomposition into harmless oxygen by the time the water reaches customers, and need only electricity and occasional spare parts at the treatment plant, rather than big tanks of chlorine); but anywhere else is probably chlorinating the fecal bacteria out of the water supply, which saves a ton of lives(especially if the medical system is lousy); but also means that chlorine is basically just sitting around.

We ran into that issue in Iraq from time to time. Chlorine is a really lousy war gas, barely toxic enough to count as one at all; but just sending a couple guys with guns and a truck down to the water treatment plant could score you enough of the stuff to release in the nearest crowded area for some reliable freaking out and some casualties.

If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 06:25 · Score: 0

Anytime you are being attacked, any and all means of self defense should be OK. If you don't want to get gassed, stay the fuck out of our country.

Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by the_Bionic_lemming · 2015-02-23 06:34 · Score: 2

Cept the germans used it in ypres, Belgium - so they should of stayed the fuck out of Belgium and gassed themselves?

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Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by ShanghaiBill · 2015-02-23 06:35 · Score: 5, Informative

If you don't want to get gassed, stay the fuck out of our country.
When the Germans first gassed the French, the French were not in Germany. The Germans were in France.
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:12 · Score: 0

Anytime you are being attacked, any and all means of self defense should be OK. If you don't want to get gassed, stay the fuck out of our country.
France isn't your country, fuck wad
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by jellomizer · 2015-02-23 07:19 · Score: 1

However in war, most of the time, you are trying to claim that that spot of land is your territory. So depending on the outcome, you are either the the aggressor or defendor.

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Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by Sardaukar86 · 2015-02-23 07:27 · Score: 1

If someone is attacking you, you should use it.
Just like nukes then, eh?

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Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by invictusvoyd · 2015-02-23 07:33 · Score: 1

And the french used "la parfum"
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by chthon · 2015-02-23 07:33 · Score: 1

WW1 was not a land dispute.
Austria wanted to punish Serbia because of the death of their crown prince. Subsequent events led to an escalation of hostilities between Germany/Austria and France/UK/Russia.
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by war4peace · 2015-02-23 07:45 · Score: 1

"le parfum".

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Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by phantomfive · 2015-02-23 07:53 · Score: 3, Informative

WW1 was not a land dispute.
It was definitely a land dispute. France wanted their land back that they lost to Germany in 1870. The Germans were remembering Frederick the Great, emulating his land grabs. The British offered territory to Italy to join the fight.

No one cared much about Serbia: even Austria didn't care too much. To think that the war was about the assassination is to overlook a lot of history. The assassination was merely the trigger so many people were hoping for.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by invictusvoyd · 2015-02-23 09:08 · Score: 1

yeah thats what I meant
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 10:53 · Score: 0

Anytime you are being attacked, any and all means of self defense should be OK. If you don't want to get gassed, stay the fuck out of our country.
Ah, yes. And when you win, just say you don't recognize their right to start 'a war'. The soldiers (and support functiuons and the regime backing them) were all a gang of murderers, (or conspiring to murder), so execute the lot! Every war prisoner, everyone who surrendered. And if the country of origin was democratic, execute their population too. They had the vote, they were part of "the conspiracy to mass murder." Prevents overpopulation...
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by Shakrai · 2015-02-23 12:26 · Score: 1

Anytime you are being attacked, any and all means of self defense should be OK. If you don't want to get gassed, stay the fuck out of our country.
It's called proportionality; it applies on both the individual level (I can't shoot you in response to an open handed slap across my face) and the nation-state level (you can't nuke a country in response to a platoon of infantryman crossing the frontier)

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 13:49 · Score: 0

It was probably payback for that 'I fart in your general direction' thing.
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by tinkerton · 2015-02-23 22:55 · Score: 2

Overripe Camembert Mortars? Munster grenades?
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-24 02:51 · Score: 0

The war was absolutely about the assassination. It got out of hand because Russia couldn't be seen to back down from supporting Serbia.
When Russia mobilized, Germany had to mobilize. When Germany mobilized, France had to mobilize.
France did want revenge for the Franco-Prussian war so Germany had to be mobilized in case France joined their ally Russia.
Then the Germans had to go do something stupid like invading Belgium, so us Brits had to get stuck in since we were treaty bound to protect Belgium's neutrality. And chocolate.
stupid Belgium.
Then the yanks arrived late for the party (as they did in WWII) and Germany was defeated never to rise again.... oh wait.
Italy of course was in a treaty with Germany and Austria, but, well, Italy eh?
Basically it was all Russia's fault.
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. by phantomfive · 2015-02-24 03:39 · Score: 1

You are someone who knows facts but does not understand them. If Bismark were still alive, he would have gotten the land without losing a war.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."

Urine! by MagickalMyst · 2015-02-23 06:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

Many Canadian troops outwitted the Germans during WWI by urinating on a cloth and holding it over their face to neutralize the effects of chlorine gas.

Our troops are awesome!

It's just too bad that we can't give the same respect to our "leaders".

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Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.

Re:Urine! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 06:49 · Score: 1

Many Canadian troops outwitted the Germans during WWI by urinating on a cloth and holding it over their face to neutralize the effects of chlorine gas.
Our troops are awesome!
It's just too bad that we can't give the same respect to our "leaders".
And it's really easy to come up with a piss-filled rag when you're subjected to a poison gas attack.
Re:Urine! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:04 · Score: 0

It's even easier to piss on a rag ahead of time. I know, I know. Such a mental feat of power was not possible in the pre-3D printing, pre-private space savage era known as the 20th century.
Re:Urine! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:07 · Score: 2, Funny

IIRC, what happened was that when the Canadians were being gassed by the Germans, an officer with a background in chemistry immediately recognized that the gas was chlorine gas, and also knew that it could be neutralized with ammonia. The only readily available source of ammonia was from the urine in the latrine, so he ordered his men to go to soak rags in the latrine and put them over their faces.
Imagine getting that order...
Re:Urine! by MagickalMyst · 2015-02-23 07:10 · Score: 1

No Bullshit. It really happened.

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Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Re:Urine! by itzly · 2015-02-23 07:27 · Score: 2

The sequence of events is more like this: notice gas is being dropped. Panic. Pee pants. Take off pants and put them over your head.
Re:Urine! by war4peace · 2015-02-23 07:47 · Score: 1

Urine was also widely used during WWII to soften the hard leather boots that would otherwise hurt soldiers' feet.

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Re:Urine! by war4peace · 2015-02-23 07:48 · Score: 1

Was it less effective when mixed with shit?

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Re:Urine! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 08:13 · Score: 0

... by urinating on a cloth and holding it over their face to neutralize the effects of chlorine gas. ... It's just too bad that we can't give the same respect to our "leaders".
Maybe a towel soaked with urine and held over said leaders' faces might also help to neutralize the bad effects oxygen gas has on them? Hey, one can always dream...
Re:Urine! by MagickalMyst · 2015-02-24 07:43 · Score: 1

> "Was it less effective when mixed with shit?"

Potpourri.

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Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.

Don't thread on me!@*##!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 06:30 · Score: 0

It is my god given right to have weapons AND a stylish mullet!!!

Chemical Weapons Mag? by schneidafunk · 2015-02-23 06:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

Anyone else find it a little disturbing there's a chemical weapons magazine?

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Re:Chemical Weapons Mag? by ColdWetDog · 2015-02-23 06:40 · Score: 2

Chemical & Engineering News - they seem to offer a tad more broad-based coverage than chemical weapons.
Remember - 'Without chemicals, life would not be possible '....

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Re:Chemical Weapons Mag? by Nidi62 · 2015-02-23 06:45 · Score: 1

Anyone else find it a little disturbing there's a chemical weapons magazine?
Well they tried a Candle of the Month Club but it came to an abrupt end after only 1 month. Not really sure who thought a Mustard Gas candle was a good idea.

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The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Re:Chemical Weapons Mag? by mu51c10rd · 2015-02-23 08:28 · Score: 1

Anyone else find it a little disturbing there's a chemical weapons magazine?
No, not really. It's the nuclear weapons magazine that I'm really concerned about...
Re:Chemical Weapons Mag? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 12:53 · Score: 0

Not as disturbing as its hipsteriffic unreadability. What are they shooting for, really?

quite a contrast between the way by Presto+Vivace · 2015-02-23 06:32 · Score: 0

this anniversary is remembered and all the hoopla about D-Day.

I don't care how righteous your goal is... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 06:33 · Score: 0

The second you approve the killing of innocents -- or merely continue military operations when you already know and expect that innocents will be killed -- your moral high ground is instantly null and void. Poof!

For those who don't know, it is quite common (even standard procedure) in military operations to allow a certain quota of "collateral damage". In other words, governments not only "OK" the killing of innocents -- they expect and plan for it.

Re:I don't care how righteous your goal is... by Nidi62 · 2015-02-23 07:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

For those who don't know, it is quite common (even standard procedure) in military operations to allow a certain quota of "collateral damage". In other words, governments not only "OK" the killing of innocents -- they expect and plan for it.
You expect it and plan for it so that you can minimize it. Battles themselves if not whole wars, are fought over resources (whether they be towns/land/populations, gold/oil/lumber/diamonds, or even simply political capital in the case of wars-"our economy sucks and people are mad at our political party, let's invade someone!"-like the Faulklands War) and there are usually civilians found in these areas. It is not immoral to expect and plan for civilian deaths. Immorality occurs when you do nothing to mitigate those potential deaths, or even worse intentionally seek them out. Detonating a bomb in a crowded marketplace is immoral. Using precision ammunition to target a bunker underneath an apartment building or mortars/rockets in a school instead of carpet bombing them so you don't destroy surrounding buildings is not. Often, those who hide behind civilians benefit more from the deaths of those civilians than they would protecting them and will even go out of their way to ensure greater civilian casualties.

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The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Re:I don't care how righteous your goal is... by plover · 2015-02-23 07:13 · Score: 5, Interesting

The second you approve of a policy that restricts action X based on moral grounds, you have defined a vulnerability that a less ethical enemy will exploit.
Furthermore, when you're in a war, it's chaos. Bad stuff happens. Collateral damage happens. You certainly don't plan to inflict 1000 civilian casualties, but you can predict that in a city of 1 million people undergoing an all out conflagration, there will statistically be civilians killed, displaced, wounded, orphaned, starving, etc. You don't stop a war just because you're better at math.
War also isn't the first choice of a rational society. Diplomacy, negotiations, sanctions, pressure, demonstrations, all these kinds of activities are intended to solve the problem before it degenerates into war. But there is always another side, and if it degenerates to war, it's because at least one side was acting in bad faith. ISIL isn't even acting as a rational society. They don't negotiate - they enter an area, kidnap and rape the girls and take them forcibly as wives, and kill, conscript, or indenture the males. They use civilians as human shields, betting that an opposing force won't bomb their headquarters if they have them located in a schoolhouse full of children.
An outside society can do two things: allow the continued expansion of slavery and genocide, or attempt to stop it. If non-military resolutions fail, what would you have them do? "Sorry, you can't fight those insurgents because they duct-tape kidnapped children to the front of their vehicles." "Right, we'll just let them continue on their homicidal path because we can't place those children at risk."
It's not like anyone in the West wants civilian casualties. The moral high ground may not be perfect, and it may not be absolutely 100% civilian casualty free, but you can't claim a millimeter of moral high ground if you let the atrocities continue unchecked.

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John
Re:I don't care how righteous your goal is... by itzly · 2015-02-23 07:25 · Score: 1

You certainly don't plan to inflict 1000 civilian casualties
Not always, but targeting civilians is still an option in modern warfare.
Re:I don't care how righteous your goal is... by mjwx · 2015-02-23 14:13 · Score: 2

The second you approve of a policy that restricts action X based on moral grounds, you have defined a vulnerability that a less ethical enemy will exploit.
"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."

Wars are not won by brutality. They're won by being smarter than the enemy or as Winston Churchill once uttered:
"Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre, the more a general contributes in manoeuvre the less he demands in slaughter".

History is filled with the destruction of empires built on brutality. Even the most successful ones barely outlasted their leaders (Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun) where as the generals we remember the most were the most innovative and intelligent of their time (I.E. Julius Ceasar, Sun Tzu). Anyone who thinks they can bludgeon their enemies into submission are simply setting themselves up for a fall.

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Re:I don't care how righteous your goal is... by dave420 · 2015-02-23 22:33 · Score: 1

So as long as there is a worse way of doing something militarily, it's fine? How about if your own shitty foreign policy caused those bad people in the bunker under the apartment block to want to attack you - is it still moral to attack them there?
Oversimplifying this topic isn't doing anyone any favours.
Re:I don't care how righteous your goal is... by stealth_finger · 2015-02-23 23:49 · Score: 1

You certainly don't plan to inflict 1000 civilian casualties
Not always, but targeting civilians is still an option in warfare.
FTFY

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Re:I don't care how righteous your goal is... by david_thornley · 2015-02-24 07:30 · Score: 1

War is hell. Laws of war try to reduce the amount of hell, not eliminate it. The people on the front lines did not create the foreign policy, and should not be judged because of it.
Unfortunately, the people who screw things up and cause wars do not, in general, suffer from it all that much. Part of WWI was because the German General Staff basically refused to start a war against Russia instead of France, for example. The Kaiser suffered from it somewhat, being deposed and forced into exile, but it wasn't really his foreign policy.

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Chemical weapons are much older than 100 years by gewalker · 2015-02-23 06:34 · Score: 3, Informative

Greek fire is arguably a chemical weapon and well known.

National Geographic has a nice article about the long history of chemical (and biological) weapons,

The real difference in the modern era, it has become an economical form of warfare as well as more effective (higher rate of casualties) than older chemical attacks.

Re:Chemical weapons are much older than 100 years by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 06:47 · Score: 0

Oooo, we should add a "with a computer" on the end and patent it!
Re:Chemical weapons are much older than 100 years by Shakrai · 2015-02-23 07:02 · Score: 4, Informative

Greek Fire is an incendiary, it's no more a chemical weapon than napalm is. Using the classical chemistry definition, sure, but not in the context of arms control or warfare.

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I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:Chemical weapons are much older than 100 years by gewalker · 2015-02-23 11:06 · Score: 1

Greek fire is often thought to include calcium oxide a.k.a. quicklime. This is caustic and has been used as chemical weapon by itself. That is why I originally said it was arguably a chemical weapon though the primary effectiveness is clearly as an incendiary. Primarily I included as a reference because it is more more widely recognized as being used in warfare. The pure chemical weapons go back a long time -- far predating greek fire.

Tons of stockpiles remain by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 06:34 · Score: 0

Chemical weapon stockpiles in the U.S. are being disposed of (safely), though it has been a long process
For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Grass_Chemical_Agent-Destruction_Pilot_Plant

Re:How long? by ArcadeMan · 2015-02-23 06:34 · Score: 1, Funny

TL;DS

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April 22, 1915 by BradMajors · 2015-02-23 06:37 · Score: 1

Ypres was not the first time the Germans used chlorine in a gas attack.

Re:April 22, 1915 by the_Bionic_lemming · 2015-02-23 06:45 · Score: 2

Yes, that's true, but it was the first successful attack.

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_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!

Re:How long? by ColdWetDog · 2015-02-23 06:41 · Score: 2

I just hum 'Kumbaya'.

I really annoys people.

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!

*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-23 06:46 · Score: 1

Chemical weapons are ironic because any country capable of producing them like WWI Germany is capable of using chemistry instead of produce material abundance for the world. Instead, it is ironic and tragic when people decide to use such tools of abundance from a scarcity mindset, killing other humans out of fear of competition for material things (and so snuffing out much diverse human imagination which might eventually produce even more abundance). Other paths are possible; look at how much a modern day Germany produces mainly from within its own borders through using innovation and well-compensated laborers.

More on that theme by me: http://www.pdfernhout.net/reco...

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by Shakrai · 2015-02-23 06:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

look at how much a modern day Germany produces mainly from within its own borders through using innovation and well-compensated laborers.
All it took was ten years of total war (WW1 + WW2), 46 years of occupation (1945 - 1990) and massive societal changes that were imposed at gunpoint. All that to civilize a mostly western country with whom we shared a common history, language, and religion. I wonder what it will take to civilize the middle east?

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by anagama · 2015-02-23 07:25 · Score: 1

Radio Lab did an interesting show on Fritz Haber -- his work resulted in commercial fertilizer without which we'd probably have five or six billion fewer people on the planet because you can't mine guano forever at a rate faster than it is replaced, but he also pioneered one of the most gruesome weapons out there. It's a very strange tale.
Radio Lab episode: http://www.radiolab.org/story/...
Commercial fertilizer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
Guano: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

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What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:33 · Score: 0, Interesting

I wonder what it will take to civilize the middle east?
It's best to stop decivilizing the middle east first. And then it will have to be occupied like Germany still is. The only thing keeping Europe from exploding again is America's irresistible force. I wish they would use that force to just tell rest of the world to STFU! Regardless, the world is relatively peaceful because of American nukes, which I think should be refreshed, to make sure they will work when needed. We have the power to toilet train this animal planet. We should use it!
Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-23 16:54 · Score: 1

Nevertheless germany is importing more or less all the raw resources for such productions.
Also after the industrial revolution is over since 50 - 100 years, we are now in an 'replacement industry'. We replace old cars with new ones, old washing machines with new ones ...
At that time all industries where expanding and exploited not even opened markets, the demand for resources, ore, coal etc. was much higher than in our days. Well, as coal is now mainly used for electricity production, that might not be true.
Anyway, Germany had no noticeable easy to harvest resources like iron ore or bauxite etc.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-23 17:01 · Score: 1

Actually the gun point was over 1947.
And after 1950 it was not considered occupation anymore but security against the Russians.
However you are right, to get germany 'on track' the USA poured a lot of 'Marchall aid' into germany.
If now a middle east country is 'liberated', first the big companies pour in and exploit the 'law less' environment. Then when they fail, the country is left to the surviving war lords of the previous war.
You can not establish a democracy in a country like Iraq, Afghanistan where 90% of the 'war lords' or 'clan chiefs' simply are relieved that the 'old boss' is gone and they now believe they easily can become 'the new boss'. Religion is just a minour issue. The exact same thing would happen in Sudan, Nigeria or for that matter Mexico or Nicaragua.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by tehcyder · 2015-02-23 23:31 · Score: 1

46 years of occupation (1945 - 1990)
That is a very odd way to describe Germany during that period.

All that to civilize a mostly western country with whom we shared a common history, language, and religion.
Before 1914, Germany was every bit as civilized as France or Britain.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by tehcyder · 2015-02-23 23:36 · Score: 1

And then it will have to be occupied like Germany still is.
Germany is not occupied by anyone except Germans.

The only thing keeping Europe from exploding again is America's irresistible force.
Yes, what with the US being such an important member of the EU and everything.
Oh, wait...you're talking bollocks.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-24 02:14 · Score: 0

except for the fact Germany was an absolute monarchy and Britain and France we're representative democracies. Other than that, yeah.
Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by Shakrai · 2015-02-24 03:28 · Score: 1

That is a very odd way to describe Germany during that period.
The Four Powers (Soviet Union, later Russia, plus France, the UK, and US) did not renounce their powers in Germany until the ratification of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany. I may not have been a total occupation where the occupying powers are running the trains and fixing traffic lights, but Germany wasn't a fully sovereign member of the community of nations either.

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-24 09:12 · Score: 0

You are an idiot! The entire continent would still be at war if not for the Americans. You would be reliving your grandparents worst memories. The Americans really need to be thanked, you don't have a clue. And you think those bases are just show? They are an occupational force to stop those maniacs from raising another Hitler! Only a fool thinks Europe is free. Are you one of those fools? Too proud to admit the truth?

Fritz Haber by Noah+Haders · 2015-02-23 06:46 · Score: 5, Interesting

Fritz Haber was an interesting guy. He won a Nobel Prize for synthesizing ammonia from atmospheric hydrogen and nitrogen. This was the basis of nitrogen-rich fertilizer that basically fed the world by making crop lands more productive. But he also developed the chlorine gas for the german govt and advocated for its use. Two weeks after the first chlorine gas attack his wife killed herself with his service revolver after an argument over its use.

Re:Fritz Haber by itzly · 2015-02-23 06:55 · Score: 1

And several Nobel Prize winners worked on the Manhattan project...
Re:Fritz Haber by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:07 · Score: 0

I think we can all agree: scientists have killed more people than any other group in history.
Re:Fritz Haber by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:10 · Score: 0

And several Nobel Prize winners worked on the Manhattan project...
And they should have killed themselves?
If yes, I agree.
I say, keep war in the Stone Age. We humans are still in the Stone Age fighting over resources. If anyone thinks we're over in the Middle East fighting for "Freedom", you are an idiot. It's ALL about oil, boys!
You want to fight for "Freedom"? Then invade North Korea. Yeah, didn't think so - Mr. He man. Or how about Saudi Arabia? No? Yep, didn't think so. Oh, and don't get me started on Israel.
Re:Fritz Haber by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:15 · Score: 0

Scientists provided the weapons, but the armies decided to use them, and the political leaders decided to allow it, and both parties instigated the research for it.
There's plenty of blame to go around, don't get fixated on the smallest and easiest to identify party.
Re:Fritz Haber by Okian+Warrior · 2015-02-23 07:19 · Score: 1

Fritz Haber was an interesting guy.
His actions - turning chemistry to the task of killing soldiers - was considered abhorrent by many people and caused much political and philosophical debate at the time.
His position was that (I'm paraphrasing) his country and its way of life were in jeopardy, and any action taken to prevent that was justified. He saw no difference between shooting an enemy soldier dead and killing them dead with chemicals.
And although he used Chlorine, the other side (French Chemist Victor Grignard) was working on Phosgene gas at the time. We look to Haber as the first use of chemical weapons, but Grignard was only a little behind and the French produced and used only a little less phosgene gas than Germany did during the war.
Modern weapons design (guns and such) supposedly favor wounding the enemy soldier instead of killing them - the theory being that the enemy has to spend more resources dealing with wounded than they do dealing with dead bodies (fellow soldiers have to help the wounded to the hospital, supplies and support of hospitals, &c.)
I suspect Haber would have seen no difference between wounding an enemy using phosgene gas and wounding them using a gun. Phosgene, when mixed with tear gas, wounds the enemy but is largely non-fatal.
I'm not sure I see the difference either.
Can anyone explain why wounding someone with a gun is more palatable than burning them with phosgene gas (or napalm or phosphorus)?
Re:Fritz Haber by Okian+Warrior · 2015-02-23 07:30 · Score: 1

I think we can all agree: scientists have killed more people than any other group in history.
I dunno about that - Genghis Khan supposedly killed 40 million, which was 11 percent of the total population of the time.
Hitler killed 5 million Jews, the Hutus killed a million other Rwandans. I'm not sure how many scientists were on their side(s), but none of the responsible parties (people who made the decisions, gave the orders, or actually carried out the actions) stand out as being scientists.
I don't know that scientists kill all that many people - as individuals they're pretty weak.
As a group, they're more "enablers" than killers.
Re:Fritz Haber by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:35 · Score: 0

Modern weapons design (guns and such) supposedly favor wounding the enemy soldier instead of killing them - the theory being that the enemy has to spend more resources dealing with wounded than they do dealing with dead bodies (fellow soldiers have to help the wounded to the hospital, supplies and support of hospitals, &c.)
I think that's a bit of a generalization. Only some arms are intended to wound instead of killing: artillery, cluster munitions, landmines, incendiaries and possibly "less lethal" weapons. They cause injury by shell fragments, burns, and irritation.
Personal firearms and crew machineguns are intended to either provide suppressive fire or stopping power, which means causing instant death to the enemy that dares to show up in its sights. Any personal weapon that is designed to wound instead of killing would be inferior in a firefight.
War is bloody business. We have to understand our way out of it.
Re:Fritz Haber by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:37 · Score: 0

Here is the difference: Gun shots are aimed. That doesn't mean innocent people won't get hurt, but it is more discriminate and controlled than releasing a persistent toxic cloud over a wide area.
Re:Fritz Haber by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:42 · Score: 0

More even than rulers? I think not.
Re:Fritz Haber by ek_adam · 2015-02-23 07:42 · Score: 1

And he developed nitrogen fixing for it's use in gunpowder and other munitions. The fertilizer use boomed when companies needed a use for all of their left over nitrates from WWI.
Re:Fritz Haber by SEverts · 2015-02-23 08:10 · Score: 2

Sarah here, the reporter on the chem weapons story. What's so interesting about Haber's fertilizer discovery is that the same process was used by the Germans in WWI to make the nitrites necessary to produce TNT and other explosives. If Haber hadn't figured out a way to make explosives from the nitrogen in air, Germany couldn't have waged war past 1916 because the Allied embargo nixed German supplies. So yes, Haber's discovery has fed billions, but initially it also killed millions in WWI. It's no surprise that Haber was hailed as a WWI war hero by the Germans... He solved their explosives shortage AND introduced a new form of warfare.
Re:Fritz Haber by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 08:13 · Score: 0

Oh really? I suppose "manufacturers" are to blame for every gun death in history? You know, let's just be really honest: People who have sex have killed more people than any other group in history. If it weren't for those fuckers, there would be no people to kill or get killed!
Congratulations, parent poster: I think we can all agree, your post was officially the stupidest fucking thing I'll read all day.
Re:Fritz Haber by Noah+Haders · 2015-02-23 08:16 · Score: 1

yes it's crazy, no? Nobel invented the process of making TNT, but it required naturally-occuring saltpeter. Haber invented the process to make artificial saltpeter, which meant TNT could be made in a factory without needing to import the saltpeter from overseas. The same german factories that produced nitrogen fertilizer to make food also produced the TNT for war. the intersection of science and society is a weird place!
Re:Fritz Haber by spire3661 · 2015-02-23 08:22 · Score: 1

You are joking right? POLITICIANS are responsible for more human deaths than any other profession, period.

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Good-bye
Re:Fritz Haber by spire3661 · 2015-02-23 08:26 · Score: 1

No. The overwhelming vast majority of bullets are shot as cover fire, not direct shoot to kill. IN practice on the battlefield, its a cloud of bullets just like gas, its just a cloud of a different nature.

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Good-bye
Re:Fritz Haber by kwbauer · 2015-02-23 08:36 · Score: 1

Somewhat incorrect, there pardner...
Big-game hunting rounds are nearly all, if not all, expanding rounds; that is, the projectile breaks apart or mushrooms open to create a larger wound path that will do more damage to vital organs. The purpose of this is to have a better chance at a quick death from massive blood loss instead of a slow death. It is considered a more humane way to kill large game.
Militaries are not allowed to use expanding ammunition mainly because it is more likely to cause a quick death.
Re:Fritz Haber by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 08:43 · Score: 0

Yes, I expected this argument to come up. It is a weird regulation: wiki, and feels pointless today.
I would imagine most militaries would adopt expanding bullets if they were to be allowed. Heck, lethality (instead of woundability) was one of the reasons .308Win hung around in the US military for so long (and is still used in niche applications).
Re:Fritz Haber by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 09:52 · Score: 0

Not just enablers, advisors and instigators, if you read the article.
Re:Fritz Haber by LWATCDR · 2015-02-23 09:56 · Score: 1

" Nobel invented the process of making TNT"
No he did not.
Nobel invented dynamite which is nitroglycerin mixed with diatomaceous earth. TNT is Trinitrotoluene.
So much for science history education.

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See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Re:Fritz Haber by Noah+Haders · 2015-02-23 10:25 · Score: 1

Thank you for the clarification. I think the overall point still stands.
Re:Fritz Haber by MechaStreisand · 2015-02-23 13:09 · Score: 1

Nobel invented dynamite, not TNT.

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Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
Re:Fritz Haber by penguinoid · 2015-02-23 14:58 · Score: 1

You are joking right? POLITICIANS are responsible for more human deaths than any other profession, period.
Bah, they got nothing on mothers.

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Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Re:Fritz Haber by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-23 18:42 · Score: 1

I rather had a bullet in my leg that just penetrates through than deforming projectile that blows away my whole leg.
Not every shot hits your head or your chest, where the actual kind of projectile is irrelevant in 99% of the cases.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Fritz Haber by GuB-42 · 2015-02-24 02:04 · Score: 1

The funny part is that his first intention wasn't to make fertilizers. He did this so that Germany could make explosives in preparation for war.
He did however work for the food industry and produced a very effective pesticide called "Zyklon A", which was later improved... (yes, it is that Zyklon).
Re:Fritz Haber by LWATCDR · 2015-02-24 03:04 · Score: 1

I do not see it.
Nobel made a safer explosive. At the time Nitroglycerin as used for tunnel building and mining but often killed workers because it was so dangerous to handle. Nobel wanted to save lives from the start. When it start to be used by the military Nobel felt very guilty " I don't feel he should have felt any guilt" so he took his wealth from dynamite to make the Nobel Prizes.
Haber wanted to fix nitrogen. I am sure he was fine with using it for explosives as well as fertilizer. He actively developed weapons of mass destruction.
I do not see much in common with the two.
What I do see is that Haber seemed to have an issue with the same kind of self loathing I see with a lot of people today. He was a Jew but renounced his religion. He felt that he could not be a good German and a Jew at the same time. A lot of what he did seemed driven by his need to be more German than German. Even Hitler kept him in his lab.

--
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Re:Fritz Haber by Noah+Haders · 2015-02-24 04:54 · Score: 1

nobel's invention was limited because it required naturally-occurring saltpeter. haber developed artificial materials so the quantities were not limited by natural ingredients.
Re:Fritz Haber by LWATCDR · 2015-02-24 09:11 · Score: 1

I guess then your point is unclear to me.
I thought that you where trying to draw parallels between Haber and Nobel.
I would also question the idea of Haber developing artificial materials using the Haber process.
It made ammonia which is a naturally occurring compound and ammonia made by the Haber Bosch process is identical in all ways to that which is formed by nature.
Also the Birkeland-Eyde process predates the Haber process it was just more expensive. Too expensive for fertilizer but that is not an issue for explosives.
Also by the time the Haber process was discovered other explosives like TNT had replaced dynamite for warfare.
So what exactly is your point?

--
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Re:Fritz Haber by Noah+Haders · 2015-02-24 10:09 · Score: 1

I would also question the idea of Haber developing artificial materials using the Haber process.
It made ammonia which is a naturally occurring compound and ammonia made by the Haber Bosch process is identical in all ways to that which is formed by nature.
yes this is the very exact point. Before Haber you had to haul saltpeter across the globe to have the materials you needed to make fertilizer and dynamite. After Haber one could make as much of this stuff as you wanted without needing the natural materials. think of it more as a supply chain problem and solution.
Also there's not really a difference between dynamite and tnt.
Re:Fritz Haber by LWATCDR · 2015-02-25 07:42 · Score: 1

1. Nobel did not make TNT and that is the difference.
2. No you did not have to haul saltpeter across the globe to make explosives before Haber since their was another way to make nitrates before Haber that was must more expensive. Take a look at the US civil war and you will see no shortage of explosives.
Nobel was a person that wanted to save lives by making a safer explosive. He was vilified as a merchant of death "wrongly BTW" because people thought that dynamite was going to be used as a weapon which it rarely was. He decided that he wanted to do good to make up for the potential bad so he created the Nobel prizes including one for peace.
Haber created something that save millions of lives but then because of his self-loathing decided that he wanted to stop being Jewish and become an ultra German. He then went on to make weapons of mass destruction.
The only parallels I see is they both dealt with Nitrogen compounds. Now the contrast between them is interesting and the fact that Haber really seemed to become an anti-semitic semitic I find really interesting.
Nobel was just an admirable person. Haber despite his best efforts saved far more lives than he took which is also interesting.

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See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.

War is Hell. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 06:47 · Score: 0

William Tecumseh Sherman Quotes

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.

This is why I think Sherman is our (USA) greatest General. He knew what needed to be done to end a stupid war - and for those of you who have seen photos of Atlanta before and during the Civil War, he did us a favor by burning it down!

Our leaders have sent us down a path of perpetual war and have created at least two generations of peoples who hate the US of A. Those tens of thousands of civilians we have killed in the name of "fighting for freedom" have family that now hates the US of A with a passion - to their deaths. And they will teach their children to hate us.

We have accomplished nothing other than creating more terrorism and hatred. All for what?

Freedom?

Why aren't we invading Saudi Arabia or North Korea or pretty much most of the Continent of Africa? Or even Israel for that matter? So, please tell me, how are we fighting for "Freedom" and the "Oppressed" again?

We have gone past the tipping point. There is no peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Middle East.

....

My dream - my wish - is that the Arabic, Persians, Kurds, and other peoples of the Middles East stand up unite and say, "Fuck you!" to the West and work together, throw all of us out of YOUR land and show us - like the originators of Civilization that you are - how it is fucking done.

Re:War is Hell. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:02 · Score: 0

> and for those of you who have seen photos of Atlanta before and during the Civil War, he did us a favor by burning it down!
Unless you happened to live in Atlanta, or anywhere in his march to the sea. To you he may be a hero, but to Southerners, he is a mass murderer of women and children who had nothing to do with the fighting. He was a savage, but to you, the ends justify the means. You just countered the entire rest of your argument against war.
Re:War is Hell. by Shakrai · 2015-02-23 07:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

To you he may be a hero, but to Southerners, he is a mass murderer of women and children
I'm guessing Black Southerners have a different opinion of him.

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:War is Hell. by Sperbels · 2015-02-23 07:10 · Score: 1

There is no peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Middle East.
Perhaps that was the goal all along. An unstable Middle East can't get organized enough to become a significant threat to the west.
Re:War is Hell. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:10 · Score: 1

Maybe. He abandoned most of them who wanted to march with him and left them to starve with the rest of the population.
Don't forget, the North held slaves too. Their hands are not clean.
Re:War is Hell. by Shakrai · 2015-02-23 07:19 · Score: 1, Interesting

Spare me the Southern Pride nonsense and moral equivalency. The lion's share of States in the North had abolished slavery. The few slave states were those that remained loyal to the Union, rather than try and tear it asunder, and they were ultimately freed with the passage of the 13th Amendment.
There is no equation between the "clean hands" of the North and South on this particular issue. Nor is there on the issue of treason, since many of the most prominent leaders of the South (including their God, Robert E. Lee) swore oaths to the United States that they later broke. It's not a simple matter of someone fighting for home, these people specifically swore oaths to the United States. As far as I'm concerned the lot of them are traitors and the South got off easy for its crimes against the Union and Humanity.

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:War is Hell. by tnk1 · 2015-02-23 07:31 · Score: 2

No, that was not the plan. It is a result of poor planning and short-sightedness. We give the people who put us in these messes far too much credit. We'd prefer to believe that they planned it, as opposed to simply not planning anything at all or simply not caring at all.
Not that the West needed to be involved to make the Middle East unstable. If we left the place alone, it would be just as unstable. Tribesmen and various empires have been fighting over that area for centuries. Oil has just made it worse.
Re:War is Hell. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:37 · Score: 0

Hey! Don't complain about the South! They were only protecting their property rights, something you damn libertarians are always spouting off about..
Re:War is Hell. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:38 · Score: 0

Our leaders have sent us down a path of perpetual war
Sure. If you're always at war you always have an excuse to throw dissenters and rabble-rousers in jail, or worse.
Re:War is Hell. by fustakrakich · 2015-02-23 07:45 · Score: 1

Or creating instability is a good way of chasing off competing 'foreign' investment. One thing for sure is that it is very good for some industries, This is Obama's/Clinton's legacy. I would say, *Mission Accomplished!*

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Re:War is Hell. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:49 · Score: 0

Hah. Southern pride. Learn something deeper than middle school history. You sound like an ex-addict trying to justify your habit by demeaning a more recent ex-addict. Like one of those born again Christians. Sherman was a bastard, if you can't see that, you might be a bastard as well.
Your argument is basically, "The South held slaves, the North were angels trying to swoop down and protect the helpless slaves from their Southern oppressors. Sherman's killing of civilians is perfectly OK in that context." Talk about sanctimonious bullshit.
The North held slaves. Unless you think holding a only few slaves is ok, their hands are dirty. In it's abolitionist push, the North wanted to effectively remove all capital from the Southern economy without compensation. If you believe Northerners were lining up to die for slaves, you are sadly mistaken.
Furthermore, there was no requirement to stay in the union when the US was formed and the Constitution was signed. The South wanted out, and justifiably so, and the North wanted to subjugate the South (namely by instantly erasing it's entire capital without compensation). They were tired of the power struggle (Missouri Compromise). Read about why Sumter was fired upon how Buchannan bungled that. I'll bet you thought Sumter happened under Lincoln's watch.
Look, slavery is a horrible thing, but to understand that war, you need to understand the times. You're judging it based on current times. Even if you do that, slavery was an institution in the North, albeit less. It wasn't less because of morality, it was less because it was less economically viable due to climate, etc.
Re:War is Hell. by Nidi62 · 2015-02-23 07:49 · Score: 1

There is no equation between the "clean hands" of the North and South on this particular issue. Nor is there on the issue of treason, since many of the most prominent leaders of the South (including their God, Robert E. Lee) swore oaths to the United States that they later broke. It's not a simple matter of someone fighting for home, these people specifically swore oaths to the United States. As far as I'm concerned the lot of them are traitors and the South got off easy for its crimes against the Union and Humanity.
What about those thousands of Irish and German immigrants the North essentially impressed right of the boats into the Union army? And those men like Robert E. Lee weren't traitors, they loved and fought for their homes just as much as the men from the North did. The only difference between them is that most in the South say themselves not just as Americans, but ultimately as Virginians, Georgians, Mississippians, etc. A traitor is someone who betrays their home. These men didn't betray their home; they just had a different idea of what their home was. If anyone was a traitor is was Booth, since when he killed Lincoln he not only assassinated the President, he killed the best friend the South had in the North after the war.

--
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Re:War is Hell. by Shakrai · 2015-02-23 07:59 · Score: 5, Interesting

Furthermore, there was no requirement to stay in the union when the US was formed
You've never read the Articles of Confederation, have you?

Your argument is basically, "The South held slaves, the North were angels trying to swoop down and protect the helpless slaves from their Southern oppressors. Sherman's killing of civilians is perfectly OK in that context."
Nope. My argument is that it was a total war and Sherman destroyed targets of military value. He didn't directly kill civilians; he rendered some civilians homeless, which is a difference that is apparently lost on you. The wanton killing and aimless destruction that you're imagining is a figment of Southern imagination. Special Field Orders No. 120, emphasis mine:
IV. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten day's provisions for the command and three days' forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, apples, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock of their camp. To regular foraging parties must be instructed the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road traveled.
V. To army corps commanders alone is entrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, etc., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.
VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, etc, belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit, discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or brigades. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance....

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:War is Hell. by Shakrai · 2015-02-23 08:09 · Score: 1

And those men like Robert E. Lee weren't traitors
He served in the United States Army, before the war, as a Commissioned Officer, which by definition means he swore an oath to preserve and protect the United States. If you're worried about your State one day needing to leave the Union then you probably shouldn't be swearing oaths to preserve the Union.

The only difference between them is that most in the South say themselves not just as Americans, but ultimately as Virginians, Georgians, Mississippians, etc.
Irrelevant. Lee and several other leading figures in the Confederacy (including Davis) swore oaths to the United States. They weren't common men that joined the Confederate Army having no prior allegiance to the United States other than birthright. They had served the United States and sworn oaths to protect her. Parse this part of the 14th Amendment:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

A traitor is someone who betrays their home
The definition of treason in the United States is "levying war against them" or giving "aid and comfort" to their enemies. That's exactly what Lee, Davis, et. al did.

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:War is Hell. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 08:15 · Score: 0

And those men like Robert E. Lee weren't traitors, they loved and fought for their homes just as much as the men from the North did. The only difference between them is that most in the South say themselves not just as Americans, but ultimately as Virginians, Georgians, Mississippians, etc. A traitor is someone who betrays their home. These men didn't betray their home; they just had a different idea of what their home was.
"I do not think that word means what you think it means."
If a man crys out for war and then, in the heat of pitched battle, flees, he is a coward. I don't care if you think he just had a different idea of what bravery is, he is a coward. Soldiers who swear to defend the US, and the Constitution, don't get to redfine their oaths after the fact when they disagree with the government. They can break those oaths, and suffer for it or not as they choose.
Re:War is Hell. by Sperbels · 2015-02-23 08:35 · Score: 2

Tribesmen and various empires have been fighting over that area for centuries. If we left the place alone, it would be just as unstable.

The same could be said for every square inch of the earth yet we've managed to create very large and powerful countries. The oil wealth in the Middle East may be just the thing that one or two nations need to overcome the other factions and create a large stable influential nation rivaling the US, or China.
Re:War is Hell. by Nidi62 · 2015-02-23 08:35 · Score: 2

And those men like Robert E. Lee weren't traitors
He served in the United States Army, before the war, as a Commissioned Officer, which by definition means he swore an oath to preserve and protect the United States. If you're worried about your State one day needing to leave the Union then you probably shouldn't be swearing oaths to preserve the Union.

The only difference between them is that most in the South say themselves not just as Americans, but ultimately as Virginians, Georgians, Mississippians, etc.
Parse this part of the 14th Amendment:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
You do realize the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution AFTER the Civil War, in 1868, right? And that ratifying it was one of the conditions imposed on the Southern states during reconstruction. So there was nothing in the Constitution that prohibited what they did. Also, but 1898 Congress generally removed disabilities incurred due to the 14th Amendment by those involved in the Confederacy. Lee's citizenship was also restored retroactively to June 13 1865, but that didn't happen until 1975. Davis got his restored in 1978. So no, they are not traitors.

--
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Re: War is Hell. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 09:28 · Score: 0

The point would seem to be that the highlighted part of the amendment exists as a reflection of prior oaths being violated.
Lee was lucky he wasn't offered the rope.
Re:War is Hell. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 10:45 · Score: 0

Nope. My argument is that it was a total war and Sherman destroyed targets of military value. He didn't directly kill civilians;
Doesn't matter, because the world doesn't work that way. Sure, Sherman may have behaved properly and ordered decent treatment of civilians that got in his way. But that doesn't matter much, because:
When you send soldiers somewhere - especially soldiers who have to fight bloody fights to gain ground, soldiers who loose comrades to enemy activity - they won't necessarily behave. Some will be nice enough, some will rape, loot, pillage, kill and burn. At least when officers aren't looking too closely. Just because they can! Because theyr'e angry, and hating. They believed the motivational speeches, now the enemy is going to pay! And any civilian dumb enough to support the enemy cause, which is anoune around . . .
This is well known, and it has always been like that. You can get your troops into "kill'em-mode", they do not come out of that all at the same time. And if you don't provide enough military police to keep them all in check at all time - then you will have senseless raping, killing and looting. Simple human nature, for some of us. People are not nice at all when they fight, and real assholes see a huge opportunity in war.
Re:War is Hell. by Livius · 2015-02-23 10:58 · Score: 1

Furthermore, there was no requirement to stay in the union when the US was formed
You've never read the Articles of Confederation, have you?
You've never read the Declaration of Independence, have you?
Re:War is Hell. by Shakrai · 2015-02-23 12:22 · Score: 1

If you want to acquire political power from the barrel of a gun you should probably stop and ask yourself if you can actually win before you cross the Rubicon.

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:War is Hell. by luis_a_espinal · 2015-02-24 09:05 · Score: 1

Nope. My argument is that it was a total war and Sherman destroyed targets of military value. He didn't directly kill civilians;
Doesn't matter, because the world doesn't work that way. Sure, Sherman may have behaved properly and ordered decent treatment of civilians that got in his way. But that doesn't matter much, because:
When you send soldiers somewhere - especially soldiers who have to fight bloody fights to gain ground, soldiers who loose comrades to enemy activity - they won't necessarily behave. Some will be nice enough, some will rape, loot, pillage, kill and burn. At least when officers aren't looking too closely. Just because they can! Because theyr'e angry, and hating. They believed the motivational speeches, now the enemy is going to pay! And any civilian dumb enough to support the enemy cause, which is anoune around . . .
This is well known, and it has always been like that. You can get your troops into "kill'em-mode", they do not come out of that all at the same time. And if you don't provide enough military police to keep them all in check at all time - then you will have senseless raping, killing and looting. Simple human nature, for some of us. People are not nice at all when they fight, and real assholes see a huge opportunity in war.
All of that would have been avoided if the South had given up on the idea of keeping humans as property as a state right and had not gone into rebellion to preserve their "Southern institutions" (including that one involving keeping humans as property.)
Re:War is Hell. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-24 12:55 · Score: 0

Soldiers who swear to defend the US, and the Constitution, don't get to redfine their oaths after the fact when they disagree with the government.
Don't be an idiot. The southern officers resigned their commissions. Robert E. Lee resigned his commission April 20, 1861. They were no longer under any obligations associated with those former commissions. This decision is why they were not (and could not be) hanged as traitors after the war.
The oath goes with the job, just as it does today with a police officer, a judge, or a lawyer (though all three groups have a lot of people who find it convenient to ignore their oaths).
The whole point of the Nuremberg Precedent is that the government does not get the final say. Germans officers were required by law, passed by the German legislature, signed by the head of state, and upheld by the German courts, to obey the orders of their superior officers. During WW2 some -- many, actually -- acted as their conscience required in situations where their superior officers told them to do something they believed was wrong. This does not make them traitors, but rather heroes. Others failed to do the right thing, and some of them paid at Nuremberg.
Don't be too quick to call people traitors, or you may find somebody calling you one someday. Perhaps not even because of your actions, merely because it is convenient.

Elementis Regamus Proelium by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 06:47 · Score: 0

Up your ass with bugs and gas!

Explosives/Incendiary are chemicals too by Bugler412 · 2015-02-23 06:53 · Score: 1

Why the distinction? Many more people have been killed by the explosive/incendiary chemical than any of the "chemical" agents. The deadliness and usability of the explosive/incendiary's is much more refined and targeted (today) too.

Re:Explosives/Incendiary are chemicals too by Bugler412 · 2015-02-23 06:53 · Score: 1

and I'm not dumb, I know why. But it's an intellectual exercise question worth asking.

chlorine? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 06:57 · Score: 0

Isn't chlorine the chemical in pool cleaners and bleaches? Yuck.

Re:chlorine? by Drethon · 2015-02-23 07:42 · Score: 1

And your table salt. I suggest you start avoiding all salt.
Re:chlorine? by burni2 · 2015-02-23 07:46 · Score: 1

The question is in what composition you have chloride, for example your 12" LP (polyvinylCHLORIDE) won't kill anyone except you play Xena the Warrior princess.
But this is why you should read the security warnings because you can get a reaction working to set chlorine(that from WWI) free.
Bleach
What is used in bleaches is HClO not Cl2, HClO is called hypochloric acid - strong oxidizer.
Pool
Yes, in big pools chlorine (enclosed in steel gas cans) is used.
Yes, it can be set free by acident.
Yes, there are emergency plans and safety precautions.
Re:chlorine? by itzly · 2015-02-23 08:25 · Score: 2

Table salt contains chloride, not chlorine. Chlorine is dangerous because it has a very high electron affinity. It will happily steal electrons from your lung tissue if you inhale it. Chloride is basically chlorine that already has stolen an electron, so it's quite harmless.
Re:chlorine? by Drethon · 2015-02-24 00:20 · Score: 1

Yes but chlorine can be produced from salt as well. I'm commenting on the OP here worrying about a chemical when any chemical can be bad when misused or good when used properly.

Well Happy Anniversary! by frank_adrian314159 · 2015-02-23 07:04 · Score: 1

'nuff said...

--
That is all.

well, it works! by nimbius · 2015-02-23 07:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

id like to take time out of my busy day to remind slashdotters that before the invention of poison gas warfare, wars themselves would drag on forever. Sure, you had trenches and all that but disease was still a slow and tedious way to get to the point. machine guns might have been a teriffic improvement, but nothing is quite as effective as a good gas attack against "the enemy." Anyhow thats just my two cents, and i really need to be going as ive a full itinerary ahead of me. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan...heck im not sure how ill make it to most of these African destinations but i sure people forgive my tardiness.

--Sincerely,
Death, the reaper
Destroyer of worlds.

P.S. im not sure what all the fuss about modern patriotism is. I've always supported both sides of the war.

--
Good people go to bed earlier.

Re:well, it works! by u38cg · 2015-02-23 22:58 · Score: 1

Wrong. Gas was extremely ineffective; all it did was deny an area to both sides and that only as long as countermeasures were not available. What changed the course of the war was the development of artillery and infantry technique; by 1918, the trench stalemate was becoming broken and had Germany had the resources to continue to prosecute the war it would turned into a war of manouvre.

--
[FUCK BETA]

Pepper Spray by canadiannomad · 2015-02-23 07:11 · Score: 0

Speaking of chemical weapons used on civilians in democratic (and non-democratic) nations.......

--
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.

Re:Pepper Spray by MerlynEmrys67 · 2015-02-23 19:10 · Score: 1

Yes, most women I know keep a bottle of it in their purse for usage. Not quite what you were thinking - but a much more common usage

--
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them

Re:Also, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? & Bu by jdavidb · 2015-02-23 07:20 · Score: 1

Yes, that's another one we play for them, with a wonderful message. Thanks for posting it.

--
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.

remembers? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:22 · Score: 0

Remembers the event? How old is she....120?? Not sure who wrote that bit but I highly doubt anyone alive today remembers the event.

Magnitude of individual suffering by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:23 · Score: 1

An accurate attack with explosive ordinance obliterates a human body, with such quickness that pain is likely only felt for a couple of milliseconds, if at all. The victim never even hears the explosion. An "accurate" attack with a chemical agent causes anywhere from fifteen minutes to a lifetime of incomprehensible suffering. Actually, back up for a second. There's no real way to use chemical weapons accurately.

An inaccurate attack with explosive ordinance can indeed be horrific, but even double amputees can go on to live lives as fulfilling as any of ours. Victims of chemical agents often suffer permanent, internal, protracted injury that affects their ability to breathe and perform even the simplest of day to day tasks. Look at the results of Bhopal (an accident).

There's absolutely no comparison; chemical weapons, from an individual victim's standpoint, are orders of magnitude more horrible.

I can't really speak to sheer numbers of people killed; that seems a lot more related to the decision to use weapons in the first place, than it does to any particular killing technology. Now, nuclear weapons...

Re:Magnitude of individual suffering by Drethon · 2015-02-23 07:41 · Score: 1

So under which category do you put firebombing?
Re:Magnitude of individual suffering by Bugler412 · 2015-02-23 08:16 · Score: 1

I think people burned by napalm and other incendiaries that lived will disagree with you
Re:Magnitude of individual suffering by Ihlosi · 2015-02-23 20:36 · Score: 1

There's no real way to use chemical weapons accurately.
Delivered by spring-loaded injector disguised as an umbrella.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Re:Also, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? & Bu by jdavidb · 2015-02-23 07:29 · Score: 1

Awesome links. One thing I saw on that NPR article that I didn't know was that Peter, Paul, and Mary's version of Blowin in the Wind became the fastest-selling single in Warner Brothers' history.

--
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.

It's the missuse of chemistry. / Abusing science. by burni2 · 2015-02-23 07:29 · Score: 2

Most chemical weapons were not invented to be weapons at first, but during the era when chemistry evolved, many compounds were created to be used in chemical processes, to produce things like poly vinyl chloride (for the old folks modern 12" LPs are made of this)

Phosgene for example. Till today is produced in tons and tons and tons. And this very day today you had a 100% chance to touch things or ingest things(medicine) were produced using phosgene or familiar compounds.

Not weapons kill people, people kill people, but this is not ment as a let go for engineers and scientists to use this as an excuse.

Re:Also, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? & Bu by jdavidb · 2015-02-23 07:34 · Score: 1

We love this one, too, although it's got some pro-communist roots we don't personally agree with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJS-M4ov5EY

--
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.

Wife was... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:36 · Score: 0

the first woman to earn a PhD at the University of Breslau.

Interesting question on time... by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-23 07:44 · Score: 4, Interesting

I guess it depends on how much everyone learns from history or example. Of course, it's been joked that those who study history are condemned to watch others repeat it... :-(
http://www.historyisaweapon.co...

Those changes to Germany came from the values of a 1930s/1940s USA.
http://www.salon.com/2010/08/2...
"How did Germany become such a great place to work in the first place? The Allies did it. This whole European model came, to some extent, from the New Deal. Our real history and tradition is what we created in Europe. Occupying Germany after WWII, the 1945 European constitutions, the UN Charter of Human Rights all came from Eleanor Roosevelt and the New Dealers. All of it got worked into the constitutions of Europe and helped shape their social democracies. It came from us. The papal encyclicals on labor, it came from the Americans."

But, sadly, that USA and its values effectively no longer exist 70-80 years later. Today's USA has different values -- some are better (less racism and sexism overall, more respect for the environment), others are worse (less respect for workers, the "two-income trap", policies that promote a greater rich/poor divide, and more meddling in other nation's affairs which may produce profits for some connected few but produces huge costs for the whole USA let along the disrupted countries).

The real issue may be, like Gandhi is claimed to have said when asked by a journalist: "What do you think of Western civilization?", he said, "I think it would be a good idea."
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2...

At this point, as US citizen, I'm much more concerned about what the US government does both abroad and at home (including stuff like supporting a repressive Saudi Arabia, other actions abroad that make terrorist blowback more likely, domestic cage-like "free speech zones", domestic rulings saying border patrols can operate in a constitution-ignoring way up to 100 miles inland, etc.) -- than what people in the Middle East cradle of civilization do. And I remain always aware there are large numbers of nuclear weapons still ready to fly on short notice...
http://politics.slashdot.org/s...
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/2...

So, what will it take to civilize the USA? A basic income might be a start...

--
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Re:Interesting question on time... by jopsen · 2015-02-23 10:52 · Score: 1

+1
Re:Interesting question on time... by khallow · 2015-02-23 12:40 · Score: 2

You do realize that the New Deal didn't survive the onset of the Second World War? Most of those terrible policies (particularly, most of the business oligopolies that FDR created) had to be revoked in order for the US to successful wage war. And now the largest remnant of those days, Social Security, has tens of trillions (not billions!) in unfunded liabilities.

So, what will it take to civilize the USA? A basic income might be a start...
I might support that, as long as the rest of the social safety net gets radically drawn back (particularly minimum wage, pension funds, and health insurance subsidies). Otherwise it's just more spending without the revenue to support that spending.
Re:Interesting question on time... by DNS-and-BIND · 2015-02-23 13:04 · Score: 0

At this point, as US citizen, I'm much more concerned about what the US government does both abroad and at home (including stuff like supporting a repressive Saudi Arabia, other actions abroad that make terrorist blowback more likely, domestic cage-like "free speech zones", domestic rulings saying border patrols can operate in a constitution-ignoring way up to 100 miles inland, etc.)
You right-wing fuckbags are always calling for less government. Guess what? Nobody fucking cares about your precious constitution. Your opposition to Obama is just racism. America is going to change and you're not going to like it one bit. Get used to it.

--
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:Interesting question on time... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 13:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

I might support that, as long as the rest of the social safety net gets radically drawn back (particularly minimum wage, pension funds, and health insurance subsidies). Otherwise it's just more spending without the revenue to support that spending.
As somebody with no health insurance, working slightly above minimum wage, go fuck yourself, in the nicest way possible. Nothing personal against you, but we as a nation need basic income, for all the people who are, and will be out of gainful employment (and lack to credentials to receive it, really meaning, people without a college degree) in the near future. In general, you personal finance, fiscal responsibility types like to make issues far more complicated then they are. Your suggestion that increasing the social programs in one specific way requires slashing all the other ones, makes me wonder if you ever met the people who depend on these programs. One of the largest problems with our current welfare system, and the one I see my coworkers struggle with everyday, is commonly known as the doughnut hole (The term is technically designated for health insurance benefits, but slang terms are regularly repurposed).
For those with no experience here (And given some of the responses I've seen on /., I really don't think most of the site has.), I'll attempt to explain it.
x,y,z are scalar variables.
They make $x at work, and need $y for housing, food, fuel, etc. The maximum income for welfare benefits is $z. $x can go up to a finite value, (Generally to ($z + 1))., or down to zero. $y is fixed, unless their children eat hot-dogs every night, or they turn the heat off (It's winter here in the Northern Hemisphere.), and is some value slightly above $z or (2*$x), whichever is lower. So in effect, they must make less than they need, to actually get enough to live on. If jobs paid a living wage (Around (1.5 * $y)), or welfare minimums were increased by $10000 dollars, this hole wouldn't exist. But because it does, people I know actually work less hours then they possibly could, because it would put them over $z.
The problem is not entitlements or interest rates, or any other random financial problem you can think up. People need more money. Not encouragement to start a small business or a waiver to try and start a new career at 45. Economics are zero-sum, unless you own a means of production, or your labor is worth anything (And for many it's not). You're worried about not having the revenue, but forget that we are beyond due for a tax hike on the higher brackets, and closure of the loopholes. Cutting back social services would still put people in the exact same position they are now, and not fix the problem. Either the business need to pay a livable wage, or the government has to, but know this; Unemployment will increase with the onset of automation, and greatly so. People who know a useful repetitive skill will have no means of support their family and the most dangerous man is one with nothing left to lose. Social change is coming, either by progress or violence, but it is coming.
Re:Interesting question on time... by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-23 17:52 · Score: 1

You do understand that basic income and minimum wage is the same thing?
Obviously not, otherwise you would not object against basic health care and pension.
Your idea about 'revenue' is obviously guided by the 'broken window fallacy' which is a wrong analogy in macro economics.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Interesting question on time... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-24 02:03 · Score: 0

You do realize that the New Deal didn't survive the onset of the Second World War?
That's because instead of paying them to build bridges to nowhere, the government paid people to makes tanks and bombs and planes etc. Oh and made people pay with their lives too, as soldiers. If the soldiers made it back the government set up GI bills for them.
The "New Deal" may not have survived, but government spending more and more money to interfere with people's lives did. The so called conservative movement that promises to cut them back rarely did. Rather, they just didn't expand it as much. Old programs, including New Deal programs like SS, were just kept around.

Most of those terrible policies (particularly, most of the business oligopolies that FDR created) had to be revoked in order for the US to successful wage war.
See above. It was only a shift in government spending, not a reduction. Almost nobody alive today has experienced a time when government spending wasn't a big part in the American economy, either through welfare or through war.
Given the choice between the two, I'd rather a nation not be so successful at waging war. I mean, why would you want a government that's better at killing people? They may be killing the "right" kind of people today, but those guns and drones and spy networks could be used on you someday... oh wait, they already are using it on you.
Re:Interesting question on time... by david_thornley · 2015-02-24 07:18 · Score: 1

One of the critical things is health insurance, which comes with at least some welfare programs, but not typical low-level jobs. If we had some sort of adequate national health-care system (which would cost considerably less than what we have now), more people would be able to get off welfare and support themselves. Health care is particularly important to parents of young children, who can rack up large medical bills real fast.

--
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Interesting question on time... by khallow · 2015-02-24 15:11 · Score: 1

You do understand that basic income and minimum wage is the same thing?
That is wrong. There are two very important differences. First, basic income happens whether you are employed or not. Meanwhile minimum wage only happens if you are employed.

Second, basic income is not a direct cost to the employer while minimum wage keeps unemployed anyone whose work is currently worth less than minimum wage.

This leads to a huge difference in effect. Basic income is far less of a disincentive to employ low skill and less valuable workers than a minimum wage is. I think it's a particularly dumb idea to discourage employment of disadvantaged or low skilled workers, but that is the key effect of a minimum wage.

Your idea about 'revenue' is obviously guided by the 'broken window fallacy' which is a wrong analogy in macro economics.
Nonsense. Even in a scenario where the government can print its own money, debt has consequence in that lots of it strongly impair the future operation of the government and everyone who uses the currency of that government. And macroeconomics is the scale where most of the economic shenanigans which can be debunked by the broken window fallacy occur.
Re:Interesting question on time... by khallow · 2015-02-24 16:42 · Score: 1

First, as I stated before, I favor basic income, but only if we cut the rest of the crap. I'm sorry, but your particular lifestyle and your expensive wants dressed up as needs are not as important to me as the future of the US. Even if they were, we don't need a host of programs to address each and every one of them individually.

Basic income doesn't have doughnut holes unless someone sticks in a hard cutoff which would be well above any income you're currently earning. But basic income along with all the crap does have doughnut holes.

In general, you personal finance, fiscal responsibility types like to make issues far more complicated then they are.

That makes no sense since personal responsibility simplifies those issues. If you're paying for your own expenses, then you don't need a complex government program, you don't have doughnut holes or other perverse incentives to do dumb stuff, you don't have me messing up your finances because I'm more concerned about the future of the US than your lifestyle.

The problem is not entitlements or interest rates, or any other random financial problem you can think up. People need more money.
No, I think entitlements are a huge part of the problem. For example, you stated the following:

Economics are zero-sum, unless you own a means of production, or your labor is worth anything (And for many it's not).
You ignore the most important aspect of economics, trade. Your labor is always worth something, as long as you are allowed to trade it for something of value. This is a thing which minimum wage, for example, can prevent by forcing employers not to hire you, but basic income can enable by allowing you to work at what you're actually worth until you can build up the job skills for a better job.

Zero sum thinking is harmful in a positive sum environment like the current real world. You're too intent on taking from others when you should be thinking more advantageously about growing your piece of the pie.

Moving on, entitlements buy votes. The same government that protects your health insurance is the same government which hands so much money to corporate welfare, which wages wars, and which does everything that it can get away with. You don't hear politicians ranting "Don't vote for him because he'll stop NSA spying or shipping money to Halliburton". No, it's "he'll take your benefits away".

Finally, entitlements create dependencies and obligations which are very difficult to deal with in the future. For example, everyone has known the fundamental problems of Social Security and Medicare since those programs were first created, namely, that the people who pay in, get far more out than is warranted by what they put in. Nobody has fixed them yet. The "doughnut hole" of Medicare has been around for more than a decade, it's not getting fixed. Same goes for the doughnut holes created by Obamacare.

People who know a useful repetitive skill will have no means of support their family and the most dangerous man is one with nothing left to lose. Social change is coming, either by progress or violence, but it is coming.
No use telling me. I'm not the problem. Do you want social change where you end up improving your life, or social change where you're on the bottom of the next society?
Re:Interesting question on time... by khallow · 2015-02-24 16:56 · Score: 1

I don't see your point here. Government does more then and now than just spend money. The key FDR policies which were destroyed were most of the government imposed oligopolies and a mild cut back on the power of the labor unions.

Given the choice between the two, I'd rather a nation not be so successful at waging war. I mean, why would you want a government that's better at killing people?
Think about it. Because losing a war is worse than being good at killing the other side. The problem isn't that the US is too good at fighting, but rather that it gets into too many scraps.
Re:Interesting question on time... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-25 02:22 · Score: 0

I don't see your point here. Government does more then and now than just spend money. The key FDR policies which were destroyed were most of the government imposed oligopolies and a mild cut back on the power of the labor unions.
I don't see your point either. So what if some programs were cut? Others stayed, and new excuses for spending money and reducing freedoms were added. The trend for dollar spending is upward. The trend for liberties is downward.

Think about it. Because losing a war is worse than being good at killing the other side.
Already addressed in my last post: they may be killing people on the "other side" today, but those guns and drones and spy networks could just as easily be used on your side. The same principle for new laws should be applied here: don't imagine what good the government could do with the right guys in charge of that army. Imagine what evils it could do when the wrong guys gets a hold of all that power.

The problem isn't that the US is too good at fighting, but rather that it gets into too many scraps.
No, being good at fighting is the problem. Remember we're talking about governments, not individuals.
There is no problem with individuals being good at fighting. That's your freedom. An individual who is good at fighting isn't necessarily going to get into a lot of scraps, because an individual good at fighting still has to risk his own in a fight. It's his money and life on the line.
It's a whole other matter for governments. Government sends other people to fight, using other people's money. A government that is good at fighting has less disincentives to fighting as individuals, while more to gain from fighting. As a result, governments are much more eager to get into scraps. In other words, the US getting into so many scraps is a symptom, not the problem.
Mind you, if it's about protecting "us" from the "other side", all those scraps the US gets into do a very poor job at doing that. Violence is almost always an inefficient solution. Asymmetrical warfare worked when the Americans used it on the British (and it's the same rational that the people's personal firearms deter the governments' tanks and planes and drones), but nowadays the US is one the receiving end of it from the other side. Then there's all that money that aren't spent on fighting overseas, but creating tiger-repelling rocks at home.
Re:Interesting question on time... by khallow · 2015-02-25 05:46 · Score: 1

I don't see your point either. So what if some programs were cut?
Creating an enforced oligopoly is not just a "program". It's not just spending money. It's creation of a very considerable economic inefficiency combined with a substantial imposition on human freedom.

It's a whole other matter for governments. Government sends other people to fight, using other people's money. A government that is good at fighting has less disincentives to fighting as individuals, while more to gain from fighting. As a result, governments are much more eager to get into scraps. In other words, the US getting into so many scraps is a symptom, not the problem.
OTOH, we have plenty of examples of what happens when a country that is bad at fighting runs into a country that is good at fighting.

For example, we're nearing the 800th anniversary of Genghis Khan's invasion of Khwarezmia. The heartland of Khwarezmia is now Afghanistan which has never come close to restoring that ancient glory. That's what being bad at fighting can do for you. It can create military disasters which are still readily apparent after 800 years.

I'll also point out that merely spending money on war/defense doesn't make you good at fighting. Here, I'm in agreement that the US simply spends too much on military spending.
Re:Interesting question on time... by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-25 18:36 · Score: 1

Yeah I did not pay attention, and mixed "basic income" up.
"And macroeconomics is the scale where most of the economic shenanigans which can be debunked by the broken window fallacy occur."
No it is not. If the government gives $100 to a "poor" and he spends it, and the money is spent again it dripples perhaps as a "gross product" of $1000 through the economy. If VAT is bigger than 10% it is a net gain even for the government.
Why you bring up "printing money" and debts is beyond me. It has nothing to do with the issue. Hence the idea of "basic income".
The question of basic income versus minimum wages is ofc interesting, does it make sense to have both? If so who is eligible for basic income? Every immigrant? Immediately, or after a grace period? Is it a fixed income, same for everyone, or based on a metric, like level of education? Or at least, amount of years spent in "education"?
I think it can be combined with minimum wages, but other ideas - in germany - where to have a basic income of roughly $6000 per person (means a household with kids gets X times $6000) - per year. On top of that the first $30,000 income per year would be tax free. Ofc we don't do that right now because we fear a mass immigration (and certain wings in politics are against it anyway).

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Re: If someone is attacking you, you should use it by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 07:53 · Score: 0

Germans seems to *always* be in France whenever there's a war on.

Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-23 08:01 · Score: 1

Haber created a way to feed billions of people via nitrogen fertilizers(*), but then Haber supports a war based in large part on the idea there is not enough to go around and people need to steal each others land...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Sad to read Haber's first wife, who disapproved of Haber's poison gas work, committed suicide right after the first use of her husband's poison gas in war. Guess when something like that happens you either change or you embrace cognitive dissonance and dig in even further... See:
"Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts"
http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes...
"Why do people dodge responsibility when things fall apart? Why the parade of public figures unable to own up when they screw up? Why the endless marital quarrels over who is right? Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in ourselves? Are we all liars? Or do we really believe the stories we tell? Backed by years of research and delivered in lively, energetic prose, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-deception -- how it works, the harm it can cause, and how we can overcome it."

(*) This is ignoring we now know ground-up rock dust and legumes etc. can do that too -- see: http://remineralize.org/ Also, excess nitrogen displaces other vital micronutrients which is why organic farming practices using things like slow-acting rock dust produce healthier plants and probably healthier people. See:
"Towards Holistic Agriculture: A Scientific Approach"
http://www.amazon.com/Towards-...
"This book explains the use of an ecological way of farming, with modern practical applications, to make the fullest use of land resources and the best utilization of available capital and labour. In analyzing the vital relationship between soil, plant, animal and man, the author discusses the best care of land itself, its components, grassland management and the most efficient use of crops to maximize yield, food quality and profitability without the extensive use of chemicals and without damaging the ecology. Widdowson also covers the holistic approach to animal farming, the welfare and health of poultry, cattle, sheep and goats, their nutritional needs through the various stages of their lives, and the best way to balance their diets."

That is why I feel the point in my sig is so essential for everyone to understand it the 21st century (although it has always been important, but gets increasingly important as our technology gets increasingly powerful): "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Cyberax · 2015-02-23 17:37 · Score: 1

Legumes help, but their nitrogen content is way too low to support non-happy-hippie agriculture where you actually need high yields. It's useful to _decrease_ the dependency on nitrogen fertilizers, but they can't replace them. And slow-release fertilizers are very well used in traditional agriculture.

And "nitrogen displacing micronutrients" is a pure BS.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-23 18:24 · Score: 1

Regarding your sig. â" the scarcity in our world is artificial.
Especially the 'problems' we have in the western world, like droughts in the USA. Thousands of years ago, civilizations that just had left the stone age, built irrigation networks spanning thousands of miles.
At that time people and governments understood why people pay taxes and what the government is supposed to do with them.
Now we get bombarded by idiots with posts about 'broken window fallacies' or why the private sector is more efficient than the government.
The private sector that worked hard on converting majour parts of the USA into desserts, is now working hard to repeat that in India, and god forbid, if China is opening to the west, they repeat it there. And China is already reacting getting a solid food hold in Africa, because the west tried more to exploit it than to develop it.
Why? Because it is cheaper for 'the private sector' to exploit a third world, or emerging wold country and its poorness and/or corruption than to invest into irrigation, earth preservation or other measures in their home country.
Point is: they don't have a home country anymore. The island they bought in Brazil or Thailand is their 'home'.
The time of the 'corn chambers' or 'grain chambers' in the USA are over. In 30 years they have to import huge deals of their food, because the 'dust bowls' then will be just that, half savannah and half desert. Fixing that 'problem' is easy. It only costs money and time, the later is running out. But it would change the idea that 'everything is cheap' in the USA. People would need to pay prices that are 'normal' in the rest of the world, god forbid!
The planet is at the edge of 'Sheep looking up' or 'Stand on Zanzibar' ... if there is a majour war happening â" does not really matter who us fighting whom and how â" world food production will collapse, on top of that, world trade with everything will collapse.
Obviously the minds behind so far managed to prohibit (word chosen intentionally instead of 'prevent') a big global war and exploit the options to get rich in minor local skirmishes.
Sorry, was not meant as an argument against you, I just took your sig as a hook.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-23 18:28 · Score: 1

Of course it can be replaced.
Youtube is full with 'permaculture' videos ... known stuff since over 50 years.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Cyberax · 2015-02-23 21:46 · Score: 1

You certainly CAN grow stuff with little or no fertilizers, that's what humanity did for millenia. You just can't do it with high enough yields.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-23 23:37 · Score: 1

Ofc you can do it with enough yield.
Every perma culture proves that. There are plenty of natural ways to enrich the soil with nitrogen.
I just watched a few 'perma culture educational' videos on youtube over the weekend. If you want I dig some out and post some links, but it should be easy to find some your self.
Look for perma culture orchards. The owners have less work, more yield, a huge bio diversity, they expand their business into honey ... raw specimem like snakes and certain birds or frogs live in the orchards. It is amazingly simple.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Cyberax · 2015-02-23 23:46 · Score: 1

Yeah, sure. Please show me a "permaculture" that provides at least 40 bushels of wheat per acre with the total costs less than $6 per bushel. This is about average performance now, with top cultivars and agricultural techniques allowing to go up to 150 bu/ac yields (but they also have higher costs).
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-24 02:07 · Score: 1

China has been doing it for Millennia; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
"In 1909, American agronomist F.H. King toured China, Korea and Japan, studying traditional fertilization, tillage and general farming practices. He wrote his observations and findings in Farmers of Forty Centuries, Or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan (1911, published shortly after his death by his wife, Carrie Baker King; numerous facsimile reprintings, including Courier Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-43609-8, and Rodale Press, ISBN 0-87857-867-6). King lived in an era preceding synthetic nitrogen fertilizer production and before the use of the internal combustion engine for farm machinery, yet he was profoundly interested in the challenge of farming the same soils in a 'permanent' manner, hence his interest in the agricultural practices of ancient cultures. In recent years, his book became an important organic farming reference."
"Night soil" was part of the answer -- recycling human waste back to the fields. We have modern versions of composting toilets like the Clivus Multrum that can do much the same in a more sanitary way.
Conventional "slow release" fertilizers are generally different than ground up rock dust. See this site for what is possible:
http://remineralize.org/
On micronutrients, most people in agriculture don't understand this, so it is not a surprise you don't either. I'd suggest you read Widdowson's book. It is basic chemistry. Essentially, the clay and organic matter in soil has only so much holding capacity for nutrients released by the slow decay of rocks and the faster decay of organic matter. If you flood that capacity with nitrogenous compounds, statistically you end up with a lot of nitrogen and very little of everything else. There is another process that also goes on related to reducing the soil's holding capacity as the pH drops and clay particles change their electric charge. Thus your plants don't have access to micronutrients they need to make plant defense compounds and so they are weak and sickly and need additional protection like by synthetic pesticides and such. If Haber had spent more time studying agricultural chemistry instead of figuring out how to kill people, he might have learned this and then come up with better solutions. See this diagram on page 11 of Widdowson's book for more details:
http://books.google.com/books?...

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Cyberax · 2015-02-24 02:22 · Score: 1

Wow! 1909 is so modern. Not. Since that time wheat yields were improved by more than 5 times with the help of fertilizers.

Human waste does not help with nitrogen as humans can't _fix_ atmospheric nitrogen. You can use animals to help to _concentrate_ nitrogen from pastures into small fields, but this simply does not scale.

As for 'holding capacity' - that's such a bullshit that only greenie hippies with granola for brains can buy it. In a typical fertilized soil the concentration of nitrogen is usually around 25 parts per _million_ by weight. Meanwhile, potassium is naturally about 100ppm with huge variation (from 40ppm to 130ppm) having little effect on crops. The rest of micronutrients like zinc or iron are even less.

For comparison, sodium levels are usually around 500-700ppm.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-24 03:49 · Score: 1

Perma cultures are not used for wheat.
They are used for fruits and vegetables.
After all you want to drive around with a harvesting machine to harvest wheat.
Also: bushles? In what age do you live? What is a bushel? How many breads can you bake from a bushel? Just kidding I can read that up ... but who in his sane mind uses bushels as a metric for wheat yield when every harvesting machine simply strips the grain out? (Which is measured in tons per acre)
The term bushels I only know from http://www.battlemaster.org/

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Cyberax · 2015-02-24 04:00 · Score: 1

Duh. So perhaps these billions of people should eat tree bark instead of wheat, rice and corn? Fruit trees are _easy_ - they grow slowly and don't require much fertilizer anyway.

And with most vegetables you have the same problem - if they are high-yield and annual then you need fertilizer. Even beans (that can fix their own nitrogen) produce less yield in dry weight than wheat with fertilizer.

Also: bushles? In what age do you live? What is a bushel?
It's a standard unit for crop yield measurement (1 bushel of wheat is 27 kg) in the US. It's stupid but traditional, kinda like hydrologists use acre-feet for water storage data.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-24 07:28 · Score: 1

Respectfully, I suggest you research these issues further to avoid spreading confusion on them.
For example, while humans don't fix nitrogen, human waste contains a lot of nitrogen from food that is eaten. For example, by one calculation
http://www.agriculturesnetwork...
"Roughly estimated, at least 800 million kg nitrogen, 400 million kg phosphate and 500 million kg potash can be annually acquired from night soil produced in urban areas. This is equivalent to some 4 million tonnes of commercial fertiliser, which is about 4% of all commercial fertiliser used throughout the country."
Considering how much fertilizer is wasted in modern systems, you can see that this was a big deal in China as part of a closed cycle including other techniques to restore soil fertility. Granted there are other issues with pathogens and contamination from "night soil", but nonetheless, China is an example of doing wihout the Haber process for 4000 years and still supporting big populations by other means.
Historically, rotational field cropping has also been used to replenish the soil. Also, intercropping can boost nitrogen levels in intensive agriculture;
"Intercropping with nitrogen-fixing crops leads to increased maize yields, says study"
http://www.enn.com/agriculture...
"Results show that while mono cropping practices produce a high yield crop, it is not the sustainable solution in the long run. Instead, the research suggests that by strategically combining small doses of inorganic fertilizer through an intercropping system, maize yields will be more stable and will not only increase, but will lead to other ecosystem services like soil stability, water storage capacity and overall fertility. "
Integrated agricultural systems such as involving water from fish ponds and such can also increase nitrogen in agriculture..
I've cited sources for my points, including how excessive nitrogen fertilizer causes micronutrient loss. While nitrogen is often a limiting nutrient, the point is that it can displace other nutrients very easily, causing other issues. Beyond clay, organic matter also holds onto micronutrients. This is one reason "organic" farming focuses on building up the organic matter content of soils to increase nutrient holding capacity. "Feed the soil and keep it healthy for healthy plants" is the motto there. By contrast, conventional agriculture essentially uses the soil to prop up plants, and tends to produce lush green growth with excessive nitrogen, but the plants are otherwise weak and unhealthy and susceptible to disease. There are other broader problems from excess nitrogen too:
http://www.vision.org/visionme...
Please cite sources etc. substantiating your various points especially disagreeing with the loss of micronutrients (which is basic chemistry, if usually ignored in mainstream agriculture which tends to maximize empty calories) in order for this to be a more productive dialog.
Here's the bottom line on at least US agriculture. Almost everything grown just goes to feed animals, and eating too many animal products is bad for people's health, as is eating too many refined grains (another big part of the rest of US agriculture). So really, all this discussion about fertilizer in that sense is besides the point in many ways. See:
http://www.westernwatersheds.o...
"Cropland- About 349 million acres in the U.S. are planted for crops. This is the equivalent of about four states the size of Montana. Four crops -- feeder corn (80 million acres), soybeans (75 million acres), alfalfa hay (61 million acres) and wheat (62 million acres) -- make up 80 percent of total crop acreage. All but wheat are prima

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Cyberax · 2015-02-24 07:51 · Score: 1

For example, while humans don't fix nitrogen, human waste contains a lot of nitrogen from food that is eaten.
:facepalm: And where does nitrogen in food come from?

Considering how much fertilizer is wasted in modern systems, you can see that this was a big deal in China as part of a closed cycle including other techniques to restore soil fertility.
Very little fertilizer is lost in modern agriculture in relative terms.

Granted there are other issues with pathogens and contamination from "night soil", but nonetheless
Pathogens are not a problem, they are outcompeted by soil bacteria during composting.

China is an example of doing wihout the Haber process for 4000 years and still supporting big populations by other means.
facepalm^2. China's population grew 3 _times_ during the last century virtually without increasing the land use, because of the fertilizers and pesticides.

If we wanted to do rotational cropping and intercropping to just feed humans, it seems to me it is likely quite feasible, especially with agricultural robots to manage that complexity instead of a lot of manual labor.
Still won't work. You'll need livestock for manure (to concentrate nitrogen and other nutrients). And agricultural robots are a pipe dream. Unlike you, I actually helped to grow my own food (lean years after the USSR collapse) so I appreciate the amount labor required for that.

And I also worked with the Great Evil (Monsanto) on actual modern agriculture to appreciate the difference.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-24 08:39 · Score: 1

"And where does nitrogen in food come from?"
It's in part a cycle -- land to humans to waste to land. Only in part as nitrogen can oxidize to go back to the air, so it needs to get fixed again by bacteria.
"Very little fertilizer is lost in modern agriculture in relative terms."
First, 40% of food in the USA is wasted. So, all that fertilizer is wasted. Food produced closer to home might not incur so much waste.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
But that is not what I meant. This is what I meant:
http://www.scientificamerican....
"Fertilizer Runoff Overwhelms Streams and Rivers--Creating Vast "Dead Zones"
The nation's waterways are brimming with excess nitrogen from fertilizer--and plans to boost biofuel production threaten to aggravate an already serious situation"
"Pathogens are not a problem, they are outcompeted by soil bacteria during composting."
Composting doesn't always get everything, as compost piles have edges and heat zones, and all that depends on careful management. Also, compost is contaminated by chemicals people dispose in the waste stream (chemicals from home darkrooms used to be a big issue) and also pharmaceuticals flushed down toilets.
"China's population grew 3 _times_ during the last century virtually without increasing the land use, because of the fertilizers and pesticides."
The fact that China's population may now need more inputs given growth in the last century since the Haber process does nothing to invalidate that they managed large (but not quite so large) populations for 3900 years before that without the Haber process. What that shows is that alternatives have worked. China is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. If they could do it, it shows the US could do it and other countries could do it.
"Still won't work. You'll need livestock for manure (to concentrate nitrogen and other nutrients). "
I agree that much current "organic agriculture" is dependent on livestock manure from conventional farming which is based mostly on feeding conventionally farmed grain (not pasture grass) to animals, and so there is a big nitrogen input there. That said, given a change in land uses patterns (especially away from agriculture), and with more nutrient recycling, and with intercropping and crop rotations and ground up rock dust, likely we could feed the planet well without the Haber process. I'll admit it would be good to back that with more numbers.
"And agricultural robots are a pipe dream."
Did you do the slightest research on them?
"Are agricultural robots ready? 27 companies profiled"
http://robohub.org/are-agricul...
"Unlike you, I actually helped to grow my own food (lean years after the USSR collapse) so I appreciate the amount labor required for that."
I'm sorry you had to go through that involuntarily due to crazy geopolitics and economics that cause that crisis. Still, you can't compare what you presumably had to do with limited tools and limited materials and limited information in a (probably) limited climate on impoverished soils with what is really possible with good tools, abundant materials, abundant information, in a good climate on well prepared soils.
Still, how do you know what foods I've grown or what I've studied?
"And I also worked with the Great Evil (Monsanto) on actual modern agriculture to appreciate the difference."
I see. I'll try not to assume that context might explain a lot. :-) Still, at the very least, it may be something like how someone who works with Microsoft products a lot might never think that open source software is possible or even better sometimes? Have you studied organic agriculture? Have you read Wid

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-24 08:44 · Score: 1

Typo: "especially away from agriculture" should be "especially away from livestock agriculture"

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Cyberax · 2015-02-24 09:47 · Score: 1

It's in part a cycle -- land to humans to waste to land. Only in part as nitrogen can oxidize to go back to the air, so it needs to get fixed again by bacteria.
Actually, you excrete most of your nitrogen through kidneys. Pig/human dung contains just 0.3% of nitrogen by weight. Anyway, you can read historical data - human waste is not enough, even using it for compost required to lay fields fallow one year out of three or four (depending on location).

"Fertilizer Runoff Overwhelms Streams and Rivers--Creating Vast "Dead Zones" The nation's waterways are brimming with excess nitrogen from fertilizer--and plans to boost biofuel production threaten to aggravate an already serious situation"
That's because the total amount of fertilizers used is huge. Very little of it is lost, but even that can cause trouble.

What that shows is that alternatives have worked. China is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. If they could do it, it shows the US could do it and other countries could do it.
It was not nearly the most densely populated place (England was) before the 20-th century. China was pretty average compared to European countries.

Still, you can't compare what you presumably had to do with limited tools and limited materials and limited information in a (probably) limited climate on impoverished soils with what is really possible with good tools, abundant materials, abundant information, in a good climate on well prepared soils.
We had lots of information, good enough manual tools and adequate soil. It still takes A LOT of labor if pesticides are not used. Real industrial farming is way more economic and might actually be _healthier_ for the environment, because pesticides allow no-till agriculture.

I see. I'll try not to assume that context might explain a lot. :-) Still, at the very least, it may be something like how someone who works with Microsoft products a lot might never think that open source software is possible or even better sometimes? Have you studied organic agriculture? Have you read Widdowson's book?
I certainly studied the organic farming including the 'Holistic' book. It's pretty much the same story as alternative medicine vs. actual medicine - the parts of alternative medicine that work simply become medicine. I've also studied the opposite opinions that pure organic farming is not sustainable and so far it definitely looks like it.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-24 13:25 · Score: 1

Interesting read, thanks! So true, you comments reflect the adage "taxes are the price we pay for civilization..." And also, capitalism tends toward privatizing gains and socializing costs...
If you see my other posts above though, I am not concerned about the technology to feed the world even without the Haber process (and perhaps better without it). As at this link, we have the technology through organic farming:
"Can Organic Farming Feed Us All?"
http://www.worldwatch.org/node...
Whether we have the political will is a different issue, with so many vested interests in the current synthetic-chemical-based agricultural system.
Another aspect of this craziness:
http://www.seriouseats.com/200...
"The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has posted an easy-to-understand visual on its site that shows which foods U.S. tax dollars go to support under the nation's farm bill. It's titled "Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?" and depicts two pyramids -- subsidized foods and the old recommended food pyramid. It's interesting to note that the two are almost inversely proportional to each other."

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Re:Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-25 19:38 · Score: 1

In perma cultures vegetables work just fine.
You simply intermix them with the trees. There are also solutions that require less or no fertilizer for traditional farming, like planting alfalfa between the wheat/corn and between grass on meadows.
In germany many farmers have enough cattle to use their waste as fertilizers (actually they produce often to much waste considering the size of the farms). But I never dug into that matter. If I plant a perma culture orchard it will be based around vegetables and fruit trees anyway. Perhaps a few simple animals, chickens and goats or something, nothing fancy.
Regarding the billions, yes, plenty of cultures, e.g. ananas/pineapple or bananas, basically everything you can think of, is grown in monocultures. Many of those can be changed into intermixed cultures, reducing need for fertilizer and pesticides.
So a bushel is close to half a "Zentner", the german measurement which is 100pounds/50kg. Perhaps I can memorize that for future reference. I believe field yield is still measured in Zentner ... instead of 100kg units or tons.

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Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Re: How long? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 08:09 · Score: 0

When they're grown enough, your kids will stab you in the eyes with sharpened pencils.

Re: If someone is attacking you, you should use it by ShanghaiBill · 2015-02-23 08:11 · Score: 2

Germans seems to *always* be in France whenever there's a war on.

Not always. Before 1871, the French used to go to Germany. Especially this guy.

Re:Also, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? & Bu by OakDragon · 2015-02-23 09:21 · Score: 1

I like this one almost as much as the mangled "Golden Girls" theme.

--
Dark Reflection

Re:Also, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? & Bu by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 09:49 · Score: 0

War Is a Racket is so obvious and so clearly common sense, but the media being paid for or controlled by politicians, never points it out that someone is constantly happily making money out of the whole business of war. Back when there were kingdoms, the King would have his own weaponry department (or contract out to guilds, yes, it is old) but now it is an open out and out lgitimised profit-making industry with stock market listings and what not. Completely inhuman and utterly despicable!

Re:Also, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? & Bu by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 09:53 · Score: 0

Only one thing more tiresome than a Dylan fan and that's Dylan himself. Ew.

Greek Fire by JimSadler · 2015-02-23 09:58 · Score: 1

Greek Fire was an outstanding chemical weapon that goes back a couple of thousand years. Even gunpowder in its primitive form was useful in blinding the enemies of the Chinese very early on. Later they learned how to get more bang out of gunpowder and use it to deliver explosive charges or even rocks against an enemy.

100 years everywhere... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 10:19 · Score: 1

Except Iraq. Iraq didn't have any chemical weapons after Gulf War I, and there isn't even the slightest, remotest possibility it could have had any ever since.

Meshworks & Hierarchies even among "brothers" by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-23 10:30 · Score: 2

That song, "Peter Paul and Mary: Because All Men Are Brothers", reminds me of the new movie "Senn" which we watched last night. Specifically, the PPM lyrics of: "My brother's fears are my fears, yellow white and brown. My brother's tears are my tears the whole wide world around."

"Senn" is an impressive movie, especially considering it was produced supposedly for only US$15000. That goes to show what modern technology and an internet-connected gift economy can do nowadays.
http://sennition.com/

This is a bit of a spoiler, but the connection is because of a key aspect of the movie's plot relates to humans' feeling each others emotions and how that changes how they behave, especially in a corporate context.

Which also reminds me of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
"In addition, Iacoboni has argued that mirror neurons are the neural basis of the human capacity for emotions such as empathy."

And some people labelled sociopaths or psychopaths may not have much of these feelings or may feel them more selectively.
"Psychopathic criminals have empathy switch"
http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

Yet many of our corporate and political leaders at these point may fit that description...

And what do you do with various criminals who often engage in psychopathic behavior? And by whose definitions? Put your "brother" in jail?

And in a big city, given out current economic paradigm, people may also need to learn to switch off or decrease empathy in some way just to survive thousands of interpersonal encounters an hour when walking down the street...

On this plane of existence, there seems to be a complexity of human (and other) life existing in practice at a middle ground between chaos and stasis, competition and cooperation, fire and ice, meshwork and hierarchy, and so on.
http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/me...

The Lathe of Heaven (as another spoiler) has a section where the protagonist wishes for "world peace", and it is accomplished by the appearance of an alien invasion of the moon, which unites all humanity in opposition...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

So, while we should be careful what we wish for, and things are complex, still, there are so many possible environmental menaces that more cooperation is in order, IMHO. But it is never quite so simple as "all men are brothers". After all, sadly, even "brothers" sometimes fight each other like in the US Civil War.

Still, our culture may shape how competition or aggression is expressed or channeled into more positive directions. Like Mr. Fred Rogers' sings: "What do you do with the mad that you feel?" As with Haber, a chemist can figure out a way to feed billions of people with nitrogenous fertilizer, or they can figure out how to kill large numbers of people with poison gas, or, in Haber's case, a chemist can even do both. The irony is that Haber's doing the first (to feed people) made doing the second (to kill people) unnecessary -- except that politics has taken a century to catch up with the potential of his (and others') inventions.

Likewise, even now, imagine what we could have had if the USA had invested three trillion US dollars on fusion energy research and better batteries and solar panels and energy efficiency -- instead of incurring that much and more on the Iraq war. Carter had the right idea, but he was not re-elected, even though (or perhaps because) he said:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americ...
"We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of f

--
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Petty Web Design Peeve by crywalt · 2015-02-23 11:26 · Score: 0

I realize this is petty, especially given the subject of the web page, but why oh why does the C&EN page have to take over my arrow keys? I tried to scroll down gradually using them and found they've been taken over to move the page to the next *section*. When what you expected was to go down one line for each tap of the key, and therefore have tapped it a few times, it's surprising and stupid to end up halfway through the article.

I'm an old-time web developer and designer. I don't really do it professionally any more but I used to. So as a professional I have to ask: WHAT THE FUCK?

Battle of Bolimów by nukenerd · 2015-02-23 12:47 · Score: 1

The first significant use of gas was by the Germans against the Russans at the Battle of Bolimów in January 1915. Hardly anybody has heard about it, being on the Eastern Front. The Germans chose this for the first use of gas because it was less "public" than the Westen Front; also the prevailing wind in Europe being from the west. On the Western Front the Germans were always at a disadvantage with the wind.

"Sarah Everts ... remembers the event" by borknado · 2015-02-23 12:51 · Score: 1

Damn Sarah is OLD.

"In order to save the village..." by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-23 13:27 · Score: 0

Going to town completely unfettered in all-out do-whatever-you-like war without any morals, even deliberately transgressing every moral event horizon you care to think of, is actually a bit more destructive than we can stomach, as, say, ISIL/ISIS/IS is currently noticing: They appear to have run into recruitment difficulties following their very over-the-top deliberately graphic public burning of hostages. Their prospective recruits are saying "no thanks, I won't fight for you" in response. In this sense, not having policies that limit what you'll do is just as much, if not more, a chink in your armour.

After all, we don't wage war for war's sake. We wage it for peace's sake, that is, settling the dispute so we can go back to living peacefully. If you prove to the other side beyond any doubt you cannot be trusted, you have no morals at all, they won't want to live under your rule or even with you as neighbours, meaning you're giving them more incentive to fight you. The Geneva accords weren't the first rules of war by any means.

Even when winning the victor cannot do exactly as he pleases, as we've seen with the aftermath of WWI: The terms were so onerous that Germany literally could not afford peace as it was readily bankrupting them, they had to do something, and that something turned out to be WWII. Thanks, France!

Poor Choice of Metric in Summary by careysub · 2015-02-23 15:02 · Score: 1

It greatly underrates the significance of poison gas in WWI so summarize is as "Even though poison gas didn't end up becoming an efficient killing weapon on WWI battlefields...".

The most effective agents available in WWI were an extremely efficient in causing casualties, that is, putting men out of action, with crippling injuries in many cases.

Just one chemical agent, mustard gas, caused 14% of all British battle casualties, despite being introduced late in the war, and not being available on the scale that the German's wished to use it. One a shell-for-shell basis it was 6 times as effective as high explosives in putting men out of action.

--
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj

Industrial scale use right at home by matbury · 2015-02-23 16:57 · Score: 1

Erm... aren't we using the world's most popular chemical weapon on a massive industrial scale right in our own countries against our own populations? Yes, tear gas is a chemical weapon. It's the 1%'s chemical weapon of choice these days. We're not even allowed to calmly and peacefully protest our oppression.

It's called proportionality? by lippydude · 2015-02-23 18:12 · Score: 1

"It's called proportionality .. you can't nuke a country in response to a platoon of infantryman crossing the frontier" ...

You're more likely to use nuclear or chemical weapons if the other side don't have them ref.

Who used chemical weapons? by tinkerton · 2015-02-23 22:15 · Score: 1

The list of chemical weapons uses in the last century is nice. I'll point out though where it suffers from 'mainstream' bias. That chemical gas usage in Iraq in 1920 is omitted is acceptable, the claim can be disputed with reason. A similar claim about use of chemical weapons by the Syrian is taken as fact because everyone says so, while it's very doubtful that the Syrian army has resorted to chemical weapons. The very significant fact that Iran always refused to even make chemical weapons let alone use them while Iraq used them abundantly is turned into them running a weapons program after some restraint. They never made the weapons. Sure, proponents did some research, but proposals for weaponization were met with an unequivocal no from Khomeini.

I wonder about the claim that chemical weapons killed millions of people . How many besides the german concentration camps? Often war casualties were not killed but maimed.

Not used in concentration camps by Sun · 2015-02-23 23:01 · Score: 2

Excuse my nit picking, but the Nazis hardly used gas chambers in concentration camps. Mostly, they built special camps dedicated for murdering (mostly Jews, but it depends on the camp), and gas chambers was mostly used in those. These are, generally, refered to as "Extermination camps".

There were gas chambers in some of the concentration camps as well, but their use there was relatively marginal. Most people who died in concentration camps died from the cold, starvation and diseases, as well as direct murders (i.e. - getting shot).

Shachar

Re:Not used in concentration camps by gatkinso · 2015-02-24 03:28 · Score: 1

It is a valid distinction. Also note that three of the extermination camps employed carbon monoxide. Treblika, Sobibor, and Belzec simply hooked up tank engine exhaust to fake shower rooms (plus there was a place with so called gas vans that were simply moving vans with the exhaust routed into the back of the truck). No fancy chemicals needed.

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I am very small, utmostly microscopic.

Basic income different from minimum wage by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-24 01:00 · Score: 3, Informative

A basic income is like social security payments every month regardless of your age or whether you work. A minimum wage is the smallest amount an employer can pay you if you work. The two are completely different things, even though both benefit the poor in different ways. A basic income benefits (almost) everyone though, regardless of your wage.

Despite the AC post that is a sibling of this suggesting both a basic income and a minimum wage are needed, I tend to agree with the grandparent poster who suggests that with a basic income we can dispense with a minimum wage and other similar protections in exchange. A basic income is far, far better than a minimum wage. Economically, a minimum wage is only going to accelerate the automation of most jobs as well. That may not be a bad thing by itself, but automation is bad for many people without a basic income when people need a job to survive in our society.

That's one of the appeals of a basic to conservatives, and a reason something like a basic income was passed by the US House (but failed barely in the Senate) around 1970 in the USA. It was defeated in part by some liberal Senators thinking the proposal was not good enough (also with some conservative opposition), and sadly it has not come up again significantly since. Senator Daniel Moynihan wrote a book about the politics of a basic income back then.

With a basic income, most people can be more choosy about where they work, which is going to put pressure on companies to voluntarily adhere to better labor standards. Should that be a problem in practice, other labor protections could be revisited -- and a working populace with a basic income would have more time for political engagement about all that. Frankly, the benefits of the basic income politically for most people are probably one reason it has been back-burnered for so long.

However, that said, I also feel universal health care (at a minimum, Medicare for all) should also be part of any basic income program -- along with other health care reforms (like Andrew Weil or Joel Fuhrman or Blue Zones talk about) to focus more on prevention especially through good nutrition as well as things like promoting exercise, social interactions, music, meditation or similar, yoga or similar, and so on.

The reason why these questions of economics and a basic income and jobs and health care and so forth all matter in the context of chemical weapons of mass destruction is that whether countries go to war often hinges on all these factors. Socio-economic factors often drive war, for multiple reasons, including war is a convenient way to get a populace distracted from focusing on other domestic economic failings of leadership. A populace that is reasonably happy as-is may be less likely to support war for things like "lebensraum" or "oil profits" or whatever. And if citizens are not kept busy with make work, they would have more time to participate in the democratic process as well as educate themselves about current issues including war profiteering and the true cost of war. Citizens would also have more time to invent the next breakthrough to further prosperity, whether hot or cold fusion, useful domestic robots powered by free and open source software, new information management tools, innovative new products and materials by observing nature like how we got Velcro, and so on. They of course also would have more money on a regular basis (regardless of the ups and down of "employment") to actually purchase products produced locally. That might mean business (guided by steady-state non-expansive economic theory based on reliable demand given a basic income) might have less incentive to look abroad for "markets" and so to foster a militarism that enforces the openness of such markets at gunpoint (as with, say, the Opium war of the USA and Britain and such again China to force acceptance of Western-supplied narcotics into China, or with various more recent US interventions abroad related to oil profits or natural gas profits).

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Re:How long? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-02-24 01:48 · Score: 0

There's a reason I play this song to my kids a lot:

You dislike your kids?

Germany and the politics of abundance by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-24 01:49 · Score: 1

True to some extent, but imagination and innovation can create resources where there were none before. Trees grow wood mostly just from CO2 in the air and water. Germany has plenty of those. Many new materials are essentially plastic or carbon fiber. Germany could have invented all that with chemistry instead of going to war. That it did not is a failure of the German imagination back then.

Right now, the state-of-the-art in Germany for a new home is not to even need a furnace:
"No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in 'Passive Houses'"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12...
"DARMSTADT, Germany â" From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the stylish new gray and orange row houses in the Kranichstein District, with wreaths on the doors and Christmas lights twinkling through a freezing drizzle. But these houses are part of a revolution in building design: There are no drafts, no cold tile floors, no snuggling under blankets until the furnace kicks in. There is, in fact, no furnace. "

Other things I've written about that, including another "Downfall" parody where Hitler rails against abundance and open source and productive imaginative engineers: :-)
http://p2pfoundation.net/backu...

Granite can be melted into building material and also separated into a variety of elements. Seawater has just about every element in it and Germany has access to the sea. It may be more profitable to get something like aluminum from a specific ore abundant in it, but with the right technology and enough energy (like from fusion power), you can get pretty much any element anywhere on the planet. Ignoring what is possibly now or soon with nanotechnology, here are the basic chemical paths proposed around 1980 for use in turning lunar ore (basically granite) into a variety of materials:
"Flowsheet and process equations for the HF acid-leach process"
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/...

So, Germany could (in theory) have done that all instead of launching two world wars for "lebensraum" and access to foreign materials -- if it had invested more in the chemistry of production than the chemistry of destruction.

Germany does have some limited iron production, BTW; but not much. However, Germany probably also has a lot more as-yet-undiscovered ores and such in mountains and underground (like perhaps a mile or two down). They are just harder to find or get to than ones that are obvious from the surface. But if Germany had made more of an effort, including creation of better technologies for prospecting for ores, maybe it would have found various ores at home? Also, while I'm not a big fan of seabed mining for environmental reasons, that is another possibility, and in any case, they show the possibility of finding new resources by looking deep within the earth:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07...
"Mr. Dettweiler has now turned from recovering lost treasures to prospecting for natural ones that litter the seabed: craggy deposits rich in gold and silver, copper and cobalt, lead and zinc. A new understanding of marine geology has led to the discovery of hundreds of these unexpected ore bodies, known as massive sulfides because of their sulfurous nature."

Also, I've read that one reason Germany did so much for so long militarily in WWII (as imports were cut off) was that it put in place an intensive recycling program. Ignoring the holocaust and forced labor parts of it, it showed what was possible (discussed I think in the book "Other Homes and Garbage". As you imply, right now the automotive industry has become a net producer of metal from car recycling. But, even granted the industry needed some meta

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Re:Germany and the politics of abundance by angel'o'sphere · 2015-02-24 03:22 · Score: 1

You should not focus on germans.
First of all 1990 is not 1914 or 1939 (or 1933 if that matters) and secondly any other nation could have started any of the two wars. Strictly speaking WWII started in asia anyway and germany only opened the fighting in europe.
At that time, and we still have similar attitudes, but people try to accomplish that with other means, people believed the stronger can simply take from the weaker. That is called fascism.
At WW I the excuses where insults to the various majesties that could not be left 'unpunished'. The king of england, ir was it Victoria? ( to lazy to look up) was actually a cousine if the german emporer. Nevertheless they went to war.
I saw an documentary like 19 years ago, there was an like 90 years old german lady interviewed about her perception of WW I.
She said like: """
When the war was about to start, everybody told us it will be over in three weeks. (Likely because of the remembering if the french/german war around 1870)
They told us neither the frensh nor the britts can fight.
They are no match for a proper german soldier who loves his emporer.
They told us the britts will come, and after 3 days they miss their cricket, their polo and their other sports and want to go home.
The french would not even fight, because they are so obsessed with fashion. And most are gay anyway.
"""
So the interviewer asked: "And you believed that?"
The lady: "Of course! when you saw a soldier it was a dashing german or an austrian one! If you saw a britt it was in a (sports) magazine, a guy in tweet with an umbrella looking important. If you saw a frensh it was an feminin looking guy in a fashin magazin, with a scalf in a strange colour. No one believed they would put up a fight and 'dig in' in the western frontier"
Wording partly by me, except for the sports the fadhion and the gayness.
People at that time (and actually still today) did what they thought they can get away with. Russian / Turkish war, war against the turks in north africa/levante/arabia. Expanding to the east drawing germany etc. into war. Genocide against the armenians, spy phobia with lynch mobs against any 'foreiners' all over west europe. Slight shifting without any distinguished interruption via itallian fascism to spanish fascism to german fascism to WW II.
There is no difference in Japan. Or if China had been industrialzed earlier instead of being kept down by britts, americans an dutch, they had attacked the rest of asia.
All that Euthanasie crap, was invented in the USA. Well established law there. Abolished decades after WW II. After the americans realizes to what ends it had lead in germany.
Resources, Lebensraum? That was a lame excuse for having a mindset from the late middle ages but having the tools of a modern world.
And it is happening again. Right here. Right now. With Gene food, patent laws, trade agreements farmers in third world countries get driven into suicide or bankruptcy. The big american food companies buy the land and employ the 'survivors' for slave wages and bribe/lobby the governments preventing them to introduce minimum wages and/or environmental laws. In a few decades the lands are destroyed, just like the dust bowl areas in the USA are about to be destroyed. And then, they go forward to the next country.
What else is that than thriving for 'Lebensraum'? Destroying nations without weapons, using money, bribery, international organizations as war machines?

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Carbon Monoxide by gatkinso · 2015-02-24 03:25 · Score: 1

Despite the press Zyklon B gets, carbon monoxide was the Nazi gas of choice.

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I am very small, utmostly microscopic.

Feeding the world without the Haber process by Paul+Fernhout · 2015-02-24 13:03 · Score: 1

Human waste includes urine, which is part of "night soil".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

But yes, "night soil" could only be part of a system. But there are other parts, as mentioned in a section quoted at the end.

I don't know about England specifically, or later years, but this says:
"Population and Economy : From Hunger to Modern Economic Growth"
https://books.google.com/books...
"According to official Chinese statistics, by the middle of the 18 century, population density was already over 500 people per cultivated sq. km (see Liang 1980: 400, 546). While these numbers are undoubtedly exaggerated owning to under-registration of cultivated acreage (ho 1995), the contrast with 18th-cent. Europe, where 1 sq. km of cultivated acreage supported 70 people, is quite extreme (see Braudel 1981a: 56-64)."

Much of China is just not that cultivated because of mountains and deserts and such (especially in the West).

Organic agriculture is indeed information and labor intensive -- which is why robotics will revolutionize it -- including robots to pick specific insects off of plants.

On fertilizer loss, see:
http://www.wri.org/our-work/pr...
"Between 1960 and 1990, global use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer increased more than sevenfold, while phosphorus use more than tripled. Studies have shown that fertilizers are often applied in excess of crop needs (MA 2005). The excess nutrients are lost through volatilization (when nitrogen vaporizes in the atmosphere in the form of ammonia), surface runoff (Figure 2), and leaching to groundwater. On average, about 20 percent of nitrogen fertilizer is lost through surface runoff or leaching into groundwater (MA 2005). Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and nitrogen in manure that is spread on fields is also subject to volatilization. Under some conditions, up to 60 percent of the nitrogen applied to crops can be lost to the atmosphere by volatilization (University of Delaware Cooperative Extension 2009); more commonly, volatilization losses are 40 percent or less (MA 2005). A portion of the volatilized ammonia is redeposited in waterways through atmospheric deposition. Phosphorus, which binds to the soil, is generally lost through soil erosion from agricultural lands."

Comparisons to medicine... Don't get me started. :-) Doctors typically have only a few hours of education about nutrition over the course of several years of study, yet poor nutrition is the root of most Western disease. So, the whole medical community is (profitably for itself) misdirecting its efforts as far as priorities. Sure there is much alternative medicine that is bogus, but the parts based on nutritional research (e.g. Dr. Fuhrman's work) is quite good overall. Yet it is not mainstream. What is mainstream is stuff like "stents", which studies actually show are mostly worthless. For example:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/libra...
"The sad thing is surgical interventions and medications are the foundation of modern cardiology and both are relatively ineffective compared to nutritional excellence. My patients routinely reverse their heart disease, and no longer have vulnerable plaque or high blood pressure, so they do not need medical care, hospitals or cardiologists anymore. The problem is that in the real world cardiac patients are not even informed that heart disease is predictably reversed with nutritional excellence. They are not given the opportunity to choose and just corralled into these surgical interventions. Trying to figure out how to pay for ineffective and expensive medicine by politicians will never be a real solution. People need to know they do not have to have heart disease to begin with, and if they get it, aggressive

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

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100 Years of Chemical Weapons

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