Your denial of reality is not improving your credibility... and you belief that you can claim accreditation on the internet using an alias is itself pretty presumptuous.
Do you know my background or my qualifications? No. Because I don't name drop them even though they would actually be impressive if I could validate them for you. But that would require doxxing myself and that would be idiotic on my part since I don't want jackasses stalking me.
Let me put this to you just a bit more clearly.
You are speeding at sixty miles an hour at a brick wall of fact. You can either stop, get out of the way, or run head on into that wall, have your credibility fly right through the windshield, and splatter that intellectual credibility all over the brick in gobby gorey spender.
As I pointed out to you AGAIN in the last post, your position is contradicting known facts. So... you really don't have a leg to stand on... like... not one.
So you can walk back your presumptions and we can try to find common ground... or you can presume to condescend to me while denying obvious reality and I'll just roll my eyes at you.
You can pick either one.
I am fully willing to go through this with you. I am a very patient person. But I am not going to permit you to advance positions that are contrary to known fact. We have examples of fraud both big and small.
We have examples of collusion. We have examples of group think which non-intentional but still leads to a fallacious consensus. We have political advocacy. We have a lot of problems.
And you saying "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" is not especially compelling.
So... what is it going to be? Are you going to at least acknowledge reality so we can treat each other like rational human beings and try to find common ground? Or shall we choose door number 2?
Up to you. But when I give you examples of things going awry, you can't respond that the system couldn't stand some reform.
You don't like specific examples of reforms we could try? Okay... my suggestions are non-specific... It is general. If you have a problem with something then offer CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions as to how to fix the idea or how to obtain the same desired result in a more productive way.
That is acceptable. This is known as "constructive" criticism. Again... just try it. You'll find I am a very sweet interesting person if you give the benefit of the doubt. That isn't unreasonable. I have given YOU that from the beginning. The least you could do is offer it to me in return.
In every situation where the science is that closely audited on a regular basis you are of course correct.
However, I did just give you an example of someone that got away with fraud for years which renders that position false.
You're just factually wrong. It isn't even controversial. He would not have been able to do that if he he were getting his "cash in his register" checked.
So your analogy is rejected for being contextually inconsistent with known facts.
Being nice... I don't know how many euphemisms I can use for something being fucking wrong.
I gave EXAMPLES of different things that could be tried. My examples were not comprehensive. There is an entire library of methods of ferreting out bullshit that can be tried.
I gave you an example of perhaps two or three... of which you are only acknowledging ONE. You are then suggesting that I am only offering one method while at the same time contradicting yourself by referring to it as cloak and dagger which is an entire field of methods going far beyond any one thing.
The core concept is to TRICK frauds into outing themselves. Do you imply there is only ONE method to trick a person?
Obviously not. So enough with that bullshit and no I am not going to list every possible way you could possible trick any possible fraud. That would be an infinitely long list.
As to being poorly informed... here you're assuming that I would keep things the same way in every situation where it would weaken my argument while at the same time I would change anything again only in cases where it would weaken my argument.
That is specious. Are you one of those people that can't be reasoned with unless communicated with in a 5000 page report that basically restates the same concept that could be summed up in one paragraph a million different ways so that it can't possibly be intentionally misinterpreted even in the most unreasonable context possible? Because that is what your comments are sounding like at this point.
Assume for a moment that I am neither an idiot nor ignorant. Just for the sake of argument.
Then reread my position with that presumption. You keep filling in blanks with unreasonable assumptions and then attributing that to my intentions.
I am not an idiot, thank you.
As to your position that science is only having a problem because of politics... it is an element but it goes both ways. Some people try to exploit the credibility of science to advance a political agenda. And when you do that there are consequences.
You don't get to step into the ring, whore out your principles to advance a political cause, and then pretend you're some detached holy monk.
Either be that monk and askew all political ties. or when you enter the ring you're a political agent.
The same goes for judges for example in court trials. A judge that has conflicts of interest is disqualified from administering that court.
You see that with journalists as well. If you have conflicts of interest then you're not an impartial reporter and most journalistic ethics policies will oblige you to recuse yourself.
If you don't think politicians can bias scientists or that scientists are sometimes biased by money or power then you're a fool.
No offense. But scientists are people just like everyone else. If a judge has to recuse himself and a reporter has to recuse himself... then suggesting that a scientist need need never recuse himself is asinine.
First, the Russians are in error then... explain how we were mean to them in the 90s? We forgave them for the Cold War. We offered them investment opporutnities. We offered them partnership in a joint space program through the international space station.
Tell me what we did that was mean to the Russians in the 90s? And seeing that the people they abused during the cold war were given the opportunity to find their own destiny away from Russia is not mean. That is compassion. There are more people that matter besides just Russia. Russia has to have some feeling for the people they hurt.
As to Russia not being controllable, I don't know what you mean. Please rephrase so I know what you mean.
As to final battles... unlikely. WW3 is coming. But it won't doom humanity. It will just doom every country that participates in it.
So... South Africa and Brazil might become the super powers of the new world if the US, Russia, China, and Europe are wiped out.
If I were president of the US, my goal would be to disentange the US from as many defense obligations around the world as possible and then bolster US defenses on the assumption that a world war was going to come eventually. Possibly not for 50 or 100 years. But I do not want what happened to the British Empire to happen to my country. And the only way to avoid that is to get out of the way. Let whomever abuse and murder whomever else. And when they've burned themselves out on that horror, the US can help rebuild.
I would feel differently were it not for nuclear weapons. But with them in play... the US cannot afford to get drawn into another world war.
We have been drawn into 3 consecutive global conflicts that had nothing to do with us. WW1 was between England and Germany. WW2 was basically the same thing all over again only with Japan as well. And then the cold war which was basically a world war had nothing to do with us either. It was between various weak powers around the world... mostly more of the european collapsing colonies getting gobbled by Stalin's murder machine.
The US didn't have to be in any of these conflicts.
We could have remained neutral in every one of these wars.
We didn't. We fought for what we felt was right.
But the next big war is going to be a nuclear exchange. We can't be in that. There will be no winners of that war. Only losers.
As to where my system would work... it only finds people that commit fraud.
Your argument is essentially that science doesn't have a problem with fraud period... and that the existing system is working just fine.
This runs contrary to what anyone paying attention would notice on an almost daily basis.
The worst of the rot is in the pseudo sciences that are increasingly passing themselves off as hard sciences.
Psychology for example is mostly conjecture. The actual substance of it is quite thin. But psychology is often represented as being as scientific as physics or even mathematics. Its not. And it is hardly the only pseudo science passing itself off as a real science these days.
That is the first thing that needs to be reigned in firmly.
The other big issue is that there is a lot of science that is very hard to audit by the nature of the evidence being used. Sometimes there are really large data sets or it is really obscure so there aren't a lot of people that could be considered "peers" in the science.
One of the things that is increasingly unacceptable are undisclosed datasets. Someone will do something and filter the data and then present their paper. Auditing the findings sometimes requires that an independent team goes out, collects the same data in the same way, possibly over years, and then goes through whatever the methodology was for achieving the result.
Who does that? It very rarely happens.
Other examples are when the machine being used to determine the finding is very expensive. If you're using one of those particle accelerators you're not going to be repeating people's work that much because it is expensive and the priority is on NEW discoveries not confirming old results.
In some cases this leads to a circle jerk of LITERALLY ten scientists just peer reviewing each other. There are some journals that basically ask a specific scientist to recommend other scientists to review for them. And if that scientist is biased, then he's only going to recommend scientists in his inner circle. And before you know it the whole thing becomes an exercise in confirmation bias.
That has to be dealt with.
Then you have issues these check and balance systems getting overwhelmed by too many papers. These systems were designed at a time when there were a LOT fewer people getting doctorates. And as a result they have not scaled well. These systems need to be scrapped and redesigned with new design objectives in mind.
Look, I don't know why you're worried about my "cloak and dagger" system. It will only catch fraudsters. What is your worry? That it will waste money? These cloak and dagger systems are EXTREMELY cheap to administer because they work like fishing. You put some bait out there and then you see who bites.
You don't have to scan through everything but just whomever bites YOUR bait. Its very easy. Anyone that discovers one of your bogus sources is false is taught to not tell their peers but keep it secret so that someone else that comes along and doesn't do due diligence will get caught. You need to have systems set up that will PASSIVELY screen out bad or lazy scientists.
Scientists have to be kept in a state where they don't trust citations just because they're in the literature. They have to think "okay, that is what it SAYS but is that actually valid?"
That is how you stop cargo cult science.
Because the difference between running an airport and a cargo cult... is that airplanes land at the airport. That is the difference.
That fact.
Period.
One works.
One does not.
Period.
So you validate on that basis and those that are wearing coconuts on their ears and waiting for bamboo airplanes to land get kicked to the curb and those that are doing actual science retain their status as scientists.
It is that or you have what we have now... where good scientists are having a hard time sustaining their credibility and have to work extra hard to prove that what they're saying is true. Because people that claim to be scientists are dragging their names through the mud by being shit at their jobs.
If being corrupt were an excuse to invade and annex countries, the US would have invaded and annexed pretty much every country south of the border.
No one is saying Ukraine is a well run country. What people are saying is that Russia has no right to invade it.
Now that said, I DO think that some sort of long term leasing agreement should exist with Ukraine and Russia for sea ports etc in the Crimea. That is, Russia will pay a leasing fee... and Ukraine will for... say 100 years give Russia access to the sea ports. After 100 years, those agreements could be reassessed. If relations are good between Ukraine and Russia than they'll be renewed. If they're not... then they won't be.
I "DO" think that Russia has some argument for having part of Crimea. It was always part of Russia and I believe it was only added to Ukraine under the soviets as some sort of political gimmick.
So it is reasonable to me that that be returned IF the people in that area vote to return to Russia and if in return for that Russia agrees to leave Ukraine the fuck alone after that. If they don't... then all bets are off and the Russians are signaling they want to see who is better at knifing whom in the dark.
The West is quite good at knifing people in the dark. I don't know why the Russians always under estimate us there. They apparently want the US to retask the CIA to start playing games with them again.
Having an automated turret does not mean that your tank will outclass the previous generation. I grant that it is a good thing to have.
The only thing I'm seeing with the T-14 is that it is claiming an effective range of something like 5 kilometers with its main gun. Where as the Abrams claims about 2.5.
That is a big difference but it is not confirmed.
What is more, under what scenario would a US Abrams go up against a Russian T-14 Armata? This notion of some sort of solo duel one tank versus another is unrealistic. They would both engage under combined arms conditions. Neither force would get near the enemy's battle tanks until they had air superiority. At which point the attacking tanks would be supported by ground support bombers, attack helicopters, etc.
So this obsession Russia has with their tanks is frankly silly. Their tanks were last relevant in WW2. The Russians have this nostagia with their defeat of the German army and they basically want to keep fighting the same war over and over again.
All military powers have this problem. The British wanted to fight the napoleonic war all over again during parts of WW1 and were very slow to accept that the battleship was obsolete in WW2.
The US has an over reliance on aircraft carriers because to some extent we want to fight the pacific campaign all over again.
None of these biases are rational. The wars of the future will not be the wars of the past. The Russian tank is largely pointless. It is a weapon designed for a war that won't happen.
What will engage the T14 is more than anything is man portable anti tank rockets fired from concealment at a relatively close range.
Now, does the T14 have defenses against that/ I'm sure it does. But those defenses are not any better than most modern tanks especially when you take into consideration that many anti tank rockets already make a point of attacking targets from above. That is, an attacker fires the missile at a tank, the missile then rises above the tank, and then plunges down. The armor of nearly all tanks is thin on the top, the bottom, and the rear. The heaviest armor is on the front with less thick armor on the sides. But the armor on the bottom, top, and rear is generally quite thin.
An anti tank armor piercing shaped charge hitting one of those sides will go right through most of the time.
And we don't even need to get into the slaughter if the tanks don't have air superiority. Air based weapons platforms will annihilate any tank formation.
Now here you'll say "but what if we the ground units have portable SAMs?"... you'd have to spot the enemy to kill them.
The US is a master of air superiority. It is what we do. Just as the Monguls were masters of the mounted archer and the British were masters of heavy ship naval combat... The US is a master of air superiority.
We are very good at it.
So what would we do if you had lots of sams?
1. We'd saturate the area with electronic warfare cruise missiles. Sometimes called "wild weasels" We've had these since vietnam but they've grown more sophisticated over time. Their job is to "look" like airplanes and bombers to enemy sensors. They will fly in formations or look like they're doing bombing runs or something. But what they're actually doing is triggering enemy ground defenses.
2. When enemy ground defenses respond to what they think is an attack, a combined strike of cruise missiles and stealthed ground support bombers will attack enemy radar and SAM launchers. To survive this you would either have to destroy/evade the cruise missiles before they destroyed your defenses. And then you'd have to either destroy and evade the laser guided bombs from the stealthed ground support bombers. And on top of that, you really need to destroy the actual bombers if you can. And that doesn't even get into our drones etc.
3. At this point, ground based missile batteries are diminished to such an extent they can be ignored and air superiority fighter will occupy the space to prot
The former seat of communism is now calling itself conservative? You people are funny. Bring back the Tsar before you call yourself a conservative.
As to "nice women"... what does that even mean?
You do again realize that a lot of feminist crap we're dealing with in the US was inflicted on us by the damned soviets. A fair number of the feminist professors in those women's studies programs are self described communists.
So... explain to me how we're bad because you gave us your diseases?
As to leaving the Russians be... I am perfectly happy to do that. Can they please stop invading and annexing their neighbors? If they would stop doing that, I could go back to pretending they don't exist.
Be specific in what you're referring to... I was unaware they were taking people's finger prints to validate identity in Elizabethan England. *rolls eyes*... ACs... I sometimes think you all collectively share the same brain cell... and it is ill.
Well, historically doctor just meant expert. It had nothing to do with medicine. I think you could be a construction doctor or a pastry doctor. It goes back to Rome.
So I'm a little torn there. I'm okay with titles. I just think lots of people deserve them if anyone gets them.
If you are a master of accounting or a master of computer networks then why not give them a title as well? It seems reasonable to me.
Society should teat the people that make thing "work" with more respect. And those people are the experts. The "docÄ"res".
.... *pinches bridge of nose*... *takes a deep breath*...
Okay, how does a single radio broadcaster broadcast on dozens of frequencies at once? How does a cellphone tower sustain hundreds of phone calls at once? How does a tv satellite array handle god knows how many video streams?
You have one on one frequency and another on another. Is this not comically obvious?
First, so what if they make their own planes? I didn't say they didn't. They're just not very good.
Second, would I rather have no competition for military power? Yes... obviously. Competition for military power is not in my interest. The less competition for miltiary power there is the less likely war becomes. The more competition for military power there is the more likely war becomes and you get arms races and other stupid shit. So yes... I do not want competition for my weapons of death and destruction. This is a silly question on your part.
As to the US not doing anything if it isn't getting threatened by Russia... our most productive economic period was actually before the world wars. We are quite capable of thriving in peace.
If all it took to build a credible high tech military weapons platform was some CnC machines then enthusasts in Kansas would be turning out F22 fighter planes for the lolz.
So no. The top level military hardware requires a level of expertise the Russians don't have.
The US has it. The Chinese have it. The British have it. The French have it... sorta. The Germans have it. The Israelis have it. The Japanese have it.
I don't think anyone else really has it.
As to Russia's booming economy in software and electronics... really?
When was the last time anyone actually bought any of these services?
Let us say I'm a major multinational corporation, am I going to host my data center in Russia? Hell no.
What about software design, will I outsource development of my company database or something to a Russian firm? No. Maybe to someone in India. Because Russia is so low that India f'ing towers over Russia in its credibility and trustworthiness. Think about that. And that is no insult to India but India not long ago was a very primitive country. And yet for all of Russia's apsirations of sophistication, India has a brighter future at this point then does Russia. Which is pathetic because Russia had more going for them in the last century and Russia has VASTLY more resources. And yet... Russia can't stop screwing up all their opportunities to succeed.
it is baffling to me. I am struggling to see how Russia managed to be so poor given their opportunities to be so rich. Russia should be the second if not first largest economy in the world. They have prime real estate between Europe and East Asia. Trains could run through Russia to carry the collective trade between those areas. The US would be very happy to trade heavily with Russia if they weren't corrupt, incompetent, and violent... look at our trade with the Chinese. All of that could have been Russia's.
Russia had this great scientific gift in that they got all those Nazi scientists that taught them how to build rockets etc. They had so many gifts. And they've squandered them all.
Russia's PPP is about 24 thousand per person depending on how you calculate it. Which is puts them below a lot of third world countries in their economic development. Think about how sad it is that countries that with a high proportion of the population that don't wear shoes are doing better than Russia at this point. Baffling.
As to the proportion of their economy occupied by various industries... From what I can tell, nearly all their economy is associated with commodities... mostly oil. Which means that 24 thousand per person... is mostly oil. I'm confused... who do you think is buying a Russian computer? Why would anyone do that when you have the US and the Chinese collectively dominating the market?
And software? what piece of software do people use that was developed in Russia? Do they have an operating system that isn't just a repackaged version of something we made? I don't think so.
Dude. They are jokes. And not funny ones... the sad kind.
Apparently the Germans had no reason to be upset which just made all their activities irrational.
Get real. Every power has "reasons" to do things. they might not be good reasons but they have them.
Tell me, why did Germany try to conquer europe TWICE if they were in such a sweet position?
I'm not defending them. I'm happy they got bombed into oblivion. But they did have grievances that they felt could only be addressed by going to war... both times.
Meh, everyone wants to re fight old wars. The Russians are nostalgic for their tank battles with the Nazis so they love their tanks. But they're not credible weapons without air superiority.
What is more, there are a lot of man portable anti tank weapons that will drop a tank.
You don't have to wipe them all out, you just have to cause such punishing attrition that the Russians run a cost benefit analysis and realize they're losing more than they could possibly gain.
We could ship a lot of tow missiles to the Ukrainians along with some night vision goggles. Tow missiles coming out of no where at 2 AM should encourage the Russians to pull their tank columns back.
As to Ukraine being a hot mess... that is indisputable. However, it won't be improved by the Russians casting their influence over it since corruption in eastern europe generally increases as you get closer to Russia not farther away from it. And in Russia itself, corruption is quite bad.
Ukraine's only hope is getting away from Russia long enough to reform itself.
Riiiight, if I don't bow down and acknowledge that some has been bunch of blow hards aren't washed up then I must be a Nazi?
Your point is so stupid that I don't know where to start with it.
First, my points were not hyperbole and you didn't point out anything that was... you just vaguely referred to something as hyperbole. This of course conveniently protects you from analysis because no one can be sure what the hell you're talking about. Your entire post boils down to little more than a stupid insult that doesn't make sense.
Second, I love that you're going with Godwin's law. Good work on that one. This is something children in my country are taught not to do because it makes them sound stupid. Just saying.
Third, I like that you're using a reference source that you're insulting at the same time. If McCain is a nut, then why are you referencing him? What is more, you're referring to McCain's old war history? You do know what "time" is right? Let me put it this way for you... are you threatened by a Roman Legionnaire? You know the guys in bronze armor that carried short swords and big shields? They were really impressive once... and today they'd be meat. Can you imagine an army of thousands of Roman Legionnaires charging a modern army? They'd all die to a man without even making contact with their enemy.
Why is that? Is it because they're not couragous? Nope. What about training? Nope.
TECHNOLOGY.
Your T34 tank for example is obviously not impressive in the 21st century. Well, neither is the rest of your technology because it is mostly 20 to 30 years out of date. And what you have that is newer is mostly garbage meant to look good but not actually useful.
We do actually watch you people. We have some of your newest fighters. We bought them. We have tested them. We know what they can do. We are not even remotely intimidated by you.
The biggest problem with Russia is that it is just such a giant waste of time. There is nothing to be gained from Russia. It is just an endless irritation. its like having crap thrown at you by homeless people. You could go out there and beat them up... but would it be worth it? No... and you'd get hobo cooties all over yourself.
The US does not engage with Russia because it would be expensive and pointless.
We don't want to fight you. We want you to stop causing problems and behave yourselves. You can make money and possibly pull your crappy country together if you stop doing stupid things. But if Russia will not stop acting aggressively, then it will find trade opportunities dry up, it will find capital investment stop, and it will find its diplomatic relationships fall apart.
Russia is already poor. And beating your chest and bragging about your pathetic military isn't going to make you richer. The only people that are actually scared of you are some even poorer eastern Europeans that still haven't recovered from the last time you idiots were running their part of the world.
Stop it. Back off. We're fixing the crap you broke. It will take at least a generation. And then you can shake your dicks at the eastern europeans all you like and they won't be any more frightened at that point then anyone else.
I am aware of the russian jet... what is your argument for it being "fifth generation"? What does that mean to you? Because the evaluation from the Pentagon is that it is a hot mess.
it doesn't manuver well, its sensor package is shit, it isn't especially stealthy... so if it engages comparable US or NATO planes it will die before even seeing its enemy.
As to their new tank... remind me again why it is a "4th generation" tank?
Again, you use these terms but I don't think you know what they mean. This whole concept implies a qualitative improvement over previous generations such that previous generations are not competitive. However, the Russian models are not superior to even old US tech. This is shit.
Their new jet could get whacked by some F18 hornets much less the far superior F22... and either new tank is no better than the existing Abrams. So... why do I care again?
As to your final comment... are you claiming the Russians are not in Ukraine? Because... everyone says they are... There are a dozen Nato powers saying it, there is sat photos of it... the ukranians are saying.
Out of curosity, what would it take for you to believe there were Russian soldiers in Ukraine? What evidence would work for you short of someone coming into your parent's basement, throwing you in a sack, carting you off to ukraine, sitting you down somewhere on the border, taking the sack off... and letting you see what is going on with your own eyes.
Russia can't build any of that stuff even if they got the plans.
Their tech is mostly bluster and bravado at this point.
Take their new fighter jet... looks cool right? Well, that's about all it does with any competence. That is in fact its point. To look cool. As a weapons platform, it is a joke.
And that goes for the majority of the Russian armory. It is either some cold war rusting piece of shit that hasn't been upgraded with new sensors or weapons. Or it is some Potemkin village farce.
The Russians have their heads so far up their own asses that they're using mobile crematoriums to hide their own war dead from their own people in Ukraine.
Talk to a Russian about Ukraine. They'll swear that this talk of Russian soldiers in Ukraine is just western propaganda.
Never mind that literally everyone else contradict that from the Ukrainians to about a dozen NATO members to sat photos showing Russian tanks crossing the border... etc.
So what are the Russians going to do if they steal our tech? They're not competent enough to build it regardless.
So, they rank lower than Slovakia and Slovenia... below Greece.... you know, that country in the EU that everyone is laughing at for being incompetent.
I suppose but we're really just talking about one extra CHIP. When I say some sort of back up system we have to keep in mind how small something like that would be. The back up system would furthermore not need to do everything the primary system does. Just use the comm antenna, accept diagnostic commands, and be able to reprogram the primary computer.
So, I'm talking about a chip that would be the size of your thumbnail. It wouldn't need independent power. It could draw from the same battery.
It sounds like what is wrong with the light sail could be fixed by just tripping the reset pin. The back up computer could do that. You send a signal that tells the back up system to trip the reset pin on the main computer. You could either keep doing that every few days or fix the bugged code.
Just two systems that do the same thing linked to the same antenna that operate in such a way that they're both not going to develop the same problem at the same time... and such that one can upload software patches to the other.
I believe this is the way a lot of the deep space probes were set up. They have a primary computer and a diagnostic computer. And while the main system drops or the diagnostic system drops they don't drop at the same time. The team on earth can figure out what is going on in one of the systems and instruct the other to fix it.
That is my understanding how how many of these systems work?
The fake passports don't need to pass an expert audit. You're not even getting a bored customs agent to look at it. You're getting an SAT TA to look at it... and they're not paying attention. They don't know how to spot a fake passport.
A fake finger print can be done but it is harder than faking a passport to pass someone that isn't looking for fake passports, doesn't know what a fake passport looks like, isn't trained for it, and doesn't have an established protocol for dealing with fake IDs of any kind.
Slashdot Mirror
This proves you wrong:
http://nautil.us/issue/24/erro...
Your denial of reality is not improving your credibility... and you belief that you can claim accreditation on the internet using an alias is itself pretty presumptuous.
Do you know my background or my qualifications? No. Because I don't name drop them even though they would actually be impressive if I could validate them for you. But that would require doxxing myself and that would be idiotic on my part since I don't want jackasses stalking me.
Let me put this to you just a bit more clearly.
You are speeding at sixty miles an hour at a brick wall of fact. You can either stop, get out of the way, or run head on into that wall, have your credibility fly right through the windshield, and splatter that intellectual credibility all over the brick in gobby gorey spender.
Choose.
I will be over here eating popcorn.
As I pointed out to you AGAIN in the last post, your position is contradicting known facts. So... you really don't have a leg to stand on... like... not one.
So you can walk back your presumptions and we can try to find common ground... or you can presume to condescend to me while denying obvious reality and I'll just roll my eyes at you.
You can pick either one.
I am fully willing to go through this with you. I am a very patient person. But I am not going to permit you to advance positions that are contrary to known fact. We have examples of fraud both big and small.
We have examples of collusion. We have examples of group think which non-intentional but still leads to a fallacious consensus. We have political advocacy. We have a lot of problems.
And you saying "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" is not especially compelling.
So... what is it going to be? Are you going to at least acknowledge reality so we can treat each other like rational human beings and try to find common ground? Or shall we choose door number 2?
Up to you. But when I give you examples of things going awry, you can't respond that the system couldn't stand some reform.
You don't like specific examples of reforms we could try? Okay... my suggestions are non-specific... It is general. If you have a problem with something then offer CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions as to how to fix the idea or how to obtain the same desired result in a more productive way.
That is acceptable. This is known as "constructive" criticism. Again... just try it. You'll find I am a very sweet interesting person if you give the benefit of the doubt. That isn't unreasonable. I have given YOU that from the beginning. The least you could do is offer it to me in return.
In every situation where the science is that closely audited on a regular basis you are of course correct.
However, I did just give you an example of someone that got away with fraud for years which renders that position false.
You're just factually wrong. It isn't even controversial. He would not have been able to do that if he he were getting his "cash in his register" checked.
So your analogy is rejected for being contextually inconsistent with known facts.
Being nice... I don't know how many euphemisms I can use for something being fucking wrong.
Wrong.
http://nautil.us/issue/24/erro...
As to where my system would work, Wrong again.
I gave EXAMPLES of different things that could be tried. My examples were not comprehensive. There is an entire library of methods of ferreting out bullshit that can be tried.
I gave you an example of perhaps two or three... of which you are only acknowledging ONE. You are then suggesting that I am only offering one method while at the same time contradicting yourself by referring to it as cloak and dagger which is an entire field of methods going far beyond any one thing.
The core concept is to TRICK frauds into outing themselves. Do you imply there is only ONE method to trick a person?
Obviously not. So enough with that bullshit and no I am not going to list every possible way you could possible trick any possible fraud. That would be an infinitely long list.
As to being poorly informed... here you're assuming that I would keep things the same way in every situation where it would weaken my argument while at the same time I would change anything again only in cases where it would weaken my argument.
That is specious. Are you one of those people that can't be reasoned with unless communicated with in a 5000 page report that basically restates the same concept that could be summed up in one paragraph a million different ways so that it can't possibly be intentionally misinterpreted even in the most unreasonable context possible? Because that is what your comments are sounding like at this point.
Assume for a moment that I am neither an idiot nor ignorant. Just for the sake of argument.
Then reread my position with that presumption. You keep filling in blanks with unreasonable assumptions and then attributing that to my intentions.
I am not an idiot, thank you.
As to your position that science is only having a problem because of politics... it is an element but it goes both ways. Some people try to exploit the credibility of science to advance a political agenda. And when you do that there are consequences.
You don't get to step into the ring, whore out your principles to advance a political cause, and then pretend you're some detached holy monk.
Either be that monk and askew all political ties. or when you enter the ring you're a political agent.
The same goes for judges for example in court trials. A judge that has conflicts of interest is disqualified from administering that court.
You see that with journalists as well. If you have conflicts of interest then you're not an impartial reporter and most journalistic ethics policies will oblige you to recuse yourself.
If you don't think politicians can bias scientists or that scientists are sometimes biased by money or power then you're a fool.
No offense. But scientists are people just like everyone else. If a judge has to recuse himself and a reporter has to recuse himself... then suggesting that a scientist need need never recuse himself is asinine.
First, the Russians are in error then... explain how we were mean to them in the 90s? We forgave them for the Cold War. We offered them investment opporutnities. We offered them partnership in a joint space program through the international space station.
Tell me what we did that was mean to the Russians in the 90s? And seeing that the people they abused during the cold war were given the opportunity to find their own destiny away from Russia is not mean. That is compassion. There are more people that matter besides just Russia. Russia has to have some feeling for the people they hurt.
As to Russia not being controllable, I don't know what you mean. Please rephrase so I know what you mean.
As to final battles... unlikely. WW3 is coming. But it won't doom humanity. It will just doom every country that participates in it.
So... South Africa and Brazil might become the super powers of the new world if the US, Russia, China, and Europe are wiped out.
If I were president of the US, my goal would be to disentange the US from as many defense obligations around the world as possible and then bolster US defenses on the assumption that a world war was going to come eventually. Possibly not for 50 or 100 years. But I do not want what happened to the British Empire to happen to my country. And the only way to avoid that is to get out of the way. Let whomever abuse and murder whomever else. And when they've burned themselves out on that horror, the US can help rebuild.
I would feel differently were it not for nuclear weapons. But with them in play... the US cannot afford to get drawn into another world war.
We have been drawn into 3 consecutive global conflicts that had nothing to do with us. WW1 was between England and Germany. WW2 was basically the same thing all over again only with Japan as well. And then the cold war which was basically a world war had nothing to do with us either. It was between various weak powers around the world... mostly more of the european collapsing colonies getting gobbled by Stalin's murder machine.
The US didn't have to be in any of these conflicts.
We could have remained neutral in every one of these wars.
We didn't. We fought for what we felt was right.
But the next big war is going to be a nuclear exchange. We can't be in that. There will be no winners of that war. Only losers.
As to where my system would work... it only finds people that commit fraud.
Your argument is essentially that science doesn't have a problem with fraud period... and that the existing system is working just fine.
This runs contrary to what anyone paying attention would notice on an almost daily basis.
The worst of the rot is in the pseudo sciences that are increasingly passing themselves off as hard sciences.
Psychology for example is mostly conjecture. The actual substance of it is quite thin. But psychology is often represented as being as scientific as physics or even mathematics. Its not. And it is hardly the only pseudo science passing itself off as a real science these days.
That is the first thing that needs to be reigned in firmly.
The other big issue is that there is a lot of science that is very hard to audit by the nature of the evidence being used. Sometimes there are really large data sets or it is really obscure so there aren't a lot of people that could be considered "peers" in the science.
One of the things that is increasingly unacceptable are undisclosed datasets. Someone will do something and filter the data and then present their paper. Auditing the findings sometimes requires that an independent team goes out, collects the same data in the same way, possibly over years, and then goes through whatever the methodology was for achieving the result.
Who does that? It very rarely happens.
Other examples are when the machine being used to determine the finding is very expensive. If you're using one of those particle accelerators you're not going to be repeating people's work that much because it is expensive and the priority is on NEW discoveries not confirming old results.
In some cases this leads to a circle jerk of LITERALLY ten scientists just peer reviewing each other. There are some journals that basically ask a specific scientist to recommend other scientists to review for them. And if that scientist is biased, then he's only going to recommend scientists in his inner circle. And before you know it the whole thing becomes an exercise in confirmation bias.
That has to be dealt with.
Then you have issues these check and balance systems getting overwhelmed by too many papers. These systems were designed at a time when there were a LOT fewer people getting doctorates. And as a result they have not scaled well. These systems need to be scrapped and redesigned with new design objectives in mind.
Look, I don't know why you're worried about my "cloak and dagger" system. It will only catch fraudsters. What is your worry? That it will waste money? These cloak and dagger systems are EXTREMELY cheap to administer because they work like fishing. You put some bait out there and then you see who bites.
You don't have to scan through everything but just whomever bites YOUR bait. Its very easy. Anyone that discovers one of your bogus sources is false is taught to not tell their peers but keep it secret so that someone else that comes along and doesn't do due diligence will get caught. You need to have systems set up that will PASSIVELY screen out bad or lazy scientists.
Scientists have to be kept in a state where they don't trust citations just because they're in the literature. They have to think "okay, that is what it SAYS but is that actually valid?"
That is how you stop cargo cult science.
Because the difference between running an airport and a cargo cult... is that airplanes land at the airport. That is the difference.
That fact.
Period.
One works.
One does not.
Period.
So you validate on that basis and those that are wearing coconuts on their ears and waiting for bamboo airplanes to land get kicked to the curb and those that are doing actual science retain their status as scientists.
It is that or you have what we have now... where good scientists are having a hard time sustaining their credibility and have to work extra hard to prove that what they're saying is true. Because people that claim to be scientists are dragging their names through the mud by being shit at their jobs.
If being corrupt were an excuse to invade and annex countries, the US would have invaded and annexed pretty much every country south of the border.
No one is saying Ukraine is a well run country. What people are saying is that Russia has no right to invade it.
Now that said, I DO think that some sort of long term leasing agreement should exist with Ukraine and Russia for sea ports etc in the Crimea. That is, Russia will pay a leasing fee... and Ukraine will for... say 100 years give Russia access to the sea ports. After 100 years, those agreements could be reassessed. If relations are good between Ukraine and Russia than they'll be renewed. If they're not... then they won't be.
I "DO" think that Russia has some argument for having part of Crimea. It was always part of Russia and I believe it was only added to Ukraine under the soviets as some sort of political gimmick.
So it is reasonable to me that that be returned IF the people in that area vote to return to Russia and if in return for that Russia agrees to leave Ukraine the fuck alone after that. If they don't... then all bets are off and the Russians are signaling they want to see who is better at knifing whom in the dark.
The West is quite good at knifing people in the dark. I don't know why the Russians always under estimate us there. They apparently want the US to retask the CIA to start playing games with them again.
Whatever.
Having an automated turret does not mean that your tank will outclass the previous generation. I grant that it is a good thing to have.
The only thing I'm seeing with the T-14 is that it is claiming an effective range of something like 5 kilometers with its main gun. Where as the Abrams claims about 2.5.
That is a big difference but it is not confirmed.
What is more, under what scenario would a US Abrams go up against a Russian T-14 Armata? This notion of some sort of solo duel one tank versus another is unrealistic. They would both engage under combined arms conditions. Neither force would get near the enemy's battle tanks until they had air superiority. At which point the attacking tanks would be supported by ground support bombers, attack helicopters, etc.
So this obsession Russia has with their tanks is frankly silly. Their tanks were last relevant in WW2. The Russians have this nostagia with their defeat of the German army and they basically want to keep fighting the same war over and over again.
All military powers have this problem. The British wanted to fight the napoleonic war all over again during parts of WW1 and were very slow to accept that the battleship was obsolete in WW2.
The US has an over reliance on aircraft carriers because to some extent we want to fight the pacific campaign all over again.
None of these biases are rational. The wars of the future will not be the wars of the past. The Russian tank is largely pointless. It is a weapon designed for a war that won't happen.
What will engage the T14 is more than anything is man portable anti tank rockets fired from concealment at a relatively close range.
Now, does the T14 have defenses against that/ I'm sure it does. But those defenses are not any better than most modern tanks especially when you take into consideration that many anti tank rockets already make a point of attacking targets from above. That is, an attacker fires the missile at a tank, the missile then rises above the tank, and then plunges down. The armor of nearly all tanks is thin on the top, the bottom, and the rear. The heaviest armor is on the front with less thick armor on the sides. But the armor on the bottom, top, and rear is generally quite thin.
An anti tank armor piercing shaped charge hitting one of those sides will go right through most of the time.
And we don't even need to get into the slaughter if the tanks don't have air superiority. Air based weapons platforms will annihilate any tank formation.
Now here you'll say "but what if we the ground units have portable SAMs?"... you'd have to spot the enemy to kill them.
The US is a master of air superiority. It is what we do. Just as the Monguls were masters of the mounted archer and the British were masters of heavy ship naval combat... The US is a master of air superiority.
We are very good at it.
So what would we do if you had lots of sams?
1. We'd saturate the area with electronic warfare cruise missiles. Sometimes called "wild weasels" We've had these since vietnam but they've grown more sophisticated over time. Their job is to "look" like airplanes and bombers to enemy sensors. They will fly in formations or look like they're doing bombing runs or something. But what they're actually doing is triggering enemy ground defenses.
2. When enemy ground defenses respond to what they think is an attack, a combined strike of cruise missiles and stealthed ground support bombers will attack enemy radar and SAM launchers. To survive this you would either have to destroy/evade the cruise missiles before they destroyed your defenses. And then you'd have to either destroy and evade the laser guided bombs from the stealthed ground support bombers. And on top of that, you really need to destroy the actual bombers if you can. And that doesn't even get into our drones etc.
3. At this point, ground based missile batteries are diminished to such an extent they can be ignored and air superiority fighter will occupy the space to prot
The former seat of communism is now calling itself conservative? You people are funny. Bring back the Tsar before you call yourself a conservative.
As to "nice women"... what does that even mean?
You do again realize that a lot of feminist crap we're dealing with in the US was inflicted on us by the damned soviets. A fair number of the feminist professors in those women's studies programs are self described communists.
So... explain to me how we're bad because you gave us your diseases?
As to leaving the Russians be... I am perfectly happy to do that. Can they please stop invading and annexing their neighbors? If they would stop doing that, I could go back to pretending they don't exist.
Be specific in what you're referring to... I was unaware they were taking people's finger prints to validate identity in Elizabethan England. *rolls eyes* ... ACs... I sometimes think you all collectively share the same brain cell... and it is ill.
Well, historically doctor just meant expert. It had nothing to do with medicine. I think you could be a construction doctor or a pastry doctor. It goes back to Rome.
So I'm a little torn there. I'm okay with titles. I just think lots of people deserve them if anyone gets them.
If you are a master of accounting or a master of computer networks then why not give them a title as well? It seems reasonable to me.
Society should teat the people that make thing "work" with more respect. And those people are the experts. The "docÄ"res".
.... *pinches bridge of nose*... *takes a deep breath*...
Okay, how does a single radio broadcaster broadcast on dozens of frequencies at once? How does a cellphone tower sustain hundreds of phone calls at once? How does a tv satellite array handle god knows how many video streams?
You have one on one frequency and another on another. Is this not comically obvious?
... I don't understand what you're saying.
First, so what if they make their own planes? I didn't say they didn't. They're just not very good.
Second, would I rather have no competition for military power? Yes... obviously. Competition for military power is not in my interest. The less competition for miltiary power there is the less likely war becomes. The more competition for military power there is the more likely war becomes and you get arms races and other stupid shit. So yes... I do not want competition for my weapons of death and destruction. This is a silly question on your part.
As to the US not doing anything if it isn't getting threatened by Russia... our most productive economic period was actually before the world wars. We are quite capable of thriving in peace.
If all it took to build a credible high tech military weapons platform was some CnC machines then enthusasts in Kansas would be turning out F22 fighter planes for the lolz.
So no. The top level military hardware requires a level of expertise the Russians don't have.
The US has it.
The Chinese have it.
The British have it.
The French have it... sorta.
The Germans have it.
The Israelis have it.
The Japanese have it.
I don't think anyone else really has it.
As to Russia's booming economy in software and electronics... really?
When was the last time anyone actually bought any of these services?
Let us say I'm a major multinational corporation, am I going to host my data center in Russia? Hell no.
What about software design, will I outsource development of my company database or something to a Russian firm? No. Maybe to someone in India. Because Russia is so low that India f'ing towers over Russia in its credibility and trustworthiness. Think about that. And that is no insult to India but India not long ago was a very primitive country. And yet for all of Russia's apsirations of sophistication, India has a brighter future at this point then does Russia. Which is pathetic because Russia had more going for them in the last century and Russia has VASTLY more resources. And yet... Russia can't stop screwing up all their opportunities to succeed.
it is baffling to me. I am struggling to see how Russia managed to be so poor given their opportunities to be so rich. Russia should be the second if not first largest economy in the world. They have prime real estate between Europe and East Asia. Trains could run through Russia to carry the collective trade between those areas. The US would be very happy to trade heavily with Russia if they weren't corrupt, incompetent, and violent... look at our trade with the Chinese. All of that could have been Russia's.
Russia had this great scientific gift in that they got all those Nazi scientists that taught them how to build rockets etc. They had so many gifts. And they've squandered them all.
Russia's PPP is about 24 thousand per person depending on how you calculate it. Which is puts them below a lot of third world countries in their economic development. Think about how sad it is that countries that with a high proportion of the population that don't wear shoes are doing better than Russia at this point. Baffling.
As to the proportion of their economy occupied by various industries... From what I can tell, nearly all their economy is associated with commodities... mostly oil. Which means that 24 thousand per person... is mostly oil. I'm confused... who do you think is buying a Russian computer? Why would anyone do that when you have the US and the Chinese collectively dominating the market?
And software? what piece of software do people use that was developed in Russia? Do they have an operating system that isn't just a repackaged version of something we made? I don't think so.
Dude. They are jokes. And not funny ones... the sad kind.
Apparently the Germans had no reason to be upset which just made all their activities irrational.
Get real. Every power has "reasons" to do things. they might not be good reasons but they have them.
Tell me, why did Germany try to conquer europe TWICE if they were in such a sweet position?
I'm not defending them. I'm happy they got bombed into oblivion. But they did have grievances that they felt could only be addressed by going to war... both times.
Meh, everyone wants to re fight old wars. The Russians are nostalgic for their tank battles with the Nazis so they love their tanks. But they're not credible weapons without air superiority.
What is more, there are a lot of man portable anti tank weapons that will drop a tank.
You don't have to wipe them all out, you just have to cause such punishing attrition that the Russians run a cost benefit analysis and realize they're losing more than they could possibly gain.
We could ship a lot of tow missiles to the Ukrainians along with some night vision goggles. Tow missiles coming out of no where at 2 AM should encourage the Russians to pull their tank columns back.
As to Ukraine being a hot mess... that is indisputable. However, it won't be improved by the Russians casting their influence over it since corruption in eastern europe generally increases as you get closer to Russia not farther away from it. And in Russia itself, corruption is quite bad.
Ukraine's only hope is getting away from Russia long enough to reform itself.
Riiiight, if I don't bow down and acknowledge that some has been bunch of blow hards aren't washed up then I must be a Nazi?
Your point is so stupid that I don't know where to start with it.
First, my points were not hyperbole and you didn't point out anything that was... you just vaguely referred to something as hyperbole. This of course conveniently protects you from analysis because no one can be sure what the hell you're talking about. Your entire post boils down to little more than a stupid insult that doesn't make sense.
Second, I love that you're going with Godwin's law. Good work on that one. This is something children in my country are taught not to do because it makes them sound stupid. Just saying.
Third, I like that you're using a reference source that you're insulting at the same time. If McCain is a nut, then why are you referencing him? What is more, you're referring to McCain's old war history? You do know what "time" is right? Let me put it this way for you... are you threatened by a Roman Legionnaire? You know the guys in bronze armor that carried short swords and big shields? They were really impressive once... and today they'd be meat. Can you imagine an army of thousands of Roman Legionnaires charging a modern army? They'd all die to a man without even making contact with their enemy.
Why is that? Is it because they're not couragous? Nope. What about training? Nope.
TECHNOLOGY.
Your T34 tank for example is obviously not impressive in the 21st century. Well, neither is the rest of your technology because it is mostly 20 to 30 years out of date. And what you have that is newer is mostly garbage meant to look good but not actually useful.
We do actually watch you people. We have some of your newest fighters. We bought them. We have tested them. We know what they can do. We are not even remotely intimidated by you.
The biggest problem with Russia is that it is just such a giant waste of time. There is nothing to be gained from Russia. It is just an endless irritation. its like having crap thrown at you by homeless people. You could go out there and beat them up... but would it be worth it? No... and you'd get hobo cooties all over yourself.
The US does not engage with Russia because it would be expensive and pointless.
We don't want to fight you. We want you to stop causing problems and behave yourselves. You can make money and possibly pull your crappy country together if you stop doing stupid things. But if Russia will not stop acting aggressively, then it will find trade opportunities dry up, it will find capital investment stop, and it will find its diplomatic relationships fall apart.
Russia is already poor. And beating your chest and bragging about your pathetic military isn't going to make you richer. The only people that are actually scared of you are some even poorer eastern Europeans that still haven't recovered from the last time you idiots were running their part of the world.
Stop it. Back off. We're fixing the crap you broke. It will take at least a generation. And then you can shake your dicks at the eastern europeans all you like and they won't be any more frightened at that point then anyone else.
I am aware of the russian jet... what is your argument for it being "fifth generation"? What does that mean to you? Because the evaluation from the Pentagon is that it is a hot mess.
it doesn't manuver well, its sensor package is shit, it isn't especially stealthy... so if it engages comparable US or NATO planes it will die before even seeing its enemy.
As to their new tank... remind me again why it is a "4th generation" tank?
Again, you use these terms but I don't think you know what they mean. This whole concept implies a qualitative improvement over previous generations such that previous generations are not competitive. However, the Russian models are not superior to even old US tech. This is shit.
Their new jet could get whacked by some F18 hornets much less the far superior F22... and either new tank is no better than the existing Abrams. So... why do I care again?
As to your final comment... are you claiming the Russians are not in Ukraine? Because... everyone says they are... There are a dozen Nato powers saying it, there is sat photos of it... the ukranians are saying.
Out of curosity, what would it take for you to believe there were Russian soldiers in Ukraine? What evidence would work for you short of someone coming into your parent's basement, throwing you in a sack, carting you off to ukraine, sitting you down somewhere on the border, taking the sack off... and letting you see what is going on with your own eyes.
What evidence would work for you?
Fine... don't build the redundancies into the system. When it fails and Murphy says it will... all I can say is "oh well."
Russia can't build any of that stuff even if they got the plans.
Their tech is mostly bluster and bravado at this point.
Take their new fighter jet... looks cool right? Well, that's about all it does with any competence. That is in fact its point. To look cool. As a weapons platform, it is a joke.
And that goes for the majority of the Russian armory. It is either some cold war rusting piece of shit that hasn't been upgraded with new sensors or weapons. Or it is some Potemkin village farce.
The Russians have their heads so far up their own asses that they're using mobile crematoriums to hide their own war dead from their own people in Ukraine.
Talk to a Russian about Ukraine. They'll swear that this talk of Russian soldiers in Ukraine is just western propaganda.
Never mind that literally everyone else contradict that from the Ukrainians to about a dozen NATO members to sat photos showing Russian tanks crossing the border... etc.
So what are the Russians going to do if they steal our tech? They're not competent enough to build it regardless.
Their economy is a joke... look at this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So, they rank lower than Slovakia and Slovenia... below Greece.... you know, that country in the EU that everyone is laughing at for being incompetent.
Seriously, what is Russia going to do?
They talk a big game but Russia is the Black Knight of Asia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I suppose but we're really just talking about one extra CHIP. When I say some sort of back up system we have to keep in mind how small something like that would be. The back up system would furthermore not need to do everything the primary system does. Just use the comm antenna, accept diagnostic commands, and be able to reprogram the primary computer.
So, I'm talking about a chip that would be the size of your thumbnail. It wouldn't need independent power. It could draw from the same battery.
It sounds like what is wrong with the light sail could be fixed by just tripping the reset pin. The back up computer could do that. You send a signal that tells the back up system to trip the reset pin on the main computer. You could either keep doing that every few days or fix the bugged code.
I suppose that is another way to do it. if the face recognition software is decent that would be fine as well.
Just two systems that do the same thing linked to the same antenna that operate in such a way that they're both not going to develop the same problem at the same time... and such that one can upload software patches to the other.
I believe this is the way a lot of the deep space probes were set up. They have a primary computer and a diagnostic computer. And while the main system drops or the diagnostic system drops they don't drop at the same time. The team on earth can figure out what is going on in one of the systems and instruct the other to fix it.
That is my understanding how how many of these systems work?
The fake passports don't need to pass an expert audit. You're not even getting a bored customs agent to look at it. You're getting an SAT TA to look at it... and they're not paying attention. They don't know how to spot a fake passport.
A fake finger print can be done but it is harder than faking a passport to pass someone that isn't looking for fake passports, doesn't know what a fake passport looks like, isn't trained for it, and doesn't have an established protocol for dealing with fake IDs of any kind.
There you go. So... we have a solution. Execute.