Also, who would have given these guys money? I mean... if there were REALLY a trip to mars happening that they wanted colonists for... I'd be one of those crazy bastards that would sign up for it. Yes. Send me to mars. I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
No really.
But, why would I give "money" to something that isn't going to happen?
I thought the whole point of this thing was to make it clear that there were a lot of people willing to travel right now to mars? That's a cool message to send. "Hey you earth loving pansies, WE are willing to go... even if we die... even if we can never come back!"
And I thought that was a cool message because it really surprises a lot of people and gets them to think differently about space exploration. I mean, every manned mission assumes a return trip. What if there isn't one. What if its "you go and you spend the rest of your life where ever you arrived... possibly your short life with no food water or air." The thing is that there are volunteers for that.
But to give these bozos actual money? *raises left eye brow spock fashion*
There is no way your stupid mind file is going to approximate an INTELLIGENT dynamic individual.
Would my mind file have responded with "Do unicorns dream of being vampires?" Nope.
The only thing something like this would be useful for are the sorts of social networking activities that are so boring and predictable that they might as well not even exist.
This is a simple script learning that it can replicate prattle about as effectively as a 12 year old girl. Congratulations. Mute it all.
My responses are not done for you but myself. I am a completionist. I like to dot the i's and cross the t's.
It is clerical work with the bonus of getting to shit talk against someone that has forfeited any claim to common courtesy.
Its like those action movies where the bad guy does something nasty so you morally understand that when the hero comes in and kicks his ass later it is totally okay.
Where would the hero be after all in a world devoid of assholes to stomp?
In regards to Byzantines, they were not prepared to ceded conquered land to the Crusaders even as vassals of the Byzantines. One of the things offered was that the relevant Crusader army would take a city and would then personally own that city. BUT they would be subject to the Byzantines as vassals of them effectively and pay taxes etc.
That was rejected along with a lot of other stuff.
The only future of the Eastern Roman empire was in allying with their Western cousins to drive back a common enemy. There was going to be give and take. The Eastern Empire was expecting a lot of trained fighters to fight for their empire. Paying for all that was not going to be cheap. The Crusaders in most cases wanted food and provisions provided and anything they conquered they wanted to be able to get the value of down the gold fillings in their teeth. That was simply how armies were funded in those days. They didn't have defense budgets and military pensions. A soldier got paid in most cases what he could loot off the corpse of his enemy.
In regards to Russia, they require trade, diplomatic support, help with modernization, etc.
Absent that, they're going to continue to fall back towards their capital. The money is going to run out. The troops are going to run out... and when the lights go out and the cold wind blows... they'll have none to blame but themselves.
As to the Byzantines going broke, that would have something to do with them pissing the Venetians off.
I can't believe you can't see how this is all connected. In my analogy, I am analogizing the Venetians to the US.
The Byzantines went out of their way to piss the Venetians off and the Venetians held that grudge until the Byzantines fell. They were offered deals. Deals that could have been afforded because they were paid for in large part out of the spoils of the enemy. The ENEMY would pay for it. That was how so much of military funding worked in those days. You'd try to avoid attacking poor people because you couldn't take the money needed to pay for your troops from the corpses of poor enemies. There were many rich cities in the area that the Crusaders would be very happy to attack. They just needed to be able to strip them of wealth or gain title to them afterwards.
In any case, if you don't like the analogy then I don't want it to get in the way of the issue at hand. We can agree to disagree. We appear to agree on Russia at least.
However, if you control the context of the reference you can label anything anything because at any given point different things are going to be different in their nature.
You say the republicans are more pro war against ISIS and Putin right now that then the Democrats? Sure.
That doesn't mean they're "warmongers" or the "war party". Simply being more for a given conflict than your political opponent is not something to make moral excuses about.
If your only point is that the republicans are pushing for engagement against ISIS and Putin... I agree. that is factually accurate.
But that's as far as that goes.
The Democrats were pushing for war with Libya and Syria not long ago. Were they the war party? By this logic that any party pushes for war more than the other in any context... they would have to be... no?
So that is why I want you to define your premise so we can logically evaluate the position. Absent that, its just more shit talking.
In regards to American promises to South Vietnam, can you please cite a promise or agreement our country made to that country in any kind of formal way that we violated?
Simply entering a war on their side does not obligate us to remain until the war is done unless we made agreements to that effect. I can find no references to such agreements. In fact, you should know that such agreements are made specifically to allow such loopholes. They are limited in their scope and in the commitment required. NATO is an exception. We are obligated to defend them. We were under no such obligation in South Vietnam.
That is the thread you're trying to hang your comparison in on and it doesn't work. You say we'll abandon nato because we abandoned the south vietnamese. Totally different situation. You're wrong.
Our primary objective in going on Vietnam was to damage the communists in the region and slow them down so that they could be more easily contained. Ideally, we wanted a bulwark against further communist expansion. But really how that was accomplished was flexible.
We WANTED to help them become a free and democratic society. But we cannot guarantee such a thing.
We abandoned them in large part because the people of vietnam were clearly not behind us and the South Vietnamese government lacked the will and talent to hold their position without us holding their hands. We tried.
But ultimately, our strategic objective was obtained and what happened to South Vietnam is regrettable but not our responsibility.
We invested huge resources and fought for many years to help them. We don't owe anything to that government. To the people of Vietnam at large? Hmm... war is a terrible thing. We don't owe them any more than the Chinese and Russians do really.
The South Vietnamese were also responsible were they not? And as such they must take some responsibility for what happened. Do we point at South Korea and say "everything here is our doing?" It isn't. Its mostly their own doing. We helped them repel an invasion and have helped keep their country stable. But we also didn't have communist infiltrators boobytrapping our shit behind our lines all the time. We didn't have infiltrators scragging our people. The South Koreans were competent. The south vietnamese were not.
I can cite dozens of reports of such from major military figures. Eisenhower for example didn't want to go into south Vietnam because he felt the South Vietnamese were incompetent. Ask me for the quote. Its a fucking google search away.
When American forces were not being constantly betrayed by communist infiltrators in the region we generally annihilated the enemy.
But what the Tet Offensive made clear was that the South was fatally compromised and incapable of acting as a beach head for American support.
Similar things are happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. To the extent this is our fault, we probably should have put someone in power that had more of a military background given that they would be war time leaders for a generation. Shifting into some sort of quasi military run government is probably the best you could expect at least until all the insurrections were handled.
That was a background shared by many American founding fathers. Many of them were military men. They knew how to fight and they were prepared to do terrible things to win.
Had they been neither, the American revolution would have failed and I wouldn't have blamed the French for abandoning us. They were under no obligations to see that the American revolution was successful. Merely responsible for helping with some trade and high seas interdiction.
Saying that the US is unfaithful because we didn't stay in Vietnam until those people had everything they wanted is unreasonable.
South Vietnamese that immigrated to the US don't blame the US for the war and they don't blame the US for the way it went. Talk to one.
It was a fucked up situation and there were serious problems in the southern government that the US
First, I can point to a city the Crusaders took and then prior to sacking the city which would be how the crusaders got paid... the Byzantines had the people in the city raise the Byzantine flag which basically meant the Crusaders did all the work and got NOTHING for it.
Second, there was some extremely bad blood between the Venetians and the Byzantines which was totally avoidable and completely stupid on the part of the Byzantines. It is a fact, that one of the diplomats sent to Constantinople and subsequently mistreated... possibly given injuries that lead to a life time of blindness... he later became Doge, lent huge sums of money to western crusaders, and then led a crusade through Constantinople that ultimately led to the destruction of that empire.
The point is this, Russia has no future unless it allies with the west. Their long term position is terrible. They have a lot of territory and their ability to keep their neighbors from nibbling at their borders as they grow weaker and weaker is nil.
OVER TIME.
Today, they're fine. Think in 200 years. Russia cannot afford to not ally with the west. They're damned if they don't.
And if they do, we can make them very prosperous so long as they restrain their more corrupt attributes that drive off business. I'm not saying they can't take bribes. But if you've been paid a bribe... stay bribed. If you've been paid to do something... do it. And that is a big part of the problem with Russia.
It is why no one trusts them. It is why trade bypasses their country rather than flowing through it.
THINK ABOUT THAT.
Why doesn't european and asian trade flow through Russia? They stand between the two markets and could act as an interlocutor between them. That would be extremely profitable.
But no one trusts them. They are bypassed because they're unreliable, prone to extort payments after the fact, and generally not understand on what side their bread is buttered.
Both Russia and Byzantium made the same mistake... past tense. They pissed away everything for nothing.
Says another random AC that is too cowardly to use even his fake name in this discussion?
My argument was:
This prior to the clouding:
""
No, captain strawman.
As the strategic planner for a nation you have a responsibility to be pragmatic. Your people depend upon it. You are paid to a certain extent to be paranoid, think to the future, and make sure your people are safe.
So basing any policy on something that won't happen is dumb.
Moving past that to morality plays... if you don't want to talk about morality then don't talk about morality.
I'm not going to let you make a certain type of argument and then forbid myself from crossing the river on your ground to make the counter argument.
Be careful where you stand. Because where ever that is... is fair game. I can and will use any type of argument you use as is convenient to me.
The only exception is dishonorable arguments that rely on deceit. If you use those, I'll climb on the highest horse I can find and urinate on you from that vantage.
So... kindly keep your positions free of any excuses for me to do that and expect that whatever you use will be fair game. ""
Then my opposition decided to abandon their previous position and shift to a different argument so I responded with this:
""
You've shifted your position. Now you're arguing something totally different.
This rhetorical technique is known as 'clouding'.
I will note that you are not defending your initial position and will take it as conceded.
So that is one point for me there and none for you. On to the next issue!
You are suggesting three things.
1. That there is some evil act that my government did. You have not defined it.
2. That I am denying complicity for this unspecified act.
3. That citizens of a state are complicit in the actions of that state.
As to point 1, I can neither confirm nor deny things you do not specify.
As to point 2, since you've never specified what you're talking about I can't take any position on it.
As to point 3, a citizen is only complicit in an action to the extent they were "complicit" in it. Let me define what that word means: ""helping to commit a crime or do wrong in some way""
It requires personal involvement indirect involvement requires the use of a different word. Words have meaning, chump.
So what unspecified thing have I personally involved in or would you like to change your phrasing?
Here's guessing you abandon this issue and try to cloud the issue further with more unrelated arguments.
Lets see if you're dumb enough to do that even when I've directly told you what I think you're going to do... just like you did last time. I mean... that is just depressingly stupid. ""
Where upon rather than getting any kind of rational response, I got lots of stupid baseless insults and other idiot ACs showing up to basically whine about how unfair it was for someone to use logic against them.
If you're too stupid to have a rational discussion then fuck off and don't talk about anything that can be discussed rationally.
You literally are unworthy of being in a pointless internet discussion. You're that worthless.
Well okay then you're going to have to judge everything that any nation has ever done ever against everything any other nation has ever done ever.
You want to play that game? Because you're still not going to win that way.
What you're trying to do is cherry pick your context by comparing all the sins of one country against a country that is so weak that it couldn't do something evil even if it wanted to... and then you're probably going to only allow very recent comparisions in their case while at the same time comparing that same little country against a big powerful country's entire record.
That's not having a memory... that's just false equivilency. Its a logical fallacy.
Aka your argument isn't benefiting from memory or a knowledge of history but from a lack of rational thought. And absent that, your position lacks credibility.
So... the goldfish comment is nonsense.
If you want to have a rational discussion on it then you're going to have to compare apples to apples.
Define your context. The rules by which various things are examined. Once those rules are stated, you can then populate the argument with facts and examples that meet those pre stated criteria.
I am asking you to do this because I think you need some help when it comes to forming a logical argument. If you just knew these rules inherently and obeyed them that would be one thing. But your goldfish comment makes it very clear that you don't.
I don't say this with any intention of offending you. But it is literally impossible to have a rational discussion with you unless you form rational arguments. And rational means logical and logical means not contradicting yourself, changing the rules for data arbitrarily, engaging in circular logic, or relying on any argument that assumes if X must = Y when there is no substantiating evidence to support that position.
Quote yourself citing south vietnam please. I just skimmed over the past posts to try and find what you were talking about and couldn't find it.
You might have been talking to someone else or your reference was oblique.
As to back up or concede proving my point of view, not it doesn't prove my point. I didn't say back up your position or I am right. I said back up YOUR position or YOU concede. Conceding doesn't mean I win so much as you lose.
Basically you either back up your position of forfeit. A forfeit is not really my win so much as your inability, unwillingness, or otherwise failure to have a point.
I am entirely in the right in pointing out that if you do not back up your position then you effectively concede whether you admit it or not.
As to abandoning Afghanis, we didn't promise to protect them forever. Please cite an agreement we made to them that we are not upholding? They were repeatedly told that they had to take responsibility for their own defense eventually. We gave them military trainers, we gave them equipment, we gave them cash hand outs to jump start their government, we did what we could. If they're not going to just sit there like dead fish then why exactly do they even deserve to have a country at all? They apparently should be some other more competent power's vassals if that is all they're going to do.
As to being a fan of realpolitik... where have I said anything that wasn't inline with that? You say I'd realize that if I stopped flag waving, but you were so busy pissing on the flag that you didn't realize I am such a proponent as well.
You have no moral or intellectual high ground to look down your nose at me, chum. I'll accept you as an equal but don't for a moment think you have any grounds to presume superiority.
You're not telling truths. I challenged you to make a rational argument and you basically started making insults.
And the insults could be truth only you didn't substantiate any of them which means even your stupid insults weren't rational arguments.
You basically got caught pushing some bullshit. I called you on it.
You then tried strawman and other fallacies to save your bullshit argument.
I called you on that.
And now you're just trolling.
And when I call you on that, you say "truth isn't trolling"... what truth, you complete waste of oxygen?
Seriously... you're just a troll now. Nothing more. Prove me wrong by going back and backing up your bullshit. You are NOT going to get away with both refusing to back your shit up and claiming to some paragon of reason and integrity. That is not going to happen for you.
So here are you choices again because you're apparently a bit of an idiot on top of being a degenerate:
1. You can back your shit up and we can go back to having a discussion.
2. You can run away as you're already trying to do but without that shred of credibility you keep trying to take with you.
3. You can troll by neither backing up anything or fucking off... and I'll respond by treating you the same way all trolls get treated. And spoiler alert, I'm better at slapping trolls around than you are trolling. So its going to work out well for you in any case.
Surprise me by not being a piece of shit... chose option one.
Exactly. The point about not being a strategy guy is very apt.
He even admits that the US has come to him for years offering alliance, trade deals, modernization packages, all sorts of diplomatic perks... and all the US wanted was for Russia to agree on mutually profitable strategic goals.
The whole war on terror for example could be something the US would happily cooperate with Russia on. Our main fear in the region is problems with the middle east and by joining Russia's interests with NATO's, we could secure most of Asia.
Consider the economic opportunities Russia is pissing away as well. Why does all that trade from China to Europe go by boat? A heavy freight network could carry those goods from China to Europe. The reason it doesn't happen is because no one trusts the Russians. They'd rather deal with Somali pirates then deal with the stupid Russians. And the Russians lose out every time that happens.
Russia could be rich, it could become a super power again, it could become a leader in science/technology/art/culture...
And the Russians have pissed it all away for NOTHING.
Is I was saying before, they remind me of the Byzantines. They were offered the restoration of their empire, greater wealth than they had ever known, power, land, prestige. And they burned the eyes out of the Venetian diplomat that made that offer... same guy came back later with the Crusade at his back... they sacked Constantinople and the city fell to the Turks not long after which was the end of that civilization.
The Byzantines could have had everything. Everything. All they had to do was share in the spoils of the conquests with their western cousins. They refused to so much as give fair pay for what the Christian kings wanted to anyway which was drive the Turks back. No one in the Christian world wanted the Turks to advance any further. But armies have to be paid and the western kings needed to be able to fund a Crusade in part at least through spoils. The Byzantines basically had the attitude that the western kings should donate their armies to the cause for free... all spoils should be turned over the Byzantines indifferent to whether the Byzantines actually even fought... and then all trade ships from said western kings would be taxes and tolled the whole way by the Byzantines.
All you're saying is that with your cherry picked context you were able to get the view that you found most politically convenient.
That's fine. However, the point has no meaning given that you set up the system in such a way to come to a preconceived result.
You're basically practicing circular logic. And that's fine... it is fallacious and unworthy of respect but you're entitled to take indefensible and frankly embarrassingly silly positions if you want.
So... if I wanted to fly potentially hostile nuclear bombers around your airspace on a regular basis, you'd just be cool with that?
And you apparently don't seem to understand that the move is precisely done to get a response from the US.
Why is Putin doing it? As you point out, it has no strategic value. The point is to dick with the US. And since we're talking about bags of dicks, who gets called a bag of dicks when they start intentionally harassing Japan and South Korea with Nuclear bomber simply because they're upset with something the US did?
Think about that, fucktard. He's doing it to NATO members as well.
Who is a bigger bag of dicks, the guy that starts harassing Sweden with Nuclear bombers or the country that tries to get him to stop doing that?
Idiot.
As to whether anyone is or is not Christian, how does that enter into anything? The conflicts with Russia are not religious in anyway. So I'm guess that is just you admitting you're a bigot on top of being a moron?
As to the US being NATO, how does that show that the US is stupid? If anything you're saying that Italy and France are stupid.
As to the "empire" collapsing... what evidence of that? You think the Russians are going to take it down? And if they do, then that would justify attempts by the US to stop the Russians.
Your entire post is illogical and makes no sense.
You say we're reacting to nothing when it clearly is something we have to react to... and then you're saying that our attempts to control the situation will fail and everything will fall apart. This undermines your position that we're jumping at nothing.
Again, who is the bigger dick here... the guy sending nuclear bombers to harass Sweden and south korea or the guy trying to stop said bag of dicks from doing it?
Again, you're a retard. And that isn't just an opinion. That is a logical deduction based on the manifest stupidity of your post.
Forbes specifically has been caught using Russian state media for information like this repeatedly. So, congrats on finding a way to cite russian state media by proxy.
In regards to the cable impacting at 2.4 km/s that is assuming the cable impacts at that speed at a 90 degree angle. The idea is to have it scratch the surface.
Lets say I had a metal disk and and I spun it around so the edge of that disk was going around at 2.4 km/s. We'll say I'm doing this in a vacuum if you prefer. Then I take a totally normal stick and very very gently touch the end of it to the edge of that disk.
Will the disk explode or will the tip of the stick be instantly worn away?
Okay... now what if the stick is actually a diamond hard material with excellent thermal properties and the disk itself wasn't especially hard?
What then? Well, first, my stick would be less likely to ablate then would be the disk itself. And if I were patient, then I could drain all the momentum of the disk just by pressing on it gently with that stick.
As to the minimum angular momentum being 1700m/s, that's still a big reduction in velocity.
I'm sure you're aware of it. But the point is that they had to use a lot of different things to slow down. Different things worked at different stages. And some of them look crazy. Most of them require everything work perfectly or your craft is destroyed.
That's for mars. Why would it be different for the moon?
Yes, you can't use the aerobraking or the parachute. That poses different problems that require different solutions. There is a solution. We just don't know it yet.
This ignores that other space craft on reentry... using your aerobraking method have to take similar stresses.
Obviously you have to design the surface that will come in contact differently. But why is it totally impossible to do it?
You say it will meet with the impact of a tank shell. But we're talking about brushing the surface not impacting it at a 90 degree angle. The translated energy will be vastly lower.
The issue will be can the surface withstand the friction and heat. A surface similar to diamond should withstand the friction. And then the issue is heat sinking or heat pumping the that heat away. Translating the heat up the cable might be possible or you might just have to use a heat sink on the back of the surface.
I'm still a little unclear why you can't just boost the launcher to the orbital speed of the moon. I don't understand why the object has to be going that fast once it gets to the moon. Is that because of the moon's gravity? Because you don't need to bother with all this stuff when you meet up with the space station. You just give your craft enough energy to intercept.
In regards to unabashed warmongers... its all a question of timing.
And if you cherry pick your context then you're going to get whatever result you want.
Saying the Republicans are warmongers because they were in power during 9/11 and were responsible for the response to the terrorist attacks is unreasonable.
The democrats in the same position would almost certainly have done something very similar. And really, they were entirely on board for it for a long time. They signed everything. Their names are on those bills.
You can't wash that off now because you want to rewrite the history.
In regards to the party of war... that is overly simplistic. The same stripe that makes republicans isolationists also makes them fierce advocates of ripping anything apart that hurts the country.
The concept is simplicity itself.
You isolate and then anything that messes with you while you're in isolation... you annihilate.
That's literally how that works.
From the perspective of republicans, Osama can company's attack on NYC, the Pentagon, and the attempted attack on the white house crossed a line that required a blood price be paid.
That has largely been satisfied. Republicans now are going to be increasingly inclined to isolate again.
The other issue is our entanglements. We've promised to protect certain countries.
So you have NATO, eastern asian allies, earthern europe outside of nato that the US has made some promises to and of course israel.
So. Saber rattling at powers threatening those allies is not warmongering... that's trying to avoid being force to go to war to defend people.
Its a lot more complicated then the narrative.
And keep in mind, I'm not the one that brought up the whole "this political party is all about war". That was someone else's mistake. I was merely pointing out that it was a stupid and shill worthy argument to make.
Well... That still leaves Vietnam between three fires.
They won't give up the reactors or otherwise show that they're not being used to make nuclear weapons because that could actually give china some pause. They sort of need nukes really.
And that leaves them with the Americans and the Russians to please to balance the chinese.
The nuke issue is really quite unfortunate. The Vietnamese will have to decide what is a greater threat to their long term survival. Being on the international shit list for those reactors or not having a not especially credible nuclear deterrent.
That's good to hear, laymen like myself only hear this expressed in negative terms.
At some level we have to take the scientist's word for it. Though of course... they're people and people lie. Just as Dr House said "everybody lies". So people issuing grants or auditing or whatever... they have to rely on metrics and independent reviews and independent reviews of independent reviews.
There's fishy things that go on in any organization. And the health of that organization is dependent on review least the whole thing turn into people slacking off and making the few people working hard feel like idiots because they're working harder and getting paid the same.
So its good to know the whole publish or perish thing isn't all bad.
You are correct that we'd not deploy troops or move our navy in to directly attack chinese forces. We have no defense pact or treaty with vietnam. However, that activity would justify a hightened alert in east asia, a boost to local defense spending, economic sanctions, and really a very long list of things that are starting to happen to Russia right now due to their own misadventures in eastern europe.
The chinese are likely not as stupid as the Russians. A point that largely triggered the divide between Communist China and Communist Russia. The Chinese made a kind of peace with the US and entered into mutually profitable trade.
The Soviets decided that their dick's were just too big and they couldn't do that. Which is why China is rapidly becoming a global super power, has a massive industrial base, a rapidly improving technological base, and the Russians are slowly sliding into poverty and irrelevance.
You've shifted your position. Now you're arguing something totally different.
This rhetorical technique is known as 'clouding'.
I will note that you are not defending your initial position and will take it as conceded.
So that is one point for me there and none for you. On to the next issue!
You are suggesting three things.
1. That there is some evil act that my government did. You have not defined it.
2. That I am denying complicity for this unspecified act.
3. That citizens of a state are complicit in the actions of that state.
As to point 1, I can neither confirm nor deny things you do not specify.
As to point 2, since you've never specified what you're talking about I can't take any position on it.
As to point 3, a citizen is only complicit in an action to the extent they were "complicit" in it. Let me define what that word means: ""helping to commit a crime or do wrong in some way""
It requires personal involvement indirect involvement requires the use of a different word. Words have meaning, chump.
So what unspecified thing have I personally involved in or would you like to change your phrasing?
Here's guessing you abandon this issue and try to cloud the issue further with more unrelated arguments.
Lets see if you're dumb enough to do that even when I've directly told you what I think you're going to do... just like you did last time. I mean... that is just depressingly stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, who would have given these guys money? I mean... if there were REALLY a trip to mars happening that they wanted colonists for... I'd be one of those crazy bastards that would sign up for it. Yes. Send me to mars. I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
No really.
But, why would I give "money" to something that isn't going to happen?
I thought the whole point of this thing was to make it clear that there were a lot of people willing to travel right now to mars? That's a cool message to send. "Hey you earth loving pansies, WE are willing to go... even if we die... even if we can never come back!"
And I thought that was a cool message because it really surprises a lot of people and gets them to think differently about space exploration. I mean, every manned mission assumes a return trip. What if there isn't one. What if its "you go and you spend the rest of your life where ever you arrived... possibly your short life with no food water or air." The thing is that there are volunteers for that.
But to give these bozos actual money? *raises left eye brow spock fashion*
That's illogical.
There is no way your stupid mind file is going to approximate an INTELLIGENT dynamic individual.
Would my mind file have responded with "Do unicorns dream of being vampires?" Nope.
The only thing something like this would be useful for are the sorts of social networking activities that are so boring and predictable that they might as well not even exist.
This is a simple script learning that it can replicate prattle about as effectively as a 12 year old girl. Congratulations. Mute it all.
My responses are not done for you but myself. I am a completionist. I like to dot the i's and cross the t's.
It is clerical work with the bonus of getting to shit talk against someone that has forfeited any claim to common courtesy.
Its like those action movies where the bad guy does something nasty so you morally understand that when the hero comes in and kicks his ass later it is totally okay.
Where would the hero be after all in a world devoid of assholes to stomp?
So, thank you for being there for me.
I'm going to start calling you Hans. :D
In regards to Byzantines, they were not prepared to ceded conquered land to the Crusaders even as vassals of the Byzantines. One of the things offered was that the relevant Crusader army would take a city and would then personally own that city. BUT they would be subject to the Byzantines as vassals of them effectively and pay taxes etc.
That was rejected along with a lot of other stuff.
The only future of the Eastern Roman empire was in allying with their Western cousins to drive back a common enemy. There was going to be give and take. The Eastern Empire was expecting a lot of trained fighters to fight for their empire. Paying for all that was not going to be cheap. The Crusaders in most cases wanted food and provisions provided and anything they conquered they wanted to be able to get the value of down the gold fillings in their teeth. That was simply how armies were funded in those days. They didn't have defense budgets and military pensions. A soldier got paid in most cases what he could loot off the corpse of his enemy.
In regards to Russia, they require trade, diplomatic support, help with modernization, etc.
Absent that, they're going to continue to fall back towards their capital. The money is going to run out. The troops are going to run out... and when the lights go out and the cold wind blows... they'll have none to blame but themselves.
As to the Byzantines going broke, that would have something to do with them pissing the Venetians off.
I can't believe you can't see how this is all connected. In my analogy, I am analogizing the Venetians to the US.
The Byzantines went out of their way to piss the Venetians off and the Venetians held that grudge until the Byzantines fell. They were offered deals. Deals that could have been afforded because they were paid for in large part out of the spoils of the enemy. The ENEMY would pay for it. That was how so much of military funding worked in those days. You'd try to avoid attacking poor people because you couldn't take the money needed to pay for your troops from the corpses of poor enemies. There were many rich cities in the area that the Crusaders would be very happy to attack. They just needed to be able to strip them of wealth or gain title to them afterwards.
In any case, if you don't like the analogy then I don't want it to get in the way of the issue at hand. We can agree to disagree. We appear to agree on Russia at least.
Everything is what it is...
However, if you control the context of the reference you can label anything anything because at any given point different things are going to be different in their nature.
You say the republicans are more pro war against ISIS and Putin right now that then the Democrats? Sure.
That doesn't mean they're "warmongers" or the "war party". Simply being more for a given conflict than your political opponent is not something to make moral excuses about.
If your only point is that the republicans are pushing for engagement against ISIS and Putin... I agree. that is factually accurate.
But that's as far as that goes.
The Democrats were pushing for war with Libya and Syria not long ago. Were they the war party? By this logic that any party pushes for war more than the other in any context... they would have to be... no?
So that is why I want you to define your premise so we can logically evaluate the position. Absent that, its just more shit talking.
In regards to American promises to South Vietnam, can you please cite a promise or agreement our country made to that country in any kind of formal way that we violated?
Simply entering a war on their side does not obligate us to remain until the war is done unless we made agreements to that effect. I can find no references to such agreements. In fact, you should know that such agreements are made specifically to allow such loopholes. They are limited in their scope and in the commitment required. NATO is an exception. We are obligated to defend them. We were under no such obligation in South Vietnam.
That is the thread you're trying to hang your comparison in on and it doesn't work. You say we'll abandon nato because we abandoned the south vietnamese. Totally different situation. You're wrong.
Our primary objective in going on Vietnam was to damage the communists in the region and slow them down so that they could be more easily contained. Ideally, we wanted a bulwark against further communist expansion. But really how that was accomplished was flexible.
We WANTED to help them become a free and democratic society. But we cannot guarantee such a thing.
We abandoned them in large part because the people of vietnam were clearly not behind us and the South Vietnamese government lacked the will and talent to hold their position without us holding their hands. We tried.
But ultimately, our strategic objective was obtained and what happened to South Vietnam is regrettable but not our responsibility.
We invested huge resources and fought for many years to help them. We don't owe anything to that government. To the people of Vietnam at large? Hmm... war is a terrible thing. We don't owe them any more than the Chinese and Russians do really.
The South Vietnamese were also responsible were they not? And as such they must take some responsibility for what happened. Do we point at South Korea and say "everything here is our doing?" It isn't. Its mostly their own doing. We helped them repel an invasion and have helped keep their country stable. But we also didn't have communist infiltrators boobytrapping our shit behind our lines all the time. We didn't have infiltrators scragging our people. The South Koreans were competent. The south vietnamese were not.
I can cite dozens of reports of such from major military figures. Eisenhower for example didn't want to go into south Vietnam because he felt the South Vietnamese were incompetent. Ask me for the quote. Its a fucking google search away.
When American forces were not being constantly betrayed by communist infiltrators in the region we generally annihilated the enemy.
But what the Tet Offensive made clear was that the South was fatally compromised and incapable of acting as a beach head for American support.
Similar things are happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. To the extent this is our fault, we probably should have put someone in power that had more of a military background given that they would be war time leaders for a generation. Shifting into some sort of quasi military run government is probably the best you could expect at least until all the insurrections were handled.
That was a background shared by many American founding fathers. Many of them were military men. They knew how to fight and they were prepared to do terrible things to win.
Had they been neither, the American revolution would have failed and I wouldn't have blamed the French for abandoning us. They were under no obligations to see that the American revolution was successful. Merely responsible for helping with some trade and high seas interdiction.
Saying that the US is unfaithful because we didn't stay in Vietnam until those people had everything they wanted is unreasonable.
South Vietnamese that immigrated to the US don't blame the US for the war and they don't blame the US for the way it went. Talk to one.
It was a fucked up situation and there were serious problems in the southern government that the US
That's not the case.
First, I can point to a city the Crusaders took and then prior to sacking the city which would be how the crusaders got paid... the Byzantines had the people in the city raise the Byzantine flag which basically meant the Crusaders did all the work and got NOTHING for it.
Second, there was some extremely bad blood between the Venetians and the Byzantines which was totally avoidable and completely stupid on the part of the Byzantines. It is a fact, that one of the diplomats sent to Constantinople and subsequently mistreated... possibly given injuries that lead to a life time of blindness... he later became Doge, lent huge sums of money to western crusaders, and then led a crusade through Constantinople that ultimately led to the destruction of that empire.
The point is this, Russia has no future unless it allies with the west. Their long term position is terrible. They have a lot of territory and their ability to keep their neighbors from nibbling at their borders as they grow weaker and weaker is nil.
OVER TIME.
Today, they're fine. Think in 200 years. Russia cannot afford to not ally with the west. They're damned if they don't.
And if they do, we can make them very prosperous so long as they restrain their more corrupt attributes that drive off business. I'm not saying they can't take bribes. But if you've been paid a bribe... stay bribed. If you've been paid to do something... do it. And that is a big part of the problem with Russia.
It is why no one trusts them. It is why trade bypasses their country rather than flowing through it.
THINK ABOUT THAT.
Why doesn't european and asian trade flow through Russia? They stand between the two markets and could act as an interlocutor between them. That would be extremely profitable.
But no one trusts them. They are bypassed because they're unreliable, prone to extort payments after the fact, and generally not understand on what side their bread is buttered.
Both Russia and Byzantium made the same mistake... past tense. They pissed away everything for nothing.
Says another random AC that is too cowardly to use even his fake name in this discussion?
My argument was:
This prior to the clouding:
""
No, captain strawman.
As the strategic planner for a nation you have a responsibility to be pragmatic. Your people depend upon it. You are paid to a certain extent to be paranoid, think to the future, and make sure your people are safe.
So basing any policy on something that won't happen is dumb.
Moving past that to morality plays... if you don't want to talk about morality then don't talk about morality.
I'm not going to let you make a certain type of argument and then forbid myself from crossing the river on your ground to make the counter argument.
Be careful where you stand. Because where ever that is... is fair game. I can and will use any type of argument you use as is convenient to me.
The only exception is dishonorable arguments that rely on deceit. If you use those, I'll climb on the highest horse I can find and urinate on you from that vantage.
So... kindly keep your positions free of any excuses for me to do that and expect that whatever you use will be fair game.
""
Then my opposition decided to abandon their previous position and shift to a different argument so I responded with this:
""
You've shifted your position. Now you're arguing something totally different.
This rhetorical technique is known as 'clouding'.
I will note that you are not defending your initial position and will take it as conceded.
So that is one point for me there and none for you. On to the next issue!
You are suggesting three things.
1. That there is some evil act that my government did. You have not defined it.
2. That I am denying complicity for this unspecified act.
3. That citizens of a state are complicit in the actions of that state.
As to point 1, I can neither confirm nor deny things you do not specify.
As to point 2, since you've never specified what you're talking about I can't take any position on it.
As to point 3, a citizen is only complicit in an action to the extent they were "complicit" in it. Let me define what that word means: ""helping to commit a crime or do wrong in some way""
It requires personal involvement indirect involvement requires the use of a different word. Words have meaning, chump.
So what unspecified thing have I personally involved in or would you like to change your phrasing?
Here's guessing you abandon this issue and try to cloud the issue further with more unrelated arguments.
Lets see if you're dumb enough to do that even when I've directly told you what I think you're going to do... just like you did last time. I mean... that is just depressingly stupid.
""
Where upon rather than getting any kind of rational response, I got lots of stupid baseless insults and other idiot ACs showing up to basically whine about how unfair it was for someone to use logic against them.
If you're too stupid to have a rational discussion then fuck off and don't talk about anything that can be discussed rationally.
You literally are unworthy of being in a pointless internet discussion. You're that worthless.
Well okay then you're going to have to judge everything that any nation has ever done ever against everything any other nation has ever done ever.
You want to play that game? Because you're still not going to win that way.
What you're trying to do is cherry pick your context by comparing all the sins of one country against a country that is so weak that it couldn't do something evil even if it wanted to... and then you're probably going to only allow very recent comparisions in their case while at the same time comparing that same little country against a big powerful country's entire record.
That's not having a memory... that's just false equivilency. Its a logical fallacy.
Aka your argument isn't benefiting from memory or a knowledge of history but from a lack of rational thought. And absent that, your position lacks credibility.
So... the goldfish comment is nonsense.
If you want to have a rational discussion on it then you're going to have to compare apples to apples.
Define your context. The rules by which various things are examined. Once those rules are stated, you can then populate the argument with facts and examples that meet those pre stated criteria.
I am asking you to do this because I think you need some help when it comes to forming a logical argument. If you just knew these rules inherently and obeyed them that would be one thing. But your goldfish comment makes it very clear that you don't.
I don't say this with any intention of offending you. But it is literally impossible to have a rational discussion with you unless you form rational arguments. And rational means logical and logical means not contradicting yourself, changing the rules for data arbitrarily, engaging in circular logic, or relying on any argument that assumes if X must = Y when there is no substantiating evidence to support that position.
Quote yourself citing south vietnam please. I just skimmed over the past posts to try and find what you were talking about and couldn't find it.
You might have been talking to someone else or your reference was oblique.
As to back up or concede proving my point of view, not it doesn't prove my point. I didn't say back up your position or I am right. I said back up YOUR position or YOU concede. Conceding doesn't mean I win so much as you lose.
Basically you either back up your position of forfeit. A forfeit is not really my win so much as your inability, unwillingness, or otherwise failure to have a point.
I am entirely in the right in pointing out that if you do not back up your position then you effectively concede whether you admit it or not.
As to abandoning Afghanis, we didn't promise to protect them forever. Please cite an agreement we made to them that we are not upholding? They were repeatedly told that they had to take responsibility for their own defense eventually. We gave them military trainers, we gave them equipment, we gave them cash hand outs to jump start their government, we did what we could. If they're not going to just sit there like dead fish then why exactly do they even deserve to have a country at all? They apparently should be some other more competent power's vassals if that is all they're going to do.
As to being a fan of realpolitik... where have I said anything that wasn't inline with that? You say I'd realize that if I stopped flag waving, but you were so busy pissing on the flag that you didn't realize I am such a proponent as well.
You have no moral or intellectual high ground to look down your nose at me, chum. I'll accept you as an equal but don't for a moment think you have any grounds to presume superiority.
You're not telling truths. I challenged you to make a rational argument and you basically started making insults.
And the insults could be truth only you didn't substantiate any of them which means even your stupid insults weren't rational arguments.
You basically got caught pushing some bullshit. I called you on it.
You then tried strawman and other fallacies to save your bullshit argument.
I called you on that.
And now you're just trolling.
And when I call you on that, you say "truth isn't trolling"... what truth, you complete waste of oxygen?
Seriously... you're just a troll now. Nothing more. Prove me wrong by going back and backing up your bullshit. You are NOT going to get away with both refusing to back your shit up and claiming to some paragon of reason and integrity. That is not going to happen for you.
So here are you choices again because you're apparently a bit of an idiot on top of being a degenerate:
1. You can back your shit up and we can go back to having a discussion.
2. You can run away as you're already trying to do but without that shred of credibility you keep trying to take with you.
3. You can troll by neither backing up anything or fucking off... and I'll respond by treating you the same way all trolls get treated. And spoiler alert, I'm better at slapping trolls around than you are trolling. So its going to work out well for you in any case.
Surprise me by not being a piece of shit... chose option one.
Exactly. The point about not being a strategy guy is very apt.
He even admits that the US has come to him for years offering alliance, trade deals, modernization packages, all sorts of diplomatic perks... and all the US wanted was for Russia to agree on mutually profitable strategic goals.
The whole war on terror for example could be something the US would happily cooperate with Russia on. Our main fear in the region is problems with the middle east and by joining Russia's interests with NATO's, we could secure most of Asia.
Consider the economic opportunities Russia is pissing away as well. Why does all that trade from China to Europe go by boat? A heavy freight network could carry those goods from China to Europe. The reason it doesn't happen is because no one trusts the Russians. They'd rather deal with Somali pirates then deal with the stupid Russians. And the Russians lose out every time that happens.
Russia could be rich, it could become a super power again, it could become a leader in science/technology/art/culture...
And the Russians have pissed it all away for NOTHING.
Is I was saying before, they remind me of the Byzantines. They were offered the restoration of their empire, greater wealth than they had ever known, power, land, prestige. And they burned the eyes out of the Venetian diplomat that made that offer... same guy came back later with the Crusade at his back... they sacked Constantinople and the city fell to the Turks not long after which was the end of that civilization.
The Byzantines could have had everything. Everything. All they had to do was share in the spoils of the conquests with their western cousins. They refused to so much as give fair pay for what the Christian kings wanted to anyway which was drive the Turks back. No one in the Christian world wanted the Turks to advance any further. But armies have to be paid and the western kings needed to be able to fund a Crusade in part at least through spoils. The Byzantines basically had the attitude that the western kings should donate their armies to the cause for free... all spoils should be turned over the Byzantines indifferent to whether the Byzantines actually even fought... and then all trade ships from said western kings would be taxes and tolled the whole way by the Byzantines.
Idiots.
And Putin is the same. He's a fat headed fool.
All you're saying is that with your cherry picked context you were able to get the view that you found most politically convenient.
That's fine. However, the point has no meaning given that you set up the system in such a way to come to a preconceived result.
You're basically practicing circular logic. And that's fine... it is fallacious and unworthy of respect but you're entitled to take indefensible and frankly embarrassingly silly positions if you want.
So... if I wanted to fly potentially hostile nuclear bombers around your airspace on a regular basis, you'd just be cool with that?
And you apparently don't seem to understand that the move is precisely done to get a response from the US.
Why is Putin doing it? As you point out, it has no strategic value. The point is to dick with the US. And since we're talking about bags of dicks, who gets called a bag of dicks when they start intentionally harassing Japan and South Korea with Nuclear bomber simply because they're upset with something the US did?
Think about that, fucktard. He's doing it to NATO members as well.
Who is a bigger bag of dicks, the guy that starts harassing Sweden with Nuclear bombers or the country that tries to get him to stop doing that?
Idiot.
As to whether anyone is or is not Christian, how does that enter into anything? The conflicts with Russia are not religious in anyway. So I'm guess that is just you admitting you're a bigot on top of being a moron?
As to the US being NATO, how does that show that the US is stupid? If anything you're saying that Italy and France are stupid.
As to the "empire" collapsing... what evidence of that? You think the Russians are going to take it down? And if they do, then that would justify attempts by the US to stop the Russians.
Your entire post is illogical and makes no sense.
You say we're reacting to nothing when it clearly is something we have to react to... and then you're saying that our attempts to control the situation will fail and everything will fall apart. This undermines your position that we're jumping at nothing.
Again, who is the bigger dick here... the guy sending nuclear bombers to harass Sweden and south korea or the guy trying to stop said bag of dicks from doing it?
Again, you're a retard. And that isn't just an opinion. That is a logical deduction based on the manifest stupidity of your post.
Forbes specifically has been caught using Russian state media for information like this repeatedly. So, congrats on finding a way to cite russian state media by proxy.
In regards to the cable impacting at 2.4 km/s that is assuming the cable impacts at that speed at a 90 degree angle. The idea is to have it scratch the surface.
Lets say I had a metal disk and and I spun it around so the edge of that disk was going around at 2.4 km/s. We'll say I'm doing this in a vacuum if you prefer. Then I take a totally normal stick and very very gently touch the end of it to the edge of that disk.
Will the disk explode or will the tip of the stick be instantly worn away?
Okay... now what if the stick is actually a diamond hard material with excellent thermal properties and the disk itself wasn't especially hard?
What then? Well, first, my stick would be less likely to ablate then would be the disk itself. And if I were patient, then I could drain all the momentum of the disk just by pressing on it gently with that stick.
As to the minimum angular momentum being 1700m/s, that's still a big reduction in velocity.
Look at this thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm sure you're aware of it. But the point is that they had to use a lot of different things to slow down. Different things worked at different stages. And some of them look crazy. Most of them require everything work perfectly or your craft is destroyed.
That's for mars. Why would it be different for the moon?
Yes, you can't use the aerobraking or the parachute. That poses different problems that require different solutions. There is a solution. We just don't know it yet.
This ignores that other space craft on reentry... using your aerobraking method have to take similar stresses.
Obviously you have to design the surface that will come in contact differently. But why is it totally impossible to do it?
You say it will meet with the impact of a tank shell. But we're talking about brushing the surface not impacting it at a 90 degree angle. The translated energy will be vastly lower.
The issue will be can the surface withstand the friction and heat. A surface similar to diamond should withstand the friction. And then the issue is heat sinking or heat pumping the that heat away. Translating the heat up the cable might be possible or you might just have to use a heat sink on the back of the surface.
I'm still a little unclear why you can't just boost the launcher to the orbital speed of the moon. I don't understand why the object has to be going that fast once it gets to the moon. Is that because of the moon's gravity? Because you don't need to bother with all this stuff when you meet up with the space station. You just give your craft enough energy to intercept.
Did that happen recently or would you like to bring up every thing that every civilization has done in the history of ever?
You'll devolve into petty trolling now that you've given up all pretense at having any place in this discussion.
Sort of the universal fate of asshats that get stopped in discussions.
*shrugs*
In regards to unabashed warmongers... its all a question of timing.
And if you cherry pick your context then you're going to get whatever result you want.
Saying the Republicans are warmongers because they were in power during 9/11 and were responsible for the response to the terrorist attacks is unreasonable.
The democrats in the same position would almost certainly have done something very similar. And really, they were entirely on board for it for a long time. They signed everything. Their names are on those bills.
You can't wash that off now because you want to rewrite the history.
In regards to the party of war... that is overly simplistic. The same stripe that makes republicans isolationists also makes them fierce advocates of ripping anything apart that hurts the country.
The concept is simplicity itself.
You isolate and then anything that messes with you while you're in isolation... you annihilate.
That's literally how that works.
From the perspective of republicans, Osama can company's attack on NYC, the Pentagon, and the attempted attack on the white house crossed a line that required a blood price be paid.
That has largely been satisfied. Republicans now are going to be increasingly inclined to isolate again.
The other issue is our entanglements. We've promised to protect certain countries.
So you have NATO, eastern asian allies, earthern europe outside of nato that the US has made some promises to and of course israel.
So. Saber rattling at powers threatening those allies is not warmongering... that's trying to avoid being force to go to war to defend people.
Its a lot more complicated then the narrative.
And keep in mind, I'm not the one that brought up the whole "this political party is all about war". That was someone else's mistake. I was merely pointing out that it was a stupid and shill worthy argument to make.
Well... That still leaves Vietnam between three fires.
They won't give up the reactors or otherwise show that they're not being used to make nuclear weapons because that could actually give china some pause. They sort of need nukes really.
And that leaves them with the Americans and the Russians to please to balance the chinese.
The nuke issue is really quite unfortunate. The Vietnamese will have to decide what is a greater threat to their long term survival. Being on the international shit list for those reactors or not having a not especially credible nuclear deterrent.
That's good to hear, laymen like myself only hear this expressed in negative terms.
At some level we have to take the scientist's word for it. Though of course... they're people and people lie. Just as Dr House said "everybody lies". So people issuing grants or auditing or whatever... they have to rely on metrics and independent reviews and independent reviews of independent reviews.
There's fishy things that go on in any organization. And the health of that organization is dependent on review least the whole thing turn into people slacking off and making the few people working hard feel like idiots because they're working harder and getting paid the same.
So its good to know the whole publish or perish thing isn't all bad.
Ehm... yes and no.
You are correct that we'd not deploy troops or move our navy in to directly attack chinese forces. We have no defense pact or treaty with vietnam. However, that activity would justify a hightened alert in east asia, a boost to local defense spending, economic sanctions, and really a very long list of things that are starting to happen to Russia right now due to their own misadventures in eastern europe.
The chinese are likely not as stupid as the Russians. A point that largely triggered the divide between Communist China and Communist Russia. The Chinese made a kind of peace with the US and entered into mutually profitable trade.
The Soviets decided that their dick's were just too big and they couldn't do that. Which is why China is rapidly becoming a global super power, has a massive industrial base, a rapidly improving technological base, and the Russians are slowly sliding into poverty and irrelevance.
China smart. Russia stupid.
In what way?
Russia's recent actions would be like the US invading Mexico and then annexing Baja California.
Can you cite something the US did that is in anyway like that or would you like to roll over right now and play dead?
You've shifted your position. Now you're arguing something totally different.
This rhetorical technique is known as 'clouding'.
I will note that you are not defending your initial position and will take it as conceded.
So that is one point for me there and none for you. On to the next issue!
You are suggesting three things.
1. That there is some evil act that my government did. You have not defined it.
2. That I am denying complicity for this unspecified act.
3. That citizens of a state are complicit in the actions of that state.
As to point 1, I can neither confirm nor deny things you do not specify.
As to point 2, since you've never specified what you're talking about I can't take any position on it.
As to point 3, a citizen is only complicit in an action to the extent they were "complicit" in it. Let me define what that word means: ""helping to commit a crime or do wrong in some way""
It requires personal involvement indirect involvement requires the use of a different word. Words have meaning, chump.
So what unspecified thing have I personally involved in or would you like to change your phrasing?
Here's guessing you abandon this issue and try to cloud the issue further with more unrelated arguments.
Lets see if you're dumb enough to do that even when I've directly told you what I think you're going to do... just like you did last time. I mean... that is just depressingly stupid.