As you can see from the second graph mean concentrations by altitude... its actually not that different. It is more concentrated in the northern hemisphere than the southern... but so what...
As to the political argument you're now making of "shouldn't you be concerned if X is concerned?"...
Lets extend that question to other things. Lets say a military figure says "I'm worried about the Iranian nuclear weapons program"... does that mean you're worried about it?
If a general says "I want to nuke china" which was something McCarther wanted... you know the guy that ran the campaign against Japan during WW2... well respected military guy.
Don't like the military question... okay... so lets talk economics a lot of economists are worried about debt or tax rates or other various economic things that conflict with your politics... are you going to change your politics because the economists want to do X?
Here you might say "but this is science"... perhaps but you're not making a scientific argument. You're saying "this PERSON cares so you should care" that's a political argument and not a scientific one.
The point I'm trying to make to you here is that I don't really care if someone else finds something important. I want to know WHY they found it important, I want that information, and then I'm going to judge for myself.
Here you might say "but you're not competent to make that judgement"... neither are you. And what you're asking me to do then is write someone a blank check and just trust whatever they say.
You wouldn't do that. If all the scientists flipped around and said we have to emit more green house gasses to avoid an ice age... would you be on board for that? I rather doubt it especially if it meant a massive industrial expansion to pull it off.
Lets be real here... this is a polluted issue. There are subtexts in it and we can dance around each other all you like. You'll find I know all the moves. But I don't really see the point. I'm not your enemy here, pal.
I'm your neighbor. And if you think counting cow farts is going to save the world... you can do that on your own time.
My vote which is equal to yours... is that it is stupid. I vote no. I am not even remotely convinced this is a real issue.
The issue sounds like bullshit and the more I look into it the more it looks like bullshit.
Why would the west give Russia leverage? We saw them try to exploit the pathetic hold they had on us with the international space station. A diplomatic project we put in place mostly to make the russians feel good... and they tried to fuck us with the olive branch.
We have an existing and quite inexpensive container ship network. Is this rail project going to be cheaper than that? Doubtful and less flexible... and most problematic going through Russian territory which means Russia gets leverage.
I'd be surprised if they got the funding for this... the Chinese might pay for it but who is going to build the US/Canadian leg of it? Because we're not letting Russian or Chinese labor in to do it and that means paying an American/Canadian construction firm... and who is going to do that.
Look, if the politics weren't so shitty, I'd say "fine"... it might make some sense. But the politics are not only shitty but getting shittier all the time.
The US State Department has already effectively admitted that we're in the a second cold war with the Russians. Blood is getting pumped back into old Cold War organs, programs, and operations. In the article cited it points out that Russia is dealing with sanctions from the "West"... aka the US. And they think building a rail road to the US is going to give them independence from US sanctions? How?
The only way I can see that happening is if the US gets addicted to the train network and finds it impractical to maintain sanctions given that the train goes through Russia. Which is basically just another reason for the US to quietly slit this idea's throat and move on.
Look Russia... If you want to do business with the US, you need to make people like me happy. I know... you don't like that... but that's reality.
And here's what I'm going to need:
1. Surrender all claims to the Eastern European countries that don't want to join your club.
2. Embrace and accept the missile shield concept. We'll cut you in so you can have the same tech and maintain parity with us for missile defense. What we want is to make the ICBM obsolete. Help us do that and we'll see that you gain the same advantage.
3. Stop doing your best to troll US foreign policy by giving nuclear tech to the Iranians and similar nonsense. Its very obvious what you're doing and it is not appreciated.
4. Stop trying to use anyone's dependence on something you provide to get leverage in politics. Its a serious problem when the Germans trust you for fuel and then you threaten to cut them off if NATO doesn't play ball. You've done the same thing with various eastern european countries as well. And the whole thing with jacking up the launch costs or saying you might not take US astronauts to the space station was a test... and you fucking failed. We gave you an opportunity to stab us in the back of the thigh with a butter knife just to see what you'd do... and you fucking did it. How can we trust you with anything that could potentially give you leverage over us if you'll exploit even the most f'ing meaningless pressure points to gain laughable advantages?
Russia does this and relations between the US and Russia can be very good. Investment, cooperation, access to markets, access to technology... fucking milk and honey. We'll help them develop their resources and find them a market for it. We'll make them rich.
But that's all contingent on them not being assholes. And that's never happening.
Eat what you like. If you want to be tired and suffer from malnutrition that is your own business.
I am a homo sapien. I am an opportunistic omnivore. I need a varied diet to remain healthy. A cow can sit there and eat grass all day and he's happy. Some bird can eat nuts all day and he's happy... wolves or sharks etc can eat nothing but meat and be happy.
I can't do that. I have to eat a little of everything.
And I will. You are welcome to do what you want. But don't come between the thinking ape and his meat... especially if you're tired and malnourished.
34?... I saw the other guy citing 20... which of you is wrong?
As to methane being 34 times more effective... that is by mole.
given that methane is an absurdly tiny trace gas what you're saying is 34 times 0 is important... I disagree.
34 times 0 is 0. There's so little in the atmosphere that 34 times potency is meaningless.
The entire issue is stupid. At best this is a whine for government funding for some make work project... possibly the politicians will look at this and think they can get some cheap green publicity to baffle the peasants.
That's all that is going on here. I'm not a peasant so I am not fooled by it and neither am I a sophist so I don't find the issue for duping retards.
I will keep moving on... imperiously... because this shit is beneath me.
Actually it is relevant because it doesn't build up in the atmosphere.
Methane totally degrades in the atmosphere in under 12 years and half of it is gone in 7.
it is also a very very very very very very very very very very very minor trace gas in our atmosphere.
20 times 0 is 0. And that's basically how much methane we have in our atmosphere.
Don't just look at some biased numbered by the smelly dread lock crew... actually put the numbers into perspective.
20 times more powerful than CO2?... so what? there's basically none in the atmosphere. It breaks down entirely in about a decade... and the only relevance of it is if the chemicals it breaks down into build up in the atmosphere.... well... if you're not feeding the cows with sequestered carbon then what is going to build up?
Methane breaks down into CO2 and H2O... so... which of those are we worried about here? Neither really... the contribution of either to the atmosphere by methane is irrelevant and the CO2 component is only relevant to the extent that we're getting sequestered carbon released... And even then... irrelevant quantities from this source.
1st. Cow burps are only relevant to the extent that cow burps are fueled by sequestered carbon... if you're feeding them with grain that is produced with petro chemical fertilizers then an argument can be made there. However, if the cattle are not getting their food from those sources then whatever the cattle are doing is not relevant.
2nd. Methane has a short life in the atmosphere... really CO2's life is over estimated but methane's is quite a bit shorter.
3rd. Which meat are we going to shift to instead? And I'll noted that cattle, pigs, chickens all eat different things and properly employed can be raised in very different environments. Look at Australian cattle. Try to raise chickens on that.
Frankly I smell the yeasty scent of the anti meat progressive lobby in this... take your hacky sacks... and fuck off.
Do you know what percentage of vegetarians admitted to eating meat in the last 24 hours in recent polls? Over 70 percent. And that's in 24 hours... and that's what they admitted to... lets just drop the pretenses here... humans eat meat.
As to why break the numbers down, because they're not meaningful otherwise. The US military breaks these stats down precisely that way.
We show our war dead. We show our war wounded.
We show enemy dead. We show enemy wounded.
We show civilians killed by us. We show civilians killed by the enemy.
etc.
When you break it down it shows you were you have a problem and gives you some detail so you can intelligently analyize the numbers.
Your number is not useful for intelligent analysis. It exists merely as a mindless shock number to confuse peasants.
I'm not a peasant. And I'm now done entirely talking about this number. Bring it up in any capacity and i'll just ignore it. I don't even want to talk about your opinion of the nature of the number.
The issue is concluded. You know what my opinion is. I know what yours is... you've done nothing but repeat yourself and have not appreciated the worthlessness of the figure. So I'm bored with the issue now. Either cite a more specific number that tells us something interesting or I'm going roll my eyes and skip over it.
As to moralizing and making moral judgements... both require intent. You can't engage in morality without dealing with intent.
As to direct fighting... you're skipping over that the US did directly fight the Chinese Korea and the US engaged the Russians all over the world in little skirmishes... our submarines were dealing with them... our air defense was scrambling against their bombers and vice versa... our CIA and their KGB were knifing each other in the dark for decades. Stop being such a fucking Canadian and realize that the US was fighting for all those years and most of the first world didn't have to do shit. Just because you didn't do anything didn't mean we weren't doing anything.
As to nukes and what people are trying to achieve... the only value of the nukes is preventing a direct invasion... and the use of them comes with immediate MAD response which means instead of getting invaded you're going to get nuclear bombarded. The smart thing to do if you're getting invaded is to not fire your nukes unless you LOSE the invasion OR you nuke your own territory to kill the invasion force. If you nuke the other country they're going to escalate and nuke you. They're not that useful. The euros especially justify their anemic military on the notion that they have nukes. Never mind that the nukes are only relevant in very limited circumstances none of which can be leveraged in geo politics.
The Iranians for example think they're going to join the US and Russians as big boys at the table with their nukes. Comical. First, they would need nuclear ballistic submarines otherwise they're vulnerable to a nuclear first strike. And they'd have to be good subs... like... we'd need to not be able to track them effortlessly with an attack sub. And second, they think they're going to either nuke israel or threaten someone else with nukes or possibly give nukes to a terrorist group have them blow up a western city and then go "wasn't us"... they do any of those things and there is a very good chance Tehran will be a parking lot.
As to allying with dictators or opposing democracies... where have I said that that is the basis by which I determine friend or enemy? You're not making sense. You imply I do not choose my enemies carefully and then when I call you on it you say that I will not ally with certain types of governments and I will sometimes support other types of governments. And? Why is this strategically relevant to me?
Why do I care if a country is democratic or not from a military strategic perspective? You're projecting your own ideology and morality on me. While I believe in freedom and democracy etc... I am not bound to prioritize it in strategic matters. My priority there is the well being of my own people. if allying with a dictator to assist British and European industrial needs during the Cold War helps allies resist Soviet pressure then why wouldn't I do that?
Read a fucking book. The US isn't even a signatory to that treaty. Which means we can still use landmines. We still make, deploy, and maintain landmine fields.
The sticking point we had apparently was that we wanted an exception for the Korean DMZ and no one wanted to give us that so we just said "m'kay... then we won't sign... and with that, I'm going to lunch... who's feeling like Korean BBQ?"
As to your suggestion that I'm a traitor or... my god... French? How dare you... that's worse than the Nazi inference. That was hurtful.... I think I might sniffle into my chocolate milk now.
or my yoohoo... Anyhoo, you don't like landmines... m'kay... why do I care? I f'ing love landmines. Properly employed they save lives, deter attack, put some fear/respect into the enemy... and I just think think they're marvelous.
Here you're going to say something about little kids playing in warzones and skipping into mine fields? Yeah... that kid would have been as likely to get shot in the face.
Then you might say "what if the land mine has been in the ground of years and the combatants just leave them in there to hurt people years later... glad you asked, we've got land mines that degrade quickly. You put them in the ground and a couple months or a couple years later depending on the design they are no longer going to go boom.
I'm not sure how they disarm... ideally you want the explosive to rot... but it could just be the firing mechanism that breaks. I'm not sure.
Regardless... Better living through technology. Our new mines deal with that issue. We've even got biodegratable non-toxic explosives... so you can mix it into your compost pile and fertilize your fields with it.
latest and greatest... but even the tomahawk course corrects etc.
As to land mines being banned... debatable. They're still commonly employed by all major powers. What the UN deems bad is frequently irrelevant. Law is what is enforced. And the ban on land mines is not enforced.
liability for software faults... this implies there is legal liability in war... which is generally not the case. Liability is only relevant if the winner decides to take the loser to court. If the winner commits war crimes... what are you going to do to him? Jack or shit?
As to the tech going haywire... sure. And? Any weapons system can do that. Your concern is what, a war machine going nuts and just killing lots of people indiscriminately? You think the military doesn't care if that happens? Believe me, they're the last people to take that lightly because who is likely to be near the fucking thing when it does that? Our own forces. So believe me when I say there will be all sorts of fail safes put in place to keep the thing from going nuts.
Now enemies spoofing sensor or hacking or whatever to confuse the system. Sure. That's just EW. The systems will be designed to deal with assumed level of EW threat. And as the enemy upgrades their EW we'll upgrade our ECC. That's just how weapons tech goes. One side upgrades a weapon and the other side updates armor or tactics or something to counter it. Back and forth.
I don't see your problem with using drones for area denial. What is your concern? that small children will wander into a denied area and eat a computer targeted sniper round to the face?
Mines and these drones are different in that we're not going to just leave them there. They're too expensive to do that and the have mobility so they can reposition themselves. Think of the drones like a mobile mine field. You move those behind the enemy as the anvil and then you move your primary manned force in as the hammer. Gong. I don't understand what the problem is with using the drones that way. They won't maneuver outside of their zone of operation. They'll move around to get shots or avoid counter fire or avoid getting flanked or to get close to an ally drone to provide suppression fire... etc. Whatever the tactical doctrine is... But the point is that they're not ranging around and I wouldn't suggest they be used to attack autonomously. I'd rather suggest they be used to DEFEND autonomously.
Again consider the base defense scenario. I have a mobile command center in contested territory. I am moving my forces deeper into enemy territory and I have a temporary base of operations. Drones are an excellent perimeter defense. First, if they get ambushed which is a common fate for sentries then I just lose a robot. Not a big deal. And now the enemy has revealed themselves near me and no allied soldiers were lost in the surprise. My own forces can now respond with a general awareness of what is going on limiting further allied causalities. The drones also don't get bored, tired, hungry, need to take a shit, etc... the other things sentries normally do that makes them less effective. Lets say the drones go out there, burrow into the ground a little bit with just their sensors poking out... and very very patiently... wait. Maybe the drones can sit there listening and being quite for a week or more. However long the batteries last in standby mode. And when the energy supplies get low, the drones dig themselves out of their holes, and roll back into base to be refueled and go through a maintenance cycle. A replacement drone is sent to replace that drone before it even digs itself out so there is no gap in the defenses.
Just an example. I'm not talking about unleashing autonomous drones on cities to go letting god sort the innocent from the guilty. The damn drone isn't going to be able to tell one thing from another in an environment like that. So you put the drone in simple situations where it is very obvious what is going on and you feel comfortable with the drone engaging anything that moves in that zone.
As to whether or not I'd count my own dead. Of course I would. I'd count them seperately though. I'm not rolling all the numbers together.
I want a number for my own dead. I want a number for enemy dead. I want a number of civilians I killed. I want a number of civilians the enemy killed. And you might as well throw out some estimates of how many 'excessive deaths" happened MINUS the above numbers. Though I warn you that I"m going to take that stat with fucking bags of rock salt.
As to your statement that you're not moralizing. Okay. Any attempt to morally judge US actions in this thread going forward is going to pointed at and I'm going to ask why you're doing it.
I do not expect i'll have to wait long.
As to the US not directly fighting the Russians and Chinese in vietname. Debatable. Absent Russian and Chinese support the Vietcong would not have been a credible resistance. There was a vibrant supply network. And there was also intelligence provided to them by the Russians and all sorts of other stuff. All of which ignores the point that we were directly fighting the Chinese in Korea and we didn't nuke them. What is more, in Korea we also engaged Russian pilots with some frequency and that didn't lead to nuclear war either.
No one wants a nuclear war... nukes are vastly over rated for their utility in diplomacy. Do you find the French to be formidable military powers? They have nukes. And no one cares.
This implies that people I deem enemy are done arbitrarily and unreasonably and without due consideration. That's not an argument I've seen you even attempt to make. And here you are presuming. Rejected.
And as to your statement that I don't consider collateral damage, this is obviously a very very stupid strawman because I made it clear repeatedly that my people have invested our blood and treasure into avoiding collateral damage. Name any other country in history that has taken the same pains to limit collateral damage.
Try.
You instantly fail. And from this you presume I don't care?
To the contrary, you know I care which is why you're trying to pull my heart strings on the issue. You know damn fucking well I care. I simply reject your notion that people the taliban kill are my fault. That's fucking stupid. I reject your number. If you want to cite collateral damage figures then I'll count civilians that I deem civilians that were accidentally killed by US weapons. THAT is what I deem collateral damage. I do not deem enemy actions my OWN collateral damage. that's absurd.
As to what is and is not necessary... that is also something you're going to have to show.
So your extremist point rests on three premises:
1. That I deem people enemy lightly or arbitrarily or without good and just cause. 2. That I do not care about collateral damage which is just fucking stupid. 3. That my actions or the actions I approve of are unnecessary.
You've substantiated none of that.
You are a space hamster and you cannot have our broccoli.
As to your ad hominems... I know what ad hominem is... so... you might as well give that up and try a less silly rhetorical tactic. Your sophistry is frankly really obvious. I'd ask you abandon it and try to make a more legitimate argument. I'm open to other view points. Just not to bullshit.
But they're not actual AI. I mean, you might as well outlaw cruise missiles or why not claymores and mines?
A drone killer doesn't just kill anything in its zone. It has a threat profile its looking for and so far that profile has been so specific that the actual literal target is specified. aka... THAT truck or THAT house or whatever. Its not "stuff that looks like a truck" or "stuff that looks like a house" or "people".
its specific to a DUDE.
now the sort of stuff the military is talking about automating are things like drone tanks that will deploy to zones and then shoot anything that moves in that area... and potentially be able to tell the difference between stuff so they don't just shoot anything. But the problem with not shooting anything that moves is that it would be very easy for a human being to walk up to one of those drone tanks with a big sachel anti tank bomb, put it on the tank and walk away... Boom... end of tank. That's likely not ideal. So you start running into concepts like drone tanks as area denial weapons like mine fields. So they go to an area and they will totally kill anything in that zone that does not squak an IFF. So you can use them for base defense, holding an enemy in pinned by putting the drone tanks on one side of their base and then moving in manned forces on the other side to pincer them between the two. The drone tanks being used to cut off escape.
There are ways to use this...
Another play on the same concept is air defense attack drones. They would engage ANY airplane that enters the zone. Ideally not a commercial airliner full of orphans. But the idea is the air defense drones can operate the way our other drones operate. Long endurance. hanging out over a target all day... Patient. The ground attack air drones are probably going to remain human targeted. I don't really know why we'd change that. The human operations use the close support bombers as artillery in the sky basically. Guy on the ground says "kill that"... and the drone does. And then of course there is the naval model... drone torpedoes that just hang out and wait. Ship enters the waters without squawking an IFF... BOOOM. Again, area denial. Don't want to get hit... stay out of those waters. This could be used to defend harbors in contested territory, seeded behind enemy lines to sow chaos as shipping gets hit with random torpedeos from subs that aren't there. Also very dangerous engagements against well defended naval targets. Send the drone torpedo in slow, deep, and silent. Moving a couple miles an hour... just edging in there... and then when it detects the target... slowly slowly... BOOM. or possibly it latches on to the side of the ship and does something else. The damn thing could hack the enemy ship's network for all I know. Whatever is deemed desirable.
This notion of the terminator killer robots is not how they'll be used. We don't trust them and they're not that smart.
I trust no one. Do whatever you want with the OS. If it is in my hands then it will do what I want it to do. It will not phone home. it will not rat me out. It will speak when spoken to and speak to whom I permit it to speak. Period.
No, it isn't the lowest number... it is the number of people we killed.
Your number includes people the Taliban killed and people that neither side killed.
I'm not accepting it. And if I see that number cited again in this discussion I'm going to ignore it.
I reject it.
As to your argument about unintended consequences, you're attempting to moralize the issue. Moralizing requires intent.
If you wish to speak about unintended consequences then all discussion of morality and ethics has to be removed from the discussion as well. Because both require intent. If you want to talk about unintended consequences, that's fine. But that isn't a moral/ethical discussion.
As to the conflict between the instability of one place versus the instability of the world... 250,000 vs 2.5 billion. The US didn't go in there to make the lives of innocent afghans harder. And we have spend a lot of our own lives and a lot of our own money trying to give Afghanistan a better future. We didn't just go in there, kill the enemy, and then leave. We tried to set up a government, secure it, etc. And if successful... could well be worth the losses in human life when measured against slavery under the Taliban.
As to your ex-warsaw pact minus russia... that won't have an impact on Russian aggression. They see everything not themselves as a threat. And keep in mind the eastern europeans HATE the russians. So they're going to be a threat to the Russians on their own... and imagine if they get more advanced weapons etc.
Polish tank. The Poles are not going to be re enslaved by the Russians. The fucking refuse. And we like their spirit. We have seen to it that the Poles have gotten access to advanced Western weapons contractors to jump start their arms industry. Poland is going to be built into the muscle of continental NATO. The British are just barely worth a damn. The rest of NATO besides the US is garbage. The Poles are tough, motivated, and understand that if they don't have some discipline about this they're going to get dominated again.
The Russians keep reliving WW2. They think they're going to get their big tank battle and that it is going to be the same. No. Times have changed. The US scragging something like a thousand tanks while taking almost no losses during gulf war 1... saddam's tanks were old soviet shit. Which is mostly what the Russians still have. Combined tactics are lethal to Russia's war doctrine which is retrograde in all ways.
We are giving the Eastern europeans night vision goggles, anti tank rockets, mines, and various other things that will make a Russian advance into eastern europe too painful for them to stomach.
Will we go to WW3 over Latvia? Funny question. Will Russia? Why do people think nukes are going to fly in a proxy war? Did the US nuke Russia or China in vietnam? We didn't nuke China during the Korean war even though some of our generals REALLY wanted to.
No... there's no WW3 response in Latvia... either from the US or Russia. Russia has said that if pressed by superior conventional forces they reserve the option to use tactical nuclear weapons to break enemy formations. While the US takes the threat seriously, we also have made it known that if he does that it will be an escalation of hostilities that will be met with proportional responses. We have lot of conventional explosives that rival small nukes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Keep in mind furthermore that the US, the Israelis, and even the Germans have introduced defense systems that can shoot artillery shells or missiles out of the sky. So a tactical nuke might not even penetrate our conventional defense net. And the presumption on the Russian
That assumes that what I need customized is offered in the customization options which I do not assume. As of Windows Vista/7, I had to start heavily modifying the OS to de-crapify it. I'm taking that as the new normal at this point.
If the pipe fills and the municipality charges a set fee for running cable then the city will be getting enough money to upgrade the cable.
As to the idea of some company wasting space in the cable with crap... if they're willing to pay for that space they can use it. The city will collect the money and use it to upgrade the cable.
Its not a big deal. Run a 1 foot diameter pipe down the street for busy areas and run a three to six inch pipe for more rural areas.
We should all have gigabit internet that is cheap by now. The cost of bandwidth at the trunk is CHEAP. The costs all happen in the last mile and all the speed slow down happens in the last mile... and none of it is necessary.
Slashdot Mirror
Login and we'll measure the diameter, depth, and contents of the relative assholes.
Otherwise... nope.
... okay... more of this apparently...
http://www.democraticundergrou...
As you can see from the second graph mean concentrations by altitude... its actually not that different. It is more concentrated in the northern hemisphere than the southern... but so what...
As to the political argument you're now making of "shouldn't you be concerned if X is concerned?"...
Lets extend that question to other things. Lets say a military figure says "I'm worried about the Iranian nuclear weapons program"... does that mean you're worried about it?
If a general says "I want to nuke china" which was something McCarther wanted... you know the guy that ran the campaign against Japan during WW2... well respected military guy.
Don't like the military question... okay... so lets talk economics a lot of economists are worried about debt or tax rates or other various economic things that conflict with your politics... are you going to change your politics because the economists want to do X?
Here you might say "but this is science"... perhaps but you're not making a scientific argument. You're saying "this PERSON cares so you should care" that's a political argument and not a scientific one.
The point I'm trying to make to you here is that I don't really care if someone else finds something important. I want to know WHY they found it important, I want that information, and then I'm going to judge for myself.
Here you might say "but you're not competent to make that judgement"... neither are you. And what you're asking me to do then is write someone a blank check and just trust whatever they say.
You wouldn't do that. If all the scientists flipped around and said we have to emit more green house gasses to avoid an ice age... would you be on board for that? I rather doubt it especially if it meant a massive industrial expansion to pull it off.
Lets be real here... this is a polluted issue. There are subtexts in it and we can dance around each other all you like. You'll find I know all the moves. But I don't really see the point. I'm not your enemy here, pal.
I'm your neighbor. And if you think counting cow farts is going to save the world... you can do that on your own time.
My vote which is equal to yours... is that it is stupid. I vote no. I am not even remotely convinced this is a real issue.
The issue sounds like bullshit and the more I look into it the more it looks like bullshit.
Why would the west give Russia leverage? We saw them try to exploit the pathetic hold they had on us with the international space station. A diplomatic project we put in place mostly to make the russians feel good... and they tried to fuck us with the olive branch.
We have an existing and quite inexpensive container ship network. Is this rail project going to be cheaper than that? Doubtful and less flexible... and most problematic going through Russian territory which means Russia gets leverage.
I'd be surprised if they got the funding for this... the Chinese might pay for it but who is going to build the US/Canadian leg of it? Because we're not letting Russian or Chinese labor in to do it and that means paying an American/Canadian construction firm... and who is going to do that.
Look, if the politics weren't so shitty, I'd say "fine"... it might make some sense. But the politics are not only shitty but getting shittier all the time.
The US State Department has already effectively admitted that we're in the a second cold war with the Russians. Blood is getting pumped back into old Cold War organs, programs, and operations. In the article cited it points out that Russia is dealing with sanctions from the "West"... aka the US. And they think building a rail road to the US is going to give them independence from US sanctions? How?
The only way I can see that happening is if the US gets addicted to the train network and finds it impractical to maintain sanctions given that the train goes through Russia. Which is basically just another reason for the US to quietly slit this idea's throat and move on.
Look Russia... If you want to do business with the US, you need to make people like me happy. I know... you don't like that... but that's reality.
And here's what I'm going to need:
1. Surrender all claims to the Eastern European countries that don't want to join your club.
2. Embrace and accept the missile shield concept. We'll cut you in so you can have the same tech and maintain parity with us for missile defense. What we want is to make the ICBM obsolete. Help us do that and we'll see that you gain the same advantage.
3. Stop doing your best to troll US foreign policy by giving nuclear tech to the Iranians and similar nonsense. Its very obvious what you're doing and it is not appreciated.
4. Stop trying to use anyone's dependence on something you provide to get leverage in politics. Its a serious problem when the Germans trust you for fuel and then you threaten to cut them off if NATO doesn't play ball. You've done the same thing with various eastern european countries as well. And the whole thing with jacking up the launch costs or saying you might not take US astronauts to the space station was a test... and you fucking failed. We gave you an opportunity to stab us in the back of the thigh with a butter knife just to see what you'd do... and you fucking did it. How can we trust you with anything that could potentially give you leverage over us if you'll exploit even the most f'ing meaningless pressure points to gain laughable advantages?
Russia does this and relations between the US and Russia can be very good. Investment, cooperation, access to markets, access to technology... fucking milk and honey. We'll help them develop their resources and find them a market for it. We'll make them rich.
But that's all contingent on them not being assholes. And that's never happening.
Eat what you like. If you want to be tired and suffer from malnutrition that is your own business.
I am a homo sapien. I am an opportunistic omnivore. I need a varied diet to remain healthy. A cow can sit there and eat grass all day and he's happy. Some bird can eat nuts all day and he's happy... wolves or sharks etc can eat nothing but meat and be happy.
I can't do that. I have to eat a little of everything.
And I will. You are welcome to do what you want. But don't come between the thinking ape and his meat... especially if you're tired and malnourished.
So you don't care if you're off by a 1/3rd?
Okay... we'll just continue from there.
wikipedia says: 1800 parts per billion is the atmospheric concentration.
So that is 0.00018% of the atmosphere.
Can you please give me a fucking break with this bullshit.
no... it's valid. A lot of these people basically just want other people to give them money and power... because "reasons".
What I find depressing is that their reasons are so often stupid and I don't understand why so many people fall for it.
Do some fucking research you fucking ignorant peasants.
Methane? Give me a fucking break... literally... the people making this argument should drop and make a face like a donut.
34?... I saw the other guy citing 20... which of you is wrong?
As to methane being 34 times more effective... that is by mole.
given that methane is an absurdly tiny trace gas what you're saying is 34 times 0 is important... I disagree.
34 times 0 is 0. There's so little in the atmosphere that 34 times potency is meaningless.
The entire issue is stupid. At best this is a whine for government funding for some make work project... possibly the politicians will look at this and think they can get some cheap green publicity to baffle the peasants.
That's all that is going on here. I'm not a peasant so I am not fooled by it and neither am I a sophist so I don't find the issue for duping retards.
I will keep moving on... imperiously... because this shit is beneath me.
Actually it is relevant because it doesn't build up in the atmosphere.
Methane totally degrades in the atmosphere in under 12 years and half of it is gone in 7.
it is also a very very very very very very very very very very very minor trace gas in our atmosphere.
20 times 0 is 0. And that's basically how much methane we have in our atmosphere.
Don't just look at some biased numbered by the smelly dread lock crew... actually put the numbers into perspective.
20 times more powerful than CO2?... so what? there's basically none in the atmosphere. It breaks down entirely in about a decade... and the only relevance of it is if the chemicals it breaks down into build up in the atmosphere.... well... if you're not feeding the cows with sequestered carbon then what is going to build up?
Methane breaks down into CO2 and H2O... so... which of those are we worried about here? Neither really... the contribution of either to the atmosphere by methane is irrelevant and the CO2 component is only relevant to the extent that we're getting sequestered carbon released... And even then... irrelevant quantities from this source.
1st. Cow burps are only relevant to the extent that cow burps are fueled by sequestered carbon... if you're feeding them with grain that is produced with petro chemical fertilizers then an argument can be made there. However, if the cattle are not getting their food from those sources then whatever the cattle are doing is not relevant.
2nd. Methane has a short life in the atmosphere... really CO2's life is over estimated but methane's is quite a bit shorter.
3rd. Which meat are we going to shift to instead? And I'll noted that cattle, pigs, chickens all eat different things and properly employed can be raised in very different environments. Look at Australian cattle. Try to raise chickens on that.
Frankly I smell the yeasty scent of the anti meat progressive lobby in this... take your hacky sacks... and fuck off.
Do you know what percentage of vegetarians admitted to eating meat in the last 24 hours in recent polls? Over 70 percent. And that's in 24 hours... and that's what they admitted to... lets just drop the pretenses here... humans eat meat.
Move on.
Who says I don't use linux? I use everything. I use linux, windows, and mac. I can't afford to not use anything.
As to why break the numbers down, because they're not meaningful otherwise. The US military breaks these stats down precisely that way.
We show our war dead.
We show our war wounded.
We show enemy dead.
We show enemy wounded.
We show civilians killed by us.
We show civilians killed by the enemy.
etc.
When you break it down it shows you were you have a problem and gives you some detail so you can intelligently analyize the numbers.
Your number is not useful for intelligent analysis. It exists merely as a mindless shock number to confuse peasants.
I'm not a peasant. And I'm now done entirely talking about this number. Bring it up in any capacity and i'll just ignore it. I don't even want to talk about your opinion of the nature of the number.
The issue is concluded. You know what my opinion is. I know what yours is... you've done nothing but repeat yourself and have not appreciated the worthlessness of the figure. So I'm bored with the issue now. Either cite a more specific number that tells us something interesting or I'm going roll my eyes and skip over it.
As to moralizing and making moral judgements... both require intent. You can't engage in morality without dealing with intent.
As to direct fighting... you're skipping over that the US did directly fight the Chinese Korea and the US engaged the Russians all over the world in little skirmishes... our submarines were dealing with them... our air defense was scrambling against their bombers and vice versa... our CIA and their KGB were knifing each other in the dark for decades. Stop being such a fucking Canadian and realize that the US was fighting for all those years and most of the first world didn't have to do shit. Just because you didn't do anything didn't mean we weren't doing anything.
As to nukes and what people are trying to achieve... the only value of the nukes is preventing a direct invasion... and the use of them comes with immediate MAD response which means instead of getting invaded you're going to get nuclear bombarded. The smart thing to do if you're getting invaded is to not fire your nukes unless you LOSE the invasion OR you nuke your own territory to kill the invasion force. If you nuke the other country they're going to escalate and nuke you. They're not that useful. The euros especially justify their anemic military on the notion that they have nukes. Never mind that the nukes are only relevant in very limited circumstances none of which can be leveraged in geo politics.
The Iranians for example think they're going to join the US and Russians as big boys at the table with their nukes. Comical. First, they would need nuclear ballistic submarines otherwise they're vulnerable to a nuclear first strike. And they'd have to be good subs... like... we'd need to not be able to track them effortlessly with an attack sub. And second, they think they're going to either nuke israel or threaten someone else with nukes or possibly give nukes to a terrorist group have them blow up a western city and then go "wasn't us"... they do any of those things and there is a very good chance Tehran will be a parking lot.
As to allying with dictators or opposing democracies... where have I said that that is the basis by which I determine friend or enemy? You're not making sense. You imply I do not choose my enemies carefully and then when I call you on it you say that I will not ally with certain types of governments and I will sometimes support other types of governments. And? Why is this strategically relevant to me?
Why do I care if a country is democratic or not from a military strategic perspective? You're projecting your own ideology and morality on me. While I believe in freedom and democracy etc... I am not bound to prioritize it in strategic matters. My priority there is the well being of my own people. if allying with a dictator to assist British and European industrial needs during the Cold War helps allies resist Soviet pressure then why wouldn't I do that?
The Mi
... this has just gotten tedious... here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Read a fucking book. The US isn't even a signatory to that treaty. Which means we can still use landmines. We still make, deploy, and maintain landmine fields.
The sticking point we had apparently was that we wanted an exception for the Korean DMZ and no one wanted to give us that so we just said "m'kay... then we won't sign... and with that, I'm going to lunch... who's feeling like Korean BBQ?"
As to your suggestion that I'm a traitor or... my god... French? How dare you... that's worse than the Nazi inference. That was hurtful.... I think I might sniffle into my chocolate milk now.
or my yoohoo... Anyhoo, you don't like landmines... m'kay... why do I care? I f'ing love landmines. Properly employed they save lives, deter attack, put some fear/respect into the enemy... and I just think think they're marvelous.
Here you're going to say something about little kids playing in warzones and skipping into mine fields? Yeah... that kid would have been as likely to get shot in the face.
Then you might say "what if the land mine has been in the ground of years and the combatants just leave them in there to hurt people years later... glad you asked, we've got land mines that degrade quickly. You put them in the ground and a couple months or a couple years later depending on the design they are no longer going to go boom.
I'm not sure how they disarm... ideally you want the explosive to rot... but it could just be the firing mechanism that breaks. I'm not sure.
Regardless... Better living through technology. Our new mines deal with that issue. We've even got biodegratable non-toxic explosives... so you can mix it into your compost pile and fertilize your fields with it.
That assumes you didn't buy the full all inclusive package... which... is what you do.
have you seen what a corp pays for an oracle licenses? The MS licenses are chump change.
Companies generally laugh at software license fees... they pay more on pretty much anything else.
thanks for your compliment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
What was that, AC troll? I can't hear you... login and try again.
Cruise missile are analogous:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And they have been analogous for decades.
latest and greatest... but even the tomahawk course corrects etc.
As to land mines being banned... debatable. They're still commonly employed by all major powers. What the UN deems bad is frequently irrelevant. Law is what is enforced. And the ban on land mines is not enforced.
liability for software faults... this implies there is legal liability in war... which is generally not the case. Liability is only relevant if the winner decides to take the loser to court. If the winner commits war crimes... what are you going to do to him? Jack or shit?
As to the tech going haywire... sure. And? Any weapons system can do that. Your concern is what, a war machine going nuts and just killing lots of people indiscriminately? You think the military doesn't care if that happens? Believe me, they're the last people to take that lightly because who is likely to be near the fucking thing when it does that? Our own forces. So believe me when I say there will be all sorts of fail safes put in place to keep the thing from going nuts.
Now enemies spoofing sensor or hacking or whatever to confuse the system. Sure. That's just EW. The systems will be designed to deal with assumed level of EW threat. And as the enemy upgrades their EW we'll upgrade our ECC. That's just how weapons tech goes. One side upgrades a weapon and the other side updates armor or tactics or something to counter it. Back and forth.
I don't see your problem with using drones for area denial. What is your concern? that small children will wander into a denied area and eat a computer targeted sniper round to the face?
Mines and these drones are different in that we're not going to just leave them there. They're too expensive to do that and the have mobility so they can reposition themselves. Think of the drones like a mobile mine field. You move those behind the enemy as the anvil and then you move your primary manned force in as the hammer. Gong. I don't understand what the problem is with using the drones that way. They won't maneuver outside of their zone of operation. They'll move around to get shots or avoid counter fire or avoid getting flanked or to get close to an ally drone to provide suppression fire... etc. Whatever the tactical doctrine is... But the point is that they're not ranging around and I wouldn't suggest they be used to attack autonomously. I'd rather suggest they be used to DEFEND autonomously.
Again consider the base defense scenario. I have a mobile command center in contested territory. I am moving my forces deeper into enemy territory and I have a temporary base of operations. Drones are an excellent perimeter defense. First, if they get ambushed which is a common fate for sentries then I just lose a robot. Not a big deal. And now the enemy has revealed themselves near me and no allied soldiers were lost in the surprise. My own forces can now respond with a general awareness of what is going on limiting further allied causalities. The drones also don't get bored, tired, hungry, need to take a shit, etc... the other things sentries normally do that makes them less effective. Lets say the drones go out there, burrow into the ground a little bit with just their sensors poking out... and very very patiently... wait. Maybe the drones can sit there listening and being quite for a week or more. However long the batteries last in standby mode. And when the energy supplies get low, the drones dig themselves out of their holes, and roll back into base to be refueled and go through a maintenance cycle. A replacement drone is sent to replace that drone before it even digs itself out so there is no gap in the defenses.
Just an example. I'm not talking about unleashing autonomous drones on cities to go letting god sort the innocent from the guilty. The damn drone isn't going to be able to tell one thing from another in an environment like that. So you put the drone in simple situations where it is very obvious what is going on and you feel comfortable with the drone engaging anything that moves in that zone.
As to whether or not I'd count my own dead. Of course I would. I'd count them seperately though. I'm not rolling all the numbers together.
I want a number for my own dead.
I want a number for enemy dead.
I want a number of civilians I killed.
I want a number of civilians the enemy killed.
And you might as well throw out some estimates of how many 'excessive deaths" happened MINUS the above numbers. Though I warn you that I"m going to take that stat with fucking bags of rock salt.
As to your statement that you're not moralizing. Okay. Any attempt to morally judge US actions in this thread going forward is going to pointed at and I'm going to ask why you're doing it.
I do not expect i'll have to wait long.
As to the US not directly fighting the Russians and Chinese in vietname. Debatable. Absent Russian and Chinese support the Vietcong would not have been a credible resistance. There was a vibrant supply network. And there was also intelligence provided to them by the Russians and all sorts of other stuff. All of which ignores the point that we were directly fighting the Chinese in Korea and we didn't nuke them. What is more, in Korea we also engaged Russian pilots with some frequency and that didn't lead to nuclear war either.
No one wants a nuclear war... nukes are vastly over rated for their utility in diplomacy. Do you find the French to be formidable military powers? They have nukes. And no one cares.
This implies that people I deem enemy are done arbitrarily and unreasonably and without due consideration. That's not an argument I've seen you even attempt to make. And here you are presuming. Rejected.
And as to your statement that I don't consider collateral damage, this is obviously a very very stupid strawman because I made it clear repeatedly that my people have invested our blood and treasure into avoiding collateral damage. Name any other country in history that has taken the same pains to limit collateral damage.
Try.
You instantly fail. And from this you presume I don't care?
To the contrary, you know I care which is why you're trying to pull my heart strings on the issue. You know damn fucking well I care. I simply reject your notion that people the taliban kill are my fault. That's fucking stupid. I reject your number. If you want to cite collateral damage figures then I'll count civilians that I deem civilians that were accidentally killed by US weapons. THAT is what I deem collateral damage. I do not deem enemy actions my OWN collateral damage. that's absurd.
As to what is and is not necessary... that is also something you're going to have to show.
So your extremist point rests on three premises:
1. That I deem people enemy lightly or arbitrarily or without good and just cause.
2. That I do not care about collateral damage which is just fucking stupid.
3. That my actions or the actions I approve of are unnecessary.
You've substantiated none of that.
You are a space hamster and you cannot have our broccoli.
As to your ad hominems... I know what ad hominem is... so... you might as well give that up and try a less silly rhetorical tactic. Your sophistry is frankly really obvious. I'd ask you abandon it and try to make a more legitimate argument. I'm open to other view points. Just not to bullshit.
Assuming I care, I patch/crack it so that it does what I fucking tell it to do.
No, shit for brains. I just got done telling you that I expect any subsequent OS to require tweaking to correct bullshit in it.
I did not say that I could verbatim use the exact same tweaks in 7 forever.
Don't even respond. Just sit down and feel shame.
But they're not actual AI. I mean, you might as well outlaw cruise missiles or why not claymores and mines?
A drone killer doesn't just kill anything in its zone. It has a threat profile its looking for and so far that profile has been so specific that the actual literal target is specified. aka... THAT truck or THAT house or whatever. Its not "stuff that looks like a truck" or "stuff that looks like a house" or "people".
its specific to a DUDE.
now the sort of stuff the military is talking about automating are things like drone tanks that will deploy to zones and then shoot anything that moves in that area... and potentially be able to tell the difference between stuff so they don't just shoot anything. But the problem with not shooting anything that moves is that it would be very easy for a human being to walk up to one of those drone tanks with a big sachel anti tank bomb, put it on the tank and walk away... Boom... end of tank. That's likely not ideal. So you start running into concepts like drone tanks as area denial weapons like mine fields. So they go to an area and they will totally kill anything in that zone that does not squak an IFF. So you can use them for base defense, holding an enemy in pinned by putting the drone tanks on one side of their base and then moving in manned forces on the other side to pincer them between the two. The drone tanks being used to cut off escape.
There are ways to use this...
Another play on the same concept is air defense attack drones. They would engage ANY airplane that enters the zone. Ideally not a commercial airliner full of orphans. But the idea is the air defense drones can operate the way our other drones operate. Long endurance. hanging out over a target all day... Patient. The ground attack air drones are probably going to remain human targeted. I don't really know why we'd change that. The human operations use the close support bombers as artillery in the sky basically. Guy on the ground says "kill that"... and the drone does. And then of course there is the naval model... drone torpedoes that just hang out and wait. Ship enters the waters without squawking an IFF... BOOOM. Again, area denial. Don't want to get hit... stay out of those waters. This could be used to defend harbors in contested territory, seeded behind enemy lines to sow chaos as shipping gets hit with random torpedeos from subs that aren't there. Also very dangerous engagements against well defended naval targets. Send the drone torpedo in slow, deep, and silent. Moving a couple miles an hour... just edging in there... and then when it detects the target... slowly slowly... BOOM. or possibly it latches on to the side of the ship and does something else. The damn thing could hack the enemy ship's network for all I know. Whatever is deemed desirable.
This notion of the terminator killer robots is not how they'll be used. We don't trust them and they're not that smart.
mostly useful for regulating bandwidth... not what I'd call a proper firewall.
I trust no one. Do whatever you want with the OS. If it is in my hands then it will do what I want it to do. It will not phone home. it will not rat me out. It will speak when spoken to and speak to whom I permit it to speak. Period.
No, it isn't the lowest number... it is the number of people we killed.
Your number includes people the Taliban killed and people that neither side killed.
I'm not accepting it. And if I see that number cited again in this discussion I'm going to ignore it.
I reject it.
As to your argument about unintended consequences, you're attempting to moralize the issue. Moralizing requires intent.
If you wish to speak about unintended consequences then all discussion of morality and ethics has to be removed from the discussion as well. Because both require intent. If you want to talk about unintended consequences, that's fine. But that isn't a moral/ethical discussion.
As to the conflict between the instability of one place versus the instability of the world... 250,000 vs 2.5 billion. The US didn't go in there to make the lives of innocent afghans harder. And we have spend a lot of our own lives and a lot of our own money trying to give Afghanistan a better future. We didn't just go in there, kill the enemy, and then leave. We tried to set up a government, secure it, etc. And if successful... could well be worth the losses in human life when measured against slavery under the Taliban.
As to your ex-warsaw pact minus russia... that won't have an impact on Russian aggression. They see everything not themselves as a threat. And keep in mind the eastern europeans HATE the russians. So they're going to be a threat to the Russians on their own... and imagine if they get more advanced weapons etc.
Look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
They're working with BAE to produce a next generation stealth tank:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Polish tank. The Poles are not going to be re enslaved by the Russians. The fucking refuse. And we like their spirit. We have seen to it that the Poles have gotten access to advanced Western weapons contractors to jump start their arms industry. Poland is going to be built into the muscle of continental NATO. The British are just barely worth a damn. The rest of NATO besides the US is garbage. The Poles are tough, motivated, and understand that if they don't have some discipline about this they're going to get dominated again.
The Russians keep reliving WW2. They think they're going to get their big tank battle and that it is going to be the same. No. Times have changed. The US scragging something like a thousand tanks while taking almost no losses during gulf war 1... saddam's tanks were old soviet shit. Which is mostly what the Russians still have. Combined tactics are lethal to Russia's war doctrine which is retrograde in all ways.
We are giving the Eastern europeans night vision goggles, anti tank rockets, mines, and various other things that will make a Russian advance into eastern europe too painful for them to stomach.
Will we go to WW3 over Latvia? Funny question. Will Russia? Why do people think nukes are going to fly in a proxy war? Did the US nuke Russia or China in vietnam? We didn't nuke China during the Korean war even though some of our generals REALLY wanted to.
No... there's no WW3 response in Latvia... either from the US or Russia. Russia has said that if pressed by superior conventional forces they reserve the option to use tactical nuclear weapons to break enemy formations. While the US takes the threat seriously, we also have made it known that if he does that it will be an escalation of hostilities that will be met with proportional responses. We have lot of conventional explosives that rival small nukes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Keep in mind furthermore that the US, the Israelis, and even the Germans have introduced defense systems that can shoot artillery shells or missiles out of the sky. So a tactical nuke might not even penetrate our conventional defense net. And the presumption on the Russian
That assumes that what I need customized is offered in the customization options which I do not assume. As of Windows Vista/7, I had to start heavily modifying the OS to de-crapify it. I'm taking that as the new normal at this point.
If the pipe fills and the municipality charges a set fee for running cable then the city will be getting enough money to upgrade the cable.
As to the idea of some company wasting space in the cable with crap... if they're willing to pay for that space they can use it. The city will collect the money and use it to upgrade the cable.
Its not a big deal. Run a 1 foot diameter pipe down the street for busy areas and run a three to six inch pipe for more rural areas.
We should all have gigabit internet that is cheap by now. The cost of bandwidth at the trunk is CHEAP. The costs all happen in the last mile and all the speed slow down happens in the last mile... and none of it is necessary.