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Thanatosian posted:Follow it up with Doctor Strangelove and The Fog of War. And don't forget get that this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybE0UQCUqNw is inspired by John Birch Society rhetoric and that a great deal of the money behind the Tea Party is from a Bircher who is the child of a founding member. At least McNamara gave us seat-belts.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:04
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Reminder that Ronnie-sama didn't think nuclear war was a big deal until he saw a movie about it.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:05
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If the medium is the message then maybe progressives need to act out immigration, regulation, campaign finance, and tax cut morality plays with NASCAR cars.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:11
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When discussing Russia you have to remember that however disorganized and stupid the US military can be, it doesn't hold a candle to something like the Russian military in terms of utter incompetence. Not that that's comforting, just that there's a really stupid, naive and ignorant fetishization of the Other that sometimes goes on on SA that indicates the person in question has had no transactional contact with the culture in question. I am 100% sure that while the US military's nuclear force is a goldbricking bunch of paid off idiots, the Russians will make this story seem like child's play. Oh except it will never come out because it's Russia. Generally speaking, goons have no concept of the level of self-censorship and imposed censorship throughout the rest of the world. What this means is that between our high-level incompetence and Russia's low-level incompetence we're all going to die. EDIT: Not me, I live in a non-aligned country on the equator. Eat it. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 19:14
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yeah, keep hitting us with those truthbombs, reindeerf
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Jul 28, 2014 19:17
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ReindeerF posted:When discussing Russia you have to remember that however disorganized and stupid the US military can be, it doesn't hold a candle to something like the Russian military in terms of utter incompetence. Not that that's comforting, just that there's a really stupid, naive and ignorant fetishization of the Other that sometimes goes on on SA that indicates the person in question has had no transactional contact with the culture in question. Wise Russian man use pencil  Courtesy of MrChips excellent posts in the Aeronautical Insanity thread in AI (which you should all read) quote:In 1970, the new aircraft was approved for production, and was to be designated as the MiG-25, with NATO giving it the nickname “Foxbat” shortly after. Entry into service was not without problems however, one of which could possibly have been anticipated. Engine reliability dogged early aircraft, as the R-15B-300 was still hampered by poor handling characteristics and very short service life. Some aircraft had issues with the quality of the welds; this had more to do with quality control rather than the welding process itself. Where the MiG-25 went wrong was with a common characteristic of many Soviet aircraft; the hydraulic system. Instead of a conventional hydraulic fluid, the MiG-25 used pure grain alcohol as hydraulic fluid. Being Russian at heart, pilots and ground crews alike in MiG-25 squadrons formed miniature black-market bootlegging rings to sell this free, state-supplied nectar, skimming off a bit of fluid every now and again and selling it in makeshift market stands outside the gates of their fighter bases! It was such a popular thing to do that the MiG-25 quickly earned the nickname “Massandra”, which is a backronym in Russian for “Mikoyan Aviation equips alcohol, people happy with decision of aircraft designer”. Famously (and perhaps apocryphally), the wives of these bootlegger-pilots began a letter-writing campaign, sending letters to both the MiG design bureau and the Air Ministry, demanding that a change be made to the MiG-25 to rid the aircraft of its boozy hydraulic fluid. Artem Mikoyan bristled at the suggestion, stating that “If aircraft system performance demands we fill it with the finest Armenian cognac, then that’s what we’ll use drat it!” Ultimately, later versions of the MiG-25 switched to a more conventional hydraulic fluid; certainly not because of the endemic bootlegging either.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:18
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Speaking of John Oliver's show last night and Thailand, I thought the funniest segment was on his threat to that country's monarchy.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:20
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ReindeerF posted:When discussing Russia you have to remember that however disorganized and stupid the US military can be, it doesn't hold a candle to something like the Russian military in terms of utter incompetence. Not that that's comforting, just that there's a really stupid, naive and ignorant fetishization of the Other that sometimes goes on on SA that indicates the person in question has had no transactional contact with the culture in question. I think it's also that people tend to fixate on one characteristic. Organizations (militaries included) are often simultaneously great at their jobs and full of drunk morons. While the size and complexity of the organizations can shield individual idiots from the consequences of their incompetence, it also stops one person's incompetence from bringing the whole thing down.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:25
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R. Mute posted:yeah, keep hitting us with those truthbombs, reindeerf Anyway, Americans and especially Europeans discussing massively ethnocentric countries in multicultural terms is cute, but basically useless. It's been entertaining watching John Oliver nail this poo poo unabashedly for the last year or so. It ain't special, it deserves no genuflection, it's out and out xenophobia and if you don't understand that, you're riding with Hitler, not the rest of us. I assume you can speak with some specificity with what it's like to do business in Russia, since you have an opinion! Want to talk banking regulations or which? Joementum posted:Speaking of John Oliver's show last night and Thailand, I thought the funniest segment was on his threat to that country's monarchy. My point being, it's some stupid poo poo, but it exists for political and not feudal reasons. Many other things here exist for feudal reasons because it's a feudal country masquerading as a democracy. Not that there aren't a lot of feudal people who benefit, so of course it's complex. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 19:29
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Matt Yglesias himself stopped by to explain what same-sex marriage is to a National Journal reporter https://twitter.com/voxdotcom/status/493821115316584448 Not really sure what is going on here but I'll bet it's dumb
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Jul 28, 2014 19:30
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Defenestration posted:Matt Yglesias himself stopped by to explain what same-sex marriage is to a National Journal reporter Emma is making a common Twitter joke (her last job was as Weigel's intern) about Vox being an "explainer journalism" site that has a lot of pages explaining very common things. Turns out that in this case,  is actually the truth!
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Jul 28, 2014 19:33
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ReindeerF posted:Zwarte Piet didn't leave you what you asked for? Quelle dommage!
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Jul 28, 2014 19:39
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Funny thing about that Russian booze story is it's pretty easy to make pure ethanol undrinkable. My personal favorite additive makes people blow chunks far earlier than a normal night of binge drinking.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:40
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DemeaninDemon posted:Funny thing about that Russian booze story is it's pretty easy to make pure ethanol undrinkable. Just ask the American brewing industry
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Jul 28, 2014 19:42
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Hey-oooo
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Jul 28, 2014 19:43
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I highly recommend all of you read Command & Control by Schlosser for a comprehensive look at how we managed to not nuke ourselves out of sheer luck.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:45
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Able Archer smfh.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:46
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Gum posted:Just ask the American brewing industry Don't you dare talk ill of The Beast.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:50
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So, a Brazilian friend of mine received this lovely message:A Crazy Person posted:Hello Maurilio! My name is Chris...and I am an American...  .txt
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Jul 28, 2014 20:04
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zoux posted:I can't believe that we even have nukes in Europe any more. I'd be surprised if the Russians even have 10 functional missiles since upkeep on nuclear arsenals is expensive, difficult and constant. After Crimea got annexed? You'd have to be a chump not to have nukes. It's the new world order, baby. 
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Jul 28, 2014 20:42
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Nuclear weapons are absurd. It was estimated that it would take about 300 hydrogen bombs to wipe out human civilization, past that, as Churchill said, "all you're going to do is make the rubble bounce." How we ended up with tens of thousands of them isn't any secret, but it's too bad that the idea of complete disarmament is still out of the question since any reduction in overkill x1000 is still overkill.
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Jul 28, 2014 20:48
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Popular Thug Drink posted:I highly recommend all of you read Command & Control by Schlosser for a comprehensive look at how we managed to not nuke ourselves out of sheer luck.
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Jul 28, 2014 20:50
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Dreylad posted:Nuclear weapons are absurd. It was estimated that it would take about 300 hydrogen bombs to wipe out human civilization, past that, as Churchill said, "all you're going to do is make the rubble bounce." There are virtually no good arguments against large-scale disarmament. Honestly, we should be getting together with the Russians, agreeing to mutual disarmament, and writing them a check to pay for their disarmament. IIRC, at one point, we were even paying Russian nuclear scientists, just so they wouldn't have to sell their expertise to other countries in order to eat.
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Jul 28, 2014 20:56
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Yeah but then we'll look pretty fuckin stupid when Iran has nuclear missles then won't we.
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Jul 28, 2014 20:57
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zoux posted:Yeah but then we'll look pretty fuckin stupid when Iran has nuclear missles then won't we.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:00
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Dreylad posted:Nuclear weapons are absurd. It was estimated that it would take about 300 hydrogen bombs to wipe out human civilization, past that, as Churchill said, "all you're going to do is make the rubble bounce." Depends entirely on what you mean by wiping out human civilization. If anything, the consequences of nuclear war have been overplayed, for the pretty understandable reason that it might keep somebody from thinking it's an okay idea.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:02
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Israel definitely has nukes.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:02
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Honestly, until the current political trends in Russia veer away from hard-right nationalism, I wouldn't trust any promises of disarmament.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:03
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Chantilly Say posted:Depends entirely on what you mean by wiping out human civilization. If anything, the consequences of nuclear war have been overplayed, for the pretty understandable reason that it might keep somebody from thinking it's an okay idea. It's one of those things I'm disinclined to find out, though. zoux posted:Israel definitely has nukes.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:08
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Thanatosian posted:there were some people who thought we wouldn't be able to stop the nuclear reaction started by the first bomb, and it would end the world. They thought this for about five seconds until someone, Fermi or Teller, did the math to show that no, it wouldn't burn off the earth's atmosphere.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:10
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Wasn't it the case that the Soviets were absolutely determined to not be the first to strike since they didn't want to go down in history as having fired the first shot in nuclear war, or something?
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Jul 28, 2014 21:12
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:Wasn't it the case that the Soviets were absolutely determined to not be the first to strike since they didn't want to go down in history as having fired the first shot in nuclear war, or something? I tend to think that under guys like Powers and LeMay, the US was much more likely to start a nuclear exchange than vice versa. Of course, NATO and WP doctrine w/r/t nuclear weapons was vastly different; NATO saw nukes as a last resort world-ending armament and the Russians viewed them as really good artillery.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:15
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zoux posted:I tend to think that under guys like Powers and LeMay, the US was much more likely to start a nuclear exchange than vice versa. Of course, NATO and WP doctrine w/r/t nuclear weapons was vastly different; NATO saw nukes as a last resort world-ending armament and the Russians viewed them as really good artillery. Plenty of people in the US saw them as great artillery at first, but these were people who were trying to fit this new weapon into their existing understanding of how wars were fought rather than (as we do today) treating them as really separate kinds of force. Understandable, honestly, that before ICBMs came around there wasn't the idea that an hour after the war started all your cities would be gone and there was nothing you could do about it.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:21
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Dreylad posted:Nuclear weapons are absurd. It was estimated that it would take about 300 hydrogen bombs to wipe out human civilization, past that, as Churchill said, "all you're going to do is make the rubble bounce." Yes, but Oliver makes an excellent point about how they might actually be a small enough arsenal to be competently shepherded while saving billions of dollars.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:29
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Chantilly Say posted:Depends entirely on what you mean by wiping out human civilization. If anything, the consequences of nuclear war have been overplayed, for the pretty understandable reason that it might keep somebody from thinking it's an okay idea. I mean any kind of large scale human social organization, which would collapse as industrial agriculture ground to a halt after 300 bombs let alone thousands. Chantilly Say posted:Plenty of people in the US saw them as great artillery at first, but these were people who were trying to fit this new weapon into their existing understanding of how wars were fought rather than (as we do today) treating them as really separate kinds of force. Understandable, honestly, that before ICBMs came around there wasn't the idea that an hour after the war started all your cities would be gone and there was nothing you could do about it. Yeah, early on nuclear bombs were seen as a natural progression from mass firebombing. Far less risk, and manpower needed, and unlike traditional strategic bombing, actually capable of destroying civilian morale.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:50
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zoux posted:Israel definitely has nukes. Yeah, well, Japan can have nukes in about fifteen minutes, I believe. The parts are just not assembled.
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Jul 28, 2014 22:01
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Warcabbit posted:Yeah, well, Japan can have nukes in about fifteen minutes, I believe. The parts are just not assembled. Not quite fifteen minutes--they'd need to enrich the nuclear material itself. But the technical aspects are no hurdle for them.
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Jul 28, 2014 22:05
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Warcabbit posted:Yeah, well, Japan can have nukes in about fifteen minutes, I believe. The parts are just not assembled. The US stores/stored nuclear weapons on foreign soil, sometimes with the understanding that if things went to poo poo they'd just turn over the keys and custody of the weapons. Japan was not one of those states, mainly IIRC because of the strong anti-nuke policies in Japanese law. If Japan wanted nukes they'd have to go about manufacturing them.
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Jul 28, 2014 22:13
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Is public opinion in Japan still (understandably) vehemently anti-nuke or are the laws still there out of inertia?
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Jul 28, 2014 22:25
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Chantilly Say posted:Not quite fifteen minutes--they'd need to enrich the nuclear material itself. But the technical aspects are no hurdle for them. Or for anyone.
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Jul 28, 2014 23:09
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