There will never be a nuclear war; there's too much real estate involved.

--Frank Zappa

>> ^moodonia:

Just wont play for me for some reason, but I recommend "The War Game" on youtube if you fancy stirring up those cold war-kid fears of nuclear war


Have adblocker? Disable it for it to start. It seems to ping home before playing with http://ping.indieclicktv.com/ that was blocked.

I submitted this issue into http://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=8180 ...

Just wont play for me for some reason, but I recommend "The War Game" on youtube if you fancy stirring up those cold war-kid fears of nuclear war

Democrats have waged the only nuclear war in the history of man...just saying

WikiLeaks' Bottom-Line Revelation

by

Austin Bay

Julian Assange, the man behind the WikiLeaks dump of secret US State Department cables, has been frank about his reasons for releasing thousands of classified -and stolen -- documents.

Assange says he wants to seriously damage the United States. If this damage forwards America's ultimate destruction, so be it. The son of leftist America-haters, Assange was born and weaned during the Cold War. Then the wrong side won. What the superpower Soviet Union failed to do with its armies, he, a super-empowered individual, will accomplish via the information anarchy of the Internet.

If Assange's history-shaping goal seems grandiose and detached from reality, indeed it is. However, once you understand the man's religion, his megalomania and solipsism become a bit more comprehensible if even more reprehensible.

Like other anti-American cranks on the planet, Assange holds firm in his warped faith that the U.S. is the leading source of global evil. The roots of this religion run deep, beginning with 18th century European aristocrats who despised the American Revolution. The anti-Americanism of Nazis, communists, tribalists, anarchists and now militant Islamists all rehash the same tropes, with their semi-schizoid baseline being the U.S. is simultaneously a vast authoritarian conspiracy and a heterogeneous menagerie of infidel-cowboy-capitalist idiots who dogmatically resist enlightened social policies.

Assange argues his revelations will force this conglomerate American monster to become more secretive and authoritarian. Limiting access to information, in order to stop future leaks, will reduce the monster's secretive and authoritarian effectiveness. The monster's "security state" will dumb down, and --here's the moment of religious rapture in Assange's prophecy -- this will increase global justice.

Assange also links this shackling of America to creating peace. Don't snicker too long. There are a lot of tenured gray-haired profs with ponytails who teach this dreck at notable universities and get paid for it.

Assange understands media grandstanding, but he doesn't understand people and certainly doesn't understand how American diplomats contribute to maintaining peace.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates understands people and diplomacy, and his assessment of Assange's info dump is as clear as it is historically and psychologically informed. At the Pentagon last week, Gates said: "The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments -- some governments -- deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation."

Gates added that the cables were "embarrassing" and "awkward," but the ultimate effects on policy would be "modest."

Pray that Gates is right about modest impact, but right now and for at least the next six months, the world confronts the possibility of a nuclear war in East Asia ignited by North Korean aggression. This is a time period when the world absolutely needs close -- and trustworthy -- cooperation between the U.S. and China. A big war in Korea could kill millions but will guarantee a global economic depression. Leaked cables discuss corruption in China's Communist Party and names hypocritical party elites.

Even if the information is accurate, this is a case where revealed candor damages personal relationships among key U.S. diplomatic personnel and Chinese leaders. China is a face culture, and the leaders have lost face. A mature appreciation of the common danger should override personal anger, but another leak revealed that China sees North Korea as a "spoiled child" and that it believes Korea will ultimately be reunited with South Korea absorbing the North. This revelation weakens China's political leverage with North Korea at a moment when any leverage is precious.

Assange, of course, did not consider how he increased the threat to the lives of millions of Korean, Japanese and Chinese when he dumped his filched documents. His faith-based narrative of American evil excludes the possibility that American diplomats are collaborating with China to avoid war and eventually put an end to North Korea's armed brinksmanship without a nuclear explosion.

Here's WikiLeaks' bottom-line revelation: Assange and ideologues like him promote an ignorant and destructive solipsism that has nothing to do with peace and justice but a lot to do with sociopathic narcissism.

I'm partial to a variety that they didn't mention:

Some event or agent eliminates 99-99.999999% of all the human life on the planet, but you're one of the random survivors. Could be a nuclear war and you were in a blast / fallout gap, a disease or virus that you are randomly immune to, etc.

Would be cooler if the majority of buildings, infrastructure, etc. were still standing and operational (at least short-term) after the event, so the disease/virus scenario supports that better. Walk in to a Ferrari/whatever showroom, drive away in an unattended vehicle of your choice, go somewhere semi-tropical for winter, and eat canned food remaining on store shelves.

I spent countless hours imagining myself in that sort of scenario when I was younger. I've always been an introvert, but there were a lot of times back then when I figured I'd be better off without the vast majority of other human beings around to bother me. I have a somewhat more positive view of humanity at large now, but if an apocalypse was necessary and I could elect the variety I'd still go for that one.

Whilst I understand that the Fallout universe is a post-nuclear-war universe, why is it also a universe in which people don't bother to throw their litter away or clean their floors?

In his head he probably thought it would be a good way to reduce the number of question marks over his sexuality, but the rest of us know that he must have spent a lot of time practising and refining that technique not on his many sexual conquests, but more likely a mannequin in his mums basement. He's probably the kind of person who studies religiously for the possibility of intimacy in the same sort of way you might prepare yourself for nuclear war or the zombie apocalypse.

On the flipside, maybe I wouldn't be so lonely if my one true love hadn't ditched me because I failed to under those fucking hooks that one time. Goddamn, it like they were padlocked. WHAT WOULD THOMAS VOGEL DO?

>> ^spawnflagger:

Carl Sagan said almost the same thing 30 years ago in 1 of the episodes of Cosmos, but instead of caffeinated-arm-flailing-rant format, he said it slow and concisely, albeit slightly monotone. Because of the cold war, and the man-will-destroy-itself-in-nuclear-fallout attitude of the time, he was not so optimistic about finding other societies, because he imagined other societies would do similar, as in they would kill themselves shortly after coming up with radio and nuclear technology.
There was an update to the series a few years later, and he was much more optimistic that humanity would not destroy itself.
Also, it's not likely that any of the early radio waves we sent out will be "readable" once they reach a considerable distance away, so it's irrelevant whether they watch TV or not.

Even without the immediate threat of Nuclear War we still have plenty of time and options to kill ourselves off with. We haven't even travelled to our nearest planet, I think its going to be a while before we ever really explore the Solar System, never mind the rest of the Galaxy. I think if Humans ever do survive that long, if we somehow manage to obtain the wisdom to match our technology and dodge planet killing asteroids, then we will probably have less in common with them than we do with our fishy ancestors.

As for extraterrestrial life, there is a fair chance it exists, or has existed or will exist. I think its not too much of a stretch to imagine intelligent life. I don't think we'll ever find them, not without faster than light travel. And space isn't just vast in 3 dimensions, its pretty fast in a the 4th as well. We have existed for the tiniest sliver of time, we've had technology for a tiny sliver of that...We have to survive for a very very long time before we are anything but a tiny fragment of history.

Pollution is a serious problem and climate change as well as nuclear war. I'm honestly not too concerned with over-population though because it doesn't take long for that situation to be righted. Just one major epidemic, or catastrophic war and we're on the path to maybe 50% of the population we have now.

Tsar Bomba's fireball alone was five fucking miles in diameter, wouldve burned everything in a 62 mile radius to the third degree, and caused blast damage up to 620 miles away. In all that, the test bomb had half the yield of its original design (to reduce fallout)

so yes

it would be that bad

>> ^raverman:

If thousands of nukes over 50 years didnt cause the end of the world... would a nuclear war be as bad as they said?

I don't know exactly how bad it would be. No one really does. But no one doubts that a major nuclear exchange would cause large scale human suffering, the likes of which humanity probably has never seen before. I don't know if it would be bad enough to doom the human species. I suppose that depends on the severity of the nuclear war. Lots of ifs involved. >> ^raverman:

Absolutely - No doubt it would be bad...
But objectively how bad? Total Extinction? A 'fallout' world? 90 years uninhabitable with the only survivors living under ground? Or maybe that's the media making the story extra scary. Possibly the Western US has lived with intermittent fallout from tests for years depending on wind direction.
Remembering most of the world population lives in India and China... e.g. A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan may actually kill more people than an exchange between the US and say Russia.

>> ^kronosposeidon:
No one knows exactly how bad it would be if a nuclear war took place, but there is no dispute that it would definitely be bad for both the Earth and mankind as a whole if a major exchange of nuclear weapons took place.

Absolutely - No doubt it would be bad...

But objectively how bad? Total Extinction? A 'fallout' world? 90 years uninhabitable with the only survivors living under ground? Or maybe that's the media making the story extra scary. Possibly the Western US has lived with intermittent fallout from tests for years depending on wind direction.

Remembering most of the world population lives in India and China... e.g. A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan may actually kill more people than an exchange between the US and say Russia.


>> ^kronosposeidon:

No one knows exactly how bad it would be if a nuclear war took place, but there is no dispute that it would definitely be bad for both the Earth and mankind as a whole if a major exchange of nuclear weapons took place.

>> ^raverman:
If thousands of nukes over 50 years didnt cause the end of the world... would a nuclear war be as bad as they said?


That is one of the most frightening opinions I have ever read in my life.

To me it is incredible that out of the 2,000+ explosions, only 2 were fired "in anger", and those were the 2nd and 3rd events.

There is absolutely no arguing that a full-on nuclear war would be terrible, devastating, and horrendous. However, I think it would be pretty difficult for it to be end-of-humanity apocalyptic. From some quick googling, it looks like a high yield modern nuclear warhead has a blast radius of 6-7 miles, so probably under 150 square miles of area (not counting fallout, lesser blast damage outside of the center, etc.)

So, if every nuclear explosion in history was from an extremely high-yield modern bomb, and they had all been fired at once with the targets spread out to destroy the largest possible total area, they could have utterly destroyed an area a bit bigger than Texas.

I guess that is a pretty grim way to look on the bright side...