The Testing Chat III: The Time of Great Chatting

[Aaron]

Why do you care about what some random screwhead on the internet say about you ?

You know full well you're not going to get any productive discussion out of him.

He's just an idiot. I want everyone to see what a harassing asshole he is. That likely won't happen since his rhetoric is what they all enjoy. "Pull your panties up, bitch."

I honestly can't tell if your being truthful, smug or sarcastic in that concession.

[Agent Bert Macklin]

He's just an idiot. I want everyone to see what a harassing asshole he is. That likely won't happen since his rhetoric is what they all enjoy. "Pull your panties up, bitch."

I honestly can't tell if your being truthful, smug or sarcastic in that concession.

What does your heart tell you? I'm done with N&P, though. I'll just stick to the art discussions.

[Aaron]

That's what I figured.

[Big Orangutan]

Actually, I think you'll find that the central contradiction of capitalism can't be resolved within the capitalist framework, meaning that capitalist ideology is inherently self-destructive. Which is usually acknowledged, even by people as blinkered as von Mises. In theory and in practice, capitalism can be made sustainable, but only when it is a smaller part of the overall economic system, as it was in China, or when it adopts non-competitive modes like Islamic mercantile capitalism did. Both of these systems are largely alien to the familiar form with joint-stock corporations and the like, though.

Or FDR's New Deal and Labour's policies in the UK after WWII.

Capitalism in of itself is an unfeeling, unconcious mechanism that doesn't care who or what it crushes to generate wealth (slaverly and quasi-slavery was popular amongst European estates and companies until comparatively recently: now reintroduced as Globalisation), with "extractive" style economic policies enabling companies, banks and governments to do their worse in exploitation. Leading to the mess we're in now.

If you think immigration and outsourcing have wrecked enough things already, the endgame of Capitalism as a viable system is automation.

[RyanThunder]

Yup. Which is why its so heavily resisted, I'm sure.

Can't have the house of cards falling apart on us just yet.

[Jung]

If you think immigration and outsourcing have wrecked enough things already, the endgame of Capitalism as a viable system is automation.

I worry about this sometimes.

I mean here you've got this depressingly/alarmingly popular Randroid ideology that says capitalism is God, economic productivity is the point of civilization and human existence, and everybody who does not contribute to the machine in a way it deems valuable is a worthless parasite deserving of deprivation and misery.

Sometimes I already get the feeling there's already a prevalent attitude among the economic elite that they're the only people who really matter to civilization and the rest of us are more-or-less expendable dross.

Sometimes I worry about what's going to happen if a civilization where an ideology like that is mainstream develops to the point it doesn't actually need most of its people.

[Jung]

That likely won't happen since his rhetoric is what they all enjoy. "Pull your panties up, bitch."

Maybe it's just me but I kind of see it as a reflection on the hilarious self-importance of that place.

They've lost perspective on the fact that participation in a message board is basically a hobby with no reason to do it except you enjoy it, otherwise get something out of it, or like the people, and no reason not to drop it like a hot potato the instant you feel like it. There's actually a sense you have some sort of duty to keep participating in a trivial and impotent internet slapfight.

[artemas]

it'll always need

engineers

[evilsoup]

until we have AIs, yeah

[Stofsk]

it'll always need

engineers

smugineers you mean

[Darksi4190]

So i'm watching Battleship right now. This movie is such a shameless attempt to cash in on the success of the Transformers films it's pathetic.

[artemas]

it'll always need

engineers

smugineers you mean

for a moment i thought you had written smugglers

and i had glorious hopes for the future

[Questor]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... ead#unread

More thoughts on this thread:

How much of the international posturing is simply for show, from all sides, I wonder?

Obviously, at least to me, NK's audience is not the United States, or at least not in the conventional way. Not in the "I'm gonna start a nuclear war with you" way. NOBODY's that crazy. Playing that game with the first tier nuclear power's a quick way to being a glowing wasteland, and even my sister's moron bulldog knows that - and he's been dead for a year. So the message obviously isn't that.

I think the message is for South Korea and China, maybe to an extent Japan.

Now the more interesting question is: How much of the US's stance on nuclear weapons, and maybe even foreign policy in general, is directed on making sure that the first missile does head towards us?*

The thinking being, and I think there's a certain amount of evidence for this, that a single nuke, maybe even a couple, is not going to get the nuclear hammer of the US or Russia's second strike arsenal out. The only thing that does that is if we can see the massive first strike coming in.

Almost uniquely out of all the world powers, the United States could survive a small nuclear strike without truly crippling damage, even assuming the entire strike gets through. To cripple the United States beyond repair would require absolutely devastating several of at least ten major metropolitan areas, all of which are so big as to require multiple hits by even the largest weapons designed during the cold war. I'm not saying it wouldn't do damage, and I'm not saying that the damage would not be devastating - especially on a human scale, but I just don't see the loss of even three of the major cities crippling the US. Certainly not the way it would, say Russia, the UK, or even Australia** (assuming that the largest city is the target). This completely disregards any ABM/Air Defense capability, of which the US's is probably the best for area coverage.

Of course, this fact makes it even more important that the shot doesn't get taken, because when/if it does, then the whole charade falls apart, because now you have to actually make the decision. What's the punishment for nuking a US city? Proportional response is idiotic, and disproportional response even more so. Is it a massive conventional invasion with the threat of StratCom hanging over the theater? Is it a more literal version of "bomb them into the stone age?" Is it an assassination/precision strike? Do we try to get a coalition together? I don't want to have to come up with answers to those questions, and I don't think the person in the Oval Office particularly does either, so he/she needs to act like they're fully ready to launch on warning, even if they and everyone else know they won't.

So the question that I'd ask myself as president, or even as an advisor, would be what does happen? Since I'm sure that NK's got people at least as smart as I am, I have to wonder if they're asking the same questions. Maybe the statement is part of them trying to feel their way to an answer to that question.

* I don't know if any is, but it would certainly be an interesting topic to explore in a conspiracy heavy world. I'm looking at you, Stewart, this would actually be a half-way interesting use of your secret society of immortal policy wonks, and also a fairly interesting reason for the United States you want to show so badly to exist. Because your version doesn't make sense without the original cold war context.

** Chosen for having a large, distributed geographic base. I'm pretty sure they don't have nukes.

[Stofsk]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... ead#unread

More thoughts on this thread:

How much of the international posturing is simply for show, from all sides, I wonder?

welcome to International Relations 101

[Questor]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... ead#unread

More thoughts on this thread:

How much of the international posturing is simply for show, from all sides, I wonder?

welcome to International Relations 101

Da, konyeshna.

I guess what I meant is that this feels like there's more of it than usual. Or maybe that it more... obvious than usual.

On a completely different topic: http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2#p3761922

The irony, it burrrrrrrrrns!

[Oxymoron]

Let's be honest for a second here :

With or without nuclear strikes in retaliation, any power dumb enough to throw even a single nuke at the US will be AT LEAST Irak-ized.

In the case of North Korea, the question would be : could a NATO coalition count on the implicit or even explicit support of China into any military campaign in NK.

Because if NK is dumb enough to throw a nuke at the US, then in the cost-benefit equation China would have less to lose with having a unified Korean peninsula under a SK flag, than with having a nuclear armed neighbor which has proved able and willing to use nuclear weapons in anger.

I'd say there's good probabilities that with the good incentives (the US offering the right kind of military & technological aides, with the promise of further aides at the end of the war), NATO could count on the support of China and maybe Russia in a campaign against NK.

[Questor]

Let's be honest for a second here :

With or without nuclear strikes in retaliation, any power dumb enough to throw even a single nuke at the US will be AT LEAST Irak-ized.

In the case of North Korea, the question would be : could a NATO coalition count on the implicit or even explicit support of China into any military campaign in NK.

Because if NK is dumb enough to throw a nuke at the US, then in the cost-benefit equation China would have less to lose with having a unified Korean peninsula under a SK flag, than with having a nuclear armed neighbor which has proved able and willing to use nuclear weapons in anger.

I'd say there's good probabilities that with the good incentives (the US offering the right kind of military & technological aides, with the promise of further aides at the end of the war), NATO could count on the support of China and maybe Russia in a campaign against NK.

I'd say there's at least a 10% chance China picks up the offending DPRK, smacks it with a rolled up newspaper and says "Bad crazy people. DON'T POKE THE RABID DOG! BAD!"

Less lolpostingly: Of course they get Irakized (sort of, I don't see us giving enough of a shit to try any kind of rebuilding. Call it Desert Storm 2: This Time With More Regime Change), I don't think that part's in doubt. The question I'm interested in asking is where on the spectrum of "Irakized" to "Germany, 1945" to "North Korea? You mean that glowing straight between the island of Korea and China?" the action stops. That, as Ron White would say, would be some useful information to have.

[evilsoup]

Maybe their capital would get nuked in anger, but I can't see even the American military glassing the whole country for a single city, even if it was Washington or New York.

The end result would be a unified Korea, and I think it would end up more like Germany than Iraq

[Oxymoron]

Like 'Soup said, I think the probabilities are High for Pyongyang AND / OR some of their most major infrastructures to get nuked, if only so that there would be no precedent of a country having used nuclear weapons against another and not having been nuked in return (which would force a complete rewrite of every nuclear power's doctrines on the use of nuclear weapons) ; but I doubt the whole country being glassed.

At most I'd say what would be targeted would be :

- Their spaceport (which they are using to test their launchers)
- The major naval bases & seaports (to deny them any capability to use ships and subs to contest NATO sea-superiority in the area if we are to mount an invasion)
- Pyongyang (as the Capital)

In that order, with one launch every thirty minutes / one hour and a demand for Unconditional surrender to whoever is in charge of North Korea at the time ; with an invasion of the North Korean mainland in order in a "Japan 1945" fashion if no answer has been given before Pyongyang has been nuked.

A good chunk of the population of Pyongyang would maybe survive the bombing after having had time to take shelter into the subways of the city, but with the amount of destruction their infrastructure would have suffered, and what stockpile of food the country has directed toward the military, most of them would probably die of hunger in a few month.

If NK does not surrender, it is probable that in six month the casualties, from hunger and disease alone (not counting death from the bombing itself and from warfare) would be counted in millions.

I know that the NK leadership doesn't give two shit about the life of its serfs, and that the NK military has quite a number of incentives for its soldiers to continue fighting even in the face of certain destruction (ala Stalin's USSR), but I doubt they would continue fighting after half the population of their 23 million people country died.


Bottom line : nuclear warfare is horrible, and that's why we have peace.

[Oxymoron]

Post bottom line : I'd hazard a guess that the above scenario is what the NK leadership expect the US to do if they were to use nukes against the US or any of the US' allies under its Nuclear Umbrella, and that as such they wouldn't risk using their nukes in a First Strike. Or they would be truly desperate and do that only because they knew that the situation could not be saved anyway, in some kind of collective suicide attempt at the scale of a country.

You know, better die an honorable death fighting than die forgotten. In order not to lose face.

[adr]

What would be great is if countries were to enter into a treaty or something saying they won't develop new nuclear weapons. And the existing nuclear powers could make it a fairer deal by promising to dismantle their existing weapons.

That would be really great. It just isn't worth the risk to keep them around.

[Darksi4190]

Yeah but then what will we do if we need an asteroid deflected or some aliens show up?

[Oxymoron]

I dunno, since Nagasaki nukes have had a pretty good track record of not being used offensively, and of being used as a tool to avoid a new world war.

Sure, from a purely morale standpoint it would be a good thing to get rid of them, but the thing is that our world is not governed by morale.

Getting rid of nuclear weapons, in the end, would only work in reinforcing the hegemon of a select few powers, which would be freer than ever to fuck with everyone else.

And I don't believe that the goodness of the human heart would be enough to avoid that.


So in the meantime, given the current statu quo, I'd say that nukes are the lesser evil.

[Oxymoron]

Also, as ridiculous as it sounds, what Darksi said.

[Darksi4190]

I was only half joking really. I doubt aliens are going to show up to ruin our shit, but on the off chance that we do spot a planet killing rock hurtling our way, nukes are the only thing we've got that could realistically hope to alter its course.