On 3/11/22 8:18 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
... The maximalist MAD scenario is a made-up thing.
I'm not sure how to parse this. Not possible (technically) or not likely (sociopolitically)?
Is your belief that there is no scenario where those who hold nuclear weapons cannot launch enough to effectively wipe out humanity within hours/days/weeks? I honestly don't know the accuracy of the public numbers of nuclear weapons in-hand around the world, but as I remember my last glance at those numbers they were on the order of 6K each for US/Russia/China with hundreds in the hands of most of the other identified nuclear powers.
If you are suggesting that the use of nuclear weapons by NATO or Russia in this conflict would be limited to "a handful" (1, 2, 3 digits?) exchanged from each side, and the result of *that* would result instead in Glen's "tacit demonstration". Or your/Frank's ideation that a significant reduction in population and a nuclear winter which could well be what Gaia (Medea?) needs to put the scourge that is modern humanity/civilization back in our box (for a while)? This I believe is possible (with a huge delta on both population reduction and global cooling reset and the myriad modes of ringing in the system that is our biosphere).
In a 'flip' moment I might endorse this course... but it feels a little like being an out of control skier deliberately *flinging* myself into the trees at top speed hoping I survive the crash... possible, but only as a true last-ditch effort. I *do* think there are political and even technical stops in the MAD machine designed to avoid a complete emptying of all arsenals against all other arsenals in one giant death spasm, but I don't know what the scale of the ratcheted mini-spasms would be. The cure that kills the patient before the malady can?
Meanwhile let's argue about the details of the tech to use H2 as a storage/transportation alternative to fossil fuels and keep on endorsing the stacking of the house of cards higher and higher, because after all, like the tower of babel we will eventually get to heaven that way? Techno-utopian paths forward seem inevitable so I *am* interested in the details of these kinds of things, but without an equal focus on reducing our appetite by orders of magnitude, I think we are just rearranging deck chairs.
Bending this pretzeled thread further... - Steve
On Mar 11, 2022, at 7:07 AM, glen <[email protected]> wrote: We call on Biden to reject reckless demands for a no-fly zoneWe deplore Russia’s aggression. However, it strains credulity to think that a US war with Russia would make the American people safer or more prosperoushttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/11/we-call-on-biden-to-reject-reckless-demands-for-a-no-fly-zoneDirectly on the heels of counter-arguing with EricC about the inadequacy of hypocrisy as an argument, this open letter "peacenick" rhetoric really gets on my nerves. The sanctions are anemic, and damn near cowardly. The tagline to the open letter "safer or more prosperous" is spot on. Because *that's* why we do things, right? So we can be safe and prosperous? Safety and prosperity are the foundations of our ethics? Bullshit.Buffers and proxy wars are the epitome of manipulative exploitation. I'm no war-monger. But this democratic backsliding and trend toward dictators with leaders like Modi, Orbán, Lukashenko, et al *are* the actual front line. And that front line isn't geographical. It's ethical.War, even nuclear, might serve as a tacit demonstration to our right-wing friends that freedom, the word they love so much, doesn't lie in safety and prosperity. It lies in the recognition of, and united stance against, exploitative bullies.We're lucky I'm not in charge, I guess. 8^D On 3/11/22 02:49, David Eric Smith wrote:The notion of “using” buffer states — which I hate, by the way, as an attitude of consigning people and regions to disposability categories — as a way to allow graded responses and stalemates from which large bully-powers could withdraw, would have been the template for most alliance treaties..-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
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