Is a World War The Answer?

[Locke]

26 minutes ago, A.steve said:

I don't have a position... other than finding the situation curious.

That's unusual, good on you.

It's sad how many people just swallow the government's statements in the face of the total nonsense and any questioning is kooky "conspiracy theory"

[thecrashingisles]

1 hour ago, A.steve said:

What would the motivation be for China?

To avoid encirclement.

[richmondtw]

18 hours ago, Social Justice League said:

I think Trump would use a nuke and Putin would be happy to return the favour.  Economies need to rebuild after COVID and war is a good leveller before reconstruction.

Mate - I agree with some of the things you say but this will never happen in my lifetime.  Any nuclear war will be started by some insane mullah in Iran or pakistan.  Even N korea would not want mutual destruction.  

The mad mullah however think they will go to a better pl;ace when they have expired.

The other possibly is when the world,s natural resources expire due to overpopulation but again that will not be in my lifetime.

 

17 hours ago, Huggy said:

Trump won't use a nuke though, maybe invade a couple of places for a bit of a giggle, but no nuking for now I reckon.

No he will not waste time and money.  he has got troops out of most of the places that the left wing Obama was involved in.  He does not see the US and the world's policeman and quire rightly so.  

17 hours ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

I think your idea of using call of Duty as a predictor of how modern geopolitics will play out is somewhat flawed.

 

18 hours ago, Social Justice League said:

A sign of what's to come is the new Cold War Call Of Duty game, released this winter.  It's an omen I tell you.

I won the Premiership and Champions League with Spurs in football manager - is that an omen.  

 

[richmondtw]

36 minutes ago, Locke said:

is kooky "conspiracy theory"

but 99% of it is

[thecrashingisles]

2 hours ago, Locke said:

You have been demoralised.

• Alexei Navalny has never held any elected office, his political party doesn’t have a single MP in the Duma, and he polls at roughly 2% support with the Russian people.

• Despite this, and in the middle of an alleged “pandemic”, Vladimir Putin deems the man a threat and orders him killed.

• The State apparatus responsible for unnecessary and seemingly arbitrary acts of political murder decide to use novichok to poison him.

• This decision is taken in spite of the facts that a) Novichok totally and utterly failed to work in their alleged murder of the Skripals and b) It has already been widely publicly associated with Russia.

• Rather unsurprisingly, the novichok which didn’t kill its alleged target last time, doesn’t kill its alleged target this time either.

• Compounding their poor decision making, the Russians not only perform an emergency landing and take Navalny straight to a hospital for medical care.

• Despite Navalny being helpless and comatose in a Russian hospital, the powerful state-backed assassination team make no further attempts on his life.

• In fact, seemingly determined to under no circumstances successfully kill their intended victim, the Russian government, allow him to leave the country and get medical help from one of the countries which previously accused them of using novichok.

• To absolutely no one’s surprise, the Germans claim to have detected novichok in Navalny’s system.

• Vladimir Putin and the Russian government are immediately blamed for the attempted murder.

You misunderstand the importance of Navalny. He's more of an investigative journalist than an opposition politician in the sense that we use it here, and he has a record of exposing the corruption of many people within the Russian government who are not household names, hence the motive for silencing him could be personal as much as political.

[Megadebt]

57 minutes ago, thecrashingisles said:

You misunderstand the importance of Navalny. He's more of an investigative journalist than an opposition politician in the sense that we use it here, and he has a record of exposing the corruption of many people within the Russian government who are not household names, hence the motive for silencing him could be personal as much as political.

 I wonder how tight a grip Putin really has,  and could it be by Russian organised criminal but not authorised by the Kremlin, hence the apparent bodged assasination?   All seems a bit James Bond,  surely there are better assassination methods, some bio weapon with a mega dose of  Covid19,  put in his clothes at the airport from his luggage perhaps. 

The other possibility, they really don't care and want the message to be seen loud and clear.

 More likely will be a new cold War with Russia and a serious cooling of relations with China as it continues to push boundaries but just short of an all out confrontation. Big difference now is how much of their money is invested in the West, and how reliant we are on trading. China manufactures  90% of world vaccines for example.

Trump is the worst President to have a finger on the nuclear button now. Like his twitter rages, his impulsiveness is potentially dangerous.  If he wakes up one day with a bad head and decides to take out Moscow, once he gives that order no one can countermand him. I wonder at what level the military would overrule any surprise nuclear strike order from Trump? 

 

[jiltedjen]

2 hours ago, Riedquat said:

That's still science fiction territory (for now).

well they probably thought that in WW1 just before the first tanks rolled towards them, or Japan before being nuked. 

drones are readily available even for the public, imagine what the US could achieve with military ones, a virtually unstoppable swarm. 

And it doesn't kill the earth like nuclear weapons. Its quite 'clean' 

plus its not the kind of thing you would want everyone to know about to develop counter-measures, its a back-pocket thing. 

[Unmoderated]

5 hours ago, Social Justice League said:

Economic Collapse

Tail wagging the dog, generally it is economic collapse that leads to the rise of charismatic individuals telling everyone it's someone else's fault. 

The idea that Trump would one day nuke Russia is pure fantasy. 

The POTUS doesn't have the power to just do it (checks and balances) but he is required to authorise or not the launch if it ever comes to that. Approvals are not instructions. 

You're familiar with M.A.D? We launch, they launch. Simple.

Russia has arguably one of the most powerful armies in the world. At close proximity to Russia I don't fancy anyone's chances of defeating them. What they lack is the ability to project that power which is where the west has the upper hand.

Finally, the answer to economic collapse is a world war which is itself an economic collapse. Be careful when measuring GDP here. GDP is a measure of output so by its nature if every factory works around the clock to make bombs and bullets GDP increases but that doesn't do anything for economic welfare. In the US during world war two in 1945 9 dollars in every 10 spent by the federal govt was on defence!

If you want to simple get that done you can do so without getting bombed, just have the government borrow a tonne of money to manufacture anything you like.... houses maybe?

[hp72]

3 hours ago, Riedquat said:

That's still science fiction territory (for now).

Depends on who to believe - oh - the "Daily Mail" 😐

https://robotics.news/2020-02-09-next-gen-warfare-darpa-tests-drone-swarms-ai.html

Next-gen warfare: DARPA tests “drone swarms” that will be operated by artificial intelligence, not human beings
02/09/2020 / By JD Heyes

recently, DARPA — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — tested a synchronous drone swarm program in Mississippi, and the results look promising.

As reported by the UK’s Daily Mail, the program is called OFFSET, or “Offensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics.” The test incorporated a group of 250 autonomous air and ground vehicles that were sent into a simulated urban environment to provide researchers with “live information about sight lines, enemy positioning, environmental hazards, and general layout as part of a simulated military raid,” the paper reported online.

[A.steve]

4 hours ago, Locke said:

It's sad how many people just swallow the government's statements in the face of the total nonsense and any questioning is kooky "conspiracy theory"

Is it a conspiracy theory to take the view that conspiracy theories represent a very effective mechanism to undermine an emerging consensus that contradicts the narrative of the establishment?

Personally, I'm exceptionally sceptical by default.  I find a vast number of things I don't believe - but I don't feel I am obliged to replace a bad narrative with a "better" hypothesis.  I find there are a lot of things I have to admit "I don't know"... lots of things I find curious. Sometimes, I discover information that helps me formulate a better understanding... but, still, the majority of what I've been able to learn are things that I can be confident aren't true.  Of the infinity of possible explanations the infinity of them that are wrong is far greater than the (in?)finity that are accurate.

Perhaps, with Navalny, our problem is that we can't appreciate how any plan involving Novichock could appeal to anyone.  Perhaps there's a lot going on about which we don't understand anything.

[Staffsknot]

Well given there will never be a piece of paper with 'kill him' signed by putin it can always be left to conjecture and deniable by Russian regime.

Why would Putin strike at Navalny, he is a critic and in a year Putin is seeking to shore up his untouchability it is a symbol to anyone contemplating opposition or that he could be replaced.

Why Novichok - weapon sends a message to West, I act with impunity. Double effect is it sets Western nations a trap - act and you are acting on an internal matter ( less consensus for acting and can say to Russian people they are trying to remove me to take over), do nothing or the inevitable fudge after headless chicken meetings and show divisions.

Putin doesn't act just to influence today, he places a marker for tomorrow.Novichok is known as Russian state weapon so why use - because it raises the doubt and those liable to see it as a plant / setup will now doubt every other piece of information and doubt future threats.

He is removing opposition but also probing how nations respond, what alliances get strained and who emerges to lead the response ( Merkel has done but she will leave soon, who else steps in informs him what he faces).

Last point those wondering if we need 'a good war to sort things out' are normally volunteering someone else to do it and will be the ones handing out half-time oranges. The answer to should we have a war to... is always no. It wouldn't be a nice 'clean' drone war at some point a kid from one side with little real idea why he's there, outside what he read in The Sun or Star, will be asked to walk towards an enemy position and try not to get shot before we figure out where they are. He may not be the brightest, but he is smart enough to remember the lesson that an obstacle is not an obstacle unless covered by fire, as he crosses that fence or wall sh!tting himself. He will also likely remember that you don't shoot as the first one crosses but brass them up when there's enough to make it indecisive to go back or continue. So he's now waiting to get slotted when two of his mates join him.

That's your realities - there is no 'war to sort things out' or set things right - it is brutal, vicious and you may sort out a few geopolitical issues, but you'll get a lot of broken kids back to West Brom in the process.

Edited September 4, 2020 by Staffsknot

[Arpeggio]

4 hours ago, jiltedjen said:

well they probably thought that in WW1 just before the first tanks rolled towards them, or Japan before being nuked.

They didn't need to nuke Japan, they were on the back foot already. They just wanted to try out nukes.

4 hours ago, jiltedjen said:

drones are readily available even for the public, imagine what the US could achieve with military ones, a virtually unstoppable swarm. 

And it doesn't kill the earth like nuclear weapons. Its quite 'clean' 

plus its not the kind of thing you would want everyone to know about to develop counter-measures, its a back-pocket thing. 

If the target emits any kind of radio signal that can be linked to their ID, 5G would make this much easier for the seeking stage where the drones are not in the vicinity for their cameras to see target. Bearing in mind I'm speaking hypothetically on a theory not originating from me. Yet I get called a whacko on 5G alone so this thread must be a box of frogs to those who say that.

4 hours ago, Unmoderated said:

The idea that Trump would one day nuke Russia is pure fantasy. 

Russia has arguably one of the most powerful armies in the world. At close proximity to Russia I don't fancy anyone's chances of defeating them. What they lack is the ability to project that power which is where the west has the upper hand.

Agree. Curious what do you mean by lacking ability to project power? Do they need to? AFIAK Russia have only 2 naval bases that are not on Russia coastline: Ukraine and Syria. This is tiny in comparison to U.S. installations as well as China's.

There's so much BS flying around about Russia.   https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/07/18/russia-bounty-story-falls-flat

[oracle]

18 hours ago, jiltedjen said:

well they probably thought that in WW1 just before the first tanks rolled towards them, or Japan before being nuked. 

drones are readily available even for the public, imagine what the US could achieve with military ones, a virtually unstoppable swarm. 

And it doesn't kill the earth like nuclear weapons. Its quite 'clean' 

plus its not the kind of thing you would want everyone to know about to develop counter-measures, its a back-pocket thing. 

drones are quite easy to jam,so frankly would not be of much use against a high level opponent.

 

if it was going to be a fight with russia/china then we would see some of the really big toys come out.

1) accoustic radar, the stuff that doesn't bounce off an object but makes it resonate and cause metal/material fatigue in the fuselage or wings of planes and missiles,making them useless and break up...like the bird who can scream at glass and make it shatter.

1a) torsion "tractor/deflector beams"..which can capture a target and fling it elsewhere

2)"mindstamper" sonic weapons that can project voices into the opponents heads,turning them paranoid schizoid and cause madness/firendly fire incidents amongst their own ranks

3) anti gravity aircraft /ordnance carrier (US Has these already)..can go much faster than a naval carrier,faster than a c130 and carries much greater payload,capable of VTOL

4)scalar weapons(russia has these already), beamed into tectonic "areas of interest" in order to provoke seismic activity

5)tesla walls (US and isreal working on it), aimed to prevent mass assault by missiles like hamas is planning, the successor to iron dome is aimed at providing a shield to protect and deactivate such projectiles,even nuclear tipped

[oracle]

1 minute ago, oracle said:

drones are quite easy to jam,so frankly would not be of much use against a high level opponent.

 

if it was going to be a fight with russia/china then we would see some of the really big toys come out.

1) accoustic radar, the stuff that doesn't bounce off an object but makes it resonate and cause metal/material fatigue in the fuselage or wings of planes and missiles,making them useless and break up...like the bird who can scream at glass and make it shatter.

1a) torsion "tractor/deflector beams"..which can capture a target and fling it elsewhere

2)"mindstamper" sonic weapons that can project voices into the opponents heads,turning them paranoid schizoid and cause madness/firendly fire incidents amongst their own ranks

3) anti gravity aircraft /ordnance carrier (US Has these already)..can go much faster than a naval carrier,faster than a c130 and carries much greater payload,capable of VTOL

4)scalar weapons(russia has these already), beamed into tectonic "areas of interest" in order to provoke seismic activity

5)tesla walls (US and isreal working on it), aimed to prevent mass assault by missiles like hamas is planning, the successor to iron dome is aimed at providing a shield to protect and deactivate such projectiles,even nuclear tipped

and of course, the piece de resistance...the south park brown noise!!https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiPyfL2u9HrAhWL66QKHTu9Aq4QtwIwAHoECAAQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D5Rys1UyQ8Ds&usg=AOvVaw24NVuAtZmhL2On5mHYMxnz

[nightowl]

The thought of invasions of enemy drones makes me think of how the nation could defend itself....

All amateur drone and model airplane enthusiasts called up to harras incoming drones. It will be like the battle of Britain again but with 1/100th scale concordes and spitfires.

People defending their homes with some strawberry netting and four helium balloon with happy birthday tied to the corners, to trap overflying drones.

Ok I have too much coffee this morning😲

[Warlord]

War is nor the answer. 

I'm not old enough to remember the Cold War but my parents used to tell me how genuinely frightened and on edge people were that a Nuke war could happen at any moment. Its not a nice way to live 

Maybe(@winkie @Bruce Banner or any older posters can tell us more about that era .

[oracle]

35 minutes ago, Warlord said:

War is nor the answer. 

I'm not old enough to remember the Cold War but my parents used to tell me how genuinely frightened and on edge people were that a Nuke war could happen at any moment. Its not a nice way to live 

Maybe(@winkie @Bruce Banner or any older posters can tell us more about that era .

whether we like it or not people are tribal, and somebody always wants to wear the trousers.The ones with global ambitions are easy to spot,because they always revert to type. It's their way or no way.Anyone who disagrees with them is:

infidel,apostate,ignorant,bigot,deplorable,untermensch,mentally ill, heretic(delete as applicable)

given that factions of society always want to dominate others(and some have worldwide ambitions), then war and the ability to defend onesself is sometimes the only option.

[Bob8]

9 hours ago, Warlord said:

War is nor the answer. 

I'm not old enough to remember the Cold War but my parents used to tell me how genuinely frightened and on edge people were that a Nuke war could happen at any moment. Its not a nice way to live 

Maybe(@winkie @Bruce Banner or any older posters can tell us more about that era .

When I was a kid, I had nightmares about nuclear war. When people my age (40+) talk about how dangerous the world is now compared to when we were young, I know they are deluded by nostalgia.

[Bob8]

On 04/09/2020 at 16:40, A.steve said:

Is it a conspiracy theory to take the view that conspiracy theories represent a very effective mechanism to undermine an emerging consensus that contradicts the narrative of the establishment?

Personally, I'm exceptionally sceptical by default.  I find a vast number of things I don't believe - but I don't feel I am obliged to replace a bad narrative with a "better" hypothesis.  I find there are a lot of things I have to admit "I don't know"... lots of things I find curious. Sometimes, I discover information that helps me formulate a better understanding... but, still, the majority of what I've been able to learn are things that I can be confident aren't true.  Of the infinity of possible explanations the infinity of them that are wrong is far greater than the (in?)finity that are accurate.

Perhaps, with Navalny, our problem is that we can't appreciate how any plan involving Novichock could appeal to anyone.  Perhaps there's a lot going on about which we don't understand anything.

We agree on much.

It irritiates me immensely when people suggest that those who believe in conspiracy theories are not engaging in critical thinking. I completely disagree. I am a scientist and working in mol/micro-biology; it is clear that I will believe in evolution; but most people are just taking other peoples' word for it.

I believed the world was flat when my Mum told me. I am Catholic and British (not an Evangelical from rural Kentucky), so I believed in evolution. I was right, but it was because I accepted and did not think for myself.

At some point we realise that the people we trust are not that smart, and we are taught by teachers who are not that smart and making things simple for kids. We are also domesticated and we act like chickens and dogs rather than eagles and wolves through the need to confirm.

The mistake that CT's make is to think they are smarter. They are not and thinking for yourself will usually make you wrong, and the smartest people are wrong in even smarter ways.

[zugzwang]

1 hour ago, Bob8 said:

When I was a kid, I had nightmares about nuclear war. When people my age (40+) talk about how dangerous the world is now compared to when we were young, I know they are deluded by nostalgia.

Have you ever seen Miracle Mile?

 

[satsuma]

1 hour ago, Bob8 said:

When I was a kid, I had nightmares about nuclear war. When people my age (40+) talk about how dangerous the world is now compared to when we were young, I know they are deluded by nostalgia.

Very true, I remember when iodine tablets were handed out for use in a nuclear strike to prevent people adsorbing radioactive iodine 

[Bob8]

13 minutes ago, zugzwang said:

Have you ever seen Miracle Mile?

 

I missed it. I think I was not the only one.

[A.steve]

2 hours ago, Bob8 said:

We agree on much.

It irritiates me immensely when people suggest that those who believe in conspiracy theories are not engaging in critical thinking. I completely disagree. I am a scientist and working in mol/micro-biology; it is clear that I will believe in evolution; but most people are just taking other peoples' word for it.

I believed the world was flat when my Mum told me. I am Catholic and British (not an Evangelical from rural Kentucky), so I believed in evolution. I was right, but it was because I accepted and did not think for myself.

At some point we realise that the people we trust are not that smart, and we are taught by teachers who are not that smart and making things simple for kids. We are also domesticated and we act like chickens and dogs rather than eagles and wolves through the need to confirm.

The mistake that CT's make is to think they are smarter. They are not and thinking for yourself will usually make you wrong, and the smartest people are wrong in even smarter ways.

I feel as if 'conspiracy theories' are an exotic sauce in which we frolick while exercising our talent for rational thinking.  I find it intriguing (when 'conspiracy theory' is pronounced disparagingly) that so many people appear to have convinced themselves that conspiracy (as defined in the dictionary) would never occur... making any theory about it necessarily false.

Respect to your Mum for telling you the world is flat.  I had to wait until I met the vice president of the Flat Earth Society. I found it disappointing that even he didn't convincingly convey a firm belief in the falsity of the ball-earth hypothesis.  For several months, I found flat-earth material extremely entertaining.  Nothing at all stops you using a flat-earth model... sure, explaining some phenomena gets a bit more complicated than in the ball earth model... but is requiring a little more cognitive effort really a justification for throwing the baby out with the bathwater?  I secretly hoped that I wasn't the only one who hoped that flat-earthers might have adopted a flat model of society (as opposed to a heirachical one) but... either I failed their admission test, or this idea has not yet occurred to the flat-earthers I have met.

 

[MonsieurCopperCrutch]

3 hours ago, A.steve said:

I feel as if 'conspiracy theories' are an exotic sauce in which we frolick while exercising our talent for rational thinking.  I find it intriguing (when 'conspiracy theory' is pronounced disparagingly) that so many people appear to have convinced themselves that conspiracy (as defined in the dictionary) would never occur... making any theory about it necessarily false.

Respect to your Mum for telling you the world is flat.  I had to wait until I met the vice president of the Flat Earth Society. I found it disappointing that even he didn't convincingly convey a firm belief in the falsity of the ball-earth hypothesis.  For several months, I found flat-earth material extremely entertaining.  Nothing at all stops you using a flat-earth model... sure, explaining some phenomena gets a bit more complicated than in the ball earth model... but is requiring a little more cognitive effort really a justification for throwing the baby out with the bathwater?  I secretly hoped that I wasn't the only one who hoped that flat-earthers might have adopted a flat model of society (as opposed to a heirachical one) but... either I failed their admission test, or this idea has not yet occurred to the flat-earthers I have met.

 

Yawnnn...

[Bob8]

7 hours ago, A.steve said:

I feel as if 'conspiracy theories' are an exotic sauce in which we frolick while exercising our talent for rational thinking.  I find it intriguing (when 'conspiracy theory' is pronounced disparagingly) that so many people appear to have convinced themselves that conspiracy (as defined in the dictionary) would never occur... making any theory about it necessarily false.

Respect to your Mum for telling you the world is flat.  I had to wait until I met the vice president of the Flat Earth Society. I found it disappointing that even he didn't convincingly convey a firm belief in the falsity of the ball-earth hypothesis.  For several months, I found flat-earth material extremely entertaining.  Nothing at all stops you using a flat-earth model... sure, explaining some phenomena gets a bit more complicated than in the ball earth model... but is requiring a little more cognitive effort really a justification for throwing the baby out with the bathwater?  I secretly hoped that I wasn't the only one who hoped that flat-earthers might have adopted a flat model of society (as opposed to a heirachical one) but... either I failed their admission test, or this idea has not yet occurred to the flat-earthers I have met.

 

Ah, she did not, I mistyped! I believe the word was round because she told me so. Sorry.

Conspiracies do happen. Hillsborough was a conspiracy and involved millions of people seeing something happen live on TV, and then a few days later then no longer believed their own eyes but believed what Murcoch-Thatcher-SYP conspired to portray. People lapped it up like sheep

Yet, as I met people who tended to accept many conspiracies, I found they had lapped up the Thatcher-Murdoch version of Hillsborough and thought the final vindication of Liverpool fans was a conspiracy.