RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
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User ID: 317
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3yr ago
Protect against whatever is happening in 15 years? How many people predicted in 2007 that in 15 years we will have full scale war in Europe, with 100 000+ dead and numbers increasing?
The only thing that can protect Poland from Russia is nuclear weapons. If Poland is worried about having to fight Russia alone (in some nightmare scenario where NATO has disintegrated), they need nuclear weapons. Nothing else could save them. Now you might say that Poland can't get nuclear weapons because the US will throw a tantrum about it, that's the whole non-proliferation scam that they've been spruking for the last 70 years... But that's rather tangential to the massive conventional buildup.
This war reminded that having an actual army is really useful
Yes, if you don't have nuclear weapons!
Intervening in Estonia in case Russia gets uppity and still does not get that they are not entitled to empire in Central/Eastern Europe?
What if there would war between Poland and Russia?
If the Russians attack Estonia in the normal scenario (an extremely big if), where NATO is behind them, then Russia loses the conventional war and starts a nuclear war. Even if they go for the fait accompli of just storming in quickly (which they clearly aren't too good at), you can't just attack countries in major alliances and not expect retribution. That defeats the whole point. The US would counterattack, they have tripwire forces in the region.
In the nightmare scenario where NATO is gone and it's every state for themselves, the Poles get turned into a Russian satellite regardless of what conventional forces they have. What good are tanks if the enemy can raze your cities in minutes? I suppose they could try using conventional forces for a stalling action and desperately nuclearizing... but that's precisely the most dangerous position to be in if you face a nuclear power. That's when it's most logical to use nuclear weapons to quickly finish the war and pre-empt any nuclear counterattack.
Note also that photographing yourself with pile of tanks will work nicely in upcoming elections.
Certainly!
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
9d ago
The US intelligence services said there was no imminent threat from Iran, so apparently they believe it.
Attacking and killing the guy with a fatwa against nuclear weapons doesn't seem like a smart idea. If you don't want the Iranians to break out, why not simply refrain from attacking them and incentivizing a breakout?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3yr ago
How hard is it to simply shoot the drug dealers? Their whole revenue model is based upon getting access to the least valuable, least intelligent sections of society. That's also the recruiting base for the rank and file. In one case I'm aware of, the idiot drug dealers did their whole meeting/buying and selling under a visible, working CCTV camera.
The stupidest, drug-addled people are able to find drug dealers! Why can't police, with their wiretapping, forensics, drones, satellites, training and organization?
I've brought this up before and people say 'it can't be done', that we can't credibly threaten death for anyone who doesn't rat out their supplier, that billion-dollar bureaucracies can't just force their way up the supply chain and root out the whole network, killing anyone who doesn't comply.
Well it can be done! Shooting drug dealers is not hard. Rival gangs understand how to do it, that's how they secure their market share. They intimidate dealers from other gangs so they won't sell in their turf. States can do it, the Chinese did it. Opium is not a big problem in China anymore.
War on drugs (started century ago for openly and proudly racist reasons and on completely false pretenses that make WMDs in Iraq look like pinnacle of transparency) is worse by several magnitudes, on every metric you can imagine.
The war on drugs is not a serious effort, I agree. But it does not follow that serious efforts are impossible.
It is simple and easy to root out drug trafficking for rich, well-organized countries if they make a genuine effort. Even a moderately wealthy, organized country can manage it. It is only that American-style liberal democracies struggle with this fairly simple concept - these are the same states who managed to lose a war against impoverished, illiterate Afghan goatherders with no backing from anyone. That's because we didn't know what we wanted to do or why we were there, it was a clusterfuck of trying to manipulate the media, massage interest groups, make things look good, spend money on clients, reduce casualties. The war on drugs is the same.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1mo ago
UAE certainly can try to strike Iranian water facilities... but Iran is a big country! UAE is a small country. UAE is overwhelmingly dependent on desalination, Iran is not. Iran enjoys escalation dominance.
Secondly, UAE is a paper tiger, they're not capable of serious fighting innately, because of what their country is. It's a cluster of hypercommercialized slave city states, not a real country. No real nationalism, no real seriousness, no sacrifice for a cause, no strong institutions.
They're likely incapable of reaching Tehran with their 4th gen jets, flown by second-rate Arab pilots.
They're barely capable of defending their own country. Brutalizing Filipino workers or funding civil war in Sudan is more their speed, not fighting those who can fight back.
Nothing is made in UAE, they just provide services and extract oil. They can't fight a 'makes things' country.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2yr ago
Case in point:
The entry into service of the new Chinese amphib makes for a stark contrast with the apparent loss of the USS Bonhomme Richard to a shipyard fire in San Diego. Although Bonhomme Richard would have been more capable than the new Chinese ships because of its ability to operate F-35B fighters, otherwise the two ships would have been quite comparable in capabilities. For its part, in April the first Chinese ship had its own minor fire, although the apparent damage was rapidly repaired and the fire did not seem to slow progress on construction.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/chinas-first-type-075-amphibious-assault-ship-begins-sea-trials/
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3yr ago
As Ukraine is proving right now - having decent conventional army is also useful.
If Ukraine had nuclear weapons, they wouldn't need a decent conventional army, nor would they be fighting. Nuclear weapons are better for all defensive scenarios. Ukraine is proving that having a decent conventional army gets you five/six-figure casualties, economic devastation, power shortages and much of your country fleeing overseas. Nukes give you much better security.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3yr ago
If the US is so eager to die for Ukraine, why not tell the Russians that? 'If you nuke Ukraine, we'll nuke you'!
Furthermore, if you don't understand the distinction between tactical nukes and strategic nukes, then how are you qualified to pontificate on nuclear strategy? Why would you suggest that the US will sacrifice its major cities for the remnants of Ukraine, a country it's not even allied with?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3yr ago
Firstly, tactical nukes would be used against formations in the field, not cities. That's what strategic weapons are for (of which Russia has 4000).
If Russia decided to vaporize Ukraine, the West would do nothing because Russia also has the capability to vaporize Europe and North America. That's what those strategic weapons were designed to do in the first place. I don't see why the US would commit national suicide by waging war against a nuclear superpower.
As I write this comment, I'm listening to Putin's live speech as he claims that other nations were threatening to use nuclear weapons against Russia, where he stated that 'the wind could blow against them.'
The actions Trump has taken are so stupid and self-destructive to all realistic or reasonable Trump goals (contrary even to his own statements, ideology and promises), the most reasonable conclusion is that he's under the control of other parties. Object, not subject.
Someone persuaded him that mass deportations are unpopular and should be toned down but Middle East wars, wow, that's catnip for voters! He's left reality behind, some neocon idiot would've told him something like 'no worries about fuel, the Iranians will be dealt with in one swift stroke' and he'll have accepted that because he's a credulous 80 year old.
In what universe would a man dependent on future Republican administrations to escape more aggressive prosecutions invest his political capital in 'predictably disastrous Middle East War' over 'structural Republican electoral advantage'? No rational actor would do that, only a controlled/misinformed actor.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1mo ago
America is presumed to be acting in all manner of irrational and stupid ways because
they are acting in all manner of irrational stupid ways.
Firstly they started this war thinking that the Iranian people would rise up and overthrow the regime, which was stupid. Then they go back and forth unsanctioning Iranian oil to lower fuel prices, proposing dual control of the straits, now blockading Iran, threatening to destroy Iranian civilization, then constantly rolling back threats.
It's a pathetic display of weakness and stupidity as some very mediocre intellects thrash around trying to escape a self-inflicted blunder. It's exceeded only by cheerleaders dressing up the flailing as 4D chess.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1mo ago
Very convenient how it lets you ignore the 90% dropoff from the first week of the war.
Oh, so the US has done no damage after the first weak of the war, in your view? All subsequent bombing has been ineffectual at further reducing their strike rate, after that huge 90% success? Maybe you're just not aware that the Iranian plan is to fight a long war, which necessitates not shooting their load in the first few weeks.
And the grand idea of what you're saying is that Iran's been totally smashed but the US navy is just too cowardly to secure the straits of Hormuz? They need to do a blockade out of Iran's strike range... for some reason. All those drones and missiles have been brutally degraded... But not so degraded that America can actually protect its bases in the Gulf. Not so degraded that American troops can quit hiding in hotels. Not so degraded that America can actually protect the oil facilities of its allies, protect the basis of the petrodollar.
Fantasy. After losing the last few Middle East wars against vastly inferior opponents, I would've thought the hubris bubble might've been pricked a little but noooooo...
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1mo ago
The US military hasn't dumpstered anything at all. No strategic goals have been achieved. No political objectives have been achieved. The straits of Hormuz have not been secured, nor have Iran's missile and drone capabilities been severely degraded. Their attack rate over the last 30 days before this ceasefire was fairly stable.
The US has the military capabilities a 15 year old gamer would seek: prioritizing K/D and cool explosions and 'ownage' moments like blowing up leaders in sneak attacks. Hegseth exemplifies this dimwitted outlook, obsessing about lethality and violence and devastation: 'back to the stone age'.
The US does not have the military capabilities of a serious power pursuing serious strategic objectives like territorial control, waging industrial wars over long spans of time to outlast and crush enemies. That's mutually exclusive with maxxing out K/D and all these flashy, ludicrously expensive and rare wonderweapons the US likes to focus on.
You don't need to kill your enemies to beat them. Killing helps but disorganized, shambolic killing isn't the key thing. The key thing is to defeat your enemy's plan, not just blow up their soldiers. Iran's plan, using their drone and missile forces to choke the straits, choke energy exports over the course of a long war that saps US political will remains intact while the US is going through plans at a rate of knots.
Trump crows about blowing up the Iranian air force and navy. Who cares? Is the Iranian air force the lynchpin of their plans, like the German luftwaffe in WW2? No. Their conventional navy also is not a big part of their plan. Destroying random bridges or power plants - not going to help.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2yr ago
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2yr ago
Assuming you could find a court even able to try it, what punishment can even approach being proportional?
Recklessness and negligence (foreseeably) leading to megadeaths should result in people being tortured for the rest of their lives.
This is basically what happened to people at Guantanamo Bay or certain prisons in Iraq, where the prisoner's crimes were much, much, much less serious.
Have a quick skim through the wikipedia page of what happened there. 'Forced injections' and 'being locked in confined cells' are karmically appropriate but those are just the beginning. Beatings, sleep deprivation, being chained in the foetal position for 24 hours and forced to soil oneself...
If the US tortured Afghans semi-randomly (per Rumsfields complaints about Guantanamo being misused "We need to stop populating Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) with low-level enemy combatants... GTMO needs to serve as an [redacted] not a prison for Afghanistan.") then it is appropriate to torture vastly more damaging people.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3yr ago
My point is that Jews are enormously overrepresented in establishing and developing these sectors. The direction in which they take things tends to be more radical and transgressive. It stands to reason that if there weren't any Jews, then there would be much less in the way of pornography and casual sex generally. The most sex-oriented big dating apps are tinder and grindr, both founded by Jews. More lovey-dovey, long-term relationship apps like OKCupid and Bumble were founded by Europeans.
Not all horrendous ideas in the world are from Jews: Gentler for instance proudly sent orphans in Germany off to live with pedophiles and got dozens of men acquitted of molestation, Foucault campaigned for the abolition of the age of consent, presumably so he could have sex with children. There was a postwar vibe that was excessively libertine, where barriers that should not have been touched were broken. The Frankfurt school had a lot to do with this attitude of course.
Immigration and refugee resettlement in the US stems significantly from Jews. The 1965 Immigration Law was introduced by Emmanuel Celler. Sure, it was passed by many non-Jews too. But consider Proposition 187 which sought to stem illegal immigration in California, which was approved democratically but then blocked by Mariana Pfaelzer.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3yr ago
we mostly have Chinese corporate paper
According to whom? A majority of their reserves are US treasuries according to BDO as of September 2022.
If you take a quick look at the market cap, about 20 billion Tether has been redeemed for USD since May 2022. You're giving the 2021 argument but we've moved on since then. Now that it's not printing billions a month but actually had billions withdrawn the last few months, does that invert your conclusion?
60% uranium is basically weapons grade, it only takes a little further enrichment to reach 90%. Iran easily has the technical capacity to produce nuclear weapons, hypersonic missiles are a lot harder technically. This is 1950s technology.
So why haven't they? If they wanted nuclear weapons, with that stockpile of 60% uranium, they could simply acquire them.
Iran seems to want flexibility, they want some kind of deterrent capability without starting an arms race with Saudi Arabia or a disarming strike from Israel or America. But clearly the deterrent capacity of Iran's latent nuclear capability is insufficient to prevent a disarming strike.
This war is a massive own goal even in its backers own terms. It spurs nuclearization.
You go on incessantly about me mischaracterizing a US bomb dropped in an Israeli war as being Israeli as some kind of terrible, unforgettable error that shows the blackness of my heart... when it didn't even affect the main point I was making in the slightest. In my naivete at the time, I assumed the only reason anybody would be interested in the bombs origin is because of the insane Israeli propaganda that 'actually the Iranians blew up their own school to make the West look bad' as mentioned upthread. That would be a meaningful distinction as compared to US vs Israeli bombing, that was what I was most interested in refuting, which I did. So I said it was an Israeli bomb. Damn!
Meanwhile, your main point, that bombing Iran would not affect their likeliness to nuclearize since they already maximally hated Israel and thus Iran should be bombed more aggressively, remains wrong and bizarre and is 10x more bloodthirsty than mine. It is also causing a massive global crisis whose main redeeming feature is that people are going to trust and favour Israel much less in future.
So in conclusion, these kinds of gotchas are neither intelligent nor charismatic, nor particularly likely to make me or anyone else love Jews more.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1mo ago
Are you the Iran Propaganda Minister?
There's clearly a huge gulf between our information sources on this war. You and I are not commentating on the same conflict, at a fundamental level. Maybe you're listening to the mainstream, 'approved' sources. I too saw a little bit of them. On day 1 they were clearly expecting some kind of mass revolution that overthrows the regime. They were clearly delusional. These are the same people who just recycle atrocity propaganda and 'Israeli government sources confirm' or 'US military announces' as news.
If the war was going well, would the Trump administration really be unsanctioning Iranian oil? They're flailing around like a drowning man.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
5mo ago
That is my ought - it would be good for human flourishing if countries expected wars of aggression to not be net positive at the margin
Well to really achieve this, you need true world hegemony where one power is so strong that it can rule the world and prevent any shift in the balance of power. China's plan is to become so strong that they can trounce the US and allies directly. No amount of credibility or 'resolve' can compensate for outright weakness.
Alternately, widescale nuclear proliferation. The non-proliferation treaty is another example where the natural defensive tendencies of various powers have been suppressed by a world of vibes and theory. As the balance of power shifts, states are inevitably going to nuclearize and probably in a more dangerous and chaotic way than if the natural course of affairs developed.
I think people are too fixated on the status quo of the past 20 or 30 years, where the US could wreck weak countries at will while the strong countries were mostly independent inside their borders. It's not natural for only America to have a foreign policy, for American wars to be 'counter-terrorism' or 'police action' or 'pre-emptive strikes' while other people's wars are 'illegal invasions'. All great powers will have their own foreign policies, that's how it works. There is nothing that can be done to persuade China to accept an international system where they can't invade or install friendly govts where they like but the US can. China has armies and fleets, nukes and tech, they are made to be used.
I would be really interested in who you think "ought" to win, who would you prefer, based on what you have written above?
I'm sympathetic to Russia taking Russian-majority parts of Ukraine in abstract but I also think this war is net-negative for Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the Western bloc. We in the West could've and should've resolved it before it happened by making credible promises about our intentions for Russia and Ukraine, by doing nothing with Ukraine, pretending it didn't exist rather than waving a red flag to a bull. In RAND reports from before the war they talk about ways to put pressure on Russia by arming and getting closer with Ukraine, you can sense that it's about point-scoring in Syria and Libya, imposing costs on Russia like they're a naughty schoolboy. We're not in school, there is no police to call and routinely attacking an
I don't think putting pressure on Russia is a good idea, it just pushes them closer to China. Russia can do all kinds of things to impose costs on us if they want.
We should've been wooing Russia away from China. What ought to have happened is that our statesmen should've displayed elementary diplomacy and grand strategy, stopped huffing vibes about Euro-Atlantic integration and the open-door policy, learnt to prioritize and delay gratification.
I don't see any good ending now, only bad and worse endings. The key lesson is to break out of the stultifying prison of vibes that we're still immersed in.
WW1 for sure and WW2 in part happened because states (mainly but not just Germany) were assuming that their limited and focused wars could come out as solidly net positive
WW2 was as bad as it was due to a conflict between vibes-based and realist strategic thought. The UK and France decided to declare war on Germany in 1939 for the sake of Poland, who they had no plan or hope of defending but guaranteed anyway. It makes zero sense to do this. Hitler, quite reasonably, did not expect this insane behaviour. If Chaimberlain understood what he was doing, was prepared to prioritize and strategize, WW2 would've been a quick and easy victory. He could've made an alliance with Germany against Russia, then perhaps betrayed Germany. He could've allied with Russia against Germany, at the cost of Poland. He could've just done nothing, rearmed at home and waited for a better opportunity. He could've worked with Italy if it weren't for some idiot journalists revealing the partition plan for Ethiopia and wrecking the Stresa front (this was before Chaimberlain got into office tbf).
Anything would've been better than 'diplomacy so shit that Russia and Germany (who deeply hate eachother) ally against us' and 'military so weak we can't attack while Germany is conquering Poland' and 'declare war on Germany anyway.'
But Chaimberlain was entranced by vibes and bungled so badly the world's greatest empire was destroyed. And Poland was absolutely wrecked. Another massive failure for the vibes-based school of international relations, which they somehow repackage as proof that you need 'resolve' and not to 'appease'. No, countries need to think strategically and pick between a range of options based on the situation and their capabilities.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
7mo ago
The joke is that the US is already a mess from the perspective of outsiders. Economically and technologically advanced, socially backwards. Any actual improvement is so unimaginable to Americans they come up with these warped eschatological narratives about civil war or apocalypse, or they twist themselves around to see this weird lifestyle as normal and any change as a threat. Like a nation of people who tunnel and dig in refuge from a self-inflicted disaster, only to be dazzled and frightened when they see the sun or feel fresh air, rebelling against surface.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Ukraine seems to be more and more desperate for peace. They seem to have given up on making gains in the primary theatre in the east and gone after Kursk instead, looking to use it as a bargaining tool for the short-term.
However it takes two to tango and the Russians have repeatedly indicated they're not interesting in negotiating until the goals of the SMO are achieved. Presumably this means annexing all of their claimed provinces, demilitarizing the country and installing some kind of new government in Ukraine for the 'denazification' angle. I expect this to happen. When a great power is fully committed to defeating a middle power, there's not going to be a ceasefire, they'll win. Everyone agrees the Russians have more POWs than Ukraine, presumably they must have inflicted more casualties. They do have more firepower and more manpower.
Possibly there's some kind of contingency where NATO troops enter should the Ukrainian army disintegrate, as Macron has threatened. At that point, everything is up in the air. Then this war would truly become like Korea, where we have two great powers at war.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2yr ago
hollowed out by an institutional culture of lying. Of course, China is probably in a similar state,
Chinese ships don't accidentally crash into civilian shipping, nor do their light carriers burn down in port, nor is their fleet actually shrinking year-on-year. When it comes to quality and naval professionalism, China seems to be well ahead of the US navy.
As for an institutional culture of lying... the Afghanistan War? The defeat against the Taliban with about 1/100th the funding of the US/NATO force, supported by no foreign power at all? Staying on ten years despite it being clear that the US was not going to achieve its objectives, while the Taliban was? Constantly lying to the public and saying things were going fine? Junior officers being ignored when they pointed out the entire thing was a massive farce with zero chance of success, that the 'allies' they were trying to train were drug addicts and pedophiles?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3yr ago
OK, let's ditch the average photos. I was looking for some kind of yardstick to measure from. That's clearly very difficult.
I think you have to be more than 'not overweight, non-white or slobby' to be attractive.
For example, take another real image, this time of the US's 1999 world cup soccer team. All but one of these women fulfills your triple criteria. Are they all attractive though? 9 is attractive IMO, followed by 11 and maybe 6. That's 2.5 or 3/11. The others aren't really attractive, though I'll concede that the camera angle isn't flattering.
My base assumption is that few 36 year old women will be attractive. Young people are more attractive than older people. Not everyone's going to get an attractive partner, that's life.
Maybe she just has really low ability in maths but has otherwise fine working memory and similar.
Some people are like that.
And she can just use AI for maths.
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