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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18499 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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To calibrate, what would you require to believe that story?

I'm agnostic on what happened, but knowing the base rate of laundry fires taking out carriers in the US military would be useful information.

It's not specifically laundry, but Fire at Sea: A 70-year Review of Fire-Related Mass Casualty Events on U.S. Aircraft Carriers may be of interest in this regard!

Since World War II, no attack on a large U.S. Navy capital ship has occurred during combat operations

we reviewed mass casualty events from major fires aboard large U.S. Navy aircraft carriers[1] from 1950 through 2020

Of 246 fires identified, 27 met inclusion criteria resulting in 1,634 casualties with a combined crew mortality of 23% of those injured.

The majority of major fire mishaps involved aircraft carriers[1], and none were the result of an enemy attack

[1] the reason behind this potential contradiction is inconsistent usage/definition of large-hull amphibious assault ships as "aircraft carriers" or not in the abstract vs text.

That is extremely compelling, if not what I would call reassuring. Thanks.

If I recall correctly, carriers typically dock for maintenance every six months, this one's been adventuring for a year now.

That does shift my opinion toward the laundry explanation, thanks. That's a lot of lint.

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