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synoptic

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Everything posted by synoptic

  1. To clarify my position, I think certain gun restrictions are the bare minimum. I think there should also be restrictions by how such events get reported and what information about the killers is made available, as there are groups of young men who go online and glorify these killers and dream up plans to hurt as many people as possible; I think this should also be actively followed and shut down. Didn't mean to ruffle feathers during a tragedy.
  2. I stated twice I'm for most of the proposed changes to gun laws. I think those will have some beneficial impact. Who stated this? I think there are additional things we could do as a society beyond mere gun restriction laws to identify and stop potential killers.
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack#:~:text=On the evening of 14,a Tunisian living in France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing Yes, by definition that is true.
  4. Again, I'm for most of the gun laws proposed in this thread and I agree that in certain instances an individual will inflict fewer casualties without the use of guns. But if a person wants to kill groups of children and doesn't have access to guns, then they will figure some other way. It's naive to think these simple gun restrictions will fix the problem. The highest mass casualty events often don't involve guns.
  5. I had a similar experience in Italy. All of the devout religious folks I knew in the US were fiscally/economically conservative (or at least claimed to be) and generally disliked socialism. In Italy all the devout Catholics I met were very left economically. They have a term for it that I forget exactly but something like cattolicommunista and they generally associated religious folks with the left.
  6. Leftists with questions need to get their shit together.
  7. Using the phrase from Bateshorn:
  8. Christian leftists/christian socialists/catholic communists that are more common in Europe don't fit neatly into either US political camp. But if you were to poll them on various positions they would have more in common with the US left. Another way to put it is that if their choice was between Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders they would choose Sanders in a heartbeat. But the US left not claiming them (even if true) does not somehow make them the voice for the intellectual right.
  9. As mentioned by F250 above, she expresses typical Christian socialist views that are common in European countries and other parts of the world. Not in any way a spokesperson for the American right. She's also not really a monarchist. She is also just a sole person who is just an opinion piece writer, so not a representative of anything except maybe the upper middle class millennial US Christian socialist demographic. Yep. Lots of them in Europe.
  10. So she has been writing articles advocating for democratic socialism for several years now to gain followers as a sleeper reactionary right agent?
  11. I just google searched this person. She is a democratic socialist opinion writer for the Atlantic. A self described leftist and socialist opinion writer makes a joke reference to Plato's Republic on twitter and the conclusion is that the intellectual right is all in on autocracy.
  12. I've never heard of this lady but she is obviously not being serious. It is a facetious reference to the philosopher kings described in the Plato's Republic as being divinely inspired and compelled by a superior power to have the charge of the state. Sounds like her original point is that merely being democratic is not sufficient for just governance.
  13. Religions are not fundamentally about books as the vast majority of religions never had a book or writings of any type. Many religions don't have much to say about the afterlife, either, and some say explicitly that there is no afterlife. I think an aspect of religion is driven by some base psychology that humans use to connect in groups via ritual. This extends beyond religions and is seen within most any large organized entity, at sporting events, and bizarre corporate team building gatherings. I think many people in the west associate religion with books because of protestants' obsession with the bible. The most organized and powerful religious groups in the world today come with rituals, central books & writings, ethical codes, and metaphysical views, and so people tend to see one or all of these as the defining characteristics of religion. My view is that the defining characteristics of religion are certain metaphysical claims and ritual. You combine these two things and you have a religion. But neither writings nor ethical code are required.
  14. Long time watch fanatic thread reader, first time poster. Just got the Nomos club sport neomatik. Very happy with it so far. My wrist is 7 1/8", but a bit rectangular (wide across but thin top to bottom) so many watches don't fit me well. For example, Panerai is ideal diameter for me but the case thickness causes a large gap between my wrist and bracelet/band near the lugs. This watch is 42 mm, 52.3 lug to lug, and only 10.2 thick. The fit is perfect for me. The movement is in house (DUW 6101) self winding with date wheel that can be turned in either direction. Nomos claims to manufacture all components, even their own escapement, in Glashutte. If you are looking for a simple dial with large diameter and thin casing, I think Nomos has some great offerings. Also, lume is super powerful even in medium light settings:
  15. I posted in wrong thread on account of being idiot.
  16. Long time watch fanatic thread reader, first time poster. Just got the Nomos club sport neomatik. Very happy with it so far. My wrist is 7 1/8", but a bit rectangular (wide across but thin top to bottom) so many watches don't fit me well. For example, Panerai is ideal diameter for me but the case thickness causes a large gap between my wrist and bracelet/band near the lugs. This watch is 42 mm, 52.3 lug to lug, and only 10.2 thick. The fit is perfect for me. The movement is in house (DUW 6101) self winding with date wheel that can be turned in either direction. Nomos claims to manufacture all components, even their own escapement, in Glashutte. If you are looking for a simple dial with large diameter and thin casing, I think Nomos has some great offerings. Also, lume is super powerful even in medium light settings:
  17. Low IQ is not the problem with regards to free speech abuse. I don't put much stock in IQ anyway, as it is just a measure of how well people can solve specific puzzle types within a given time frame. But even if we muzzled all the below median IQ people it wouldn't eliminate the most disruptive provocateurs. Shapiro has been mentioned in this thread; do you think he would fail to score above median IQ? Successful provocateurs are not slow witted people. They may have moral deficiencies, but not IQ puzzle related deficiency.
  18. This is correct. The most accurate and reliable Russian ballistic missiles are the Bulava SLBM and the Yars ICBM. That is what they will likely lead with and what a given city has the greatest chance of getting hit with. Both of these have 100 - 200 kT war heads. A 200 kT warhead has a fireball/instant vaporization radius of less than half a mile. The kill radius is much larger than that, but if you aren't within half a mile of a strike, chances are you won't be vaporized. https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
  19. This is exactly right. There is simply no way that Russia, China, NK will will give up their nukes (we wouldn't, either). Russia still invests heavily in their nuclear arsenal and currently has new weapons in development. The ICBM club is an elite club with many privileges; just think how different our engagement with Russia would be if they didn't have them. Ukraine gave up their nukes after collapse of Soviet Union with guarantees from Russia and look how that worked out for them. No way Russia would be invading if they still had them. Since denuking is not a realistic option, let's figure out a way to block them to neutralize the threat. Otherwise civilization will continue to live under the nuclear sword of Damocles, which I do not believe is an acceptable permanent solution.
  20. The obvious problem with this is who is the one who gets to label what ideas are intolerant? For example, Putin is (falsely) arguing that he is not tolerating nazis. Almost any dispute now has both sides claiming the other side is intolerant/nazis. If you make carve outs for free speech based on simple categorization terms, then those terms will then just get applied to everything and lose all meaning. The only viable solution in our modern information age is an educated society that is trained on critical thinking and rhetoric to see through the falsehoods themselves.
  21. Last attempt at improved formatting: Russian Arsenal Missile Name Class Basing Began Operation Range (miles) Number in operation Number of warheads per missile Warhead Delivery Accuracy (CEP) Yield per warhead (kT) Number of deliverable warheads Total yield R-29R Vysota (SS-N-18) Stingray SLBM Submarine 1977 4,000 32 3 MIRV 900 m 50 96 48 MT R-29RM Shtil (SS-N-23) Sineva SLBM Submarine 1986 5,150 96 4 MIRV 500 m 100 320 32 MT RSM-56 (SS-N-32) Bulava SLBM Submarine 2013 5,150 80 10 MIRV 250 m 100 - 160 320 51.2 MT R-36 (SS-18 ) Mod 6 Satan ICBM Silo based 1988 6,800 46 10 MIRV 500 m 500 - 750 460 345 MT UR-100NUTTH (SS-19 Mod 3) Stiletto ICBM Silo based 1980 6,200 20 6 MIRV 900 m 400 - 500 120 60 MT Topol (SS-25) Sickle ICBM Road mobile 1988 6,800 150 1 Single 900 m 550 – 800 72 120 MT Topol-M (SS-27 Mod 1) Sickle B ICBM Road mobile and silo 1997 6,800 80 1 Single 200 m 550 78 44 MT RS-24 Yars (SS-27 Mod 2) Yars ICBM Road mobile and silo 2010 6,500 73 3 MIRV 150 m 150 - 200 219 43.8 MT US Arsenal Missile Name Class Basing Began Operation Range (miles) Number in operation Number of warheads per missile Warhead Delivery Accuracy (CEP) Yield per warhead (kT) Number of deliverable warheads Total yield UGM-133 Trident II D5 Trident SLBM Submarine 1990 7,450 240 8 MIRV 90 m 100 - 475 1920 912 MT LGM-30G Minuteman III Minuteman III ICBM Silo based 1970 8,050 440 1 Single 120 m 300 - 475 440 176 MT
  22. We have some missile ground defense interceptors ion the west coast (California and Alaska) and ship based capability called the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. But these are limited in scope, coverage, and effectiveness: "A new study sponsored by the American Physical Society concludes that U.S. systems for intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles cannot be relied on to counter even a limited nuclear strike and are unlikely to achieve reliability within the next 15 years." https://www.aip.org/fyi/2022/physicists-argue-us-icbm-defenses-are-unreliable Regarding treaties, we were under the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) from 1972-2002 that limited their development, but we are currently not under any treaty on ballistic defense systems. We are under an arms reduction treaty with Russia - New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). But this only puts limits on the number of deployed nuclear weapons and launchers.
  23. The technical challenges of blocking sufficiently high percentage of incoming SLBM/ICBM warheads are incredibly difficult to solve. It would be like several hundred meteorites falling to the US at once with and we can't let any make contact. Then there is also the treaties and political side to deal with. I only included the current operational weapons. They have other doomsday type weapons in development, such as the Poseidon or Status-6 torpedo discussed in the video. Some reports claim they would cobalt salt the warhead on the torpedo so it would poison the entire globe. But the weapon is not operational yet and it has many challenges. We have the best missile defense tech in the world. But it's far away from stopping a multiple ICBM w/MIRV attack.
  24. The long enough timeline argument assumes that our defense systems and other prevention efforts don't significantly improve over time and I don't think that will be the case. Maybe we eventually get really good at shooting down missiles and they become obsolete; maybe we start reducing global stockpile and get really good at preventing future development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles by other states. The 2nd one is already occurring.
  25. War is an economic enterprise for the powerful nations and launching nukes is bad economics. Look at the situation Russia is in now. Why don't they fire a nuke at Ukraine and settle everything in about 30 minutes? The reason is that it is not in their best interests to do so. It is virtually never in the best interests for a major industrial power to launch nuclear missiles, which is why it hasn't happened in decades despite global tension and instability. Any country that can develop lang range ballistic missiles (not merely test a fission bomb) has lots to lose and is rarely facing existential threat. Now it's certainly possible that former world powers decay and weapons get in the wrong hands, or enough tension emerges between two powers where an existential threat is perceived and they get used. I agree that is very possible they get used, maybe even probable. But a certainty? I don't think so. Agree. Even all out nuclear war is not likely to end humanity. Both sides will direct 100-500 kiloton warheads to specific targets (not likely to cause long duration nuclear winter) and large parts of the globe will go with no strikes. Hard reset, but not extinction.
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