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synoptic

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Posts 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. 8 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

    Also, don't tell me it's exclusively a mental health issue while also reducing access to affordable mental health and/or not requiring insurance companies to cover it as part of a health insurance plan. Fuck off with that "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" bullshit.

    I stated twice I'm for most of the proposed changes to gun laws.  I think those will have some beneficial impact. 

     

    3 minutes ago, mdmost said:

    12 terrorists crashed 3 planes into buildings 20 years ago and we fundamentally changed how you could access airplanes, airplane cockpits, airports, installed massive security systems, and created a billion dollar agency to help ensure it never happened again. But yeah, we can't do anything to solve something that's going to happen one way or the other. 

    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.  

     

     

    • Fuck You 1
  3. 1 minute ago, Macanudo said:

    Show your work.   

    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

     

     

     

    1 minute ago, irishtexan said:

    Fuck off to anyone who uses the old "if a person is crazy he's going to find a way to kill a lot of people. are we going to ban cars next?". It has no relevance to a discussion about how to reduce mass shooter events. 

     

    Yes, by definition that is true.

    • Fuck You 1
  4. 6 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

    19 kids and 2 adults aren’t going to be beaten to death with a crowbar in 30 minutes. It’s a hell of a lot harder to hit running kids with a crowbar than it is with bullets. Guns exponentially increases the chances of mass casualty event over a knife attack, especially when there is a running clock on the response. Is there still a risk of death without a gun?  Sure, but I’ll take those odds over a guy with a semi auto weapon and multiple magazines of ammo 7 days a week. 

    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.    

    • Fuck You 5
  5. 21 minutes ago, F250 said:

    My first encounter with one of these types was with a guy from Ireland. He basically said he agrees with the social conservative Republicans in America but thought their economic policies were abhorrent. Then went on to say American politics didn't make any sense. It took awhile for my brain to process this type of political animal because it is so alien to our political spectrum. I assume our two party system just doesn't allow for such a divergence of views like a multi-party parliamentarian system.

     

    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.   

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  6. 4 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

    there's an intellectual right?

    Using the phrase from Bateshorn:

    7 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

    I don’t want to unsettle anyone, but Elizabeth Bruenig used to write opinion pieces for the NYT, and I believe currently writes for the WAPO.  If she’s talking straight up autocracy, that means the intellectual right is now all in. 

  7. 33 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

    I don’t think anyone on the left claims Elizabeth Bruenig.  She the classic “progressive” who spends most of her time “just asking questions “ about progressive views. 

    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.      

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  8. 6 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

    No. She just likes certain things the left advocates for and wants to associate with them, but is primarily motivated by conservative religious impulses.

    The world is full of liberals who say they aren't liberals and conservatives who say they aren't conservatives. She's hardly unique.

    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.    

     

    2 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

    She's an extremely pro-life social progressive. I imagine there are a lot of women like her in the Roman Catholic Church.

    Yep.  Lots of them in Europe.

  9. 5 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

    Plenty of reactionaries describe themselves as on the left. It doesn't make it true.

    So she has been writing articles advocating for democratic socialism for several years now to gain followers as a sleeper reactionary right agent?  

  10. 4 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

    I don’t want to unsettle anyone, but Elizabeth Bruenig used to write opinion pieces for the NYT, and I believe currently writes for the WAPO.  If she’s talking straight up autocracy, that means the intellectual right is now all in. 

    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.     

  11. 21 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

    Because she's a Catholic integralist who desires a monarchy:

    Image

    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.                                                 

    • Hook 'Em 4
  12. 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.             

  13. 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.

     

    IMG-0372.jpg

     

    Also, lume is super powerful even in medium light settings:

    IMG-0381.jpg

     

     

     

  14. 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.            

  15. 17 hours ago, SomeoneYouKnow2 said:

    I think a lot of you overestimate the 'vaporize' region of even the largest nukes. 

    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/  

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  16. 21 hours ago, immamac said:

    If everyone denukes at the same time in joint fashion that would be the best thing for the world, but it's not happening 

    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.  

  17. 2 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

    That’s stupid. A free speech absolutist is really dumb 

    image.thumb.png.75a0ff44ebe903b442896c2f7a61a05a.png

    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.  

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  18. 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
  19. 14 minutes ago, XYZ said:

    What missile defense tech does the USA have? I thought there was a treaty to not have missile defense tech.

    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.  

  20. 6 hours ago, RPM said:

    Well mainly because people think 1 missile, 1 warhead. That isn't the case. Most ICBM are MIRV Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle. 1 missile multiple warheads shed in flight to different targets. It's hard to hit a missile, it's damn impossible to hit a warhead 5ft long travelling at supersonic speed.

    Cold War out front, etc, etc.

    8183687976_b49fd4dec4_b.jpg

    Slide1.jpg

     

    3 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

    Always thought that we should be able to knock out incoming ICBMs. What’s the big deal, right? Then the internet taught me that ICBMs max altitude is about 5 times than the space station’s. 5 times! It’s basically a space rocket that just drops on top of you and not some cruise missile flying over terrain like from the late 70s Superman movie.

    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.    

     

    35 minutes ago, Chewy's Hairy Horn said:

    I didn’t see these included on OP’s chart.  Warning: this guy’s channel is a rabbit hole you’ll easily get lost in. Clear your afternoon.

     

    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.       

     

    8 minutes ago, Ag with kids said:

    Well, until 2002, we and the Russians/Soviets were bound by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.  Neither of us could deploy ABMs.  The thought was that being able to intercept the other side's ICBMs might make MAD obsolete and lead to a first strike...

    Meh...Our missile defense tech is REALLY good. But, we don't have many ABMs...not nearly enough to stop any Russian full launch.

    We have the best missile defense tech in the world.  But it's far away from stopping a multiple ICBM w/MIRV attack.

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  21. 22 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

    Sure, but that assumes every person in control of nuclear weapons will always act rationally. On a long enough timeline, there will be someone who A) has control of nuclear weapons and B) does not act rationally.

    Hell, nuclear weapons have existed for less than 100 years and we already have a person (Putin) who possibly checks both of those boxes. We're just waiting to see what he does. Even if he does not resort to nuclear warfare, there will eventually be someone worse, unless you think humanity will face another version of extinction first.

    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.  

     

    21 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

    the Tongans finally take over.

    haka-samoa.gif

  22. 5 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

     


    Just curious, why do you feel that way?

    If humans are around for another 1,000 years, it seems like a certainty, unless you believe that world peace will magically be achieved for the first time in our existence. The world is currently at the mercy of a crazy Russian dictator who could decide to use them any day now. Hopefully the present situation has a different outcome, but inevitably crazier dictators will rise to power.

     

    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.        

     

    1 minute ago, wild_turkey said:

    I’m also not sure I agree that nuclear war is the end of humanity. Sure, it could quickly kill off 80% or more of the world population, and render many areas uninhabitable, but it seems unlikely that total extinction is in the cards. There are too many people living in rural areas that would evade nuclear or other forms of war. Seems like it would just be a hard reset and a new human civilization would rise from the ashes.

    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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