Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Operation Popeye

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 21 posts

Re: Operation Popeye

#11

Post by morninglight »

tpmx wrote: post #7

Regarding the effectiveness: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/making-it-rain/ > Operation Popeye had four main objectives: to turn the roads to mud, to cause landslides along roadways, to wash out river crossings, and to keep roads muddier for longer than usual. But cloud seeding at the utime, and even today, is far from an exact science. At best , the military could measure three things: what the average rainf…

> Operation Popeye was deemed effective enough to > continue for five years, from 1967 to 1972."

If this farce had been successful in any way, politicians and their corporate benefactors would have milked it for every dime possible. Remember, this is America and the "success" of a war is only defined by which side of the cash register you stand.

If that is too difficult to comprehend, then consider:

The Vietnam War was deemed effective enough to continue for twenty years, from 1955 to 1975.

The Iraq War was deemed effective enough to continue from 2003 to present.

The War in Afghanistan was deemed effective enough to continue from 2001–present.

Re: Operation Popeye

#12

Post by tpmx »

morninglight wrote: post #11
tpmx wrote: post #7

Regarding the effectiveness: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/making-it-rain/ > Operation Popeye had four main objectives: to turn the roads to mud, to cause landslides along roadways, to wash out river crossings, and to keep roads muddier for longer than usual. But cloud seeding at the utime, and even today, is far from an exact science. At best , the military could measure three things: what the average rainf…

> Operation Popeye was deemed effective enough to > continue for five years, from 1967 to 1972." If this farce had been successful in any way, politicians and their corporate benefactors would have milked it for every dime possible. Remember, this is America and the "success" of a war is only defined by which side of the cash register you stand. If that is too difficult to comprehend, then consider: The Vietnam War w…

> If that is too difficult to comprehend, then consider:

Gee, thanks there, buddy. :/

Re: Operation Popeye

#13

Post by jedimastert »

owenmarshall wrote: post #2

Interesting list of goals, how it was implemented, how it is now illegal... But nowhere on the page does anyone say "it worked!" or "it was a boondoggle!", let alone share a statistical analysis that says "rain changed by X sigma over normal". That's a bit disappointing.

Because of the wiiiiiiiide variance in weather patterns, rain conditions, and the like, it would be very difficult to pull data from the noise with out a very long running widescale experiement.

Re: Operation Popeye

#15

Post by hirundo »

So often conspiracy theories are incorrect not because nobody conspired but because they tried and failed. Nudging complex systems in the preferred direction is hard.

Re: Operation Popeye

#16

Post by saagarjha »

> The former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, was aware that there might be objections raised by the international scientific community but said in a memo to the president that such objections had not in the past been a basis for prevention of military activities considered to be in the interests of U.S. national security.

A somewhat unfortunate use of precedent…

Re: Operation Popeye

#17

Post by seiferteric »

hirundo wrote: post #15

So often conspiracy theories are incorrect not because nobody conspired but because they tried and failed. Nudging complex systems in the preferred direction is hard .

Even if it was effective, they wouldn't tell you anyways. The CIA is known for this, they will claim it didn't work as cover.

Re: Operation Popeye

#18

Post by jshevek »

morninglight wrote: post #11
tpmx wrote: post #7

Regarding the effectiveness: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/making-it-rain/ > Operation Popeye had four main objectives: to turn the roads to mud, to cause landslides along roadways, to wash out river crossings, and to keep roads muddier for longer than usual. But cloud seeding at the utime, and even today, is far from an exact science. At best , the military could measure three things: what the average rainf…

> Operation Popeye was deemed effective enough to > continue for five years, from 1967 to 1972." If this farce had been successful in any way, politicians and their corporate benefactors would have milked it for every dime possible. Remember, this is America and the "success" of a war is only defined by which side of the cash register you stand. If that is too difficult to comprehend, then consider: The Vietnam War w…

>If that is too difficult to comprehend, then consider:

>Be kind. Don't be snarky.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Operation Popeye

#19

Post by duxup »

seiferteric wrote: post #17
hirundo wrote: post #15

So often conspiracy theories are incorrect not because nobody conspired but because they tried and failed. Nudging complex systems in the preferred direction is hard .

Even if it was effective, they wouldn't tell you anyways. The CIA is known for this, they will claim it didn't work as cover.

The CIA telling you or not isn't really a factor if we know about it from a leak, they're not deciding.

But more realistically if their cloud seeding was like so many other attempts...they don't know if it works or not.

Re: Operation Popeye

#20

Post by zapttt »

"For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property, but the charges were later dismissed after prosecutors investigating the Watergate scandal discovered that the staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg."

... we never learn.

Post reply on HN