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Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

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Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#51

Post by number6 »

ashtonkem wrote: post #26
number6 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was one of the greatest hacking ever done by a US President. Sad that it had to come to this but thats on the Democrats. I bet Biden would be to weak to do it. But you can't be weak when it comes to defending the nation. America First! Yep... I can imagine the face...

This feels like a Poe’s law moment.

I didn't knew Poe's law. Yes this is a parody and I guess you all know the president I am talking about. This ideas are created with sensible persons in mind. But not all politicians are sensible people

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#52

Post by number6 »

polotics wrote: post #10
number6 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was one of the greatest hacking ever done by a US President. Sad that it had to come to this but thats on the Democrats. I bet Biden would be to weak to do it. But you can't be weak when it comes to defending the nation. America First! Yep... I can imagine the face...

You seem to be confusing stupidity with strength. Also confusing violence with strength. All these things are unrelated, except I guess the more stupid one is, the more one needs strength to exert violence...

I meant this as a parody but that you take this at face value is just the point I wanted to make.

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#53

Post by andreareina »

newswasboring wrote: post #35
andreareina wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem with Poe's law, you can never be sure.

That's not a problem, that _is_ Poe's Law. That you can't be sure.

That was an apparently-unsuccessful reference to this: https://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25

In any case, descriptive though it is I would argue that there can be a problem associated with Poe's law. Not in the same sense as prescriptions (e.g. Postel's maxim, "be liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send"), where you could argue whether or not it's a good principle in general or in specific cases. But from my standpoint as someone using sarcasm to point out the absurdity of something, someone taking me at face value is a problem.

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#54

Post by petertodd »

dotancohen wrote: post #50
sto_hristo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield. Civilians move the country's industry, which is directed towards the war effort. War is not about a front, somewhere away, in the distance, where soldiers throw lead at each other at high speeds. Everyone is involved in it one way or another. These were industrial cities related to that war effort, not summer seaside camps. Besides... the drawn out and bloody WW…

> Being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield. In my army it does. We take all precautions to shield civilians where practical. I'm an infantryman and I've seen soldiers continue to take fire to protect Arab civilians from getting caught in the middle. I cannot tell you if by policy that is a result of every time the Israeli army so much as scratches an Arab civilian that it becomes international news, but…

> In my army it does. We take all precautions to shield civilians where practical.

In Afghtanistan, the Taliban represented well under 1% of the population(1). In WWII 31% of the German population, and 9% of the American population, were in military service. Those are just two very different wars, fought at very different scales.

A good example of this is in WWII it seems that it was fairly common for planes to strafe farmers and their equipment when they got an opportunity(3). In Afghanistan this would be incredibly counter productive, as so few Afghans were actually fighting. But in WWII? When a full 1/3rd of the population is in the military - and much of the rest is working in the industries necessary to keep the military running - ethics aside, it's easy to see how anything that reduced food supplies would have a direct effect on the effectiveness of the military.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban - reports 60k Taliban / 37 million Afghtanistan population = 0.16%

2) http://historynet.com/what-percentage-of-the-population-serv...

3) https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/3nla50/allie...

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#55

Post by sto_hristo »

dotancohen wrote: post #50
sto_hristo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield. Civilians move the country's industry, which is directed towards the war effort. War is not about a front, somewhere away, in the distance, where soldiers throw lead at each other at high speeds. Everyone is involved in it one way or another. These were industrial cities related to that war effort, not summer seaside camps. Besides... the drawn out and bloody WW…

> Being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield. In my army it does. We take all precautions to shield civilians where practical. I'm an infantryman and I've seen soldiers continue to take fire to protect Arab civilians from getting caught in the middle. I cannot tell you if by policy that is a result of every time the Israeli army so much as scratches an Arab civilian that it becomes international news, but…

Nobody is talking about indiscriminate murder of randomly picked civilians out of spite. But when those civilians are the machine that drives the war, they become part of that war. That is why in a total war between nations you send hundreds of planes to carpet bomb relevant cities (incl. their population) to cripple enemy nation's ability to keep waging the war against you. They are not sent to bomb ski resorts or villages where nothing happens.

Do you consider someone that puts together IEDs for someone else to deploy an untouchable person that your need to leave alone? This person is unarmed, he's not a combatant, he's no threat to you, he just googled how to put a bunch of stuff together.

I know for myself, that if i find myself in the middle of a war i don't believe in, i'd pick my shit up and leave immediately, go anywhere else. I wouldn't just stay where i am, coding my web apps next to a goddamn bomb factory or HQ of some kind in complete denial of my surroundings, the current situation, and reality itself, while bombs are being air mailed to said factory/HQ next to me. But if chose to stay either because i want to be part of that war or am simply clueless, i can't blame anyone but me for the situation i find myself in.

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#56

Post by ncmncm »

sgt101 wrote: post #25
ncmncm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breathtaking, isn't it? But it doesn't mean that, at all. All it really means is that we were taken in by a PR scam that had nothing to do with launch security, and everything to do with getting civilians off the backs of serious soldiers who considered themselves better qualified to make decisions than the politicians. And all it cost to run was to have one of the president's minders carry around a satchel that the…

So the US nuclear arsenal is commanded by the generals?

We just don't know.

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#57

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

cambinoda wrote: post #42
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #40

Well, the President has men in his service who have killed people before and would not hesitate to do it again at the President's order, be the target innocent or not. So the President would never have to bloody his or her hands and the whole trick would only cost one more senseless death, among the millions to follow immediately after. But I suppose it's an interesting reflection on the moral implications of grantin…

> So the President would never have to bloody his or her hands You missed the point. The whole argument is that if POTUS had to kill someone, they wouldn’t make the decision to kill many others. “The winning move is not to play,” as Joshua said in War Games (1983). They wouldn’t actually put the president in the situation, it’s just a sanity check thought experiment. Nukes are expensive posturing- the big stick to ho…

I understand that. But if the POTUS could order someone to do the dirty job for them, then they wouldn't actually have to think about it, so they'd remain removed from the reality of killing someone (or a few million people). So the POTUS doesn't have to play or not play- they are immune to this kind of morality experiment. It's like trying to second-guess god (a non-existent entity). What have we learned from the exercise?

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#58

Post by majewsky »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #57
cambinoda wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the President would never have to bloody his or her hands You missed the point. The whole argument is that if POTUS had to kill someone, they wouldn’t make the decision to kill many others. “The winning move is not to play,” as Joshua said in War Games (1983). They wouldn’t actually put the president in the situation, it’s just a sanity check thought experiment. Nukes are expensive posturing- the big stick to ho…

I understand that. But if the POTUS could order someone to do the dirty job for them, then they wouldn't actually have to think about it, so they'd remain removed from the reality of killing someone (or a few million people). So the POTUS doesn't have to play or not play- they are immune to this kind of morality experiment. It's like trying to second-guess god (a non-existent entity). What have we learned from the ex…

The difference is that the volunteer would be someone walking around with them all the time, so if POTUS wants it or not, they would eventually get to know each other at least a bit, which makes a killing decision more personal (even if not executed by POTUS themselves).

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#59

Post by dotancohen »

sto_hristo wrote: post #55
dotancohen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield. In my army it does. We take all precautions to shield civilians where practical. I'm an infantryman and I've seen soldiers continue to take fire to protect Arab civilians from getting caught in the middle. I cannot tell you if by policy that is a result of every time the Israeli army so much as scratches an Arab civilian that it becomes international news, but…

Nobody is talking about indiscriminate murder of randomly picked civilians out of spite. But when those civilians are the machine that drives the war, they become part of that war. That is why in a total war between nations you send hundreds of planes to carpet bomb relevant cities (incl. their population) to cripple enemy nation's ability to keep waging the war against you. They are not sent to bomb ski resorts or v…

Maybe if your occupation is coding web apps online, then you can pick up and go.

Many of the Arab families in the area have a dozen children per wife, and live off agriculture, herding, or have workshops, bakeries, and the like. None of these people could even move their families, much less their livelihoods.

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#60

Post by manicdee »

sgt101 wrote: post #24
manicdee wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the situation is that the security is something you are rather than something you have . To initiate a launch against PRC, Russia would have had to fake being the President and the entourage including various military brass who would have been able to confirm the identity of the elected official. Thus the nuclear launch codes served the same purpose as red mercury.

This isn't how the launch orders are issued. Submarines do not have a voice channel to the president, or to the military command. They receive coded signals that instruct them to take particular actions. Creating the appropriate coded signal is a fundamental part of the launch control chain. Also if the president is killed, and the vice president and the head of the senate... eventually the question is "who has the c…

The codes used to signal submarines are demonstrably not the “nuclear launch codes”. The military hierarchy is established and chain of command is already established for contingencies like “who gives orders when the top brass are assassinated.”
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