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A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

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Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#251

Post by dingaling »

swarnie_ wrote: post #218
yesenadam wrote: post #216

> Has Tech Destroyed Society? I recently watched the documentary The Man Who Saved the World [0], about Stanislav Petrov, who one day in 1983 made the decision to ignore the early warning system computers telling him the USA had fired 5 missiles at the USSR.[1] It seems had he followed orders, a report to his superiors would have resulted in mass retaliation. The decision was in his hands. In the movie, as well as a…

> in 1985 the USA had 21,000+ nuclear weapons, USSR 39,000+. This is one of the facts from this era which seems completely irrational to me. Considering the damage each one of these devices can do why do you need so many. Lets presume you're in fact a genocidal maniac (i didn't say the roleplaying would be difficult America) 1 bomb per enemy military installation and 1 bomb per population centre over 100k population…

> Why do you need the other 18,000 bombs?

Second-wave strategic targets ( surviving silos, airfields, ports and C3 facilities )

Tactical targets ( tank formations , POL depots, troop assembly areas, aviation FOBs )

Naval targets ( submarines, surface vessels, sonar installations )

Mobility targets ( bridges, valleys, tunnels )

Plus accounting for failed weapons, losses en route, missed targets...

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#252

Post by fakedang »

lwhi wrote: post #224
swarnie_ wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in 1985 the USA had 21,000+ nuclear weapons, USSR 39,000+. This is one of the facts from this era which seems completely irrational to me. Considering the damage each one of these devices can do why do you need so many. Lets presume you're in fact a genocidal maniac (i didn't say the roleplaying would be difficult America) 1 bomb per enemy military installation and 1 bomb per population centre over 100k population…

The doctrine was M.A.D. .. or mutually assured distruction[1]. I believe the (arguably crazy) idea was that the weapons wouldn't ever be used. The fact that each nuclear superpower has a similar amount of weapons assured that the equalibrium would stop the worst from happening. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

MAD keeps India from eliminating Pakistan, or China from eliminating India, or any of the Arab states vs Israel, or NK vs USA. MAD is a core doctrine of most countries' defences even today. It's the reason Iran wants to obtain them ASAP.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#253

Post by imtringued »

mywittyname wrote: post #161
Bakary wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically hydrogen is having a renaissance as we speak

Only because natural gas is so damn cheap it almost isn't worth selling. If you're a natural gas producer, it makes a lot of sense to pump hydrogen fuel. Ignorant* people think it is green, so it is an easy sell to the populous. Since it is actually made from NatGas, the success of hydrogen would be a significant boon to a substance that has been teetering on the edge of being industrial waste for years. * Unknowing,…

In theory you can capture the carbon at the point source. It would be far cheaper than capturing it directly from the air.

Although I think turning natural gas into hydrogen is wasteful it still proves that current usage of fossil fuels is not sustainable by showing that a "sort of" sustainable way of using fossil fuels exists.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#254

Post by imtringued »

narrator wrote: post #117
shortandsweet wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I want to start a club of people like us. At a library with a coffee shop and bar included. Bunch of us philosophical peeps chillin and talking shit but nobody gets mad. I would love such a paradise.

It's called 4chan.

I think he is thinking smaller. Maybe 10 people at most.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#255

Post by imtringued »

hawkice wrote: post #32
Nition wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bet wasn't that society would collapse, but that it would be "not even close" to collapse, which is a much more difficult question to answer.

The stakes were so extreme that it _is_ pretty easy to answer. Sure, there have been economic cycles, but the bet was whether the dollar is _worthless_ -- we are so far from it the Fed still can't reliably meet their inflation targets. A rebellion of the rich against the monied? Surely you're joking. And while global warming marches on, the 'significant number of environmental collapses' haven't happened, and we know…

If there will be any collapse it is still 50 years out. A war doesn't count. The world got better after WW2. Life finds a way.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#256

Post by serpix »

atomashpolskiy wrote: post #221
swarnie_ wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in 1985 the USA had 21,000+ nuclear weapons, USSR 39,000+. This is one of the facts from this era which seems completely irrational to me. Considering the damage each one of these devices can do why do you need so many. Lets presume you're in fact a genocidal maniac (i didn't say the roleplaying would be difficult America) 1 bomb per enemy military installation and 1 bomb per population centre over 100k population…

Maybe because silos are an important target for the attacking side? So you want to have many in order to reduce the risk of being left without arms in case your enemy attacks first?

Absolute madness, you and your enemy will be dead anyway from the fallout and nuclear winter.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#257

Post by bambax »

yesenadam wrote: post #216

> Has Tech Destroyed Society? I recently watched the documentary The Man Who Saved the World [0], about Stanislav Petrov, who one day in 1983 made the decision to ignore the early warning system computers telling him the USA had fired 5 missiles at the USSR.[1] It seems had he followed orders, a report to his superiors would have resulted in mass retaliation. The decision was in his hands. In the movie, as well as a…

It's possible that had "AI" been in charge at that time, the world would have been destroyed. I don't think "AI" is a threat in itself but relying on technology to make life-or-death decisions without human application, feels extremely dangerous.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#258

Post by tonyedgecombe »

simonh wrote: post #214
fabianhjr wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from Latin America though and have a 0.025 USD / year tuition on my current math undergrad education, public healthcare, and a more robust social security net overall.

Sure. I'm a capitalist and free marketeer, but support social security systems and even public health care. I think the US goes too far, particularly it's health care system is appalling, but I have to admit it's thin employment protections do make it a lot more flexible and responsive to economic conditions. Just look at how rapidly it recovered from the 2008 crisis compared to Europe, it was a whole year ahead of u…

Recovered from the 2008 crisis that it caused. Those sub-prime mortgages were all in the US.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#259

Post by aero-glide2 »

Bakary wrote: post #131
sircastor wrote: post #119

I’m reminded of a long bet made a number of years ago between Joseph Romm and Greg Blencoe that 1% of car sales in the US would be Hydrogen Fuel cell vehicles by 2015. I’d done a report on this in college and completely forgot about it, probably because hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are near impossible to find on the consumer market. So Blencoe lost the bet and paid Romm the $1000 and wore a T-shirt. He posted a very s…

Ironically hydrogen is having a renaissance as we speak

I see the opposite happening - electric winning and hydrogen losing. Airbus still wants to make hydrogen planes by.. 2035.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#260

Post by QuesnayJr »

fabianhjr wrote: post #185
konjin wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>father to Ada Lovelace the first programmer Babbage was the first programmer seeing as he invented the first computer. Lovelace is a perfect mirror for our society: a vapid socialite with shallow understanding of the problems and a willingness to make grandiose claims without the ability to back them up. That she is a woman just makes it even more blatant that we care nothing for ability as long as it makes for a go…

Here are some of Ada Lovelace's notes on Menebrea's paper on Babbage's Analytical Engine: http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/Files/ada-lovelace-notes.ht... > Again, it [the Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action…

Thanks for providing details. I can think of many phrases for someone who writes careful notes about the promises of a newly-invented technology, but "vapid socialite" isn't one of them.
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