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Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

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Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#201

Post by quickthrowman »

082349872349872 wrote: post #35
tgv wrote: post #25

In "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Rhodes, a poignant point was made, originating from people like Bohr, who were definitely on the peaceful side: without demonstrating the effect of the atomic bomb, the "nuclear taboo" would not have come into existence, and the first large conflict between nuclear powers would have seen a terrible outcome. The use of the bomb was inevitable, so it was sadly better to use it in a…

That might have been a better argument if the USSR[0] had had the bomb in 1945[1]? Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw#t=15s [0] first test: 29.08.1949 [1] a year in which the US and USSR were, however tenuously, still allied

Japan was better off in the long run being occupied solely by the US instead of a split occupation with the Soviets like Germany. If we hadn’t dropped the two bombs, the Soviets were set to invade northern Japan.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#203

Post by eropple »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #200
bryanlarsen wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump's first term was basically another 4 more years of Bush. Without leadership from the top, his mostly Bush-era appointees kept doing what they did before. His second term will be filled with fanatics rather than Bush-era appointees.

I don't manage to keep up with Republican party machinations - please could you explain why the Bush-era staff won't be there if Trump is elected again?

Because most have left, either retired or disassociated from Trump and his movement.

Trump's running as hard as he can (which isn't very, he isn't convincing) from the proudly published (and terrifying!) Project 2025 stuff, but they aren't running from him, and there are reasons for that.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#204

Post by palata »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #196
palata wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies. I think this is a very naive take. * We can't really live on another planet in the solar system. * Look at how far the next star is and realise that we won't get there anytime soon (probably at all). * What's the point of surviving on another planet, without any other species? * Without considering the risk of nuclear war, we ar…

I don't personally believe we should colonize other heavenly bodies because of a potential nuclear apocalypse, but the negation of that is no reason to abandon space travel either. Every time we have launched a mission into deep space we have learnt more as a species about what makes Earth 'tick'. We can also do a lot without actual space travel - maybe if more people had heeded the observations of the greenhouse eff…

> maybe if more people had heeded the observations of the greenhouse effect on Venus in the 60s

We know pretty well what's happening on Earth and we have for decades. It's not like we just realised 5 years ago that we have a problem. We have not done anything (and we still aren't), but we knew, that's for sure.

> I'm not confident that our place is in the stars, but it would be narrow-minded not to give living out there a go.

In terms of survival as a species, anything that's not about solving our biodiversity and climate problems is a loss of time. I'm fine if some people work on it (just like it's good to have people working in art), but a lot of those researchers and engineers working on space exploration may actually be more useful to the species if they worked on the actual problems we have.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#205

Post by aguaviva »

aguaviva wrote: post #137
cynicalpeace wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't know if the Russians are just as jingoistic and corrupt, Short story: current regime in the Russian Federation quite definitely is, may more so in fact, and has fascist, revanchist, genocidal ideology to boot. You may want to look further into its history (and that of the Russian/Soviet empires, which it sees itself as the natural successor to), and into the writings/thinking of the folks the helm of that reg…

"way more so"

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#206

Post by palata »

dsign wrote: post #86
cynicalpeace wrote: post #58

Phenomenal choice. While 80 years is nice- it's a blip on the timescale of history. I personally think we're a button click away from going back to the stone age. I know others will disagree, but it's not something you wanna take a gamble on. I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies. And also why wars or proxy wars between nuclear powers are extremely foolish and should b…

>> I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies. This is not a joke. But every time anybody brings it up a mob shows up saying that we must make it work here on Earth, and we should all go to hell if we can't. But we only need a few madmen in power for the rest of us to not matter.

> But every time anybody brings it up a mob shows up saying that we must make it work here on Earth

Yeah, we must. As in: it's not rational to even consider that becoming self-sustaining on other heavenly bodies is an alternative.

It's fun, it's interesting, it's many things. But it's not an alternative.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#207

Post by BurningFrog »

w4 wrote: post #165
sandworm101 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On an individual level, we all have a variety of hammers over our heads. Cancer has killed far more people prematurely than nuclear weapons. Something like 500,000 people a year are murdered. Traffic/bicycle/pedestrian accidents also kill more than nuclear weapons. Even compared to a once-in-a-century nuclear war that perhaps kills a billion people, cancer will kill roughly a billion in the next century anyway. So, f…

> So, for the rational/selfish person, the nuclear threat isn't worth worrying about. Until you have children and future generations to worry about. Then it suddenly seems quite a bit more pressing that their world could be obliterated at a moment's notice by a small handful of decision makers.

So what value do you get out of worrying about the nuclear threat, that makes it worth it?

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#208

Post by palata »

addaon wrote: post #173
timeon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point is that if we can not behave on Earth how can we do it in other place.

> Point is that if we can not behave on Earth how can we do it in other place. If we have a 90% chance of behaving in any given century, we are doomed on earth. If we have a 10% chance of behaving in any given century, a continuous heritage is possible in a galaxy (re-)populated by slowships.

Except that the current state of physics says that we just can't possibly reach another galaxy. Period.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#209

Post by generic92034 »

bonzini wrote: post #148
mordae wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stone age? Hardly. More like 18th century. I am more worried that we do not have that many attempts at rebuilding, because coal and oil are finite. OTOH a slower 2nd iteration might actually work better than this one.

If we lost access to electricity, we'd be completely screwed; we can't even get drinkable water in many places without electricity. For example where I live there is water around 10-20m depth, but it's polluted (it may be usable for agriculture but not for human consumption); you'd have to dig a well over 100m below the surface.

The standards for what is fit for human consumption might drastically change in a post-apocalyptic scenario, though.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#210

Post by palata »

throw0101c wrote: post #142
cynicalpeace wrote: post #58

Phenomenal choice. While 80 years is nice- it's a blip on the timescale of history. I personally think we're a button click away from going back to the stone age. I know others will disagree, but it's not something you wanna take a gamble on. I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies. And also why wars or proxy wars between nuclear powers are extremely foolish and should b…

> I personally think we're a button click away from going back to the stone age. One reason to use less oil now is to perhaps preserve it in case we need to 'reboot' civilization in the future in case of a future cataclysm. We were only able to reach beyond (near-)subsistence living because of cheap energy, first coal and later petroleum. All the easily accessible stuff is now kind of gone, so if there's another coll…

> I think this will be impossible given advanced countries can't even be self-sufficient on Earth.

And that's only after you've passed the fact that it's impossible for us to reach the next star.

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