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Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

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Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#201

Post by vkou »

BurningFrog wrote: post #196
vkou wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was just the excuse everyone used to have a go at eachother. Russia didn't want its pan-slavic ambitions to get embarrassed again (as they were with the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia), France wanted revenge, Austria-Hungary wanted to remind everyone that they were still around and relevant, Germany wanted to establish supremacy on the continent, the UK wanted to curtail German ambitions, and prevent the…

I've seen it described as a powder keg waiting for a match. To me, the Russian Revolution is The Worst Thing That Ever Happened, and I imagine we'd have a much better world if that match was never lit.

> the Russian Revolution is The Worst Thing That Ever Happened,

Worse than the war that spawned it, where 20 million people died over absolutely nothing in four years, and then when it resumed, another 70 million (with an unprecedented attempt at industrial extermination of an entire group of people thrown in for good measure)?

Worse than any of the other globe-spanning empires that plunged their subjects into decades and centuries of slavery and repression?

The Soviet empire, at its worst, only had 400 million people - a mere ten percent of the world's population - in thrall.

The world's history been awash in blood spilled by war, aristocracy and autocracy, imperialism and colonialism. It's rather hard to point at one of the middling empires and go - that one, right there, is definitely the worst thing in history.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#202

Post by autoexec »

Ekaros wrote: post #169
matthewdgreen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current government is going to weaken Western alliances. China is going to take Taiwan. Japan and South Korea are going to rapidly develop nuclear weapons programs. North Korea will increase the range of its missiles to reliably hit the entire US. The entire Middle East is going to nuclearize, with Iran first and then Saudi Arabia (the Trump white house was trying to arrange this last term, I suppose they'll succ…

On other hand world where everyone does not have nuclear weapon has been absolutely proven to be utter total failure. We should try one with everyone having nuclear weapons to see if it prevents more wars. Maybe fear of death in the aggressor nations would prevent their evils.

Failure where everyone does not have nuclear weapons looks very different from failure where everyone does. A scenario where everyone has nuclear weapons can only ever fail one time, because after that humanity will not survive to try anything else to "see if it prevents more wars".

It depends on how you define success I guess. The very fact that we're alive to have the option of giving everyone nukes just to see what happens means we've already found a measure of success. If everyone has nukes and they use them it means no more humans, which means no more wars, which I guess can also be seen as a success. World peace at last.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#203

Post by dotancohen »

olalonde wrote: post #179
dotancohen wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've gathered trying to talk to reasonable people who have different points of view from me, the main concern is preserving one's way of life. Their culture. I've heard the phrase "the more of the third world you bring in, the more similar your country will be to the third world". And be there no mistake - the countries that these people call "third world" don't want European or American culture infiltratin…

That was sort of my point: it's not a reasoned stance (e.g. culture X is objectively superior), but an emotional one (e.g. I have an emotional attachment to culture X).

Let's be honest. Would you want to live in a culture where only certain people, based on factors that happened before they were born, can or cannot work? Pay less or more taxes? Can or cannot own land? Where women cannot walk freely outside?

Do you feel that your culture is better than that? Would you consider that an emotional attachment to your culture?

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#204

Post by BurningFrog »

vkou wrote: post #201
BurningFrog wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen it described as a powder keg waiting for a match. To me, the Russian Revolution is The Worst Thing That Ever Happened, and I imagine we'd have a much better world if that match was never lit.

> the Russian Revolution is The Worst Thing That Ever Happened, Worse than the war that spawned it, where 20 million people died over absolutely nothing in four years, and then when it resumed, another 70 million (with an unprecedented attempt at industrial extermination of an entire group of people thrown in for good measure)? Worse than any of the other globe-spanning empires that plunged their subjects into decade…

This is of course not an exact science, and you make good arguments for WW1. The fact that it (maybe) depends on a single shot at a chance encounter makes that extra fun to speculate over.

But I think you underestimate the Russian Revolution. Without the Soviet Union, there is no Cold War, and there is no way China goes communist, stopping a number of genocides. The consequences are huge, and very hard to imagine.

You can even make an argument that without german communists, the Nazis don't take power in Germany, but I admit that's a stretch. And of course, in this alternative world other terrible things would happen.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#205

Post by AcerbicZero »

foxyv wrote: post #194
AcerbicZero wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonable and prudent is objectively the best speed limit. Going 110 on a dry empty highway? Carry on. Going 110 on I-90 right outside of Billings? Pull over young man, its time for the highway patrol to have a philosophical discussion with you on the side of the road.

110 MPH is never a safe speed for a car on a highway. Crash rate increases exponentially with speed. At 110 MPH you are placing your life and the lives of other road users at risk for no real good reason.

This is cringe, and I refuse to engage with it further.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#206

Post by protocolture »

protocolture wrote: post #166
tipiirai wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. I can strongly feel this happening in Finland, which became a racist country in one year.

I mean how long does it take to radicalise 20 odd people.

Oh no I have been downvoted by the population of finland

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#207

Post by kimixa »

foxyv wrote: post #194
AcerbicZero wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonable and prudent is objectively the best speed limit. Going 110 on a dry empty highway? Carry on. Going 110 on I-90 right outside of Billings? Pull over young man, its time for the highway patrol to have a philosophical discussion with you on the side of the road.

110 MPH is never a safe speed for a car on a highway. Crash rate increases exponentially with speed. At 110 MPH you are placing your life and the lives of other road users at risk for no real good reason.

The #1 thing for driving safely is being predictable. Too many people seem to think "driving safely" is mechanically being able to control your car on the road, but that's the easy part. The difficulty is there are other people on the road all taking their own independent actions.

On a US highway you can glance in the mirror and see a vehicle, and you can work on the assumption that it's not going (much) more than 65mph. Or see a gap and have a general idea of how long you know it will still be a gap. Having a massive variety in possible speeds harms that.

I think many people seem completely unaware about how fast a car at 110mph (for example) can appear. It's in the order of time it takes to check your blindspot and other mirror - there's a hard limit to how many directions you can be looking at one time after all. No amount of "Personal Driving Skills" or "Being More Aware" can help that if the timing is unlucky.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#208

Post by vkou »

BurningFrog wrote: post #204
vkou wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Russian Revolution is The Worst Thing That Ever Happened, Worse than the war that spawned it, where 20 million people died over absolutely nothing in four years, and then when it resumed, another 70 million (with an unprecedented attempt at industrial extermination of an entire group of people thrown in for good measure)? Worse than any of the other globe-spanning empires that plunged their subjects into decade…

This is of course not an exact science, and you make good arguments for WW1. The fact that it (maybe) depends on a single shot at a chance encounter makes that extra fun to speculate over. But I think you underestimate the Russian Revolution. Without the Soviet Union, there is no Cold War, and there is no way China goes communist, stopping a number of genocides. The consequences are huge, and very hard to imagine. Yo…

Without a cold war you'd have had some other imperial imbalance. The only reason the Anglosphere and the EU are in alliance is because of a rival superpower. Without the commies to scare the shit out of them, they'd still all be squabbling with each other over colonies, and we'd all probably be working 70 hours a week, as our owners would not feel any pressure to make concessions to labour.

Or, alternatively, there may have well been a communist revolution in the industrialized countries, as opposed to the agrarian backwaters that actually got them.

And China going communist can be blamed as much on things like the Opium wars, or Japan's imperialism, or the international repression of the Boxer rebellion or any of the other things that fueled a reactionary nationalistic fire in it. There's only so long you can keep kicking a country of nearly a billion people before someone gets it in their head to drive out the foreigners, and they usually aren't the type to be winning any peace prizes, if you get my drift.

It's all just a bunch of what-ifs. The only thing that we can know for certain is that the Soviet empire sucked, a lot, especially for its European subjects. Empires tend to. But its existence probably played a major role in decolonization - and wrecking other empires.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#209

Post by mminer237 »

codethief wrote: post #177
mminer237 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy is exponential. It takes 30% farther to stop going 80 than it does going 70. One of my favorite trivia is the scenario that a car going 50 mph sees an obstruction in front and slams on its brakes and stops just in time just tapping it. A car next to him going 70 mph sees the same object, has faster reflexes, and hits his brakes at the exact same spot of the road. He slams into the object at 50 mph. Just th…

> The energy is exponential. No, kinetic energy is only quadratic in the velocity, E = ½ mv². https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy

You're correct. My wording was off.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#210

Post by mminer237 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #168
mminer237 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy is exponential. It takes 30% farther to stop going 80 than it does going 70. One of my favorite trivia is the scenario that a car going 50 mph sees an obstruction in front and slams on its brakes and stops just in time just tapping it. A car next to him going 70 mph sees the same object, has faster reflexes, and hits his brakes at the exact same spot of the road. He slams into the object at 50 mph. Just th…

> The energy is exponential. It takes 30% farther to stop going 80 than it does going 70. That's when the issue is stopping distance. The issue on highways is that you have, for example, two cars in the left lane going 55 MPH and a third approaches going 70 MPH. One of the slower cars sees this and moves over but only at the same time as the faster car is changing into the same lane to pass on the right, so now both…

I guess that's theoretically possible, but even in that rare case, people are going to break if they hit someone. Driving too slow causes some accidents but they rarely lead to deaths. AFAIK, driving too slow is such a minor safety issue that no study has been carried out to ascertain exactly how bad it is though.
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