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M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

earthquake.usgs.gov

31–40 of 54 posts

Re: M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

#31
post #18
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your point that that makes this better?

Well it's kinda whataboutism, but I made a similar comment on a video about an environmental crime (a copper mine had dumped an entire lake's worth of toxic sludge into a valley). The author of the mini documentary said something about how deeply disturbed he was and how he really thought humans were better than this. I thought that was kind of funny since, yeah the sludge lake is nasty as hell (and if the dam holdin…

in civilized countries, industrially farmed animals live short, uneventful lives devoid of hunger and pain, injury and disease, heat and cold, then die instant, painless deaths. in the wild, the kind of animals we farm rarely get to die of old age - most end up being mauled and eaten alive by predators.

their lives are only bad if you assume they possess adult human level of conscience, which they obviously don't.

Re: M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

#32
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you hear about industrialised farming, even mass production of crops are killing plenty of animals…

See also: https://xkcd.com/1338/

I didn’t expect that many sheep, and is there really so little chicken that it’s not even labeled? Obviously each one doesn’t weigh a lot but I expected there to be a lot of them.

Re: M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

#33
post #14

This must have maimed thousands of marine mammals.

Wait until you hear about industrialised farming, even mass production of crops are killing plenty of animals…

That's just waituntilyouhearaboutism.

Re: M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you hear about industrialised farming, even mass production of crops are killing plenty of animals…

That's just waituntilyouhearaboutism.

And that's thatsjustism!

Re: M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

#35
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's kinda whataboutism, but I made a similar comment on a video about an environmental crime (a copper mine had dumped an entire lake's worth of toxic sludge into a valley). The author of the mini documentary said something about how deeply disturbed he was and how he really thought humans were better than this. I thought that was kind of funny since, yeah the sludge lake is nasty as hell (and if the dam holdin…

in civilized countries, industrially farmed animals live short, uneventful lives devoid of hunger and pain, injury and disease, heat and cold, then die instant, painless deaths. in the wild, the kind of animals we farm rarely get to die of old age - most end up being mauled and eaten alive by predators. their lives are only bad if you assume they possess adult human level of conscience, which they obviously don't.

I don't know how narrow your definition of "civilized country" is, but a majority of industrially farmed animals do not live the kind of lives you describe. I will link the EU regulation for laying hens for exemple, and maybe it will change your mind as to how farmed animals are treated? https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

A few numbers I personally find telling:

- 550 cm² caged area per hen (roughly 10" by 10")

- Seven hens per cage

- Cages 45 cm tall

- No requirement for ever going outside

I know some animals usually have it better (cattle) but industrially farmed chicken and porks really are miserable, without even going into the levels of stress and disease they go through.

Re: M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

#36
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue associated with whataboutism is that it is a deflection strategy. It aims to steer the focus away from the issue at hand. Commonly regarded as intentional manipulation or lack of adherence to social conversation norms.

Isn’t that a good thing sometimes, assuming focus is a limited resource? Shouldn’t problems be addressed in order of importance? Is it whataboutism if I tell someone to stop polishing a wrecked car?

> assuming focus is a limited resource

Focus (on a society-wide level) is not so very limited. One of the strengths of our whole society being fragmented into a bunch of distinct organisations, is that they can all go off and solve different problems at the same time.

> Shouldn’t problems be addressed in order of importance?

Most of the really big problems facing society can only be addressed through multi-solving (i.e. something like climate change isn't going to just hang around waiting for us to solve one sub-problem at a time). Not to mention, the solution space is often extremely interconnected - for example, finding alternatives so that society can eat less meat helps address both climate change and the horrors of factory farming at the same time.

Re: M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

#37
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also: https://xkcd.com/1338/

I didn’t expect that many sheep, and is there really so little chicken that it’s not even labeled? Obviously each one doesn’t weigh a lot but I expected there to be a lot of them.

I think poultry are excluded by the title ("land mammals"). If they were there, it appears[1] they should be about equivalent to the total biomass of sheep.

[1]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1711842115

Re: M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t expect that many sheep, and is there really so little chicken that it’s not even labeled? Obviously each one doesn’t weigh a lot but I expected there to be a lot of them.

I think poultry are excluded by the title ("land mammals"). If they were there, it appears[1] they should be about equivalent to the total biomass of sheep. [1]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1711842115

Ah right, totally missed that. Thanks for looking that up!

Re: M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

#39
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue associated with whataboutism is that it is a deflection strategy. It aims to steer the focus away from the issue at hand. Commonly regarded as intentional manipulation or lack of adherence to social conversation norms.

Isn’t that a good thing sometimes, assuming focus is a limited resource? Shouldn’t problems be addressed in order of importance? Is it whataboutism if I tell someone to stop polishing a wrecked car?

> Is it whataboutism if I tell someone to stop polishing a wrecked car?

Whataboutism would be "why do you worry about your wrecked car, that crackhead down the street also has a wrecked car".

Re: M 3.9 Experimental Explosion – 147 Km ENE of Ponce Inlet, Florida

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont understand the purpose of using 40,000 lbs of TNT (0.2 kilotons) that registers as M3.9 quake - what kind of explosive payload is it simulating? the only thing that comes to mind, is the smallest yield settings of a modern tactical nuke B61-12

The structure is engineered to survive a multitude of conventional threats intact. It is testing properties of the design rather than specific weapons per se. Also, these tests are intended to be non-destructive which impacts their design. Exercises where the US military uses decommissioned aircraft carriers and other large ships as targets are illustrative. They are basically unsinkable. You can hit them with torped…

> People chronically underestimate how difficult it is to get enough conventional explosive on target to sink a major naval vessel, even ignoring the extensive active defenses.

American ships, certainly. Russian ships? Oh boy. The Ukrainians, a country with no navy to speak of, sunk the Russian flagship Moskva to widespread memefied acclaim, a bunch of other Black Sea assets and are now taking potshots at the shadow fleet.

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