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U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

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Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#231

Post by asdff »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #184
b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> the senile grandpa was awakened and paraded around when it was strictly necessary, but for the most part, it was lunatics running the asylum Unfortunately now we have both. > just look at this for example https://xcancel.com/USDOL/status/1795879796599111997 and try to imagine the kind of people who wrote and/or approved that message. What exactly is your problem with it? "just look at this" while pointing to a norm…

Normal tweet? What dictionary is menstruators found in?

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#232

Post by intended »

waterTanuki wrote: post #84
egypturnash wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sat it out, or were forced out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict...

The GOP rigs elections in their favor and it's well known, but they don't have the power to throw out an additional 87 million votes if they don't go in their favor. The logical conclusion then if despite everyone voting D then getting their votes tossed out is either violent revolution or liberation with the aid of another nuclear-armed state.

In our modern democracies, we are highly dependent on our information economies to build consensus.

Those economies have essentially ceased functioning as competitive markets for ideas, globally.

In general, newsrooms don’t make enough money to independently cover local news, and are consolidated under political/private parties. Journalism isn’t dead, but it is definitely on life support.

America though, has a further metastasized issue, in that there exists market capture. Republicans and their media apparatus have effective agenda setting power over a large enough section of the populace.

The short version of it is that in the right leaning media sphere, the rules of journalism have changed. A common through line for headline stories begins with a fringe theory on the internet. This fringe theory shows up on some podcast, which then gets repeated by a guest on a channel like Fox. This in turn gets alluded to by the White House, and then it can be reported on as a position that the Executive is considering, making it fact.

The GOP didn’t need to throw out votes, provided it could muddy the waters effectively enough.

The research by Roberts, Faris and Benkler, is what this is based on.

Reality always wins in the end, so now with the increase in oil prices, the limits of information dominance are visible, and they will need to leverage their strength in other domains to gain advantage for the upcoming elections.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#233

Post by runako »

urams wrote: post #208
runako wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generously, what difference does it make to any person if you technically achieve some result but in practice are not able to realize that end state?

Is it the case that if someone doesn't do something some time then they can't do that thing? Like, if you were playing basketball and Lebron James walked by and you threw the ball to him and said "dunk this!' and Lebron said "no, I'm not willing to" does this mean Lebron can't dunk? Because personally, I'd still take Lebron on a basketball team even if he wasn't willing to dunk the ball that one time.

> if you were playing basketball and Lebron James walked by and you threw the ball to him

Yes, this is a terrible analogy for the war in Iran. Hugely unpopular, costing Americans vast sums of money daily, headed for possible catastrophe. Very much not a low-stakes "Lebron walks by" situation.

Better analogy with Lebron would be: championship game with a title on the line. He gets possession as time runs down and the team needs him to score or make a play that scores. It's not okay for him to then say he's fully capable of scoring but doesn't want to at just that moment for reasons.

NB: this is not to say the US military couldn't cause untold damage on the region. This is obvious, anybody can look at recent history to see that the US military is more than capable of destroying a country in the region.

Rather, this is an object lesson that war is politics by other means, and here we tried to do war without any politics and it has not gone well for us.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#234

Post by asdff »

x-complexity wrote: post #198
iqp wrote: post #110

10 years from now: Climate Activist: The oceans are getting warmer & global currents are threatened by imminent collapse - we must do something! Big Oil: Prove it! Climate Activist: Data gathered between 2016 and 2026 shows ... Big Oil: That's old news! Do you have more recent data? Climate Activist: Well, no, because Trump2 dismantled the ocean observation system in 2026 ... Big Oil: So you have no data to back up y…

[flagged]

HAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Good one.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#235

Post by wyldfire »

benzible wrote: post #216
tdb7893 wrote: post #75

What really puts all of this into perspective for me is I work in academia and one of my friends works for a defense contractor. He told me the maintenance cost per flight hour of F-35 was a bit more than $40k, which is significantly more than I make in a year as a grad student. It's crazy basic science is what's been the focus of so many cuts while it's so cheap.

I wouldn't assume that this is about cost cutting. If the goal were saving money, the cheapest option by far would be to leave the hardware in the water and just stop funding the monitoring. Instead the plan is an expensive operation to send ships out to extract 900+ instruments from under two miles of ocean. It's clear that this is driven by performative climate denialism and a pro fossil fuel stance. The Trump admi…

The crazy thing is that the oil companies confessed to a misinformation campaign and at least publicly talked about change/reform (of course, they're still oil exploration/refinement companies so not abandoning that). But they did discuss responsible use of fossil fuels in transition towards renewables.

But Trump was fooled and is more committed than ever to the since-abandoned misinformation campaign. It took on a bigger life than Exxon ever could've imagined.

The snowflakiest of them all - they can't handle unbiased readings from instruments that survey our planet.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#236

Post by x-complexity »

asdff wrote: post #234
x-complexity wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

HAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Good one.

I'm dead serious.

Where are the charities who're supposedly aligned wuth such a mission? Where're the blue states?

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#237

Post by daemin »

erickhill wrote: post #118
KnuthIsGod wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many million graduate students do you need to give the US the military hegemony and political influence over allies and adversaries that the F-35 program provides ? Looked at from a policy maker's viewpoint, things look very different.

Wouldn't take very many at all, we've now learned these past four years (and even the past 2 months). All you need are drones, that are pennies on the dollar cheaper than trillion-dollar militaries. Depending on the munition, a single bomb we drop on Iran could cost between $40,000 and a couple million dollars. Think of all the high-end drones you could buy instead. Everything is changing. Including our influence.

In the Russian-Ukrainian war the GPS guided shells that the USA was sending to Ukraine cost about $40k a pop, where as you can get at least a dozen drones for that price.

Even the fanciest self propelled artillery is getting destroyed by these little cheap buggers.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#238

Post by zmgsabst »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #217
zmgsabst wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure this has nothing to do with 3.1 million graduate students versus 500 F-35s. For actual context, F-35 program receives $9B per year (amortized over lifetime), which is $3000 per year per graduate student. Erasing the F-35 program entirely would make something like a 10% difference in graduate wages, while destroying the US Air Force as a modern military. So no — your request to fund graduate students is more…

The poster said they work in academia, not the part that has to do with science, so it seems unfair to compare the F35 to all of academia when they were complaining about science being cut. Later, after the math showing that graduate students as a whole are more expensive than the F35 program, you claim that the U.S already spends more on education and science than the military. The claim is of course somewhat unclea…

> I can easily construct something that shows the U.S does pay more for science and education than it does for military, but only by being IMHO somewhat misleading, for example by throwing K-12 spending together with the higher education payments and mixing federal and state monies, so to clarify what I mean when I say the U.S in these kinds of conversations and what I think most people mean is "the federal government"

I disagree: total tax burden and allocation is the relevant aspect, regardless of pointless semantics about which government unit disbursed the funds.

You admit the fact:

US governments spend more on education and science than the military, as measured by total funds allocated to purpose.

I think you’re the one being misleading by quibbling semantics about who dispersed the money: US taxpayers give more of their tax money to science and education than the military.

You focus on the federal government rather than totals is precisely to obscure that fact — which you know to be true, but find inconvenient for your politics. Hence the semantic quibbles.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#239

Post by FireBeyond »

nielsbot wrote: post #58
ufocia wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean to be not expensive? How much do all the not very expensive endeavors as up to?

honestly, who gives a shit? the US spends AT LEAST $1T/year on military—and a lot of that is used to murder a lot of innocent people just minding their own business. Cut the military budget in half to start and then complain about reckless spending. I’ll also add: abruptly killing programs costs more than it saves. The DOGE fiasco at USAID for example—the unruly unwinding of their finances incurred huge financial pen…

> the US spends AT LEAST $1T/year on military

The DOD has just requested a new budget of $1.5T for the military.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#240

Post by asdff »

x-complexity wrote: post #236
asdff wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Good one.

I'm dead serious. Where are the charities who're supposedly aligned wuth such a mission? Where're the blue states?

Money doesn't magically materialize to save things from hitting the floor when Trump has a brilliant idea like this.
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