Live data from Hacker News

Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

independent.co.uk

381–390 of 500 posts

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They can never be invaded or conquered again, by anyone, ever. Why does thinking about nuclear weapons cause most people to think in absolutist terms like this? Maybe Russia was counting on getting a 15-minute warning of ICBMs approaching, but if a hostile military can station missile right on their southwestern border (523 miles from the center of Moscow) their plan goes out the window.

It wouldn't, because their SSBNs and their hidden silos would ensure the counter strike afterwards. USA isn't counting on a 15 minute warning either, MAD is ensured via second strike capability AFTER the first strike, if you are counting for the first strike you've already lost.

Well it seems to be well-established MAD orthodoxy that if your enemy has nukes right at your border, and you don't have nukes right at their border, your deterrence ability is diminished.

See: the Cuban Missile Crisis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

In any case, even in a MAD setting every side will be constantly trying to manoeuver to a position of advantage. That's what military people do when they're not actually fighting, kind of how computer nerds play video games when they're not coding, eh?

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They can never be invaded or conquered again, by anyone, ever. Why does thinking about nuclear weapons cause most people to think in absolutist terms like this? Maybe Russia was counting on getting a 15-minute warning of ICBMs approaching, but if a hostile military can station missile right on their southwestern border (523 miles from the center of Moscow) their plan goes out the window.

There's no difference in distance between Latvia/Estonia (NATO members) and Ukraine. NATO threat to Russia is internal fear-mongering propaganda and I have no idea why Mearsheimer and others talk about it with a serious face. We're not in the middle of 20th century anymore. On one hand we have EU/US/NATO intelligence saying Kiev will fall in 72 hours to the 2nd best army in the world. And then on the other hand we mu…

[flagged]

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#383
post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather he chose to understand the point of view from their side. It is extremely difficult to do so and only a few public facing individuals is able to do ( Jeffrey Sachs etc. )

That's kind of the problem. He should have been trying to understand it from the Ukrainians side more than seeing the thing as US vs Russia. It seems a bit of a historical change - in the 19th century view it would be ok for the Russians to get pissed off with the US trying to steal their Ukrainian peasants and associated property. These days you're supposed to let sovereign democracies do their own thing even if the…

[flagged]

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#384
post #118

Chomsky was doing so many podcasts up to the moment he disappeared from the radar presumably due to medical issues. I've seen him going for 2 hours with some nobody with 5K followers, being asked juvenile and stupid questions and answering with the patient of a Saint. He looked quite diminished physically, elderly and frail but mentally he's always sharp and his recall and memory is scary. I feel that in his later ye…

Please do you have in mind a sample of this content oriented for younger generations? Thanks for your time and consideration.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that's a false narrative. There were never any promises, and Putin barely even cared that it resulted in Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Because Russia's stated motivation for invading Ukraine was never Putin's actual reason, which is basically an emotional desire for historical greatness by reclaiming Russia's lost empire, combined with war always being an excellent mechanism for staying in power and…

There are many many reasons for war, not just because Putin wrote a fancy paper long ago about his aspirin, or because the drought in Crimea was costing Russia tons of money since they took over and had their water cut off or the falling population and economy that purposely did not reinvest properly to keep Putin in power. Giving a simple answer is not wrong if the long one takes much longer to explain. Multiple fac…

>> Putin wrote a fancy paper long ago about his aspirin

Explain?

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#386
post #11

I actually emailed Noam Chomsky asking questions about Manufacturing Consent and actually got a reply. I always thought he was really cool for being so accessible to those who just had honest questions. I really hope he gets well soon.

I also wrote to Chomsky and got a reply, once. It seems he really replied to anyone who emailed him. It's amazing how he could do that.

But, look here. He's 95 years old and just had a stroke. He's not going to get well soon, or at all.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#387
post #11

I actually emailed Noam Chomsky asking questions about Manufacturing Consent and actually got a reply. I always thought he was really cool for being so accessible to those who just had honest questions. I really hope he gets well soon.

Same! I emailed him asking for his thoughts on robotics and anarcho-communism and he replied pretty promptly. He said it was an important subject and that he was moving offices (this was his move to Arizona), but I could ask again another time. I never quite had the time to prepare for what I would have asked for, some kind of discussion I could record, which he was doing a lot at the time, but I was very happy just…

That sounds great but how do you deal with the fact that robots require mass-produced electronics and the infrastructure for those is currently in the hands of, well, let's say not anarcho-communists?

How about the environmental costs of all that automation?

Is there a realistic path for getting to what you propose from where we are now?

[Edit: realistic in the sense that e.g. the Alcubierre drive is possible but requires exotic matter, therefore "not realistic").

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#388
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The reason you can’t tell is one comment up in the thread.

For posterity, in case a teenager finds this thread in a googlestorm: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Second-option_bias

Some dudes given "secret suppressed knowledge" that is contrarian to a mainstream they feel alienated from will immediately buy in hook line and sinker and become fanatics.

Don't be a smooth brain.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a good example of socialism?

Look up "largest economies by purchasing power", then write me a long reply hemming and hawing about how that's not real socialism

[dead]

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> So it's sad to see anyone falling for Putin's lies so easily. (See also Mearshimer.) Mearsheimer can be a bit too convincing for his own good, surely. What he has argued that is certainly convincing is that Russia was ready to negotiate a peace at the start of the war, when Russians and Ukrainians met in Belarus and then in Istanbul. If Putin wanted to recreate Imperial Russia, or the Soviet Union, then why would…

[flagged]

> security guarantees for Ukraine

This is laughable. Russia cannot give any credible security guarantee to a country that it has just invaded! The war has shown precisely that Russia still believes that it has the right to control Ukraine and that any negotiated peace is nothing more than a temporary pause in hostilities in anticipation of a more opportune moment for Russia. Putin is a cypher and no-one really knows exactly why he wants to invade and conquer Ukraine, but as it is enormously plain at this point that he does want to do so, this entails that there is no really workable negotiated settlement.

Post reply on HN