81–90 of 137 posts
I'll ask the obvious: wouldn't the aircraft just take to the skies directly, without bothering with the formality of setting their transponder, if they were knowingly escaping an apocalypse scenario?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean - just take a look at all this speculative trading action around the Iran war. Trump is all about "his friends" presumably that means that many of them could get a heads up.
If you're talking about nuclear war, I don't think you could expect Polymarket to pay out in the aftermath. So anyone betting on one would be pretty dumb.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're talking about nuclear war, I don't think you could expect Polymarket to pay out in the aftermath. So anyone betting on one would be pretty dumb.
You can currently bet on Jesus returning before 2027, which means they would also have a hard time paying you, and 4% are betting on yes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there's a good chance a nuclear apocalypse is imminent. Or that an excavator took out some fiber.
For network engineers is there really any difference between an excavator taking out your network and an actual apocalypse?
The reality is, much like American wealth, the distribution is super-exponential. If you actually wanted this to be kind of useful, you'd only look at the tail numbers known to belong to people who are associates of US senators, high ranking congressmen, and senior defense officials (Raytheon/LM/NG/Boeing execs).
That said, the *actual* reality is you'll just fucking know because it'll be obvious things are escalating out of control. The government is not mystically competent, they're morons like us just figuring it out as they go along. If things were to somehow pop off unexpectedly you only have somewhere between 3 and 30 minutes which is not enough time to get an aircraft in the air with no notice.
TLDR this doesn't do anything. It's cool though
I would bet on the exact opposite. Unless you're within a few hundred meters of ground zero you're better off seeking shelter than trying to run, and if you are running you only want to go those few hundred meters and then take shelter. The local airport where your plane presumably is would be far more likely to be targeted than your current location. Traveling to the airport, especially in the chaos of people scrambling for shelter, is probably going to take much longer than you have time for and you are much more exposed than if you went into a basement/subway/concrete stairwell. Even if you could physically get to the airport in time, that doesn't do you much good if the plane isn't ready to go. If the plane is on hot-standby you might be able to take off within 10 minutes of getting to the airport, but if we're assuming this is a sudden development you gotta get the crew to the plane, you need to fuel the plane, etc; you're not getting off the ground in less than half an hour. If by some miracle you could get up in the air before the nuke hit, the air is the worst possible place to be. There is nothing between your plane and the pressure wave of the nuke. Your plane's electronics are going to get fried by EMPs. There's a decent chance your pilot will go blind depending on where the nuke actually hits. Even if you manage to stay in the air - now what? You need to land eventually. Most airports have been destroyed, and air traffic control is probably down or at best too busy to deal with you so you don't know if you're actually going to be able to land at any particular destination. Absolute best case scenario you land in a random location where everyone of the ground is several hours ahead of you into a SHTF situation.
I'm not saying nobody will try it, but I would think most people with access to private jets probably have access to or could acquire access to basements in well built buildings that are a decent bit away from likely targets of nuclear strikes.
> we suspect that many people who have access to private jets will immediately take to the skies and escape city centers. I would bet on the exact opposite. Unless you're within a few hundred meters of ground zero you're better off seeking shelter than trying to run, and if you are running you only want to go those few hundred meters and then take shelter. The local airport where your plane presumably is would be far…
Can you keep an eye on government planes that would be airborned if the SHTF? E-4Bs, E-6s, VC-25As, C-32A, etc plus mass helo flights exiting DC. Topic reminds me of the movie Miracle Mile.
The various doomsday planes regularly take part in nuclear exercises - which are treated as signals for both friends and foes - so there's quite a bit of data to keep.
Conclusion: unless a full first strike is scheduled beforehand and you're high up enough to be in the loop, you're very unlikely to get much notice.
I have little faith that a compound in NZ or HI would be much use unless you move there well ahead of any Event.
And possibly not much after, because with supply chains gone you're going to start running out of essential spare parts and consumables (including medical supplies) within a decade at most.
This assumes any inside information is distributed across the set of jet owners relatively uniformly. In reality most of the private get guys run dealership chains or well services companies. Nobody is going to bother tipping them all off. The reality is, much like American wealth, the distribution is super-exponential. If you actually wanted this to be kind of useful, you'd only look at the tail numbers known to bel…
If you want to destabilise an economy, destroy science and R&D, nuke healthcare, ruin decades of trust with allies, disassemble democratic checks and balances, co-opt the media, and give most of the population a nervous breakdown that has them believing batshit divisive nonsense, you certainly don't need nuclear weapons to do it.