Re:The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined
by njarboe on Sunday August 26, 2018 @01:36AM
(#17844450)
Large numbers of nuclear weapons means total war between nuclear powers will escalate very quickly to nuclear armageddon. This (MAD) has prevented total war for generations, but has very costly tail risks that people growing up in the post-Cold War era are not likely to appreciate.
Re:The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined
by v_lisivka on Sunday August 26, 2018 @06:50AM
(#17845296)
Why nuclear? Why not chemical or biological WMD?
Re:The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined
by njarboe on Sunday August 26, 2018 @12:50PM
(#17846670)
Chemical and biological really should not be grouped into the WMD label. They are not nearly as effective in the M and the D. See the saran attack on Tokyo. One small nuke would have been thousands of times more deadly. For a chemical attack to be as effective as a nuke one would need hundreds or thousands of bombs dropped on a single city. If you are going to do that then a firebombing raid can be much more effective for destruction. 300 B-29 caused more damage in a single night over Tokyo than either of the nuclear attacks later in the war (modern nukes are much bigger though).
I've been watching The Vietnam War documentary. Nothing angers me more than hearing Presidentsspeak about "re-election" in the same sentences as they speak about mass casualty campaigns as if it's one of the primary strategic considerations of a war that kills hundreds of thousands.
Politicians who have insulated themselves from the effects of the economy, the same way they insulate themselves from the effects of war, will be forever out of touch and therefore incapable of properly representing their people.
Was it the Abrams Doctrine, I think, that described the purpose of Total War being that decision makers think twice because its their children, their constituencies, their local, State, and Federal economies that pay the price of war? Maybe the same concept needs to exist for education, healthcare, and climate change. Not that Total War exists anymore...