[FRIAM] Enamine

[Steve Smith]

On 3/11/22 8:18 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> ...
> The maximalist MAD scenario is a made-up thing.

I'm not sure how to parse this.  Not possible (technically) or not 
likely (sociopolitically)?

Is your belief that there is no scenario where those who hold nuclear 
weapons cannot launch enough to effectively wipe out humanity within 
hours/days/weeks?   I honestly don't know the accuracy of the public 
numbers of nuclear weapons in-hand around the world, but as I remember 
my last glance at those numbers they were on the order of 6K each for 
US/Russia/China with hundreds in the hands of most of the other 
identified nuclear powers.

If you are suggesting that the use of nuclear weapons by NATO or Russia 
in this conflict would be limited to "a handful" (1, 2, 3 digits?) 
exchanged from each side, and the result of *that* would result instead 
in Glen's "tacit demonstration". Or your/Frank's ideation that a 
significant reduction in population and a nuclear winter  which could 
well be what Gaia (Medea?) needs to put the scourge that is modern 
humanity/civilization back in our box (for a while)?     This I believe 
is possible (with a huge delta on both population reduction and global 
cooling reset and the myriad modes of ringing in the system that is our 
biosphere).

In a 'flip' moment I might endorse this course... but it feels a little 
like being an out of control skier deliberately *flinging* myself into 
the trees at top speed hoping I survive the crash... possible, but only 
as a true last-ditch effort.   I *do* think there are political and even 
technical stops in the MAD machine designed to avoid a complete emptying 
of all arsenals against all other arsenals in one giant death spasm, but 
I don't know what the scale of the ratcheted mini-spasms would be.  The 
cure that kills the patient before the malady can?

Meanwhile let's argue about the details of the tech to use H2 as a 
storage/transportation alternative to fossil fuels and keep on endorsing 
the stacking of the house of cards higher and higher, because after all, 
like the tower of babel we will eventually get to heaven that way?  
Techno-utopian paths forward seem inevitable so I *am* interested in the 
details of these kinds of things, but without an equal focus on reducing 
our appetite by orders of magnitude, I think we are just rearranging 
deck chairs.

Bending this pretzeled thread further...

- Steve



>
>> On Mar 11, 2022, at 7:07 AM, glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> We call on Biden to reject reckless demands for a no-fly zone
>> We deplore Russia’s aggression. However, it strains credulity to 
>> think that a US war with Russia would make the American people safer 
>> or more prosperous
>> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/11/we-call-on-biden-to-reject-reckless-demands-for-a-no-fly-zone
>>
>> Directly on the heels of counter-arguing with EricC about the 
>> inadequacy of hypocrisy as an argument, this open letter "peacenick" 
>> rhetoric really gets on my nerves. The sanctions are anemic, and damn 
>> near cowardly. The tagline to the open letter "safer or more 
>> prosperous" is spot on. Because *that's* why we do things, right? So 
>> we can be safe and prosperous? Safety and prosperity are the 
>> foundations of our ethics? Bullshit.
>>
>> Buffers and proxy wars are the epitome of manipulative exploitation. 
>> I'm no war-monger. But this democratic backsliding and trend toward 
>> dictators with leaders like Modi, Orbán, Lukashenko, et al *are* the 
>> actual front line. And that front line isn't geographical. It's ethical.
>>
>> War, even nuclear, might serve as a tacit demonstration to our 
>> right-wing friends that freedom, the word they love so much, doesn't 
>> lie in safety and prosperity. It lies in the recognition of, and 
>> united stance against, exploitative bullies.
>>
>> We're lucky I'm not in charge, I guess. 8^D
>>
>>
>> On 3/11/22 02:49, David Eric Smith wrote:
>>>  The notion of “using” buffer states — which I hate, by the way, as 
>>> an attitude of consigning people and regions to disposability 
>>> categories — as a way to allow graded responses and stalemates from 
>>> which large bully-powers could withdraw, would have been the 
>>> template for most alliance treaties.
>>
>>
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