Well I'm not so pessimistic about the possible threat of nuclear weapons being used in the future. It's been 65 years sense that last one was used in anger, has there been any time in history where a major weapon was avalible but not used over that long a time span?

In reality no rational state would use it because the assurance of retaliatory actions. The MAD doctrine did seem to be effective on both major parties of the Cold War. That leaves non rational states and non state terrorist/radicals. These parties need to be watched carefully, but I don't loose any sleep over them. I think gradually these weapons will be phased out or negotiated out of use, as the modern smart and stealth weapons and delivery systems are becoming just as effective in bringing about regime change without the large collateral damage the thermonuclear weapons do.

By the way I served in SAC at a minuteman missile base in Montana in the late 60s, it was a pretty assume system in it's day. While still in service it's kind of a waste of money these days. I think we could rely just on sub based nucs as a deterrent until nucs are phased out.

Lefty

 

As do China, France, Britain, Russia, and to a lesser extent, India, Pakastan, and Israel. Wannabes include North Korea and Iran (and how would you feel about these two jems).

Well, I believe they are not as powerful as USA. But I think on the battlefield China could be the best owing to their large number of troops.
I believe you have also noted that by going to war in Iraq, USA has shown it's weakness as well.

Your bias is showing. Good or bad, the bomb is here to stay.

Ok fine. But honestly I'm not willing to see the world go into a nuclear war. Why keeping it, there are many reasons, why destroying it again many reasons. But I prefer the way of peace, even though it's not that easy to achieve it, even though it might never happen, etc, that's my way of living, and I hope I'll always find a peaceful solution. May be you support the idea "absolute trust in another nation cannot be achieved", so you keep your defence system, but then you should understand if they want to keep theirs too, or even develop one, which most americans don't understand.

Cheers.

 

I cut the rest of the sentence - is that ok? Am I taking you out of context? I hope not.

I'm not really following you, but my sentence wasn't a question. Just concluding the formula Freedom = To Be Free, and "why?" to justify your reasons to be free and what provoke you to fight for it.

I am serious about dying for my freedom, I have no intention of living under any servitude. I will not tolerate being told where to live, to worshiop, who to worship, when or if I can travel, etc.

Everybody wants their freedom, it's just that not everyone has the mean to do whatever they want. But like I said before, when it means your "want" equals something "bad", then you will have to accept your act and its consequences. And you won't have all the freedom you want to have. For example, I studied in the UK, and I wasn't given the right to work to support my income as others were and yet being an outsider, you were charged four times more, and had to pay tax for the short time they allowed you to work and I had to finally just accept it simply because it's their law and it was me who wanted to go there in the first place, but I assume everyboby knew it was unfair.

We are in "off topic" - an area set aside for this.

Ok thanks.

Understood. Ok, what country could make the case that we are a threat to them? North Korea and Iran sure fit the bill, don't they? But why would they consider us a threat? Why only them? Why does Brazi or India or Japan or Isreal or Spain or France or Canada or dozens of other countries fail to consider us to be a threat?

They don't want to live like USA I suspect, and don't like USA imposing/influencing on them the idea of democracy. Westernisation is their enemy. If you support freedom, then you have to allow them to live the way the want to, and they too have to allow you to live the way you want to live, concluding my reason for mutual understanding and respect.

Many thanks.

 

Well, I believe they are not as powerful as USA. But I think on the battlefield China could be the best owing to their large number of troops.

You miss a fundimental point of nukes, you don't need many, and relative power isn't important. The first 4 countries (and the USA) could all do us in.

Ok fine. But honestly I'm not willing to see the world go into a nuclear war. Why keeping it, there are many reasons, why destroying it again many reasons. But I prefer the way of peace, even though it's not that easy to achieve it, even though it might never happen, etc, that's my way of living, and I hope I'll always find a peaceful solution. May be you support the idea "absolute trust in another nation cannot be achieved", so you keep your defence system, but then you should understand if they want to keep theirs too, or even develop one, which most americans don't understand.

Cheers.

Idealism is fine, but realism is better. We all wish they didn't exist, but they do. They are never going away, because all it takes is one country keeping them and the conciquences are dire. It's a lot like the HHO folks, they wish the laws of physics were different, but we have to work with what we have. Disarming completely is generally a way to get exactly what you don't want, as WWII pointed out so clearly.

Personally I suspect in the end nukes will be used for peaceful purposes. It hasn't come up yet, but pure concentrated power can be lifesaving, such as with an earth bound comet, or mining asteriods.

 

See avatar.

Anybody who believes peace will happen if we disarm ourselves is a fool.

 

You miss a fundimental point of nukes, you don't need many, and relative power isn't important. The first 4 countries (and the USA) could all do us in.

Fair enough. But I believe only China and Russia are not that keen to be real allies as Britain, they've sort of drawn their boundairies. France seems more neutral.

Idealism is fine, but realism is better.

No, idealism is our intention, but realism is what is really going to happen in life in the very end. No one is better than the other and they are both here co-existing. If you are too realistic, strictly speaking, you are not going to progress as such but rather stick to current methods. For example, we have both scientists to "research (discover)" and engineers to "apply (put into practice)" those discoveries. We keep changing and discover new stuffs, and history has proved it, it's in our nature to progress. And what drives you to progress is your will for idealism or better future, profit, etc, and through that way you achieve realism, i.e., "realise/materialise" what you intended to do at the very start.

Disarming completely is generally a way to get exactly what you don't want, as WWII pointed out so clearly.

I did mention that you should be able to defend yourself, but what you are not realising is that, that's not what your enemies have in mind. In the end, it's the most powerful of "you" all who is the one to "rule". And, that's not freedom. So we are like, we want to justify our nukes ownership, impose democracy on others, and at the same time we keep justifying/promoting freedom, that's not feasible. Life is about "trade-offs" and so is engineering, in that sense, like I consistently mentioned, mutual understanding. "You have your defence system, then I have the right to have mine too, and you have to digest that concept. If not, then war". Bill, I hope you understand what I mean and I believe there is no issue out of it.

Personally I suspect in the end nukes will be used for peaceful purposes. It hasn't come up yet, but pure concentrated power can be lifesaving, such as with an earth bound comet, or mining asteriods.

I agree, I did mention a pure guess quite similar to that, i.e., use them for useful civilian applications and not for war, again, you are somehow proving my firm conviction in peace and justice for a better future.

Many thanks.

 

See avatar.

Anybody who believes peace will happen if we disarm ourselves is a fool.

I'm not saying that you need to disarm. All I'm trying to say is that our idea of freedom, democracy, human rights, justifying ownership of nukes as a defence system, etc, they simply don't all match. It's like being "selfish", like as if we want everything good for us only. And that's neither the way to achieve peace. The only way to achieve peace so far from my point, is mutual understanding, and I believe there is no issue out of it.

Many thanks.

 

Your assumption is correct for "Civilized Nations". However, there are some nations that arent' civilized, and believe the entire world should live as they do.

Pandora's box has been opened, and it cannot be shut.

 

Your assumption is correct for "Civilized Nations". However, there are some nations that arent' civilized, and believe the entire world should live as they do.

Now we are talking, you got my point, and I said before one solution for that, I personally believe, is "education".
hmm.... and do you believe that most of us in america are civilised?.... I don't think so.

Pandora's box has been opened, and it cannot be shut.

hmm.... it's not completely the case here, given the will, you can shut it, Yes We Can, and I won't be surprised if others say idealism again.

Engineering System Design, if you want to design it, yes you can, but if it doesn't work, at least you can say you've tried.

Many thanks.

 

hmm.... it's not completely the case here, given the will, you can shut it, Yes We Can, and I won't be surprised if others say idealism again.

There is more than one part to that lid - more than one nation's will required. The US and the USSR were once able to cooperate toward fewer nukes, but never fully disarmed. Multiple nations with divergent agendas would have to cooperate over a long period of time to achieve your dream. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I would be quite surprised if it did.

 

Hi, may be I wasn’t clear enough for you as I was replying to “wr8y”, and also it’s not that easy to convey messages very precisely at once, and many times I expect that others would understand what I’m really trying to say.

Yes, it can cost your life. Referring to what “wr8y” said about the will to fight for freedom, I was trying to explain that, you fight for something, and during the fight you can die, or you can also die during war but not necessarily when on duty, that is, what many refer to as natural death. It should not be thought of as saying “I will fight to death” with the intention in mind to die. You do not go to war to die as such, you go to war to win the cause you are fighting for, and during the fight you might die and as you asserted that most of those people knew that once they fought back there was the strong possibility they would not survive.

I don't understand the point you are trying to make here. Granted, in a war zone, a few soldiers die in accidents or rarely, by things such as heart attacks, but why is this important to bring up?

That’s in some ways what the so- called suicide bombers do.

Why "so-called?" If someone puts on a vest with 15 or 20 lb. of C4 and goes into a gathering of people to set it off, the term "suicide bomber" seems accurate and very appropriate.

Their mission is not to die,

Baloney. The one wearing the vest with the C4 is the first one to go. Granted, the goal is to take out as many bystanders as possible, but to state that the bomber's mission is not to die is silly.

but to cause damage for whatever reason they deem worth fighting for from their point of view, but, they don’t have the necessary weapon carriers or technologies to attack with aircraft etc, as I expect most of them are from weak/poor nations, and as such, they sacrifice their life by using their human body as a sort of weapon carrier and target weak spots not well guarded, i.e., civilian targets. In that sense, not only are you justifying your determination to fight until death for your freedom, but you are somehow at the same time justifying, what you might refer to as “terrorists”

I infer from your quotes around terrorist that this term is somehow in dispute. That may be the case in that august body, the United Nations, whose collective wisdom has not yet been sufficient to agree to a definition of the word "terrorist" these past several years. Perhaps you would prefer "patriot" in place of "terrorist." For myself, "terrorist" is an accurate term.

You seem to be painting the suicide bombers in very glowing, idealistic terms, as patriots who are likewise defending their freedom. Does this also include the many unfortunate mentally retarded people who have been fitted with the vests that are triggered to go off from a cell-phone call, or those people who are handcuffed to the wheel of a car with a trunkful of explosives, where again the explosives are set off by a handler at a safe distance? How about the Iraqi woman who was recently arrested, who headed a group of thugs who went around gang-raping women? The women's shame was such that they could then be easily recruited as suicide bombers. Are all of these people fighting for their freedom?

, their right to strike back, and yet it’s most likely that you certainly won’t accept a strike back. It depends on what “freedom” you are fighting for. This leads back to the main topic, if you say you have the right to defend yourself by possessing nukes and you stress on the importance of your right to have them to defend yourself and value human rights, then, any other nations considering the USA as a potential threat to their national security have the right too to possess anything they deemed necessary to deter you from using your nukes on them. Your justification to have nukes suddenly, and somehow, becomes in conflict with what you consider as your “safety” and your ideology of “freedom and rights”. I repeat, “Absolute freedom/democracy is Anarchy”.

You forgot "Verily."

No one here is arguing that anarchy is a good thing, so why do you keep bringing this up?

And again you might say that it sounds too philosophical than realistic.


Very often, we have the tendency to base our analysis on human history or trends etc, well, I’ll tell you, (as an engineer) an analogy to the idea, we too base our experiments on previous results to compare with and what people refer to as “to forecast”, again based on history/trend, we engineers on the other end extrapolate graphs to predict characteristics of devices over certain regions. Such can also be illustrated by many philosophical theories in physics.

It's also well-known that if you extrapolate very far beyond the data at hand, you're likely to get forecasts that are far from reality, and therefore useless other than as an exercise in sophistry.

Sorry, I’m not planning to reveal anything I deem non-critical about me at the moment, may be some other time. Cheers.


Yes, it might sound very utopian and I’m not surprised to hear it. But from what I’ve read, listened and seen throughout my entire life, I concluded that we people we keep messing up our own ideologies/philosophies, scientific evidence, religious beliefs, and so on. We keep comparing things and we’ll keep changing. You are realistic, and I’m too, but when it comes to discussion like “nukes” etc, things are not that simple. Circumstances vary enormously, and everybody will have their own different views about the topic and I found my reasoning for mutual respect and understanding so far to be the only solution to disputes/conflicts and reach peace, and yet, you can say it’s not going to happen

No, I didn't say that it's not going to happen, only that past history suggests that it won't. As an analogy, I've played poker a few times. I have never seen the Jack of Hearts jump up and spit lemonade in my eye. I suppose this could happen, but the chances of it seem vanishingly slim.

, and I would probably agree, but this is what I propose for as a final solutions

Many people have a strong adversion to the term "final solution." And for good reason.

to our problems even tough mankind will never attain perfection nor it is desirable as you mentioned. Some would say the world wouldn’t be “running” if everything was to be perfect. Then, for example, you’ll have other people justify it with religious beliefs in “evils” leading mankind to take unethical/unfair decisions in life.

I might be off the mark here, but putting quotes around "evils" suggests to me that you think this is some belief of superstitious people. Again, I might be reading something into this that you didn't intend.

If, on the other hand, you are poo-pooing the idea of evil, there are many instances of what rational people would (or should) call evil: the slaughters that occurred in Rwanda in the last century, the genocide the occurred and may still be occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan, parents encouraging their very young children to be suicide bombers, the rape of women to gain recruits for suicide-bombing missions, the extreme impoverishment of an entire nation (North Korea) by its "Dear Leader." And on and on ...

I’ve already given much detail above now for you, and I hope that explains everything for you over what I meant. Even though I agree I might not have been specific enough for you.


Ok, peace of mind, not completely the only reason.

And what I'm saying is that for most people it's not a reason at all. It would take me some time to back that up with any data, but that's my sense.

You really mean fight for freedom to be free (but why?) in its pure context, very obvious, but again I think I’ve given enough information above by now. If people don’t have thoughts/feelings/interests etc, well I guess we would be living like plants doing nothing much really. Not even appreciating the meaning of freedom means to be free. (But free for what? and why? - Many reasons I believe.)

Many thanks to all of you for your comments.

By the way, I’m a new member on this forum, it’s for electronics, anyone sure that what we’re talking about relevant/allowed? I hope it’s not completely irrelevant.

And my final conclusion is "Nukes is bad for humanity". (Justified) (Just trying something, well pure guess, to destroy incoming comets threating the Earth with nukes may be, who knows)

Cheers.

 

There is more than one part to that lid - more than one nation's will required. The US and the USSR were once able to cooperate toward fewer nukes, but never fully disarmed. Multiple nations with divergent agendas would have to cooperate over a long period of time to achieve your dream. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I would be quite surprised if it did.

So would I be as it's not going to just happen and would require a huge effort and time. But my point is to think of using nukes for useful civilian applications. Keeping on saying that nukes is going to save us all and make life safer like some people say, is not my line of thought either.

Many thanks.

 

But my point is to think of using nukes for useful civilian applications.

Digging a trans-continental canal? Inner-city urban renewal? Artificial snow for Christmas in warm regions? Ultimate percussion ensemble for rock bands? Hunting small game in large quantity?

 

Digging a trans-continental canal? Inner-city urban renewal? Artificial snow for Christmas in warm regions? Ultimate percussion ensemble for rock bands? Hunting small game in large quantity?

It's to be seen in the future, like some already pointed out, things like destroying incoming space debris threatening the world, etc. Research can continue and we will definitely keep finding more efficient and new enhanced safety measures for processing nuclear energy for civilian applications.
Don't be surprised with what I'm saying, and if you like history, then history has proven so many times how initially military-oriented developments finally ended up being used for civilian applications. E.g, the GPS is a very nice example.

Mark44 I'll reply to you shortly, but please do not take it personal. It shall be general, even though some parts will be related to what you said, it will be there for all of us to think and be unbiased in our justifications.

Cheers.

 

But my point is to think of using nukes for useful civilian applications. Keeping on saying that nukes is going to save us all and make life safer like some people say, is not my line of thought either.

And why not? Nuclear energy could virtually, or maybe literally, remove our dependance on other nation's oil! By going nuclear in a BIG WAY, we would have the electricity to power electric cars. That would leave petroleum for heavy trucks and little else!

Our air would be cleaner, we'd have much less filth pouring into our air from coal and petroleum-fired electric plants. We'd not have millions of gas-powered cars belching out what comes from those tailpipes. Oh, and our balance of trade would be greatly improved (driving up the value of the dollar overseas).

Nuclear IS our future. Nuclear IS our salvation. Short-sighted, fear or ignorance-based thinking about nuclear energy holds us back. And the environmental movement holds us back, too; if the environmental movement was about cleaning our air, they'd be for nuclear energy in a big way. But they aren't - the organizers of that movement are all about reducing the standard of living in the western world, not cleaning up the planet.

 

And why not?

Dear wr8y, are you following what I mean by "nukes"?... what we all refer to as "nukes"?
I refer to "nukes" as the atomic bomb, the weapon, not the nuclear energy for power generation. No offense, but did you read well? Do you even know the definition of nukes?

Sorry if you don't agree with me, but please don't play with words, simply just say you don't agree and you have the right to say so.
And please, read all my posts first before you comment on what I answered to others.

our dependance on other nation's oil!

I have a very short topic on that and you shall see when I shall reply to Mark44 hopefully soon.

all about reducing the standard of living in the western world, not cleaning up the planet.

See, now you are starting to clearly show what you are afraid of. You are conscious of it. Again I shall show you something, it's not going to be obvious, but I hope you shall begin to understand all what I've been trying to keep saying, as you keep reading, and some of you here have already understood.

Thanks.

 

Well, yea, you ARE talking about nuclear weapons - it's just that I have no great concern about them - they don't scare me. Oh, sure, having some nutjob get his hands on one does. But as far as any NATION having nukes, I am not all that concerened. If a country uses a nuclear weapon, they will be met with destructive force enough to end their existance.

And everyone knows that.

 

See, now you are starting to clearly show what you are afraid of.

Insulting language removed by moderator

 

Everyone posting to this topic is reminded to be respectful of opinions not their own, and to use non-provocative language.

 

Insulting language removed by moderator

wr8y, I'm no longer arguing with you. Sorry.