DisjointedHunt

Precisely, there is no international coalition of countries threatening war against us, is there?

Why is the US or NATO justified in doing the same to Russia then ?

[Edit] Since the algo won't let me post too many comments too fast.

Sanctions/War/whatever . . . the point is that the actions of the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are many orders of magnitude worse than anything Russia has done to Crimea or is planning on doing to Ukraine, so any retort saying "We are not going to war, we are applying sanctions" is about as paradoxical as it gets.

If those actions justify sanctions or war, surely the US should be first in line to sanction itself?

Is budget the same as foreign exchange inflows? That's what the author is pointing out as the bulwark to the international pressure.

So, the US invaded Iraq and walked into Syria, bombing the fuck out of it.

What do you propose as punishment?

Okay, and compared to the myriad of other problems the world has right now and the US has right now. . .how is it our problem and what do you suggest we do about it?

Should we nuke them? Surely not?

Let Europe handle her political disagreements. We have no place there. The present breathless escalation of tensions only leads to one place and it's not good at all.

Why is the United States taking the lead at all in a conflict between countries with a history of conflict longer than the US has been around? European powers routinely engage financially with Russia in the form of pipeline contracts, friendly coordination on multiple other areas such as environmental protection etc.

This is all just a proxy fight for the natural resources (Oil) in Crimea and Ukraine and that's disgusting.

Much of the coverage i see of "Russia" in the west completely misses the following points that super crucial to the political debate:

1. NATO is a military coalition that sits outside the regular National framework of war making.

2. NATO agreements are fair or ridiculous depending on the outcome one expects. If a member is attacked, that is a declaration of war on ALL members. Consider a rogue state/leader member picking war with a nuclear power and escalating to the point of no return. What then?

3. The objectives that NATO seem to want have become largely aggressive extensions of one political sides policies rather than what is right for "keeping the peace in Europe" or the world.

If you disagree with the statements above, i'd ask you to consider that China and her allies, Iran, Turkey, North Korea and Pakistan suddenly moved Radar equipment and denial of airspace missile batteries to Mexico, Canada and Cuba tomorrow. What would the United States consider such an act to be? Defensive?

For all the dick waving that Putin has done, the threat of war with severe consequences has been initiated by and continues to be advertised as the only choice by the unelected bureaucrats at NATO.

We are all supposed to sit here and watch while these morons pick a fight on the behalf of the world and then give us no choice but to send our kids off to die in another pointless battle?

I'd like to see the scientific community get more throughput. While the launch of this telescope is great, it cost wayyy more than anyone expected and took far too long.

I hope all the applause doesn't drown out the criticism on the badly run operations and manufacturing capabilities at NASA that contributed to the delays.

Reading this story gives me SO much hope for where we are as a society at the moment. It also gives me immense reason for pause to ask how many people out there with great ideas presently do not have access to the tools outlined in the story.

We need, now more than ever, an "eli5" or "get up to speed in an hour" source for these very interesting fields where all the progress of the past century is easily visualized at a high level. I get the feeling much of academia shuts down such attempts to preserve their grip on knowledge and thus their authority.

Precisely. I'd like the scientific community to begin treating their declarations with the respectful humility science needs. Too often have i been reading headlines such as "The Universe is growing faster than it should" or "How science tells us the Pandemic will end once everyone is vaccinated". .

. .or other such pop science cult rubbish. We do NOT know everything, we merely have "best fit" theories that are taught with the disclaimer that these work under specific conditions that we've observed and we have no way of gaming out all the trillions and trillions of possible outcomes in the real world. Trusting the common man with that level of transparency and then making humble "recommendations" seems a far better approach.

Should we need to ram through a scientific conclusion, lets do so without making obviously uncertain statements such as "The pandemic will end once everyone is vaccinated" since that presumes a LOT.

>That strike was ordered by a top-secret strike cell called Talon Anvil that, according to people who worked with it, frequently sidestepped procedures meant to protect civilians

Is it just me, or reading the CIA document about sabotaging an organization and reading this link now, it's hard not to draw the conclusion that there are rogue elements in US military and government that have managed to subvert the hard work of the larger organization?

This sounds like exactly what our enemies would want us to do if i were reading this as someone looking in from China or Russia. Takes just one "incompetent" looking decision which could be malice that leads to hundreds of deaths and propagates the sentiment that EVERYTHING the US is doing is flawed.

This is incorrect. When you work in a heavily regulated industry such as Finance, everyone knows the basic requirements of official record keeping and process. The industry has a long history of being hit with "slap on the wrist" type fines for things exactly like this ie, using unofficial tools and software to communicate.

So in conclusion, the narrative that execs at large firms push is a self centered one that is intended to keep the status quo just as it is. They may not realize this, but doing so makes it ever more likely that there will be regulatory pressure on them sooner or later.

Apologies if this is not super well written, i'm writing this during travel and English isn't really my first language.

No. Carbon taxes are an accounting trick.

Just fucking deploy modern nuclear technology. Run trains and heating and industrial heating for entire cities limitlessly with a predictable dollar budget. Zero carbon emissions.

The problem I have with this entire line of argument is how in reality you have nations such as China generating significant volumes of carbon credits in exchange for that sweet cash generated by gullible nations.

We have the Department of fucking Energy and a thousand other agencies that have researched and operated this technology for decades in the most grueling environments (Nuclear Submarines and other classified domains) and it is more than ready for large scale commercial use.

Imagine having limitless power to run projects of Earth scale -> Literally convert saltwater of an ocean into freshwater and pump it continuously into deserts or inland. . . Turn off natural gas heating entirely in the northern hemisphere thanks to electric heating . . The possibilities are endless.

Wait, it’s hard to take you seriously if you think India pays below market rate for coal from Australia. Is that really your stance or am I misreading that?

They have domestic production that accounts for a significant portion of domestic electricity generation that is bought at market value and then sold commercially through government supported subsidy to help their economic needs.

This isn’t a question of “they’re getting it for cheap because of subsidies” - if indeed that’s what you’re saying, it’s a rather uninformed position on the matter.

Also, I don’t care what the new German government “intends” to do. The old one “intended” to turn off the bulk of their Nuclear sources leading to coal use surging at peak (which is happening all the more frequently now with the winter energy mix being thrown off)

You seem to have a stock position for increasing the cost of dirty sources without a care for what compels economies to use them in the first place. That is precisely the point I’m trying to get you to see. They aren’t used one dimensionally because they’re dirty and no one has prioritized clean energy sources yet, but because they are necessary and the alternatives don’t fit the bill for the need of the hour.

Adding a carbon tax in this context is a very arrogant way of saying “Fuck your needs, if you have to pay more, you’ll learn to live with less”

When the point is we want to innovate so we get the economic value that modern technology such as SMRs produce without needing to subject a billion people to continue living with powercuts that stretch hours a day because the “civilized” world thinks the pollution from them wanting a better life is too dangerous for the world.

Energy runs the world. It isn’t as one dimensional as you paint it.

Governments don’t simply subsidize burning coal. . . They do so as a means to meet the growing demand of their people for electricity.

India for example, has one of the most expensive fuels sold in the world thanks to immense taxation. Even with one of the lower per capital incomes in the world, they are a massive energy market because ENERGY IS NEEDED FOR SUSTENANCE.

We need to realize that what sounds like a great idea on paper to minimize one dimension is actually counter productive when we factor in many more.

I’ve never been more astounded than when in the company of absolute geniuses in Silicon Valley, watching them discuss the economics of a carbon tax without having once encountered a real world carbon tax credit trade or having seen the dishonesty of the entire system.

Tl;dr: It isn’t a system to “inform one of the behavior one needs to change most urgently” as the author puts it. It’s a transfer of wealth from the economies that impose it to the economies that find a way to leverage the arbitrage.

Going green doesn’t need to be a punitive process, Infact, all indications from our efforts over the past decade indicate that punitive measures are far from perfect. The incentive for solar and wind energy, for example, has saddled places like Germany and California with systems that dont scale with growing demand, leading to temporary large burns of dirty coal or arguably worse, cutting off power to whole cities for hours.

Intelligent societies solve problems through innovation. A billion dollars to five or so independent contractors to set up efficient modular nuclear reactors with some entity like the Army Corps of Engineers or experts from the energy department assisting with oversight and safety would completely change the game over night.

You can still fly to meet your family and cities can run public infrastructure around the clock carbon free for any demand load we can imagine for the next century.

The issue is precisely the idiots who come up with the ideas of a carbon tax. Bureaucrats. Won’t be around by the time the idea fails so the blame falls to someone else.

The legal and regulatory barriers holding nuclear back in the US right now is one of the gravest mistakes of the coming century.

I’ve been heavily critical of Apple for their on device scanning plans but credit where it’s due. This act hopefully exposes the sheer abuse of Public funds to find and exploit vulnerabilities and somehow those same vulns find themselves in the commercial domain, available to the fucking despots in the Middle East and wherever else?

It’s about time those that took the oath to protect the nation from harm step up and do so instead of creating a million more problems by shipping these exploits off to a later time while they sit on them.

I humbly believe the answer is to allow more transparency, choice and control back to the users instead of allowing these companies to choose a greedy recommendation algorithm that ranks for 'exploit' over 'explore'.

I recently started a new twitter account with the hope of creating lists of quantum physics and some financial research individuals such as the heads of investment banks who post amazing short form content all the time.

Twitter randomly starts injecting abject nonsense in my feed from other topics such as "investing" which, okay, i get may be related, but the contents of those topics are nowhere near the level of quality that my core lists had. Absolute idiots posts content of a passive aggressive nature and raking up the likes and reshares which i had no interest to be a part of.

A few days of constantly giving feedback to the algorithm and aggressively hiding sources and topics from my feed and the quality just keeps getting worse. My mood started slipping if i wake up and have a push notification from twitter suggesting yet another tweet about some finance bro dunking on some company they hold a short position on because they can't believe it's valued above 0.

I plan on spending some time now understanding how i completely kill all recommendations and only keep follow lists of the people i explicitly follow, but that is frustrating.

I'd recommend listening to episode 47 of the Darknet diaries and see if you still hold those beliefs that these people are indeed morally bankrupt https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/

The thing with this line of work is that one mans ethics becomes another mans sin. The tl;dr of that episode is that some of these people were led on to believe they were actually targeting criminals and terrorists. It later became clear that was not the case.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that. It would surprise you that even the most noble of pursuits in engineering have very cruel applications in war.

Okay, let me repeat. I’m not speaking about NSOs founders or the org. The concern I’m highlighting is that we’re not treating our most brilliant minds with the care that keeps them happy here.

That is the link to episode 47 of dark net diaries.

I guess Hacker News has devolved into a place of talking over each other and downvotes.

I'm not speaking about the founders. I should have been more specific. The talent in the NSA that leaves and ends up working for the UAE, as an example[1]

[1]https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/

The programmers who i've read about getting hit with penalties as a consequence of working with companies such as NSO or with governments such as the UAE seem to be exposing a significant gap in the US' treatment of their most prized minds.

The NSA and other government agencies seem to not be attractive from the point of view of a great place to work and the money to be made in the private sector in the US alone is thin. . . economic forces dictate that supply will meet demand especially when the demand is rich middle eastern wealth.

There is no obvious "red team" or similar career for these people in the US to help defend the nations systems for a fee. All government contracts for cybersecurity go out in tenders that prioritize entities that can navigate the complex logistics of filing a response with the Government and working their way.

That's the biggest concern for me seeing this pattern emerge. On the specific entity here, the NSO group being blacklisted, that will change little. There is a systemic risk of us continuing to lose great talent to more attractive ventures.

The protests by this lobby group are targeted at the greenzone, yes, but the entirety of COP26 ignores Nuclear as a viable option. You may review the stated agendas of the leading participants or the goals they have published.

The global minimum alternative tax is a higher priority this week than anything climate.

What you will then get is an unsustainable set of shortcuts that threaten your energy supplies at crucial times.

ie, what's happening in Europe now[1]

Germany went on a spree, dismantling their nuclear plants after being scared by Fukushima. Fossil fuel plants tool their place. Subsidies to unsustainable alternatives and penalties on polluters made it so it was not profitable to increase energy supply on sources such as natural gas and fossil fuels that could ramp quickly in response to demand.

And the price of natural gas in Europe went parabolic.

[1] https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/28/why-europe-s-energy-pric...

Oh, i didn't miss that part, i think you may have missed my assertion that Energy is crucial to flourish. One may see a society "Flourish" by innovating their way out of an unsustainable path.

Everything we consider advanced tech today is built on an economy made possible by vast, cheap and accessible energy sources such as the ones we're dissing.

I agree that we need to stop using energy sources in a way that threatens our existence. But i assert that there are massive benefits we have to be thankful for as well.

This is true.

Also the most efficient and safe reactors are arguably in the bellies of the leading edge Submarines. It's no surprise France is going all in on the Small Modular Reactor tech since they are rumored to possess some of the best in the world already. Likely a question of declassification.

The reactor at MIT has students allowed to run parts of the operation after they pass a few strenuous tests. This hypothetical scenario where the political will is ready to go and the skill gap is what is holding it up is imaginary.

We’re seeing this play out in real time in Europe and the lack of serious coverage in the USA is disappointing

It's not just any event and it's not just any presentation.

The proposals here are what entire Nations agree to in order to reduce carbon emissions.

Not having Nuclear represented there is dumb. That's the point.

I didn’t say it’s wrong. I said it villianizes those fuels.

We needed fuels as a society for those 3000 mile flights over the pacific that ships your iPhone here.

Energy “subsidies” are a strategic investment in securing your lifestyle. Just look at Europe right now as they head into winter with sky high natural gas prices. They’d go ahead an strike any deal that secures their supplies so they do t freeze half to death like they did with Russia.

Energy is a strategic asset and simply saying “it gets subsidized” makes it sound like charity.

It could both be real and at the same time be true that these people don’t care.

They simply want to use to genuine concern around climate to further their own ends.

Please don’t fall for the villianization that the media adopt to push an agenda.

Energy is a fundamental need for society to flourish.

Fossil fuels have one of the highest energy densities and hence have been used for ages. We have much to be thankful for thanks to fossil fuels being around.

We are in a position today to bring change and I’m all for that. Losing sight of the benefits of energy simply because some sources have a negative connotation attached sets us up for failure.