5 ms·

Would be nice if the title would suggest what he did. He was an important blogger in the early days? What did he write about?

by erikb 10y ago

pjc50 10y ago
Very prominent and hugely prolific blogger, back in the Cambrian explosion of 2000-2001. If you wanted to read several thousand word blog posts on why it was right - no, a moral obligation - for the US to go to war with Iraq, several times a day, he was one of the people to follow in your RSS reader. He also posted on pop-sci and engineering topics. Eventually he wearied of the controversy of war and retreated to blogging about anime. Actually, the blog hosting this obituary is quite similar to and probably inspired by DenBeste.
- hga 10y ago
  It was our moral obligation to go to war with Saddam, ask for an outline of details as I and as I recall Steve saw them if you want, but the moral case starts with "you broke it, you fix it" ... and come to think of it we followed the same pattern with Vietnam, except for our unprovoked breaking of that country vs. our responding to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. And that war was very successful and improved things in general, if for no other reasons than removing Saddam from power and blowing open the Khan nuclear production network (for which we rewarded Qaddafi with death...). It was also our moral obligation to properly handle the aftermath, after we'd finished completely breaking the country, and that's where the horrible failures started, with e.g. the appointment of the clueless proconsul Paul Bremer (although killing zillions of jihadists on ground of our choosing was one good result).
- erikb 10y ago
  I didn't believe that I would understand an argumentation in favour of the Iraq wars, but I actually did. Thanks for letting me know. I still don't agree with all he has said, but he gives good points to improve everybody's point of view.
emmelaich 10y ago
What @pjc50 said. Here's a best of Den Beste: https://erbosoft.com/ussclueless/bestof.htm https://erbosoft.com/ussclueless/bestof.htm Very thoughtful, well written, prolific. Here's one of his posts referencing one of my favourites, on alternate energy: http://chizumatic.mee.nu/ghosts_of_my_past http://chizumatic.mee.nu/ghosts_of_my_past
- pjc50 10y ago
  It's important to recognise that he falls into the category of people who are convincing, argue at length with references, but are often wrong. A little example from that link (2008): "I don't expect the photovoltaic manufacturing industry to achieve that kind of production volume any time soon. 250 square kilometers is 250 million square meters. If they're turning out even as much as ten thousand square meters a year now I'd be very surprised. (I'd be a bit surprised if it was even one thousand.)" For some reason solar panel production seems to be quoted in watts rather than area; but if I take 55,000MW from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics and multiply it by the smaller number in https://www.quora.com/To-produce-1-MW-of-solar-power-using-PV-cells-how-much-space-is-required https://www.quora.com/To-produce-1-MW-of-solar-power-using-P... I get about 360 million square meters. His strategising on the middle east hasn't exactly been vindicated by history either.
  - phonon 10y ago
    Not sure "Any time soon" = 8 years later.
  - emmelaich 10y ago
    (edit: often wrong? I don't think it was often) Indeed, I was about to add a footnote to that effect but I was sure that someone else would do it for me :-) It's fine to be wrong, especially about the future. At least he showed his working, and if the figures from photovoltaics and batteries improve then you can redo some of his calculations. That's a very good thing. Most people would say he was wrong to support the war too, but at least you can understand in detail why he had the opinions he had.
kahirsch 10y ago
He pushed for the invasion of Iraq on his blog in 2002 and 2003. When France and Germany tried to prevent the war, he demonized them and contemplated war with them.[1][2] In July 2003, when the weapons of mass distruction had failed to materialize and it was hard to find defenders of the war, he was even published in the Wall Street Journal[3], where he dismissed the importance of the WMDs and asserted: "In fact, the real reason we went into Iraq was precisely to 'nation build': to create a secularized, liberated, cosmopolitan society in a core Arab nation. To create a place where Arabs were free and safe and unafraid and happy and successful and not ruled by corrupt monarchs or brutal dictators. This would demonstrate to the other people in the Arab and Muslim worlds that they can succeed, but only if they abandon those political, cultural and religious chains that are holding them back." His readers objected, saying "Any time the American public is called upon to expend their national treasure and send their troops into battle they deserve a completely honest accounting of the reasons why." Den Beste replied "No, I'm afraid they don't. They don't need to know, and can't be trusted to know."[4] In short, he helped and defended the government lying to its own people in support of an illegal war of aggression. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20030207031028/http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/01/Supposetherewastreachery.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20030207031028/http://denbeste.n... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20030401203113/http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/03/Itsthewaiting.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20030401203113/http://denbeste.n... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20030803115140/http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110003786 https://web.archive.org/web/20030803115140/http://www.opinio... [4] https://erbosoft.com/ussclueless/cd_log_entries/2003/07/Tellingthetruth-2.htm https://erbosoft.com/ussclueless/cd_log_entries/2003/07/Tell...
- hga 10y ago
  I double checked your last cited claim, and it's indeed correct, e.g.: "And so it is in this case. If there were a way that the President could have revealed the true strategy for the war to us all without negative consequences, I would agree that he would have had an obligation to do so. But that's not the case; for the government to come out and frankly state that the purpose of this war was to bring about broad political and cultural reforms in the entire Arab/Islamic world would have guaranteed that the war would be much more costly to us, and raise a substantial risk that we would not succeed." Which he justifies by how much harder it would have been to win the war part of it without starting from the ground on Kuwait. Which is an utterly bogus calculus. Although I don't remember it being such a big secret what we were really trying to accomplish, but it's been too long to remember the sequence of events. I also think that this doomed goal was necessary for us to try, if/when we have to implement a nuclear Final Solution to the Muslim Problem (in response to getting nuked, of course, see things like Wretchard's Three Conjectures for more discussion of this terrible calculus). But for such a terribly difficult and unlikely to succeed endeavor as nation building, for that to be the main goal, to not get buy-in from the nation, was indescribably irresponsible. And helped to ensure its failure, even the middle of "Democracy, Whisky, Sexy" just got spiked in a middle of the night law passed by the Iraqi legislature....

Would be nice if the title would suggest what he did. He was an important blogger in the early days? What did he write about?

by erikb 10y ago

Would be nice if the title would suggest what he did. He was an important blogger in the early days? What did he write about?

pjc50 10y ago

Very prominent and hugely prolific blogger, back in the Cambrian explosion of 2000-2001. If you wanted to read several thousand word blog posts on why it was right - no, a moral obligation - for the US to go to war with Iraq, several times a day, he was one of the people to follow in your RSS reader. He also posted on pop-sci and engineering topics. Eventually he wearied of the controversy of war and retreated to blogging about anime. Actually, the blog hosting this obituary is quite similar to and probably inspired by DenBeste.

hga 10y ago
It was our moral obligation to go to war with Saddam, ask for an outline of details as I and as I recall Steve saw them if you want, but the moral case starts with "you broke it, you fix it" ... and come to think of it we followed the same pattern with Vietnam, except for our unprovoked breaking of that country vs. our responding to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. And that war was very successful and improved things in general, if for no other reasons than removing Saddam from power and blowing open the Khan nuclear production network (for which we rewarded Qaddafi with death...). It was also our moral obligation to properly handle the aftermath, after we'd finished completely breaking the country, and that's where the horrible failures started, with e.g. the appointment of the clueless proconsul Paul Bremer (although killing zillions of jihadists on ground of our choosing was one good result).
erikb 10y ago
I didn't believe that I would understand an argumentation in favour of the Iraq wars, but I actually did. Thanks for letting me know. I still don't agree with all he has said, but he gives good points to improve everybody's point of view.

emmelaich 10y ago

What @pjc50 said. Here's a best of Den Beste: https://erbosoft.com/ussclueless/bestof.htm https://erbosoft.com/ussclueless/bestof.htm Very thoughtful, well written, prolific. Here's one of his posts referencing one of my favourites, on alternate energy: http://chizumatic.mee.nu/ghosts_of_my_past http://chizumatic.mee.nu/ghosts_of_my_past

pjc50 10y ago
It's important to recognise that he falls into the category of people who are convincing, argue at length with references, but are often wrong. A little example from that link (2008): "I don't expect the photovoltaic manufacturing industry to achieve that kind of production volume any time soon. 250 square kilometers is 250 million square meters. If they're turning out even as much as ten thousand square meters a year now I'd be very surprised. (I'd be a bit surprised if it was even one thousand.)" For some reason solar panel production seems to be quoted in watts rather than area; but if I take 55,000MW from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics and multiply it by the smaller number in https://www.quora.com/To-produce-1-MW-of-solar-power-using-PV-cells-how-much-space-is-required https://www.quora.com/To-produce-1-MW-of-solar-power-using-P... I get about 360 million square meters. His strategising on the middle east hasn't exactly been vindicated by history either.
- phonon 10y ago
  Not sure "Any time soon" = 8 years later.
- emmelaich 10y ago
  (edit: often wrong? I don't think it was often) Indeed, I was about to add a footnote to that effect but I was sure that someone else would do it for me :-) It's fine to be wrong, especially about the future. At least he showed his working, and if the figures from photovoltaics and batteries improve then you can redo some of his calculations. That's a very good thing. Most people would say he was wrong to support the war too, but at least you can understand in detail why he had the opinions he had.

kahirsch 10y ago

He pushed for the invasion of Iraq on his blog in 2002 and 2003. When France and Germany tried to prevent the war, he demonized them and contemplated war with them.[1][2] In July 2003, when the weapons of mass distruction had failed to materialize and it was hard to find defenders of the war, he was even published in the Wall Street Journal[3], where he dismissed the importance of the WMDs and asserted: "In fact, the real reason we went into Iraq was precisely to 'nation build': to create a secularized, liberated, cosmopolitan society in a core Arab nation. To create a place where Arabs were free and safe and unafraid and happy and successful and not ruled by corrupt monarchs or brutal dictators. This would demonstrate to the other people in the Arab and Muslim worlds that they can succeed, but only if they abandon those political, cultural and religious chains that are holding them back." His readers objected, saying "Any time the American public is called upon to expend their national treasure and send their troops into battle they deserve a completely honest accounting of the reasons why." Den Beste replied "No, I'm afraid they don't. They don't need to know, and can't be trusted to know."[4] In short, he helped and defended the government lying to its own people in support of an illegal war of aggression. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20030207031028/http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/01/Supposetherewastreachery.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20030207031028/http://denbeste.n... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20030401203113/http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/03/Itsthewaiting.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20030401203113/http://denbeste.n... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20030803115140/http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110003786 https://web.archive.org/web/20030803115140/http://www.opinio... [4] https://erbosoft.com/ussclueless/cd_log_entries/2003/07/Tellingthetruth-2.htm https://erbosoft.com/ussclueless/cd_log_entries/2003/07/Tell...

hga 10y ago
I double checked your last cited claim, and it's indeed correct, e.g.: "And so it is in this case. If there were a way that the President could have revealed the true strategy for the war to us all without negative consequences, I would agree that he would have had an obligation to do so. But that's not the case; for the government to come out and frankly state that the purpose of this war was to bring about broad political and cultural reforms in the entire Arab/Islamic world would have guaranteed that the war would be much more costly to us, and raise a substantial risk that we would not succeed." Which he justifies by how much harder it would have been to win the war part of it without starting from the ground on Kuwait. Which is an utterly bogus calculus. Although I don't remember it being such a big secret what we were really trying to accomplish, but it's been too long to remember the sequence of events. I also think that this doomed goal was necessary for us to try, if/when we have to implement a nuclear Final Solution to the Muslim Problem (in response to getting nuked, of course, see things like Wretchard's Three Conjectures for more discussion of this terrible calculus). But for such a terribly difficult and unlikely to succeed endeavor as nation building, for that to be the main goal, to not get buy-in from the nation, was indescribably irresponsible. And helped to ensure its failure, even the middle of "Democracy, Whisky, Sexy" just got spiked in a middle of the night law passed by the Iraqi legislature....