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> we should be thankful the powermongers are just playing with data rather than inventing new weapons of mass destruction. Just playing with the data? https:/

by acqq 7y ago

> we should be thankful the powermongers are just playing with data rather than inventing new weapons of mass destruction. Just playing with the data? https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-04/news/trump-budget-boosts-nuclear-efforts https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-04/news/trump-budget-bo... "Consistent with the recommendations of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget request would continue plans to expand U.S. nuclear weapon capabilities." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-nuking-hurricanes-nuclear-weapons-disrupt-storm-bomb-a9078796.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... "Donald Trump suggested firing nuclear weapons into hurricanes to prevent them hitting the US, reports in Washington claim. The president is said to have raised the idea of bombing hurricanes with senior Homeland Security and national security officials on numerous occasions, dating back as far as 2017."

mindslight 7y ago
I was speaking at the level of novel technologies, not new implementations of existing technologies. New designs of nuclear weapons have a better opportunity to spend the time engineering safeguards against senseless failures, or at least we'd hope. Note that I also wasn't speaking on the deliberate outcomes of mutually assured destruction, or the perhaps-even-worse outcome of some actor using a small number of nuclear weapons and getting away with it.
- phs318u 7y ago
  One might argue that use of a nuclear weapon - as intended - qualifies as a “senseless failure”, just not of the weapon.
zaroth 7y ago
The rumor that Trump suggested nuking hurricanes presumes that Trump would know of the history behind research around nuking hurricanes. > “I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” the president evidently interrupted, according to Swan’s source. “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?” Really, in this alternate reality Trump is asking about disrupting the eye wall of a hurricane with super-heated air? I think both Trump lovers and haters can actually agree this is entirely not credible (for each their chosen reasons).

by acqq 7y ago

mindslight 7y ago

I was speaking at the level of novel technologies, not new implementations of existing technologies. New designs of nuclear weapons have a better opportunity to spend the time engineering safeguards against senseless failures, or at least we'd hope. Note that I also wasn't speaking on the deliberate outcomes of mutually assured destruction, or the perhaps-even-worse outcome of some actor using a small number of nuclear weapons and getting away with it.

phs318u 7y ago
One might argue that use of a nuclear weapon - as intended - qualifies as a “senseless failure”, just not of the weapon.

zaroth 7y ago

The rumor that Trump suggested nuking hurricanes presumes that Trump would know of the history behind research around nuking hurricanes. > “I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” the president evidently interrupted, according to Swan’s source. “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?” Really, in this alternate reality Trump is asking about disrupting the eye wall of a hurricane with super-heated air? I think both Trump lovers and haters can actually agree this is entirely not credible (for each their chosen reasons).