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Its amazing how cutting emission by regulation is completely left out of the list of options, somehow spending infinite money is seen as easier than getting con

Its amazing how cutting emission by regulation is completely left out of the list of options, somehow spending infinite money is seen as easier than getting congress to act... Anyway, I let Wellerstein reply to this: """The Manhattan Project was an unusual, somewhat dubious enterprise that had massive, world-affecting consequences. Ignoring that not only misunderstands the Manhattan Project, it misunderstands what happens when you pour essentially unlimited resources into a given field — which actually is the primary goal of those who use this metaphor. The problem is, the Manhattan Project “worked,” if by “worked” you mean, “produced atomic bombs for use in the Pacific theatre during World War II.” It almost didn’t work — there are plenty of reasons to believe that the war would have been over fairly soon with or without the bombs (the main historical question is not whether it would soon end, but on what terms and at what costs).""" http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/04/02/do-we-want-another-manhattan-project/ http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/04/02/do-we-want-another...

kenneth 6y ago
It's widely believed that the use of the bombs in WWII as a practical demonstration of the technology is what lead to there not being a WWIII and generally a period of (granted, uneasy) world stability throughout the cold war. Thanks to the bomb's use at the end of an almost-finished conflict, everyone was too afraid of the destruction to turn the cold war hot. Without it, the cold war would have turned hot and a lot more nukes would have been used. Who knows what the world would look like today without those two bombs.
- ahelwer 6y ago
  Love too incinerate 150,000 civilians instead of some random atoll with media floating in a boat a few miles away This is just one of many lacklustre attempts at justifying a hideous war crime. From Eisenhower: "I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon."
- pasabagi 6y ago
  I think the USSR was typically very keen to avoid a war for obvious reasons: they had a much smaller economy, exhausted population, significantly smaller military and massively smaller industrial base than the West. America was more keen, but the logistics of actually invading the USSR would make any war essentially unwinnable. Maybe if the nukes didn't exist, the USSR would have annexed western Berlin, but I don't really know how they would have managed more than that, even if they had wanted to. I also don't think nuclear weapons would have prevented a war if the USSR was more aggressive or more close to the USA in military power.
- SiempreViernes 6y ago
  See wikipedia's list of common misconceptions for a demonstration of the explanatory power of things that are widely believed. Nuclear peace is a theory that find limited support for it's more conservative claims: as the single basis for the "long peace"* it is plainly lacking. *So called because intra-state conflict outside of NATO doesn't count.
free_rms 6y ago
Cutting emissions by regulation is a continually losing battle. You can't tell people to live a lower-quality life and expect to win elections, and you'll have the combined lobbyists of a lot of different interests against you. It's actually more tractable to invent fusion than to try and win that battle long-term -- at least it's theoretically possible to make fusion work. And heck, if we could put some $ in pockets while doing it, that's something that could pass!
- SiempreViernes 6y ago
  The established solution is you don't tell them right out, you just make it worse for most while ensuring there are a few success stories to distract with. See for instance: war on drugs, war on terror et. al.
  - free_rms 6y ago
    Yeah, but those horrors made people rich. Cutting emissions makes nobody rich. Developing fusion, carbon recapture schemes, we need to be thinking in terms of boondoggles that get the job done.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  The Clean Air Act is a clear refutation of your assertion. Benefits there exceeded costs by a factor of about 40. Fixing market failures increases economic wellbeing.

kenneth 6y ago

It's widely believed that the use of the bombs in WWII as a practical demonstration of the technology is what lead to there not being a WWIII and generally a period of (granted, uneasy) world stability throughout the cold war. Thanks to the bomb's use at the end of an almost-finished conflict, everyone was too afraid of the destruction to turn the cold war hot. Without it, the cold war would have turned hot and a lot more nukes would have been used. Who knows what the world would look like today without those two bombs.

ahelwer 6y ago
Love too incinerate 150,000 civilians instead of some random atoll with media floating in a boat a few miles away This is just one of many lacklustre attempts at justifying a hideous war crime. From Eisenhower: "I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon."
pasabagi 6y ago
I think the USSR was typically very keen to avoid a war for obvious reasons: they had a much smaller economy, exhausted population, significantly smaller military and massively smaller industrial base than the West. America was more keen, but the logistics of actually invading the USSR would make any war essentially unwinnable. Maybe if the nukes didn't exist, the USSR would have annexed western Berlin, but I don't really know how they would have managed more than that, even if they had wanted to. I also don't think nuclear weapons would have prevented a war if the USSR was more aggressive or more close to the USA in military power.
SiempreViernes 6y ago
See wikipedia's list of common misconceptions for a demonstration of the explanatory power of things that are widely believed. Nuclear peace is a theory that find limited support for it's more conservative claims: as the single basis for the "long peace"* it is plainly lacking. *So called because intra-state conflict outside of NATO doesn't count.

free_rms 6y ago

Cutting emissions by regulation is a continually losing battle. You can't tell people to live a lower-quality life and expect to win elections, and you'll have the combined lobbyists of a lot of different interests against you. It's actually more tractable to invent fusion than to try and win that battle long-term -- at least it's theoretically possible to make fusion work. And heck, if we could put some $ in pockets while doing it, that's something that could pass!

SiempreViernes 6y ago
The established solution is you don't tell them right out, you just make it worse for most while ensuring there are a few success stories to distract with. See for instance: war on drugs, war on terror et. al.
- free_rms 6y ago
  Yeah, but those horrors made people rich. Cutting emissions makes nobody rich. Developing fusion, carbon recapture schemes, we need to be thinking in terms of boondoggles that get the job done.
pfdietz 6y ago
The Clean Air Act is a clear refutation of your assertion. Benefits there exceeded costs by a factor of about 40. Fixing market failures increases economic wellbeing.