4 ms·

Here's an interesting exercise: what's the minimum quantity of explosives that would lead to 1% drop in western GDP? would doubling it lead to 2% or 4%? is the

Here's an interesting exercise: what's the minimum quantity of explosives that would lead to 1% drop in western GDP? would doubling it lead to 2% or 4%? is the relationship linear? I don't have an answer, but thinking about it makes one understand how incredible fragile our complex logistic chains (and indeed our economy) are. One day all this complexity will collapse upon itself and we'll wonder what happened.

verzali 2y ago
Probably not a lot. Blowing up a ship in the middle of the Panama or Suez canal might do it, especially if you wreck it badly enough to block the canal for months. Even easier if you target a big oil tanker. I don't think this is linear though. It's easy to target a weak point to inflict a small amount of damage, but hitting say 10% of GDP would mean targeting multiple sectors of the economy and putting millions of people out of productive work.
pjc50 2y ago
Bomb in TSMC clean room. Almost any size. That takes out the AI market. 1% of GDP gone. However, it's less than linear; not many targets of such critical importance. The ability to get the bomb in the right place is far more important than the quantity of explosives, as was demonstrated by the recent suicide sniper missing. The IRA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Bishopsgate_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Bishopsgate_bombing was estimated to cause more economic damage than all other IRA bombing put together. It's interesting that (apart from the first WTC bombing) American terrorists have stuck strictly to guns and not attempted car bombs.
- krisoft 2y ago
  > It's interesting that (apart from the first WTC bombing) American terrorists have stuck strictly to guns and not attempted car bombs. That is not true. Oklahoma City bombing is the first which comes to mind where the explosives was planted on a truck. But there are many others, there is a whole wikipedia list about them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Car_and_truck_bombings_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Car_and_truck_bombi...
  - pjc50 2y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deaths_by_car_bomb_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deaths_by_car_bomb_... 16 is not "many", and quite a lot of those are decades old. Whereas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(2000%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th... is just an endless scroll. It's a form of terrorism that America accepts as routine as car accidents.
    - krisoft 2y ago
      “stuck strictly” implies exlusivity. That and the “apart from the first WTC bombing” implies that the first WTC bombing was the only vehicular explosive in the USA. I agree terrorist in the USA use guns a lot more than vehicle-born explosives. If that is what you would have written i would have not commented anything.
- pixl97 2y ago
  If you could get 4 people 81mm mortars (and some training) it's highly likely you could shut down 10% of us gas refining by attacking just 4 facilities along the TX/LA coast. It's very possible you could also do this with drones and avoid getting caught for some time, though your payloads may be a bit lighter. Refineries are large, but typically weak targets with critical areas. This has been something that Ukraine has been exploiting against Russia.

verzali 2y ago

Probably not a lot. Blowing up a ship in the middle of the Panama or Suez canal might do it, especially if you wreck it badly enough to block the canal for months. Even easier if you target a big oil tanker. I don't think this is linear though. It's easy to target a weak point to inflict a small amount of damage, but hitting say 10% of GDP would mean targeting multiple sectors of the economy and putting millions of people out of productive work.

pjc50 2y ago

Bomb in TSMC clean room. Almost any size. That takes out the AI market. 1% of GDP gone. However, it's less than linear; not many targets of such critical importance. The ability to get the bomb in the right place is far more important than the quantity of explosives, as was demonstrated by the recent suicide sniper missing. The IRA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Bishopsgate_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Bishopsgate_bombing was estimated to cause more economic damage than all other IRA bombing put together. It's interesting that (apart from the first WTC bombing) American terrorists have stuck strictly to guns and not attempted car bombs.

krisoft 2y ago
> It's interesting that (apart from the first WTC bombing) American terrorists have stuck strictly to guns and not attempted car bombs. That is not true. Oklahoma City bombing is the first which comes to mind where the explosives was planted on a truck. But there are many others, there is a whole wikipedia list about them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Car_and_truck_bombings_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Car_and_truck_bombi...
- pjc50 2y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deaths_by_car_bomb_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deaths_by_car_bomb_... 16 is not "many", and quite a lot of those are decades old. Whereas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(2000%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th... is just an endless scroll. It's a form of terrorism that America accepts as routine as car accidents.
  - krisoft 2y ago
    “stuck strictly” implies exlusivity. That and the “apart from the first WTC bombing” implies that the first WTC bombing was the only vehicular explosive in the USA. I agree terrorist in the USA use guns a lot more than vehicle-born explosives. If that is what you would have written i would have not commented anything.
pixl97 2y ago
If you could get 4 people 81mm mortars (and some training) it's highly likely you could shut down 10% of us gas refining by attacking just 4 facilities along the TX/LA coast. It's very possible you could also do this with drones and avoid getting caught for some time, though your payloads may be a bit lighter. Refineries are large, but typically weak targets with critical areas. This has been something that Ukraine has been exploiting against Russia.