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 sebster wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Please dude, be reasonable. You seem to think I am some kind of secret Russian government agent.

I don't think that. I never even considered it. I think if you were you would be much better at this.

Good. Maybe you can cut it out with some of the nonsense you are spewing then. Because on the subject of bias, it sometimes really seems like you are biased against me.

 sebster wrote:

]And while I do advocate to doubt and distrust every institution, I do not advocate to doubt every institution equally. Read my posts. I am pretty clear about the fact that I think that media like RT is less trustworthy than say the BBC. There, your whole argument falls apart.

If what you just claimed lined up with with arguments you trot out, then you'd have a point. But we all know the arguments you'd made, and they weren't coming from the BBC.

That is correct. My arguments do indeed not come from the BBC. They come from me, formed from my personal opinions. That is why they are my arguments, and not the BBC's arguments or RT's arguments or Putin's arguments or anyone but me's arguments.
Also, I suggest you actually read what I write. What I just claimed lines up perfectly with my arguments. Huh, I sure wonder how that is possible? Maybe it is because they ARE my arguments! Not trusting any single media source was what my whole argument is about.

 sebster wrote:

I think you have a very unique understanding of what 'bias' means, if you don't think that the NYT doesn't have any. If only the dictionaries agreed with you! But yeah, never let reality get in the way of a good argument right?

"inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair."

See that last bit there, 'unfair'. That's what seperates having a point of view from being biased.

Now, I know you got pissy when I asked you this before, but I'm gonna ask again and hope maybe this time you might actually reflect for a second. Please stop doing what you're doing. It is absurd. You argue absolute nonsense, it is shown to be such and then you just double down over and over again. You've just ended trying to argue against the plain text definition of a word, just to avoid learning the difference between having a point of view and being biased.

So please stop it. This is a just random internet forum, nothing here matters, but the way we approach debate, and the way we think about issues is how you will do it everywhere. When you're so closed off you'll pretend you don't know the definition of a word available with a 10 second google search, something is badly wrong.

I was a really headstrong kid once, as well. A trick my dad told me was to start any conversation just by asking a question, and then really listening to the answer.

Don't reply if you don't want. I don't care. But just step away, have a think about this.

Oh, I do reflecting a lot. I like reflecting on stuff. That is why I followed philosophy classes in school. And it seems like you should reflect on the difference between a point of view and a bias a bit more. Now, 'a point of view' is a broad term that can have multiple meanings. But in the way you are using it, there is no functional difference between having a point of view and being biased.
If my point of view is that Donald Trump is a horrible president, and that conservatives are idiots for supporting gun rights, than I am biased against Trump and conservatives. If my point of view is that liberals damage American values, than I am biased against liberals. If my point of view is that Putin is a 'murderous criminal', than I am biased against Putin.

But sure, go ahead. I won't stop you from embarrassing yourself by continuing to argue how the NYT is unbiased, because it only has "a point of view". A bias is nothing more than an unfair point of view. And with 'unfair' being such a subjective term, you should understand that almost every point of view will be considered unfair by someone. Therefore, functionally, having a point of view and being biased is the same thing. Biases naturally grow out of having a point of view.

But it gets even more blurry, since 'bias' does not necessarily imply unfair either. It is used quite often (especially in academic discourse) without implying a notion of 'unfairness', and I have found two dictionaries already that do not mention the 'unfair' aspect in their definition of bias. So, apparently, even the meaning of bias can be subject to bias. You seem to be wanting to draw some sharp, objective line where in truth there is only a blurry, subjective line.

But yeah, go ahead being so sure of yourself and calling whatever I write nonsense without even bothering to properly read it. You are headstrong indeed. An admirable quality, but it does make discussions troublesome. Like I said before once, you always really make me feel like I am talking to wall. There is plenty of other people on this forum that sometimes agree with me or whom I sometimes do not agree with. But with almost all of them, I can have a productive discussion. I know that it is just a forum discussion, and I don't really care much about it, but still, it'd be nice if I could have a productive discussion with you as well, instead of just wasting time.

 Haighus wrote:
I certainly don't disagree with you final paragraph- recognising where there is overt, intentional bias is important in discrediting that source of information. The point I was making is that bias is not limited to deliberate intentions to mislead, it is simply an effect of human thinking and actions.

I think we're saying very much the same thing, just with different terminology and a different focus.

You are making a dichotomy that bias is intentional and subconscious influences are not, but both are bias.

Not really. I'm not minimizing subconscious. I was just addressing the difference created by intent, the difference between an effort to accurately explain an event, and a effort to convince the reader about a certain view of that event. That intent doesn't mean the former is perfect, it is still limited by the writer's point of view (which you call bias, but the term used doesn't matter, we both agree it exists). It also doesn't mean the latter is always bad. But it does impact the reliability of each.

I don't think this actually matters to you- the fact you corroborate using multiple sources of evidence already means you understand the implicit bias in human reporting, you just don't call it bias. The main reason I am calling this out is that people do take sources as gospel, and they don't recognise those small biases that influence the whole.

Yeah, we are using different terms, but I think we're also addressing the issue slightly differently. To me, just getting additional sources isn't enough - the quality of those sources matter. Iron Captain is trying to argue that there is value in reading both BBC and RT, that adding RT improves his overall opinion. To me, this is like saying you read the local news report of last week's fight at the pub and wasn't sure if it captured everything, so you also asked the mother of one of the guy's who was in the fight, and after hearing her story you're totally more informed about what really happened.

Basically, I think we agree that reading just one source isn't sufficient, even if that source is reliable and making a genuine effort to be objective, it's good to read broadly (though these days even the better sources are often just running slightly edited version of the same AP story, so broad reading only goes so far). My point is slightly different, I am saying that while reading widely is good, if the additional sources are manipulative/dishonest, then you're not actually improving your understanding at all.

I suppose I am advocating for better education and better critical thinking.

No harm in that

 sebster wrote:
My point is slightly different, I am saying that while reading widely is good, if the additional sources are manipulative/dishonest, then you're not actually improving your understanding at all.

A science analogy to describe this:

You're trying to measure the mass of an object. You measure it four times on four digital scales each with an error of +/-0.0001g and then a fifth time on an old medieval scale where you have to balance the opposite side of the scale with individual weights, the smallest of which is 5g.

That final measurement will massively increase the error in your final calculated average. Including that fifth measurement has objectively made your calculation of the mass of the object worse.

But if you're aware of the fact that a particular news outlet is heavily biased you can still read it to get their take on the subject; not for the sake of accurate reporting, but to reflect on the spin.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
That final measurement will massively increase the error in your final calculated average. Including that fifth measurement has objectively made your calculation of the mass of the object worse.

That was great and I'm gonna steal it and use it next time this subject comes up. Which will probably be the next time Russia murders someone or invades another another country.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
But if you're aware of the fact that a particular news outlet is heavily biased you can still read it to get their take on the subject; not for the sake of accurate reporting, but to reflect on the spin.

Sure, but that's then effectively another subject. You're no longer looking for information about the original subject, you're looking at how the event is being covered and spun.

To use a Town Called Malus' analogy, a person might choose to use the medieval scale, but he won't be doing it to get a better understanding of the weight of the object, he'll be doing it to see how much that scale buggers up the overall result.

 sebster wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
But if you're aware of the fact that a particular news outlet is heavily biased you can still read it to get their take on the subject; not for the sake of accurate reporting, but to reflect on the spin.

Sure, but that's then effectively another subject. You're no longer looking for information about the original subject, you're looking at how the event is being covered and spun.

And I would argue that is just as important to know, if not more so, as it is to know 'what actually happened'. This is not science. Facts don't matter. Nobody cares about facts. It is the perception of facts that is important. Because it is those perceptions, not the actual facts, that will be informing reactions, decisions and driving policies. And for finding out how different people perceive an event, a heavily biased propaganda outlet is just as good as any other (which in no way means that one should read only propaganda! It is important to read more neutral media as well, to be able to tell the difference between unintentional and intentional biases and between honest and propaganda reporting).
Thanks AlmightyWalrus for wording this so elegantly.

 sebster wrote:
To use a Town Called Malus' analogy, a person might choose to use the medieval scale, but he won't be doing it to get a better understanding of the weight of the object, he'll be doing it to see how much that scale buggers up the overall result.

Yes. In that analogy, the person would not be studying the actual weight of the object at all, but rather be studying how different scales weigh the same object differently.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
And I would argue that is just as important to know, if not more so, as it is to know 'what actually happened'.

It matters, but only so far. If you get to the point where you focus more on competing narratives and not the actual facts of the event, then instead of gaining an understanding of the noise, you have actually become the noise.

This is not science. Facts don't matter. Nobody cares about facts. It is the perception of facts that is important.

Maskirovka is meant to be something you cynically deploy on others, not something you actually believe.

 sebster wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
And I would argue that is just as important to know, if not more so, as it is to know 'what actually happened'.

It matters, but only so far. If you get to the point where you focus more on competing narratives and not the actual facts of the event, then instead of gaining an understanding of the noise, you have actually become the noise.

It depends on what your goal is. The narratives are what drives opinions and decisions, so they are what you should be focusing on if you want to understand the implications of an event. If you are interested in the event itself on the other hand, or if you want to use an event to spin a narrative of your own, yeah then you should go hunting for facts, while filtering out 'the noise' as much as possible. And if you want to have a full understanding, you'd have to focus on both. You'd need to find out the facts, then understand how these facts gave rise to different narratives, then how these narratives impacted what happened next.

 sebster wrote:

This is not science. Facts don't matter. Nobody cares about facts. It is the perception of facts that is important.

Maskirovka is meant to be something you cynically deploy on others, not something you actually believe.

The principles of maskirovka are scientifically tested truth. That is why it works so well. Perceptions are all that matters. If you control the perceptions, you control the facts, and can change the situation to be more favourable to you. That is what maskirovka is about. It is a military doctrine developed over a century of direct and indirect conflict, not some sort of religious idea or political idea that you can believe or disbelieve in.

So apologies for the threadomancy, but it appears this would be better placed here than start a new thread.

However it has just been confirmed that two new people have been poisoned by the same nerve agent as the Skripals (so Novichok)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-44707052

So it is now going to be interesting how the UK acts. It's one thing for former spies to gone after (not that this is acceptable, but I'm sure there are people that shrug their shoulders and say 'spy games') but when it starts affecting innocent civilians then there is a potential major issue.

It also highlights that agent may have been dumped somewhere and despite all the clean up is still active in the area. Given it was thought to degrade rapidly in the environment, either this is a new source or that information is incorrect.

 Whirlwind wrote:
So apologies for the threadomancy, but it appears this would be better placed here than start a new thread.

However it has just been confirmed that two new people have been poisoned by the same nerve agent as the Skripals (so Novichok)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-44707052

So it is now going to be interesting how the UK acts. It's one thing for former spies to gone after (not that this is acceptable, but I'm sure there are people that shrug their shoulders and say 'spy games') but when it starts affecting innocent civilians then there is a potential major issue.

It also highlights that agent may have been dumped somewhere and despite all the clean up is still active in the area. Given it was thought to degrade rapidly in the environment, either this is a new source or that information is incorrect.

There's been something bugging me about the Skirpal case for months now. When Skirpal was in a Russian prison, why didn't Putin bump him off then? Russian prisons are some of the deadliest on Earth, and it would have been easy to arrange, with the official verdict being that he was trampled to death by a herd of migrating mammoths or something similar.

And now this. Why is this happening The Russians? The World Cup has been a PR victory for Putin, I doubt he want to jeopordise that. Or are they being set up, or are they doing this because they think people will think they're more interested in the world cup and thus innocent? A double bluff?

And what about these latest victims? Involved somehow, or just innocents who were in the wrong place at the wrong time? O inadvertently picked up containated items?

Something doesn't add up here. I don't have any answers, but I have my doubts.

For the time being, I'll stick to the Bismarck maxim of not trsuting anything until it's been officially denied.

From the article you linked:

Wiltshire's Police and Crime Commissioner Angus Macpherson said the police had worked hard at "containing any risk that might be there".

"There's no reason to think it's connected with matters of last month," he said.

Mr Rowley and Ms Sturgess are believed to have attended a family fun day at Amesbury Baptist Church on Saturday afternoon before they were found unconscious in the property they had just moved into.

I think some people may be jumping to conclusions. They don't know if it is related to the Skripal poisoning, and it seems these people haven't been to Salisbury recently. So all we know is that two people collapsed in a town near Salisbury, and the government is evidently not taking any risks and investigating whether there is a connection to the earlier novichok poisonings nearby. I say we wait with conclusions until they finish their investigation.

That said, I think it is incredibly unlikely this was a novichok agent. Once it is out of its binary state, novichok agents, like all nerve gases, degrade very rapidly. Any novichok agent that was used in the Skripal poisoning is already long since harmless and dissipated. So if this does turn out to have been novichok agent, there must be someone near Salisbury making this stuff... A frightening thought.

The reports suggest that they visited areas that were close to where the Skripals frequented before the attack.

I doubt this was in Russia's plan. They will have little grounds for defence when it is uk citizens, the U.K. Government attacking its own would clearly be a daft statement. It might mean either the excess was discarded prior to or just after the attack and my guess is that these unfortunate people just happened to find some not previously picked. For example suppose they met at a very rarely used bird hide and the perpetrators had contaminated that site to give them the best chance that they would be infected. These two then decided to go there over the weekend because of the nice weather etc.

What is perhaps worrying is that despite the clean up operation they have at least missed one location which means there could be more in out of the way places

The police have now stated it's been identified as Novichok.

 Whirlwind wrote:
The reports suggest that they visited areas that were close to where the Skripals frequented before the attack.

I doubt this was in Russia's plan. They will have little grounds for defence when it is uk citizens, the U.K. Government attacking its own would clearly be a daft statement. It might mean either the excess was discarded prior to or just after the attack and my guess is that these unfortunate people just happened to find some not previously picked. For example suppose they met at a very rarely used bird hide and the perpetrators had contaminated that site to give them the best chance that they would be infected. These two then decided to go there over the weekend because of the nice weather etc.

What is perhaps worrying is that despite the clean up operation they have at least missed one location which means there could be more in out of the way places

No. Anything they missed in the clean-up has already long dissipated by now. This must be newly made stuff. Someone over in Wiltshire is mixing nerve agents...

(note: for those who do not know, nerve agents like novichok react with water, rendering them harmless. This includes moisture in the air, which is why nerve agents have such short lifetimes. If it has rained since the Skripal poisoning, any novichok will have been destroyed.)

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I think some people may be jumping to conclusions. They don't know if it is related to the Skripal poisoning, and it seems these people haven't been to Salisbury recently. So all we know is that two people collapsed in a town near Salisbury, and the government is evidently not taking any risks and investigating whether there is a connection to the earlier novichok poisonings nearby. I say we wait with conclusions until they finish their investigation.

This article suggests they were in a similar vicinity
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/salisbury-couple-fresh-victims-novichok-205230021.html

The response was delayed as one was a known drug addict. That might suggest a possible method of containment, a drug container or syringe, that might have been dropped in a drug area somewhere on the assumption it would be missed amongst other detritus left there.

The idea that there is a novichok factory in Wiltshire is mostly likely ludicrous. We had a discussion and experts have stated before that although technically possible to create in a back garden shed it would be extremely hazardous and require specialist equipment that I am sure the police have already checked with manufacturers just in case.

I would suggest that it is more likely that either

Russia have continued to refine novichok and it is now more stable than expected
That it is more stable than anyone expected and has been sitting around waiting for a victim or two
That an element was discarded in a sealed container of some form that prevented its degradation (a vacuum sealed container for example)

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I think some people may be jumping to conclusions. They don't know if it is related to the Skripal poisoning, and it seems these people haven't been to Salisbury recently. So all we know is that two people collapsed in a town near Salisbury, and the government is evidently not taking any risks and investigating whether there is a connection to the earlier novichok poisonings nearby. I say we wait with conclusions until they finish their investigation.

This article suggests they were in a similar vicinity
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/salisbury-couple-fresh-victims-novichok-205230021.html

The response was delayed as one was a known drug addict. That might suggest a possible method of containment, a drug container or syringe, that might have been dropped in a drug area somewhere on the assumption it would be missed amongst other detritus left there.

The idea that there is a novichok factory in Wiltshire is mostly likely ludicrous. We had a discussion and experts have stated before that although technically possible to create in a back garden shed it would be extremely hazardous and require specialist equipment that I am sure the police have already checked with manufacturers just in case.

I would suggest that it is more likely that either

Russia have continued to refine novichok and it is now more stable than expected
That it is more stable than anyone expected and has been sitting around waiting for a victim or two
That an element was discarded in a sealed container of some form that prevented its degradation (a vacuum sealed container for example)

It can't be made more stable. They tried to do that, but did not succeed. Nerve gases are inherently unstable, you just can't change that. Besides, Russian chemical weapon programs stopped decades ago, Russia has signed international treaties outlawing chemical weapons and has actively dismantled its remaining arsenal, finally destroying the very last stockpile in September 2017, as certified by the OPCW. Russia no longer has chemical weapons. It makes little sense for them to continue development for an old Soviet program they are dismantling, no? Besides, if it had been more stable, the composition would have been different and the Portdown labs would not have been able to identify it, or at the very least they would have recognised this was a new nerve agent based on novichok.
It can't have just have been sitting around. It has rained in Wiltshire since the agent was used. The P-X bond of a nerve agent like novichok is broken by nucleophilic reagents. In other words, water destroys nerve agents. The rain destroyed any agent that remained.
It is possible it remained in a binary state in its container. But that means that in order to be exposed, you'd need to pick up the container and inadvertently mix its contents first.
Furthermore, the nerve agent does not have had to be produced locally. It may have been produced somewhere else and then taken to the UK in binary form, to be mixed when it is time for use. But whether we have some sinister guy brewing nerve agents in his backyard, A Russian assassin that is still around and up to no good, or just an unfortunate local who happened to run into aforementioned assassin's little stockpile, someone has recently, on purpose or not, mixed a nerve agent in Wiltshire. There is no other possibility. For a nerve agent to knock someone out, it needs to have been mixed relatively recently.

Btw, just a thought that occurred to me. Novichok is supposed to be extremely deadly. But the Skripal poisoning was anything but. This might suggest that the agent precursors had already degraded to a degree before being mixed. As might be expected when you take it from an old, unused stockpile... Stockpiles that could until very recently be found in Russia...

 Iron_Captain wrote:
This includes moisture in the air, which is why nerve agents have such short lifetimes. If it has rained since the Skripal poisoning, any novichok will have been destroyed.)

This assumes that the vector wasn't something like a sealed container that burst open when someone stepped on it.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

It can't be made more stable. They tried to do that, but did not succeed.

According to information in the public domain. Weapons are continually evolving. People achieve the previously thought impossible quite regularly. Then it becomes the new paradigm, and there's a new 'impossible'.

Alternatively, we might have a Russian attempt on somebody else gone wrong (mistaken identity, etc). Or a host of other possibilities, from some kind of sealed container they thought looked interesting and picked up to take home, through to them being Russian agents themselves.

I am content to wait for a further announcement before making any snap judgements.

 Ketara wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

It can't be made more stable. They tried to do that, but did not succeed.

According to information in the public domain. Weapons are continually evolving. People achieve the previously thought impossible quite regularly. Then it becomes the new paradigm, and there's a new 'impossible'.

Alternatively, we might have a Russian attempt on somebody else gone wrong (mistaken identity, etc). Or a host of other possibilities, from some kind of sealed container they thought looked interesting and picked up to take home, through to them being Russian agents themselves.

I am content to wait for a further announcement before making any snap judgements.

You may be content, but I'm more than happy to make snap judgements, because this Novichok story has more holes in it than a moth eaten string vest.

Is Novichok a wonder weapon, because it seem to posses the ability to leap out and ambush people and decide how much damage it will do to a victim.

We were told it was one of the deadliest weapons known to man, and yet here we are with two Russians walking away and another two people in hospital, and by all accounts they will survive, which is obviously a good thing.


This stuff is supposed to be washed away by rain, and yet, here it is 4 months later striking again.

Bojo said it was smeared on a door handle to get the Skirpals, and yet, now we're hearing it could be in a syringe that may have been picked up by these victims...

Who picks up random syringes from the ground? How easy is it to get gel out of a syringe?

And why, despite it being this deadly substance, all 4 victims were able to go about their daily business as usual?

Our media are clearly not doing their jobs and asking the hard questions, and after Iraq, who would trust any British government?

I'm not part of the tinfoil hat brigade

But this whole situation stinks to high heaven...

@Iron Captain: not an attack in any way, but you are aware that nerve agents come in persistent and non-persistent form?

I have no idea which one Novichok is btw ...

While I find the idea of some randombod manufacturing weapon-grade agents in a shed in Wiltshire absurd ... stranger things have happened ...

Plus I love a good conspiracy theory ...

 War Drone wrote:
@Iron Captain: not an attack in any way, but you are aware that nerve agents come in persistent and non-persistent form?

I have no idea which one Novichok is btw ...

While I find the idea of some randombod manufacturing weapon-grade agents in a shed in Wiltshire absurd ... stranger things have happened ...

Plus I love a good conspiracy theory ...

I am very well aware of that. Novichok is highly persistent, but exact details are not mentioned in my sources. Novichoks are a development of VR, which itself was the Soviet version of VX, which is the most persistent nerve agent known (except maybe novichoks). But persistent doesn't mean they will remain in the environment indefinitely, just that they won't almost immediately evaporate. That is why you can smear it on clothes or doors to poison someone. But a good rain shower or two will still destroy it. And even without rain, it does not remain potent for months. The exact amount of time a V-series nerve agent remains potent depends on several factors that influence how fast it evaporates, but it is usually several days.
A nerve agent that stays potent for several months would be an unbelievable scientific breakthrough. It would represent not a jump but a massive leap in our understanding of chemistry. Therefore it is highly unlikely, especially given the lack of chemical weapons programs in the modern world.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
This includes moisture in the air, which is why nerve agents have such short lifetimes. If it has rained since the Skripal poisoning, any novichok will have been destroyed.)

This assumes that the vector wasn't something like a sealed container that burst open when someone stepped on it.

That is possible. It would be really sloppy of an assassin to leave a container of deadly nerve agent lying around, but it is possible. I guess we won't know unless they give us more information.

 War Drone wrote:

While I find the idea of some randombod manufacturing weapon-grade agents in a shed in Wiltshire absurd ... stranger things have happened

Nuclear breeder reactor built in a shed immediately springs to mind.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 War Drone wrote:

While I find the idea of some randombod manufacturing weapon-grade agents in a shed in Wiltshire absurd ... stranger things have happened

Nuclear breeder reactor built in a shed immediately springs to mind.

It is worth pointing out that he did not build a working reactor. He never reached critical mass of radioactive material but he did manage to expose himself to high levels of radiation, to the point that he tried to dismantle it before getting caught. He repeatedly refused to undergo medical examinations to determine the damage caused by this exposure.

So, really, that instead shows how difficult it is to successfully carry out complex chemistry and physics involving dangerous materials in a non-lab environment where you lack access to the proper safeguards.

He was also later arrested for stealing smoke detectors with the intention of stealing the radioactive americium from them and you can see in his mugshot that his face has a lot of damage, likely due to radiation exposure.

 Iron_Captain wrote:


This assumes that the vector wasn't something like a sealed container that burst open when someone stepped on it.

That is possible. It would be really sloppy of an assassin to leave a container of deadly nerve agent lying around, but it is possible. I guess we won't know unless they give us more information.

 Whirlwind wrote:


Perhaps, but then the best place to hide something is sometimes in plain sight. A container that looks like something drug addicts use thrown in a commonly used area by drug addicts that also throw their discards in that location may not even be seen because people get use to the scene.
If we hypothesise that the Novichok does still degrade as expected then that would imply a sealed container. A sealed container with what looks like drugs in an area frequented by drug addicts could easily be picked up by someone looking for a quick fix, or even by accident.

Again, that is possible, but it seems unlikely. Why would an assassin hide his valuable nerve agent, which he needs to do his job, in a place where it is at high risk of being seen and accidentally picked up?
I guess they could have picked up an empty container that still had some residue in it. That would not be lethal anymore after such a time, but perhaps still potent enough to knock people out.

 Whirlwind wrote:
On the other hand as DINLT points out it does not appear as lethal as initially made out. We could hypothesise that the chemical composition has been altered to make it more stable and longer lasting, but at the same time making it less lethal

Then it would not be a novichok agent. It would have to be something new of an entirely different composition. But since the Porton Down labs identified the substances used in both cases as novichok, I think we can already reject this hypothesis.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Again, that is possible, but it seems unlikely. Why would an assassin hide his valuable nerve agent, which he needs to do his job, in a place where it is at high risk of being seen and accidentally picked up?
I guess they could have picked up an empty container that still had some residue in it. That would not be lethal anymore after such a time, but perhaps still potent enough to knock people out.

Because they were spooked and wanted to get rid of asap? Perhaps they simply didn't care who else it affected? That they wanted it to be found?

The reports coming out now that they did handle a contaminated item
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44727191

 Whirlwind wrote:
On the other hand as DINLT points out it does not appear as lethal as initially made out. We could hypothesise that the chemical composition has been altered to make it more stable and longer lasting, but at the same time making it less lethal

Then it would not be a novichok agent. It would have to be something new of an entirely different composition. But since the Porton Down labs identified the substances used in both cases as novichok, I think we can already reject this hypothesis.

Novichok is a series of agents not just one. We talk about it as being one specific type of agent but it covers at least 5 known varieties from the information to hand. That would suggest there are likely others that we don't know of. Hence a less potent but more stable variety is not an impossibility.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:


Perhaps, but then the best place to hide something is sometimes in plain sight. A container that looks like something drug addicts use thrown in a commonly used area by drug addicts that also throw their discards in that location may not even be seen because people get use to the scene.
If we hypothesise that the Novichok does still degrade as expected then that would imply a sealed container. A sealed container with what looks like drugs in an area frequented by drug addicts could easily be picked up by someone looking for a quick fix, or even by accident.

Again, that is possible, but it seems unlikely. Why would an assassin hide his valuable nerve agent, which he needs to do his job, in a place where it is at high risk of being seen and accidentally picked up?
I guess they could have picked up an empty container that still had some residue in it. That would not be lethal anymore after such a time, but perhaps still potent enough to knock people out.

Backup supply in case the first attempt was unsuccessful. When the first application succeeded in poisoning their target, they dumped the backup rather than risk getting caught with it and caught a plane back to Russia.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
The reports suggest that they visited areas that were close to where the Skripals frequented before the attack.

I doubt this was in Russia's plan. They will have little grounds for defence when it is uk citizens, the U.K. Government attacking its own would clearly be a daft statement. It might mean either the excess was discarded prior to or just after the attack and my guess is that these unfortunate people just happened to find some not previously picked. For example suppose they met at a very rarely used bird hide and the perpetrators had contaminated that site to give them the best chance that they would be infected. These two then decided to go there over the weekend because of the nice weather etc.

What is perhaps worrying is that despite the clean up operation they have at least missed one location which means there could be more in out of the way places

No. Anything they missed in the clean-up has already long dissipated by now. This must be newly made stuff. Someone over in Wiltshire is mixing nerve agents...

(note: for those who do not know, nerve agents like novichok react with water, rendering them harmless. This includes moisture in the air, which is why nerve agents have such short lifetimes. If it has rained since the Skripal poisoning, any novichok will have been destroyed.)

It's been confirmed as exactly the same nerve agent used. We've also had probably the longest period of heat for many years since the attack. It hasn't rained here much at all since.

I'm not sure how you can possibly jump to the conclusion that someone is manufacturing the agent on U.K. soil, rather than the much more likely 'the infiltrators that used the agent on skirpal didn't properly clean up after themselves'.

The way the Russian media has handled this, from what I've heard today, has been yet another exercise in false reporting and media indoctrination.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Again, that is possible, but it seems unlikely. Why would an assassin hide his valuable nerve agent, which he needs to do his job, in a place where it is at high risk of being seen and accidentally picked up?
I guess they could have picked up an empty container that still had some residue in it. That would not be lethal anymore after such a time, but perhaps still potent enough to knock people out.

Because they were spooked and wanted to get rid of asap? Perhaps they simply didn't care who else it affected? That they wanted it to be found?

The reports coming out now that they did handle a contaminated item
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44727191

 Whirlwind wrote:
On the other hand as DINLT points out it does not appear as lethal as initially made out. We could hypothesise that the chemical composition has been altered to make it more stable and longer lasting, but at the same time making it less lethal

Then it would not be a novichok agent. It would have to be something new of an entirely different composition. But since the Porton Down labs identified the substances used in both cases as novichok, I think we can already reject this hypothesis.

Novichok is a series of agents not just one. We talk about it as being one specific type of agent but it covers at least 5 known varieties from the information to hand. That would suggest there are likely others that we don't know of. Hence a less potent but more stable variety is not an impossibility.

It is a series of related agents. They are basically all improved variants of the same formula. There are more than 5 varieties, but none of them were adopted for Soviet military use, so I have absolutely no information on any of those. It could be those were more persistent. But not so persistent it could remain lethal for months. That is simply so far beyond the capabilities of any nerve agent known to man that it must be deemed impossible. Also, a decrease in potency does not automatically result in an increase in persistence. The persistence of an agent depends mainly on how quickly it evaporates and on how component elements react with elements in the environment. It is apart from potency, which depends on how component elements react with elements in a Human body.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
The reports suggest that they visited areas that were close to where the Skripals frequented before the attack.

I doubt this was in Russia's plan. They will have little grounds for defence when it is uk citizens, the U.K. Government attacking its own would clearly be a daft statement. It might mean either the excess was discarded prior to or just after the attack and my guess is that these unfortunate people just happened to find some not previously picked. For example suppose they met at a very rarely used bird hide and the perpetrators had contaminated that site to give them the best chance that they would be infected. These two then decided to go there over the weekend because of the nice weather etc.

What is perhaps worrying is that despite the clean up operation they have at least missed one location which means there could be more in out of the way places

No. Anything they missed in the clean-up has already long dissipated by now. This must be newly made stuff. Someone over in Wiltshire is mixing nerve agents...

(note: for those who do not know, nerve agents like novichok react with water, rendering them harmless. This includes moisture in the air, which is why nerve agents have such short lifetimes. If it has rained since the Skripal poisoning, any novichok will have been destroyed.)

It's been confirmed as exactly the same nerve agent used. We've also had probably the longest period of heat for many years since the attack. It hasn't rained here much at all since.

I'm not sure how you can possibly jump to the conclusion that someone is manufacturing the agent on U.K. soil, rather than the much more likely 'the infiltrators that used the agent on skirpal didn't properly clean up after themselves'.

The way the Russian media has handled this, from what I've heard today, has been yet another exercise in false reporting and media indoctrination.

I did not jump to that conclusion, although it is an (unlikely) possibility. I said 'mixing', not manufacturing. Those are completely different things. A novichok agent is a binary weapon. That means it is composed of two precursor agents that have to be mixed in order to form the nerve agent. The precursor agents are the ones that actually get manufactured, stored and transported since they are less volatile. The agent could have very well been manufactured outside of Britain (which in fact I think is the most likely) and imported into Britain as precursors, but given that a nerve agent only remains potent for a few days after being mixed, it must have been mixed recently.
But as I said later, given the fact that Novichok is extremely lethal (even really tiny doses are deadly), but the victims are still alive, I suppose it is also possible that it was just old residue that was no longer lethal, but apparently even after such a long time period still potent enough to knock someone out. Which probably means they got a big dose.
Furthermore, given the fact that Skripal also survived the poisoning, this could hint at the use of a heavily degraded agent rather than one that was in good condition. This would actually point to Russia, since they no longer make chemical weapons but did use to have a big stockpile of old, degraded agents still in storage from Soviet times (nerve agents degrade over time, so you can only store them for a limited while until they lose their potency). Degraded agents can still kill in high enough doses, but their lethality is severely reduced.

It could be a continued "feth you" on the behalf of the Russians to the British government, as a way of showing their capabilities and to muddy the waters over the value of the targets in the previous attack (i.e. they're all just random contamination/ attacks, not a targeted one against a former spy). Its World Cup season, which is typically when Russia's pulling stunts like this to drum up Nationalist support.

Youknow, meanwhile in Ukraine Russia's just moved into the Azov Sea and is busy detaining Ukrainian shipping. ...Not that anyone's paying attention, or wanting to make a fuss while they're hosting the World Cup.

Hmn, I must look up whatever happened to that friend of Skripal who died on the day that the Russians were asked for "a response". That seemed rather too coincidental at the time.