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Ever try to convince people to stop screwing? Forced sterilization will never be a viable plan in the West. You'd have people screaming 'eugenics' in a heartbeat.
Even the sunniest numbers for space colonies, if we started *right now* would barely be able to feed themselves in the time-frame we're looking at, let lone export food back to Earth.
Given the limitations on yield, hydroponics and other alternative ways to cultivate crops might give another five years at best, and that's if you began a project on a scale that hasn't been seen since the Panama Canal.
Aquacologies really wouldn't help due to limited fresh water playing a role in said disaster.
And now we're back to the impending global food shortage. We must have gone back in time to 1973, and no-one told me. How rude.
Anyhow, go and read. Learn about the vast oversupply of food we have. We could feed 20 billion with what we produce, if we were more efficient. This fantasy that we'd have billions starving to death relies on the assumption that we'd still be throwing away most of our fresh produce, and giving most of our grain to livestock for slaughter, instead of using it to feed people... it's completely absurd.
We also considered 'close our eyes and hope it goes away' but that hasn't worked yet in the history of humanity, so...
No, I just think its really quite insane to commit genocide in order to avoid a potential genocide. The fact that your suggested genocide is unlikely enough to be almost impossible doesn't really matter, as long as it is in any way uncertain then committing genocide in order to avoid possible genocide makes no sense.
But I think you know that. I certainly don't believe I have to explain it to you as a new concept. I think you ignore it, because you like to play at being the hard man with the hard solution.
Very well put. I have helped get produce and other food items that a single grocery store gets rid of weekly due to the fact the expectation dates on it are near out to people who need it. It was quite the eye opener when I saw a 30 by 40 area on my driveway covered with just about any kind of food you could imagine. One store, one week's worth of food, free for the taking.. I would invite anyone here to see this for themselves or just ask a manager how much food gets thrown out on a weekly basis. That isn't even going into the science experiments that are many people's refrigerators.
Or you could make it pnumonic, aim for about 75% and hope for the best. The 'how' really isn't important as the effect.
Actually, the "how" is extremely important, as it largely determines if the effect is achievable, and controllable. This is especially true when you're talking about killing 90% of all human beings. Seriously, the only reasonable argument you could possibly make for deliberately wiping out a large chunk of the population is that you would be able to control the overall death toll, once you start to fall back on "hope for the best" you lose that completely.
sebster wrote: Does anyone feel this is starting to sound like plot of a weaker James Bond movie?
Actually, the "how" is extremely important, as it largely determines if the effect is achievable, and controllable. This is especially true when you're talking about killing 90% of all human beings. Seriously, the only reasonable argument you could possibly make for deliberately wiping out a large chunk of the population is that you would be able to control the overall death toll
The problem with any disease is that you'd never get exactly a specific number of people. Even one absurdly lethal. Why? Because you'd always have islands someplace where it never showed up, or areas where the population is too diffuse to spread it. Highly lethal diseases tend to burn themselves out fairly quickly. A disease 90% effective in the lab might only be 60-75% effective in the field. Some subset of the population might have, as was pointed out earlier, a mutation that allows them a greater level of resistance to it,.
And if it's proving that lethal, even after the initial onset, doctors will be working hard to make sure it does not come back.
Very well put. I have helped get produce and other food items that a single grocery store gets rid of weekly due to the fact the expectation dates on it are near out to people who need it. It was quite the eye opener when I saw a 30 by 40 area on my driveway covered with just about any kind of food you could imagine. One store, one week's worth of food, free for the taking.. I would invite anyone here to see this for themselves or just ask a manager how much food gets thrown out on a weekly basis. That isn't even going into the science experiments that are many people's refrigerators.
According to a recent UN report, at the current rate of soil degradation, Africa will only be able to feed 75% of it's current population by 2025. Some areas (the US) may be fine for quite some time to come. More and more countries though are shifting from exporting grain to importing it. This has always been a thing with smaller countries, but larger and larger ones are slowly making this shift. I'm sure you'll say 'So what'? Well, the reason for this shift is that they cannot produce enough grain on their own to feed their population, so they import it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/08/07 09:37:28
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
" According to a recent UN report, at the current rate of soil degradation, Africa will only be able to feed 75% of it's current population by 2025. Some areas (the US) may be fine for quite some time to come. More and more countries though are shifting from exporting grain to importing it. This has always been a thing with smaller countries, but larger and larger ones are slowly making this shift. I'm sure you'll say 'So what'? Well, the reason for this shift is that they cannot produce enough grain on their own to feed their population, so they import it. "
You are aware that there are almost constant advances in the efficiency of agriculture, the genetics of crops, the efficiency of distribution, and that Malthus has generally been demonstrated to be false. Famines are caused by a lack of food in a particular place not by a lack of food. Canada, Russia, the US, other large countries are slowing agricultural production due to economic forces rather than because OMG WE'RE ALL STARVING KILL 90% NOW OR DOOOOM! Its a completely ridiculous argument and if you had any knowledge of agricultural science then you would know that the above assertion of soil degradation and reduced supply is no cause for concern on a macro scale.
And this is not to even touch on what could be achieved if we completely revolutionised how we eat and what we eat. Stop overfeeding the Western world. People don't need to eat too much and then exercise heavily to stay fit and healthy. Regulate intake. Alter prices and make the market more efficient. Start producing food in the sea, algae, seaweed, massive farms, etc. Find more calorific food sources that are less resource intensive. Farm on top of every urban building. Set up conveyer farms and multi-storey farming, farm more locally and stop wasting huge resources on transport. Or have a huge global supply chain that is well managed and coherent so as to minimise spoilage. There are literally infinite improvements to be had on the current model. And the current model is still doing pretty well and giving us more food than we need.
Or just kill 90% of people. That is a lazy, unnecessary and megalomaniacal solution. I'm amazed we at Dakka can even be bothered to engage with your insistent stupidity.
Relapse wrote:
Baron, don't forget to talk about the SEALs and Marines you habitually beat up on 2 and 3 at a time, as you PM'd me about.
nareik wrote: Perhaps it is a lube issue, seems obvious now.
BaronIveagh wrote: Splitting this off from another thread which was getting OT.
The central supposition is that if all humanity were reduced to 10% of it's current population (evenly) that this would be a good thing for the long term survival of humankind. There are some who disagree with this statement, and we'll let them explain their positions. Brace yourself for doomsday and end of the world scenarios.
If we stopped throwing away food, there would be no reason for anyone in the US to ever go hungry.
Watch this. WATCH IT! It has F-Bombs and gak! And the guy is from the UK, so he sounds smart AND funny!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/08/07 14:02:26
Mate, just to point out, there's a neat little "quote" button at the top of each person's post.... It makes is a million times better, and easier to read and differentiate between what you're saying and who you're quoting.
That still isn't random. For example, in developed countries, you would see a disproportionate number of very young and very old people survive, as they are the people most likely to receive vaccines. The same applies to aid workers in foreign countries, those who travel abroad frequently, and a host of other groups.
If you truly are shooting for a random distribution of survivors lacing vaccines will not work.
The problem with any disease is that you'd never get exactly a specific number of people.
Which is exactly why no one, anywhere, should be deliberately trying to create a pathogen with the intent of releasing it as a means of population control.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
BaronIveagh wrote: Splitting this off from another thread which was getting OT.
The central supposition is that if all humanity were reduced to 10% of it's current population (evenly) that this would be a good thing for the long term survival of humankind. There are some who disagree with this statement, and we'll let them explain their positions. Brace yourself for doomsday and end of the world scenarios.
If we stopped throwing away food, there would be no reason for anyone in the US to ever go hungry.
Watch this. WATCH IT! It has F-Bombs and gak! And the guy is from the UK, so he sounds smart AND funny!
j
This video beautifully illustrates what I was talking about earlier with the amount of food stores throw out and people waste. Food banks will reject this food outright, even if someone came on their knees offering it, because they worry about liability. The amount of stuff I was dealing with that stores threw out on a weekly basis was enough to feed at least three families for a week each.
This included bags upon bags of bread and rolls, produce, as was shown in the video, milk, canned goods, condiments, you name, it was going to be thrown away.
Good video, Kronk, it tells a lot of truths that I can personally vouch to.
Relapse wrote: Very well put. I have helped get produce and other food items that a single grocery store gets rid of weekly due to the fact the expectation dates on it are near out to people who need it. It was quite the eye opener when I saw a 30 by 40 area on my driveway covered with just about any kind of food you could imagine. One store, one week's worth of food, free for the taking.. I would invite anyone here to see this for themselves or just ask a manager how much food gets thrown out on a weekly basis. That isn't even going into the science experiments that are many people's refrigerators.
Yep. We waste vast amounts of food, and we do this largely because it is so cheap. If we start seeing increased prices, then such wastage would hit the pocket harder, and changes would come.
I am genuinely disappointed with myself for not picking that up.
BaronIveagh wrote: More and more countries though are shifting from exporting grain to importing it. This has always been a thing with smaller countries, but larger and larger ones are slowly making this shift. I'm sure you'll say 'So what'? Well, the reason for this shift is that they cannot produce enough grain on their own to feed their population, so they import it.
You know, for every piece of food imported there's a piece of food exported. It's a one for one relationship. So if there’s an increase in food importation in some countries, then we’re also seeing food exports increase in equal amounts.
You go searching around for little factoids like that because the largest, most significant figures do not support your conclusions. If you want to look at whether the world will end up with more mouths than food, then you look at population projections and food projections. Everything else is nonsense.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/08/12 02:55:09
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Relapse wrote: Very well put. I have helped get produce and other food items that a single grocery store gets rid of weekly due to the fact the expectation dates on it are near out to people who need it. It was quite the eye opener when I saw a 30 by 40 area on my driveway covered with just about any kind of food you could imagine. One store, one week's worth of food, free for the taking.. I would invite anyone here to see this for themselves or just ask a manager how much food gets thrown out on a weekly basis. That isn't even going into the science experiments that are many people's refrigerators.
Yep. We waste vast amounts of food, and we do this largely because it is so cheap. If we start seeing increased prices, then such wastage would hit the pocket harder, and changes would come.
Wyrmalla wrote: Hmn, perhaps already said, but its nice to see this thread on the same page as the anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
I might point out that those bombings, horrible as they were, saved millions more lives than they ended. The Japanese army's plan to defend the home islands (Operation Ketsugō) was to use women and children as human shields and disposable troops to try and break the American's morale. Estimates for American casualties were so high that 500k Purple hearts were made in advance. The Joint Chiefs cheerily estimated 1.7-4 million US casualties before the fighting ended, with a large section of Japan being entirely depopulated.
Truman made the right choice and saved millions of American and Japanese lives.
We have been over this in the other thread, and the bombs did not save anyone. Japan would have ended the war regardless of the nuclear bombings.
dogma wrote: ...the obvious way to avert massive amounts of death, is to cause massive amounts of death.
No. to save mankind, we'll have to kill a lot of people.
Seriously, you sound like a stereotypical villain from some idiotic novel when you say that! This is officially the most insane idea I have ever hear (and that includes the ideas of V. V. Zhirinovsky) You haven't even explained yet why killing 90% of people would save "mankind" or how "mankind" would be saved by doing this, or what "mankind" needs saving from in the first place! Methinks you just want to see a lot of people dead. How can mankind be saved if you are killing 90%? That is not saving, that is making you the biggest threat to the survival of mankind!
Secondly, even when going with the ridiculous idea of this 'purge', I object to your notion that it should be a random 10% that survives. I'd propose we pick just a single wealthy, developed nation that can support itself without collapsing. If you have the survivors as small, diverse groups dispersed over the planet, a lot of them will die because they are unable to support themselves and the different groups would be at each other's throats in no time because "they" are "different". One single homogenous group would have far more chances to survive and reduce post-apocalyptic conflict.
Going on. I mean, my family of four wasting food because we couldn't/didn't eat it quick enough is one thing... That is a whole different level.
Another great Western propaganda article. nonetheless, disregarding the bias, the article is correct in that the destruction of the food is fething insane and that every Russian I know (including myself) is outraged about it.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/08/12 14:05:30
Iron_Captain wrote: We have been over this in the other thread, and the bombs did not save anyone. Japan would have ended the war regardless of the nuclear bombings.
Even if you were to assume the Japanese were already practicing their signatures for the surrender documents, the war would have gone on for weeks to months. At a few thousand allied casualties a week happening in the Pacific theater, that extension of the war WOULD have entailed more casualties, so your premise is just fething silly. If the bombs ended the war even a bit sooner (and they did) they DID save people.
Every time a terrorist dies a Paratrooper gets his wings.
Iron_Captain wrote: We have been over this in the other thread, and the bombs did not save anyone. Japan would have ended the war regardless of the nuclear bombings.
Even if you were to assume the Japanese were already practicing their signatures for the surrender documents, the war would have gone on for weeks to months. At a few thousand allied casualties a week happening in the Pacific theater, that extension of the war WOULD have entailed more casualties, so your premise is just fething silly. If the bombs ended the war even a bit sooner (and they did) they DID save people.
This discussion belongs in the other thread. But I shall just say that Japan did not surrender after the nuclear bombs were dropped. Only after the Soviet invasion they suddenly surrendered, because the war with the Soviet closed of their last way of getting out of the conflict without surrender and shattered any hopes the military might have had of resisting an invasion. The nuclear bombs were not all that shocking to the Japanese, after the devastating bombardments they had already endured. The war would not have lasted a second longer if the bombs had not been dropped.
If you want to continue this discussion, I propose we do so in the relevant thread.
I was wondering if this depopulation bomb was really a pure 1/10 chance for each individual, or if it would specifically target a 1/10 ratio of survivors. The first possibility would lead to there being a 10^7000000000 chance that humanity goes through this whole cluster fudge without batting an eyelid. The second possibility would be difficult without making each person register and be administered their designated poison.
As for its effects, I will provide a helpful example using my home country, China. Over half of the population of China lives in industrialised cities with little to no training in farming and our farms have yet to catch onto the industrialised nature of the Western world. The city I live in has a population of over 10 million (a little over half that of our capital). Once your goo virus hits, we are left with one million confused people in a port town, far away from any farming location. After the stores have been looted, there will mass exoduses into the mountains by people whose training in agriculture consists of looking at textbooks depicting the peasant uprisings. There will be starvation, death, and the total collapse of our poor society, definitely not an improvement.
If you are so worried about the dangers of reaching the 10 billion population cap, how about this novel system:
The global government (UN) passes laws that encourage people to limit themselves to two children.
Services such as free education and government help programs will only be provided to families that conform to these laws.
Additional children (Thirds, Fourths, etc.) will be actively discriminated against in media to promote this view.
After the technology is in place to create offworld colonies, then the laws can be repealed and the excess population sent to space.
the Signless wrote: I was wondering if this depopulation bomb was really a pure 1/10 chance for each individual, or if it would specifically target a 1/10 ratio of survivors. The first possibility would lead to there being a 10^7000000000 chance that humanity goes through this whole cluster fudge without batting an eyelid. The second possibility would be difficult without making each person register and be administered their designated poison.
As for its effects, I will provide a helpful example using my home country, China. Over half of the population of China lives in industrialised cities with little to no training in farming and our farms have yet to catch onto the industrialised nature of the Western world. The city I live in has a population of over 10 million (a little over half that of our capital). Once your goo virus hits, we are left with one million confused people in a port town, far away from any farming location. After the stores have been looted, there will mass exoduses into the mountains by people whose training in agriculture consists of looking at textbooks depicting the peasant uprisings. There will be starvation, death, and the total collapse of our poor society, definitely not an improvement.
If you are so worried about the dangers of reaching the 10 billion population cap, how about this novel system:
The global government (UN) passes laws that encourage people to limit themselves to two children.
Services such as free education and government help programs will only be provided to families that conform to these laws.
Additional children (Thirds, Fourths, etc.) will be actively discriminated against in media to promote this view.
After the technology is in place to create offworld colonies, then the laws can be repealed and the excess population sent to space.
I am glad you posted, since it would be enlightening to know the history of the two child policy and what was done for it to gain the traction it did in China. I confess ignorance of most the subject, but I don't know how such a thing would go down here in the U.S. There would probably be open rebellion if it were tried here.
Is this article accurate as far as China is concerned?
the Signless wrote: I was wondering if this depopulation bomb was really a pure 1/10 chance for each individual, or if it would specifically target a 1/10 ratio of survivors. The first possibility would lead to there being a 10^7000000000 chance that humanity goes through this whole cluster fudge without batting an eyelid. The second possibility would be difficult without making each person register and be administered their designated poison.
As for its effects, I will provide a helpful example using my home country, China. Over half of the population of China lives in industrialised cities with little to no training in farming and our farms have yet to catch onto the industrialised nature of the Western world. The city I live in has a population of over 10 million (a little over half that of our capital). Once your goo virus hits, we are left with one million confused people in a port town, far away from any farming location. After the stores have been looted, there will mass exoduses into the mountains by people whose training in agriculture consists of looking at textbooks depicting the peasant uprisings. There will be starvation, death, and the total collapse of our poor society, definitely not an improvement.
If you are so worried about the dangers of reaching the 10 billion population cap, how about this novel system:
The global government (UN) passes laws that encourage people to limit themselves to two children.
Services such as free education and government help programs will only be provided to families that conform to these laws.
Additional children (Thirds, Fourths, etc.) will be actively discriminated against in media to promote this view.
After the technology is in place to create offworld colonies, then the laws can be repealed and the excess population sent to space.
I am glad you posted, since it would be enlightening to know the history of the two child policy and what was done for it to gain the traction it did in China. I confess ignorance of most the subject, but I don't know how such a thing would go down here in the U.S. There would probably be open rebellion if it were tried here.
Is this article accurate as far as China is concerned?
Actually we have a one child policy. I was describing the society from Ender's Game where they had to deal with the same resource problem that OP is declaring.
Mr. Burning wrote: I guess that, in the event this happened as planned, there will still be a major problem with regards to the worlds remaining resources.
10% of humanity remains.
That's a flat out delusional lie that the OP thinks is fact, or is trying to put forward as fact. If even only 50% of humanity dies, there's enough resources left under our planets surface to jump start 3 industrial revolutions. Not including resources we can salvage on the surface. Resource scarcity is a problem when the population is larger than the technology for production can sustain. If the population goes down, everyone that's been complaining about scarcity will suddenly find themselves with an abundant amount. And as technology progresses, the ability for further production increases, giving us access to previously inaccessible wells of resources. So, long term, say a century or two, it won't be as big a problem as most people say it would.
This isn't the only thing the OP is completely wrong about btw. A lot of the statements he's put on this thread is a load of cow doodle.
I will forever remain humble because I know I could have less.
I will always be grateful because I remember I've had less.
the Signless wrote: I was wondering if this depopulation bomb was really a pure 1/10 chance for each individual, or if it would specifically target a 1/10 ratio of survivors. The first possibility would lead to there being a 10^7000000000 chance that humanity goes through this whole cluster fudge without batting an eyelid. The second possibility would be difficult without making each person register and be administered their designated poison.
As for its effects, I will provide a helpful example using my home country, China. Over half of the population of China lives in industrialised cities with little to no training in farming and our farms have yet to catch onto the industrialised nature of the Western world. The city I live in has a population of over 10 million (a little over half that of our capital). Once your goo virus hits, we are left with one million confused people in a port town, far away from any farming location. After the stores have been looted, there will mass exoduses into the mountains by people whose training in agriculture consists of looking at textbooks depicting the peasant uprisings. There will be starvation, death, and the total collapse of our poor society, definitely not an improvement.
If you are so worried about the dangers of reaching the 10 billion population cap, how about this novel system:
The global government (UN) passes laws that encourage people to limit themselves to two children.
Services such as free education and government help programs will only be provided to families that conform to these laws.
Additional children (Thirds, Fourths, etc.) will be actively discriminated against in media to promote this view.
After the technology is in place to create offworld colonies, then the laws can be repealed and the excess population sent to space.
I am glad you posted, since it would be enlightening to know the history of the two child policy and what was done for it to gain the traction it did in China. I confess ignorance of most the subject, but I don't know how such a thing would go down here in the U.S. There would probably be open rebellion if it were tried here.
Is this article accurate as far as China is concerned?
Actually we have a one child policy. I was describing the society from Ender's Game where they had to deal with the same resource problem that OP is declaring.
Is there a planned population level where the one child policy is going to be revised or abandoned?
jwr wrote: Cyber is far more likely, for a variety of reasons. First, it's not an act of war to test your offensive cyber capabilities on another nation. Second, you can reliably impact a far larger portion of a population. Third, the second order effects of your cyber attack force the government to act against, rather than for, it's own people.
Think about it, what's more damaging for the risk? Unleashing smallpox or anthrax in a few major airports (for which the US reserves the right to nuke you), or shutting off everyone's EBT (which would be considered a civil act rather than a military one)?
Realistically, the mayhem a cyber attack would have on most first world nations would be temporary at best. The worst thing that could happen to a first world nation is information leak. But smart people don't keep important information on public networks. You'd have closed system servers for that stuff. Economic collapse would be imminent if counter-measures aren't in place, and the people responsible for dealing with such catastrophes aren't doing a good job. But we know most first world nations have counter-measures. The U.S. has some of the most sophisticated ones. After all, the CIA are probably the number one pioneers of all manners of information technology and surveillance, although they'll never admit it. but as far as shutting down the population financially goes? Short term, it'll be pretty bad. Not even close to crippling though. The physical realm still exists. And people will repair the damage, re-network everything. Attacking a country through cyber warfare is a sound strategy, but don't forget, if you want to beat a country, you still have to worry about their guns.
jwr wrote: Cyber is far more likely, for a variety of reasons. First, it's not an act of war to test your offensive cyber capabilities on another nation. Second, you can reliably impact a far larger portion of a population. Third, the second order effects of your cyber attack force the government to act against, rather than for, it's own people.
Think about it, what's more damaging for the risk? Unleashing smallpox or anthrax in a few major airports (for which the US reserves the right to nuke you), or shutting off everyone's EBT (which would be considered a civil act rather than a military one)?
Realistically, the mayhem a cyber attack would have on most first world nations would be temporary at best.
....
Attacking a country through cyber warfare is a sound strategy, but don't forget, if you want to beat a country, you still have to worry about their guns.
The cyber attack itself isn't the issue, it's the 2nd and 3rd order effects. If you can create a mass panic, better yet, a mass uprising, that country is now pointing their guns inside instead of outside. Lets assume country X wants to displace the US as the world's leading power. You don't need to defeat the US in an actual war; you just need the voters to replace enough globalists with isolationists. The US is globalist via a big active military. You create conditions for the military to temporarily act against the populace, they elect politicians who don't think a big military is a great idea anymore, smaller military = smaller global presence = someone else can fill the void.
The initial impact doesn't have to be persistent, it simply has to start the fire, like a lit cigarette thrown out the car window.
jwr wrote: The cyber attack itself isn't the issue, it's the 2nd and 3rd order effects. If you can create a mass panic, better yet, a mass uprising, that country is now pointing their guns inside instead of outside. Lets assume country X wants to displace the US as the world's leading power. You don't need to defeat the US in an actual war; you just need the voters to replace enough globalists with isolationists. The US is globalist via a big active military. You create conditions for the military to temporarily act against the populace, they elect politicians who don't think a big military is a great idea anymore, smaller military = smaller global presence = someone else can fill the void.
The initial impact doesn't have to be persistent, it simply has to start the fire, like a lit cigarette thrown out the car window.
Sort of. I agree that secondary effects are hugely important, but I think underlying your post, and especially in your example, is that the secondary effects are controllable, or even knowable. You might be able to create the conditions for military action, but you have no control over whether the military will act, and if they do send the tanks in, you have no idea if that will lead to the electorate rejecting a big military - they might instead become more militant.
That's what I hate about so much fiction, especially fiction centred around a big elaborate plot - they always rely on everyone outside of the plan responding in the exact right way to make everything fall in to place.
jwr wrote: The cyber attack itself isn't the issue, it's the 2nd and 3rd order effects. If you can create a mass panic, better yet, a mass uprising, that country is now pointing their guns inside instead of outside. Lets assume country X wants to displace the US as the world's leading power. You don't need to defeat the US in an actual war; you just need the voters to replace enough globalists with isolationists. The US is globalist via a big active military. You create conditions for the military to temporarily act against the populace, they elect politicians who don't think a big military is a great idea anymore, smaller military = smaller global presence = someone else can fill the void.
The initial impact doesn't have to be persistent, it simply has to start the fire, like a lit cigarette thrown out the car window.
Sort of. I agree that secondary effects are hugely important, but I think underlying your post, and especially in your example, is that the secondary effects are controllable, or even knowable. You might be able to create the conditions for military action, but you have no control over whether the military will act, and if they do send the tanks in, you have no idea if that will lead to the electorate rejecting a big military - they might instead become more militant.
That's what I hate about so much fiction, especially fiction centred around a big elaborate plot - they always rely on everyone outside of the plan responding in the exact right way to make everything fall in to place.
Well, nobody ever writes about the epic plan that failed.
Well, nobody ever writes about the epic plan that failed.
Except that the majority of stories involve the Bad Guy™ getting his/her plan foiled... so I'd say a fair bit is written about the "failed" plan
Also, as I mentioned earlier, a Cyber attack of significance against the power structure (electricity here) would be devastating. Imagine what would happen if suddenly the entire western part of the US had no electricity. Or rather, they have no means of transporting it, because a cyber attack crippled the plants/networks.
If such an attack created an outage that lasted a week, it's no big deal... you start looking at a month, 3 months, 6 months or more... then you really start to see how bad that would be.
Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
Fair enough, but they usually had some major success before they get taken down.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
Grey Templar wrote: Well, nobody ever writes about the epic plan that failed.
It's fiction, it's measure of success is dependent on whether the writer decides it succeeds or not. The success of the plan has nothing to do with whether or not the plan is actually plausible in the real world.
Authors want plans that seem plausible, but generally that involves dressing plans up with jargon and revealing the plan to the reader in such a way that we don't notice how silly it really is. What you hardly ever see is actual plans that are sensible, because real world plans involve long lists on contigencies and lots of short term improvisation, which is really hard to make seem exciting.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/08/20 07:14:36
jwr wrote: The cyber attack itself isn't the issue, it's the 2nd and 3rd order effects. If you can create a mass panic, better yet, a mass uprising, that country is now pointing their guns inside instead of outside. Lets assume country X wants to displace the US as the world's leading power. You don't need to defeat the US in an actual war; you just need the voters to replace enough globalists with isolationists. The US is globalist via a big active military. You create conditions for the military to temporarily act against the populace, they elect politicians who don't think a big military is a great idea anymore, smaller military = smaller global presence = someone else can fill the void.
The initial impact doesn't have to be persistent, it simply has to start the fire, like a lit cigarette thrown out the car window.
Sort of. I agree that secondary effects are hugely important, but I think underlying your post, and especially in your example, is that the secondary effects are controllable, or even knowable. You might be able to create the conditions for military action, but you have no control over whether the military will act, and if they do send the tanks in, you have no idea if that will lead to the electorate rejecting a big military - they might instead become more militant.
That's what I hate about so much fiction, especially fiction centred around a big elaborate plot - they always rely on everyone outside of the plan responding in the exact right way to make everything fall in to place.
The secondary effects are controllable, true. There's no guarantee that city X would call out the NG to respond to the riot, that the rioters would roll over the NG, that the .gov would go overboard either way in it's response (worst case is the population turns on the .mil and/or .mil turns on the .gov), and that the .gov holds to the adage "never let a good crisis go to waste". Point is, there's no ramifications on a nation for attempting to start those effects. If the desired outcome fails, it's "no harm, no foul" except for a few politicians who will demand action. If the desired outcome materializes, gain will be realized. So, while it can fail, the price to pay for that failure is miniscule compared to the potential gain.
