Nuclear Disarmament (and all things Nuclear related)

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-arms-deal-idUSKBN14Z0YE

 

Trump's offer to Putin: an end to sanctions for nuclear arms cut. There's likely other parts coming too, stuff like concessions in the middle east and such. Regardless. Topic for all things nuclear. President Trump has spoken very favorably for wanting to increase US reliance on nuclear energy. Chinese are working on a fusion reactor. Jill Stein doesn't know the difference between a nuclear power-plant and an atomic bomb. 

 

Should be a fairly interesting topic over the next 4 years

 

---

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-kremlin-idUSKBN15010T?il=0

 

Kremlin responds, wants to directly talk to Trump. In other news the rumored meeting between Presidents Putin and Trump isn't in stone yet, but will likely happen soon. 

 

They both affirm the same view on NATO however

[VCR_CAT]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-arms-deal-idUSKBN14Z0YE

 

Trump's offer to Putin: an end to sanctions for nuclear arms cut. There's likely other parts coming too, stuff like concessions in the middle east and such. Regardless. Topic for all things nuclear. President Trump has spoken very favorably for wanting to increase US reliance on nuclear energy. Chinese are working on a fusion reactor. Jill Stein doesn't know the difference between a nuclear power-plant and an atomic bomb. 

 

Should be a fairly interesting topic over the next 4 years

 

---

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-kremlin-idUSKBN15010T?il=0

 

Kremlin responds, wants to directly talk to Trump. In other news the rumored meeting between Presidents Putin and Trump isn't in stone yet, but will likely happen soon. 

 

They both affirm the same view on NATO however

 

I mean, pretty easy to sum up thoughts on this. Fission plants aren't a bad thing, and while they have the potential for disaster, there's only been 2 meltdowns that have actually resulted in anything disaster-related; Chernobyl, which was 1986, and Fukushima, which was 2011. The technology is getting a lot better and a lot safer, and besides the nuclear waste (which we are finding can be combined with diamonds to create a potentially revolutionary power generation method) proves to be a clean and effective method of power generation.

 

Fusion power is actually going to revolutionize the modern world, and that DEFINITELY can't happen soon enough.

 

But besides this, nuclear weapons are the part where I draw the line. Put the money and research towards power plants and diamond batteries, not more bombs.

[a bad post]

My stance is very similar to VCR's on this. I like the energy part, not so much the bomb part. While I'm not crazy about the waste, and diamonds don't exactly seem like an easily accessible source of energy (unless artificial ones work) I can live with the few drawbacks that come with nuclear energy.

 

In terms of bombs though I really think we should work towards nuclear disarmament. There is no logical reason for any country to own a weapon that can make an early unlivable for decades after it's use.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

In terms of bombs though I really think we should work towards nuclear disarmament. There is no logical reason for any country to own a weapon that can make an early unlivable for decades after it's use.

 

Sickness is a thing organic and self-manifesting, and therein lies its logic. The logic might be more appreciable through exposure to a sufficiently sick environment, as with radiation in a devastated ruin.

[VCR_CAT]

My stance is very similar to VCR's on this. I like the energy part, not so much the bomb part. While I'm not crazy about the waste, and diamonds don't exactly seem like an easily accessible source of energy (unless artificial ones work) I can live with the few drawbacks that come with nuclear energy.

 

In terms of bombs though I really think we should work towards nuclear disarmament. There is no logical reason for any country to own a weapon that can make an early unlivable for decades after it's use.

 

Diamonds are just crystallized carbon from heat/pressure and are very possible to manufactor (we do it this day), so yeah it would work. Their significant value is mostly from jewelry companies wanting to make a quick buck; coloured gemstones are generally more rare and more valuable in theory, they just don't have the marketing to back them up.

 

But, the problem with making diamonds is that if the power needed to make the diamond is greater than the power we can get these batteries to produce, then it's a net loss in energy overall and not really worth it. If we can make them more efficient and effective, it could mean crap like phones that don't need to be charged. Sweet crap like that.

 

also, re: unlivable land, that's if you use the low-yield bombs, that produce significant radiation. Most higher-yield bombs with a larger destructive area (such as Hydrogen bombs) do not produce much radiation.

[Makο]

Every so often, I think about the issue of disarmament, and the ramifications of such. My mind always goes to a really... weird place.

 

For one, while it's nice to think about the benefits lack of a fear of nuclear annihilation has, such a disarmament would be an incredibly destabilizing thing in the political scene of the world. A lot of people probably think that nukes exist for the sake of exploding the ever loving crap out of your enemies, leaving their land irradiated and unlivable in the process. But, that's really not it. Nukes really exist as a sort of... stabilizer, per se. When every country that matters is packing enough nukes to wipe any civilized country off the map, what exactly are you gonna do to spite them? Nothing, probably. Mutually assured destruction is a powerful tool, and while it sucks it has to be through big bombs, we're probably all better off with every army on the planet at a standstill for fear of being ultrablasted.

 

But, when you take nukes out of the equation, things get far, far more... dicey. A lot of nations hold nukes as one of their only bargaining chips that keeps larger neighbors away, but without them, what happens? What sort of military actions would Russia, China, or the United States make when not in the face of nukes? I imagine the world would become infinitely more tense; armed conflicts between nations would become more common, nations would begin a power grab over one another's land and resources, and etc. I'm not saying it's an inevitability, but looking at how the world is right now, I feel like a major World War would occur soon after.

 

And this is where the weird part happens. Maybe that'd be for the better? With the lack of complete planetary destruction in terms of habitat, maybe we'd be better off releasing the tension that has been building over the past god-knows how many years, and just letting things tumble down to be rebuilt again. Who knows what the result would be, but major change cannot happen without a major catalyst, so who knows? It might be for the better.

 

But, even then, nuclear disarmament would never happen completely. Even if all the countries in the world agreed to it, I highly doubt any country would not keep at least a small stockpile of nukes somewhere impossible to find. You know, just in case. And there are also a lot of other WMDs that could be used to a similar effect as nukes; and in a war like this, humanitarian treaties be dammed.

 

An interesting proposition, but at best, highly unlikely.

[VCR_CAT]

Every so often, I think about the issue of disarmament, and the ramifications of such. My mind always goes to a really... weird place.

 

For one, while it's nice to think about the benefits lack of a fear of nuclear annihilation has, such a disarmament would be an incredibly destabilizing thing in the political scene of the world. A lot of people probably think that nukes exist for the sake of exploding the ever loving crap out of your enemies, leaving their land irradiated and unlivable in the process. But, that's really not it. Nukes really exist as a sort of... stabilizer, per se. When every country that matters is packing enough nukes to wipe any civilized country off the map, what exactly are you gonna do to spite them? Nothing, probably. Mutually assured destruction is a powerful tool, and while it sucks it has to be through big bombs, we're probably all better off with every army on the planet at a standstill for fear of being ultrablasted.

 

But, when you take nukes out of the equation, things get far, far more... dicey. A lot of nations hold nukes as one of their only bargaining chips that keeps larger neighbors away, but without them, what happens? What sort of military actions would Russia, China, or the United States make when not in the face of nukes? I imagine the world would become infinitely more tense; armed conflicts between nations would become more common, nations would begin a power grab over one another's land and resources, and etc. I'm not saying it's an inevitability, but looking at how the world is right now, I feel like a major World War would occur soon after.

 

And this is where the weird part happens. Maybe that'd be for the better? With the lack of complete planetary destruction in terms of habitat, maybe we'd be better off releasing the tension that has been building over the past god-knows how many years, and just letting things tumble down to be rebuilt again. Who knows what the result would be, but major change cannot happen without a major catalyst, so who knows? It might be for the better.

 

But, even then, nuclear disarmament would never happen completely. Even if all the countries in the world agreed to it, I highly doubt any country would not keep at least a small stockpile of nukes somewhere impossible to find. You know, just in case. And there are also a lot of other WMDs that could be used to a similar effect as nukes; and in a war like this, humanitarian treaties be dammed.

 

An interesting proposition, but at best, highly unlikely.

 

There's a lot of what-if's involved, and it's difficult to predict what life would look like without big bombs looming over our heads. The thing is, technology is getting better, and while this has many great implications, it also has some not-so-great ones such as Russia's latest nuke that could wipe Texas off the face of the earth. Before things got this crazy, there was no major worry of nukes being able to end all civilized life as we know it because, well, we actually didn't have enough nukes or enough nukes with the destructive yield to sufficiently cover enough land mass or spread enough radiation to really end everything at all. Do hella amounts of damage, for sure, but nowhere near Fallout degrees. Consider how many nukes we've tested over the years; a LOT. While that's not all of those bombs being set off at once, it's still enough to consider what the radioactive implications would be.

 

Anyways, what I'm getting at with mentioning the what-if's is that with either situation something can go terribly wrong. In the case of everyone having a bunch of nukes, all it takes is one North Korea crazy nation to go "Screw it" and launch them anyways and cause the greatest man-made disaster this planet has ever seen. Now, removing nukes and WMD's from the equation is not going to end war or create a lifetime of peace; war never changes people are people and nothing short of divine intervention will end war forever. However, being able to remove WMD's from the equation at least means that if and when the sheet hits the fan, it's not a bull hopped up on ex-lax with its rear pointing at industrial ventilation.

 

Removing all nukes and all WMD's is incredibly idealistic, and considering how corrupt leaders can be it is without a doubt that somebody is at least going to attempt to keep a few hidden up their sleeve as a trump card. The world can try to remove nukes from the equation, and if anything being successful in removing most of them at least means that even if an outlying nation manages to either build a few new ones illegally or hide a few under their rug for a rainy day, they won't have enough to sufficiently threaten every nation that's going to be knocking down their door for doing so. In short, the only real way for a given nation to become an effective threat with nukes while nobody else has any is if they have enough to shut down everyone; otherwise they would be spelling their own doom.

 

Honestly, this is still a lot of predictions and what-if's, but I'm all in favor of anything that can set the doomsday clock back a few hours.

[vla1ne]

nuclear energy makes me nervous and excited all at the same time, on one hand, power, enough power to run a city with surplus. on that same hand, potential, even the waste of nuclear power has applications, in both alternate power fields, and in rare cases, medication, on the other hand, screw-ups, the risk can be lowered all you like, but all you have to do, is fail once, to create an uninhabitable wasteland, and some places have weather that will screw you up for giggles (tornado belts, florida during hurricane season, ect.) 

 

lots of applications, we know enough to not be stupid about how best to control it anymore (i should hope), and if china continues being china, nuclear fusion is already on it's way. it's a good thing overall, and the risks, while rather high for my tastes, are worth the potential rewards.

 

 

 

 

[spoiler=tangent response to our resident feline]

\ In short, the only real way for a given nation to become an effective threat with nukes while nobody else has any is if they have enough to shut down everyone; otherwise they would be spelling their own doom.

 

Honestly, this is still a lot of predictions and what-if's, but I'm all in favor of anything that can set the doomsday clock back a few hours.

not quite true, similar to the only man in a room with a pistol, if you do not have a nuke, you are already at a severe disadvantage, yes, your opponent ma not have enough for everybody, but the question that comes next, same as the only man in the room with a gun scenario, is not does he have enough for everyone, but does he have enough for you? a nuke is it's own tier of destruction, it does not allow for rebuilding, if you are the country unlucky enough to get hit with that nuke, then you have just been slapped back to the stone age temporarily. do you trust your neighbors to give your country time to rebuild? will your people see it the same way you did when you knocked on the door of the guy with the nuke? will you be respected enough without the ability to even hold your country together post nuke? all valid questions, because getting any of them wrong is an automatic failing grade. one nuke, is enough nukes to nuke one country, if you are the leader, of any country, you do not want to be that one country that get's the nuke, so you do not want to mess with that one country, that owns, that one nuke.

 

 

[Makο]

There's a lot of what-if's involved, and it's difficult to predict what life would look like without big bombs looming over our heads. The thing is, technology is getting better, and while this has many great implications, it also has some not-so-great ones such as Russia's latest nuke that could wipe Texas off the face of the earth. Before things got this crazy, there was no major worry of nukes being able to end all civilized life as we know it because, well, we actually didn't have enough nukes or enough nukes with the destructive yield to sufficiently cover enough land mass or spread enough radiation to really end everything at all. Do hella amounts of damage, for sure, but nowhere near Fallout degrees. Consider how many nukes we've tested over the years; a LOT. While that's not all of those bombs being set off at once, it's still enough to consider what the radioactive implications would be.

 

Anyways, what I'm getting at with mentioning the what-if's is that with either situation something can go terribly wrong. In the case of everyone having a bunch of nukes, all it takes is one North Korea crazy nation to go "Screw it" and launch them anyways and cause the greatest man-made disaster this planet has ever seen. Now, removing nukes and WMD's from the equation is not going to end war or create a lifetime of peace; war never changes people are people and nothing short of divine intervention will end war forever. However, being able to remove WMD's from the equation at least means that if and when the s*** hits the fan, it's not a bull hopped up on ex-lax with its rear pointing at industrial ventilation.

 

Removing all nukes and all WMD's is incredibly idealistic, and considering how corrupt leaders can be it is without a doubt that somebody is at least going to attempt to keep a few hidden up their sleeve as a trump card. The world can try to remove nukes from the equation, and if anything being successful in removing most of them at least means that even if an outlying nation manages to either build a few new ones illegally or hide a few under their rug for a rainy day, they won't have enough to sufficiently threaten every nation that's going to be knocking down their door for doing so. In short, the only real way for a given nation to become an effective threat with nukes while nobody else has any is if they have enough to shut down everyone; otherwise they would be spelling their own doom.

 

Honestly, this is still a lot of predictions and what-if's, but I'm all in favor of anything that can set the doomsday clock back a few hours.

Mentioning that this is a bunch of what-ifs and predictions serves literally no purpose in the conversation, because of course that's all it is; none of us in this thread can predict the future, so we can only to the best of our ability try and predict the most likely course of human development over the years given the situation stated. Now, I'm not trying to insinuate that you're trying to undermine my post by continuously labeling it as such, but...

 

These are the assumptions that I would make based off of what I know about the world.

 

And regardless of anything, disarmament would not realistically happen anytime soon; this is NOT a what-if. The first country to do so would be at an incredibly massive disadvantage of the world stage, that it's just not worth the risk involved.

 

Plus, even if only one nuke was left on the whole planet, as our population continues to climb and population centers get more crowded, can you imagine the impact of even a single one? They would practically own the world. No one wants to be the country on the receiving end of that.

[Sunshine Jesse]

nuclear energy makes me nervous and excited all at the same time, on one hand, power, enough power to run a city with surplus. on that same hand, potential, even the waste of nuclear power has applications, in both alternate power fields, and in rare cases, medication, on the other hand, screw-ups, the risk can be lowered all you like, but all you have to do, is fail once, to create an uninhabitable wasteland, and some places have weather that will screw you up for giggles (tornado belts, florida during hurricane season, ect.)

 

lots of applications, we know enough to not be stupid about how best to control it anymore (i should hope), and if china continues being china, nuclear fusion is already on it's way. it's a good thing overall, and the risks, while rather high for my tastes, are worth the potential rewards.

 

 

 

 

[spoiler=tangent response to our resident feline]

not quite true, similar to the only man in a room with a pistol, if you do not have a nuke, you are already at a severe disadvantage, yes, your opponent ma not have enough for everybody, but the question that comes next, same as the only man in the room with a gun scenario, is not does he have enough for everyone, but does he have enough for you? a nuke is it's own tier of destruction, it does not allow for rebuilding, if you are the country unlucky enough to get hit with that nuke, then you have just been slapped back to the stone age temporarily. do you trust your neighbors to give your country time to rebuild? will your people see it the same way you did when you knocked on the door of the guy with the nuke? will you be respected enough without the ability to even hold your country together post nuke? all valid questions, because getting any of them wrong is an automatic failing grade. one nuke, is enough nukes to nuke one country, if you are the leader, of any country, you do not want to be that one country that get's the nuke, so you do not want to mess with that one country, that owns, that one nuke.

 

 

This isn't entirely true because the only catastrophic f*** ups in recent memory were solely due to the poor infrastructure of the plants in question.

 

If done ideally and safely (not too hard), there are no negatives and no real risks associated with nuclear power, outside of the problem of dealing with waste, which I'm not sure is a real issue as I'm not too educated on that part of it.

[vla1ne]

This isn't entirely true because the only carastrophic f*** ups in recent memory were solely due to the poor infrastructure of the plants in question.

 

If done ideally and safely (not too hard), there are no negatives and no real risks associated with nuclear power, outside of the problem of dealing with waste, which I'm not sure is a real issue as I'm not too educated on that part of it.

as far as design goes, i trust that we know enough to avoid randon failures, i meant more along the lines of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, and exceptional tornados, (one such flood, if i recall correctly, managed to hit a plant in japan some years back, and we're still assessing the danger today) those, i'd assume, are more than capable of taking out a nuclear plant, and possibly causing enough damage to leak significant radiation. if i'm mistaken though, then i'll retract that part.

 

i agree, but therein lies the worry, sure, correct construction would remove much of the risk, but i don't 100% trust that we'll have that for every plant. i have difficulty trusting such things, when the potential damage is at the level of nuclear radiation.

 

 

something that came to me after thinking about it, terrorism would also be a rather sizable worry, i mean, if you can set off a nuclear plant in an accident, then why wouldn't you use it as a means of terrorism? increased plants could lead to extremely sensitive sections of the country, so far as freedom of travel goes.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-caught-importing-missile-technology/

 

Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that they seized a shipment of missile system components bound for Iran, according to official statements that could put the Islamic Republic in violation of international bans on such behavior.

[vla1ne]

to start with, what exactly were the punishments for breaking sanctions, aside from more sanctions? i can't quite remember, and i'm too lazy to look them up. but on that same coin flip, there are stories like this going back quite a few years, so at what point do you just say screw it and let them start the fire?

 

 

“Three boxes contained components that were believed to be for a Fagot anti-tank guided missile system, the rest contained aircraft parts... ...Days after this finding, the DPSU said that it had confirmed the missile components were destined for Iran’s Fagot system.”

...so they're preparing for the gay agenda?

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

to start with, what exactly were the punishments for breaking sanctions, aside from more sanctions? i can't quite remember, and i'm too lazy to look them up. but on that same coin flip, there are stories like this going back quite a few years, so at what point do you just say screw it and let them start the fire?

 

 

“Three boxes contained components that were believed to be for a Fagot anti-tank guided missile system, the rest contained aircraft parts... ...Days after this finding, the DPSU said that it had confirmed the missile components were destined for Iran’s Fagot system.”

...so they're preparing for the gay agenda?

It's honestly really sad cause under the Shah of Iran, the country was really progressive and western. Then the radicals took over

[vla1ne]

It's honestly really sad cause under the Shah of Iran, the country was really progressive and western. Then the radicals took over

well, it was starting to get on track towards modern western values under reza, gotta say, it's true that the west really did screw them over when they helped dethrone him. and the worst part is it's only gotten worse each successive revolution. why the hell did they (western governments) back the literal worst side (the rebellion) back then?

[Phantom Roxas]

Since this thread is about "all things Nuclear related", I've merged the thread about Iran into this one.

[Sunshine Jesse]

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-caught-importing-missile-technology/

 

Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that they seized a shipment of missile system components bound for Iran, according to official statements that could put the Islamic Republic in violation of international bans on such behavior.

Weren't we the ones who broke the agreement first by renewing sanctions?

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

Weren't we the ones who broke the agreement first by renewing sanctions?

TBH idk. I thought it was an arms sanction in relation to their provoking of American ships. You might be right though

[Resident Fascist]

It's honestly really sad cause under the Shah of Iran, the country was really progressive and western. Then the radicals took over

 

http://prntscr.com/e0c890

 

you're really giving me a lot of use for this image

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/a-new-twist-on-fusion-power-could-help-bring-limitless-clean-energy

 

Upcoming ideas and projects on Fusion Energy