Comments by "David Ford" (@davidford3115) on "Oppenheimer's warning lives on" video.

  1. Indeed. Michael Crichton even demonstrated that the science is flimsy at best using WW2 firebombing campaigns as a frame of reference.
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  2.  @coreyrussellgaming6330  I am in total agreement. Deterrence is much more effective than empty promise of peace. "Si vis pacem, para bellum; If you want to have peace, arm for war" -Roman saying.
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  3. Those advocating for abolishment never learned why the Washington Naval Treaty failed. Same philosophies.
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  4. Oppenheimer basically said as much. If it wasn't him, someone else would have made the breakthrough and once out, there was no putting it back in the bottle.
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  5. Washington Naval Treaty tried to do that with Battleships and Cruisers. The fact that it failed to prevent WW2 as its advocates claimed proves the folly of such thinking.
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  6. You basically described the Washington Naval Treaty.
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  7. Yeah, the irony is that life is THRIVING in the exclusion zone. Species on the verge of extinction are now in numbers not seen since antiquity. So much for nuclear devastation causing extinction.
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  8.  @ArawnOfAnnwn  Don't need to have the arming codes to be useful or threatening. The US designed those control mechanisms, so the Ukrainians could have asked for assistance in cracking them. Further, just because they could not be armed, doesn't mean they couldn't be dismantled for components, namely the cores to be repurposed. And for those throwing barbs at the US for ripping up control agreements, might I remind you of the failure of the Washington Naval Treaty attempting to do the same thing? The US was the LAST nation to stop observing it.
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  9. Indeed. Some people don't realize that nuclear control treaties have a precursor that failed spectacularly: The Washington Naval treaty restricting battleship construction.
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  10.  @tetraxis3011  Doesn't matter. They could have disassembled them for components. When the arming device won't work, simply remove it and replace.
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  11.  @HotAI-1990  The yield may be bigger, but the physics haven't changed. The radioactive byproducts are NOT significantly worse just because the yield is larger. The decay products are short-lived on the order of days to months unlike the years to centuries resulting from the fizzle of a nuclear reactor core accident. Fearmongers like you capitalize on people's ignorance of that. Some of us actually study nuclear physics and know the truth.
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  12. Indeed. Even Michael Crichton used the WW2 firebombing campaigns to show that fears of nuclear winter were exaggerated. Even Pinatubo which released energy equivalent to the world's stockpile barely made a dent in the climate.
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  13.  @GhantaToGhantaal  Even Oppenheimer observed that had he not created it, someone else would have. This was a genie that was never going to remain in the bottle forever.
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  14. Agreed. The Chernobyl exclusion zone shows that extinction is highly unlikely. And nuclear weapons produce short decay products unlike a nuclear fizzle of a reactor core accident.
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  15. Except, there are some folks such as those who believe in the 12th Mahdi that think it is their mission to cause as much chaos, violence and destruction to quicken his arrival. Do you really want people like that in control of nukes?
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  16.  @Shortfusefilm  Do what? Invade another country? Threaten to finish the Holocaust? Promise to drive the Palestinians into the sea? For its entire existence, the state of Israel has fought just to survive. Stop apologizing for people who want to finish what Hitler started.
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  17. Agreed. MAD has never been tested in a serious way. One side may simply play up the aggrieved and NOT retaliate instead relying on the nuclear taboo being so toxic as to turn the world against the first to use them. An example is the fool who goes into a gun store in Texas trying to rob the place. Not going to work the way people think.
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  18. It has always been a way to politically grandstand by people with no other influence on policy making.
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  19. Washington Naval Treaty shows the folly of such thinking.
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  20.  @CruWiT  I tend to agree. A good portion of the Pacific campaign was conducted from logistical hubs down under. China knows this from studying WW2 and as such eliminating that vector is critical to securing the South Pacific.
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  21. Funny how quickly that people calling for disarmament conveniently ignore the failure of the Washington Naval Treaty.
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  22. Washington Naval Treaty tried to do the same with Battleships and Cruisers. Failed to prevent WW2.
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  23.  @tetraxis3011  Except Indian observers have confirmed it. ISW even cites them.
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  24.  @someguy3766  You are talking about MRVs, and I guarantee you that the US has already addressed that dilemma and that Patriots are more than capable of handling that threat. Your problem is that you are engaging in hyperbolic doomsday scenarios that are just no longer possible. The USSR may have had the capacity you outline, the modern Russia and China do not. Right now, the ONLY country with the capabilities you describe is the US, and I assure you that the US knows how to defeat its own systems.
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  25.  @tetraxis3011  Amd the Palestinians regularly target schools and hospitals for their terrorist attacks. Save your moral outrage for people who have chosen killing over letting their neighbors live in peace. “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” ― Golda Meir
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  26.  @tinymike318  While ignoring Jihadism from the PLO. Yeah, anti-Zionism is simply repackaged anti-Semitism.
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  27.  @goldbullet50  The 50 years of relative peace during the Cold War occurred specifically BECAUSE of the threat of nuclear annihilation. The world you know today would not exist had that not been the case.
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  28. Agreed. The Washington Naval treaty failed to prevent WW2 as its advocates claimed. The balance of nuclear power has kept the peace like no other treaty before or since. And arms control agreements paradoxically degrade that peace quotient.
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  29. There is a more pragmatic reason: Nuclear weapon cores can be reprocessed into power core rods. Swords into plows as described in scripture, ironically.
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  30.  @alphagamer9505  Tell that to Commodore Matthew C. Perry
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  31. Nuclear Armageddon is overblown. Humanity will find a way to survive. The fact that wildlife thrives in the Chernobyl exclusion zone shows that the fears are grossly exaggerated. Keep in mind that most of the radioactive products in nuclear weapons have a short lifespan as contrasted with the long decay products in a fizzle of a reactor core accident.
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  32.  @ericp1139  Yeah, the "science" behind the claims is suspect at best. Emotional appeals (logical fallacy) like the one you are employing is what people do when the data doesn't support their contention. You chose to call Chernobyl one exception, yet you also ignore the fact that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rebuilt within 30 years when original expectations were that they would be uninhabited for 500 years. Again, the hard data disproves your hyperbolic claims.
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  33. I agree. More likely to detonate in the silo like they did on K-129 than actually launch.
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  34.  @bennybundi9671  The clock has always been political grandstanding, which is why it is just as worthless today as it was in the past.
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  35. As do the French. The fact that THREE NATO members have independent nuclear arsenals means that you have to avoid pissing off not just one but all three.
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  36. Then explain genocide. Some people don't want your biology to perpetuate. That being said, I am all about making love instead of war, where possible.
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  37. Indeed. The Washington Naval treaty, a precursor to nuclear arms control treaties failed to prevent WW2 for the same reasons.
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  38.  @observeut  Some people take the threat of Salafism very seriously. Some don't just consider their threats an idle bluff.
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  39. Chernobyl proves the claims of uninhabitability bunk. Nuclear weapons produce short decay products unlike the long decay products of fizzle caused by a reactor core accident. Further, life is THRIVING in the exclusion zone despite the radiation.
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  40.  @bastiaan7777777  Tactical nukes are pointless which is why NATO doctrine eliminated their use in artillery and treat ALL use as strategic weapons. There are better uses that simply salting the soil.
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  41.  @bastiaan7777777  Under NATO doctrine there is no such thing as a tactical nuke. Only low yield and high yield. ALL nuclear weapons are strategic escalation regardless of size.
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  42. And who wants to be the first to violate the agreement on non-proliferation of space weaponization? The costs of getting caught red-handed far outstrip the benefits.
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  43. Would you trust a child with a loaded firearm? THAT is what differentiates who should and who shouldn't have them. Some are mature and responsible. Others are not.
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  44.  @Shortfusefilm  Israel has never confirmed nor denied that they have weapons. Most assume they do though it has never been independently confirmed. Yes, you can say the same about Iran, except Israel isn't threatening to wipe anyone off the map as Iran has.
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  45.  @notastone4832  Considering that Poland is now a part of NATO, do you really want to call that bluff? The agreement has already been made and the die is cast. Putin doesn't think it is a bluff otherwise he would have already invaded the Suwałki Gap.
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