OT: Seriously????

[rcaf_777]

Magna Carta Article 61

The Canadian Army View on the Magna Carta

[Targan]

I think that there is a tendency anymore for groups of people to withdraw into self-made bubbles of thought and talk. Right-wing, Left-Wing, or whatevers, if all the data you absorb and conversations you have re-enforce your worldview, you can get locked into very negative thinking.

I think that is a big part of these conspiracy theories about Jade Helm, FEMA, and the like.

I'm not meaning to insult people, more to just say I think we all owe it to ourselves to question what we know, look at alternate viewpoints, and ask ourselves if we are wrong. I used to know a guy that thought GW Bush would refuse to step down after 2008, but later went on *epic* rants if you criticized Obama in the slightest way.

So very true. I have entrenched attitudes on many things, but from time to time I try really hard to step back and take an objective look at my opinions and views just to make sure I'm not lying to myself or ignoring facts to try and protect my cherished beliefs.

[Anna Elizabeth]

Targan - exactly. I think every person owes it to themselves to take a look at what we believe once in a while, put ourselves to the test.

[swaghauler]

Lack of participation, and a desire that someone else be bothered with the work of managing things is a wide spread problem.

Agreed. This will be a "prime contributer" to any US downfall.

[Raellus]

The media- and the internet, in particular- have made it very easy for people with any POV to only see/hear/read "news" that only supports that very same POV. The right has media outlets that cater to right-wing views and the left has its own left-leaning ones. Those that try to occupy the space between get shouted out by the increasingly extreme elements at the far end of both sides. It seems like nowadays people have to actively seek out POVs that don't readily coincide with their own. Unfortunately, this takes too much work for many, so they tend to gravitate back to the mouthpieces that exclusively spout what they already believe. A lot of people don't want their beliefs to be challenged. It's easier to dismiss information that challenges one's belief system than it is to alter one's belief system to account for information that challenges it.

Click one time on a new article from a particular internet news source and the algorithms used by Google, Yahoo, IE, etc. will, in the future, show you more and more articles from that particular source and those like it. Over time, you'll more or less only see news from a handful of sources that share the same affinity/bias.

For example, those who believed that Jade Helm was a nefarious government plot likely clicked on links articles about said with more alarmist titles. These directed them to more extreme "news" outlets which only reinforced these folks' beliefs. The more of these they clicked on, the more they were shown. After a while, it would be easy to think that that one point of view was the only one.

Look up CONFIRMATION BIAS. Media increasingly plays to this psychological phenomenon, especially the digital variety.

IMHO, this is a MAJOR reason, if not the reason, why politics are becoming so polarizing (here in the U.S.A., at least- I can't speak for others' nations).

[kato13]

Another suggestion is to always check sources and verify ANY fact you see. (I increased the timeout on the site recently because I often spend more than an hour verifying before I post something)

No site is perfect. Snopes.com which is considered to be the best site for debunking Urban legends, but they purposely have put at least 8 false stories on their site (one of which tricked me for years). The reason they did this is that they ALWAYS want a person to check multiple sources before they consider something to be fact.

Numbers presented should also not be trusted at first glance. If I put my mind to it I could probably list over 100 gross manipulations of numbers that I have found over the last 30 years (and have probably been exposed to hundreds more). Check sources, check methodology, check sample size, check biases, check modeling rules. This can be hard but if a subject is worth your attention, it is worth having as many of the the facts as possible.

[Anna Elizabeth]

Raellus makes a good point that people aren't necessarily acting out of malice when they are in their bubble. I think you'll all be unsurprised that my politics are very liberal. But liberals are very prone to confirmation bias, and what irks me more is a kind of self-congratulatory circle-jerk behavior. I really try to seek out alternate points of view. Part of it is I'm kind of naturally contrary and distrusting of "authority". XD

Even some of the wilder things you find on the web, the UFOs, the weird Fortean things, I like to look at them because it reminds me we don't have all the answers.

I like what kato is saying about looking it up, too. I believe a lot of what is called "news" is deliberate propaganda, which is another reason I look at a lot of different things.

[swaghauler]

In the situation you describe, Swag, we'd be lucky if we had armed factions running around to extort food and terrorise people. We aren't a Third World country used to scrapping along on the bottom of the barrel and subsisting on what we can grow. We are a nation of nearly seventy million people in a country that you can walk across in less than ten days and walk the length of in two to three weeks. No area apart from a very few are more than a week's walk from a population concentration of ten million people or so.
Add to that the fact that we have about three weeks' of food in storage and the capacity to feed at best a tenth of our population off our farmland then any situation that led to a breakdown of our armed forces into warring factions is going to mean that we have seventy million starving people swarming the country in search of food.
I doubt that any amount of guns is going to be able to stop that. If you are positing a situation where society breaks down militarily yet we are still able to feed the population for long enough to be oppressed and terrorised by factions then I can't see what circumstances would lead to that.
The 28 Days later scenario needs some sort of major disaster hat kills off large numbers of the population before they can use up all the supplies. That means a disaster that kill 99% of the population in less than two weeks. If we have faced a problem of that magnitude, we're going to be more worried about the sixty million rotting bodies spreading disease amongst the survivors than a few squaddie survivors with guns terrorising a population of survivors.
That said, I have no problem with Americans bearing arms: it is the will of the people that the population can go armed and I support that with every fibre of my body.
I also respect your right to express your opinions about the political system that I live under and support. It is the will of the majority of our population that guns are regulated. There is no right or wrong in either system just different although I am a little fed up with the attitude of some American pro-gun supporters (Not anybody on these pages I hasten to add) who state that the British are some sort of sheep who are terrorised by an oppressive government who deny us our God-given right to carry weaponry around wherever we wish. I am a proud participant in our democratic process and whilst I disapprove of many of the policies of the governments that represent me I fully support the rule of law presented to us by our democratically elected representatives, just as I would support the same establishments in America and as I support your right to bear arms and engage in democratic lobbying ad discussion should you feel those rights are being eroded.
In short, I am not criticising the American ways and I would appreciate it if such courtesies were reciprocated.
As for my earlier posts, people from America expressed an interest in a UK resident's take on whether there was a right of redress established in English law before the American Revolution. There was, it may not have been ideal or easy for the common person to access, but it was there. That does not suggest that I feel it was better than the American alternative, it merely means that it existed.
Personally, I feel the American system was fairer from the start but part of that stems from the fact that the drafters of the Constitution were able o build upon precedent and correct the perceived injustices rather than try to work within a system that had been evolving through the use of interpretation and precedence over several hundred years.
I have nothing more to contribute to this debate and I'm worried that I'm getting combative therefore I'll bow out. This isn't because I have been offended by anything anyone has said, the quality of debate is, as always, excellent but I can feel my passions rising and I try to never post angry.
I will continue to watch the posts with interest.

My point was not to criticize Great Britain but to point out the conditions there in game. When you look at the Version 2.2 list of British Nuclear Targets; You have exactly that mass extinction event I was talking about. Assuming the "Best Case Scenario" of 10 km surrounding the airburst being totally uninhabitable due to fallout and secondary disasters (industrial explosions, natural gas explosions, toxic or human waste release, etc) you are looking at the loss of nearly 1000 km of habitable land after plotting the strikes on a map. Chernobyl and Fukushima both have taught us the dangers of radioactive releases into the atmosphere. While the more deadly remnants of an airburst will decline to a temporarily safe level (without remediation) in about 2 years; Chernobyl has shown us that poisonous Caesium 137 (a byproduct of Nuclear weapons and liquid metal cooled reactors, but not found in atomic bombs or water cooled reactors) still needed remediation TEN YEARS after the accident to avoid poisoning humans with food or water from the contaminated soil. These nuclear attacks would claim at least half of the British population directly or indirectly. The remaining population would be forced into a much smaller physical region in order to avoid the ongoing environmental disasters. This "population pressure" combined with only a small portion of the populace being armed would create the situation I'm talking about. That very same situation was created right here in America during the Katrina disaster. After Katrina hit; the local authorities confiscated the resident's firearms and then left. Local gang members and people who entered the disaster area looking for "salvage" (the words of those who were prosecuted for looting) did not surrender their firearms. A trend of wholesale robbery began as the gang members took precious resources from the unarmed inhabitants. only when federally contracted security officers from Blackwater and Securitas showed up did the looting stop. It can happen ANYWHERE. It even happened here.
It would be worse in both Poland and Germany. I could see as much as 25% to 30% of their territory being essentially uninhabitable after "The Exchange" has subsided.
Russia, The US, Canada, and Australia would fare much better. Why The US would be severely damaged at the coastline but much of her interior would be untouched. Looking at GDW's map; I would estimate The US has about 10% of her coastal landmass listed as uninhabitable. The people who were subject to the attacks not only have the ability to defend themselves but also the ability to "migrate" from the affected areas. The Australians, Canadians, and Russians may not have the same level of personal armament as US citizens; But they too have a very large geographic area to flee into.

This does bring up a couple of flaws in GDW's line of thinking. I don't believe that either side would risk even "limited nuclear war." First; Is there really such a thing I don't think so. How do you know what your enemy's intention really is Even a limited "strike" could trigger a "total retaliation" by the enemy. That's why I envision The Exchange occuring much later in the timeline. I think it would occur in 1999 with both NATO and Chinese forces knocking on Russia's doorstep. The ideological push would be a launch with a ground offensive in followup. The Russians would then "sue for peace" right at the tail end of the offensive. This is where I place my 5th Division crew. Ten months after The Exchange, and at the tail end of a fitful nine month offensive that sees EVERYONE essentially destroyed and incapable of any large organised action.

[Raellus]

This does bring up a couple of flaws in GDW's line of thinking. I don't believe that either side would risk even "limited nuclear war." First; Is there really such a thing I don't think so. How do you know what your enemy's intention really is Even a limited "strike" could trigger a "total retaliation" by the enemy. That's why I envision The Exchange occuring much later in the timeline. I think it would occur in 1999 with both NATO and Chinese forces knocking on Russia's doorstep. The ideological push would be a launch with a ground offensive in followup. The Russians would then "sue for peace" right at the tail end of the offensive. This is where I place my 5th Division crew. Ten months after The Exchange, and at the tail end of a fitful nine month offensive that sees EVERYONE essentially destroyed and incapable of any large organised action.

I think that "limited nuclear war" isn't entirely implausible. As long as both parties stuck to tactical/battlefield nukes, judiciously applied in small batches, a general exchange could, I think, be avoided. It's simply a chess-game of tit-for-tat strikes. "You hit my Army Group's most important regional transportation hub", I hit yours. You hit my reserve troop concentration, I hit yours, etc." This could go on for some time without tipping the balance enough to force a general, strategic nuclear strike.

It's once ICBMs are employed that it gets really iffy. Both sides were poised for massive retaliation (MAD, if you will). An ICBM or SLBM launch would trigger all kinds of warnings and since one couldn't be sure what the target/s was/were (MRVs meant that a single ICBM could strike multiple targets), it would be much more difficult to simply match force without leaving oneself at a strategic disadvantage. I doubt that either side would say, "let's just see where these land before we retaliate". Maybe once, but after that I think that once detections systems picked up the launch of an ICBM, all bets would be off. Land, air, and sea-launched nuclear-armed cruise missiles could also be used to avoid this event horizon.

[Targan]

Russia, The US, Canada, and Australia would fare much better. Why The US would be severely damaged at the coastline but much of her interior would be untouched. Looking at GDW's map; I would estimate The US has about 10% of her coastal landmass listed as uninhabitable. The people who were subject to the attacks not only have the ability to defend themselves but also the ability to "migrate" from the affected areas. The Australians, Canadians, and Russians may not have the same level of personal armament as US citizens; But they too have a very large geographic area to flee into.

It's a nice thought, but the majority of Australia is somewhere between marginally habitable and uninhabitable, at least for modern Australians. There's a reason there are so few big cities in Australia and the vast bulk of the population is clustered along the east coast and on the south west coast - most of the rest of the continent is badlands, desert or tropical wilderness filled with crocodiles and mosquitoes.

[Schone23666]

It's a nice thought, but the majority of Australia is somewhere between marginally habitable and uninhabitable, at least for modern Australians. There's a reason there are so few big cities in Australia and the vast bulk of the population is clustered along the east coast and on the south west coast - most of the rest of the continent is badlands, desert or tropical wilderness filled with crocodiles and mosquitoes.

I sometimes think that whatever created the Earth, specifically created the land mass that would come to be known as Australia as A: a mad alien scientist's breeding ground, and/or B: an experimental playpen when the humans showed up. No offense.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Schone, I think you missed a C. option
C. Breeding/testing ground for WETKY** Snakes.


** WETKY -- We Exist To Kill You.


Targan didn't mention that when it comes to dangerous wildlife, quite a bit of it can be found in towns and cities and even on beaches regularly attended by people.
I live in the same city as Targan and at my old workplace, we would get juvenile Dugite snakes coming into the building through the warehouse area and we'd sometime discover adult Dugites sleeping under pallets or hiding under cars in the carpark.

Now Dugites are quite dangerous but they're on the lower end of the scale, the adults prefer to avoid humans so while they're potentially lethal, they tend to get out of your way and while the juveniles are very aggressive much of the time, their venom isn't concentrated enough to kill. But just in case you think they aren't something to worry about, in 2011 a primary school aged boy was bitten by a Dugite that found its way into his bedroom and snuggled up to him while he slept. The boy made a full recovery.

Unfortunately, our towns are also home sometimes to the Tiger Snake. Tiger Snakes also generally prefer to avoid humans and generally prefer to be in the rural areas but you should just keep the hell away from them anyway because even if they aren't cornered, they may decide to chase you just because they can... I know from personal experience and the damned snake followed my friend and I for a good 50 metres before we managed to kill it (we were in a horse paddock, so it was either us, the horses or the snake, we chose the snake after the bastard chose us).

Then we start going up the scale a quite a bit with a snake that's both deadly and an urban dweller, the Eastern Brown Snake. Even juveniles can kill an adult human and while the Eastern Brown is mostly located on the east coast or in the north, it has a relative, the Gwardar AKA the Western Brown Snake. This little charmer is often more aggressive than the Eastern Brown, it's probably pissed that its venom isn't as deadly as the Eastern Brown so it makes up for it by delivering a larger quantity of venom and also by trying to bite you several times.

Now to put that into some perspective, I've encountered all three of these snakes (most often the Dugite but a Western Brown in the backyard killed one of our cats) at least once every three or four years in this city.

There's a few others that fortunately live away from urban areas that are more dangerous such as the Inland Taipan and the Belcher's Sea Snake.

[Targan]

Unfortunately, our towns are also home sometimes to the Tiger Snake. Tiger Snakes also generally prefer to avoid humans and generally prefer to be in the rural areas but you should just keep the hell away from them anyway because even if they aren't cornered, they may decide to chase you just because they can... I know from personal experience and the damned snake followed my friend and I for a good 50 metres before we managed to kill it (we were in a horse paddock, so it was either us, the horses or the snake, we chose the snake after the bastard chose us).

I was chased by a tiger snake when I was a teenager. Those are some bloody angry snakes.

I couldn't count the number of stories from friends and family about dogs being killed by snakes. Nearly lost a cat to a snake bite once too, but amazingly she recovered. Tough little thing. Dunno what kind of snake bit her.

I lived on an island off Dampier when I was a kid and we caught several sea snakes by accident when we were out fishing. Many sea snake species are incredibly venomous but luckily their fangs aren't well-suited to biting humans.

As you'd well know, Stainless, Australian children are taught from an early age to check under the seats of outdoor toilets for redback spiders. They've killed many a kid with a bite on the arse.

[swaghauler]

I'm not sure if I own enough "snake shot" (birdshot in pistol rounds) to live in Australia....

[.45cultist]

I'm not sure if I own enough "snake shot" (birdshot in pistol rounds) to live in Australia....

That reminds me, need to look for CCI..... and I second that!