Depleted Uranium...
- Thread starter Lex_Mortis
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Hey - turns out IRC is out and something a little more modern has taken it's place... A little thing called Discord!
Join our community @ https://discord.gg/JuaSzXBZrk for a pick-up game, or just to rekindle with fellow community members.
Thuringwethil said:
Some of our forebears didn't want to fight for those freedoms either. A quick look brings to light the figure of 61,000 men and women who consientiously objected, 18,000 of which were turned down as "not genuine" and 5 1/2 thousand who were imprisoned. Obviously the choice of whether to defend the country wasn't one of the freedoms listed. Shall we just mark them all down as chicken shits who should be shot? Mind you, if we did that we'd have to shoot Chamberlain and the other European allied leaders who sold Czechoslovakia down the river in 1938 in the backstabbing Munich betrayal.
I don't see it as a conflict to admire/respect what people achieved at the time while not wanting to be involved in the future if it is something that I didn't agree with. I'd like to think I'd make a decision based on what I thought was right rather than just jump when the proganda machine kicks off.
hector said:
Objected to what? are we still talking about depleted uranium?
If you're referrin to the WWII then im pretty sure there were quiet a few more people for defending our country rather than against. Fail to see your point.
and tbh if Chamberlain thought he could avoid war with Hitler he deserved to be shot. However, some people suggested he only signed that agreement to give the UK more time to prepare for the war. Fair enough we did abandon the Czech's but you gotta look after your own before you can start helpin others.
Don't agree with that either. Working together peacefully is possibly the LEAST productive relationship. Most major advances in technology have come when countries / companies / people feel threatened , and therefore can justify spending millions of pounds on "Space Race's" and other boys-with-toys games.
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-CrackKing- said:Time for another religion thread btw, where's kooma and Wintermute
hey hey!
Actually reading this thread for the first time, and I have to say that I don't quite get the problem. So DU weaponry can cause long term problems for the population, as a sort of radiological agent orange... and?
What always gets me about the Hawks and the Doves in politics is the inherent dishonesty of the situation - during Gulf War I, Gen Norman Schwarzkopf was giving a press briefing about an engagement (other word would be massacre) with the republican guard. The Allies used two devastating attacks - first, they used FAE bombs which are so powerful the blast is only *just* sub-nuclear in terms of it's power.
Large canisters of highly pressurised flammable gas drop on parachutes above entrenched soldiers, and crack the valves - the gas forms a fog/mist which is then detonated - the sky ignites around the troops, sucking all of the oxygen up and causing massive (and horrific) injuries from ruptured lungs, eyes etc - but don't worry, because the shock wave which hits the ground a few seconds later will kill anything left.
Once this operation was complete, M1 Abrams tanks with bulldozer blades attached simply filled in the trenches, burying any survivors alive.
"Stormin" Norman was asked if he felt this was a horrible way to die, and said simply "Sir, there is no good way to kill a man".
Same with Bomber Hariss in WWII - firebomb Dresden? so what?
I was young during the Falklands war, but I remember thinking at the time - why are we sending soldiers? we have nukes!
My view is simple - when you decide to go to war, your goal should be the 100% extermination of the people you are going to war with. complete and total extinction - not one child left alive, not one building left standing. If a method of war saves the life of one of your citizens, at the expense of a million of theirs... you pull the trigger.
twice.
The flipside of course is this... if you cannot stomach xenocide, then you should not make war.
To engage in total absolute war is the only logical decision of an enlightened and educated people when there is absolutely no other option. "kid on" war with rules which only prolong the suffering in the name of humanity...
That's barbaric.
Joko said:
It's quite simple: about people having the right NOT to fight if they choose to.
Joko said:
Er...well that kind of makes agreements utterly irrelevant and not worth signing, doesn't it? You make it sound like an acceptable tactical method.
[/QUOTE]Joko said:
Sorry? You're saying that a country under threat feels the need to spend gazillions on space travel? I think there's a difference between threat and a COLD WAR. But I'm sure you have the statistics to hand for "major advances in technology have come when countries / companies / people feel threatened ". Despite there being no major wars recently with any *real* threat and yet technology....awww. whatever lol.
Wintermute said:hey hey!
My view is simple - when you decide to go to war, your goal should be the 100% extermination of the people you are going to war with. complete and total extinction - not one child left alive, not one building left standing. If a method of war saves the life of one of your citizens, at the expense of a million of theirs... you pull the trigger.
.
War's sometimes about the subjugation of a people or government, not the extermination of a race. It wouldn't be very useful to decimate the resources you're trying to get your hands on.
It delayed the start of WWII by about a year did it not? Or am I remembering standard grade history incorrectly? So that obviously made it a very good tactical move for an ill-prepared Britain.
Its all propaganda for the masses. Makes them feel good and fight better.
I'll look up some examples for all the medical / aeronautical / chemical / physical advances in science as a result of investment during war time tomorrow if you are really unaware of were most of the science you take for advantage these days has come from? But atm im tired so i bid thee goodnight
.
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Joko said:
Using a country we were in a pact with to protect as a punch bag. I do hope that in no point in the thread will you attempt to incorporate morality into your argument.
Joko said:I'll look up some examples for all the medical / aeronautical / chemical / physical advances in science as a result of investment during war time tomorrow if you are really unaware of were most of the science you take for advantage these days has come from? But atm im tired so i bid thee goodnight
Here's a turn up for the book. ME accusing YOU of blanket generalisations. We've lived in relative peace for the last 60 years and technological development continues to go through the roof. How are you going to measure the developments in wartime to those in peace while taking into account the exponential nature of the IT development curve, for instance? And while you're doing your fact checking make sure that those developments didn't start out as innocent enough before they were appropriated by the miltary.
[/quote]
Okay, first off a nice little introductory article for you:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14233500&BRD=2231&PAG=461&dept_id=449419&rfi=6
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/heirloom_series/volume5/154-159.htm
In particular I would like to draw your attention to these paragraph
And so i could go on but i think penicillin, food packaging, jets engines, food preservation, sonar, radar, transmsstion of radio frequencies, together with advances in metallurgy, infra red spectroscopy, ultrasound blah blah blah should be enough to convince you that not all the outcomes of war are bad!
Interesting, or rather unfortunate, that you should mention the "IT curve". If we trace the IT curve back we can both agree that the worlds first electronic computer should be somewhere near its origins? And when EXACTLY do you beleive this computer was developed? Well lets go back in time to March 1943 and meet a Post Office engineer called Tommy Flowers and a machine called Colossus 1 that by January 1944 was fully operational in Bletchley Park.
Colossus reduced the time to decipher encoded Nazi messages from weeks to hours. It was just in time for the deciphering of messages which gave us some "handy hints" prior to D-Day. So the IT curve started during WWII, so without WARTIME efforts who knows when it really would have kicked off ...
And we can surely have a discussion without your snide little remarks Hector, can't we?
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14233500&BRD=2231&PAG=461&dept_id=449419&rfi=6
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/heirloom_series/volume5/154-159.htm
In particular I would like to draw your attention to these paragraph
And so i could go on but i think penicillin, food packaging, jets engines, food preservation, sonar, radar, transmsstion of radio frequencies, together with advances in metallurgy, infra red spectroscopy, ultrasound blah blah blah should be enough to convince you that not all the outcomes of war are bad!
Interesting, or rather unfortunate, that you should mention the "IT curve". If we trace the IT curve back we can both agree that the worlds first electronic computer should be somewhere near its origins? And when EXACTLY do you beleive this computer was developed? Well lets go back in time to March 1943 and meet a Post Office engineer called Tommy Flowers and a machine called Colossus 1 that by January 1944 was fully operational in Bletchley Park.
Colossus reduced the time to decipher encoded Nazi messages from weeks to hours. It was just in time for the deciphering of messages which gave us some "handy hints" prior to D-Day. So the IT curve started during WWII, so without WARTIME efforts who knows when it really would have kicked off ...
And we can surely have a discussion without your snide little remarks Hector, can't we?
All these storys about nazi secret research and stuff u see in movies and read in books... most of it is plain bs but it is true that some of the most advanced ideas were originaly designed for the german warfare (or others countrys)
(however joko the first computer was the Z1 in 1938 by Konrad Zuse
)
I dont say we need wars for advancement thats bs again but its a fact that can not be ignored that it does effect history developement etc not only in the way that ppl died...
Just to stop quoteing the ww2 for once i just mention ww1. Medical history shows a GREAT improvement in plasical chirugy. However it is true that without a war there wouldnt have been a need for threatening large and complexe wounds and the like. But tell some ppl of these days that were saved after a car incident or something that u wished that developements had never been nessesary...
EDIT: just was wondering (and on the risk to sound like a smartass...) what does penicillin have to do with wartime ? (since it was discouvered somewere around 1928 and 1929 i think?)
(however joko the first computer was the Z1 in 1938 by Konrad Zuse
)I dont say we need wars for advancement thats bs again but its a fact that can not be ignored that it does effect history developement etc not only in the way that ppl died...
Just to stop quoteing the ww2 for once i just mention ww1. Medical history shows a GREAT improvement in plasical chirugy. However it is true that without a war there wouldnt have been a need for threatening large and complexe wounds and the like. But tell some ppl of these days that were saved after a car incident or something that u wished that developements had never been nessesary...
EDIT: just was wondering (and on the risk to sound like a smartass...) what does penicillin have to do with wartime ? (since it was discouvered somewere around 1928 and 1929 i think?)
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“appropriated by the miltary”…..actually what you will find Hector is that during big wars it is the scientists themselves that are appropriated, not just their ideas lol!
Depends on what you class as a computer:
abucus – first computer….
Charles babbage machine – first computer…
However if we talking about modern computers John Von Neuman gets most of the credit I’d say.
Joko and Hector…you seem to be holding different ends of the same stick to me, maybe you just like to argue lol. Here is how I see it…
Research is more effective and results are obtained faster the more money is spent (in most cases). When we are talking about very large amounts of money being spent the main motivations are: political, military (political) and commercial.
Joko is right (sorry Hector) in that many of the technologies we have around today were *initially* developed with money from a military motivation. However, many of these technologies have now been taken further because of the commercial motivation, ie applications have now been found outside the military which can make money. <<that is maybe Hectors point?
Most of commercial research money goes on advancing current technologies. Whereas a greater proportion of military research money (especially during wartime) goes on innovation and developing new technologies for obvious reasons. This is why many great technologies started out as military then end up being developed further commercially.
I'm probably in a good position to comment as I'm doing a commercially/industrially funded PhD in Physics.
When I do research at University purely for innovation...no money.
When I do research for the companies paying my scholarship that will make them money...I get anything I need.
It should also be noted that I have been contacted by people at the MoD who were interested in the research I'm doing on pattern recognition. I'm working on a new type of algorithm that very quickly and efficiently finds patterns in data (images)...soon to be published in a pattern recognition journal. They were interested because they were doing research looking for patterns (tanks etc) in images taken by recon. aircraft. Usually this is done manually but they want it to be done by computer. The MoD found me and my work despite the fact I’m not yet published but nobody else did that I’m not working with…so my current position proves Jokos point to a degree.
Whether this is all ideal/not ideal/moral/not moral/good/bad is open to debate and philosophical.
Here is a bit of a website I found on medicine and war that you two might find interesting:
http://www.medhunters.com/articles/warAndMedicine.html
Throughout history, war has added value to the healthcare profession. Caesar Augustus (63 BCE to 14 CE) realized that military doctors performed a key service for the Roman Empire (which was always in one battle or another), so he gave them titles, land grants, and retirement benefits. The American Civil War was the major impetus for improving the modern American healthcare system. Of the 14,000 military physicians who entered the war, only 527 had previously performed surgery – but they quickly learned their trade on the battlefield, even implementing new techniques. Similarly, during the Boer War (1899 to 1902), the British learned the hard way that medical planning for a war was crucial. At the start of the war, the British dispatched 850 doctors to South Africa, the scene of the fighting, but by the end of the war, there were 8,500 doctors covering 21,000 hospital beds.
And it is war that gave legitimacy to nursing. The work of Florence Nightingale and her group of 38 nurses at the British war hospital in Turkey during the Crimean War (1853 to 1856) proved invaluable to the military. In 1860, she established the Nightingale School and Home for training nurses at St. Thomas's Hospital in London. Shortly after, nurses played an important role during the American Civil War.
Although it can be argued that, in the past, many medical discoveries would not have been made without war, today that is not the case. Modern warfare involves lethal chemical weapons that fry organs and nervous systems, landmines that destroy limbs and lives, and atomic bombs that scorch skin, hair, and bone. Clearly, today, the damage wrought by modern warfare outweighs any possible value toward the advancement of medicine.
Prob my English and structure is v poor in my post but keep having to hide when people walk past my office lol!
Depends on what you class as a computer:
abucus – first computer….
Charles babbage machine – first computer…
However if we talking about modern computers John Von Neuman gets most of the credit I’d say.
Joko and Hector…you seem to be holding different ends of the same stick to me, maybe you just like to argue lol. Here is how I see it…
Research is more effective and results are obtained faster the more money is spent (in most cases). When we are talking about very large amounts of money being spent the main motivations are: political, military (political) and commercial.
Joko is right (sorry Hector) in that many of the technologies we have around today were *initially* developed with money from a military motivation. However, many of these technologies have now been taken further because of the commercial motivation, ie applications have now been found outside the military which can make money. <<that is maybe Hectors point?
Most of commercial research money goes on advancing current technologies. Whereas a greater proportion of military research money (especially during wartime) goes on innovation and developing new technologies for obvious reasons. This is why many great technologies started out as military then end up being developed further commercially.
I'm probably in a good position to comment as I'm doing a commercially/industrially funded PhD in Physics.
When I do research at University purely for innovation...no money.
When I do research for the companies paying my scholarship that will make them money...I get anything I need.
It should also be noted that I have been contacted by people at the MoD who were interested in the research I'm doing on pattern recognition. I'm working on a new type of algorithm that very quickly and efficiently finds patterns in data (images)...soon to be published in a pattern recognition journal
. They were interested because they were doing research looking for patterns (tanks etc) in images taken by recon. aircraft. Usually this is done manually but they want it to be done by computer. The MoD found me and my work despite the fact I’m not yet published but nobody else did that I’m not working with…so my current position proves Jokos point to a degree.Whether this is all ideal/not ideal/moral/not moral/good/bad is open to debate and philosophical.
Here is a bit of a website I found on medicine and war that you two might find interesting:
http://www.medhunters.com/articles/warAndMedicine.html
Throughout history, war has added value to the healthcare profession. Caesar Augustus (63 BCE to 14 CE) realized that military doctors performed a key service for the Roman Empire (which was always in one battle or another), so he gave them titles, land grants, and retirement benefits. The American Civil War was the major impetus for improving the modern American healthcare system. Of the 14,000 military physicians who entered the war, only 527 had previously performed surgery – but they quickly learned their trade on the battlefield, even implementing new techniques. Similarly, during the Boer War (1899 to 1902), the British learned the hard way that medical planning for a war was crucial. At the start of the war, the British dispatched 850 doctors to South Africa, the scene of the fighting, but by the end of the war, there were 8,500 doctors covering 21,000 hospital beds.
And it is war that gave legitimacy to nursing. The work of Florence Nightingale and her group of 38 nurses at the British war hospital in Turkey during the Crimean War (1853 to 1856) proved invaluable to the military. In 1860, she established the Nightingale School and Home for training nurses at St. Thomas's Hospital in London. Shortly after, nurses played an important role during the American Civil War.
Although it can be argued that, in the past, many medical discoveries would not have been made without war, today that is not the case. Modern warfare involves lethal chemical weapons that fry organs and nervous systems, landmines that destroy limbs and lives, and atomic bombs that scorch skin, hair, and bone. Clearly, today, the damage wrought by modern warfare outweighs any possible value toward the advancement of medicine.
Prob my English and structure is v poor in my post but keep having to hide when people walk past my office lol!
RighteousFury said:
lol no danger of sounding a smartass mate!!
1928 Penicillin discovered by Alexander Fleming (by accident lol), developed further by Florey, Chain and Rastrick, brought to production in 1945 by Glaxo.
Flemming thought that penicillin could only be used as an antiseptic for minor infections, not for the major infections it was later discovered to be useful in the treatment of major infections. The full capabilities of penicillin were not officially noticed until 1940 by the two British scientists Baron Florey and Ernst Boris Chain the two men that he shared the Nobel Prize with. Because penicillin had no real immediate consequences on his career Flemming stopped his work with penicillin. In 1940 Chain and Florey conducted extensive clinical trials on penicillin. Penicillin really gained its fame during World War 11 where there was much need for a safe antibiotic to treat common war infections like gangrene which reeked havoc during World War I.
Fleming spent World War I in the Royal Navy Medical Corps and was able to continue his research there...
RighteousFury said:(however joko the first computer was the Z1 in 1938 by Konrad Zuse
Stand corrected.
As for Penicillin
Fleming discovered it "by accident" blah blah all know the story but as far as i know the only conclusion he came to was "check 00t this pure mad mental fungus it pure stops that mad stuff growing like innit aiiiiiii".
Florey and Ernst about 1940 extracted pure penicillin, and after injecting mice and a few initial trial patients proved that it worked. In 1941 Fleming asked for some of Ernst and Chains purified penicillin to give to an ill friend and so Flemming got all the press coverage.
edit: Fuck sake foxy beat me to it.
Looked at bit more into the whole first computer thing. I was blatantly wrong. But there are still two conflicting arguments.
"The Z1 is today considered to be the first freely programmable computer of the world. It was completed in 1938."
John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry invent the first electronic computer at Iowa State University. In 1973 a judge in a patent infringement suit would rule that this research was the idea source for the modern computer.
As Foxy says it all depends on what you define as a computer i guess.
ANYWAY fs nit-picking a single point
"The Z1 is today considered to be the first freely programmable computer of the world. It was completed in 1938."
John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry invent the first electronic computer at Iowa State University. In 1973 a judge in a patent infringement suit would rule that this research was the idea source for the modern computer.
From http://www.cbi.umn.edu/collections/inv/cbi00001.html
As Foxy says it all depends on what you define as a computer i guess.
ANYWAY fs nit-picking a single point
foxy said:
I don't see the distinction to be honest. Sure, after World War 2, America bought a load of German rocket scientists, for instance, because Europe couldn't afford them. But the end result is the same.
foxy said:
Yeah we do, the reason why it is never resolved is that Joko, like his sibling, relies on facts and figures to back up his arguments, whereas I prefer a more philosophical approach on the premiss that facts and figures can surely be made to appear to mean many different things: Ie, are millions of deaths worth a new vaccuum cleaner? Aside from this jet engines (patented Whittle 1930), penicillin (Fleming 1928), radar (patented 1935) and radio transmission (1895 , Marconi) were PEACETIME inventions. I haven't bothered looking into the rest because even if he is correct that they were wartime inventions it would hardly justify the countless lives, which is my point.
Joko said:
Do you really.
Are you disputing that you were wrong about the timing of the inventions? Your argument seems to rest on it so if you're wrong it all kind of falls down and from what I can find you do seem to be in error.
As for trolling: try and see things from a different perspective. You don't have to agree but it's a useful exercise.
There is no such thing as Peacetime ..
There has not been a decade in modern history without conflict on the planet and I would doubt though not provable that in the history of the planet there hasn’t
We develop we learn knowledge and impart that knowledge on others sometimes voluntarily others forcefully be it other nations religions our children .. Its what we do that is the human race
Conflict is a catalyst for that development and fighting the peace has possibly been the most productive time for development through distrust and the desire to eavesdrop and watch without the mandate of war to warrant the intrusion....
im not saying that there have been no invetions or the reasoning for invention has not been benign but conflict fuels the development or corruption of benign invetions into somthing far more malevolent.
War is grotesque it brings about the worst and the best in people it displays the most basic and foulest instincts in humanity coupled with the most humane and beautiful ...
Like it or not we are evolving, developing, creating and destroying I just hope that in my lifetime there is no escalation of conflict to something that is beyond the control of our betters.
just my spew on the subject.
Rich
There has not been a decade in modern history without conflict on the planet and I would doubt though not provable that in the history of the planet there hasn’t
We develop we learn knowledge and impart that knowledge on others sometimes voluntarily others forcefully be it other nations religions our children .. Its what we do that is the human race
Conflict is a catalyst for that development and fighting the peace has possibly been the most productive time for development through distrust and the desire to eavesdrop and watch without the mandate of war to warrant the intrusion....
im not saying that there have been no invetions or the reasoning for invention has not been benign but conflict fuels the development or corruption of benign invetions into somthing far more malevolent.
War is grotesque it brings about the worst and the best in people it displays the most basic and foulest instincts in humanity coupled with the most humane and beautiful ...
Like it or not we are evolving, developing, creating and destroying I just hope that in my lifetime there is no escalation of conflict to something that is beyond the control of our betters.
just my spew on the subject.
Rich
Hector said:
Joko said:
Regardless of your dates (which i havent checkd) my point is still a valid one.
As for Flemings discovery of the fungus containing penicillin it was along way off from its use in the medical field which was "invented" as discussed above by both myself and foxy. Same goes for radio transmissions, they were known about but not refined etc etc.
My words were "major advances in technology" not inventions. Cummon Heccy, you're slipping up there old boy.