kr
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| Founding MemberNP Raider |
| Total Posts: 3561 |
| Joined: Apr 2004 |
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| I would turn that around and say that just because a story is written about a real character doesn't mean you shouldn't try to emulate at least some aspect of it in your own life. |
my bank got pwnd |
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Maggette
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Just finished Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. The history part in the beginning was pretty interesting. Also the part about the war in former Youguslavia, the section dealing with Executive Outcomes and there is a contract including prices at the end. (Finally I know how much I am supposed to spend when ordering a fully equiped Mil 24 attack helicopter  ). Somewhat scary how big the buisiness is... |
Ich kam hierher und sah dich und deine Leute lächeln,
und sagte mir: Maggette, scheiss auf den small talk,
lass lieber deine Fäuste sprechen...
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jslade
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You want scary military stories: "Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship" by George Dyson. I love Freeman Dyson (the author's father), but my man comes up with some truly scary ideas. Project Orion was one of them. Imagine sticking a 10kt fission bomb underneath a giant iron pie plate. Now imagine doing it 1000 times and launching the pie plate into orbit and beyond. That was Project Orion. I remember thinking this was a cool idea when I was a kid, but I had no idea they were going to launch such a thing from the ground.
There was a BBC documentary about it which was pretty good also. |
"Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious." |
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Maggette
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god ...have mercy....you are right, that's scary......
It is somehow strange how brilliant people can have strange ideas like that.....Wasn't Von Neumann proposing that, according to game theory, the only good strategy is to nuke the Soviet Union (sounds kind of dumb...given the "filtration" up to now)? Dyson realy thinking about nuclear propulsion? Indeed, there is only a small gap from genius to mad man..
The book looks really cool...good present for my father..
cheers |
Ich kam hierher und sah dich und deine Leute lächeln,
und sagte mir: Maggette, scheiss auf den small talk,
lass lieber deine Fäuste sprechen...
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Johnny
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Wasn't Von Neumann proposing that, according to game theory, the only good strategy is to nuke the Soviet Union
No. His idea was mutually assured destruction: both sides of the cold war would build so many nuclear weapons that an attack by either side would result in counter-attack by the other side on such a scale that both sides would be destroyed. Hence neither side would have an incentive to attack. The policy conclusion was that the US should rapidly build a huge nuclear arsenal; the prediction was that Russia would do the same. This is something very different from proposing to nuke the Soviet Union. |
From the subprime to the ridiculous |
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RFMontraz
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| NP Italian Stallion |
| Total Posts: 1967 |
| Joined: Mar 2004 |
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Actually Johnny, Von Neumann was strongly in favor of a pre-emptive nuking of the Soviet Union. If I'm not mistaken his banter was "If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?"
And he was in good company too, people like Churchill - no surprise there - and - surprise surprise - Bertrand Russell. |
Was it worth it? |
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kronon
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Freeman Dyson talks about the Orion project in this brilliant interview (in section 13):
http://www.peoplesarchive.com/browse/movies/1216/en/
As an aside, I can recommend all the math/physics dvds on this site, hours of great stuff. The Teller interview is a standout imo.
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Ved Stranden No. 14 |
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Johnny
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| rfm, I find that hard to believe. Particularly the part about Bertrand Russell. I have a book by him which explains how he single-handedly averted the Cuban missile crisis from his holiday cottage. Can you point me in the direction of any sources wrt to Von Neumann or Bertrand Russell? |
From the subprime to the ridiculous |
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Kutilya
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| Quote Machine |
| Total Posts: 1274 |
| Joined: Jun 2004 |
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>>Actually Johnny, Von Neumann was strongly in favor of a pre-emptive nuking of the Soviet Union. If I'm not mistaken his banter was "If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?"
Is this during the really early phase of the nuke race when the Soviets were slightly behind the Americans.
I’m half way through “Shantaram” its written by an ex Australian convict on the run, living and working with Mumbai underworld, quite a story.
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Splitting tens.
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Maggette
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@ Johnny: Hey, don't know how reliable..but maybe of interest for you here
"Von Neumann was, at the time, a strong supporter of "preventive war." Confident even during World War II that the Russian spy network had obtained many of the details of the atom bomb design, Von Neumann knew that it was only a matter of time before the Soviet Union became a nuclear power. He predicted that were Russia allowed to build a nuclear arsenal, a war against the U.S. would be inevitable. He therefore recommended that the U.S. launch a nuclear strike at Moscow, destroying its enemy and becoming a dominant world power, so as to avoid a more destructive nuclear war later on. "With the Russians it is not a question of whether but of when," he would say. An oft-quoted remark of his is, "If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?""
Cheers |
Ich kam hierher und sah dich und deine Leute lächeln,
und sagte mir: Maggette, scheiss auf den small talk,
lass lieber deine Fäuste sprechen...
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RFMontraz
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| NP Italian Stallion |
| Total Posts: 1967 |
| Joined: Mar 2004 |
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@ Johnny: Prisoner's Dilemma by Poundstone.
Excellent book by the way. I think FDAX recommended it ages ago.
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Was it worth it? |
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Johnny
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| Cool, thanks. And Bertrand `nuke-em' Russell? |
From the subprime to the ridiculous |
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RFMontraz
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| NP Italian Stallion |
| Total Posts: 1967 |
| Joined: Mar 2004 |
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Same book (or so I remember). Anyway, given the man and his legacy, it is a controversial topic. Read also this (from the Economist - Books & Art and Letters to the editor), it's very interesting - and amusing |
Was it worth it? |
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Johnny
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| Thanks |
From the subprime to the ridiculous |
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urnash
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| Total Posts: 550 |
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| RFMontraz, Thanks for the Economist link! |
Assuming normality means never having to say you don’t have enough data. -- J. Michael Steele |
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veroniq
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Russell's position seems to be not that clear:
This is from the review of "Bertrand Russell on Nuclear War, Peace, and Language: Critical and Historical Essays."
http://russell.mcmaster.ca/blitz_schwerin.pdf
Ray Perkins, in “Bertrand Russell and Preventive War”, analyzes the period from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, focusing on a 1948 incident when Russell, in an address to students at the Westminster School, was widely believed to have advocated preventive nuclear war against the Soviet Union. Perkins’ position is that this charge is exaggerated, and that what Russell put forward—in this and most other writings of the period—was the conditional proposition that the West should wage war against the Soviet Union unless the Soviets agreed to international control of atomic energy and weapons, and that the USSR would likely comply.
However, a combination of public misunderstanding of the conditional
nature of Russell’s proposal, and the publication in 1954 of a clearly belligerent private letter of Russell’s, sent in 1948 to a Berkeley, California psychiatrist named Walter Marseille, led many critics, including I. F. Stone, to assume that Russell had defended a preventive war strategy all along. This was complicated
by erroneous admissions and denials on Russell’s part about what he had actually said, which Perkins attributes to “faulty memory and a desire to draw attention away from the bellicose nature of the Marseille letter”.
Perkins’ article is important for its clear exposition of the conditional nature of Russell’s argument, which Perkins was the first to stress as significant. Readers interested in this controversy should also consult Perkins’ articles in two debates in the pages of this journal: a previous debate with Douglas Lackey over the moral assessment of Russell’s approach, and a subsequent debate with the author of the present review over the characterization of Russell’s conditional
strategy. |
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RFMontraz
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| NP Italian Stallion |
| Total Posts: 1967 |
| Joined: Mar 2004 |
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Please note that Nicholas Griffin (check my link) works at the McMaster University (your link).
I personally trust Lord Lawson's version, I love his "I was there you were not" banter. |
Was it worth it? |
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veroniq
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Well, as you can see, there is The Bertrand Russell Research Centre at McMaster University, so there are different people working there.
I guess there is some credibility in the argument "Lord Lawson may have been present when Russell spoke but I have a verbatim transcript of what he said." (given that it was 50 years before).
I don't mean to say that Russell didn't propose to nuke the USSR, I just think it's not that obvious. Because the argument "if they are going to nuke us, it's better that we nuke them first", kind of makes some sense. Especially in the late 40's when the vision was a bit different. Bear in mind that his speech was during Berlin blockade.
Without "if" in the beginning (as von Neumann advocated) it's a slightly different story. |
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MadMax
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| For me the "if" does not make any difference, because there is no way to verify if the condition is true or no, so at the end it all boils down to nuking first to avoid being nuked. |
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Crassus
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If you've not read a James Ellroy, then you should. Interesting style and good dialogue + all the other dtuff.
I read and recommend 'The Big Nowhere'. |
by office boys, for office boys |
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Arroway
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| Forum Statistician |
| Total Posts: 963 |
| Joined: May 2004 |
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Right now I'm reading "Atmospheric Disturbances" by Rivka Galchen -- incredible book.
I'd call it a cross between "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" and the movie Memento. The main character is convinced that his wife has disappeared and was replaced with an almost exact replica, so he undertakes an epic journey to find the real woman. |
Managing Director of Asperger's, Capital Structure Demolition, LLC |
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chiral3
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Dunno. I found it a bit to eager to be literary. I like the ideas she deals with, the amalgam of science and lit (although she has skirted a bit too close to the premise of an earlier work, which is open to debate), and I like the slow development, which I think distinguishes a young and new writer such as herself. However, I found her literary devices to be a bit plastic, which made it halting. Some of her ideas, though, were very original (meteorological, etc.)
My quality lit list for '08 is growing, and growing fast. It is one of the best lit years I have had in a decade. Good stuff. |
Solipsism (Listeni/ˈsɒlɨpsɪzəm/; from Latin solus, meaning "alone", and ipse, meaning "self") is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. |
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Arroway
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| Joined: May 2004 |
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I assume you know this, but in case you (or anyone else) doesn't Tzvi Gal-Chen is really the author's father, and all of the papers and illustrations in the book are from his papers.
I do see your point, but for a first time author (and a female one at that), I am impressed. I also like the MD, MFA combination, that's gotta be pretty rare! |
Managing Director of Asperger's, Capital Structure Demolition, LLC |
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filthy
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"Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World" by Mark Kurlansky.
OK so this book came out ten years ago but last week i picked it up in a used book store for a dollar and i've been boring people with stories from it ever since. it is very well written and full of genuinely interesting stuff, particularly about the various discoveries of the new world. i'm going to buy "salt" by the same author today. |
"Game's the same, just got more fierce" |
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AndyM
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Let's have a competition: of all the books titled 'some mundane object that changed the world', what is the most preposterous?
Early entry: cod |
I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused. |
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