Politics' role in Unbuilt Projects.

[The Artist]

I'll bet ya can't follow me down those steps over there.

 

[RyanC]

Bah! Stop derailing the thread!

Orionblamblam, you did good though by pointing out that the defense budget is not the biggest bit of teh Federal Budget. It however, is one of the largest DISCRETIONARY items. Which means that it is a very attractive target to cut; while other things such as MediCare, Social Security etc are non-discretionary, meaning you can't cut them very easily.

You also make another good point about Defense research -- it benefits the wider world as a whole, because DoD demands specific concrete uses for it's tech.

Like for example, if DoD developed a workable laser rifle for $1 trillion -- it would have many aftereffects beyond just putting holes in people with little recoil or bullet drop:

1.) It would commoditize very high power lasers down to a price where they were feasible for a small arm; which would have spiral effects:

DATA STORAGE: The Holographic Video Disc (HVD) which is estimated to have between 500 GB/1 TB data and up to 6 TB of data, is waiting on a commoditizable high power laser that can be cheap enough to be used in a $200 player.

DATA TRANSMISSION: Can we say more powerful lasers in fiber optics for cheaper means less repeater stations needed for telecommunications?

MEDICINE: Can we say laser scalpels?

2.) You would need awesome energy storage, in order to put holes in other people a kilometer away with a laser (due to beam dissipiation, etc); to make the battery for the laser have sufficient shots (15-20) and yet not weigh 80 pounds.

This would spin off into transportation in a BIG way. Electric cars with ranges of 1,000 miles between charges?

Possible prop-electric airliners?

 

[Archibald]

And of course by 2035, France could well be part of the new Caliphate.

Hilarious. Thank you; you really made my day.

Allāhu Akbar !!!!!!! Allāhu Akbar !!!!!!! Allāhu Akbar !!!!!!! (explosion)

Seriously, don't worry for the frogs. We have a 70 years socialist system to support our birth rate; a remain of the days when 40 millions french had to survive against 80 million germans. Only solution: call the rosbeef to the rescue (near term) and makes more babies (long term). That's still working, birth rate is actually 2.1, to the point France nearly replaces generation.
Some De Gaulle minister wanted a 100 million inhabitant France. Still far from that, however as of today 63 million french face 81 million germans. Bad luck, no war for 50 years. ;D ;D

Rachida Dati current experience in the French governement or Brussels should really keep the caliphate away for some more years. What a PITA !

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Birth rate is intrinsically linked to the affluence level of the local population (and all that affluence brings). As the currently developing world gets wealthier – including various immigrant populations in first world countries – their birth rate will drop down to the same level as seen in the richer countries. A lot of scare mongerers like to make out that countries in western Europe will be majority Muslim in a few decades but this theory relies on sustainment of birth rates through assimilated generations. This isn’t supported by factual and historical evidence of immigration demographics. They used to say that America would end up all Irish…

Besides Islam is rapidly going through transference to a post enlightenment, secular religion. Doing it in about 50-100 years for what took Christianity and Judaism 300-400 years. Why do you think those Al Qadea, Taliban, IRGC types are fighting! Because they don’t like McDonalds? Nope, it’s because the rapidly growing majority of Muslims don’t want religious control over all elements of society.

 

[Avimimus]

2) The US did not get much help from allies in the so-called "just war" of Afghanistan, but we are supposed to believe they would risk Paris or London for New York!

Country Deaths per 1,000 troops

• Canada 14.4
• United Kingdom 6.3 - 9.8
• United States 4.45
• NATO 5.0
• Soviet Union (1980s) 12.5

Based on: http://cursor.org/stories/relativelethality.html

Country Deaths per million capita

• Canada 3.2
• United Kingdom 2.3
• United States 2.1

Based on: http://www.dr.dk/DR1/soendag/Artikler/2008/Danmark+mister+flest+soldater+i+Afghanistan.htm

I'd recommend looking up some information before denigrating the lives lost by smaller nations who are trying to uphold their alliance. I can take it with adequate humour, but there are a lot of people who would be deeply offended. Such denigration doesn't help the U.S. avoid a potential reputation of being unreliable and ungrateful allies either.

@Admin, this is quickly risking becoming off-topic for this thread. I hope you understand why I couldn't let this one comment go without providing some data. I'm preparing a very civil response to some of the other points which should be primarily based on empirically testable statements, but which may only be tangentially related to the subject of this thread. I could do with input whether to reply here, in another thread or via private message. Input from RyanCrierie, who created this thread, could also be helpful.

 

[RyanC]

The thing that is particularly galling is Bambi and his cronies are perfectly willing to squander hundreds of billions on "shovel ready jobs" whatever the hell that's suppose to mean (and nevermind the rampant fraud going on there) but they'll kill tens of thousands of high tech jobs that ACTUALLY PRODUCE SOMETHING with smiles on their faces (F-22 for example) in some cynical bid to buy more votes

Funnily enough, there is a "shovel ready" job that just got finished near my house. They resurfaced a two lane road near me; and it wasn't *that* beat up, using stimulus funds -- they even got a nice shiny sign with the Stimulus fund logo on it telling us drivers who paid for the resurfacing!

But all that got pumped into the local economy was a couple thousand to the asphalt contractor.

 

[sferrin]

2.) You would need awesome energy storage, in order to put holes in other people a kilometer away with a laser (due to beam dissipiation, etc); to make the battery for the laser have sufficient shots (15-20) and yet not weigh 80 pounds.

Put some of those research dollars into digital quantum batteries

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/digital-quantum-batteries-managing-risk.html

 

[sferrin]

The thing that is particularly galling is Bambi and his cronies are perfectly willing to squander hundreds of billions on "shovel ready jobs" whatever the hell that's suppose to mean (and nevermind the rampant fraud going on there) but they'll kill tens of thousands of high tech jobs that ACTUALLY PRODUCE SOMETHING with smiles on their faces (F-22 for example) in some cynical bid to buy more votes

Funnily enough, there is a "shovel ready" job that just got finished near my house. They resurfaced a two lane road near me; and it wasn't *that* beat up, using stimulus funds -- they even got a nice shiny sign with the Stimulus fund logo on it telling us drivers who paid for the resurfacing!

But all that got pumped into the local economy was a couple thousand to the asphalt contractor.

And by the time they paid all the bureaucrats I wonder how many millions that stretch cost. The news is full of horror stories of how all that "stimulus" money is being squandered and all the fraud that is going on.

 

[RyanC]

I'd recommend looking up some information before denigrating the lives lost by smaller nations who are trying to uphold their alliance.

The problem is mainly two fold within ISAF:

1.) A lot of nations contribute small numbers of troops -- most of the contigents are basically company size or reinforced company size. IIRC at least one national contigent is literally a squad of guys and a SUV or two painted in national colors. I think that's the Icelandic contigent. They basically can only just protect a single outpost, or place about 50-75 people on the combat line, if support personnel are actually part of the 200-400 man contigent.

2.) Restrictive national ROEs. The German contigent, who are IIRC the third biggest contributor to the place after the UK is pretty notorious from what I understand for their ROEs; which mean they can't easily conduct offensive operations, and basically retreat to their bases at nightfall.

This basically makes most of the fighting fall to the Anglosphere, and the UK/CAN/AUS contigent takes proportionately heavier casualties than the US contigent, because you guys simply don't have the money to flood the place with the UAV SWARM or MRAP SWARM or a billion other ways to reduce fatalities like bringing out large unmarked stacks of $100 bills to bribe local leaders to rat out the Taliban, etc.

 

[prolific1]

Anglosphere...

 

[Orionblamblam]

2) The US did not get much help from allies in the so-called "just war" of Afghanistan, but we are supposed to believe they would risk Paris or London for New York!

Country Deaths per 1,000 troops

Country Deaths per million capita

These are really bad metrics with which to counter the point that was made. If some country had sent *one* soldier, and that soldier was killed, that would be a death rate of 1,000 per 1,000 troops. But sending one soldier is not sending a whole lot of help.

A better metric would be: "how many soldiers per capita did country XYZ send; how many dollars/euros/whatever did country XYZ devote as a fraction of GDP" that sort of thing.

 

[RyanC]

Anglosphere...

Oh right. The French Canadians. Right Right. Anglo-Francosphere!
Ah, oui. Les Canadiens français. Droite Droite. Anglo-Francosphere!

EDIT: I say the above in jest -- my father's side of the family is from Montreal, in Quebec, though they aren't French. I've got relatives up there, and I visited them like 15-20 years ago as a kid -- the only time I ever left the United States.

My grandmother has remarked to me that relations between the English and French Speaking canadians have never been good -- they hated each other in the '40s (my grandmother and grandfather immigrated to the US in the 50s or so).

 

[bobbymike]

Avimimus - Taking my statement of "not getting much help" and turning that into I am denigrating the lives lost. That is JUST PLAIN COWARDLY arguing. How dare you imply I mean such a thing.

Politicians make troops deployment decisions not the soldiers. Any person with an ounce of ethics would understand that is what I meant. I dare not say anymore I am extremely upset and I also expect you to retract and apologize.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

As always, it seems a political discussion ends badly.

I'm closing the topic, its now gone very off-topic anyway.