From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Sun Aug 18 2002 - 03:09:58 MDT
E. Yudkowsky said:
<<Really? There "has to" be an answer? I don't see why there "has to" be
an answer any more than there "has to" be a way of preventing it from
happening in the first place. Certainly, if you are the one who believes
there "has to" be an answer, it's your job to show this is the case,
preferably by offering an actual answer.
Imagine this: Manhattan disappears underneath a nuke cloud and there is
absolutely nothing we can do about it, except wait for the next city to
vanish.
And it does. And there's still nothing we can do.
Lights going out, one by one.
That's the assumption you start from, and try to show otherwise.--
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence >>
The original contention, was that "If there was the successful destruction of
a large American city, by a coalition of Islamist governments and
individuals, the US government knew about it, but failed, none the less to
circumvent, such an attack; would should be the US response?"
My view is an attack on the Islamic institutions which the Jihaddis draw
strength from, the holy cities, their oil wealth; would surely come under
attack. I also contend, that the American people, in their anger over the
destruction of a large American city; would demand a retaliation and re-map
the Islamic world. You don't need to support this concept, but you might want
to ackknowledge it as a plausible reaction, from the American people,
following, such an occurence.
I disagree with your premise that "the lights going out, one by one" is
valid, unless the method of nuclear technology becomes untracable even to
Nuclear Emergency Search Teams. If you are postualting a missle strike by
ICBM or sub-launched IRBM, then this is something that becomes more workable
as a military strike, but seems ameanable to counterstrike by an alert
military. If Manhattan becomes a torch from a strike by an Iraqi submarine,
for example, I suspect that the Baathist or Islamist naval capacity, will be
reduced to nil, by month''s end.
By the way, the rhetoric we are engaging in, folks, is what officers in the
military have been doing since Napoleon's time. There have indeed been
"unlikely" plans, in the British War Offices, drawn up in 1920, for a
possible UK-USA naval war, in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Sometimes
one plans wars, or deals with thought experiments so, hopefully, they never
have to occur.
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