[Bored chemist]

Scientists are powerless, useless, unable to contribute much of anything to the most important issue facing humanity today.  We should just forget about the scientists being any help, there's no point in even talking about them, or to them either.  What can they do?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  They can get us in to lots of trouble, but they can't get us out. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

[Tanny (OP)]

Wait!  I figured it out.  Here's what we'll do. 

First, you guys will invent a time machine.  Should only take a few minutes because as soon as you're done we can wind the clock back and pretend all those decades of work never happened.

Next, once we have the time machine, we'll take all this negative defeatist talk and apply it to the original Manhattan Project.

Finally, here's a new official document which just suddenly appeared in the Library Of Congress.

=================

Oppenheimer:  Well, we're gonna have to cancel the project.

Groves:  What???  Why???

Oppenheimer:  Problems and obstacles, we found some.

Groves:  Oh no!  Really?

Oppenheimer:  Yup, we found three actually.

Groves:  And things were going so well.

Oppenheimer:  I told you science is tricky.

Groves:  I had no idea it could get this bad though....

Oppenheimer:  Well, these things happen.  You'll just have to tell the President this can't be done.

Groves:  Problems and obstacles.  Who knew that could happen!

Oppenheimer:  I didn't sign up for problems and obstacles.

Groves:  Me neither, the President said we would just build this and then go home.

Oppenheimer: I'm going home now. 

Groves:  Ok, me too, we'll just have to live without the A-bomb.

[guest39538]

You are saying make a new sort of bomb that isn't nuclear?   

Read the thread before slamming down on the reply button please.  Thank you!

Quite clearly you are arrogant and a bit narcissistic and really thinks highly of themselves.  I would be sure you was a politician .

Like a typical politician you didn't answer the question.   Do you know what a question is?  It is generally for confirmation.

[guest39538]

First, you guys will invent a time machine. 

No such thing as time travel.  Try again.

[alancalverd]

The overriding problem is a total unwillingness of politicians to do anything about it. Doctors need disease, farmers need hunger, politicians need fear. Without these horsemen of the apocalypse,  these worthy and unworthy people would be unemployed.

When I was but a wee target for the V2, the development and testing grounds for this remarkable weapon were discovered by a combination of human intelligence, signals intercept, and photoreconnaisance from slow, low-flying aeroplanes. Said facilities were then destroyed by slow, higher-flying bombers, but the rockets had already gone into production and could be launched from relatively simple mobile units.

Delivering a nuclear weapon from suborbital flight requires the development, production and construction of a launch facility for something rather bigger, easily spotted from space (if a satellite can read a car number plate, it can surely  locate a rocket launch pad) and destroyed at no risk by a cruise missile.

The fact that no nation with the capability of doing so has done so, suggests that it is not in the interests of the major military powers to prevent anyone else acquiring intercontinental nuclear capability.

[Bored chemist]

First, you guys will invent a time machine. 

Thanks for explaining your level of understanding of the issues.
Perhaps you should go away and learn something, rather than pontificating here.

[evan_au]

To hear some practical experience with the technology and politics of nuclear monitoring, listen to this podcast (1 hour, 53 minutes):
http://omegataupodcast.net/185-nuclear-test-monitoring-and-the-ctbt/

[Tanny (OP)]

The overriding problem is a total unwillingness of politicians to do anything about it.

I'm uncomfortable with this passing of the buck, it's too easy of a dodge.  Having some experience as an activist I've grown weary of these victim poses.  They're so common, and so wrong.

Our current president here in the U.S. is a good example.  He has no fixed opinion, no principles, he blows in the wind.   All politicians are like this to some degree or another, because typically their highest priority is keeping their jobs.  This is a good thing, because it makes them susceptible to influence.   Want to change Trump's mind?  Change the mind of his base.  He'll be on Twitter the next day claiming he invented whatever his base has decided it wants.

There's no reason why scientists can't apply their data analyzing skills to the art of shaping public opinion.  Political hacks do it, salesmen do it, scientists could too.  What's lacking is the will, not the means.

As example, direct response copy writers endlessly test their headlines and sale pitches using real world data to determine what presentation best serves their goals.  They keep tweaking their pitch, and testing each version of it against hard data, until they boost their conversion rate to the highest level possible.  One doesn't need to be a genius to do this, one just needs to be serious.

The advertising industry spends billions every year determining what messages people will respond to.  If ad men, copywriters and political hacks can master data driven arts of persuasion, why not scientists?   

Why can't scientists use data to figure out what hooks will engage broad swaths of the public on the nuclear issue?  Why can't scientists use data to figure out what messages will persuade people to act?  Why can't scientists partner with some billionaire who wants his life to matter?  Why can't scientists partner with some charismatic Bobby Kennedy type figure who knows how to close the deal with millions of us?

Why can't they?  Because they don't want to, that's why.   Scientists enjoy the comfy cozy status of being cultural leaders, but they so often don't want to actually lead on the issues that matter most, because it's too risky to their careers.   It's so much easier and safer to be a follower instead of a leader, and blame it all on the politicians.

We don't need scientists who invent nuclear weapons, and then throw their hands up in the air in pathetic negativist defeatism when it comes to fixing the problems they themselves have created.   If that's all you've got, then in the words of our most esteemed Moron-In-Chief, "YOU'RE FIRED!!"

Fair Warning:  I'm pretty much clueless about most things in life, but I was born to dance this dance.  Before any member slams down the reply button to share a thousand defeatist reasons why none of this could ever possibly work, be forewarned, I'm going to systematically rip all of that in to tiny little shreds without mercy.  As Michael Corleone might say, it's not personal, it's just business.   So if you don't want that to happen to your post, apply your intelligence to solving the problem, not to trying to make a case for why you can't solve it.

If it's true that politicians are a bunch of clueless bums, a not unreasonable theory, then it's up to you, scientists, to step up and meet the biggest  challenge of our time.

[Tanny (OP)]

Here's an example of the kind of alliance that serious scientists might be able to assemble.

1) Scientists
2) Bill Gates
3) Country Music Stars

Scientists contribute technical expertise and cultural authority.  Bill Gates brings tons of cash.   Country music stars bring their access to segments of the population most in need of persuasion.

Funded by Gates, scientists use data driven analysis to determine what kinds of messages are the most effective in engaging the public in this topic, and inspiring them to action.  Country music stars and scientists working together deliver the finely crafted message to the broader public.

Country music stars have access to right leaning segments of the population, but generally speaking they aren't seen to be polarizing political figures.  Scientists have less access, but more credibility, and are also seen to be largely above the right vs. left cultural divide which is paralyzing effective action.  Bill Gates has earned a reputation as someone sincerely concerned with the fate of humanity, and is also not closely identified with either right or left.

Note how this proposal ignores politicians entirely, by going over their heads to their bosses, the voting public. 

This is just one example of the form a New Manhattan Project might take.  I came up with this about as fast as I can type, so I'm sure it can be improved on by others.  So get to it please.

[Tanny (OP)]

The pitch to Gates...

=================

Dear Mr. Gates,

If we don't meet the nuclear weapons challenge, none of the other very noble projects you are working may matter at all.

Sincerely,

International Association Of Scientists Who Get It

[alancalverd]

The voting public has expressed its wish, many times. Like Hitler and George W Bush, Sphinctermouth Trumph has been elected by popular vote, and wherever there has been a choice, Joe Public has voted for the nuke party.

Nuclear weapons have been used twice in my lifetime. The result was that my father, and probably your grandfathers, did not have to invade Japan. This was undoubtedly a Good Thing.

Warfare has changed since then. The world's greatest military powers were defeated in Vietnam and Afghanistan by a ragbag of guys with sharp sticks and AK47s, and around the world more people are killed every month with conventional weapons than ever were by nukes. When ISIS kills people in the west, which city should we destroy with nuclear weapons? Isn't the Middle East a great place to live now that we have rid the world of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons? See how they have prevented genocide in the Balkans and Myanmar.

Fact is that they are irrelevant to modern politics.

[Tanny (OP)]

The voting public has expressed its wish, many times. Like Hitler and George W Bush, Sphinctermouth Trumph has been elected by popular vote, and wherever there has been a choice, Joe Public has voted for the nuke party.

Let me guess, what interests you most is explaining how scientists are way too dumb to do anything about this.  Right?  Scientists are weak, they are powerless, they are inept, clueless, they have no ability to address the most pressing challenges of our time, all they can do is sit by helplessly and wait for the end.    Is that the message, am I getting it? 

I want to be cooperative so I will ask, do you prefer that I agree, or rip your posts to shreds?  I can go either way, so just let me know.

Fact is that they (nukes) are irrelevant to modern politics.

Which would explain why more countries are trying to get them???

Why does North Korea want nukes?  So they can hold the U.S. mainland hostage, and present future presidents with this choice.

1) Abandon South Korea, or...
2) Say goodbye to some of your cities, and your career.

The U.S. has been a loyal ally of South Korea primarily because doing so came at little risk to us.  North Korean nukes are changing that equation.  What U.S. president is going to be willing to put San Francisco and LA at risk to save South Korea, a small far away country few Americans could even find on a map? 

Americans don't mind losing troops in battle so much because the troops are all volunteers and the average voter doesn't have to go, as was the case in Vietnam and earlier.  So long as somebody else is doing the dying, not so bad.  Nukes give the North Koreans the ability to bring the battle to the average American voter's doorstep.   North Korean nukes are going to persuade the American people to wash their hands of South Korea and the whole problem, which will be the beginning of the end of our influence in Asia, increasingly the center of the world

Meanwhile, the ancient patient Chinese chess masters are quietly smiling up their sleeve in the background, pleased by the good work their North Korean proxy is doing for them.  The North Koreans take all the risk, the Chinese reap most of the benefits, a smart move on the global chessboard. 

Nukes are irrelevant to modern politics?  Wanna try that one again?

Sorry, I'm not trying to be an ass.  Nor do I seek confrontation.  But if members refuse to raise their game to what I know they are capable of, this might get messy.

[Bored chemist]

Scientists are weak, they are powerless, they are inept, clueless, they have no ability to address the most pressing challenges of our time, all they can do is sit by helplessly and wait for the end.    Is that the message, am I getting it? 

No, that's the straw man you keep putting forward.
Why do you do that?

[alancalverd]

Nukes give the North Koreans the ability to bring the battle to the average American voter's doorstep.   North Korean nukes are going to persuade the American people to wash their hands of South Korea and the whole problem, which will be the beginning of the end of our influence in Asia, increasingly the center of the world

1a What would be the reaction to a single nuke reaching US soil?  1b So why wait?

2.What influence does the US have in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Pakistan? Asia? Other,that is, than as a customer for products that used to be made in the USA?

[jeffreyH]

The big boys in the playground want the biggest clubs in order to keep the riff raff in line. The riff raff includes the under developed countries of the world as well as their own citizens. These guys ain't listening to you. You are an annoyance. That is the biggest hurdle for your project.

[Tanny (OP)]

No, that's the straw man you keep putting forward.Why do you do that?

Here's the link to Facebook, a popular service designed to discourage intelligent in depth conversations, as it prefers to excel at publishing lazy one liner water cooler gotchas.  You may find it the perfect writing environment for your interests.  Good luck!

http://Facebook.com

[alancalverd]

'Smatterofact, mutual inspection already happens, despite BC's earlier statement. The "Open Skies Project" allows Russian aircraft to fly a few low level missions every year along any route they choose, and likewise for NATO to wander across Russian territory. It's sometimes amusing and occasionally a pain in the arse for everyone else (we get very short notice, and have to stay out of the way, whilst Ivan fills the airwaves with requests for clearance to his next objective), but it's all done in a most gentlemanly manner and I guess provides amusement for a few lucky crews to collect mission badges, beer mats, and photographs of each others' military installations.

Problem is that it doesn't cover any other states.

[Tanny (OP)]

Dear Global Moderators,

Out of respect for the forum you have volunteered to serve, perhaps you would consider making intelligent thoughtful relevant comments instead of the slam down on the reply button male ego competition water cooler gotchas which are the death of all forums which had hoped to be useful.

You'd like to chat with interesting people, right?  Me too.  The reason you are currently stuck with me is that when interesting people read threads like this they almost immediately conclude it's not worth their time and they slam down on, not the reply button, but the back button.

As far as I'm concerned this thread is now officially dead.  I'm bowing out, it's all yours to do with as you please, have fun.

[Bored chemist]

'Smatterofact, mutual inspection already happens, despite BC's earlier statement.

My earlier statement was that it happens in spit of it being difficult.
Please read more carefully in future.

Even allowing for the political "awkwardness" of this approach; it is already done to a degree.
There are people working on it
http://www.nti.org/about/projects/international-partnership-nuclear-disarmament-verification/

And yet- even though the "technology" is simple- the mark 1 eyeball- we are unable to do  it properly because of politics.

[Bored chemist]

No, that's the straw man you keep putting forward.Why do you do that?

Here's the link to Facebook, a popular service designed to discourage intelligent in depth conversations, as it prefers to excel at publishing lazy one liner water cooler gotchas.  You may find it the perfect writing environment for your interests.  Good luck!

http://Facebook.com

You forgot to answer my question.
Perhaps you should try Facebook, rather than a discussion forum where the idea is to respond to points and questions people raise.