During this war, Russia has launched 5628 Shahed-136 drones towards Ukraine.
That is 5628 times, civilians have heard a buzzing moped engine in the sky, and seen the Shahed-136 strike a civilian home, a power plant, or a school with its 50 kilogram warhead.
For comparison, Hitler struck London with 2857 V1 and V2 rockets — half as many.
I simply do not know what to tell future generations when they ask, why we did not stop the Russian terror.
@randahl The reason is that Russia has a policy, predating Putin and regularly reauthorized, that if Russia is faced with defeat then they will escalate to first use of nuclear weapons. The definition of “defeat” gives them some wiggle room, but the threat is real. The military-political consensus seems to be that once tactical nukes are used then escalation to a broader nuclear exchange is inevitable. No country wants to get near that tripwire. Direct confrontation is avoided.
@cstross@ovid This is true. As an executive at NASA, I was deeply involved in (and mortified by) the Constellation program at NASA, later rebranded as Artemis. Sen. Shelby had immense power over NASA’s budget and he got whatever he demanded. There were many machinations to assure that Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville had control of budgets and many tech decisions. It was (and is) pure Shelby Alabama pork. I quit NASA because of it.
@ovid@glitzersachen@cstross I remember Bush Sr’s “Space Exploration Initiative “ very well. I wasted a year of my life on it at NASA, developing the automation and robotics technology program, until SES was cancelled. It was only an election year political gimmick, nothing more.
@ovid@glitzersachen@cstross You are on the right track. I was at NASA HQ and involved in early decisions on commercial launch, at that time focused on small spacecraft. The political momentum was for refurbishing and repurposing existing ICBMs (in storage) for civil launch but the cost projections were in favor of commercial launch. I credit Assoc. Admin Scott Horowitz with making the tough call in favor of commercial launch.
@ottaross My granddaughter (8) loves her instant camera. Taking and looking at pictures is a big thing in our family, and she very happy now to be able participate on her own terms.
@StillIRise1963 In my experience, Mastodon has not matched other social media in this respect. Maybe I’m just lucky with my follows, but for the most part I am happy with the level of discourse. That said, you are right about other social media and the US.
1/... The only hot take I've seen is from Joyce Vance saying this would push the trial past the election. That seems pretty rational to me.
But hopefully, the outcome will be ok
Via Anthony M Kreis:
For everyone complaining about the Fulton County case appeal, let me just say that our #Georgia Court of Appeals has incredibly smart, hard-working, and serious judges. They are good and decent folks by and large. So cool it on your hot takes and conspiracy theories there.
In 1968, massive campus protests against the Vietnam war spread to the Democratic national convention in Chicago that year, which became a violent confrontation between protesters and police. The result was the election of Republican Richard Nixon, who enormously escalated the war, including the invasion and mass bombing of Cambodia.
@lauren The protests did not cause the escalation in the Vietnam war. The corrupt mayor of Chicago ordered the police violence against the protesters. The process of the Convention itself was largely unaffected by the protests. In that era, the Democratic candidate was chosen by party leaders, not by vote of the delegates from each state. Humphrey was a weak candidate put forward by people who did not recognize nor accept change.
Given statistics on veganism, you have a 95-99% chance that anyone making a moral claim is a selective ethicist. The low rate of ethical veganism further supports my hunch that everyone is a selective ethicist.
@escarpment@shekinahcancook I really admire the implicit hopefulness in your claim, and I too hope it is true, but my subjective reality (borrowing your metaphor) is that gravity does not necessarily prevail.
@shekinahcancook@escarpment What magical or moral force force does “majority” possess? None really, except what we choose to allow. Majority rule is a relatively recent invention in human society.
@shekinahcancook@escarpment This is a strong philosophical claim about the nature of social reality. It is easier for me to follow if we drop the term “reality” which comes with a lot of baggage. If you say that people will behave as they will, then I must agree. The consequences of doing so are based on power. Power may arise from consensus, but agreement is not always affirmative —plenty of people go along to get along.
@escarpment@shekinahcancook We are on the verge of disrupting the stability of Earth’s climate. Once unstable, there is no guarantee that it will return to the same climate equilibrium in which humanity or other life thrives. The geophysical history of Earth shows multiple climate equilibriums. Many remained stable for millions of years. Earth climate is a multi-stable system, potentially moving now towards a new, inhospitable climate equilibrium.