Vyor
My influence grows!
In totality, yes, but the individual repairs wouldn't take much time. They'd start with the mission critical areas and work outwards.
The Role of Ground Forces in Interstellar Warfare
- Thread starter Zyobot
- Start date
In totality, yes, but the individual repairs wouldn't take much time. They'd start with the mission critical areas and work outwards.
Mostly because my initial strong disagreement was with your predicted outcome. So, granting an EMP would have the material effect you suggested, people and society generally would not have the outcome you suggested.
Thus, how damaging an actual EMP would be was irrelevant to my argument, so I granted your worst case scenario, in which case I believed your conclusion was still wrong, a form of the myth of panic that actual experience shows to generally be a myth. Its a repeate of the mechanism by which strategic bombing should prove decisive.
This is actually wrong, and in fact opposite of reality.
It aligns with logic, historical examples, and thinking through my own response to such a situation. It will take a while before me and any of us are stabbing the McDonalds manager to steal the food. Riots take very particular circumstance.
A complex society actually is more likely a resilient society, because it generally will not have singular points of failure.
For example, taking out communication requires:
1) Taking out internet
2) Taking out radio
3) Taking out cell signal
4) taking out printing press
5) taking out cars
6) Taking out children on bikes
7) Taking out town criers walking around ringing their bell.
Taking out any one of those is a big ask. Taking out all of them at once is a really big ask. The complexity of the system makes any one thing totally disabling the system unlikely, and the system is so rich that huge degradation in capacity is still surviable.
Which comes down somewhat to that issue of wealth: even if there's only on hand 10% spares, getting the correct 10% back on line represents a huge capacity to keep important things going.
@Marduk
Working to answer my own question on the hunting in Ohio, based on other data it seems like you have a "swarth width" of something around 20-200 km across. Info I could find was somewhat inconsistent on this. The more detail you need, the narrower the field of view seems to be the case. Actual overall line of sight is roughly 2,000 km, so you can get a bit more panning the camera back and forth.
Ohio can be roughly simplified to a square 400x400 km. So, full view seems like it might be 20-2 passes, depending on what the achievable Swath width is. Each pass will have the satellite over Ohio for roughly 1 minute every 90 minutes. Earth rotates about 30 km/minute, so over a 90 minute orbit the earth moves roughly 2,700 km. So, by the time the satellite comes back around it will be far out of view. How long till back in view is hard to say: most list something like 5 days, but the more capable the satellite is to look to the side, the quicker. At the shortest, you might get an overfly in the rough proximity of the satellite in 12 hours, as the earth rotates bellow the satellite.
So, given 1 minute of observation, and assuming 12 hour cycles, which may be very quick, that's 720 satellites to maintain 24/7 ish coverage. If the observable strip is actually fairly narrow, or orbits are less forgiving, multiply by 10 for roughly 7,200 satellites to maintain eyes over the whole region. If the observable region is much larger, divide by 5 to 144.
I thus still feel fairly confident 24/7 observation of Ohio takes roughly 1,000 satellites. This is complicated a bit that observing Ohio so heavily is basically identical to observing the whole earth in high detail, assuming no data bottleneck limitations (it can take 100 TB of pictures in a minute, but then takes 100 minutes to upload that data to Intelligence.
Without those kinds of limitations however, enough satellites to observe one part of the planet intensely seems to more or less demand at least the number of platforms to observe the entire planet intensely, due to the nature of orbits.
If the field of view of any one camera at highish detail is only 20 km wide, there are also eye of Sauron issues that looking at everything gets more challenging. Each Camera can only look at roughly 300 km at once, so observing all of Ohio to good detail would involve 300 cameras. With one camera overpassing with that resolution would leave 99.7% of Ohio unsurvailed even while overflying. On the other hand, if you did have a high quality camera taking pictures every 24 seconds, then in a minute overhead you could take 1,440 pictures, which if the camera was moved precisely could cover the whole area and then some. Which may still have data link issues, or that could be trivial.
@Crom's Black Blade on the hovering question.
Spacecraft measure the cost of a maneuver in delta v. Reaching orbit takes roughly 9-10 km/s of delta v. Hovering in vacuum at low orbit altitude takes roughly 9 m/s to counter gravity (the pull of gravity is a little bit lighter at that altitude, but not by overly much. So, entering orbit (9 km/s) is equal energy to overing for 1,000 seconds. Or about 16.5 minutes. The need to burn at roughly one g, all else equal, also mean you need high thrust, and thus generally low exhaust velocity/mileage engines, so you can't even do it with something efficient like an ion engine, you have to use a much less efficient chemical or thermal-nuclear engine.
Without super engines or some sort of anti-gravity technology, hovering in place is really expensive. Outside of atmosphere is even worse than in, where you can't rely on the atmosphere to help.
Crom's Black Blade
Well-known member
The problem is without establishing what a worst case scenario entails we really can't say anything. In this particular case I was envisioning this as an alternative to the nuke them till they glow strategy. Thus, should it have proven practical to do so, I would have aimed to render as close to a 100% of the planet's industrial civilization inert. In which case the number of cars would not have impacted the result.
I'm afraid I can't find the author as persuasive as you considering he cites our response to Covid as proof people don't panic while I saw that as confirmation that they do as people hoarded hand sanitizer, toilets paper, wore ineffectual masks, surrendered to house arrest and happily took vaccines which weren't vaccines and whose long term effects were maybe not the best understood. All this for a glorified flu bug with, IIRC, a 98+% survival rate. God help us if it had been something like the Spanish flu in 1918.
What you appear to be describing is "socialism of the trenches". Yes, nothing brings a group together like a shared adversity. That's kind of the whole point of team building exercises and why Democrats love crisis's since it compels people to stop bickering and get in nice, easily to coral groups. But it's all predicated that there is relief coming at some point, that there is a "plan" in place.
But it won't, and can't, last forever and if you make people desperate enough, for long enough any solidarity will quickly dissolve along the respective tribal lines. It is what we are after all.
All of which require electrical power to utilize and in the case of radio requires relatively specialized equipment to both receive and transmit which not everyone will have. Generators could of course prove the power but require fuel to run. So even without trying too, simply by being part of a zone selected for invasion, both of these would likely become impaired from pre-war norms.
Cars require fuel to run and along with bikes are most efficient on roads both of which likely are going to be impaired by orbital bombardment if only to try and hinder the defending army's movements. Further this is a dramatic reduction in communication both in speed and range and being reduced to this would likely already prove crippling.
Imagine if your city needed more antibiotics. Instead of that being a checkbox that you had to select, confident a vast logistical chain would be rushing you a box of it overnight, you'd have to get into your car drive for an unknown duration to pass that message along which may have to be relaid through other car messengers until sufficient quantity could be located and then begin the process of transporting it to you.
And if this is taking place in the middle of a warzone that just adds further complications.
This is medieval era level of communication. Long before this any pretense of maintaining a 21st century society would have long since ended. By this point your entire "world" and sphere of knowledge has shrunk to your city and the surrounding countryside within walking distance.
@Crom's Black Blade
Lets look at your initial claim:
So, using your assumption that "plunging a large swath of the planet's population into a virtual dark age" would cause "chaos and rioting".
Thus, part of your argument was the effects of an EMP could lead to "chaos and rioting". This I take issue with, as said.
So, is your argument that during covid, you had panic leading to "chaos or rioting"? Is "wore ineffectual masks, surrendered to house arrest and happily took vaccines which weren't vaccines and whose long term effects were maybe not the best understood" chaos and riot?
Or is it extreme submission to authority and orderlyness? You seem to be using an example of order as an example of chaos.
I object to the description of this as the socialism of the trench, because its not socialism. It much more that people behave normally. Your assumption depends on people acting abnormally. Relief and a plan are hardly necessary either, though their nice of course.
Lets look at your initial claim:
So, using your assumption that "plunging a large swath of the planet's population into a virtual dark age" would cause "chaos and rioting".
Thus, part of your argument was the effects of an EMP could lead to "chaos and rioting". This I take issue with, as said.
So, is your argument that during covid, you had panic leading to "chaos or rioting"? Is "wore ineffectual masks, surrendered to house arrest and happily took vaccines which weren't vaccines and whose long term effects were maybe not the best understood" chaos and riot?
Or is it extreme submission to authority and orderlyness? You seem to be using an example of order as an example of chaos.
I object to the description of this as the socialism of the trench, because its not socialism. It much more that people behave normally. Your assumption depends on people acting abnormally. Relief and a plan are hardly necessary either, though their nice of course.
Crom's Black Blade
Well-known member
Yes, I postulated plunging the world back to the dark age would lead to, among other things, chaos and rioting. Your argument against boiled down to how many cars the world had missing, in my view, the entire point I was suggesting.
As for Covid, I said it was an example of panicking, not of rioting. That when presented with something even slightly not to plan people went a little nuts rather than calmy and logically asses the threat and react accordingly. Yes at the time it was in submission to authority, believing it had the magic wand to save them, but if the situation became desperate enough that likely wouldn't last.
We do have different views on humanity and it's nature. I wouldn't call this "brotherhood in crisis" man's default state since it seems to only exist in a temporary state in response to a direct, arguably shared threat. So I feel it's more the abnormality.
Vyor
My influence grows!
I don't think we'd ever go back to using copper and rocks...
My opinion is mans default state is to do what he's told and not rock the boat. If there's uncertainty, people generally become paralyzed, not aggressively go out and murder people. My counter to your theory of chaos and rioting is to appeal to human nature and historical precedent. Rioting is hard and generally takes organization, and a political decision to allow it. Or troops/police to stop following commands.
The number of cars deals with the question of likelihood of falling back into the dark age, which is basically zero: the level of success the EMP would have to achieve is so absurdly high that the chance of achieving that kind of effect is small. Very few things of this nature have 95% success rates over large areas. Its just not how such effects generally work: direct nuclear detonations don't have that level of impact. Examples instead place EMP effects as being very small and quite manageable.
The number of cars deals with the question of likelihood of falling back into the dark age, which is basically zero: the level of success the EMP would have to achieve is so absurdly high that the chance of achieving that kind of effect is small. Very few things of this nature have 95% success rates over large areas. Its just not how such effects generally work: direct nuclear detonations don't have that level of impact. Examples instead place EMP effects as being very small and quite manageable.
Doomsought
Well-known member
It won't be back to the dark ages. 1920s era technologies is about far back as you can push someone without deliberately searching for and destroying books. Vacuum tubes and electromechanical equipment can all be made with hand tools and lathes.
Crom's Black Blade
Well-known member
Fair point, fair point.
Yeah, the more we look at it, EMPs seem very poor weapon systems.
1) It generally doesn't hurt the military much at all directly.
2) It doesn't seem to destroy critical civilian infrastructure, mostly nice to haves. Its nice to have email, but physically delivered mail is going to meet 90% of people's needs: quick updates on events, announcements of food deliveries or other essentials. The 10% who need it can fairly trivially be supplied out of likely stocks: if for some reason you were reduced to direct radio (unlikely), getting a radio into most every post office is probably trivial.
3) Because its physical damage is limited, repairing its direct damage is fairly simple. A post office for example is still there, and if some piece of machinery isn't working, well, you have a big labor surplus to throw at the problem, and the actual offices would be almost entirely intact, making setting up the manual post handing relatively trivial. Since basically all the vehicles work, your not directly hampered from re-running lines. And by basic marginal Pareto distributions, getting 20% of the power back likely restores 80% of the economy, which makes getting the other 80% both relatively easy, but also non-critical. Hell, the next level down of the 80/20 rule suggests getting 4% of power back would restore roughly 64% of the economy back online.
Which seems roughly line with graphs like below.
Now, that does suggest if you can hit the right 5%, you can also cripple 50% of the economy. For a time. Left to their own devices, generally that 5% can be regenerated, or reconstituted elsewhere. Meaning its still a limited window of vulnerability.
For example if there was a pinpoint strike on the NY grid, well, if its critical you can draw on the other 95% of the country, up to taking their transformers or power line: The people of Maine are good people, but its more critical to the war effort that NY be kept operational than that the people of Maine have lights at night. Sacrificing half of Maine's GDP (loss of $42 billion) to restore 1% of NY economy (Gain of $200 Billion) is a no brainer, netting a gain of $160 billion over what it would have been otherwise.
These deep wells of a rich country add to its resilience, and is why Nazi Germany was able to increase war material production basically every year of the war despite all the pressures. There's roughly 3 million fast food workers. As nice as it is to have the choice of McDonald's or Wendy's right next to each other, I don't need both: if once gets shut down through the labor shortage, life gets duller, but its not critical. 10 million retail and cashiers. Its nice to have as many gas station options, but its not strictly necessary. I'll survive with fewer car dealerships and stores. All limit consumer options, but those are likely to be limited anyways.
Then we have roughly 5 million teachers overall: assuming children are still being taught, class sizes can be doubled to free up 2-3 million there. And of course of 14 million college students, how many would really be hurt all that much having their education delayed by a few years?
So, off the top of my head that's 20-30 million adults who can be mobilized and directed to productive ends who will have minimal short term impact by directing them to something else.
All a matter of time and freedom to organize.
1) It generally doesn't hurt the military much at all directly.
2) It doesn't seem to destroy critical civilian infrastructure, mostly nice to haves. Its nice to have email, but physically delivered mail is going to meet 90% of people's needs: quick updates on events, announcements of food deliveries or other essentials. The 10% who need it can fairly trivially be supplied out of likely stocks: if for some reason you were reduced to direct radio (unlikely), getting a radio into most every post office is probably trivial.
3) Because its physical damage is limited, repairing its direct damage is fairly simple. A post office for example is still there, and if some piece of machinery isn't working, well, you have a big labor surplus to throw at the problem, and the actual offices would be almost entirely intact, making setting up the manual post handing relatively trivial. Since basically all the vehicles work, your not directly hampered from re-running lines. And by basic marginal Pareto distributions, getting 20% of the power back likely restores 80% of the economy, which makes getting the other 80% both relatively easy, but also non-critical. Hell, the next level down of the 80/20 rule suggests getting 4% of power back would restore roughly 64% of the economy back online.
Which seems roughly line with graphs like below.
Now, that does suggest if you can hit the right 5%, you can also cripple 50% of the economy. For a time. Left to their own devices, generally that 5% can be regenerated, or reconstituted elsewhere. Meaning its still a limited window of vulnerability.
For example if there was a pinpoint strike on the NY grid, well, if its critical you can draw on the other 95% of the country, up to taking their transformers or power line: The people of Maine are good people, but its more critical to the war effort that NY be kept operational than that the people of Maine have lights at night. Sacrificing half of Maine's GDP (loss of $42 billion) to restore 1% of NY economy (Gain of $200 Billion) is a no brainer, netting a gain of $160 billion over what it would have been otherwise.
These deep wells of a rich country add to its resilience, and is why Nazi Germany was able to increase war material production basically every year of the war despite all the pressures. There's roughly 3 million fast food workers. As nice as it is to have the choice of McDonald's or Wendy's right next to each other, I don't need both: if once gets shut down through the labor shortage, life gets duller, but its not critical. 10 million retail and cashiers. Its nice to have as many gas station options, but its not strictly necessary. I'll survive with fewer car dealerships and stores. All limit consumer options, but those are likely to be limited anyways.
Then we have roughly 5 million teachers overall: assuming children are still being taught, class sizes can be doubled to free up 2-3 million there. And of course of 14 million college students, how many would really be hurt all that much having their education delayed by a few years?
So, off the top of my head that's 20-30 million adults who can be mobilized and directed to productive ends who will have minimal short term impact by directing them to something else.
All a matter of time and freedom to organize.
Crom's Black Blade
Well-known member
You really can't "counter" my theory because I also appeal to human nature and historical precedent. In some cases the same precedent ala Covid. We simply have very differing viewpoints of humanity which leads us to very different expectations. Short of actually ending world civilization I'm not sure we can decisively make the other change their mind.
For myself I don't think rioting or mobs is very hard or takes much organization. Just one guy who throws the first rock and isn't stopped. Whether due to authorities politically deciding not to intervene or simply being unable too.
Ah, but as you said the argument wasn't about the feasibility. It was over whether or not people would riot even in a "worst case".
Not to say, even ignoring that, your argument was flawed for reasons I outlined earlier and others. Like the herculean logistical effort it would take for random civilian vehicles to take over the role of transporting goods across the country/world. Or take this suggestion/idea of yours:
To which I'd ask how are you going to mobilize and organize these tens of millions of people, what are they going to be trained to do and who is going to teach them? And what if they don't want too or are unable to be retrained?
Doomsought
Well-known member
Those locations are mostly centers of services and corporate headquarters. The physical location of production facilities, farms and factories, is far more evenly spread out.
Except my theory of human nature makes sense logically and historically, while yours is not based on actual historical precident, and an illogical theory of human nature. Throwing rocks don't just organically turn into a riot without pre-existing social organizations and groups to exploit it. Can you explain why someone throwing a rock will induce you to riot? Would watching someone throw a rock through a window induce you to burn someone's house down? Or is this a mechanism that only effects other, worse people than yourself?
Your argument is devoid of logic and historical example.
Is your opinion a government that currently employs 30 million people (all levels local, state, and federal) has no ability to mobilize an additional 10-30 million over time? Are you unaware of what happens in any natural disaster or war? What you seem to regard as an absurd process is the standard outcome in almost every situation.
Assuming the government stays organized, which even in our earlier worst case is a given, that means the government are the ones with food in the worst case, and thus can mobilize quite a few on the "if any would not work, neither should he eat".
And that is assuming a government with low legitimacy, a people without loyalty, a community without virtue. Who can only be motivated by base hunger.
A community of loyalty and virtue will try to help, and wish to be productive. If my current bureaucratic job was made irrelevant, I would look to my immediate boss and coworkers for a new job, because being productive gets food on the table, and favor of the people with guns. If my boss and company does not have use of me, maybe because the whole company's purpose is irrelevant, I would go a block down the street to the police building and see if they can use anyone, either on a temporary position (I have enough food supplies to not be at immediate risk, and can thus volunteer to help avoid short term chaos until a more permanent solution is available). If the police don't directly need me, I have a friend of a friend in the post office and the electrical department, and they are likely to need people to throw at problems, and as critical infrastructure people in those industries would have priorities.
What strikes you has more likely: mild mannered office drones become Mad Max psychos in a week, or are they more likely to just look for a new job? Life goes on, and things still need to be done. And the useful generally will have a better chance of survival than the useless. Maybe during the initial attacks we bunker down, a lock down of sorts, but while not under immediate attack, there will be jobs. Given enough time one may eventually be conscripted into the military or labor battalions of some sort. All the more reasons to find good, useful, and hopefully safer job, so that when the recruiters need to round up more labor for some more dangerous activity, your not on the government roles as "unemployed".
There is certainly an element of the outcome of GDP effecting things, where it generally counts based on final production. Still, I think its likely approximately correct. There are 20 orange blobs in that map, and the largest 20 metropolitan area have a population of 120 million, some 35% of the population, and cities do tend to be higher productivity than average too.
So, with those blobs representing something like 30-40% of the population, them representing 40-60% of the real economy seems plausible too.
Crom's Black Blade
Well-known member
Well the idea is it only takes one person to do something and not be stopped for others to follow suit. The broken window theory were as soon as it's shown that you'll accept a broken window others will start breaking them collectively as individuals.
Which is likely the biggest difference between our views of humanity. I tend to assume humans are, at their core, individualistic, pack animals. That we will work together but our reasoning is centered on what benefits us. You, from what I can gather, take a more humans are collectivist, herd animals.
For instance you refer to my view as illogical but to me there's nothing illogical about pursuing your own interests. The only way an animal can survive and pass on their genes to the next generation is if they do that. Which is why self-sacrifice is so noble and inspiring because it is *more* than we are.
As for historical precedent I already pointed to our response to Covid on how people can panic and make subpar decisions that are poor for them and the group. I can point to Black Lives Matters who could and would riot over the
Your argument against this is a little vague, at least from my point of view. The article you linked cites, in part, the failure of strategic bombing to instantly force the enemy nation surrender but you seem to take what even it explained was a short-term solidarity and project it as a permanent, "true humanity" that will last no matter what.
Over time? No. I'd agree you could draw upon this as a resource even. But we're talking months if not years to accomplish. While you give the impression this will be an easy, quick fix.
You have to organize a pipeline to put these people through, someone to locate them, all the necessary support to feed, clothes and house them during this, the people to train them. Not all of the 30 million government employees may have the necessary skills, abilities or resources to accomplish this and some of them may even be needed to keep doing their current duties. while I'm sure we could cut a lot of government bloat just organizing them into something that could organize the tens of millions of other people would take time.
In the context of an opening days of a planetary invasion, if you haven't already started tapping into this pool, it likely would be far too little, far too late too matter.
Yes. I commented on it in fact earlier and in no way am i assuming people wouldn't be motivated to help. My argument was rooted primarily in the pragmatists. I don't think a 100% of any group will be willing to completely uproot and reorganize their life so I asked what do you do with those unable or unwilling to be retrained.
Work or starve is a double edge sword. One that if you don't back up with machine guns, drawing needed resources from elsewhere, is just as likely to cause the rioting as prevent it. Because you've now created a division between those who are being fed and those who are either unable or unwilling to qualify. So any solidarity the two groups had have now been divided.
Okay, all jokes aside this just struck me as a little depressing. Like maybe I'm a mutant but I don't desire to be "productive" in the same sense you apparently do. I take pride in my job, that I do it well and have had multiple bosses compliment and thank me for what I do. That it was this sense of accomplishment that mattered regardless how mediocre the job itself may have been. Wouldn't matter if you had me in a room counting hairs on a caterpillar.
But this seems like something else. I've always view work as a sort of trade of my skills/labor in exchange for payment. But you almost seem to describe it as a relation between Master and pet. That you want to be a good boy and get head pats/rewards from your boss, gain the favor of the people with guns.
The issue with the police, the electrical department or even the post office isn't a lack of a pool of bodies they could potentially throw at things. Its having the resources to either find the people with the required skills or the ability to train them. As well as equip them with the tools/equipment to perform their job.
Similar the issue isn't whether or not you have supplies for the immediate future. It wasn't like the people hoarding toilette paper all had ran out at the same moment. But rather when faced with an uncertainty of the future people try to rush out and stock up to last the immediate further and then some. And they all have this idea usually roughly at the same time which leads to shortages.
So you might walk down to the police station, and potentially turned away because they can't afford to hire you, and screw yourself over in the longer term because the stores have been picked bare.
And when there isn't "a new job"? That the reduced number of things that need or can be done in this post-disaster scenario are smaller than the total pool of candidates? Or the flow of food takes longer to organize or is being diverted to set up these labor battalions which are coming?
I don't expect officer workers to become Lord Humongous overnight but I don't expect them either to just sit quietly twiddling their thumbs in happy contentment waiting for the chance to be "productive" again.
Last edited:
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Are we still talking about the immediate aftermath of an orbital strike (with EMP to trip circuit breakers) to clear a landing zone for an invasion force? Because this feels more like we've wandered over to the discussion of what happens months after civilization's been bombed to rubble and the invaders have gotten bored and left.
Strange, since your prediction seems to be that people are by default irrational pack animals who will be possessed by animal spirits to do irrational, self destructive things, while I assume people are generally individual, self interested, certainly at least on the scale of their family, and actually generally rational once their future discounting is taken into account.
Your entire theory seems to rely on people doing stupid impulsive and self destructive things, thus the "panic". To operate against their own self interest.
Black lives matter is actually an argument for my position, because it was so clearly a policy position and organized: it happened because the people in power wanted it to happen. If instead of Covid we were gearing up for a war, or about to be in war, do you think Trump would not have had the military on the streets in hours? And it generally did not occur in places that were particularly desperate: I for example live in a generally poor, but Republican state. We had (limit) BLM protests, for a few days, but no riots. Because it would not be tolerated.
Or, if your in a situation where Kyle Rittenhouse is given a medal for his patriotic actions, rather than thrown in prison for going counter state, you don't have much riots. Maybe I just don't see there being this stage of "free violation" in any serious sense. Everyone in my area has a gun, so people trying to rob people stuck at home would be shot by the home owners, especially if the state beforehand signaled looters should be shot in general principle, so the state will not crush people who shoot looters. Looters generally need protection, not the other way around. All the store owners likewise would like to protect their stuff: If things get bad, the McDonald's owner/manager is going to likewise want to protect their stocks, either for personal consumption, more likely as a bartering.
Most people would be sheltering in place during initial attacks, guarding their homes and property. You don't have a mass exodus of people leaving unguarded property like in a Hurricane. And if things look really dire, society in general is likely to be much less lenient of robbery than now. That's general society reaction.
On top of that, we have roughly 700,000 cops, 2 million military soldiers. Mobilized that about 3 million enforcement agents, who would all be mobilized in the lead up to an invasion. We also have a million security guards, who are going to be operating under far looser ROE, every sheriff is going to deputize people left and right, and local buiseness owners are going to grab their own guns and bring their own little possi of armed guards and employees with baseball bats, where is this room and support for mass rioting?
what skills are you imagining need to be done in the first couple of days? Those first days are stopping the bleeding, which involve a many unskilled brute labor: walking around with clip boards to build a census of how many are in an area for determining emergency food delivery, carrying water to populated area and carrying out waste, removing damaged stuff in the way. Carrying mail if fuel needs to be preserved (so, the regular post man is assigned 10-20 mail carriers as he leads them around to keep the mail flowing). General delivery and shuttle services.
Well, unmotivated people who want to hide in their house and starve I guess hide in their house and starve. Those who want something from the community, such as food or fuel, when they come to a local aid station get their name and skills added to the lists, and those who wish to continue to receive aid will do the tasks assigned to them. They can also get a job, since its not like the economy disappears.
This is where your claim of rationality breaks down: why would you, a starving individual, attack the people with the food and guns?
Most people have jobs. They work to eat. If your a very devote Christian, you also value productivity in and of itself, but generally work is the unpleasant thing you do to get paid. Because of shortages, your likely going to have to work more to earn less, but life is life. I have my current job because its not too hard and makes as much money as I need to support a lifestyle I'm happy with. If I wanted more money, I could work in a coal mine and triple my income, but that would suck more and I don't feel I need that money. Part of the described strategy above is so, assuming the crisis continues I can find a relatively cushy job so I can work 10 hours a day to see sorting mail in the sun for 10 cans of beans and 10 lbs of coal so the family doesn't freeze or starve, but I do get to see the family and not work too hard, rather than either being conscripted or having no choice but to volunteer and take a job mining coal with a pick axe for 10 cans and 50 lbs of coal a day, not seeing the family for a week as the bus only delivers a shift to the mine every week.
Work is all about making enough money doing something minimally unpleasant compared to what enough money is.
I just don't see how there would not be work. The work will likely suck more and pay less, but people still need to eat and not freeze, which require work to secure and produce more resources. If that does require harvesting wood or coal by hand with axe and pick, maybe I even would take that job just because it is more productive and better paying than the alternatives. And if a war is still ongoing, the military will certainly have things that need doing. Which may still involve unpleasant mining underground, but, a wage is a wage. Or you just get concripted.
Crom's Black Blade
Well-known member
I would say we simply have different ideas of "self-interest". From what I can gather you view the group is in people's self-interest and therefore you assume any action that goes against the group is against one's own self-interest.
I would say it would be more accurate that I believe everyone will attempt to pursue their own interests as they believe them to be. Said actions, due to tragedy of the commons or the individuals lack of foresight, can lead to negative outcomes for themselves or the group as a whole.
Oh BLM is politically motivated and I would agree they only took place, at least to the extent that they did, because the Authorities either could not or would not intervene. But it shows even in a prosperous nation on the mildest of pretext there were plenty of people were willing, even eager, to do irrational, destructive things. And thus if these same people were put into an actual crisis were the system was breaking down it likely wouldn't be hard to push them into it again.
My bad, that was my fault. I meant of their own volition.
Okay, so your argument is that a Western nation, the US being the example, has so many soldiers and police and security guards that they could maintain order. And further if that proved insufficient, people have guns to defend themselves or their place of business. So looting could not be an issue.
Now the reason why I can't agree with the above is as follows. For starters I feel adding the police as part of the forces being mobilized kind of feels like your inflating the number. The police are already dealing with the current situation, let alone the influx of a crisis, so there 700,000 isn't really being added to help anything. And by the same token, if there is an invasion going on, I don't think the entire armed forces could be spared just for riot control.
You certainly could recruit/repurpose security guards but they aren't police officers necessarily and will have more variable training. They also will have to be recruited and organized which will take time. And time is the pressing factor ticking in the background.
On the subject of people defending themselves, yes that's certainly a possibility but that alone is not necessarily a deterrent from unlawful, violent behavior's. Instead you have simply made it that whoever has the larger number of guns that day can do what they want.
You also have far more faith than I do in the Goverment to be competent and make the right decision. I'm far from certain all States would loosen ROE against looters. In fact I think it's not too far fetched that some may crack down on the victims for their own petty, illogical reasons.
Manhattan garage worker charged with attempted murder after shooting thief
A Manhattan parking garage attendant who was shot twice while confronting an alleged thief — then wrestled the gun away and opened fire on the suspect — has been charged with attempted …
nypost.com
You also feel that there will be plenty of low skill grunt jobs during a crisis. You cited clearing damaged objects out of the way, delivering mail by foot, carrying and extracting water and waste among others. And I would agree these are all jobs that would have to be done and are low entry in terms of skill. Where I would disagree is how many out of the population are suited to do these jobs and, out of that number, what is the comparison to the total number of jobs. How many people with clipboards or water carriers do you need.
And of course all of this can't operate in a vacuum. There has to be some kind of organization or leadership to send out the people with the clipboards and tabulate their results and arrange or secure supplies to be brought in. Thus it's not just a case of things needing to be done but that things people are willing/able to pay for in whatever the desired medium is.
I feel your answer also avoids the issue of needed jobs that do require skills/training. Police and Electrical engineers, to use two of your previous examples, are not low skill jobs but would likely be in demand. Even the post office, beyond just blindly following a mailman on his rounds, likely involves some training to properly sort the letters efficiently for delivery.
Thirdly, your rational for why people wouldn't riot is that it is nonsensical because they could just sign up and work a job to be paid in food and fuel. This, I fear, makes the error presupposing your biases onto the situation. There are many reasons why someone might revolt against the the food and guns. First and foremost both of those are a means to hold power over the individual which you seem to view as a net positive but can just as much sow division and fragment groups. On a most basic level if a Government is relying solely on the fact they have food and guns as their legitimacy they've largely opened the spot to anyone with the force of will and ability to take both those things. The comparison to this and being paid for work also rests on the assumption of similar stability. If there's doubt or perception said Government might not be able to cash their checks next week then that might convince you to take the cashbox today.
Touching upon this further, it feels like your assuming any crisis will be a short-lived affair and then start immediately getting better as the bleeding is staunched. I myself tend to think it would almost be the opposite. Imagine New York and San Francisco being invaded via drop-pod troopers attempting to contest and take the cities while roadways and bridges are hammered from orbit to try and slow/hinder the defending army from maneuvering in response. Things would initially be fairly okay for everyone not in the direct line of fire but as supplies that were supposed to be in transit sit in a warehouse or get destroyed the shortages would get worse as time progresses long before they get any better
Eh, more like you seem to believe its in the self interest of the weak to challenge the strong, or for the strong to throw away their power. BLM for example was completely rational, if destructive. The powers that be wanted and pushed BLM. If the powers that be did not want BLM and push it, it would not happen. You seem to believe the rich and powerful just, disappear or something. The authorities actively worked to stroke BLM, not simply allowed it to occur.
I have no idea why you think police wouldn't count? Or that security guards have to be "mobilized". They're already employed and have jobs and places they work anyways. The police and security guards means there's not going to be a riot at all. Military patrols are likely to be part of general order and control operations, and provide a lot of ready firepower if things get out of hand somewhere.
Your criticism here makes no sense.
Well, sure. And the government and the powers that be generally have way more guns and organization than anyone else. Pulling together a riot that will overwhelm a local police with shoot to kill is a high bar. And most people don't even take that level.
You also have far more faith than I do in the Goverment to be competent and make the right decision. I'm far from certain all States would loosen ROE against looters. In fact I think it's not too far fetched that some may crack down on the victims for their own petty, illogical reasons.
Manhattan garage worker charged with attempted murder after shooting thief
A Manhattan parking garage attendant who was shot twice while confronting an alleged thief — then wrestled the gun away and opened fire on the suspect — has been charged with attempted …
Sure, friend enemy applies. If the government decides the invaders are the friend and the current regime is the enemy, they will limit themselves to help the invaders. Covid did not show the government has any tendency to be too lenient with its enemies. Incompetence is also always an option, but then we come to things such as the shear quantity of material available that suggest it takes an immense amount of incompetence to actually fail here. And people to be entirely automotons to follow clearly bad orders that hurt themselves universally and to the letter.
I mean, the entire government exists in the case of an EMP. EMPs also don't stop people from walking. I'm not sure why you seem to believe the 30 million government employees who currently exist, as well as roughly 600,000 elected officials, will suddenly stop existing. And given EMPs seem to have near zero impact of cars and vehicles, non of them are particularly immobilized either!
I think you mistook a statement for what is as some sort of moral statement. The fact is that the government is the people with the food and guns. They innately have the largest most organized and best equipped violence power, and with hardened communications and all terrain transport have the best ability to move food from where it currently is to anywhere civilian logistical capacities are not up to the task. My logic rests on 3 simple premises that I don't think you've really gone against in any way but to claim it immoral to defend property.
1) The powers that be have what people need
2) Trying to steel from the powers that be if its organized and loyal is suicidal
3) Working for the powers that be gets one hopefully some protection and goods.
This logic is exactly the same if those powers that be are the current government, or an occupation government. Or if we do have some random local warlord, who would also have in his interest not to allow general looting, so he can hoard everything for himself to pay people with.
Hopefully the native government would be nicer about the deals than an occupying government or local warlord that inserted himself into a power vacuum, but who knows. Setting specific. The goal of 90% of people in any such situation is to not draw attention and make enough to survive.
Well, sure. That's been my explicit argument from the start. What do you think all the arguments about all the cars and stuff have been from the start?
1) Out of total capacity of a rich nation, mere survival is 1% of current capacity, or about so.
2) Therefore, if you manage to save, say 5% capacity, you have an 80% surplus. Thus, 80% of your capacity can be invested in re-activating existing capacity. Given how little material damage is actually done by an EMP, each dollar invested in rebuilding capacity is likely to be extremely productive.
3) Since each dollar invested is extremely productive, capacity snowballs very quickly.
For example, take a world just hit with an EMP and nothing else, assuming it destroys 95% of GDP.
Day 0: 100% GDP
Day 1: 5% GDP
Day 2: Low hanging fruit, each 1% of surplus GDP brings back 1% GDP. End Day 2: 9% GDP
Day 3: Less low hanging fruit, 2% GDP -> 1% recovered: End Day 2: 13% GDP
Day 4-5: Same as day 3 End day 5: 30% GDP
Week 2-4: initial obvious easy fixes completed, initial crisis mode resolved, people return to 10% GDP consumption, further recovery requires more elaborate re-design and shifting of resources, new construction rather than repairs/spares. 5% invested-1% recovery per week: End of First month: 50%
Month 2-6: some things are permanently changed by the EMP: some cities turned out not to be viable, either through some geographical, logistical, or simple incompetence issue. Huston's response to a hurricane vs New Orleans, for example. Other bits of tech might also just take a long time to roll out, and now lower tech temporary solution works anywhere close to as well. Overall problems without quick, cheap, or easy solutions. People are also more or less out of crisis mode, and want to return to highish consumption, rather than a manic focus on economic growth/recovery. Say a 60/40 split consumption vs investment. Recovery roughly 2% GDP per week. Thus, by the end of month 6, economy back to pre-EMP peak at roughly 90%.
Next 6 months: the next six months are getting that last 10% of GDP back: no one is in any particular crisis mode, so there is no particular rush to get that last 10% back, vs enjoying things, going to movies, paying out debts, going back to college, etcetera. In summary, the final little fixes are the hardest, and people are not particularly motivated to work particularly hard on them.
Thinking about the Ohio thought experiment, doing through orbits alone gets more difficult the more I think about it.
One, I think targeting mobile units requires a scouting/spotting unit and separate firing unit.
For example, if you have low orbit spotting satellite that feeds targeting information, then you can be up to 2,000 km back for line of sight concerns with strike missiles. Your satellite takes a picture of the target. Assuming instantaneous reconization, 2,000 km at 8 km/s is roughly 4 minutes warning. However, getting down from 500 km altitude in that 4 minutes requires an average speed down of 2 km/s. But, your increasing in that case overall speed, which means you have more heating from re-entry, requiring heavier missiles, and a 2 km/s downward is not a trivial amount of acceleration.
On the other hand, if the defenders have early warning and can spot the missile over the horizon, 4 minutes of moving form being aware of being spotted, even 10 km/h speed is 3 m/s, so 4 minutes of warning allows even at that speed allows one to move 750 meters.
If some radar/missiles are airborne, even something slow but endurant like a E-2 Hawkeye, about 500 km/h, is 130 m/s, so 4 minutes warning allows a divertion of roughly 32 km. Maybe only 10-20 km depending on turning limits. Now, the missiles can adjust, but that means a no-latency in the kill chain is even more important. If the initial targeting information is from a photo 4 minutes out from impact, with no live updating, and if the missiles guidance can really take over at, say only 100-200 km out, and the target is 1 km out from where they expected, if the missile is still going 8 km/s (which might not be the case), they're 25 seconds out, so to the side maneuvers take 40 m/s side movement. If 10 km off its 400 m/s. And hard manuvers generally will bleed off speed in an atmosphere too.
And this all takes as a given a sufficient accuracy is achieved. Modern ballistic missiles seem to be 100-200 m CEP. Excalibur with much more forgiving targeting still has about 4 meters. With counter fire, electronic warfare, and the much more complicated system than a ground based one, sufficient accuracy in a mass producible unit may be difficult.
One reason I guess I do tend to think loitering munitions might actually be more viable than high velocity munitions.
One, I think targeting mobile units requires a scouting/spotting unit and separate firing unit.
For example, if you have low orbit spotting satellite that feeds targeting information, then you can be up to 2,000 km back for line of sight concerns with strike missiles. Your satellite takes a picture of the target. Assuming instantaneous reconization, 2,000 km at 8 km/s is roughly 4 minutes warning. However, getting down from 500 km altitude in that 4 minutes requires an average speed down of 2 km/s. But, your increasing in that case overall speed, which means you have more heating from re-entry, requiring heavier missiles, and a 2 km/s downward is not a trivial amount of acceleration.
On the other hand, if the defenders have early warning and can spot the missile over the horizon, 4 minutes of moving form being aware of being spotted, even 10 km/h speed is 3 m/s, so 4 minutes of warning allows even at that speed allows one to move 750 meters.
If some radar/missiles are airborne, even something slow but endurant like a E-2 Hawkeye, about 500 km/h, is 130 m/s, so 4 minutes warning allows a divertion of roughly 32 km. Maybe only 10-20 km depending on turning limits. Now, the missiles can adjust, but that means a no-latency in the kill chain is even more important. If the initial targeting information is from a photo 4 minutes out from impact, with no live updating, and if the missiles guidance can really take over at, say only 100-200 km out, and the target is 1 km out from where they expected, if the missile is still going 8 km/s (which might not be the case), they're 25 seconds out, so to the side maneuvers take 40 m/s side movement. If 10 km off its 400 m/s. And hard manuvers generally will bleed off speed in an atmosphere too.
And this all takes as a given a sufficient accuracy is achieved. Modern ballistic missiles seem to be 100-200 m CEP. Excalibur with much more forgiving targeting still has about 4 meters. With counter fire, electronic warfare, and the much more complicated system than a ground based one, sufficient accuracy in a mass producible unit may be difficult.
One reason I guess I do tend to think loitering munitions might actually be more viable than high velocity munitions.