World War III

[Ed Oscuro]

On a side note, here is very interesting Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 until 1998, by Isao Hashimoto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY

ffffuuuuuck

Gabe Newell responded to that video.

My response:

At least we didn't test them over half of Eurasia...holy cow. It's like the Russians always wanted to be in driving distance of a site.

Plus the Soviet designs were probably a bit more radioactive than many of ours, possibly even the Plowshares-era devices.

But yeah...this is just insane. Especially maddening to see how it kept up right into the '90s here (probably a large proportion of these were reliability testing).

Anybody care to comment?

[BryanM]

Then you get all the newspaper reports about 15 kids this and 20 kids that, living in Mayfair size homes.

A system that encourages pooping out babies is pretty derpy. But reflects a biblical kind of view of the world: men should be cursed to labor, women to pooping out kids. Just like in Sega Genesis.

Hell, we live in a world where the idea that profit (double theft: once from the employee and again from the customer) is a-ok always, so it's a big ball of insane dissonance. Which I resolve with rampaging denial.

But at least I'm aware I'm in denial.

I don't know exactly what is the name of that specific area in western US where the bulk of those nukes were dropped during this time-lapse, but I doubt it can sustain life any more.

It's Nevada/New Mexico/Arizona.

Fortunately, they never supported much life there to begin with, being barren deserts and all.

Still managed to give out a substantial amount of cancer.

[R79]

The rot in many of these economically stagnant towns set in under the decade of Thatcherism. Now in some cases, there literally is no society. I'm alright Jack as long as the money keeps pumping through the home counties though eh? Broken policies create broken people. Doesn't apply of course if you went to Eton.
The way things are now, with people being laid off all over, you see a few of the Clarkson/Mail brigade suddenly having to sign on. They don't bray their boorish, small minded views so loud then

The institutionalised avarice of the Greek upper middle-class should be a stark warning to the UK. Jimmy Carr, Starbucks et al, perhaps the right-wing media would like to focus on them more, instead of going after the little people who never had much money or opportunities to start with?

We already had what looked like a prelude to a civil-war in central London the other year: how much further now does this hideous fiscal inequality have to stretch? I keep meeting people I went to school with in salaried posts, yet who still live at home... in their early 30s Where is the focus on the buy-to-let landlords, and the grotesque house price inflation of the estate agents? Why aren't partially state-owned banks lending? Is this really all the fault of some Polish daffodil picker, or a poorly educated single mum with low self-esteem? Remember, we're being run by some hybrid abortion of a Government right now, whose 'back-to-work' scheme was just found to be unlawful. We can chuckle at the demented ramblings of that insomnia guy on here, but what's not so funny is, guys like that are actually in power right now. Brot und arbeit, never forget how real evil cloaks itself.

[MJR]

The rot in many of these economically stagnant towns set in under the decade of Thatcherism. Now in some cases, there literally is no society. I'm alright Jack as long as the money keeps pumping through the home counties though eh? Broken policies create broken people. Doesn't apply of course if you went to Eton.
The way things are now, with people being laid off all over, you see a few of the Clarkson/Mail brigade suddenly having to sign on. They don't bray their boorish, small minded views so loud then

The institutionalised avarice of the Greek upper middle-class should be a stark warning to the UK. Jimmy Carr, Starbucks et al, perhaps the right-wing media would like to focus on them more, instead of going after the little people who never had much money or opportunities to start with?

We already had what looked like a prelude to a civil-war in central London the other year: how much further now does this hideous fiscal inequality have to stretch? I keep meeting people I went to school with in salaried posts, yet who still live at home... in their early 30s Where is the focus on the buy-to-let landlords, and the grotesque house price inflation of the estate agents? Why aren't partially state-owned banks lending? Is this really all the fault of some Polish daffodil picker, or a poorly educated single mum with low self-esteem? Remember, we're being run by some hybrid abortion of a Government right now, whose 'back-to-work' scheme was just found to be unlawful. We can chuckle at the demented ramblings of that insomnia guy on here, but what's not so funny is, guys like that are actually in power right now. Brot und arbeit, never forget how real evil cloaks itself.

This was probably first sensible post in this thread, thank you for that.

When I lived in turnpike lane, london, during mid-nineties, the misery of the homeless people blew me away. I saw old woman in her 80's begging in snowstorm, mother with a small baby, begging on a subway. Teenaged girl who's arm was broken by two well-groomed upper-class cunts who probably raped her as well (I saw them wooing her for a car ride, next day she was begging with her arm in plaster)

To think that people can walk past those and ignore them, while still wanting to tear down unemployment benefits, while ignoring the rich fucks who want to evade taxes was mindblowing. It gave me an impression that UK is not civilized country at all, more like pit full of small-minded and ignorant sheep who are too busy covering their own arses to care about others at all. I wasn't surprised at all when the riots happened, what surprised me was that it took so long.

Thankfully there are posters like R79, so I dont have to give up on humanity, at least not completely.

[ST Dragon]

On a side note, here is very interesting Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 until 1998, by Isao Hashimoto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY

ffffuuuuuck

Gabe Newell responded to that video.

Perhaps he could use all that info for Half Life 3!

My response:
At least we didn't test them over half of Eurasia...holy cow. It's like the Russians always wanted to be in driving distance of a site.

Yeah but Eurasia is more than 3 times larger and you also "tested" 2 of them on 2 populated cities in Japan (Not against military installations) and at the Polynesian islands in the Pacific and at the tip of Alaska.
But I see quite a few of them were also drooped just over the delta of Mississippi, very close to Florida and other major populated towns / cities in Arkansas/Mississipi/Alabama/Louisiana! So the Gulf of Mexico & the Mississippi River must not be very safe to eat fish from I guess.

Add to all that the recent disaster in Fukushima, fishing from the Pacific ocean, California or Alaska...

Plus the Soviet designs were probably a bit more radioactive than many of ours, possibly even the Plowshares-era devices.

Well not really. More radioactive or not, you still detonated almost more nukes than all the other nations put together, to compensate for the supposedly "smaller" blast yield!

All this is no excuse and nothing anybody should take lightly.

Ironically the UK tested quite a few of its nukes just off the shores of California and at the sites in Nevada/New Mexico/Arizona, but none in the British isles! "Oh well, we might as well test our nukes on the other side of the world, at those silly Americans instead, they won't mind, they have loads of space" Sneaky chaps they are!

Here is a graphic (but historically accurate) anime on the post tragic events after the blast in Hiroshima:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfJZ6nwxD38

[ST Dragon]

It's Nevada/New Mexico/Arizona.

Fortunately, they never supported much life there to begin with, being barren deserts and all.

Poor Gila monster!

Still managed to give out a substantial amount of cancer.

And what did the common people do about all that?!

[Jonathan Ingram]

To think that people can walk past those and ignore them, while still wanting to tear down unemployment benefits, while ignoring the rich fucks who want to evade taxes was mindblowing. It gave me an impression that UK is not civilized country at all, more like pit full of small-minded and ignorant sheep who are too busy covering their own arses to care about others at all. I wasn't surprised at all when the riots happened, what surprised me was that it took so long.

In all honesty, where else is different? The level of social inequality and injustice may vary from place to place, but the indifference with which the suffering of others is met is the same everywhere. Such are the virtues of the society with class divisions. UK is not exclusive in this regard.

That's a biggest crime here, a lot of this became more common under Labour, who are supposed to be champions of the working class - except the milking of working classes increased under them to pay for people who don't work.

In words only, but never in practice. The Labour Party is affiliated with Socialist International whose main purpose from its very onset in 1919 has been to preserve capitalism and class peace(what else can one expect from the organization that prides itself on being the heir to the failed Second International) by making small concessions to working people to prevent them from rioting. 'Wolves are fed and sheep are safe'. The economic crises rendered this fragile balance unsustainable and such policies impossible. As a result, there`s barely any difference between centre-right and centre-left("democratic socialist") parties anymore.

[MJR]

In all honesty, where else is different? The level of social inequality and injustice may vary from place to place, but the indifference with which the suffering of others is met is the same everywhere. Such are the virtues of the society with class divisions. UK is not exclusive in this regard.

Finland is still different, I checked quickly statistics and we do have around 8000 homeless out of population of 5.3 million or so, but none of them are sleeping rough. It may have something to do with winter temperatures that would probably kill them all dead if they did that, but still - I never had seen anything like it around here, so it was huge culture shock at the time. It simply baffled me.

We do now have romanians doing the begging, but it's bit different since they travel here to beg. Only finnish beggar I've ever seen is one slighly mentally ill woman who wanders around helsinki, she probably does it for hobby as she never looks particularly ravaged. Even at the end of the day she has a home to go to sleep to.

[Ed Oscuro]

Plus the Soviet designs were probably a bit more radioactive than many of ours, possibly even the Plowshares-era devices.

Well not really. More radioactive or not, you still detonated almost more nukes than all the other nations put together, to compensate for the supposedly "smaller" blast yield!

Well, yes really, unless you have evidence otherwise. And also it should be stressed that everybody's designs got "cleaner burning" after the first few decades. Not great, but you need to not read things into my post that aren't being said.

What's most problematic here are two factors: Radioactivity released (not necessarily directly tied to megatonnage; you can release a lot more radiation with a dirty design than a "clean" one) and area affected. As you saw, the Soviet tests covered half the continent, rather than being limited to certain areas, and that looks bad on the face of it. It would be bad to put a large amount of radiation into a small area, because people could move away from it, but if it would be fairly well contained this would be preferable to releasing a moderate amount over a wide area, if you want to talk about the harm to people.

I don't know percentages, but at least some tests were conducted underground, too, which further limits the potential for cross-contamination. I would not be surprised to find that many of the late U.S. tests were done in this way. It's also likely many of the later tests were relatively low megatonnage, relatively "clean" designs.

All this is no excuse and nothing anybody should take lightly.

Quite so, but please don't try to mischaracterize what I'm saying.

[system11]

To think that people can walk past those and ignore them, while still wanting to tear down unemployment benefits, while ignoring the rich fucks who want to evade taxes was mindblowing. It gave me an impression that UK is not civilized country at all, more like pit full of small-minded and ignorant sheep who are too busy covering their own arses to care about others at all. I wasn't surprised at all when the riots happened, what surprised me was that it took so long.

Lets try 'pit of people so heavily taxed that they can't afford to have yet more money taken from them and given away'. Why should people who actually went out to work to earn a living be bled for every drop that can be squeezed to support those who didn't? Why should people with jobs who can't afford to even leave their parents home be paying for the unemployed to have satellite TV and mobile phones? It's all very well crying that the 'rich' aren't paying enough, but actually the honest ones are already losing over half of what they earn to the government. A reform is needed in the way that corporations pay tax, but it needs to not lead to companies reducing jobs - having fewer people employed is far worse than having a corporation dodging tax.

Of course it's not just benefits that are the problem (to be honest it's the number of people claiming them acting as a multiplier), it's lots of other government spending which is just ridiculous - for example free IVF for childless couples, the amount of money spent creating our surveillance state, green power (like the solar panels scam) and so on.

As for the rioting, that's just an unfortunate mixture - a result of poor job prospects (the country is simply overcrowded and uncompetitive), a result of the culture of entitlement, a result of being taxed so heavily that you can't pay your own bills, a result of a police force which appears to work against the people rather than for them, and a result of people being brought up with no values by worthless parents. What you may not have seen was much of the looting was being done by people who had mobile phones (a luxury item), brand name clothes, jewellery, some people even turning up in cars so they could steal more. These are not the impoverished homeless you mentioned - they were probably keeping their heads down like the rest of us and twice as scared. More freeloading and mindless thuggery. Take what you can get, and as much of it as you can, as long as someone else is paying who cares, right?

[Skykid]

The system in the UK is so completely fucked it's beyond logical comprehension. It's always been famous for being ass backward, only now it's reached a point where it's completely out of hand.

[BryanM]

Frankly the people who think Pearl Harbor alone justifies Hiroshima scare the shit out of me.

Inside-out chest man...

where else is different?

According to GINI, Sweden.

And what did the common people do about all that?!

Took it like a prole.

In 1990 The Man passed a compensation act thingy. $50,000 if you lived around the place and have one of the diseases on a list. Around 10k people have been approved for it. Also many workers were covered by it and a supplemental law passed in 2000.

mobile phones (a luxury item)

...... it's 2013 dude.

[system11]

mobile phones (a luxury item)

...... it's 2013 dude.

It's a luxury item. They're way more expensive than a simple landline and unfortunately treated as a status symbol in the UK, especially in youth culture. It's the same as satellite/cable TV being a luxury item, cigarettes, and Nke trainers.

I go to the local post office frequently, and it's where people collect their benefits. It's quite an eye opener when you see young girls wheeling in 3 kids (complete with brand new pram), and they can't even speak good English as they yell into their iPhones, I'm not talking about immigrants here either. Then they get to the counter and collect all their benefits. One particularly obnoxious woman who I've seen several times collects them while parking her car across the cycle lane outside. She wears a fur coat and gold jewellery, face looks like it was slammed with a steam iron then covered in makeup with a spade.

It's just so depressing. These people are collecting my money, that I worked hard for. They're not people wondering where their next meal is coming from.

[BryanM]

- nevermind -

[ST Dragon]

Frankly the people who think Pearl Harbor alone justifies Hiroshima scare the shit out of me.

Inside-out chest man...

Something like that will probably spark a world wide conflict one day...

Took it like a prole.

That is tragic!

In 1990 The Man passed a compensation act thingy. $50,000 if you lived around the place and have one of the diseases on a list. Around 10k people have been approved for it. Also many workers were covered by it and a supplemental law passed in 2000.

Oh, so first we nuke & contaminate you and then if your disease is severe enough from some list we issued in a law, we'll give you some crumbs as compensation and we call it even!
Oh...ok!

Hypocrisy!

[ST Dragon]

So the US economy is on the verge of collapse?!
Total Chaos & War might not be that far away...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkAn3VIe1yQ

[neorichieb1971]

The USA has been preparing for war for 60 years military wise. Now they have the right amount of hate garnered around the world that they might have to use it. Its a shame that the most powerful country in the world throws money around like confetti, gets in debt beyond comprehension (in less than 12 years), has nothing to show for it. Which means corruption. Anytime you hear money has been spent and have nothing to show for it, its incompetence or corruption.

That F22 raptor shit is scary. Did anyone else see the youtube where it took down (in test) 8 F15's without return fire?

[O. Van Bruce]

I wonder if I'll live to see a western country's government doing a civil war against their citizens.

Underhanded propaganda and brainwashing? ok... military operations against civilians? that's impossible.

[DEL]

O Van Bruce wrote;

I wonder if I'll live to see a western country's government doing a civil war against their citizens.

Underhanded propaganda and brainwashing? ok... military operations against civilians? that's impossible.

Underhanded propaganda and brainwashing -> Yeah sure, agreed
military operations against civilians? that's impossible -> They've done that many times over already.

---------------------------------
In other news, they are into pure theft from the Public's bank accounts at the moment ->The Cyprus Levy.
10% of the Russians' black money in the Cypriate banks is about to be taken.
It'll float the country, as there's at least 50 billion in black Russian money there, but it sets a dangerous precedent.

[ST Dragon]

O Van Bruce wrote;

I wonder if I'll live to see a western country's government doing a civil war against their citizens.

Underhanded propaganda and brainwashing? ok... military operations against civilians? that's impossible.

Underhanded propaganda and brainwashing -> Yeah sure.
military operations against civilians? that's impossible -> They've done that many times over already.

---------------------------------
In other news, they are into pure theft from the Public's bank accounts at the moment ->The Cyprus Levy.
10% of the Russians' black money in the Cypriate banks is about to be taken.
It'll float the country, as there's at least 50 billion in black Russian money there, but it sets a dangerous precedent.

First the turksih occupation and destruction of 1974 and now this! Poor Cyprus, the 2nd Greek State is not allowed to have peace!

[ST Dragon]

That F22 raptor shit is scary. Did anyone else see the youtube where it took down (in test) 8 F15's without return fire?

No. Care to post the link?
Thanks.

[DEL]

ST Dragon wrote;

First the turksih occupation and destruction of 1974 and now this!

True, that aggression split the Country in half.

Poor Cyprus, the 2nd Greek State is not allowed to have peace!

Well....like I said, I don't agree with the EU arbitrarily announcing that its gonna steal 10% of the Public's money in their private bank accounts, but in this case I know why they are doing it. There are thousands of Russians living in Cyprus now and they have brought their 'appropriated' money to the Cypriate banks. This theft by the EU will actually be good for the indigenous Greek Cypriates. It'll refloat their economy.
The Russians won't be happy and like I said, it sets a dangerous precedent. It could now be dropped on the Public's private bank accounts in other ca$h-strapped Countries....

[ST Dragon]

---------------------------------
In other news, they are into pure theft from the Public's bank accounts at the moment ->The Cyprus Levy.
10% of the Russians' black money in the Cypriate banks is about to be taken.
It'll float the country, as there's at least 50 billion in black Russian money there, but it sets a dangerous precedent.

Please post the link you read this from.

This theft by the EU will actually be good for the indigenous Greek Cypriates. It'll refloat their economy.

How would that benefit the common Greek Cypriot citizens?
It sounds more like recipe for trouble to me.
The Russian Mafia and their pawns Putin & Medvedev wont take this very lightly and they'll react for sure!

And it's not just the Russian's money they're after, don't forget the natural gas & oil discovered in Cyprus recently:

Here is a spot that was cut from Cyprus TV just before the recent elections:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... MnPdfOZy6Y

military operations against civilians? that's impossible -> They've done that many times over already.

In what occasions?

[O. Van Bruce]

O Van Bruce wrote;

I wonder if I'll live to see a western country's government doing a civil war against their citizens.

Underhanded propaganda and brainwashing? ok... military operations against civilians? that's impossible.

Underhanded propaganda and brainwashing -> Yeah sure.
military operations against civilians? that's impossible -> They've done that many times over already.

They'll not do that in this time and age.

First the turksih occupation and destruction of 1974 and now this! Poor Cyprus, the 2nd Greek State is not allowed to have peace!

ST Dragon wrote;

First the turksih occupation and destruction of 1974 and now this!

True, that aggression split the Country in half.

It's obvious that happened because both comunities couldn't live peacefully side by side. When the greek distatorship intervened to ensure the greek part of the population would get the upper hand the turkish government had to do the same to prevent an etnical cleansing or at least an apartheid.


All the nationalistic tragedy of Cyprus comes from the colonial times in which the british did a "divide and rule" strategy toward the turkish and greek comunities. Also, you like it or not, there is a strong turkish presence Cyprus so it should be respected...

[ST Dragon]

It's obvious that happened because both comunities couldn't live peacefully side by side. When the greek distatorship intervened to ensure the greek part of the population would get the upper hand the turkish government had to do the same to prevent an etnical cleansing or at least an apartheid.

All the nationalistic tragedy of Cyprus comes from the colonial times in which the british did a "divide and rule" strategy toward the turkish and greek comunities. Also, you like it or not, there is a strong turkish presence Cyprus so it should be respected...

No, the majority of the Cypriots had decided (even from the time of the British colonial era) to unite with mother-land Greece, (Same as Crete decades earlier) and were constantly rebelling, but of course the west and the turks did not see this with a favorable eye.

That whole tragedy was orchestrated by that zionist scum, henry kissinger, the US government & the British (who wanted to retain their bases on the island and still do), so with the cooperation of Greek traitor scums like karamanlis, they decided to hand over the island to the turks and in return put him in office as prime-minister of Greece. The 1st Greek dictatorship that over-threw the politician slime-balls of the time, prevented this for a short time but the 2nd lead by Ioanidis (who was more "co-operative") intervened in Cyprus, giving the excuse to the turks to invade and even commanded the Greek forces to stand down and not fight as the turks butchered the Greek Cypriot civilians (Just like the atrocities & genocides they committed against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, etc... in the past). It was a horrible crime & act of treachery committed against Cyprus & Greece.

And either you like or not, the "indigenous" turkish Cypriot presence on the island was minimum back then! It was not only until after the tragic events of 1974 that the turkish occupational army begun migrating turkish civilians settlers on Cyprus from the furthest reaches of Anatolia and stationing them in the stolen homes of the Greek Cypriots on the occupied northern part, making them today an artificial "majority" in order to justify and enforce their presence on the island.

[rapoon]

Frankly the people who think Pearl Harbor alone justifies Hiroshima scare the shit out of me.

Inside-out chest man...

the high altitude B-29 carpet bombing on dozens of cities was horrific enough.
then comes the incendiary bombing of tokyo, the most densely populated city in the world at the time.
.... and then come the atomic bombs....
Lemay was a fucking psychopath and Macnamara, a man notorious for not answering a question straight admitted that
had the war been lost he and Lemay would have been convicted as war criminals. He claimed in one particular
night that 100k civilians were killed as a result bombing.

[rapoon]

That F22 raptor shit is scary. Did anyone else see the youtube where it took down (in test) 8 F15's without return fire?

looked for the vid but couldn't find it. can you post a link? a little FYI, the F22 is no longer manufactured.
not many out there and they're insanely expensive to maintain. They've been replaced by the F-35 (variants)
which are technologically advanced in some regards but far, far less maneuverable (lack the full vector thrusts)

[BryanM]

The F-22's greatest weapon is its radar system; it will kill you a number of miles before you're able to even see it.

In practical terms, it killed more of our pilots than it did enemy combatants. Literally. It has been used in combat; but not because it was the best tool for the job. It was used on bombing missions. A fighter. Bombing. It's like using your favorite sword during a duel 'cause it has awesome eight foot wings built into the hilt. Oooo I'm a badass.

The F-35 is not going to be able to do much better.

Eventually the manned aerial vechicle will be a vestigial relic of the past. A machine without life support and empty space for the pilot is cheaper and can move in ways that would kill a man.

Still, this isn't the most wasteful program our government has embarked upon. The Space Shuttle is an abomination of a failure. It's a space pegasus people. And it has wings, does that make any fucking sense to you? Also: a death trap with no escape failsafe.

A lot of people feel like if we had stayed with working on ships instead of shuttles, we might have had that manned mission to Mars already if we felt like it.

The manned mission to Venus is still on hiatus until they can figure something out with the climate controls.

[Ed Oscuro]

I agree with you about the fighter jet, except that it's not even the radar, but the weapons the radar will fire. One thing about having manned planes, though - they tend not to get shut off and glide nicely to a stop for the bad guys. I don't agree about the Shuttle. The shuttle filled an important role at the time: A reusable merchant vessel for reequipping and servicing space missions. It was good enough that the Russians ripped it right off and built their own, suspecting that it had a secret second mission as an orbital bomber.

Was the shuttle, and does the ISS continue to be, a drain on budgets that could / should go towards unmanned missions, like satellites? I don't know, but it was pretty convenient to have a machine that could fly up to the Hubble and fix it.

The Shuttle design once had ejection seats, but if memory serves it was just for the pilot and copilot and for some reason or other it was decided not worthwhile. Despite a couple dramatic failures, the Shuttle had a reasonably good safety record given the time period it was designed and fielded in. The wings - well, I guess you could always crash land like the Russian capsules. Despite the relatively long (in years) service life of the shuttles, though, there hasn't been any indication the airframes were stressed. Still, the wingless Soyuz capsules have been landing for almost a decade longer than the Shuttle with no more accidents (and fewer casualties due to the smaller crews).

Can't wait for that space elevator, but for the moment we're back to rockets.

I agree that the future seems to belong to robotic, unmanned missions, for the most part. They still tend to fuck up, though, and with the wrong design that can be disastrous. You still need a person watching over, and if you can just take over a robotic mission by jamming its control, that's not very useful.

I know everybody touts the long flight endurance of unmanned planes for fighter-bombers, but load them down with bombs and missiles and they will need nearly as much fuel as a regular fighter jet carrying all the human-focused equipment - and they'll be out of ordnance in about the same amount of time (assuming we make them big enough to carry the same amount of weaponry). I would hate to see the lag playing with the guns over a wireless connection like their operators use, too.

[BryanM]

I, for one, look forward to a future that's like the table game OGRE.

I don't agree about the Shuttle. The shuttle filled an important role at the time: A reusable merchant vessel for reequipping and servicing space missions.

It's... not really reusable; the goal was impossible. It cost more than the rockets to use.

Some smexy wiki theft:

(and fewer casualties due to the smaller crews).

They've had a much, much better track record the past four decades, managing to murder no one. Certainly some serious shit that could have killed someone happened; but their ships haven't been disintegrating in the freakin' air any time lately.

Nothing really says "failure" like spontaneous combustion.

If we had done all this, we would be on Mars today, not writing about it as a subject for “the next 50 years.” We would have decades of experience operating long-duration space systems in Earth orbit, and similar decades of experience in exploring and learning to utilize the Moon.

The F-22 is better than it, in the sense we didn't scrap our entire fleet of other stuff that's already working. And there is an actual feasible scenario that might happen where it'd be helpful to have around. (Some crazy developed nation out there loses its mind and decides to stop being a developed country any more.)