Post by thread:[OT] Interesting jobs:: Tsar Bomba observer

[moved to [OT]] On Feb 8, 2008, at 4:58 PM, John Gardner wrote: > the untold story > of the Cold War is just how expensive nuclear weapons are. > For openers, the first four cost in excess of $2 billion, in 1945 > USD. 40 years on, something like 30,000 of the things had been > produced, for an expenditure that can only be guessed at - Let > it be said that a careful examination of US economic statistics > over the period reveal an economic black hole Really? Wasn't the duration of "The Cold War" pretty much concurrent with the period of the largest economic, technological, and scientific growth anywhere, ever? Probably social and philosophical too; there's nothing quite like a contrasting opinion... It seems to me that cold wars are significantly better than warm or hot wars, for instance, and the current rate of US expenditure in the middle east, JUST on the war itself, makes weapons programs look like mere drops in a bucket... BillW

> Really? Wasn't the duration of "The Cold War" pretty much concurrent > with the period of the largest economic, technological, and > scientific growth anywhere, ever? Probably social and philosophical > too; there's nothing quite like a contrasting opinion... It seems > to me that cold wars are significantly better than warm or hot wars, I was thinking the same, and the US economy was booming as well, though I'm not sure there's a causal relationship there, much less which direction it runs in.

> Really? Wasn't the duration of "The Cold War" pretty much > concurrent > with the period of the largest economic, technological, > and > scientific growth anywhere, ever? Probably social and > philosophical > too; there's nothing quite like a contrasting opinion... Maybe the second greatest. The period of greatest scientific and technological growth ever is, ... drum roll ... ta da ... The nineteenth century - maybe extend that up until say 1930. Obviously arguable. But (as I believe I've noted here before) in there you have atom splitting modern electricity, wireless, IC engine, automobile, flight, discovery of most of and all the undiscovered elements, splitting the atom, quantum mechanics, LASER predicted (Einstein about ? 1905?), Einstein!, plastics, ... . Even the war to end all wars! The personally richest person to have ever lived so far (WG eat your heart out?) in terms of their day lived then (if we ignore people like eg GK or AtG or the Caesars who essentially personally 'owned' empires. Quite a period in manunkind's development. Vaguely related question: Napoleon's dinnerset for his top guests was made of gold. His personal dinnerset was made of a metal more precious. Not anything like Platinum, Silver, Rhodium, Palladium etc. Something that nowadays would be a non starter. What was it made of? Russell.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Fri, Feb 08, 2008 at 06:03:46PM -0800, William Chops Westfield wrote: {Quote hidden}> [moved to [OT]] > > On Feb 8, 2008, at 4:58 PM, John Gardner wrote: > > > the untold story > > of the Cold War is just how expensive nuclear weapons are. > > For openers, the first four cost in excess of $2 billion, in 1945 > > USD. 40 years on, something like 30,000 of the things had been > > produced, for an expenditure that can only be guessed at - Let > > it be said that a careful examination of US economic statistics > > over the period reveal an economic black hole > > Really? Wasn't the duration of "The Cold War" pretty much concurrent > with the period of the largest economic, technological, and > scientific growth anywhere, ever? Probably social and philosophical > too; there's nothing quite like a contrasting opinion... It seems > to me that cold wars are significantly better than warm or hot wars, > for instance, and the current rate of US expenditure in the middle > east, JUST on the war itself, makes weapons programs look like mere > drops in a bucket... Hmm... I dunno, I've been looking into the effects of war on the economy for a class, and for instance found that the dow jones average stayed completely flat between 1965 and 1985. That said, that's the only chart I've seen from that period yet, still gotta make up one for the US GDP as well as find data for other indexes. Besides, what's good for scientific and technological growth might not be good for the economy. - -- http://petertodd.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHrSyu3bMhDbI9xWQRApn8AJ0Q/Fy2+A7EAIPs+m0WpsHVDe5uCQCfXDoS QdGP2wq034sWxc8k6FCcjaY= =GRyE -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 05:02:46PM +1300, Apptech wrote: > Vaguely related question: Napoleon's dinnerset for his > top guests was made of gold. His personal dinnerset was made > of a metal more precious. Not anything like Platinum, > Silver, Rhodium, Palladium etc. Something that nowadays > would be a non starter. What was it made of? Aluminum? - -- http://petertodd.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHrTgV3bMhDbI9xWQRAvtTAJ4pa3p3xP9L5ILz4nJB6okhazzvKQCfSok1 Mbe/Kw5mTPotoDKKXipluJ4= =PMq5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

> When do you consider the "cold war" period to have > started? I > would has said MUCH earlier than 1965, and the period from > 1950 > to 1965 had similar growth in DJIA compared to 1985-2000 > > Besides, isn't 1965 to 1985 when most of the interesting > things > happened in electronics and computers? Not so much the > fruits > of Moore's law, but all the stuff that made it possible... The Cold War, at the latest, started immediately after WW2 and it had it's roots solidly in the WW2 era. A reading of any of the WW2 personal accounts of the Western leaders (Churchill being as good a place to start as any) makes this clear enough. IMHOFWIW, Moore's law has no fruits - it's just an empirical comment on the way that fruit trees appear to grow. Russell

On Feb 8, 2008, at 11:36 PM, Apptech wrote: >> Besides, isn't 1965 to 1985 when most of the interesting things >> happened in electronics and computers? Not so much the fruits of >> Moore's law, but all the stuff that made it possible... > > IMHOFWIW, Moore's law has no fruits - it's just an empirical > comment on the way that fruit trees appear to grow. What I meant was that I thought the advances in electronics and computer science from 1965 to 1985 were more qualitatively significant than the advances since 1985, which have more along the lines of following the geometry curve to "cheaper, faster, and more powerful." Now, I'm not all that sure of that opinion; it seems to me that if you look closely at the enabling technology that allowed Moore's law to proceed, there's quite a lot of "real developments" that did in fact occur. Perhaps the advances that allow a gigaflop computer to be purchased by Joe Consumer at Sears ARE as qualitatively important as the ones that allowed Cray to build a Gigaflop computer only governments and very large corporations could afford. BillW

>> Vaguely related question: Napoleon's dinnerset for his >> top guests was made of gold. His personal dinnerset was >> made >> of a metal more precious. Not anything like Platinum, >> Silver, Rhodium, Palladium etc. Something that nowadays >> would be a non starter. What was it made of? > Aluminum? Yes. Very rare and valuable stuff. Nice finish. Reasonably corrosion resistant with exceptions. Exceedingly hard to extract. Even now it's a specialist art - because it's a large and industrial one we don't see how much magic there is in getting it right. Russell

Read somewhere once that the apex of the Washington Monument was originally a pyramid of Aluminum. Jack On 2/9/08, Apptech <.....apptechKILLspam@spam@paradise.net.nz> wrote: {Quote hidden}> >> Vaguely related question: Napoleon's dinnerset for his > >> top guests was made of gold. His personal dinnerset was > >> made > >> of a metal more precious. Not anything like Platinum, > >> Silver, Rhodium, Palladium etc. Something that nowadays > >> would be a non starter. What was it made of? > > > Aluminum? > > Yes. > Very rare and valuable stuff. > Nice finish. > Reasonably corrosion resistant with exceptions. > Exceedingly hard to extract. > Even now it's a specialist art - because it's a large and > industrial one we don't see how much magic there is in > getting it right. > > > > Russell > > -

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Fri, Feb 08, 2008 at 11:10:58PM -0800, William Chops Westfield wrote: > > On Feb 8, 2008, at 8:31 PM, Peter Todd wrote: > > > between 1965 and 1985 > > When do you consider the "cold war" period to have started? I > would has said MUCH earlier than 1965, and the period from 1950 > to 1965 had similar growth in DJIA compared to 1985-2000 You are right, but the cold war did extend into the mid eighties, and I suspect what happened is initially the cold war was *relatively* friendly, enough to still allow growth of the conomy, but as time went on pressues such as the oil shocks and stagflation dragged things down. Notice how the first big oil shock, in 1973, was triggered over the Yom Kippur War, and the second, 1979, over the Iranian Revolution. Too much turmoil, not enough stability. Vietnam too would have dragged the economy down, sure you've got a lot of defence-related spending, but "broken windows" still applied and you had a heck of a lot of young men being employed in something that just isn't very productive. Vietnam ended in 1975, right in the middle of the flat period I'm talking about. > Besides, isn't 1965 to 1985 when most of the interesting things > happened in electronics and computers? Not so much the fruits > of Moore's law, but all the stuff that made it possible... Quite likely it... The computer industry was still a very small part of the economy then, and a part that probably didn't have much effect on the DJIA. - -- http://petertodd.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHrbNJ3bMhDbI9xWQRAnVlAKCZPnkqZsxlGM2ku1iv+oIoh/GSDgCfewSX yEuOSdX52rny7xMTvmf6zJo= =KxwD -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

> You are right, but the cold war did extend into the mid > eighties, and I > suspect what happened is initially the cold war was > *relatively* > friendly, enough to still allow growth of the conomy, Can't comment usefully on effects on economy, but the cold war was bitterly serious from day one, or before. Gaggle "The Gehlen memoirs" for a picture of the secret war continued from the very very very end of WW2 as if things had never ceased. Given that during WW2 Gehlen was head of "Foreign Armies East" whose job it was to 'spy' on the Russians for Hitler, and that with a pause of only months (while he and his top people hid in alpine woorlands while things settled down and he was then taken to the US and then returned to Germany), he continued to do the identical job for 11 years after the war as head of a "private research organisation" paid for by the US government and then "his organisation" was transformed into the Bundesnachrichtendienst aka West German Federal Intelligence Service (on 1st April 1956) and he continued in Fereral employ until retiremnt in April 1968. ie the cold war was war with fury but hidden weapons from day one. Book has a photo of an East German "cyanide gun" used to kill specific targets surrepitiously. FWIW Gehlen says, and you may find like I that his claims all have a reasonable ring of plausibility, that in WW2 his organisation predicted EVERY Russian attack in advance throughout the war, accurate to position and magnitude but sometimes unable to be specific to better than +/- a few days. What Hitler DID with his information can be read from the history books. Also, FWIW he claims that he predicted the exact date of the start of the Israeli 6 day war and told a West German delegation about a week in advance - at that stage the Israeli cabinet had not made their decision whether to go ahead or on what date. The Gehlen Memoirs Reinhard Gehlen Translated by David Irving (hmmmm) Collins St James Place, London 1972 ISBN 0 00 211203 0 Russell

Russell - > The Gehlen Memoirs > Reinhard Gehlen > Translated by David Irving (hmmmm) Hmm indeed. If you'd asked me yesterday if I was acquainted with Irving's work I'd've remembered reading "Hitler's War" in 1977. Consulting his bibliography ( Wikipedia ) I was surprised to find I'd read nearly all of his works prior to 1977, remembered the books but forgotten who wrote them. The Gehlen memoirs in particular ... John Keegan's view of Irving, as stated by Irving's wiki page, is particularly interesting - Irving being what he is I have the urge to authenticate the wiki's purported Keegan quotes. Thanks for bringing it up. Jack

On Feb 9, 2008, at 6:06 AM, Peter Todd wrote: > [I suspect] initially the cold war was *relatively* friendly You're kidding!? If you divide the cold war into 1945-1965 (djia 10x growth) and 1965-1985 (djia "flat"), then the first half includes most of the major nuclear weapons initial invention ("Limited Test Ban Treaty" in 1963 stopped atmospheric testing), The US "McCarthy era", the Cuban Missile Crisis, fallout shelters, school drills for nuclear attack, and in general a feeling that REAL war could erupt at any moment. The second half was comparatively mild in attitude, perhaps post-MAD; nuclear war became "unthinkable" rather than "expected at any moment and we're going to WIN." BillW

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 12:04:06PM -0800, William Chops Westfield wrote: {Quote hidden}> > On Feb 9, 2008, at 6:06 AM, Peter Todd wrote: > > > [I suspect] initially the cold war was *relatively* friendly > > You're kidding!? If you divide the cold war into 1945-1965 (djia 10x > growth) and 1965-1985 (djia "flat"), then the first half includes > most of the major nuclear weapons initial invention ("Limited Test > Ban Treaty" in 1963 stopped atmospheric testing), The US "McCarthy > era", the Cuban Missile Crisis, fallout shelters, school drills for > nuclear attack, and in general a feeling that REAL war could erupt > at any moment. The second half was comparatively mild in attitude, > perhaps post-MAD; nuclear war became "unthinkable" rather than > "expected at any moment and we're going to WIN." Perhaps I am showing my age, or lack of it. :) Maybe one should ask what the real effect the early cold war had on business planning. I mean, if real war did break out, it would have looked like a complete doomsday scenario, so why discount things based on that? Oil prices were low and as others have mentioned there was tremendous scientific progress. (although, note that the first man on the moon was 4 years after growth stopped) http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1947.gif Meanwhile in the more recent Iraq war the economy lost tremendous amounts of value, likely recognizing the very real effects of an actual war that would actually cause oil prices to skyrocket. (amoung other negatives) - -- http://petertodd.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHrg0f3bMhDbI9xWQRAtm5AKCNPY3Fp2tTdiQEA0sJmtQrPBbrHwCfc8L4 H0ltR5RwwpzTnNWzYms8Log= =7YI6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Feb 9, 2008, at 1:29 PM, Peter Todd wrote: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 12:04:06PM -0800, William Chops Westfield wrote: {Quote hidden}> > On Feb 9, 2008, at 6:06 AM, Peter Todd wrote: > >> [I suspect] initially the cold war was *relatively* friendly > > You're kidding!? If you divide the cold war into 1945-1965 (djia 10x > growth) and 1965-1985 (djia "flat"), then the first half includes > most of the major nuclear weapons initial invention ("Limited Test > Ban Treaty" in 1963 stopped atmospheric testing), The US "McCarthy > era", the Cuban Missile Crisis, fallout shelters, school drills for > nuclear attack, and in general a feeling that REAL war could erupt > at any moment. The second half was comparatively mild in attitude, > perhaps post-MAD; nuclear war became "unthinkable" rather than > "expected at any moment and we're going to WIN." I remember the "duck and cover" drills in school where we went into fetal position , hiding under our tiny desks and waited to die. I was terrified and repeatedly thought any flash through the window was a nuke going off. Cedric

William "Chops" Westfield wrote: > Really? Wasn't the duration of "The Cold War" pretty much concurrent > with the period of the largest economic, technological, and scientific > growth anywhere, ever? Without going into much detail, I think "anywhere, ever" is a pretty strong statement. How much do you know about economic development in China 2000 years ago? Probably not much more than I do :) Besides, how measure each of the three (economic, technological, and scientific growth), in a form that can be compared with everywhere else, at all times? And once (if) you find those indicators -- do they really indicate growth, or do we just "cook the books" and use numbers that rise because we're so hooked on "growth"? Gerhard

On Feb 9, 2008, at 12:29 PM, Peter Todd wrote: > in the more recent Iraq war the economy lost tremendous amounts of > value Did it? djia 2000 (peak, pre-bubble-pop): 11600 djia now: 12182 I'm not saying that wars are good things, but if you're going to make blanket statements like "statistics over the period of the cold war reveal an economic black hole", you've got to be a lot more careful than people have been so far to define exactly what they mean. I recall a quote from somewhere that said something like "capitalism has two stable states: warfare and welfare." (an equally provocative statement...) BillW

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 02:39:06PM -0800, William Chops Westfield wrote: {Quote hidden}> > On Feb 9, 2008, at 12:29 PM, Peter Todd wrote: > > > in the more recent Iraq war the economy lost tremendous amounts of > > value > > Did it? djia 2000 (peak, pre-bubble-pop): 11600 djia now: 12182 > > I'm not saying that wars are good things, but if you're going to make > blanket statements like "statistics over the period of the cold war > reveal an economic black hole", you've got to be a lot more careful > than people have been so far to define exactly what they mean. You're right, but there's this big "hole" in the lead up to the iraq war, thing grow a bit after, then stabilize, and take ages to start growing again. 11600->12182 is only %5 growth, over 8 years, a very very small amount. The djia *did* go from 7859 to 10627 over the year following the outbreak of the war, on the other hand, the same amount was lost leading to the war. Given that stock prices, in theory, should represent expected returns I'd interpret that as the markets interpreting a lot of risk leading up to the war, the war itself not going all that badly at first, (with an expectation of oil prices, trade-deficit, etc. returning to normal eventually) and then reality sinks in. It's funny too, on the djia you'd be hard-pressed to figure out where the internet bubble is exactly. Not so true on NASDAQ though... :) > I recall a quote from somewhere that said something like "capitalism > has two stable states: warfare and welfare." (an equally provocative > statement...) Yup, I started looking into that stuff after having Naomi Klein's Disaster Capitalism as part of my assigned reading in a class. Pretty much that sort of sentiment. I can't say I agree with it though, at least for the market as a whole, now war-profiteering on the other hand... well, Haliburton stock's been doing just great. :) (er, that's a joke, there's a lot I don't know there, like why it tanked a few months after Sept 11) - -- http://petertodd.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHri8N3bMhDbI9xWQRAnFNAJ9nGlokR9rTxDb/o4uRSP+MVGUOqgCeP0UV 33hovwvteyxRXB5YQiHB7es= =erwf -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 07:52:01PM -0200, Gerhard Fiedler wrote: {Quote hidden}> William "Chops" Westfield wrote: > > > Really? Wasn't the duration of "The Cold War" pretty much concurrent > > with the period of the largest economic, technological, and scientific > > growth anywhere, ever? > > Without going into much detail, I think "anywhere, ever" is a pretty strong > statement. How much do you know about economic development in China 2000 > years ago? Probably not much more than I do :) > > Besides, how measure each of the three (economic, technological, and > scientific growth), in a form that can be compared with everywhere else, at > all times? And once (if) you find those indicators -- do they really > indicate growth, or do we just "cook the books" and use numbers that rise > because we're so hooked on "growth"? Not to mention the really tricky game of to what extent are the economic indicators measuring current conditions or expected conditions? If a risky event is on the horizon the indicators, like the mentioned dow jones average, should go *down* to account for the increased risk even though present conditions haven't changed a bit. Similarly technological growth might not help a bit if the impact of those advances aren't generally known yet, or haven't solidified. At least the nice thing about market based indicators is that they will take into account perceived risk of governments and corporations cooking the books. 'Can't say I've actually looked into it, but I bet you could find examples of that in various communist countries around the world with the markets discounting for corruption. But, that's only percieved risk, not actual... Enron was only "discounted" once the scandal came to light, and then whole sections of the economy got "discounted" - -- http://petertodd.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHrjC83bMhDbI9xWQRAoANAJ4tyKu758dDZOQyQa52cvn1bvbd/ACeMyDd HDeY2xj7WUVZY4S9XGSCZ4s= =Ysh8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Peter Todd wrote: > At least the nice thing about market based indicators is that they will > take into account perceived risk of governments and corporations cooking > the books. Not if most of the players are "hooked" on the same "cooked" indicators. Note that the "market" as used here (I supposed) is not about the actual economic conditions, it's about money. Which is, again, not the real thing but only an indicator (for what doesn't seem to be so clear). Gerhard