Okay I figured out how to denuclearize the world. The billionaires can take their rockets and start a self sufficient break-away colony on the far side of the moon and take a bunch of nukes with them. The location will be secret and not easily observable and maybe underground to be totally resistant to any attack. Then they can hold the world hostage threatening to start nuking major cities of any nation that does not give up it's nukes immediately. Since there is no more MAD, nations will have to comply. Then hopefully they will give up theirs...
Put aside the hereditary wealthy, whom I don't think you're thinking of, either. The existence of billionaires is an artifact of inefficient legal and economic systems, and the set of people who would work hard at whatever example you're thinking of for $billions but not for lesser, but still extreme, wealth is null.
Money serves two purposes, rewarding people and putting control of resources in the hands of people and institutions most able to invest them wisely. Billionaires are not necessary for the first but they are for the second.
If you think that a billion-dollar company can exist, then combining what we know about the inefficiency of committees with that fact we arrive at the conclusion that perhaps some people can reasonably be given control of billions as well.
Billionaires spend a small fraction of their money on superyachts and keep most of it invested which is the system working if you believe in it.
While I think you’re correct that money can serve those two purposes, I don’t think that it in fact does so universally or exclusively, or even necessarily intentionally.
I don’t know if you’ve spotted this - but money serves a couple of other purposes too.
Some people use money to destroy or buy out their competitors. Some people use money to bribe or corrupt politicians and by extension to corrupt the entire democratic process. Some people use money to influence the media. And in these and many other ways, money can be used to make even more money in a runaway cycle without there being an efficient allocation of resources.
On an abstract level, money can buy politicians, but politicians can redistribute money to buy votes (and maybe save a cut for themselves). I have always wondered why one of those happens but the other does not.
Wait, what? Is there a typo or a missing word there? Both of those happen quite a lot. Bribery, political donations, Lobbying (in its worst forms), campaigning (in its worst forms), and pork barrelling all happen over and over.
There are also a lot of harder-to-prove forms of political corruption, such as when a politician uses their power to benefit a company or industry, and then after retiring from politics they are given lucrative work with those same companies or in that industry. (And many many variations on this theme.)
What percent of the general public would be interested in ransacking corporations? and by this we mean taking money specifically,
not just damaging their reputations, nor necessarily locking them up for their crimes.
Generally the law makers have made laws against Free agents (ie competitors) from colluding.
> Billionaires spend a small fraction of their money on superyachts and keep most of it invested which is the system working if you believe in it.
But in the event of a major war, and if it goes nuclear, biological or chemical, the billionaires can hole up on their yachts and ride it out in the relative safety of the middle of the ocean, just like the film Waterworld but less apocalyptic, so was the system working or is this why sanctions have been imposed? Its not like any of these billionaires can just take off now is it?
what you are describing is an interplanetary MAD, kind of Expanse style. We're definitely coming to it. Moon and Mars colonies will have nuclear reactors and Mars ships will be nuclear. The weaponization will happen the first moment some threat happens, which is a given.
>totally resistant to any attack
it isn't possible for any non-minor period of time as the other side would go exponential in their effort to change that.
Yes but I was thinking of one group can get the early "highground" they can shoot down any others attempting to start another colony or probe their location, then permanently maintain order "down there".
Not committing to immediate retaliation is not at all the same thing as "predictably not going to retaliate".
That is, the complement of "committing not to" is not "committing to" but "not committing not to"; the two nots do not cancel and leave the issue of retaliation open. Those intent on a first strike then have to gamble.
Well, the president’s order has to be confirmed by two people before passing it to the next chain, right? I guess those two people are responsible for determining if the order is valid, which would include deciding if the president was of sound mind?
Perhaps grandparent meant that some level of sanity check is implied; and that these people would e.g. ignore a drunken order to fire a nuke at a non working McDonalds ice cream machine.
This is exactly the question Hering posed, and he was basically told no, you're not allowed to question the order, if it comes down you have to execute it.
In practice one can question any order. The real question is whether you can make your disagreement stick. And that often comes down to circumstances and personal power and connections.
That seems like the right answer given that there's going to be a chain of command at all. Hering should be allowed to question whether his direct superiors are sane and optionally disobey an order if he determines they are impaired. The responsibility for questioning the president's sanity lies further up the chain.
Conspiracy theory: he was discharged in order to mask the fact that the president does not in fact have the power to launch on his own.
My reasoning: the top level military are career professionals who would not trust or give such power to a politician who got the position by winning a popularity contest.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 107 ms ] threadIt was dry, but the funny bit, I think, is that Terran civilization can somehow get along without its billionaires.
Put aside the hereditary wealthy, whom I don't think you're thinking of, either. The existence of billionaires is an artifact of inefficient legal and economic systems, and the set of people who would work hard at whatever example you're thinking of for $billions but not for lesser, but still extreme, wealth is null.
Discuss.
If you think that a billion-dollar company can exist, then combining what we know about the inefficiency of committees with that fact we arrive at the conclusion that perhaps some people can reasonably be given control of billions as well.
Billionaires spend a small fraction of their money on superyachts and keep most of it invested which is the system working if you believe in it.
Some people use money to destroy or buy out their competitors. Some people use money to bribe or corrupt politicians and by extension to corrupt the entire democratic process. Some people use money to influence the media. And in these and many other ways, money can be used to make even more money in a runaway cycle without there being an efficient allocation of resources.
There are also a lot of harder-to-prove forms of political corruption, such as when a politician uses their power to benefit a company or industry, and then after retiring from politics they are given lucrative work with those same companies or in that industry. (And many many variations on this theme.)
Generally the law makers have made laws against Free agents (ie competitors) from colluding.
But in the event of a major war, and if it goes nuclear, biological or chemical, the billionaires can hole up on their yachts and ride it out in the relative safety of the middle of the ocean, just like the film Waterworld but less apocalyptic, so was the system working or is this why sanctions have been imposed? Its not like any of these billionaires can just take off now is it?
>totally resistant to any attack
it isn't possible for any non-minor period of time as the other side would go exponential in their effort to change that.
Both are predicated on the extra-Earth faction having overwhelming technological superiority and resources. Gravity is not that helpful.
So, not "initial colony" stages.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man%27s_War
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War
> The president alone authorizes a nuclear launch and the two-man rule does not apply to him.
These two sentences are quite frightening on their own, but even more so given the likelihood that this will become a reality at some point.
Many are worried about the advanced age of Biden.
There are many articles doubting Putin's mental capacity right now.
Also, sanity is not a binary switch. Dementia creeps slowly. So can other mental afflictions.
Philosophically, many would argue that to order international nuclear detonation nowadays is by definition, the action of an insane person.
Not at all. A first strike maybe, but a retaliatory strike can be perfectly sane, even if exceedingly cruel.
Everybody agrees that the retaliation doesn't magically undo the damage of the first strike.
The thing is that you need to pre-commit to a retaliatory strike, if you want deterrence.
If you are predictably not going to retaliate, and you are never going for a first strike; then you might as well not have any nukes at all.
Never having any nukes at all is also a sane position.
Not committing to immediate retaliation is not at all the same thing as "predictably not going to retaliate".
That is, the complement of "committing not to" is not "committing to" but "not committing not to"; the two nots do not cancel and leave the issue of retaliation open. Those intent on a first strike then have to gamble.
Which again puts you in the position of having to order a strike as a sane person.
My reasoning: the top level military are career professionals who would not trust or give such power to a politician who got the position by winning a popularity contest.