OT: Galactic sterilisation

Fyron · #1 January 9th, 2004, 03:35 AM

You know what the best thing about the EU is? They love the US so much that they are trying to imitate it!

Think about it... lots of independant states that all fall under one "nation," lacking national borders, one currency, separation of powers between the state governments and the overal national "government." The EU is just in phase 1 of the transition right now.

[ January 09, 2004, 01:37: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Fyron · #2 January 9th, 2004, 03:42 AM

You know what would be really bad for the UN? Kicking out the only world superpower. That is just a recipe for forcing a World War III down the road...

Phoenix-D · #3 January 9th, 2004, 04:10 AM

Backing up to the math bits, I found a slight problem. Mainly, you're underestimating the effect of the atmosphere, which blocks most radiation. For reference, a single solar flare produces several million megatons for energy. Not all of it is in gamma, but the other wavelengths can be equally nasty if enough gets through.

About all that actually happens when a flare hits is some more impressive auroa.

EDIT the sun itself, meanwhile, produces around 10^9 of your hypothetical h-bombs per second. With aproximately the same radiation, since this is also nuclear fusion. It is also, of course, far closer than any gamma ray burst.

[ January 09, 2004, 02:20: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

Baron Munchausen · #4 January 9th, 2004, 05:09 AM

As it turns out, this argument over radiation intensity is misplaced. The full theory is that the gamma radiation from a supernova destroyed the ozone layer and allowed hard ultraviolet from our own sun to reach the surface.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science....ap/index.html

So you were on the right track comparing to the radiation from the sun...

Narrew · #5 January 9th, 2004, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
You know what the best thing about the EU is? They love the US so much that they are trying to imitate it! Think about it... lots of independant states that all fall under one "nation," lacking national borders, one currency, separation of powers between the state governments and the overal national "government." The EU is just in phase 1 of the transition right now.

LOL, your evil

but right on the money

JurijD · #6 January 9th, 2004, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
You know what the best thing about the EU is? They love the US so much that they are trying to imitate it! Think about it... lots of independant states that all fall under one "nation," lacking national borders, one currency, separation of powers between the state governments and the overal national "government." The EU is just in phase 1 of the transition right now.

Hehehe well it might seem so for an American who doesn't know whats really happening

There is no one "European" nation... and that is the core of the whole idea. We don't need one nation and one language to work together. Ergo one nation doesn't need to kill off all other "natives". We tried that in 2 world war recenty but it din't work out.

And besides since we don't need to kill off everybody else we won't need to build those nasty reservations and getos in the cities... think off all the trouble we are avoiding

Loser... I'm not talking about the Florida vote. I'm saying that it is incredible for a country such as yourself... that has ONE man theoretically in charge of everything... not to have a direct electoral system. Perhaps you misunderstood.

But in the Last election if you add up all the people who voted for Gore and compare them to all the poeple who voted for George W you get 63% for Gore and 37% for George W. (cross country not in any invdividual state).

But because those southern countries and some othes too have too many electoral votes based on their population and George W. happenes to have won in them .... he won the the federal vote when the majority of the total US population actually didn't vote for him.

I mean can u explain why you need to conduct elections in this silly way? Why should votes in one state mean more than in another. And you also need to count these votes in every state anyway... so why don't u just add them up and see who got the most all over the US... and not decide who won in each state and then assign these silly electoral votes to one or the other candidate. Doing it in this way can lead to silly results like u had now.

Historically it prolly made sense as the original colonies and some other more powerful states wanted to have more say in who gets to be the president... but today it just doesn't add up. Why should one vote in Florida mean more than one vite in say Kansas .. (just an example I don't really know what the Electoral_Vote/Total_population in those states are)

To give you another example of how odd this is: Lets say that your Congress didn't add all the votes up and compared them but instead of that gruped the politicians by the state they belong to and decided who voted for what in that "state" and then assign 1 vote for one or the other side based on who got the majority of the votes in that state-based-group. Doing it this way produces weird results... as some states have more population that others and if you only assing one vote for them you neglect that. But even if you give more votes based on their population they will still go just to one side and won't be spread evenly like the vote was...

In any case... why complicate things. Loser give me one logical example (besides that you "like it this way") why this is better that adding all votes and comparing them.

[ January 09, 2004, 09:37: Message edited by: JurijD ]

dogscoff · #7 January 9th, 2004, 12:19 PM

*Dogscoff the Destroyer surveys the ring, ignoring the profuse bleeding from his ear. Most of the combatants have left the arena for a pint, but JurijD can still be seen, taunting the others to come back and fight. Dogscoff the Destroyer shrugs and smashes another chair over JurijD's back, then employs his trademark "nefarious nad-wrangle" technique and, once again, turns to flex for the crowd and discourse on the threads actual topic.

Quote:

strip away ozone layer...sun strips away atmopsphere....

Sounds like that might be what happened to Mars. Water-moulded rock-formations there indicates that it once had a thicker, warmer atmosphere and apparently even now the remains of that atmosphere are being blown away by solar winds. Much of it gets caught by Jupiter, apparently.