ImmInst.org Forums: Six Places to Nuke When You’re Serious - ImmInst.org Forums

Nothing immortalist about nuclear weapons and their use, let alone the notion of bombing world capitals.

Detonating a nuclear weapon above the surface of an asteroid on collision course for Earth, in the process vaporizing the surface and nudging it off course! [tung]

A slightly more beneficial outcome for Earth and its inhabitants than the six you mentioned I'm sure you'll agree! [lol]

I read the first 2/3's of Mother of Storms, probably about 8-10 years ago. When Phil brought up the clathrates, I immediately thought of that book.

I like your blog alot, Michael...but death and destruction are not Immortalist ideals.

Um, I don't think that was the point. I don't think Michael was thinking about these things to fulfill some sort of death and mayhem fantasization fetish. I think it was an attempt to identify high-hazard targets. Perhaps my vocabulary isn't quite right, but by hazard, I mean something that makes the inherent danger of the nukes worse. A nuke in the middle of the Nevada desert isn't so bad. A nuke in Laz Vegas would be quite bad by comparison. A nuke in Los Angeles would probably be worse. Obvious big targets are large cities with large economic or political value.

Trickier are the less obvious hazards, like uncorking a super-volcano or creating a super-tsunami by indirect means (nuke -> landslide -> tsunami), etc.

I just don't think its appropriate given the times..

jaydfox said:

I would say the alpha world cities London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Shermer, Illinois.

Depends who you are and what your objectives are. If I were an Islamic fundamentalist I'd go for New Delhi.

Quote

It has everything to do with it. You die if you're in one of those capitals.

Quote

So ignoring these risks is? I am shocked when immortalists only pay attention to the positive side of things, and neglect something even more important: addressing the risks.

Quote

It's more appropriate and necessary than ever, given the times.

I'd have to agree with Michael on this one. No subject should be taboo if approached rationally. The "fingers in ears" method doesn't seem to work in the real world.

Since when is "global" or "existential" risk factors not a legitimate area of inquiry?

Yeah, if we are to approach a problem, we must look at it as a whole.

This sort of thing *absolutely* must be discussed and brought into the open. Ignoring a huge potential problem until some unscrupulous sociopath gets their hands on a means to make the problem a reality is a recipe for disaster. What good, after all, is a SENSed or cyborg body in the face of a nuclear blast?

MichaelAnissimov said:

I don't think people are ignoring the risks; every major western government is actively working to ensure nuclear weapons never get into the hands of terrorists or rogue states etc, and if they are that they are never used. Evident in the fact that over 100,000(?) nuclear weapons have been produced since Hiroshima and Nagasaki and not one has been used in anger.

http://en.wikipedia....r_proliferation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International...c_Energy_Agency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-P...feration_Treaty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive...Test_Ban_Treaty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advisory_Opin..._of_8_July_1996

Also it doesn't take a genius to figure out which targets will cause the most the death, economic, and political destruction, for example I bet it didn't take you long to compile the list did it? I'm sure your average terrorist mastermind could pull together an equally impressive list.

As for 1 and 4, IMO these would be major engineering feats so I doubt it would go unnoticed, I'd rate the risk level as nil.

Quote

I'm sure your average terrorist mastermind wouldn't have items like methane clathrates, or dormant calderas, or breaking apart islands to cause a tsunami. Your average terrorist would have six (or whatever arbitrary number) major economic and/or religious centers, and/or political capitals, ones with high populations.

Cities, in a word.

Your average international expert, intent on preventing such incidents, will also be looking at cities primarily. Large cities are "large", and difficult to defend.

Methane clathrate deposits are far larger, and far more accessible, with so much of them being in international waters. Security in the Canary Islands is probably far less effective than security in New York or London or Tokyo or New Delhi or Tehran or Washington, D.C., or San Francicso, or Los Angeles, or Singapore, or Hong Kong, or Beijing, or Tel Aviv, or Paris, or...

Unorthodox targets like this don't get much attention. Maybe they do in super secret government circles. Maybe they don't. This kind of outside-of-the-box thinking is needed, methinks.

Quote

For number 4: You doubt it would go unnoticed? How hard is it to drop an object the size of a car (or smaller) overboard at sea?

As for number 1, smuggling it into the park would be the hard part. Once inside, it's hundreds (thousands?) of square miles, so you're not going to be watched like a hawk. As long as your plan doesn't involved drilling any significant distance (e.g., perhaps you use existing caves if you need to get underground), you'd have time to effect your plan (even if it meant being there when the bomb went off).

Quote

It didn't - but the Canary island, methane clathrate, and Yellowstone caldera ideas are unique, to my knowledge. I have other ideas as well, but nukes are a total joke compared to nanoweapons, or heaven forbid, generally intelligent reflective decision systems. That's why I don't feel bad talking about nuking Cumbre Vieja, although I admit that I hesitated with publishing the Yellowstone caldera idea, especially after I found that the magma was only ~5km under the surface.

Quote

Probably yes. That's why I get angry when people get angry at me for publishing this kind of thing. However, terrorists are clueless when it comes to nanoweapons and AI.

Quote

No. In fact, they are far easier than getting a nuke into a city.

Quote

You would have to take it on foot through forest at night.

Very creative -- glad you're not a terrorist.

jaydfox said:

Yes, in my opinion of course!

jaydfox said:

It's as easy as that, why so?

Are any of these undersea mountains near large methane hydrate deposits?
Just how deep would this nuclear weapon have to descend before it is detonated?
Would it even work at the depths of the ocean?
What if the nuclear weapon drifts of course?
What if it detonates before it hits the bottom?
Would a crude nuclear weapon have enough energy to start a catastrophic landslide anyway?
etc
etc

It's like Operation Plowshare but at the depths of the ocean and the goal is to plunge the world into another Permian-Triassic or Paleocene-Eocene style extinction event, I know some people are insane but seriously! [lol]

http://en.wikipedia....ation_Plowshare (Natural gas stimulation experiment)
http://en.wikipedia....nuclear_test%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explo...ational_Economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Trias...xtinction_event
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eoc...Thermal_Maximum

Quote

I didn't say that it would be easy to accomplish. Just easy to avoid drawing attention. Everything necessary to prep the bomb—a strong, water-tight case for sinking to depths of thousands of meters if necessary; a motor and guidance system to navigate to a specified location, if necessary; a detonation method based on location, depth, time, and/or other variables, including possibly remote control; etc.—can be done in a laboratory (well, machine shop really) in a rogue nation or seemingly innocent third world nation. Intelligence to detect such a process would be very difficult, especially if the preparation were carried out and completed before the bomb were ever delivered to the prep site.

Once it's prepped, you put it on a cargo ship that will pass over or very near the detonation site, then drop it over the side of the boat. I mean, that's about as simple as possible, and you simply can't prevent that. You have to catch them in the prep stage, or when they load it on the boat. Both are extremely difficult tasks, if the crew doing the prep work are serious about avoiding detection and are halfway intelligent.

Think about it. We're talking about constructing the bomb case (assuming they buy a ready-to-use bomb), which can be done just about anywhere, and then detonating it in international waters, dozens if not hundreds of miles from land. At no point does the bomb or the case have to be in territory controlled by a nation intent on preventing nuclear proliferation.

This one actually worries me more than Yellowstone, simply because at least Yellowstone is deep within the U.S., and is relatively small (compared to the ocean), and could in theory be protected better if necessary. The same goes for the canary islands: in theory, their customs and port inspections could be made extremely tight, and if nothing else, the area in question which would need to be monitored and protected (by air and sea forces if necessary) is relatively small.