There was someone who worked in Washington who made a proposal that the nuclear launch codes should be printed on a little capsule that was surgically implanted inside a man who would travel around with the president, in kind of the same way that the briefcase or whatever-it-is travels around with him under the current system.
The deal was, if the president wanted to launch a nuclear strike, he had to take a big knife and kill the man to cut him open to get to the capsule. Kind of come to grips on an individual level with what he was dealing with, and what it meant on at least some level, instead of just pushing some buttons in an air conditioned office.
I don’t think this was ever meant as a serious proposal. The person who invented it was just trying to make a point. But it did get relayed to at least one person who worked in the Pentagon who got very upset at the idea and started arguing against it. What if, he said, the president looks at what’s in front of him and can’t do it. That would be terrible.
I get the idea, but what if the kill-guy fights back and at the last minute decides he doesn’t want to be a sacrificial lamb? I can imagine that as some sort of 70s tv series about a guy on the run from the government and a president who wants all-out war.
I would unironically watch this show
And they’re running out of time!
I need to watch this.
PLEASE LET THIS BECOME A REAL SHOW
That’s fine. But also the guy could be handcuffed to a secret service agent or something. It’s not like there aren’t a bunch of buff dudes around the president at all times. The purpose of the exercise would probably be enhanced if the guy didn’t want to die.
The deal was, if the president wanted to launch a nuclear strike, he had to take a big knife and kill the man to cut him open to get to the capsule.
There are too many Presidents in history who would have done that gleefully for me to believe it would function as a deterrent.
What if, he said, the president looks at what’s in front of him and can’t do it. That would be terrible.
I’m less worried about the President who hesitates than I am the President who doesn’t.
This requirement is also the plot of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Short Story, As the Last I May Know
The full story is available here definitely worth a read.
I didn’t read the story but that’s a cool mag. I’m digging the vibe and articles.
Sounds like a plot element from Metal Gear Solid.
However: I think this would weaken nuclear deterrence, wouldn’t it?
MAD is a bad thing
Play Peace Walker
How about a nice game of chess?
Chess sucks. You don’t even get to kill the king.
Thank you Joshua, I’d like that very much
Lol, that’s were I learned about it.
Yes, it might be bad from a moral standpoint. But foreign policy relies on it too much.
I dunno I mean it’s a pretty different proposal to logically come to the idea of like. oh something that’s an existential threat needs to be nuked, whether that be like, godzilla, which is NOT a good idea, or like, just ensuring MAD because fuck it, I guess, or like, north korea or something, right, there’s a difference between that, which should probably be a pretty cold and calculated decision, and like, killing someone, presumably that you know quite well after travelling with them for you know, at most, eight years, and then rooting through their corpse to find a little code with what’s probably a time critical objective. I think probably, as another commenter pointed out, you would want to elect the president that can’t kill a person. That’s a better president, than the one that can, probably.
Bigger hole than all that, though: the president would probably just ask the secret service to do it, and the secret service would probably comply.
Errr yeah but it doesn’t count as genocide, it only went over a small fraction of the people. It’s not genocide until it’s all of them! I am very smart.
/s
According to the trolley operator, one in three people tied to the tracks is Hamas.
Why would you sympathize with Hamas? They’ve been trying to blow that trolley up for years. If we don’t run them over now, they’ll just try to do it again.
My thought exactly. Instead of talking if it’s right or wrong and if it should stop, be should focus on more important questions like is it genocide and is it antisemitic.
if we’re “uhm akshuallying” here, technically genocide is a past tense term judging by its common contextual use, and any other use case of it is grammatically incorrect.
Mass murder/mass homicide would be more accurate, or perhaps a different term altogether. Genocidal is a different form of it so it doesnt count under this, though it could technically apply here as well.
I’m ok with being grammatically incorrect
i mean yeah, it’s the internet, we’ve literally done it before, so i guess we can do it again, technically.
When will it be considered anti-Semitic to be Islamophobic?
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Jew is both a genealogical ethnicity and a religious designation. Islam is a different religion. So, never?
Semite: “a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs” So, how is it anti-semitic to be pro-palestine?
Yes, that is the etymology. Queer no longer means odd, and literally now also means figuratively.
Antisemitism is the belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish. It may take the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority of Jews, for instance, or political efforts to isolate, oppress, or otherwise injure them. It may also include prejudiced or stereotyped views about Jews.
It is not antisemitic to be pro-Palestine if you ask anyone other than Netanyahu. I know many Jews that resent him for using that term in defense of his actions, and the actions of the IDF.
Queer no longer means odd
Yeah it does. It has additional meanings, but it also retains that one.
literally now also means figuratively.
Over my dead body! Just because an authority says something unacceptable is acceptable doesn’t make it so. See also: the Israeli government committing genocide.
It is not antisemitic to be pro-Palestine
Correct.
if you ask anyone other than Netanyahu
Frustratingly, he’s far from the only Zionist demagogue spreading that particular lie. It’s become less effective recently, but it’s been used to shut down any criticism of the apartheid regime for decades…
literally now also means figuratively.
Over my dead body! Just because an authority says something unacceptable is acceptable doesn’t make it so. See also: the Israeli government committing genocide.
Maybe this isnt the right place to interject here: but yes, it now also means figuratively. Not because an authority said so, but because a sizable portion of native english speakers use it to mean figuratively. Thats how language works.
No, the authority said so. The OED regularly updates words and definitions in the dictionary based on colloquial usage. Literally also means figuratively according tho the oldest and most respected dictionary of the English language.
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/literally
The OED is, again, descriptive. They observe the change in meaning and update their description accordingly.
That’s a textbook appeal to popularity fallacy. Just because many people make the same mistake doesn’t mean it becomes correct.
The most popular electric car brand is Tesla. That doesn’t mean that Teslas don’t have the build quality of a 1980s Yugo and the price tag of a brand new Jaguar.
Don’t use other people being stupid as an excuse to be stupid, is what I’m saying.
No, that is just how linguistics work. Language is decided descriptively, not prescriptively
This is a bad comparison. Language absolutely works as described in the previous comment. While certain trends such as using “literally” to mean “figuratively”, are personally super annoying, that doesn’t change the fact it’s 100% correct when enough people do it.
So, arguable, anti-semitism is also bigotry toward Arabs, we just have to wait for the language to catch up, got it.
You have that reversed. Etymology is the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history. The origin of Semite no longer applies to the word as it is used today.
The only reason it’s unique to Jews is because it’s both a form of racism and religious persecution. One can be genealogically an Ashkenazi Jew but not practice Judaism, or vice-versa.
You maybe missed the point that language evolved and eventually the definition may revert.
It’s possible. Language evolves. You’re likely not going to get it to catch on with root awareness. That’s hardly how English has evolved for the last century.
Final comment for ya (always happy to continue chatting in our deeper thread though - that was lovely).
A lot of people conflate Islam with Arab, nowadays (maybe you’ve heard of brown-folks be described as Islamics before, for example)
So, maybe someday?
if the dictionary ever updates Islam to mean also mean “a Muslim”.
Oxford defines a Muslim as a person who follows the religion of Islam. That’s accurate. The ethnicity of Palestinians would be Levantine, or Broadly Arab, according to genetics websites. Based on my comment, I think you may be comparing it to the ethnicity of Jews. There actually is a scientific difference, one is a religion, while the other is a religion and a genealogical ethnicity, and it absolutely can be confusing.
My ex and I both did DNA testing a few years ago. Hers came back as 99.8% Ashkenazi Jew. Her family emigrated from Russia when the Jews were chased out by the Bolsheviks. Some may consider that Russian ancestry. Scientifically, it’s not. She’s genealogically Jewish. It even has bearing on efficacy of certain medical treatments and hereditary health.
https://blog.23andme.com/articles/ashkenazi-ancestry-and-health
So someone could be genealogically Jewish and not practice Judaism, like 45% of Israeli Jews who are non-secular, or someone could practice Judaism without being of Jewish ethnicity. I hope that helps clarify some of the confusion.
Always down for a pleasant, healthy, and civil conversation. Sorry I fell asleep on you. Haha
if you feel like it, i’m actively moderating https://lemmy.sdf.org/c/humanrights and would love to see more people post there with relevant info and questions
If you encourage the authority to pull the lever, though, you’re complicit in the atrocities already committed, so you should definitely just sit this one out. /s
Uh oh, I just realized I haven’t condemned hamas in the last 10 minutes. People are going to think I hate jews now.
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You’re complicit in the genocide just by living in the place where the switch is. Your tax dollars paid for that trolley.
Oh, shit. This hits hard.
is the trolley named atrocity? Or is it actively committing an atrocity? Or is it’s name atrocity, which is why it’s committing an “atrocity” but actually it could be tongue in cheek so it may actually be both of them.
also what happens if you just pull it yourself, is that not antisemitism? Seems like a loop hole to me.
If you pull it yourself, thats direct action, IE terrorism, and they super dont like that.
what if you were to slip, and accidentally pull the lever, for instance, you fall on it? Is that accidental terrorism now?
trolley named atrocity
The sequel to “Streetcar Named Desire”
what would a train be?
most of these should be children to be more accurate.
Don’t forget who provides Putin with DPI.
I’m not even sure what the lever is supposed to be
Giving billions of dollars of aids and weapons for decades of colonialism
Supposed to be a lever that changes the direction of the track so it doesn’t run over the people
Asking or telling the authority to stop, is the same as voting (in 6 months) for a new authority who will (probably) drive the trolley a bit faster. Will there still be children on the tracks by then? Who knows!
“Thank you for calling 911. We care about your emergency and will respond as soon as we vote on who will answer the phone. Our next election will take place in three days. Please hold.”
Incredibly oversimplified.
Edit: I was going to add more detail to my comment and speak to both sides but why should I have to? The cartoon endeavors to simplify the most complex issue of the last fifty years, why should I have to add more context to a comment on one post, on a small community, on a small social network?
That’s the point of a political cartoon…
You’re right, the IDF has slaughtered far far far more people than appear in the cartoon
Not to mention that cartoon’s lack of children.
A more realistic one would have at least 1/3 of the victims be children.
Yeah they missed the part where the cop beats up the guy
If you were expecting nuance and balance in a meme you might not exactly understand why you’re here.
Man… I hate when a meme fails to capture all the nuance of a situation and manages to tell a deeper truth at the same time.
Yeah. The person preventing the lever from being pulled is also screaming that the person who wants to pull it is a tankie and a trump supporter in addition to being antisemitic.
Saying “Trump would be even worse” whilst stopping people from pulling the lever.
