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U.S. pulls out of Soviet-era nuclear missile pact with Russia
The United States formally withdrew from a landmark nuclear missile pact with Russia on Friday after determining that Moscow was in violation of the treaty, something the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.
Washington signalled it would pull out of the arms control treaty six months ago unless Moscow stuck to the accord. Russia called the move a ploy to exit a pact the United States wanted to leave anyway in order to develop new missiles.
The 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was negotiated by then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Previously: President Trump Warns That the U.S. Will Pull out of Nuclear Forces Treaty and Build Up its Arsenal
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @06:50AM (25 children)
All about the Brexit! Could the Brave and rather idiotic Brits stand off against all the intermediate nuclear weapons aimed at Europe? Of course not! So, the only option, for a rational game-theoretic Trump administration, and Stephens Miller and Bannon, is a pre-emptive strike on England. Unfortunately, after the latest season of BBC, the rest of the entire world would be in favor of the same. So, now, you have to ask yourself, do you have a shot at Boris's girlfriend? If not, Nukes for all!
(Score: 2, Touché) by janrinok on Saturday August 03 2019, @07:37AM (7 children)
What a load of rubbish. I'm assuming that you think that this is humour?.
Defence is nothing to do with Brexit, and the French also have a nuclear arsenal and the ability to deliver it. Your understanding of nuclear warfare is also flawed. The threat is not whether you have more nuclear weapons than your enemy, but whether you can deliver sufficient warheads onto targets such that they make the enemy believe that the costs of a nuclear exchange would far outweigh the perceived gains. In the event of a nuclear strike on Europe, the UK and/or France would be forced to consider retaliation with the nuclear assets that they have available to them. So a small number of low yield nuclear weapons delivered by an enemy would result in a counter strike using potentially much more powerful nuclear weapons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @08:32AM (5 children)
To be fair, it does look like humour.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @08:47AM (2 children)
British nuclear forces also appear to be an attempt a humour, much like James Bond is compensation for the sun setting on the British Empire. But at least they have Nukes! More often than not, American Nukes, but Nukes nonetheless! Ah, blimey, to be a bloke on the brimey back in the day of the Pox Britannica! And French Nukes? Tested in Tahiti? Mere tropical bon-bons, I assure you.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday August 03 2019, @04:00PM (1 child)
The kingdom paid a very high price [wikipedia.org] for her nuclear arsenal. I would not trivialize it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @06:20AM
Should have purchased from the Americans. They would have been happy to sell.
They love selling out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @08:52AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @06:12AM
My sense of humor was surgically extracted at a young age. While not a sociopath or psychopath my understanding of the world is far different from most. Bear with me.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday August 04 2019, @04:09AM
Even before the WWI it was clearly understood "that the costs of a
nuclear exchangewar would far outweigh the perceived gains".A very good economist wrote a 1000 pages book about it beaten the dead horse to the pulp.
https://www.amazon.com/Illusion-Relation-Military-National-Advantage/dp/161203652X/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=CjwKCAjw4ZTqBRBZEiwAHHxpfozBPqYjBrJHQnSn3xDa5gXaxvP50uEYuuq5JqesGJwxX6hEQMCuSBoCreAQAvD_BwE&hvadid=241906565694&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9003587&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=3017417085841332014&hvtargid=kwd-179905084120&hydadcr=22596_10348340&keywords=the+great+illusion+by+norman+angell&qid=1564891519&s=gateway&sr=8-1 [amazon.com]
Meantime other certain economists were saying that capitalism will always bring wars no matter the costs.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday August 03 2019, @07:40AM (16 children)
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @08:51AM (2 children)
Inspector Clouseau, I presume? Or who is it that you are not quite outing, janrinok? There are only five regular commentors on SoylentNews, and Runaway is asleep, c0lo just going to bed, khallow has posted his last journal, and Eth is in his cups again. So that only leaves, martyb? Oh, the cad!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @08:54AM
I was referring to the comment, not to the story.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:37PM
i am not regular? dammit! fiber diet for the next two weeks then :(
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:54PM (3 children)
How do you look up who probably modded a comment?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:23PM (2 children)
IIRC the admins can see who does what to which comments.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday August 03 2019, @08:36PM (1 child)
Ah. And I'm not an admin, so I can't see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @05:43AM
SN is always in need of more volunteers. If fluffing isn't your thing there is always editing, UI testing, coding, development, infrastructure. Ask one of the admins or visit the test site or log onto the IRC channel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @03:08PM (8 children)
Does SN have policy about volunteer admins abusing their powers to dox anonymous cowards?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday August 03 2019, @04:47PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @06:10AM
This "AC" guy. He is like everywhere man. You never know who he's going to be one minute to the next. Now we know. The information is Out There. We have the truth.
His name is: Anonymous Coward.
He is a time traveler, or just capable of bouncing around the planet instantaneously. Logging in from many countries, sometimes seemingly at once, this person takes on many forms, appears to be many people, but now we know, this is just a rare case of multi-manifestation of split personality disorder. We must help this person. Reign in their behavior. Help them accept who they are. If need be, and if all else fails, find a nice padded room with a new coat with long sleeves for them. To help them. To help us. To help us all.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday August 03 2019, @04:53PM (3 children)
Part of our job is to manage the site and that includes checking on the use of moderation abuse. One of the common techniques is to post as an AC and then log in to moderate it up, giving the appearance of support for the AC's comment. My comment is intended to let the member know that we can see what he/she is doing and, hopefully, to dissuade them from continuing to do more of the same. In this case it hasn't worked because he/she has used the same technique in other stories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @05:25PM (2 children)
With everybody getting only ten mod points a day, is that such a problem? If a post is without merit, others can downmod.
You're have alluded openly to being able to deanonymize posters due to your position. There is enough partisan hatred on this site that I feel without clear guidance eventually some volunteer with a big enough political chip on their shoulder is going to get so offended they will use their powers to dox someone who posted something they didn't like. The possibility of that kind of chilling effect felt much much less probable on the Green Site.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday August 03 2019, @05:57PM (1 child)
Potentially yes. Many people in our community filter the comments so that only those that meet a certain moderation value will be seen. This is an attempt to get rid of the trolling and other unwanted comments that appear from time to time. Imagine that you post something that someone else (who also runs several sock-puppets) takes a disliking to. They can use their sock-puppets to downmod your comment to 0, where many people will not see it, and they can use their own user id to counter any individual attempt to mod it higher. For example, having posted your comment and subsequently finding it sitting at 0, you might log in and moderate it up to counter the 'unfair moderation, that you perceive to be happening. While it sits at 0 then your comment would only be seen by a handful of our community.
Others abuse the system by posting something as AC that might invoke a bad response and use their public user ID to lift it off 0 where many people will not see it. If there is a bad response they can always claim that they didn't post the original comment and that their up-mod to it was a incorrect moderation typo.
We want this site to generate intelligent discussion. We do not care who holds what views. The moderation system that we employ is not perfect and there are regular threads that end up discussing various alternatives. The moderation system works well when members of our community use it to identify good and interesting comments rather than just down modding those that they do not like. But moderation abuse is a problem and one that we need to be aware of. However, we do not take action lightly and, as far as I know, we always give public hints or private warnings before considering anything more drastic, unless the abuse is preventing the site from functioning as intended.
Changes to the current moderation system can only be addressed when we have significantly more technical support than we have at present. Many of our devs, techies and admins are very busy with their private lives and real world problems; we simply cannot implement any changes in the immediate future.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday August 03 2019, @08:42PM
I have set my threshold so I see everything. But I'd sometimes like to see the moderation status before I consider reading something. Yes, I can see the number if I *look* for it. But might it be possible to display it more visibly by, say, using a different colour for the entire comment?
No, even if it's decided this would be a good idea, I don't expect anyone to actually have the time to do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @05:38AM (1 child)
Can you really call it doxing? All they have is an IP address and an email address.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @03:46PM
Yes you could possibly. Say a new admin really didn't like Ethanol Fueled, and let it out that he was, say, browsing from a Lockheed IP address.
He could lose his job from a resulting shit storm.
SN doesn't have to go full CoC, but a simple expectation that volunteers will use their powers reasonably for the site, and not to help in petty personal grudges, would be a good thing.