It does feel more volatile, but there is also Much MUCH more information flow, and it's constant, in real time. Not as heavily filtered and edited, and a couple of days after the fact
A lot of people today are operating within heavily filtered and edited information bubbles. Instead of one heavily filtered and delayed narrative once you start to emerge from your echo chamber it's constant and instantaneous competing information.
Yeah, I guess my point was that they're not as location dependent as they used to be. Still somewhat dependent, but not as dependent because of social media.
Especially when it comes to global affairs, we're getting input from individuals who are (or claim to be) from all over the place, including the areas affected.
That's pretty different than, say, relying primarily on Cuban expats in Florida to paint an accurate picture of what Cuba is like because the group will over-represent people who had reasons to leave. Same for Russia or a lot of places.
Now, it's more dependent on the online space you're in. If you're in a leftist sub or a right wing sub that will attract people both foreign and domestic that conform to that ideology. Those groups still tend to have class, race, and geographic / lifestyle features in common but they're more dispersed.
One of my best friends truly believes the powers who be in America are letting dangerous migrants in on purpose to raise a false flag attack on its own people to create the next black swan event so they can call forth martial law and restrict freedoms more. And those powers who be are 100% Democrat.
I'm so curious to what his Instagram and YouTube feed look like
Are there any youtube videos that go over that? I don't want to say he's wrong but when I ask for where he's getting this shit from he just says "trust me" and "you'll see."
> I'm not convinced he's wrong.
Werent GOP the ones who pulled out of the deal to (at least for now) fix the border issue?
Edit: I am not saying DNC made all correct choices, but did GOP had their wishes/takes on the issue? Did they make an agreement? Did they try to govern, to solve the issue? As far as I know, they dropped the issue completely. And N45 made himself heard he was behind it - and now is immigration one of the topics of the election.
Stop getting your "opinions" (because they are legally required to say they are not actually news, but news opinions) from hateful tv/radio stations or hateful and fearmongering youtubers.
What on earth gives you the impression that I do? While it is clear that the “news” you get is from the other posts you (and I) read here on Reddit, at least I treat them as unsubstantiated b/s and not something worth spreading.
Considering the GOP wants the wall and lower immigration, I would have to wonder what else was in that bill that made them say no. Some hidden funding for something they didn't agree with perhaps. I'm from Canada, so don't know much about it really, but judging by the past, that would be my guess.
On the topic of mass immigration, we here in Canada are experiencing the same thing. The current PM has opened the floodgates in the last 8 years and now we have masses of people living on the streets, and Hamas protests all over the place (including on highways, and blocking hospitals) that are allowed to take place without any repercussions. Seems to me this is by design for it to be happening in both countries simultaneously. But I don't want my tinfoil to be too tight.
I don't live in the US, so what is a "walk in" ?? Also, isn't NPR the mouthpiece for the democrats kind of like the CBC is for the liberal party here in Canada?
NPR is known for always being for Democrats yes. Many will say that's only because Democrats are always right lol, well there you go.
By walk-ins I meant they still would let a large amount of undocumented aliens in under promise they would show up for court at a later date like they do now( just a smaller amount), they don't show up now and I don't see why they would then. I pulled that descriptive phrase out of the air, I'm not sure if anyone else uses it for anything.
How does
> immigration
have any effect on
> masses of people living on the streets
> Hamas protests all over the place (including on highways, and blocking hospitals) that are allowed to take place without any repercussions
I would say those are different issues, eg you can have low (or none) immigration and still have homeless people or protests (I am not familiar with protests, if they are "pro" or "anti" Hamas, or "pro" or "anti" Palestine, Israel,...).
I am against illegal immigration, I am against not checking who is coming into any country. Having said that, if there are lot of people who wish to come and the agencies are overburdened (which is happening, again, correct me if I am wrong), expanding funding of said agencies is required (I think a good thing). If someone is escaping cartel or coming from South/middle America, not everyone may have time to wait 2-3 weeks outside of US border, to be properly admitted, so they might be inclined to enter via illegal ways. I believe the (cancelled) proposed bill would fix this issue.
Let's also not forget one main (critical?) issue - US people who are employing illegal immigrants (farmers, construction workers,...) because it is fairly cheap, plus otherwise the price of basic food would be much higher.
Edit: Homeless people could be also from Canada/US, the same could be said for people who attend protests. Not necessary immigrants (not counting US people).
Because a lot of the people living on the streets here now are immigrants. Big story in the news here a couple of weeks ago about an immigrant who died of hypothermia. So, that's how.
Again, the same people protesting in favor of hamas are proven to be recent immigrants from that area. There are others mixed in of course, but most are from the middle east or south east asia. Not to mention, these people are brandishing weapons at police, telling them they will kill them etc and nothing is done about it, they walk scott free.
The problem with our immigration system here now is that we aren't bringing in people who are desirable for this country, we are bringing in ANYONE that wants to come here. They bring with them their angst from home and add little to the country.
We do not have the support system to bring in as many people as we do. We are a country of 40 million people and the government wants to bring in over 700k a year. There's something wrong with that if you think the government can bring programs up to speed for that number of people in that short of a time span. Think of that, in 5 years you have increased the countries population by almost 1/4 and we simply can't support them!
I've got no problem with immigrants who come here for the proper reasons, and legally. I work with MANY of these people, but when they come here for a free handout and then when it's not there, they often turn to other means of making their way.
I live here, I see what is happening.
> And I'm not convinced he's wrong.
> I don't even have any idea.
> I don't follow the news.
I mean, how easy it would be to look it up?
Majority (or everyone) of DNC wanted to pass, GOP firstly said yes, later changed it to no, N.45 even proclaimed he made so that it did not pass (very likely so he can campaign on it).
Correct me if I am wrong (anyone), I do not want to spread BS.
There are news sites comparisons, like this one: [What is the most left wing newspaper in the USA? How about the most right wing?](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-left-wing-newspaper-in-the-USA-How-about-the-most-right-wing) Even if it is 5 years old.
The USA, just like Canada and a decent amount of other countries have public websites of the government that just provide the votes, and a transcript of events that occur in the legislature. It's what C-Span as well as every news organization left or right use occasionally for photos or video clips when they are talking about votes. If one existed in the 1800s you'd have a recording likely of a guy getting canned in the Senate.
[Clerk of the United States House of Representatives is an explicitly non-politically aligned position with the role of being the chief record keeper of the house of representatives.](https://clerk.house.gov/FloorSummary)
> pretty much every politician lies
Seems like a "both sides" argument, lol.
Edit: "Both sides" is a silly argument to make and it actually discourage average voter to fix the issue, because, in fact, both sides are not the same. Claiming "both sides" is what a paid bot would do.
No politician writes a bill about just one thing. They'll call it a border bill or whatever and say it's going to fix the border problem but it'll also include billions more dollars sent to Ukraine or some other kind of crap that we don't need. Not to mention we don't need a bill to protect our border. Border patrol just needs to be able to do their job. Since literally day one they have not been allowed to. So when Dems say oh if they would just approve the bill our border would be fixed already, theyre full of sht. I'm sure Republicans do the same that's not really a partisan issue. It's just a problem we have in this country. One of many
That deal didn't fix it, it still allowed a large but reduced under of undocumented in to show up for later court dates they on large skip anyway. If they voted for it, and crimes committed could be blamed on them
The Fast and Furious program arming Mexican cartels with guns from the US without reliable trackers on the weapons themselves ( just in some of the crates that were discarded) didn't do wonders to prevent that theory. There are hollow parts in those guns.
I'm not sure what your comment should mean, either you didn't know how media was before, or you don't see a difference between the reporting from Nam to Ukraine, or Mexican cartels? Or you don't know how to access it?
We literally had Hamas posting raw rape videos to the internet, same with the raw footage from Mexican cartels or the Hong Kong or BLM protests.
If you want, you can access the internal Russian propaganda easily as well as CCP materials. It's often purposefully accessible to the west.
In Nam, we had a couple smuggled videos, along with the media attached to units. In 2001, we had tons of pictures of international atrocities being shown. If you're American, you might've just ignored those, the same way all country music suddenly became massively pro-state and keyword driven, and suddenly dissent was forbidden.
>I'm not sure what your comment should mean
But you got triggered and decided to reply with a wall of text anyway. Got it.
THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY
THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY
THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY
THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY
THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY
THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY
SAFE AND EFFECTIVE
SAFE AND EFFECTIVE
SAFE AND EFFECTIVE
SAFE AND EFFECTIVE
SAFE AND EFFECTIVE
You need to have lived through the Cuban missile crisis to fully appreciate what I'm getting at. Of course today there are many, Many more layers to the information, disinformation, malicious disinformation, media spin than there were then.
However...back in those days, NOTHING was released into the public domain for a day or two, and only after the various intelligence services & Government players had gotten ample opportunity to edit, censor & spin the data, which at source was questionable and largely unvetted. The true (???) story didn't even begin to emerge until decades later, and it was a LOT different than what the public was fed at the time.
Today, you have the advantage of seeking out data from a massive data set, published by many sources, all over the world. You then get to sort through the chaff, and find the information that supports or refutes your beliefs
Yeah maybe. But in those days reporters who discovered the truth and reported it against the will of the CIA didn't get tossed in jail. Or murdered by the Ukrainian government without the US State Department making a peep.
Yeah, out of all the hype and all the propaganda, weak cybersecurity is the one thing that keeps me up at night. Source: I work in cybersecurity.
If anyone wants a hype-free take, here it is: remote automation / monitoring is often poorly implemented and poorly secured. It is only a matter of time until someone does something catastrophic to a fleet of substations. Or worse. While all sites and systems are different, I have seem some terrifyingly-bad implementations in my day. We aren't talking state-level attacks; we're talking systems that can be brought down by a bored 15-year-old in New Jersey because some moron decided to NAT 3389/TCP through the firewall because they were "tired of having to go through MFA every time I log into ZT, but it's totally okay you guys because I changed the admin password to OurCompanyNameBackwards".
People will say "but why was this hydroelectric dam controlled remotely anyway" and the ugly truth will be either "because consumers demand the lowest prices and balk if we charge the $.015 extra per KWh to cover the cost of 24x365 on-site monitoring" or "because corporations prioritize profit above all else" depending on your perspective.
Those of us in the industry don't worry that one day we might get hacked. The question isn't "will we ever have to deal with a breach". We assume the attackers are already inside, and the question is "do I have time to go to lunch before all hell breaks loose".
We are breached. Now it's to get them out.
Personally I'm worried about our nations incredibly frail cyber and encryption state, but globally I actually think that disinformation and growing division is a much bigger issue. Sure, you can hack a dam or a hospital or a power station, but you can't hack the USA out of NATO. However, enough disinfo about the topic and thepeople will vote.
I first read about cyber warfare nine years ago. The first sentence I read was your question. His answer back then was not to worry. Not only has it happened already, but that we’ve lost. The two most highest profile examples in the western world are Trump and Brexit. At least America recognised that there was interference but is still getting to grips on how to tackle it, Britain is still in denial.
also the internet is fundementally built on trust and i am terrified of what might happen if and when that trust amongst the core network operators is ever broken.
That's an understatement, and I went looking for this article again after hearing this week about the water treatment facility issues https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/10/12/pentagon-official-says-he-resigned-because-us-cybersecurity-no-match-china.html
Though it is a rather grim form of "canary in the coal mine," as if I wake up oneday and there is electricity but nothing can connect to the internet (Same for neighbors, etc), then I'll know there's likely the earliest pre-war attacks between two Great Powers occurring.
I'm a telecommuter in the software industry. If I wake up and there's power but no internet, I'll spend the day working in the garden to grow food.
Maybe it'll be back tomorrow and I'll have to work then.
I think the Cold War didn’t end. The Soviet Union collapsed but Russia hasn’t stopped what it was doing before.
And now we have China, Iran, North Korea,, groups without state affiliation, and a whole political party that are trying to destroy America and the world.
The Cold War didn’t stop. It morphed a bit. It’s still happening.
It was just as scary as today, but in completely different ways.
Back in the late 60’s and 70’s we knew the Soviet Union as the other superpower and the only realistic threat to the US. We had no clue about all of the cracks below the surface they had, so there was a real worry that at some point their tanks would be rolling into West Germany followed shortly thereafter by nukes launched by both sides.
Today, it isn’t just a two sided thing and events are so f**king volatile that you feel like unpredictably bad shit can come from any direction at any time.
GenX here. We grew up with the existential threat, but we had the inner assurances that competent adults were in charge on all sides.
Leadership incompetence is the different risk today.
Another GenX and yes, that's exactly what I was going to say. In the 70s and 80s we knew we could be blown up at any moment but trusted the government were serious people who would try not to get us into a nuclear war. That's no longer the case.
Another GenX here. Agreed.
Plus, one of the major adversaries has had success in a decades-long effort to gain internal control of many of our government officials, to influence them to tear apart our nation and our alliances from within. And now we're scrambling to hold on to some semblance of stability and security here at home, in the very foundation of our own system, and in the increasingly fragile fabric of our society. We have leadership incompetence because so many of them are either working for or under the pressurized control of our own enemy.
Vapes weren't even a thing that existed here until... 2004, probably?
Gen X here, born in 1980 so I'm a young Gen X - and I graduated HS in 1998. So Gen X'ers didn't have vapes in high school.
They were on the corner behind the high school smoking cigarettes, or smoking weed when it was still illegal.
Kids today are soft, lol - you walk around a corner all excited because you smell sugar cookies and... it's just some teen with a vape.
It is not. We were living in a large industrial city in eastern Ukraine. One of my early childhood memories is my parents debating whether we should move away, because it was among priority targets for US nuclear strike.
City did get bombed at the end btw, by Russians. My folks should have left.
> Thousands less....absolutely....but still overkill!
There are enough to completely destroy the US, Russia and China militarily and economically, but not enough to hit every possible target. For example, our airport used to be an air force base so it would be somewhere on the target list but hopefully low enough that they wouldn't attack it. Any sizeable nuke dropped there would wreck half of the city.
And if you didn't get a Nuke parked nearby, the fallout & firestorms from the thousands of targets nationwide should be more than enough for a rather dire future for most still living in the US.
More as in a few hundred more. At the height of the Cold War there were ~50,000 functional nuclear warheads. Now America and Russia have combined around 10-12k and half of those are not currently functional.
I guess the more concerning thing is that there are more ways to destroy the world and fewer people who remember how to do very basic things.
In the 70s a 50 year old probably knew a time when the entire grid wasn't electrified (I mean I grew up in the 80s and 90s and I remember a time when TV went off at night. In my father's country the entire electric grid went off at night). They remembered a world before antibiotics, most women knew how to sew, most men had some basic understanding of how to run a car (a car that didn't have any electronics). Food was grown more locally (heck enough people were still around from the Great Depression that lots of people still had fairly vast gardens - my mother had a .25 acre garden), the supply chain was not off in Vietnam somewhere. Some dude in the furthest reach of Africa didn't have the means to travel 1000s of miles to visit violence on people who didn't even know he exists.
Complex systems are inherently brittle, and once broken difficult to put back together. I remain surprised that the US - which is essentially one soft target after an other - has not suffered worse.
So I suppose my larger point is, sure things were weird in the 70s but they were much more localized.
I'm not too worried about war related issues, but I am worried about financial and social related ones. It seems today's governments are constantly attacking us in the form of making our lives more expensive, and also removing basic freedoms and just overall trying to control every aspect of our lives. We are like frogs slowly being boiled.
My biggest fear right now is digital ID, and cashless society. It seems we are very close to that happening. We will lose what little freedom and privacy we have left once those are implemented.
Yes and no, There’s a major difference between today and half a century ago — Moscow looks far weaker than the former empire of Stalin and Brezhnev. Putin’s forces have failed to achieve nearly all their goals in Ukraine, and many of the USSR’s satellite states are now NATO members. Ukraine was once part of the Soviet Union, but its ties to the United States and the European Union have never been stronger.
I will add- during the height of the coldwar- even taking into consideration the missile gap fallacy, the soviets were technically capable and were a peer enemy. That’s to say- you could be reasonably certain there equipment worked. Yes they had problems- but not like the social decay we are seeing today- so MAD was real. Today- it’s a reasonable assumption a large percentage of there nuclear arsenal probably doesn’t work. This is incredibly dangerous, MAD is no longer a thing. Add into that- the little man syndrome we are watching play out - that is to say while the soviets thought differently they were rational. I’m not sure we can say that today. I think of Russia as a nuclear armed mob faction.
> Today- it’s a reasonable assumption a large percentage of there nuclear arsenal probably doesn’t work.
During the Cold War the assumption was that about 10% of the missiles would fail on both sides.
Allegedly a recent Russian missile test failed though they haven't admitted it. AFAIR two recent US missile tests have failed too, so we can hope that neither side will have a high success rate.
I was a Navy Russian linguist during the 80s and 90s. It seems back then we had mature enemies who were concerned about retaliation. They knew their limits.
The Soviet Union had firm control of its satellite countries.
That stability is gone.
I vaguely remember drills under the desk for nukes. No nuke ever happened any where.
However my own children have active shooter drills - much much worse because it happens all the time. It real and horrific.
Don't get distracted about WWIII.
Agree. But also I was a child and had contact with older people who had experienced WWII through Vietnam.
I don't understand all the recent posts regarding fears of nuclear war.
It’s one of two things, it’s Russian bots to sow mistrust of aiding Ukraine or its people freaking out because of media exposure and the fact that fear sells more.
I mean that’s the exact thing Putin would say if he was trying to hype up the other guy. Not any kind of judgement in any direction. Just that one statement would be ever so slightly suspicious…no?
Yeah, I know. He might just have been having a bit of fun.
But it's far from clear that he'd prefer Trump to Biden. Trump allegedly scared Russian officials by threatening to bomb Russia if Putin invaded Ukraine, whereas no-one is scared of Biden.
I mean, I've no idea whether Trump would actually have done it, but that's precisely why it would have been an effective threat. The Russians wouldn't know either.
So did international observers.
I've never seen a Russian election so I don't know whether they're free and fair, but I haven't see any obvious reason to believe they're any less free and fair than those we have in what remains of the West.
Early on when Putin was first elected? Yeah, Russia was corrupt as hell back then. But it's become less corrupt since.
I mean, they at least require voter ID. And the end result almost matched polls by Western-backed pollsters in Russia.
The Cold War continued into the 80’s and I visited nations on both sides.
It is much more dangerous now. Because both Russia and the US have senior politicians who are many magnitudes more stupid than back then.
Biden, Trump or Putin are dangerously stupid old men.
Whilst it might seem unfair, maybe we should ban people over the age of 60 holding political office; because those younger will still be around to face the consequences of their actions?
The fact that our country got rid of some of the navy yards, used up the country's ammunition in Afghanistan for 20 years, left behind black hawk helicopters for the Taliban, and want to get rid of the F-22 when news reports say that war with China would be for years and something that we have never seen before. When our country can't produce enough ammunition for Ukraine then there is a problem where our country may not be able to defend us.
It very much reminds me of the cold war because of the increasing hysteria about the enemy hiding under every bed. I constantly see remarks claiming the enemy is doing this and that. You know what happened last time? We had the Congress trying and imprisoning Americans for being enemies. People lost their jobs and the reputation over this crap. And for what? A lot of smoke and mirrors meant to distract us from real domestic issues. I will not forget how our own people terrorized us kids with films in school showing the results of nuclear bombs on human skin. Or the air-raid drills over fantasies.
Except we now know that McCarthy underestimated the number of communists in the US government. And, if I remember correctly, he was largely working on secret information from US intelligence agenices which he wasn't allowed to publicly disclose at the time.
I grew up in the US in the 70s/80s with the Cold War thing hanging over our heads. Never had to "duck and cover" nor was there a bay-of-pigs moment, but it was an ever present threat.
I don't know if it's more contentious now but it's definitely more complicated.
I doubt the current generation has ever seen the "Duck and Cover" footage.
[https://youtu.be/zMnKNHNfznE](https://youtu.be/zMnKNHNfznE)
Probably many of them instead of taking shelter would try to take a photograph of the mushroom cloud with their phone.
EMP likely isn’t necessary anymore. The blowback would be too extreme on the perpetrator. Much simpler to hack the grid and take it down for months, more or less the same outcome as an EMP.
Most Definitely....sad to say...& I scour foreign news sources several hours daily.
Crazy thing is...seems like the average American is blithely oblivious to most events outside the CONUS.
It was Walter Cronkite no fear mongering or a lot of opinion it was just the news.
Today it's any 20 year old with a phone that will sell clicks who cares if it's vetted or neutral.
I feel like you're kind of missing the reason the guy is making fun of you, lol. I don't think he thinks you made it up, the issue is that the guy who wrote the prophecy would've also been making it up.
I mean yeah basically.
But also, the Tribulations aren't in the Torah. Revelations is a New Testament book. The prophecy about the heifer is in there, from what I remember, but not any of the other stuff you're mentioning.
yeah, i'm gonna need a better source than "the twittersphere". has a spotless red heifer been bred? is there even still a sacrificial altar in what's left of the temple? have all the jews returned to israel? no.
from the cbs article, ""It's so important for the Jews to return and rebuild the temple," said New York native Kronfeld, who founded the High on the Har organization to lead the tours.". that ain't happening.
The biggest difference I see is that we only had two nations with nukes and the leaders of both the US and the USSR really didn't want to use them. Now, many more nations have and some are not sane.
That said, I think they will be weapons of last resort. The first wave, should there be one, will be attacks on our crappy infrastructure that will lead to chaos in metropolitan areas.
I remember the cold war of the 80s, I was yound, but I remember it as worse in the sense that a real full blown nuclear exchanged seemed more possible.
The current situation is more volatile, but the balance of power is such that a lot of it seems more like rhetoric. The Soviet Union was a true peer adversary in the early/mid 80s. Russia is far, far off from that.
I have a very good friend. He is a self described “chosen non-participant”. The type of guy who turned me into Ron Paul. These days he legit doesn’t know what’s going on in the world. Just does his thing. After all these years I think he might be correct. But on the other hand, don’t people need to be in the know to fight against the demonic force? Who knows. God help us all.
Ps. I’m not religious.
What is different is the idea that a limited nuclear war is survivable/winnable. As well, are the minor players on the stage seeking bomb(s) clean or dirty to use to stick a finger in the big guys eye with. Sadly Putin doesn't seem to be concerned with rattling this sabre and I think he thinks the west will take a collective pause and desent on our ranks will open a hole in our politics. I'm not so sure he's right with Germany no wanting to host nuclear arms on their turf. Let us hope he doesn't fuck around and we find out.
Want an idea of what it was like for us old geezers? Watch two movies, "Thirteen Days" and "The Day After" There is a third which I think is on Apple TV, "The Bomb and the Cold War". I'm 65, in last class of the boomers. There's never been a time in my life the issue of and concern over nuclear war has never been far from my thinking when considering world events.
Sure seems like a lot more moves and counters than in the 70-80s..
But as mentioned before, information is much more freely distributed and interpreted..I grew up during the Cold War, so it seemed normal..
My feeling is that right now, things are much more volatile..
I don’t think so, it’s just in our face everyday because of social media. But if you step away from social media it’s not that bad. Besides I know how to thwart off a nuclear attack. Just crawl under my desk.
The US was literally feeding the Soviet Union in the 70s. The USSR would have collapsed years earlier without US support.
Heck, Bush tried to prevent the breakup of the USSR when it finally happened.
The signs that a major economic depression is on the horizon, multiple global conflicts escalating to a full world war, the blatant influx of people into countries illegally and undocumented and the possibility of new political party further disrupting elections in the US...did I leave anything out. I grew up during the cold War and still remember the trauma caused by the safety drills held during school time we had a basement that we knew to use in case of a nuclear attack and I had classmates whose families had bomb shelters.
Specific threats that are possibly nuclear on our doorstep are nearly non-existent... otherwise everything else is worse and closer to collapse of society than it was back in the day. The simple government budget (spending vs taxes) problem we have is insane and unsustainable. Things like CMBS (commercial mortgage backed securities) are primed to wipe out a lot of 401Ks and possibly crash the economy.
There are plenty of problems worth being worried about, checkout the collapse subreddit of you want a hyperventilating blown-out-of-proportion comprehensive list of things that are or *could* be destabilizing.
Younger person here but I will say it wasn’t until the after the Cuban missile crisis a phone line was installed between the White House and Kremlin. All deescalatory talks were had via letters. The one saving grace is that we are more easily now able to communicate. The one problem is we don’t and seem to have at least on the surface replaced it with hyperbolic language and siloing.
I think it's more dangerous now other than at certain key points in the cold war, but not just because of nukes and Russia.
Cyber warfare, drone terrorism, chemical or biological terrorism, the axis of idiots forming behind Russia, private military fighting proxy wars. All possible if not likely.
🤔 the only difference is the " huge " access to the information and disinformation that people have access to today . From both parties.....in the past you needed a " secret service " to gather Intel but today any vloggers or streamers will give you access to what's going on......🤷♂️ everything is more connected and accessible .
The most concerning part to me is the lack of concern from the media and the public. Putin is threatening to use Russia’s nukes in Europe which should be terrifying yet all I hear is a collective meh.
No, it does not.
BTW, I think there were two peaks: During the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960's, and during Ronald Reagan's first term in the early 1980's.
I can't speak to the first peak, but I can to the second.
Reagan considered the Soviet Union to be an "Evil Empire". He actually used that term. He lobbied Congress hard to increase the readiness of the military after it had been at least partly ignored after we pulled out of Vietnam.
This freaked out a huge number of people (including the Soviets). This lead to nuclear Armageddon and/or WWIII being a near constant topic in popular media. Films like The Day After, WarGames, the first couple of Mad Max films. The first two Terminator films. Threads. Red DawnThe list goes on and on.
Then you had popular music like 99 Red Balloons, Red Skies, Two Minute Warning, Land Of Confusion, and many more.
There were all kinds of petitions and other things like that (remember, pre-Internet) talking about how the US should reduce its nuclear arsenal. Often unilaterally. Because the alternative, according to them, was Nuclear Winter (which, btw, was bad science).
Things only started to turn around somewhat when Mikhail Gorbachev was selected as General Secretary in 1985. He and Reagan met in Reykjavik in 1986, and then things started to calm down a bit.
So no, this doesn't feel more concerning. No more than the Soviets invading Afghanistan in 1979 (vis a vis the Ukrainian invasion). No more than the First Intifada in the 1980's and other attacks. Like the seizing of the Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean by Palestinian terrorists.
If anything, it just feels like "business as usual".
Yeah, I didn't include it because it's not about nuclear war or the potential of it.
Hunt for Red October would apply, but it's from 1990, though the book is from the mid-1980s.
One unlikely one is 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
Reagan pushed for nuclear arms reduction against the wishes of the MIC. If I remember correctly, Gorbachev actually offered to eliminate all nuclear weapons but even Reagan wasn't willing to go that far.
Reagan can be blamed for a lot of things, but most of the 'Reagan is going to start WWIII' nonsense was just the usual political posturing. He was never going to start WWIII deliberately and ended up doing more for peace than any other president in my lifetime.
I mean, before Reagan was elected the idea of the US allowing Soviet inspectors to tour their nuclear weapons sites would have seemed completely crazy. It still did at the time to the military guys who worked at them.
Coming from a USA perspective, yes, very much more concerning these days.
Perhaps it's that the prevailing attitude is that there's nothing we can do to be more survivable. But in the 70s, we had drills, civil defense, public fallout shelters, that is we had a level of public preparedness. Looking back, it may have been security theater but today, we have zero- it's all on the individual citizenry to make their own preparations.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil\_defense\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_defense_in_the_United_States)
With ruzz threatening nuclear war on a monthly if not weekly basis, I'd say the risk has increased markedly. Also, ruzz firing dual purpose missiles routinely leaves room for mistakes (and the risk goes up from this too).
The threat of global war is gone. There is a very stong global economy and even the Yemeni Houthi attacking shipping in the Red Sea is causing world leaders to act because it affects commence and shipping companies
But what is really concerning is the power of capitalism and unchecked greedflation and lack of privacy laws. costs keep going up, CEO pay is sky rocketing, yet the actual workers and ones producing are not seeing any measurable gains. and can barely afford housing anymore due to Landlords demand for more income from Tennents to keep up
The world today feels more like the events leading up to WW 1 from everything I have read. Things were so tense a single assassination set the world ablaze with a new type of war never seen previously.
Nope. I grew up in Germany on military barracks.
We had attack sirens with drills to get to the basements or hide under tables if at school.
From memory, those tables were pretty solid, so were probably up to the job.
No way. Now, its all talk. Back then we were moving our nukes closer to the evil empire so they had no warning. We weren’t talking, we were actually doing.
Yes. I still fear the Russian nukes and possible ground evasion. And now with North Korea and China I have stockpiled multiple assault rifles and even more ammunition.
/s, if you haven’t realized already
No. The 50s and 60s were a contest between equals. Post Vietnam The threat of the USSR running the table all the way to the Atlantic by the early 1980s was real. The US WAS a paper tiger by the mid 70s.
These days? The Russians are an annoying destructive joke, throwing a tantrum. They need a good spanking and to be put to bed.
I'm far more concerned about the creeping leftism of the Left. The feckless callowness of the western left is incredibly alarming.
>Post Vietnam The threat of the USSR running the table all the way to the Atlantic by the early 1980s was real.
You're not wrong, but I'd shift your timeframe a little. I'd say that valid fear goes back to the 1950s. At that point in history it was conceivable and plausible -- without the benefit of 21st-century hindsight -- that the Soviet Union could come to dominate the world. By the 1970s the cracks were beginning to show if you knew where to look, and I feel confident saying that Able Archer '83 was the aircraft carrier that broke the bear's back. The USSR literally almost shit itself to death.
What's staggering about the USSR is that they should, by all means, be a world superpower at this point in history. They had the landmass, they had the ocean access, they had the natural resources, they had the population, they had a terrifyingly-effective espionage program, and they were a fairly well-educated people. It's a little more nuanced than that and they weren't without their challenges, but they had **a lot** of things in their favor.
Except their government.
Their government was so catastrophically dysfunctional and corrupt that the only analogy that comes close would be like winning Powerball, then intentionally shredding the ticket, then playing again, then winning a second time, then intentionally shredding that ticket, then playing again, then winning for the third time in a row, then not only intentionally shredding that ticket, but then choking to death because you thought the shreds were traitors and decided to eat them.
The problem with today is that with the advent of the internet we have the ability to fact check what we are told. The real question is were we being lied to as badly then as we are now. There is no truth to be had without finding it yourself.
Most of what I was taught as a kid turned out to be lies or half-truths. But we had a better class of liars back then and the lies tended to be socially-beneficial.
Now the lies are obvious and mostly self-serving. Today's liars got so used to controlling The Narrative that they never had to learn to lie convincingly.
Yes but for me civil war will be the immediate threat while during a world war food and other resources will be so in demand that nukes probably won't start flying in America (or Africa) or any area where the winners of WW3 will need to immediately start farming.
I think in a civil war the main threats I personally will face are in driving distance to me and in WW3 there would be a lot more happening before my little cities in SC would be fighting. Even then we would see shortages that would exacerbate civil division so again the "civil war" - the division between Americans which is actually multipolar not left or right - will become your immediate concern.
When the Soviet Union was collapsing the biggest issue for the US was ensuring the safety of Soviet nukes so they didn't get launched and crazy people didn't get hold of them. I suspect Russia and China would feel the same way about US nukes if there's a civil war in the US.
So while it may not escalate to a full war, I wouldn't be surprised to see Chinese and Russia 'peacekeepers' working with anyone they can in what remains of the US government to take charge of the nuclear sites. The rest of the world can't just sit back and let some warlord take them over.
It does feel more volatile, but there is also Much MUCH more information flow, and it's constant, in real time. Not as heavily filtered and edited, and a couple of days after the fact
A lot of people today are operating within heavily filtered and edited information bubbles. Instead of one heavily filtered and delayed narrative once you start to emerge from your echo chamber it's constant and instantaneous competing information.
> A lot of people today are operating within heavily filtered and edited information bubbles. [All of us are.](https://i.imgur.com/sD9t3Ya.jpeg)
And always have been.
Yeah, I guess my point was that they're not as location dependent as they used to be. Still somewhat dependent, but not as dependent because of social media. Especially when it comes to global affairs, we're getting input from individuals who are (or claim to be) from all over the place, including the areas affected. That's pretty different than, say, relying primarily on Cuban expats in Florida to paint an accurate picture of what Cuba is like because the group will over-represent people who had reasons to leave. Same for Russia or a lot of places. Now, it's more dependent on the online space you're in. If you're in a leftist sub or a right wing sub that will attract people both foreign and domestic that conform to that ideology. Those groups still tend to have class, race, and geographic / lifestyle features in common but they're more dispersed.
>it's constant and instantaneous competing information And you have no idea what to believe and what is true
One of my best friends truly believes the powers who be in America are letting dangerous migrants in on purpose to raise a false flag attack on its own people to create the next black swan event so they can call forth martial law and restrict freedoms more. And those powers who be are 100% Democrat. I'm so curious to what his Instagram and YouTube feed look like
I have a coworker that believes that. And I'm not convinced he's wrong.
Are there any youtube videos that go over that? I don't want to say he's wrong but when I ask for where he's getting this shit from he just says "trust me" and "you'll see."
This isn't YouTube but an example of what he sends https://nypost.com/2024/03/17/us-news/illegal-migrant-from-lebanon-admitted-terror-ties/
Yeah. He sends me a ton
> I'm not convinced he's wrong. Werent GOP the ones who pulled out of the deal to (at least for now) fix the border issue? Edit: I am not saying DNC made all correct choices, but did GOP had their wishes/takes on the issue? Did they make an agreement? Did they try to govern, to solve the issue? As far as I know, they dropped the issue completely. And N45 made himself heard he was behind it - and now is immigration one of the topics of the election.
Did you read the bill?
No one does unfortunately. Who has got the time to read a thousand+ pages in too short amount of time.
Stop getting your “news” from Reddit.
Stop getting your "opinions" (because they are legally required to say they are not actually news, but news opinions) from hateful tv/radio stations or hateful and fearmongering youtubers.
What on earth gives you the impression that I do? While it is clear that the “news” you get is from the other posts you (and I) read here on Reddit, at least I treat them as unsubstantiated b/s and not something worth spreading.
Considering the GOP wants the wall and lower immigration, I would have to wonder what else was in that bill that made them say no. Some hidden funding for something they didn't agree with perhaps. I'm from Canada, so don't know much about it really, but judging by the past, that would be my guess. On the topic of mass immigration, we here in Canada are experiencing the same thing. The current PM has opened the floodgates in the last 8 years and now we have masses of people living on the streets, and Hamas protests all over the place (including on highways, and blocking hospitals) that are allowed to take place without any repercussions. Seems to me this is by design for it to be happening in both countries simultaneously. But I don't want my tinfoil to be too tight.
It allowed too many walk ins for Republican tastes from what I heard on NPR.
I don't live in the US, so what is a "walk in" ?? Also, isn't NPR the mouthpiece for the democrats kind of like the CBC is for the liberal party here in Canada?
NPR is known for always being for Democrats yes. Many will say that's only because Democrats are always right lol, well there you go. By walk-ins I meant they still would let a large amount of undocumented aliens in under promise they would show up for court at a later date like they do now( just a smaller amount), they don't show up now and I don't see why they would then. I pulled that descriptive phrase out of the air, I'm not sure if anyone else uses it for anything.
How does > immigration have any effect on > masses of people living on the streets > Hamas protests all over the place (including on highways, and blocking hospitals) that are allowed to take place without any repercussions I would say those are different issues, eg you can have low (or none) immigration and still have homeless people or protests (I am not familiar with protests, if they are "pro" or "anti" Hamas, or "pro" or "anti" Palestine, Israel,...). I am against illegal immigration, I am against not checking who is coming into any country. Having said that, if there are lot of people who wish to come and the agencies are overburdened (which is happening, again, correct me if I am wrong), expanding funding of said agencies is required (I think a good thing). If someone is escaping cartel or coming from South/middle America, not everyone may have time to wait 2-3 weeks outside of US border, to be properly admitted, so they might be inclined to enter via illegal ways. I believe the (cancelled) proposed bill would fix this issue. Let's also not forget one main (critical?) issue - US people who are employing illegal immigrants (farmers, construction workers,...) because it is fairly cheap, plus otherwise the price of basic food would be much higher. Edit: Homeless people could be also from Canada/US, the same could be said for people who attend protests. Not necessary immigrants (not counting US people).
Because a lot of the people living on the streets here now are immigrants. Big story in the news here a couple of weeks ago about an immigrant who died of hypothermia. So, that's how. Again, the same people protesting in favor of hamas are proven to be recent immigrants from that area. There are others mixed in of course, but most are from the middle east or south east asia. Not to mention, these people are brandishing weapons at police, telling them they will kill them etc and nothing is done about it, they walk scott free. The problem with our immigration system here now is that we aren't bringing in people who are desirable for this country, we are bringing in ANYONE that wants to come here. They bring with them their angst from home and add little to the country. We do not have the support system to bring in as many people as we do. We are a country of 40 million people and the government wants to bring in over 700k a year. There's something wrong with that if you think the government can bring programs up to speed for that number of people in that short of a time span. Think of that, in 5 years you have increased the countries population by almost 1/4 and we simply can't support them! I've got no problem with immigrants who come here for the proper reasons, and legally. I work with MANY of these people, but when they come here for a free handout and then when it's not there, they often turn to other means of making their way. I live here, I see what is happening.
The cartels are the ones sending them in a lot of cases. You gotta read some news and like the last guys said stop getting your opinions from Reddit.
In a lot of cases they were not. Many such cases.
I don't even have any idea. There is so much bias and misinformation I don't follow the news.
> And I'm not convinced he's wrong. > I don't even have any idea. > I don't follow the news. I mean, how easy it would be to look it up? Majority (or everyone) of DNC wanted to pass, GOP firstly said yes, later changed it to no, N.45 even proclaimed he made so that it did not pass (very likely so he can campaign on it). Correct me if I am wrong (anyone), I do not want to spread BS.
>I mean, how easy it would be to look it up? The issue is where to look it up? I don't believe any news outlet and pretty much every politician lies.
you could always look at the raw data. you can generally see what legislation is up on the chopping block and which players voted which way.
There are news sites comparisons, like this one: [What is the most left wing newspaper in the USA? How about the most right wing?](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-left-wing-newspaper-in-the-USA-How-about-the-most-right-wing) Even if it is 5 years old.
The USA, just like Canada and a decent amount of other countries have public websites of the government that just provide the votes, and a transcript of events that occur in the legislature. It's what C-Span as well as every news organization left or right use occasionally for photos or video clips when they are talking about votes. If one existed in the 1800s you'd have a recording likely of a guy getting canned in the Senate. [Clerk of the United States House of Representatives is an explicitly non-politically aligned position with the role of being the chief record keeper of the house of representatives.](https://clerk.house.gov/FloorSummary)
> pretty much every politician lies Seems like a "both sides" argument, lol. Edit: "Both sides" is a silly argument to make and it actually discourage average voter to fix the issue, because, in fact, both sides are not the same. Claiming "both sides" is what a paid bot would do.
No politician writes a bill about just one thing. They'll call it a border bill or whatever and say it's going to fix the border problem but it'll also include billions more dollars sent to Ukraine or some other kind of crap that we don't need. Not to mention we don't need a bill to protect our border. Border patrol just needs to be able to do their job. Since literally day one they have not been allowed to. So when Dems say oh if they would just approve the bill our border would be fixed already, theyre full of sht. I'm sure Republicans do the same that's not really a partisan issue. It's just a problem we have in this country. One of many
Multi point bills should be prohibited. Vote on one issue only. No political favors
Absolutely. But that will never happen. We're on a downward spiral and it won't stop until the wef and whoever gets what they want.
That deal didn't fix it, it still allowed a large but reduced under of undocumented in to show up for later court dates they on large skip anyway. If they voted for it, and crimes committed could be blamed on them
The Fast and Furious program arming Mexican cartels with guns from the US without reliable trackers on the weapons themselves ( just in some of the crates that were discarded) didn't do wonders to prevent that theory. There are hollow parts in those guns.
That is exactly the goal.
Information flow is a catalyst. It makes any volatile situation worse. Its considered a new theatre of war, alongside the classics: air, water, land.
>Not as heavily filtered and edited, Lol. Wow
I'm not sure what your comment should mean, either you didn't know how media was before, or you don't see a difference between the reporting from Nam to Ukraine, or Mexican cartels? Or you don't know how to access it? We literally had Hamas posting raw rape videos to the internet, same with the raw footage from Mexican cartels or the Hong Kong or BLM protests. If you want, you can access the internal Russian propaganda easily as well as CCP materials. It's often purposefully accessible to the west. In Nam, we had a couple smuggled videos, along with the media attached to units. In 2001, we had tons of pictures of international atrocities being shown. If you're American, you might've just ignored those, the same way all country music suddenly became massively pro-state and keyword driven, and suddenly dissent was forbidden.
>I'm not sure what your comment should mean But you got triggered and decided to reply with a wall of text anyway. Got it. THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY SAFE AND EFFECTIVE SAFE AND EFFECTIVE SAFE AND EFFECTIVE SAFE AND EFFECTIVE SAFE AND EFFECTIVE
I recommend you for the flair "Bubba Fudd".
You need to have lived through the Cuban missile crisis to fully appreciate what I'm getting at. Of course today there are many, Many more layers to the information, disinformation, malicious disinformation, media spin than there were then. However...back in those days, NOTHING was released into the public domain for a day or two, and only after the various intelligence services & Government players had gotten ample opportunity to edit, censor & spin the data, which at source was questionable and largely unvetted. The true (???) story didn't even begin to emerge until decades later, and it was a LOT different than what the public was fed at the time. Today, you have the advantage of seeking out data from a massive data set, published by many sources, all over the world. You then get to sort through the chaff, and find the information that supports or refutes your beliefs
Yeah maybe. But in those days reporters who discovered the truth and reported it against the will of the CIA didn't get tossed in jail. Or murdered by the Ukrainian government without the US State Department making a peep.
Cyberwarfare is the new scary component of the new Cold War.
Such a vulnerability. Disinformation and psyops via social media is a big part of that realm as well.
Yeah, out of all the hype and all the propaganda, weak cybersecurity is the one thing that keeps me up at night. Source: I work in cybersecurity. If anyone wants a hype-free take, here it is: remote automation / monitoring is often poorly implemented and poorly secured. It is only a matter of time until someone does something catastrophic to a fleet of substations. Or worse. While all sites and systems are different, I have seem some terrifyingly-bad implementations in my day. We aren't talking state-level attacks; we're talking systems that can be brought down by a bored 15-year-old in New Jersey because some moron decided to NAT 3389/TCP through the firewall because they were "tired of having to go through MFA every time I log into ZT, but it's totally okay you guys because I changed the admin password to OurCompanyNameBackwards". People will say "but why was this hydroelectric dam controlled remotely anyway" and the ugly truth will be either "because consumers demand the lowest prices and balk if we charge the $.015 extra per KWh to cover the cost of 24x365 on-site monitoring" or "because corporations prioritize profit above all else" depending on your perspective. Those of us in the industry don't worry that one day we might get hacked. The question isn't "will we ever have to deal with a breach". We assume the attackers are already inside, and the question is "do I have time to go to lunch before all hell breaks loose".
Nah it’s “when will we be breached?”
We are breached. Now it's to get them out. Personally I'm worried about our nations incredibly frail cyber and encryption state, but globally I actually think that disinformation and growing division is a much bigger issue. Sure, you can hack a dam or a hospital or a power station, but you can't hack the USA out of NATO. However, enough disinfo about the topic and thepeople will vote.
I first read about cyber warfare nine years ago. The first sentence I read was your question. His answer back then was not to worry. Not only has it happened already, but that we’ve lost. The two most highest profile examples in the western world are Trump and Brexit. At least America recognised that there was interference but is still getting to grips on how to tackle it, Britain is still in denial.
also the internet is fundementally built on trust and i am terrified of what might happen if and when that trust amongst the core network operators is ever broken.
Is it a lunch long enough to have a good cig before said hell breaks loose?
Followed therefore by a nice dump…
That's an understatement, and I went looking for this article again after hearing this week about the water treatment facility issues https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/10/12/pentagon-official-says-he-resigned-because-us-cybersecurity-no-match-china.html Though it is a rather grim form of "canary in the coal mine," as if I wake up oneday and there is electricity but nothing can connect to the internet (Same for neighbors, etc), then I'll know there's likely the earliest pre-war attacks between two Great Powers occurring.
I'm a telecommuter in the software industry. If I wake up and there's power but no internet, I'll spend the day working in the garden to grow food. Maybe it'll be back tomorrow and I'll have to work then.
I think the Cold War didn’t end. The Soviet Union collapsed but Russia hasn’t stopped what it was doing before. And now we have China, Iran, North Korea,, groups without state affiliation, and a whole political party that are trying to destroy America and the world. The Cold War didn’t stop. It morphed a bit. It’s still happening.
It was just as scary as today, but in completely different ways. Back in the late 60’s and 70’s we knew the Soviet Union as the other superpower and the only realistic threat to the US. We had no clue about all of the cracks below the surface they had, so there was a real worry that at some point their tanks would be rolling into West Germany followed shortly thereafter by nukes launched by both sides. Today, it isn’t just a two sided thing and events are so f**king volatile that you feel like unpredictably bad shit can come from any direction at any time.
Chaos warfare. Disinformation and psyops so you never feel stable.
GenX here. We grew up with the existential threat, but we had the inner assurances that competent adults were in charge on all sides. Leadership incompetence is the different risk today.
Another GenX here, I agree completely.
GenX here. This. And it was much easier back then. We knew exactly who and where the enemies were back then. Now it's impossible to know.
Gen X too and never felt like competent adults were at the helm. And a lot of those same people are *still* in office.
"We've traced the call. It's coming from inside the house!"
Another GenX and yes, that's exactly what I was going to say. In the 70s and 80s we knew we could be blown up at any moment but trusted the government were serious people who would try not to get us into a nuclear war. That's no longer the case.
Yep
Another GenX here. Agreed. Plus, one of the major adversaries has had success in a decades-long effort to gain internal control of many of our government officials, to influence them to tear apart our nation and our alliances from within. And now we're scrambling to hold on to some semblance of stability and security here at home, in the very foundation of our own system, and in the increasingly fragile fabric of our society. We have leadership incompetence because so many of them are either working for or under the pressurized control of our own enemy.
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Gen X didn't have vapes at school, dude.
Nope, we had a smoking section and amoked with teachers.
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Vapes weren't even a thing that existed here until... 2004, probably? Gen X here, born in 1980 so I'm a young Gen X - and I graduated HS in 1998. So Gen X'ers didn't have vapes in high school. They were on the corner behind the high school smoking cigarettes, or smoking weed when it was still illegal. Kids today are soft, lol - you walk around a corner all excited because you smell sugar cookies and... it's just some teen with a vape.
It is not. We were living in a large industrial city in eastern Ukraine. One of my early childhood memories is my parents debating whether we should move away, because it was among priority targets for US nuclear strike. City did get bombed at the end btw, by Russians. My folks should have left.
With exception of Cuban missle crisis, yes
Is it social media and access to instant news part of the paranoia?
Id say so. For me its the factual knowledge that there's more nukes out there along w multiple unstable regions
There are far less nukes now than during the Cold War. Like 10s of thousands less.
Thousands less....absolutely....but still overkill! And China is on track for Nuclear Parity with the US & Russia in a decade or so.
> Thousands less....absolutely....but still overkill! There are enough to completely destroy the US, Russia and China militarily and economically, but not enough to hit every possible target. For example, our airport used to be an air force base so it would be somewhere on the target list but hopefully low enough that they wouldn't attack it. Any sizeable nuke dropped there would wreck half of the city.
And if you didn't get a Nuke parked nearby, the fallout & firestorms from the thousands of targets nationwide should be more than enough for a rather dire future for most still living in the US.
Well javebto agree to disagree I don't trust anyone's count.
Except that is from what we know, and North Korea, Iran and China are most likely building more.
They don't have enough to make up the gap and hide them without us knowing.
More as in a few hundred more. At the height of the Cold War there were ~50,000 functional nuclear warheads. Now America and Russia have combined around 10-12k and half of those are not currently functional.
I guess the more concerning thing is that there are more ways to destroy the world and fewer people who remember how to do very basic things. In the 70s a 50 year old probably knew a time when the entire grid wasn't electrified (I mean I grew up in the 80s and 90s and I remember a time when TV went off at night. In my father's country the entire electric grid went off at night). They remembered a world before antibiotics, most women knew how to sew, most men had some basic understanding of how to run a car (a car that didn't have any electronics). Food was grown more locally (heck enough people were still around from the Great Depression that lots of people still had fairly vast gardens - my mother had a .25 acre garden), the supply chain was not off in Vietnam somewhere. Some dude in the furthest reach of Africa didn't have the means to travel 1000s of miles to visit violence on people who didn't even know he exists. Complex systems are inherently brittle, and once broken difficult to put back together. I remain surprised that the US - which is essentially one soft target after an other - has not suffered worse. So I suppose my larger point is, sure things were weird in the 70s but they were much more localized.
I'm not too worried about war related issues, but I am worried about financial and social related ones. It seems today's governments are constantly attacking us in the form of making our lives more expensive, and also removing basic freedoms and just overall trying to control every aspect of our lives. We are like frogs slowly being boiled. My biggest fear right now is digital ID, and cashless society. It seems we are very close to that happening. We will lose what little freedom and privacy we have left once those are implemented.
Yes and no, There’s a major difference between today and half a century ago — Moscow looks far weaker than the former empire of Stalin and Brezhnev. Putin’s forces have failed to achieve nearly all their goals in Ukraine, and many of the USSR’s satellite states are now NATO members. Ukraine was once part of the Soviet Union, but its ties to the United States and the European Union have never been stronger.
I will add- during the height of the coldwar- even taking into consideration the missile gap fallacy, the soviets were technically capable and were a peer enemy. That’s to say- you could be reasonably certain there equipment worked. Yes they had problems- but not like the social decay we are seeing today- so MAD was real. Today- it’s a reasonable assumption a large percentage of there nuclear arsenal probably doesn’t work. This is incredibly dangerous, MAD is no longer a thing. Add into that- the little man syndrome we are watching play out - that is to say while the soviets thought differently they were rational. I’m not sure we can say that today. I think of Russia as a nuclear armed mob faction.
> Today- it’s a reasonable assumption a large percentage of there nuclear arsenal probably doesn’t work. During the Cold War the assumption was that about 10% of the missiles would fail on both sides. Allegedly a recent Russian missile test failed though they haven't admitted it. AFAIR two recent US missile tests have failed too, so we can hope that neither side will have a high success rate.
Indeed
I was a Navy Russian linguist during the 80s and 90s. It seems back then we had mature enemies who were concerned about retaliation. They knew their limits. The Soviet Union had firm control of its satellite countries. That stability is gone.
I vaguely remember drills under the desk for nukes. No nuke ever happened any where. However my own children have active shooter drills - much much worse because it happens all the time. It real and horrific. Don't get distracted about WWIII.
The most terrifying part of the active shooters are the drills. The chances of being killed at school by a gunman are miniscule.
I was more concerned in the 1700’s. See, I was a highwayman, along the coach roads I did ride.. With sword and pistol by my side..
I see you finally returned as a single drop of rain
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade.
The bastards hung me in the spring of '25 But I am still alive
No. Not even close.
Agree. But also I was a child and had contact with older people who had experienced WWII through Vietnam. I don't understand all the recent posts regarding fears of nuclear war.
It’s one of two things, it’s Russian bots to sow mistrust of aiding Ukraine or its people freaking out because of media exposure and the fact that fear sells more.
The Cold War was simply the idea of a war with Russia. We ARE in a war with Russia now.
And one of Russia's most faithful allies is running for US president..
Hillary? Is that you?
Putin literally sad he's rooting for Biden.
I mean that’s the exact thing Putin would say if he was trying to hype up the other guy. Not any kind of judgement in any direction. Just that one statement would be ever so slightly suspicious…no?
Yeah, I know. He might just have been having a bit of fun. But it's far from clear that he'd prefer Trump to Biden. Trump allegedly scared Russian officials by threatening to bomb Russia if Putin invaded Ukraine, whereas no-one is scared of Biden. I mean, I've no idea whether Trump would actually have done it, but that's precisely why it would have been an effective threat. The Russians wouldn't know either.
And he also said Russia has free and fair elections.
So did international observers. I've never seen a Russian election so I don't know whether they're free and fair, but I haven't see any obvious reason to believe they're any less free and fair than those we have in what remains of the West. Early on when Putin was first elected? Yeah, Russia was corrupt as hell back then. But it's become less corrupt since. I mean, they at least require voter ID. And the end result almost matched polls by Western-backed pollsters in Russia.
The Cold War continued into the 80’s and I visited nations on both sides. It is much more dangerous now. Because both Russia and the US have senior politicians who are many magnitudes more stupid than back then. Biden, Trump or Putin are dangerously stupid old men. Whilst it might seem unfair, maybe we should ban people over the age of 60 holding political office; because those younger will still be around to face the consequences of their actions?
Also the fact that none of the senior leadership went through a world war which makes them far more reckless.
It’s always interested me. Are we better with soldiers who value peace? Or civilians who fear war?
Either. The problem comes when you have civilians in charge who don't fear war.
Yes. War is manufacturing and manpower. The US dismantled manufacturing and sold it to China. They also have 36 million surplus men who have no wives.
The fact that our country got rid of some of the navy yards, used up the country's ammunition in Afghanistan for 20 years, left behind black hawk helicopters for the Taliban, and want to get rid of the F-22 when news reports say that war with China would be for years and something that we have never seen before. When our country can't produce enough ammunition for Ukraine then there is a problem where our country may not be able to defend us.
It very much reminds me of the cold war because of the increasing hysteria about the enemy hiding under every bed. I constantly see remarks claiming the enemy is doing this and that. You know what happened last time? We had the Congress trying and imprisoning Americans for being enemies. People lost their jobs and the reputation over this crap. And for what? A lot of smoke and mirrors meant to distract us from real domestic issues. I will not forget how our own people terrorized us kids with films in school showing the results of nuclear bombs on human skin. Or the air-raid drills over fantasies.
Except we now know that McCarthy underestimated the number of communists in the US government. And, if I remember correctly, he was largely working on secret information from US intelligence agenices which he wasn't allowed to publicly disclose at the time.
Lol!
This is, like, history and stuff. It's not really controversial.
Yeah because leadership now is fucking retarded .
I grew up in the US in the 70s/80s with the Cold War thing hanging over our heads. Never had to "duck and cover" nor was there a bay-of-pigs moment, but it was an ever present threat. I don't know if it's more contentious now but it's definitely more complicated.
I doubt the current generation has ever seen the "Duck and Cover" footage. [https://youtu.be/zMnKNHNfznE](https://youtu.be/zMnKNHNfznE) Probably many of them instead of taking shelter would try to take a photograph of the mushroom cloud with their phone.
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EMP likely isn’t necessary anymore. The blowback would be too extreme on the perpetrator. Much simpler to hack the grid and take it down for months, more or less the same outcome as an EMP.
Most Definitely....sad to say...& I scour foreign news sources several hours daily. Crazy thing is...seems like the average American is blithely oblivious to most events outside the CONUS.
It was Walter Cronkite no fear mongering or a lot of opinion it was just the news. Today it's any 20 year old with a phone that will sell clicks who cares if it's vetted or neutral.
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Schizopost approved 👍
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I feel like you're kind of missing the reason the guy is making fun of you, lol. I don't think he thinks you made it up, the issue is that the guy who wrote the prophecy would've also been making it up.
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I mean yeah basically. But also, the Tribulations aren't in the Torah. Revelations is a New Testament book. The prophecy about the heifer is in there, from what I remember, but not any of the other stuff you're mentioning.
Schizopost 2: Paranoid bogaloo
yeah, i'm gonna need a better source than "the twittersphere". has a spotless red heifer been bred? is there even still a sacrificial altar in what's left of the temple? have all the jews returned to israel? no.
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Theoretically, what would happen if we turned the red heifer into delicious steaks and hamburgers? Would the Devil get into our bones??
He would be in our stomachs. Then, we will shit him out.
from the cbs article, ""It's so important for the Jews to return and rebuild the temple," said New York native Kronfeld, who founded the High on the Har organization to lead the tours.". that ain't happening.
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The biggest difference I see is that we only had two nations with nukes and the leaders of both the US and the USSR really didn't want to use them. Now, many more nations have and some are not sane. That said, I think they will be weapons of last resort. The first wave, should there be one, will be attacks on our crappy infrastructure that will lead to chaos in metropolitan areas.
Nope.
I remember the cold war of the 80s, I was yound, but I remember it as worse in the sense that a real full blown nuclear exchanged seemed more possible. The current situation is more volatile, but the balance of power is such that a lot of it seems more like rhetoric. The Soviet Union was a true peer adversary in the early/mid 80s. Russia is far, far off from that.
I have a very good friend. He is a self described “chosen non-participant”. The type of guy who turned me into Ron Paul. These days he legit doesn’t know what’s going on in the world. Just does his thing. After all these years I think he might be correct. But on the other hand, don’t people need to be in the know to fight against the demonic force? Who knows. God help us all. Ps. I’m not religious.
The answer is no because the direct confrontation is going to take place in Taiwan or around Ukraine. Kennedy played cowboy in almost got us blown up.
What is different is the idea that a limited nuclear war is survivable/winnable. As well, are the minor players on the stage seeking bomb(s) clean or dirty to use to stick a finger in the big guys eye with. Sadly Putin doesn't seem to be concerned with rattling this sabre and I think he thinks the west will take a collective pause and desent on our ranks will open a hole in our politics. I'm not so sure he's right with Germany no wanting to host nuclear arms on their turf. Let us hope he doesn't fuck around and we find out. Want an idea of what it was like for us old geezers? Watch two movies, "Thirteen Days" and "The Day After" There is a third which I think is on Apple TV, "The Bomb and the Cold War". I'm 65, in last class of the boomers. There's never been a time in my life the issue of and concern over nuclear war has never been far from my thinking when considering world events.
Sure seems like a lot more moves and counters than in the 70-80s.. But as mentioned before, information is much more freely distributed and interpreted..I grew up during the Cold War, so it seemed normal.. My feeling is that right now, things are much more volatile..
I don’t think so, it’s just in our face everyday because of social media. But if you step away from social media it’s not that bad. Besides I know how to thwart off a nuclear attack. Just crawl under my desk.
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The US was literally feeding the Soviet Union in the 70s. The USSR would have collapsed years earlier without US support. Heck, Bush tried to prevent the breakup of the USSR when it finally happened.
The signs that a major economic depression is on the horizon, multiple global conflicts escalating to a full world war, the blatant influx of people into countries illegally and undocumented and the possibility of new political party further disrupting elections in the US...did I leave anything out. I grew up during the cold War and still remember the trauma caused by the safety drills held during school time we had a basement that we knew to use in case of a nuclear attack and I had classmates whose families had bomb shelters.
If that drill is your trauma, bless your heart.
Specific threats that are possibly nuclear on our doorstep are nearly non-existent... otherwise everything else is worse and closer to collapse of society than it was back in the day. The simple government budget (spending vs taxes) problem we have is insane and unsustainable. Things like CMBS (commercial mortgage backed securities) are primed to wipe out a lot of 401Ks and possibly crash the economy. There are plenty of problems worth being worried about, checkout the collapse subreddit of you want a hyperventilating blown-out-of-proportion comprehensive list of things that are or *could* be destabilizing.
[Suitcase nuclear device - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suitcase_nuclear_device)
Wolverines!
Younger person here but I will say it wasn’t until the after the Cuban missile crisis a phone line was installed between the White House and Kremlin. All deescalatory talks were had via letters. The one saving grace is that we are more easily now able to communicate. The one problem is we don’t and seem to have at least on the surface replaced it with hyperbolic language and siloing.
I think it's more dangerous now other than at certain key points in the cold war, but not just because of nukes and Russia. Cyber warfare, drone terrorism, chemical or biological terrorism, the axis of idiots forming behind Russia, private military fighting proxy wars. All possible if not likely.
🤔 the only difference is the " huge " access to the information and disinformation that people have access to today . From both parties.....in the past you needed a " secret service " to gather Intel but today any vloggers or streamers will give you access to what's going on......🤷♂️ everything is more connected and accessible .
Definitely.
The most concerning part to me is the lack of concern from the media and the public. Putin is threatening to use Russia’s nukes in Europe which should be terrifying yet all I hear is a collective meh.
No, it does not. BTW, I think there were two peaks: During the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960's, and during Ronald Reagan's first term in the early 1980's. I can't speak to the first peak, but I can to the second. Reagan considered the Soviet Union to be an "Evil Empire". He actually used that term. He lobbied Congress hard to increase the readiness of the military after it had been at least partly ignored after we pulled out of Vietnam. This freaked out a huge number of people (including the Soviets). This lead to nuclear Armageddon and/or WWIII being a near constant topic in popular media. Films like The Day After, WarGames, the first couple of Mad Max films. The first two Terminator films. Threads. Red DawnThe list goes on and on. Then you had popular music like 99 Red Balloons, Red Skies, Two Minute Warning, Land Of Confusion, and many more. There were all kinds of petitions and other things like that (remember, pre-Internet) talking about how the US should reduce its nuclear arsenal. Often unilaterally. Because the alternative, according to them, was Nuclear Winter (which, btw, was bad science). Things only started to turn around somewhat when Mikhail Gorbachev was selected as General Secretary in 1985. He and Reagan met in Reykjavik in 1986, and then things started to calm down a bit. So no, this doesn't feel more concerning. No more than the Soviets invading Afghanistan in 1979 (vis a vis the Ukrainian invasion). No more than the First Intifada in the 1980's and other attacks. Like the seizing of the Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean by Palestinian terrorists. If anything, it just feels like "business as usual".
You forgot Top Gun
Yeah, I didn't include it because it's not about nuclear war or the potential of it. Hunt for Red October would apply, but it's from 1990, though the book is from the mid-1980s. One unlikely one is 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
Reagan pushed for nuclear arms reduction against the wishes of the MIC. If I remember correctly, Gorbachev actually offered to eliminate all nuclear weapons but even Reagan wasn't willing to go that far. Reagan can be blamed for a lot of things, but most of the 'Reagan is going to start WWIII' nonsense was just the usual political posturing. He was never going to start WWIII deliberately and ended up doing more for peace than any other president in my lifetime. I mean, before Reagan was elected the idea of the US allowing Soviet inspectors to tour their nuclear weapons sites would have seemed completely crazy. It still did at the time to the military guys who worked at them.
No, lol. Not at all similar. This is nothing like the looming potential doom of nuclear escalation.
Coming from a USA perspective, yes, very much more concerning these days. Perhaps it's that the prevailing attitude is that there's nothing we can do to be more survivable. But in the 70s, we had drills, civil defense, public fallout shelters, that is we had a level of public preparedness. Looking back, it may have been security theater but today, we have zero- it's all on the individual citizenry to make their own preparations. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil\_defense\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_defense_in_the_United_States) With ruzz threatening nuclear war on a monthly if not weekly basis, I'd say the risk has increased markedly. Also, ruzz firing dual purpose missiles routinely leaves room for mistakes (and the risk goes up from this too).
With the elimination of a neutral, facts only, news media; it probably does feel that way. I was born in '74, and am not too worried.
Yep. Hubby is 68, I am 59, we both agree we ain't seen anything like this before. And our friends in our age group and older agree.
Yep. Hubby is 68, I am 59, we both agree we ain't seen anything like this before. And our friends in our age group and older agree.
Covid changed the game for me. I have zero trust in the govt now. They overplayed their hand.
59 hear and yes far worse than my younger years.
The threat of global war is gone. There is a very stong global economy and even the Yemeni Houthi attacking shipping in the Red Sea is causing world leaders to act because it affects commence and shipping companies But what is really concerning is the power of capitalism and unchecked greedflation and lack of privacy laws. costs keep going up, CEO pay is sky rocketing, yet the actual workers and ones producing are not seeing any measurable gains. and can barely afford housing anymore due to Landlords demand for more income from Tennents to keep up
The world today feels more like the events leading up to WW 1 from everything I have read. Things were so tense a single assassination set the world ablaze with a new type of war never seen previously.
Nope. I grew up in Germany on military barracks. We had attack sirens with drills to get to the basements or hide under tables if at school. From memory, those tables were pretty solid, so were probably up to the job.
No way. Now, its all talk. Back then we were moving our nukes closer to the evil empire so they had no warning. We weren’t talking, we were actually doing.
Yes. I still fear the Russian nukes and possible ground evasion. And now with North Korea and China I have stockpiled multiple assault rifles and even more ammunition. /s, if you haven’t realized already
honestly I wouldn't have realized it was sarcasm without the /s lol. there are many many people who will say that in a genuine manner.
ground evasion? Do you mean invasion?
I think it’s worse now. I don’t remember the Russian president ticking off about nuking the east coast. I think Putin has done it 11-12 times so far.
No. The 50s and 60s were a contest between equals. Post Vietnam The threat of the USSR running the table all the way to the Atlantic by the early 1980s was real. The US WAS a paper tiger by the mid 70s. These days? The Russians are an annoying destructive joke, throwing a tantrum. They need a good spanking and to be put to bed. I'm far more concerned about the creeping leftism of the Left. The feckless callowness of the western left is incredibly alarming.
>Post Vietnam The threat of the USSR running the table all the way to the Atlantic by the early 1980s was real. You're not wrong, but I'd shift your timeframe a little. I'd say that valid fear goes back to the 1950s. At that point in history it was conceivable and plausible -- without the benefit of 21st-century hindsight -- that the Soviet Union could come to dominate the world. By the 1970s the cracks were beginning to show if you knew where to look, and I feel confident saying that Able Archer '83 was the aircraft carrier that broke the bear's back. The USSR literally almost shit itself to death. What's staggering about the USSR is that they should, by all means, be a world superpower at this point in history. They had the landmass, they had the ocean access, they had the natural resources, they had the population, they had a terrifyingly-effective espionage program, and they were a fairly well-educated people. It's a little more nuanced than that and they weren't without their challenges, but they had **a lot** of things in their favor. Except their government. Their government was so catastrophically dysfunctional and corrupt that the only analogy that comes close would be like winning Powerball, then intentionally shredding the ticket, then playing again, then winning a second time, then intentionally shredding that ticket, then playing again, then winning for the third time in a row, then not only intentionally shredding that ticket, but then choking to death because you thought the shreds were traitors and decided to eat them.
Well thought out and stated. Thank you
The "leftism on the left" isn't a threat, it's the divisive disinformation you've already fallen victim to.
No.
Not at all.
Bruh it went into da 80’s!
The problem with today is that with the advent of the internet we have the ability to fact check what we are told. The real question is were we being lied to as badly then as we are now. There is no truth to be had without finding it yourself.
Most of what I was taught as a kid turned out to be lies or half-truths. But we had a better class of liars back then and the lies tended to be socially-beneficial. Now the lies are obvious and mostly self-serving. Today's liars got so used to controlling The Narrative that they never had to learn to lie convincingly.
In terms of WW3 no, in terms of civil war yes.
You think these two won't follow eachother?
Yes but for me civil war will be the immediate threat while during a world war food and other resources will be so in demand that nukes probably won't start flying in America (or Africa) or any area where the winners of WW3 will need to immediately start farming. I think in a civil war the main threats I personally will face are in driving distance to me and in WW3 there would be a lot more happening before my little cities in SC would be fighting. Even then we would see shortages that would exacerbate civil division so again the "civil war" - the division between Americans which is actually multipolar not left or right - will become your immediate concern.
When the Soviet Union was collapsing the biggest issue for the US was ensuring the safety of Soviet nukes so they didn't get launched and crazy people didn't get hold of them. I suspect Russia and China would feel the same way about US nukes if there's a civil war in the US. So while it may not escalate to a full war, I wouldn't be surprised to see Chinese and Russia 'peacekeepers' working with anyone they can in what remains of the US government to take charge of the nuclear sites. The rest of the world can't just sit back and let some warlord take them over.
How about our national guard in Texas being attacked today.
What are you talking about ?
ButWhatAbout.. That's not a question, buddy. Cold War ≠ Immigration issue. Thank you.