How Much is a Corbyn?

ruggedtoast

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Many a true word said in (sarcastic) jest.

So glad the SNP didn't take this approach with 1000's of recently ex-Labour supporters who signed up after the ref. How more stupid can Labour possibly get over the next few weeks ? There are a lot of really angry people out there about this. Not necessarily about themselves being 'purged', more at the apparent attempt to 'rig' this leadership election somehow.

I also see Channel 4 news has just done a number on Corbyn re ISIS. Engage 100% full-on demonisation mode. And John ( I managed to lose Labour 40 seats in Scotland by being out of touch ) McTernan putting the boot in too...

I don't think they are done yet.

Its a shame as I generally have no interest in them as a party, but was prepared to sign up if it meant I could vote Corbyn. I was actually, mildly excited at this prospect, something I cannot remember feeling last about politics.

I then heard that they were denying new members a vote, didnt believe it so went away and checked, and found that they were actually rejecting new members altogether in case they didn't vote for one of the faceless totems no one had any interest in last year.

I am pretty annoyed about it too. At least the Conservatives are relatively unwavering in what they believe in, even if I am opposed to it. I have no idea what the hell the labour party even think they exist to do at the moment.

cells

antrobus wrote: »

No you didn't, this is what you said;



You are saying that the possession of nuclear weapons was a "needless cost" because you can "cripple the nation" with "multiple high accuracy guided missile(s)". And as has been pointed out to you by more than person here, it is likely to be far more expensive to launch millions of missiles armed with conventional warheads rather than a handful of nukes.

If you now want to make a different argument then fair enough, but at least have the decency to admit that your initial argument was wrong.

Im not sure where you think my argument has changed

I never said anything on the lines of, to do 500 kilotons of damage it would be cheaper to drop 100,000 x 5 ton bombs rather than a single 500KT nuke.

I said if you have the capability to hit high value targets in other nations, like dams or reactors, you don't need to drop 100,000 x 5 ton bombs or 1 x 500KT nuke you just need to take down the dam or reactor with maybe a few small missiles. The target itself does multiple times the damage. In the case of taking down say the 10 largest dams in china it would be in the region of $500B direct damage maybe over a million dead and much more indirect damage (lile millions of homes destroyed tens of millions displaced etc


BTW my argument isn't just nukes vs bombs. Its that we now live in an age where the economy is fully dependant on critical infrastructure. Without electricity any modern nation would suffer extreme economic damage and maybe in excess of 80% unemployment. Back in ww2 the economy was not reliant on electricity to any significant extent. Ww2 would not have happened imo if we were at an economic stage we are at today (or even in 1990). So I dont think any modern developed nation wpuld attack any other which could take down ita critical infrastructure

martinsurrey

cells wrote: »

Im not sure where you think my argument has changed

I never said anything on the lines of, to do 500 kilotons of damage it would be cheaper to drop 100,000 x 5 ton bombs rather than a single 500KT nuke.

I said if you have the capability to hit high value targets in other nations, like dams or reactors, you don't need to drop 100,000 x 5 ton bombs or 1 x 500KT nuke you just need to take down the dam or reactor with maybe a few small missiles. The target itself does multiple times the damage. In the case of taking down say the 10 largest dams in china it would be in the region of $500B direct damage maybe over a million dead and much more indirect damage (lile millions of homes destroyed tens of millions displaced etc


BTW my argument isn't just nukes vs bombs. Its that we now live in an age where the economy is fully dependant on critical infrastructure. Without electricity any modern nation would suffer extreme economic damage and maybe in excess of 80% unemployment. Back in ww2 the economy was not reliant on electricity to any significant extent. Ww2 would not have happened imo if we were at an economic stage we are at today (or even in 1990). So I dont think any modern developed nation wpuld attack any other which could take down ita critical infrastructure

In fact, fuel input equivalent for electricity generation has gone up by a factor of 5 since 1945, GDP has increased by a factor of 5 so we are using the same amount of electricity generation inputs for each unit of output, as 70 years ago.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/historical-electricity-data-1920-to-2011

http://data.okfn.org/data/core/gdp-uk

what do you think all the factories in the 1940's and 50's ran on, sunshine and smiles?

Generali

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I don't think they are done yet.

Its a shame as I generally have no interest in them as a party, but was prepared to sign up if it meant I could vote Corbyn. I was actually, mildly excited at this prospect, something I cannot remember feeling last about politics.

I then heard that they were denying new members a vote, didnt believe it so went away and checked, and found that they were actually rejecting new members altogether in case they didn't vote for one of the faceless totems no one had any interest in last year.

I am pretty annoyed about it too. At least the Conservatives are relatively unwavering in what they believe in, even if I am opposed to it. I have no idea what the hell the labour party even think they exist to do at the moment.

TBH I think they don't really stand for anything apart from delivering wage increases to unionised (public sector) workers.

The Tories and Lib Dems at least have an ideology: a set of guiding principles that we can generally assume will make their decisions in Government. Labour? It seems to depend on whether Unite or the NEC or the (Shadow) Cabinet is running things at that particular moment.

Generali

martinsurrey wrote: »

In fact, fuel input equivalent for electricity generation has gone up by a factor of 5 since 1945, GDP has increased by a factor of 5 so we are using the same amount of electricity generation inputs for each unit of output, as 70 years ago.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/historical-electricity-data-1920-to-2011

http://data.okfn.org/data/core/gdp-uk

what do you think all the factories in the 1940's and 50's ran on, sunshine and smiles?

I believe that if you look at oil and coal inputs per unit of output you get a very different picture. The world has become a lot, lot more oil efficient in particular since 1974.

cells

martinsurrey wrote: »

And Cells, while you are crippling the other nation, what are they doing? as long as the people survive, you can re build, so both sides believe they just have to cripple you faster than you cripple them (WW2 Europe style).

With a nuclear threat, no amount of crippling your enemy can leave you with anything to rebuild from, so the face of warfare changes (Cold War).

Yes thats true the nuke nation can exterminate the non nuke one.

but if the cost is trillion of dollars and millions of your own dead what can be worth that?

If china (or whoever) wants more land it can go and buy or build it. If china wants more resources it can go buy them or prospect its massive nation and find them. If china is !!!!ed off with another nation it can do economic damage (sanctions dont trade with them and force your pals to not trade with them). If china wants to get rid of a government it can fund the opposition or arm them and cause civil war or proxy war.

I just can't see what an advanced nuclear nation could want from another nation that can be achieved by a nuke. This makes perfect sense as since its invention its only ever been used on japan back when things were v.different

cells

martinsurrey wrote: »

In fact, fuel input equivalent for electricity generation has gone up by a factor of 5 since 1945, GDP has increased by a factor of 5 so we are using the same amount of electricity generation inputs for each unit of output, as 70 years ago.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/historical-electricity-data-1920-to-2011

http://data.okfn.org/data/core/gdp-uk

what do you think all the factories in the 1940's and 50's ran on, sunshine and smiles?

The amount of electricity generated in 1940 was 27 TWh and in 2000 was closer to 350TWh.
about 1/13th. Also significantly a large portion of the electricity in 1940 was used for simple resistive heating eg home heaters.

Most jobs and economic activity did not rely on electricity now virtually everything does

There was electricity but it was not on any significant quantity and scale. Also they would have been generated by far smaller units dotted around the place. Not like now when a single power station feeds a whole local grid. Take out 30 of the biggest stations and you send the UK back to 1940 economically

cells

Generali wrote: »

I believe that if you look at oil and coal inputs per unit of output you get a very different picture. The world has become a lot, lot more oil efficient in particular since 1974.

He could be correct in that in 1940 electricity in real terms would have been far more costly and rationed so its usefulness per unit of activity was greater but that doesn't mean electricity no more important today. You nees to look at usefulness x volume not just usefulness in which case for everything if you only have a tiny amount it gets spent extremely efficiently as its all all you got


Overall eneegy efficency has gone up for a whole now. Eg the uk now uses significantly less energy than it did in 1990 even though the population and economy is significantly larger

princeofpounds

Energy intensity of GDP and GDP growth has been steadily dropping over time.

antrobus

cells wrote: »

Im not sure where you think my argument has changed

I never said anything on the lines of, to do 500 kilotons of damage it would be cheaper to drop 100,000 x 5 ton bombs rather than a single 500KT nuke.....

Yes you did. You were objecting to the cost of a nuclear deterrent on the basis that you could achieve the same result with conventional weapons.

And when initally challenged on that assumption you responded by saying that iy was "fairly cheap to mass produce" these missiles of yours. When in fact you would be talking about the same missiles in any case.

cells wrote: »

...BTW my argument isn't just nukes vs bombs. Its that we now live in an age where the economy is fully dependant on critical infrastructure. ...

And I can reduce that infrastructure to rubble with just one Vanguard submarine.