How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

All accept one - sustainable collective Will.  I argue that the Kardashev scale is incomplete - https://futurism.com/the-kardashev-scale-type-i-ii-iii-iv-v-civilization

Any collective intelligent species will need to develop unified and connected collective will before it is able to approach the K-civ requirements. If a species lacks collective will, even passive or implicit, they will never be able to leverage the required energy levels. We would need to unite human will to ever become a Type I civ for example.

Russia key missing resource is sustainable collective willpower and Putin knows this - that was what he was seeking in this stupid war, more collective willpower at his disposal.  Worse, Russias collective Will is fractured and poorly constructed from it foundation - it is baked into their identity issues.  My theory is that all these people are dying so Russia can hold it together for another few decades under another strongman ruler.

You're comparing some pretty extreme extremes here...on the one hand a country that covers not even 4% of its planet's surface with a civilization able to harness all incoming solar energy/radiation. Collective will is not a resource, its an idea, and even then it's on a sliding scale of effectiveness. There's plenty of civilizations that have arose with some pretty half-assed organizational principles (human sacrifice, for one) that nonetheless pushed forward into local and regional dominance. Give the Aztecs metal weapons instead of those obsidian make-dos and you've got no European conquest Central America but you do have a lot of very anxious Christian POWs.

Collective Will etc is certainly a cultural resource (as a very powerful self-organizing principle). Yet Russian elites have had ample access to knowledge of democracy, etc and obvious examples abroad to pull from but have time and again fallen into autocracy as a default.

But I don't know if Putler sought more collective willpower- he was already essentially unbound in ambition. Did he really need/sought more? He still had to negotiate with internal power structures the surround & enable him, to a degree, but this war seems to very much be his war, his ego involved, his personal perspective on history devolving to his "legacy". He drove its creation and maintains its progression. Without the West involved he very likely would be "winning", as he sees it. 

For him to succeed it appears he only needs the support (partial-Collective Will) of a tiny percentage of the Russian population. Pretty efficient as a ruling mechanism, albeit inherently unstable. And yet, even though the assholes at the top can change/swap out, the Russian system of governance has almost always been autocracy, autocracy, autocracy. Brief interludes of demos which are swiftly squished under the steel-toed jackboot of yet another incoming autocracy.

I'd question weather lack Collective Will is a deficiency - its absence hasn't stopped Russia's rise to superpower status, its conquest of a significant portion of the northern hemisphere and its maintenance of local hegemony.

 

Fun conversation btw. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kinophile

[danfrodo]

3 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

PS Good name check on “Three Body Problem” book and series by Liu Cixin! Soon to be a movie

good gawd what an amazing trilogy.  All other sci fi seems like comic books after this.  Absolute masterpiece.

[Zeleban]

 

[Offshoot]

Another purported drone strike (according to local authorities), this time in Kursk.

 

[dan/california]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

True but I think we may be the only species capable of creating an entirely artificial environment that then creates pressures.  War is very much an environment, and it is very much human-made.  Not sure any other animals do it to this scale - ants maybe.  We create our own pressures to the point we could extinct ourselves.  I can’t tell if this is a natural filter to scrub out dangerous higher life forms or a way to propel a species to become more dangerous higher life forms - see Three Body Problem series.

 

The first organisms that secreted oxygen as a byproduct would like a word. 

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

It is the wide structure of war, which we also evolved having started in much the same way as chimps, that creates evolutionary pressure.  In order to do this at scale a species needs to pull out a lot more energy out of its environment.  Chimps do it but we took it to a whole other level.

As to the Three Body Problem series - definitely older school sci-fi and his characters were damned thin.  His logic on the Dark Forest is interesting but taken to extremes.  The faultiest issue was with the assumption that higher life forms would collide over limited resources while expanding - default interaction = wars of extermination. The level of energy available in the galaxy is enormous - albeit finite - to the point that only a Type III civilization would see other higher life forms as a threat.  And of course a Type III civilization would have the level of sophistication to simply box up lower civilizations - pretty much like what happened in the books.  Once boxed up a Type III civilization is simply going to ignore lower civs as irrelevant.  Only two or more Type III civilizations would wage such a war over “limited resources”, but of course with the technology levels they have they could simply move to another galaxy.  Unless Type III civilization is so common that every galaxy has one - and this completely disregards time dilation of light speed travel required to be a Type III civ - then the Dark Forest falls apart.

Xixin had to effectively push the whole collision central to the plot when in reality two Type I civilizations have no fundamental resources based reasons to pre-emptively destroy each other and neither do higher level civilizations.

Read the fiction of your competition and future adversary and you will understand how they think better.  There are a lot of insights on how the Chinese see the rest of the world in those books and how they view warfare.  Cixin is only one man but there are definitely shades and undertones in his writing.

I thought there was real depth to the writing, but the books were also really depressing. The guided tour of the Cultural Revolution made its point, and then went on for another hundred pages. A lot of science fiction postulates civilizations that don't see the value of coexistence. 

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/w/steve-white/in-death-ground.htm

This is a classic example of the genre. I would almost argue the Russian took it a bit too seriously. Always three choices, destroy them, educate them, or lose unpleasantly.

The three body problem does have some interesting spins on the genre. And I like the idea of reading Chinese authors to understand the Chinese viewpoint. But if that is the Chinese viewpoint the defense budget needs to be doubled, and trade with them just shut down. And the bleep of it is that really might be the case.

 

[Kinophile]

45 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

good gawd what an amazing trilogy.  All other sci fi seems like comic books after this.  Absolute masterpiece.

Read the Hyperion series, my friend, then tell me if there's any character in 3BP as remotely intriguing, humanist or layered as Col. Kassad.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kinophile

[kevinkin]

2 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Those happen more or less by clockwork, whether they may be beneficial or damaging to reproduction.

Let's not forget the majority of mutations, caused by exposure to things like UV and chemicals, are so immediately deadly, cells have evolved a mechanism to repair damaged DNA. These mutations might give rise to metabolic problems or cancers regardless of the current environment. Once beyond that point, non lethal mutations affect reproduction - one way or the other. Those changes in genotype are expressed over generations. Those that increase reproductive potential are amplified. Those that don't slowly fade away or just become benign. All bets are off when the asteroid hits and the environment suffers a major discontinuity. Certain genotypes will become reproductively favored under the new conditions. Mammals vs. reptiles after the cretaceous event is a classic example. In the case of persistent genetic diseases, it is assumed that those negative alleles are also associated with reproductively beneficial ones so they are difficult to eliminate from a population. Bad genes hiding behind good ones. 

And "natural selection" can cause a change in the population of modern weapons:

https://eurasiantimes.com/bayraktar-tb2-drones-out-of-action-from-ukraine-war-russias/

Necessity is the mother of invention; be it sharpened flint or long range, PC controlled aerial marauders. 

[Kinophile]

50 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

 

"Wagnerites roasting, on an open fire,
HIMARS slamming their HQs...
Youtube rants uploaded by cold Mobiks
Ukrainians dressed up like Eskimos

Everybody knows a Tupolov hit by drones
Helps to make the evening bright
Deadly SOF with their NVGs all aglow
Will find it easy work tonight
They know that Biden's on his way
He's loaded lots of Ammo and MREs on his planes
And every Babushka's child is gonna spy
To see if T-72s really know how to fly
And so I'm offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety-two
Although it's been said many times, many ways
Komrad Putler, **** you
And so I'm offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety-two
Although it's been said many times, many ways
Komrad Putler, **** you!"

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kinophile

[kevinkin]

Longer article on the Newsweek piece:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukrainian-himars-cant-fire-long-range-atacms-missiles-report

The US/NATO might be using plausible deniability in helping Ukraine behind the scenes with the long range drones. Maybe to keep them from going ape ****. Who could blame Ukraine with their country in ruins.

 

[Huba]

26 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Longer article on the Newsweek piece:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukrainian-himars-cant-fire-long-range-atacms-missiles-report

The US/NATO might be using plausible deniability in helping Ukraine behind the scenes with the long range drones. Maybe to keep them from going ape ****. Who could blame Ukraine with their country in ruins.

 

Agreed - this information being leaked during the same 24h during which UA announces arrival of new long range strike drone and expends the few old ones, that it witheld for months, cannot be coincidental. 

Also, if you care to remember the time when HIMARS was making it's debut in the conflict, Ukrainians were often mixing the GMLRS strikes with Tochka launches, as there was no need to hold to their old reserve anymore. I wonder if it isn't the same mechanism in play right now. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Huba

[Zeleban]

typical use of the BMP-1. As you can see, this type of military equipment is used as a self-propelled gun. The gunner conducts massive fire at a pre-targeted place

[Artkin]

Wow I seriously doubt the rate of fire is anything close to that ingame. 6 rounds in less than 20 seconds is ridiculous

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, Artkin said:

Wow I seriously doubt the rate of fire is anything close to that ingame. 6 rounds in less than 20 seconds is ridiculous

Technical rate of fire of 2A28 gun is up to 8 shots per minute. I, think future CM should have opportunity to set desirable RoF for any weapon system, not only for artillery  

[hcrof]

1 hour ago, Zeleban said:

typical use of the BMP-1. As you can see, this type of military equipment is used as a self-propelled gun. The gunner conducts massive fire at a pre-targeted place

This is such a huge improvement for the vehicle - they are useless in CM because anything they can target with that short range gun (including infantry) can usually hit back harder. Indirect fire is a game changer.

[Calamine Waffles]

38 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Technical rate of fire of 2A28 gun is up to 8 shots per minute. I, think future CM should have opportunity to set desirable RoF for any weapon system, not only for artillery  

  

1 hour ago, Artkin said:

Wow I seriously doubt the rate of fire is anything close to that ingame. 6 rounds in less than 20 seconds is ridiculous

 

8 rounds/minute is with the autoloader (MZ). With manual loading like on BMP-1P as it is being done here, it depends on the commander. They're pretty light projectiles (4-5 kg), and he can do this since he does not have to adjust the aim, otherwise it would be much, much slower.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Calamine Waffles

[kevinkin]

Another:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/06/drone-attack-hits-oil-storage-tank-airfield-russia-kursk

Morning coffee is tasting good these last 2 days. 

Saratov is at least 370 miles from the nearest Ukrainian territory. Russian commentators said on social media that if Ukraine could strike that far inside Russia, it may also be capable of hitting Moscow.

The Ukrainian military analyst Serhiy Zgurets said the air force bases hit on Monday were the only facilities in Russia that could fully service bombers used to launch attacks on Ukraine.

“It is still too early to say what is at issue here, but the ability of the armed forces of Ukraine to reach military targets deep in the territory of the Russian Federation has a very symbolic and important meaning,” he wrote on the website of Ukraine’s Espreso TV.

 

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by kevinkin

[FancyCat]

Leaning towards the tu-141 since we have much more evidence for their use than this new drone. 

[FancyCat]

 

[kevinkin]

Russia struggles to keep any friends:

https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/editorial/yomiuri-editorial/20221204-75015/

[Huba]

Tu-95 covered with foam after yesterday's strike at Engels ( gif made from before/ after satellite photos in the tweet).

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Huba

[poesel]

9 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Aside from that basic concept, T3BP read like an old sci fi book from the 50s. And not a great one.

Give me Simmons, Asher, Greg Bear (RIP) any day.

I do enjoy reading SciFi from different ages and places. It tells you a lot about what people thought were their future from their time on. But more interesting is that combined with the nationality of the writer. Makes a huge difference between U.S. Americans (which most stuff originates) and Russian, Polish, German, Italian or Scottish authors.
I guess there is probably a branch of literature that just does these comparisons.

FWIW I enjoyed reading T3BP even with all its flaws. Most SF has one or the other flaw, and in this case the novelty of the story and setting outweighs the rest IMHO.

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, FancyCat said:

 

LMAO what an ironic farce 

[The_Capt]

8 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

All good stuff! Thanks for taking this seriously. However in the scheme of population genetics, war is far too small to be *the* driver of genetic evolution on the chromosomal level. The only way it could rise to the top is if men who fought in wars AND reproduced AND had some inheritable difference from those who didn’t reproduce that was related to surviving in war AND had more surviving offspring than all other men on earth combined. AND, to be sure, those offspring in turn reproduced more total children than the rest of their generation.
EDIT : Most men do not fight in wars, and wars are extremely recent in evolutionary terms. Otherwise, conflict among groups is a common trait in many (if not most) species. War as we know it is a fraction of Homo sapiens existence, let alone ancestral humans and their interrelated cousins. But you know much more about the specifics of war in historical times than I do!

interesting article.  But afaik the established evidence linking any general inheritable factors to any thinking - intelligence is at best controversial. And that is the paper that suggested that centuries of European Jews were selected for a kind of intelligence because of family traditions for business:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-jewish-gene-for-intelligence/

People would like every group to be exactly the same,” Cochran says, “but they’re not.” The study claims that intelligence evolved in this genetically isolated population because, historically, Ashkenazim had cognitively demanding occupations such as financiers and merchants. Prowess in these fields provided prosperity and, so the theory goes, more success in reproduction. Thus, the “IQ gene” passed down through generations.

(Originally published in Journal of Biological Science)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/mongolia-genghis-khan-dna
And now I am wondering about the role disease plays. War as an environmental construct affects more than men.  Entire populations are impacted through secondary effects such as disease and famine.

Further if trauma can be passed on epigenetically - https://www.psycom.net/trauma/epigenetics-trauma

And there is a link between epigenetic and mutation -https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/epigenetic-influences-and-disease-895/
Then the overall effect of war on humanity is potentially much broader and deeper than one would expect from normal evolutionary processes.  This also establishes a potential link between cultural evolution and physical evolution.

Which apparently is being debated in the anthropological community -

https://cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/dist/7/8056/files/2019/12/2019-Majolo-Evol-Anthropol-002.pdf

 

[The_Capt]

7 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Collective will is not a resource, its an idea, and even then it's on a sliding scale of effectiveness. There's plenty of civilizations that have arose with some pretty half-assed organizational principles (human sacrifice, for one) that nonetheless pushed forward into local and regional dominance.

I would say we are applying our own cultural biases on what constitutes “half assed”.  If the Aztecs can establish regional dominance around ideas then what is the difference between an idea and say obsidian as resources?  Both needed to be sustained and employed in creating regional dominance.  My point being is that as a collective species we may as well treat ideas and collective will as critical resources because the effect is the same - without them organizational cohesion falls apart.  With them we can expand power in the cultural/human space which translates directly into the physical resource space and vice versa.  There is no line between “the imagined” and the physical in the human dimensions - it is what makes us human in the first place.

7 hours ago, Kinophile said:

For him to succeed it appears he only needs the support (partial-Collective Will) of a tiny percentage of the Russian population. Pretty efficient as a ruling mechanism, albeit inherently unstable. And yet, even though the assholes at the top can change/swap out, the Russian system of governance has almost always been autocracy, autocracy, autocracy. Brief interludes of demos which are swiftly squished under the steel-toed jackboot of yet another incoming autocracy.

Ah, so this is where the “passive or implicit” term is important.  Historically very small percentages of active will have been required; however, massive amounts of passive will was also required.  In fact energy to keep the will of the masses passive has been a major venture throughout history.

Within Russia the major resource idea appears to the that of Russian identity.  And as we have discuss here previously, sustainment of that identity is as important as natural gas in keeping Russia functioning - I live in a country with a similar issue.  I think Putin understands this very well and all his actions have been to reinforce that identity (an idea).  Authority only functions I’d everyone buys in and identity is the resource Putin needs, it translates directly to political power.

Russia’s problem is that the foundations of those ideas is weak, always has been.  It has sustained itself as an empire by having to constantly flex and demonstrate to itself that it is an empire.  This is another iteration.  This is what makes this war so dangerous, and frankly also strange.  Was there an identity crisis looming in the Russian psyche that triggered this thing?  Or was it just in one old man’s head…maybe both.  Either way the fragility of that idea needed to be reinforced for whatever reason, just as tangible as any other physical resource - and here we are in this mess.

In fact one of the worst outcomes of this war, again we have discussed at length, is a total defeat of Russia without a soft landing.  Russia is an unstable state molecule, largely because it mechanisms of collective will (e.g. identity) are unstable.  If drastically challenged the whole deal could fall apart and we have 6000 nuclear weapons rolling around the floor.

[womble]

36 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

LMAO what an ironic farce 

I thought it was interesting that he ascribes his command's failure to inform him that he was surplus and supernumerary to the additional resources  being directed to the unit of which he was nominally part. How did that come to be? His personal fortune? I mean, he's an opportunist bandit, so I suppose he has some misappropriated personal means. Bit irregular, however. Or maybe the Kremlin orter conscript some of the kleptocrats and let them pour their personal wealth into their units' log trains...