@skibidist I Wonder that it didn’t happen already

@Bayesian a few more non-Trump/geopolitical relevant options you could n/a to make room for more:

• Anther story / scandal about RFK and some dead wild animal comes out

• Steve Bannon goes to prison again

• TSM stock price plunges to 60 USD

• $TSLA reaches $400 a share

• price of gold reaches historic maximum (last peak 2709 $/t.oz, Oct-2024 last, so it has to be above that)

• Jimmy Carter dies

• Joe Biden dies

• IRS investigation of Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics

• A former Democratic presidential nominee besides Jimmy Carter or Joe Biden dies

• 2% milk > $5 a gallon at my local Walmart

• 2% milk < $2 a gallon at my local Walmart

• Elon will Tweet abour $DOGE as head of DoGE

• Elon will Tweet abour $DOGE while running DoGE

• The construction of the Third Temple begins in Jerusalem

• Dow rises above 65,000

• BTC falls below $38,000

@TheAllMemeingEye Set the public health emergency of international concern to N/A, and then I'll add a new option "H5N1 pandemic declared."

@Siebe just to be clear that this is a 25% DECREASE or more

I have a market on this as well that is nowhere near full yet :) https://manifold.markets/Mana/what-will-happen-during-trumps-seco-AdN8y00IUt

It turns out that any new influenza strain is automatically considered a public health emergency of international concern.

I request that the text of the option be changed to "H5N1 pandemic declared" instead.

@SteveSokolowski isn't there multiple new strains per year hence the seasonal flu jab?

@SteveSokolowski How about creating a new option with that new title? People may have traded with that fact in mind

@Bayesian It's not possible to create new options :(

@SteveSokolowski :( darn

@skibidist is the energetic thrusting part crucial? What's the objective dividing line for energeticness?

@TheAllMemeingEye Must be thrusting with at least this much energy:

Trump is seen shirtless

@TheAllMemeingEye I am guessing you mean something like this?

@skibidist I was more thinking at the beach or horseback riding with Putin

@TheAllMemeingEye Trump can hardly ride a golf car, let alone a horse

@Odoacre hey I never said he had to ride it well, and tbh the horse does most of the work

@Marnix i feel like if it's above 400 at the start of the term it shouldn't count until it dips below that again... but I'm curious what other people think

@NateWatson Similar market:
/jks/will-donald-trump-ever-publicly-end

I thought this was a joke, then I read this: https://www.axios.com/2019/08/25/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes

WTF.

@FelixEdelmann yes, I added this and firing rockets at meth labs in Mexico and shooting protestors because they were mentioned on Ezra Klein as ideas his staff had to talk him out of and now everyone who'd try to undermine efforts like this has been removed. All staff is vetted to just execute Trump's orders and the beaurocarcy will go through Gleichschaltung.

@FelixEdelmann

During one hurricane briefing at the White House, Trump said, "I got it. I got it. Why don't we nuke them?" according to one source who was there. [...] the source recalled he said something to the effect of, "Sir, we'll look into that." [...] "People were astonished. After the meeting ended, we thought, 'What the f---? What do we do with this?'"

Dayum

@TheAllMemeingEye It's a valid question for a non-technical person to ask. Shows open-mindedness and thinking out of the box.

@skibidist I feel like there would've been ways to phrase the question that didn't make it sound like he would've recklessly done it straight away himself without checking if it made sense if they hadn't stopped him e.g. "I'm no expert on this, but is it theoretically possible for nuclear weapons to be used in a way that could disrupt and possibly even disperse such storms before they reach us, given how much energy they can deliver?" not "I got it. I got it. Why don't we nuke them?"

@TheAllMemeingEye Agreed. Thinking outside the box is a good thing only when someone is willing to accept that most of their good ideas aren't original, and most of their original ideas aren't good. I don't believe Trump has shown any sign of that kind of epistemic humility.

@TheAllMemeingEye Trump's version is more direct and effectively the same question imo. The phrasing 'Why don't we' also indicates that he expects there to be a reason why we don't, in fact, nuke hurricanes. Give the orange man some credit

@skibidist the fact that high-level staff made secret agreements to ensure that both of them want be out of town at the same time to keep Trump's crazy ideas in check bellies this as just thinking outside the box

@AlexanderTheGreater Indeed, there were multiple of attempts to sabotage the first Trump administration from within the bureaucracy. Fortunately, it looks like Trump has learned his lesson for the second term.

@TheAllMemeingEye

"I'm no expert on this, but is it theoretically possible for nuclear weapons to be used in a way that could disrupt and possibly even disperse such storms before they reach us, given how much energy they can deliver?"

You've lived your whole life in high IQ bubbles. Very few people actually talk like this.

I would definitely ask "why not just bomb the storm?".

Also does anybody reading actually know why bombing hurricanes wouldn't work? No bombs strong enough? Would it just form again?

EDIT: I checked, we don't have bombs big enough.

@Shai how about "I'll admit I ain't no expert, so y'all please bear with me, but is there a cat in hell's chance that nukes can be used in a way that could maybe stop these godforsaken storms before the sons of bitches reach us, given how they're, like, super powerful?"

@TheAllMemeingEye sounds like a bad movie script. What made your original quote weird wasn't the vocabulary but the excessive hedging.

This thread is enlightening as to why men of action almost universally like Trump, while academics and bums loathe him.

@skibidist thank God nobody there now to stop good ideas like firing missiles into Mexico or shoot protestors. We are doomed

@skibidist frequently the best thing government can do is nothing

@AlexanderTheGreater 100%

@Shai

sounds like a bad movie script

lmao yeah that's the point, I intentionally crammed in an excessive amount of slang to make fun of the criticism lol

What made your original quote weird wasn't the vocabulary but the excessive hedging

I'm not familiar with the phrase hedging, but if you mean the humility and caution, then yeah that is the main thing that is desperately needed when a world leader with little technical knowledge is discussing nuclear weapons, and his lack of it terrifies me

@skibidist this shows a clear misunderstand of the role of the president or anything leader of a very large organization. They aren't the expert on the vast majority of subject matters. Their job isn't to come up with solutions. It's to a) unify behind a motivating vision and b) ensure the best experts are pulled in and moderate finding a solution and ensure it matches the values and preferences of the electorate.

The issue with Trump is that he thinks he is an expert on everything when he very clearly is not and it's resistant to advise.

@Shai

Also does anybody reading actually know why bombing hurricanes wouldn't work? No bombs strong enough? Would it just form again?

My understanding is that

1. Hurricanes are formed and powered by solar heated air, so it would become slightly stronger from the dissipated nuke's heat, not to mention full of dangerous radioactive fallout

2. Hurricanes carry vastly more total energy than nukes so would be unlikely to be disrupted

@TheAllMemeingEye my mental model is the same. The size difference IMO cannot be overstated. Hurricane systems are larger than most states. If nukes were powerful enough to disrupt a hurricane we definitely shouldn't use them for that.

@AlexanderTheGreater yeah something like Project Sundial might be enough to disrupt a hurricane, but would likely also destroy civilization with it, and would be the size of a building so basically impossible to get into the eye of the storm like trump wanted

@AlexanderTheGreater

Their job isn't to come up with solutions. It's to a) unify behind a motivating vision and b) ensure the best experts are pulled in and moderate finding a solution and ensure it matches the values and preferences of the electorate.

I disagree with this, part of a leader's job is to ask "why don't we just do [obvious idea that may be wrong]?", "Why can't we get this done in a quarter of the time?", etc. Further, the President must be able to go against what the experts say when it doesn't make sense to him. For example, during the Cuban missile crisis all the "experts" wanted to start bombing Cuba but the President decided against it.

@Shai true, checking what experts are saying and pushing for efficiency are important tasks. My opinion of Trump's character and skill set is so low that I have a hard time keeping him and doing anything sophisticated in my head at the same time.

@AlexanderTheGreater sophisticated golf tactics maybe?

@TheAllMemeingEye

Project Sundial

What a beautiful thing. Also final proof that history changes retroactively because I would have heard about it before otherwise.

Why would it destroy the civilization? It was supposed to detonate high enough that there would be no fallout .. and the civilization-ending thing is the speculated nuclear winter due to ashes, which would not happen over an ocean..

@skibidist

What a beautiful thing

Found Edward Teller lol

Also final proof that history changes retroactively because I would have heard about it before otherwise.

I mean it only became widely known after the kurzgesagt video the other week, before that the main online mention was a fairly obscure post on the nuclear secrecy blog

It was supposed to detonate high enough that there would be no fallout .

My understanding was that there would still be fallout since it was intended to be detonated in the ground-based building in which it was assembled, a so-called backyard bomb, since its effect would be global there would be no advantage to delivering it closer to the enemy, especially when it's the size of a building thus near impossible to move

the civilization-ending thing is the speculated nuclear winter due to ashes, which would not happen over an ocean

True, the firestorm and nuclear winter wouldn't happen if it was in a ship in the ocean far from the coast, though you'd still have insane fallout (the Operation Crossroads Bikini Atoll nuclear tests first did so on a smaller scale), and possibly vast tsunamis