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Starpluck
Sep 11, 2010

by Fluffdaddy
Let me put it this way. In 24 or so years. there will be an event that will end the U.S. government and world. Should the U.S. government prepare for an event that will end the government itself? Why bother?

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Cannibal Llama
Jan 3, 2020

Cannibal Llama sounds like it could be a zany intentional throwback to mid OOs Penguin of Doom tier usernames but it also sounds like it could be the name of the lamest possible Metal Gear Solid boss so please don't make fun of it.
...What is this event that will end the government and the world in 24 years?

ReidRansom
Oct 25, 2004


They already do. There are all sorts of plans for far out and generally unlikely world ending scenarios up to and including alien invasion, just so everyone knows what to do just in case. The cold war era was a hosed up time.

Owlofcreamcheese
May 22, 2005
Probation
Can't post for 9 years!
Buglord

Cannibal Llama posted:

...What is this event that will end the government and the world in 24 years?

quote:


Rain of non-lethal fire flares being deployed

Here is an example. Aircraft countermeasures. Just imagine they are deployed all over the world with NO AIRPLANES SHOOTING THEM. They just come out of nothing. It is an Act of God.

Do you know what happens? We enter a perpetual panic attack worse than the locker. Just ask the Illumanti, or Bahrain School. We enter so much panic that all the buildings and mountains and houses collapse. But you will immediately get a warning and run out BEFORE you die. Then later you will want to die. You will start running in random directions hoping to run right towards more white flares that will only burn your back like molten lava but not kill you.

Then, when you decide to commit suicide. You will find all the buildings and mountains melted and no way to fall of a large height. We panicked so hard that the loving mountains melted and the towers collapsed. That’s why we can’t kill ourselves. And don’t even try choking a friend out, what do you think happens then? That’s why I nuked this planet in 2044.



Apparently???

Starpluck
Sep 11, 2010

by Fluffdaddy

ReidRansom posted:

They already do. There are all sorts of plans for far out and generally unlikely world ending scenarios up to and including alien invasion, just so everyone knows what to do just in case. The cold war era was a hosed up time.

But how can you prepare for a scenario that ends the world? That is like saying the U.S. Government is preparing for a time that will end the government. That is contradictory by nature and is why I made the thread.

Timeless Appeal
May 28, 2006

Starpluck posted:

But how can you prepare for a scenario that ends the world? That is like saying the U.S. Government is preparing for a time that will end the government. That is contradictory by nature and is why I made the thread.
People live on a hierarchy of needs. So while you cannot trust people or people in power to necessarily be good faith actors, people can be pushed in desperate circumstances to act differently or change their priorities.

I think what's unclear about what you're asking though. Are you asking:

(A) Should the government create systems to prevent even very unlikely outlier situations like a meteor hitting the Earth? Because the answer is yes and they do, but particularly scenarios that can be answered with a simple military response that does not challenge systems of power.

(B) Should the government create systems to respond to a situation in which the extinction of the human race and thereby the government would no longer exist is assured and there is no way to stop it? I'm not sure what that would look like because it's hard to imagine how people would respond to that in general.

(C) Would the government create systems to respond to a possible apocalyptic scenario which is survivable but requires reimagining society to the point where the government must sacrifice its current structure in order to serve the survival of as many people as possible? I think we're seeing this in real time. Man made climate change probably won't lead to a literal apocalypse, but even in the face of massive social disaster, if systems of power believe they can maintain themselves, they will leading to responses that will always be tempered. The US Government would rather they exist than Haiti not vanish into the ocean.

So, I think the question to clarify what you mean, but also the answer to your question is: How much of an apocalypse?

Starpluck
Sep 11, 2010

by Fluffdaddy

Timeless Appeal posted:

(B) Should the government create systems to respond to a situation in which the extinction of the human race and thereby the government would no longer exist is assured and there is no way to stop it?
Exactly what I mean. I also question if there would be a metric or system in order to find 'desirable' citizens and to preserve their life. Off the top of my head, I can imagine the REAL ID being used by the government to do this. What other metric should they use other than people who listened to the government in the first place, by getting the REAL ID?

But going back to your main point, I choose B.


quote:

So, I think the question to clarify what you mean, but also the answer to your question is: How much of an apocalypse?
There is no such thing as "how much of an apocalypse." It literally means one thing only.

Starpluck fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jan 23, 2022

Bel Shazar
Sep 14, 2012

Starpluck posted:

Exactly what I mean. I also question if there would be a metric or system in order to find 'desirable' citizens and to preserve their life. Off the top of my head, I can imagine the REAL ID being used by the government to do this. What other metric should they use other than people who listened to the government in the first place, by getting the REAL ID?

But going back to your main point, I choose B.

There is no such thing as "how much of an apocalypse." It literally means one thing only.

The earth will eventually be destroyed by a collision or a gamma ray burst or the sun's own death throws and it is an appropriate government activity to develop the capacity to live in other solar systems as a way to mitigate that apocalyptic scenario.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester


Aircraft countermeasures are way more badass than I thought

Starpluck
Sep 11, 2010

by Fluffdaddy

RBA Starblade posted:

Aircraft countermeasures are way more badass than I thought

I have reasons for making this thread.

GABA ghoul
Oct 29, 2011

No, we shouldn't do anything to prepare. Instead the government should build large public forums in every city where people can gather, drink and say "lol, we are so hosed" and "lmao, we are all gonna die" to each other all the time while looking through Twitter messages on a huge screen

e: I hereby absolve you from your guilt. Go forth and lmao, do whatever

GABA ghoul fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jan 23, 2022

Owlofcreamcheese
May 22, 2005
Probation
Can't post for 9 years!
Buglord

Starpluck posted:

I have reasons for making this thread.

Can you share them?

Typo
Aug 19, 2009

Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes
Didn't the US government already do this during the cold war? As in preparing for the apocalpypse that would have being a Soviet-US nuclear war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyenne_Mountain_Complex


so just dust those plans off or something?

ReidRansom
Oct 25, 2004


Starpluck posted:

But how can you prepare for a scenario that ends the world? That is like saying the U.S. Government is preparing for a time that will end the government. That is contradictory by nature and is why I made the thread.

I think the assumption is that anything that ends civilization isn't likely to be instant and there needs to be some system for trying to maintain order in case it isn't all about to actually end. You can't prepare for the entire planet and all life on it suddenly blipping out of existence no. That's dumb and isn't likely to happen. And if it did, you wouldn't know, because you simply wouldn't exist all of a sudden. So no, no one is preparing for that.

But what do you mean by ends the world? Cus like, all the things that people are talking about usually that are going to "end the world" are really just going to radically alter the way a bunch of life on earth exists, but the planet itself with be just fine until the sun goes supernova or maybe a rogue black hole comes along and swallows everything up. And even all that poo poo that is going to end our current form of society are still going to leave lots of humans around trying to survive. All those plans are for how to try to keep some sort of organized civilization going and how to manage the chaos as it's all going to poo poo. Not that it matters, since it's all unlikely to go according to all their plans anyway.

Senor Tron
May 26, 2006


Bel Shazar posted:

The earth will eventually be destroyed by a collision or a gamma ray burst or the sun's own death throws and it is an appropriate government activity to develop the capacity to live in other solar systems as a way to mitigate that apocalyptic scenario.

Any of those types of scenarios don't make a good case right for expansion into space right now (and I say that as a massive supporter of space exploration). Something that would threaten our entire solar system is so unlikely that if it ever happens it will likely be hundreds of millions of years in the future. If our descendants are still around and technological by then they have plenty of time to deal with it with their god technologies. If they don't have those technologies because of engineering limits inherent to the universe then hopes of expanding humanity outside our solar system in any significant way are misguided as well.

The argument I see having the most merit is that we are using up the Earths resources so quickly that we need to start gathering resources from space before we dig up the entire planet. We're using up the easy to access resources and energy so quickly that not only will it start to hinder our civilisation, but it will introduce scarcity to the extent that we can't spare resources on things like space exploration that isn't seeing immediate returns and we'll become trapped on the Earth forever. However even in the realistic best case scenarios it seems like it would take centuries to reach a point where a significant percentage of industrial activity takes place off-world, and if we keep on down the path we're on we'll be in big trouble before then anyway.

Butternubs
Feb 15, 2012
Looking forward to the part of this thread where we debate whether it's bad to make fun of people with mental health issues or actually good and funny.

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug
I need the government to address the oncoming heat death of the universe. This should be top priority.

Sanguinia
Jan 1, 2012

~Everybody wants to be a cat~
~Because a cat's the only cat~
~Who knows where its at~

CommieGIR posted:

I need the government to address the oncoming heat death of the universe. This should be top priority.

I've got this idea about sentient cute animals convincing idealistic young girls to make wishes which will generate completely new energy and thereby counteract entropy. But it has the side effect of both giving them super-powers related to their wish, and eventually turning them into horrific monsters when their power source decays. But I think those things might end up balancing out since we can just turn the girls with superpowers against the monsters. The downside is we'll need to create an ever-increasing number of these super-powered little girls to make sure that the monsters don't get too numerous, and there's also a theoretical capacity for a wish to create a monster so powerful it destroys the universe. But, you know, some people on the Manhatten Project thought the bomb might ignite the planet's atmosphere, and they still did it.

I dunno, I'm still workshopping it.

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



I mean they have several non hypothetical ones that they're not preparing for, don't know why they'd need hypothetical ones to worry about too.

Presto
Nov 22, 2002

Keep calm and Harry on.

Typo posted:

Didn't the US government already do this during the cold war?
They built a secret bunker under a resort in West Virginia.

That one got found out, so they probably have another one now.

Trend Upsilon
Jan 15, 2022

by Hand Knit
I long for an apocalypse of this thread; should we start preparing for it now?

America Inc.
Nov 22, 2013

I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.
My favorite is the government plan to deal with a zombie apocalypse

Owlofcreamcheese
May 22, 2005
Probation
Can't post for 9 years!
Buglord

Trend Upsilon posted:

I long for an apocalypse of this thread; should we start preparing for it now?

This thread needs to continue until the guy explains his theory about the world being gas lit in 24 years.

Telsa Cola
Aug 19, 2011

No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

quarantinethepast posted:

My favorite is the government plan to deal with a zombie apocalypse

Zombie apocalypses are not that dangerous which is why basically every media version of them quickly either adds special mutant zombies or makes human vs human conflict the main source of tension, while the zombies quickly become a background threat.

Like they just don't really make sense mathematically if the survivors put minimal effort into killing zombies.

Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Jan 29, 2022

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Prepare for it? They're subsidizing it.

America Inc.
Nov 22, 2013

I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

Telsa Cola posted:

Zombie apocalypses are not that dangerous which is why basically every media version of them quickly either adds special mutant zombies or makes human vs human conflict the main source of tension, while the zombies quickly become a background threat.

Like they just don't really make sense mathematically if the survivors put minimal effort into killing zombies.

Blast from the past:
https://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7-scientific-reasons-zombie-outbreak-would-fail-quickly.html

America Inc. fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Jan 31, 2022

Telsa Cola
Aug 19, 2011

No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

Huh, I remember reading that when it came out. I thought they had a detailed break down of the math on it.

Owlofcreamcheese
May 22, 2005
Probation
Can't post for 9 years!
Buglord

Telsa Cola posted:

Zombie apocalypses are not that dangerous which is why basically every media version of them quickly either adds special mutant zombies or makes human vs human conflict the main source of tension, while the zombies quickly become a background threat.

Like they just don't really make sense mathematically if the survivors put minimal effort into killing zombies.



It's funny, "Night of the Living Dead" basically originated zombie movies and is really the one that gets it most correct. The zombies are a huge threat to a small number of people trapped in a remote location. Within 12 hours an organized military/police/hunter group are just casually (too casually) popping off zombies while taking coffee orders.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.
Also if it's the scientific zombie type, the kind from an infection instead of magic, tons of zombies staying around forever, such that cities are still full of zombies months and years on, makes no sense. There's just not enough calories around to support them, what are they all eating? Within a handful of days, or a few weeks at most, they should all be starving to death (or dying of thirst even earlier than that).

Drakyn
Dec 26, 2012

How the hell do you even get hordes of zombies? Every zombie is the result of another zombie failing to kill and eat someone; if they're that lovely at it there shouldn't be many victims to turn into zombies anyways, and if they're any good at it they're not going to make new zombies, just lunches. Either way fails to explain how you end up with ten grillion of the loving things.

Falukorv
Jun 23, 2013

A funny little mouse!

Senor Tron posted:

Any of those types of scenarios don't make a good case right for expansion into space right now (and I say that as a massive supporter of space exploration). Something that would threaten our entire solar system is so unlikely that if it ever happens it will likely be hundreds of millions of years in the future. If our descendants are still around and technological by then they have plenty of time to deal with it with their god technologies. If they don't have those technologies because of engineering limits inherent to the universe then hopes of expanding humanity outside our solar system in any significant way are misguided as well.


Planetkiller comets on a collision course can come out of nowhere though with only a couple of years of advance warning. But with months ahead you dont have to change its course by much for it to miss the earth so not a bad contingency to have readiness to deploy against.. Extremely rare, but if it happens whole civilization is at risk, and the technology to prevent are not exactly high sci-fi.

Zachack
Jun 1, 2000




Cicero posted:

Also if it's the scientific zombie type, the kind from an infection instead of magic, tons of zombies staying around forever, such that cities are still full of zombies months and years on, makes no sense. There's just not enough calories around to support them, what are they all eating? Within a handful of days, or a few weeks at most, they should all be starving to death (or dying of thirst even earlier than that).

What if the zombie part turns people into part-plant and they get food through photosynthesis? What then???

quote:

How the hell do you even get hordes of zombies? Every zombie is the result of another zombie failing to kill and eat someone; if they're that lovely at it there shouldn't be many victims to turn into zombies anyways, and if they're any good at it they're not going to make new zombies, just lunches. Either way fails to explain how you end up with ten grillion of the loving things.
They may be zombies but they still have a little self-control. A couple nibbles and they're fine for a few hours.

As for the OP's scenario - generally no. It's already written weirdly since any world-destroying event will presumably also being US-destroying, considering that the US is part of the world. But if it's an imminent-but-slow apocalypse (e.g. When Worlds Collide) then any government should probably have some sort of plan to at least keep civil society "running" (ie power/water) until near the end, either through bribes, shame, or some other sort of control in hopes of minimizing suffering. Whether or not that is possible is frankly unknowable barring serious advances in automation to remove the human element.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Zachack posted:

What if the zombie part turns people into part-plant and they get food through photosynthesis? What then???
Oh poo poo, and what if they turn part fish and develop gills?? loving water zombies, get away from my seastead! This is my exclusive economic zone!!

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

Drakyn posted:

How the hell do you even get hordes of zombies? Every zombie is the result of another zombie failing to kill and eat someone; if they're that lovely at it there shouldn't be many victims to turn into zombies anyways, and if they're any good at it they're not going to make new zombies, just lunches. Either way fails to explain how you end up with ten grillion of the loving things.

Chuds will volunteer to get bitten by the zombies because it's all an overblown hoax

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suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

GABA ghoul posted:

No, we shouldn't do anything to prepare. Instead the government should build large public forums in every city where people can gather, drink and say "lol, we are so hosed" and "lmao, we are all gonna die" to each other all the time while looking through Twitter messages on a huge screen

e: I hereby absolve you from your guilt. Go forth and lmao, do whatever

Sounds like a good setting for a public orgy too tbh

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