You want to ensure beyond any doubt that the people who are best positioned to overthrow the administration or become kingmakers are Trump sycophants?
stickly
The economy of power is all that matters. Once we leave the currency economy we'll be well into neofeudalism. "No money for food? Just sign on the dotted line and the company will cover your meals..."
I view it as a philosophical difference more than anything. Only an absolute lunatic would actually push the button without an extreme amount of pressure; it's just not a rational action of self preservation. A Solomon plan, as in the parable, is a choice that will kill you. Say what you will about the people pulling Israel's strings but they have enough sanity and power lust to not throw it all away.
All nuclear players are handling loaded guns. Any bluster or rhetoric is hot air because you don't know what they're made of until they pull the trigger. And that is the most unique decision in human history in the hands of a tiny group of people. Nobody should ever have been given the personal power to vaporize entire cities, you can't generalize that failing to a state policy level.
Complicated dead man switches don't solve the problem or absolve the decision maker, it's just a layer of abstraction. You still have to choose to enable it and accept the consequences of killing millions of people. Telling the world it's enabled is just indicating your current line in the sand (a nuclear event). That's no different than setting a line in the sand for a conventional threat to your capital city. Either may be an understandable and high pressure threat to the individual decision makers: both are reactions to the other belligerent, both end with the button pusher dead.
And both sides always have the option to renege on their promise and launch first before that line. Even if they hold to their promise, saying "I warned you" doesn't make a mass revenge holocaust or suicidal holocaust more ethical than the other. The only humane choice is total disarmament and deterrence with an empty gun, which will never happen of course.
Yes it would be damn near impossible because basically all communication would be dead as fast as it happens and any belligerents wouldn't be in any shape to give convincing evidence (assuming they survive and it doesn't trigger a worldwide exchange).
If two countries are at the brink anything can happen: a radar blip, a failed first launch, fog of war, equipment malfunction, etc... Nobody's official policy is "we'll nuke anyone for any reason", they always claim self preservation/retaliation. If a conventional war with Iran goes poorly it would be a rapid flurry of Israel maybe launches or threatens to launch => China (or whoever) retaliates => USA (or whoever) counters => comms are disrupted or locked down => troops are mobilized etc...
The same events could be true of a purported dead man switch system: can anyone prove that the switch was improperly triggered? Does it matter now that most people involved are ashes?
It would be over in about an hour or two and would take decades to properly reconstruct, if ever. Every state would jump at the chance to frame the tragedy in their favorite light and you personally will never ever know the truth.
In that light it doesn't make any sense to worry about speculation or opinion pieces or rumors. There never will be a way to prove or disprove theoretical apocalyptic policies. There are a billion reasons to criticize Israel and hate Zionists but this isn't much better than a puff piece.
They're two sides of the same coin and not functionally much different. In a world with nuclear weapons everyone must have a "last resort" strategy like this: the perception of the destruction of the state triggers nuclear annihilation (against anyone/everyone; you plan for all options). The only other theorized response is to voluntarily roll over and die so humanity can live, and nobody with nukes is going to admit to that.
In a real scenario you could never verify if the first launch was from a credible threat retaliation or not. Even if you could, first strike vs retaliatory is cold comfort when everyone is starving in a nuclear winter. It's not worth getting upset over a wikipedia article with a bunch of journalist quotes and opinion pieces. We've known about MAD since 1962.
Well yes it has quite a few different mechanisms, but the most prominent ones are related to blood clotting, inflammation and fever responses. Those work in different ways depending on what you're trying to treat, so you may be right there.
It's not a pain killer in the same sense as an opioid, but the minor pain relief (via targeting symptoms) is the main desired effect. That makes people misuse it and think higher doses work better and for any type of pain.
Aspirin is a blood thinner I have no idea why Americans seem to think it's a painkiller, because it isn't.
Because a blood thinner relieves some common pains like headaches and inflammation. But yes, people do think taking more = less pain which isn't really true.
A few things:
- There's a Venn diagram of "getting older" and "forgetting what year it is, referencing people that have been dead for decades, nodding off mid meeting, 2 a.m. tweet tirades, mood swings, TIA symptoms, recurring MRIs & cognitive tests, etc..." and the overlap is pretty slim
- Having access to world class healthcare doesn't guarantee anything when the patient is a powerful narcissist. Steve Jobs died from a very curable cancer because he thought he was too smart to die. If Trump's doctors tell him to cut out cheese burgers and diet cokes do you think he'll listen?
- Unlike a simple [death/remission] cancer prognosis, dying isn't the only ending for the potential systemic issues he could be suffering from. He could deteriorate in any number of ways that can't be smoothed over with PR and leave him unable to hold office. Think paralyzed, nonverbal, coma, etc...
- The man clearly doesn't have the drive and ambition to care about his longevity. His goal is to siphon money while continuing to live an opulent lifestyle and die in office (however long that may be). Fear of death isn't the same thing as will to live, especially as the decades add up.
Just look at the guy, his healthiest attributes are golfing and not smoking/drinking. Assuming he's just obese and in otherwise perfect health and golfs 40 hours a week (without a cart), a calculator still puts his life expectancy in the mid 80s. Are you really betting that there's some medical dark arts that will keep him functioning indefinitely? Plenty of richer and more powerful men have died in the same situation with comparable healthcare.
I'm not a firm believer of any terminal diagnosis from armchair experts but pinning everything to "just a liar" is also off the mark. You can just look at his behavior and speech patterns over the past decade: he has good and bad days but the bad days are definitely getting worse.
There's also other verifiable symptoms like his facial droop episodes, leg fluid swelling, these bruises, incontinence, etc... It all adds up to a pretty bleak outlook. High quality healthcare can do a lot for a relatively fit middle aged man, it does less when you're trying to prop up an obese octogenarian already showing bad symptoms.
Reminds me of this galaxy brain ben moment

Slow churned 😳🥵
He can ignore the results or arrest anyone but that just makes him a guy occupying the white house who is no longer the president. They could try their hand at a civil war (if the guns stay in line) but there's no mechanic available to modify the constitution and give them legitimacy. At best they could depose state governments and put in their own people. But anybody with an army can claim the USA by that method.