[ExI] Security clearances

Sun May 15 20:12:00 UTC 2016

It is not mildly frightening to those of us yanks living in the
libertarian’s worst nightmare, it is terrifying.  We see appalling
stockpiles of nukes being handed over to one of two candidates, both of
whom have demonstrated clear evidence of being authoritarian to the point
of totalitarian warhawks.  The rest of the world has a huge vested interest
in how this comes out.  Can this get any worse?  Eh… ja.
spike

My guess is that no president (or cannot?) do it alone.  They need
backing.  If the Cabinet members and the military all agree with the pres,
then what can one do?  If they all disagree, then I think no pres would
(could?) order strikes.  Maybe Trump would try to go it alone, but I have
to doubt even that.

I would dearly like to see Congress act as a balance here, as they are
supposed to do.  No military action without agreement by Congress.
Otherwise, where is the balance of powers?  Would that take a
Constitutional Amendment?

bill w

On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 11:18 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> >…Cool. And mildly frightening… Anders
>
> Hi Anders,
>
> It is not mildly frightening to those of us yanks living in the
> libertarian’s worst nightmare, it is terrifying.  We see appalling
> stockpiles of nukes being handed over to one of two candidates, both of
> whom have demonstrated clear evidence of being authoritarian to the point
> of totalitarian warhawks.  The rest of the world has a huge vested interest
> in how this comes out.  Can this get any worse?  Eh… ja.
>
> For those who believe that anything posted on FoxNews automatically
> defaults to memetic toxic waste, do feel free to skip this article, but if
> so I will summarize: if the government does not like whoever the voters
> choose, there are ways to elect someone else, someone who never campaigned,
> even someone nobody ever heard of, to be president.  This was intentional.
>
>
> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/14/in-strange-election-cycle-electoral-college-deciding-who-s-president-must-be-mentioned.html?intcmp=hpbt1
>
> We often hear citations to Andrew Jackson, the populist outsider who came
> into the presidency in 1824 and turned everything on its head.  He was
> ready to use the military to enforce law, ready to do all the things
> libertarians worry about.  Somehow… he ended up on our 20 dollar bill,
> which has become perhaps the most important remaining paper currency we
> have, since fifties are oddballs (they look too much like the far more
> common 20s) 100s are viewed with suspicion because they are worth
> attempting to counterfeit.  So… cash machines spit out pictures of Jackson.
>
> OK so we face the possibility of a Jacksonian administration.  Over forty
> years ago, a president asked if a sitting president could pardon himself.
> All witnesses agree he said it in jest, with the implied no, of course not,
> the people would riot and they are armed, etc.  Now… it is easy enough to
> imagine that same question being asked on the first day of a new
> president’s administration, by either of the leading candidates, not at all
> in jest, with the surprise answer coming back that that power damn sure can
> be misused that way, even if we know it wasn’t intended for that.  If the
> people riot, the US Marines have a fighting chance in holding them off, and
> even if they cannot, there is a safe room, etc.
>
> Anders, since you are a black swan expert, it occurred to me there is a
> gray swan scenario which could turn even worse.  Although it has never
> happened, our recent failure of the ExI server (DNS?  What’s that?)
> Thursday and Friday reminds us that the internet could fail somehow,
> perhaps a virus of some kind shutting down main hubs and so forth.
> Suppose… someone figured out a way to crash the internet and shut down much
> or most electronic communications for just a day or two, even just a few
> hours.  Now suppose someone or someones realized the perfect time to pull
> this gag: on USA election day 2016.  What if there is suddenly no news, no
> email, no internet, nada nada nada.  The phones all still work, but what
> good are they?  Who are you going to call?  The mainstream news agencies?
> They can’t help, for they don’t know what is going on either; their
> computers are down.  All of them.  The newspaper?  What is a newspaper?
>
> We are all dependent on electronic communications.  If that whole system
> somehow crashes on USA election day, we will not know what happened that
> day and will not accept the outcome after the fact, even if anyone can tell
> us what that outcome was.  We will have no way of verifying it.  We have
> another case like 2000 where it probably all will come down to the election
> outcome in… Florida.  Have you noticed that any weird crime story currently
> being used as filler on slow news days, about a quarter of it happened in
> Florida.  That is one weird state, something I didn’t even realize until I
> moved away to a slightly less weird one.  Florida may elect a president for
> us.  Again.  And we won’t like either choice.  And some parts of Florida
> still have un-auditable machine voting.
>
> So what if…the internet goes down that day, or some important portion of
> it, and now America does not know the rightful legal custodian of all those
> fireworks?  What if there is an ambiguous outcome and the electoral college
> convenes, then perfectly legally hands us a third candidate?
>
> Anders, being an outsider and black swan expert, your take on this will
> likely be most enlightening.
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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