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| ▲ | throw0101c 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I've heard Helium is a limited resource […] I've heard the same thing about petroleum. :) | | |
| ▲ | exe34 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | There are other sources of energy. With helium, once it's gone, there's nothing to replace it. | | |
| ▲ | thaumasiotes 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Well, there is; you can just wait for more helium to be produced underground. That's the same method that provided the helium we have now. | |
| ▲ | wongarsu an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Jupiter's atmosphere is about 25% helium. And then there's the other gas giants, and the sun itself (also about a quarter helium) We risk running out of cheap helium. But if you are willing to pay infinite money there is near-infinite helium | | |
| ▲ | A_D_E_P_T an hour ago | parent [-] | | Right now, even with infinite money, you have no way to extract helium from Jupiter and return it to Earth. (To say nothing of the Sun!) Maybe with a couple hundred more years of technological development... Our moon itself is said to have ~1M tons of very valuable Helium-3 in surface deposits, but even that's nigh impossible to harvest commercially right now. |
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| ▲ | myphpgothacked 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you ask international relations scholars or people in the state department, they actually support the prevention of nuclear proliferation. The general population typically are doves because they can't see the consequences 10-50 years out. My PhD bud, a Bernie supporter, thinks we should have put boots on the ground by now. I generally agree. I lived through North Korea getting nuclear weapons in my lifetime. Before they were the end of a joke, today we have to care about the opinions of that backwater. (And I read international relations structural realists as much as I drink coffee... The job of the hegemon is to maintain the status quo.) | | |
| ▲ | delecti 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Iran already wasn't working on nuclear weapons (a confident assessment by our intelligence community across the past 20+ years). The JCPOA then gave us the ability to verify that for ourselves. Then we (metaphorically) blew up that agreement, and (literally) blew up their leader who was firmly opposed to developing nuclear weapons, and the new one doesn't feel the same. | | |
| ▲ | bluGill 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Iran has long said they're not working on nuclear weapons. However, they have built a large stockpile of particles of rich uranium, which is something completely useless to have unless you're planning on building nuclear weapons. This stockpile was built under the previous leader, who you are trying to claim was opposed to developing them, and yet he knew. who you are trying to claim was opposed to developing them and yet he knew.
Iran didn't have nuclear weapons, however for years they were only a few weeks away from having them. They had all the hard parts in place to build one. There's a reason to think they had plenty of experts who could do it. So far as we know they never actually built one but they absolutely could and this was done under the previous leader. | | |
| ▲ | jcranmer an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | The general assessment on Iran has long been that they aim to become a nuclear threshold state (have the ability to make nuclear weapons quickly (~1y timeline or less) should they need to), but not actually acquire nuclear weapons for themselves. | |
| ▲ | delecti 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They said they weren't working on nukes, and our intelligence community released assessments which agreed. The level of enrichment they've been doing is higher than they need for power generation but it also isn't nearly enough to make nukes. A more reasonable explanation (given the assessments they aren't working on nukes) is that they were being deliberately provocative. > So far as we know they never actually built one but they absolutely could and this was done under the previous leader Right, they could, and didn't. Why? It was only 7 years from the discovery of fission to a proof of concept in the form of the trinity test. Either you assume a level of incompetence entirely divorced from Iran's efficacy on the international stage, or you accept they weren't trying. | | |
| ▲ | fmajid an hour ago | parent [-] | | Ah but the geniuses Trump and Netanyahu assassinated the Iranian leader who had issued a fatwa banning nukes as unislamic so now all bets are off. |
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| ▲ | bigyabai 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Iran has domestic uranium deposits. They design and build their own centrifuges, and had thousands of such centrifuges during the JCPOA. It's basically impossible to denuclearize them or prevent them from building a rudimentary reactor or bomb, and it has been that way for at least two decades. Diplomacy was a proven path to prevent Iran from reaching for nuclear deterrence. The plan worked well for America and Iran, which is probably what motivated Likud to escalate the situation and force them both to pick sides. |
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| ▲ | varnaud an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | The world would be more safe if Iran had nuclear weapons (less American/Israeli/Saudi interventions in the middle east). They should have smuggled nukes from the collapsed soviet Russia or do whatever was necessary to produce nukes. Nukes, (or thousands of artillery pointed at densely populated areas allied with a country with nukes) are the surest way maintain sovereignty in the mad world we live in. | | |
| ▲ | fmajid an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | The Saudis would then get nukes from Pakistan. The thought of MBS or a Wahhabism fanatic successor getting his hands on nukes is absolutely terrifying, far more than the Iranians or even Kim Jong Un. | |
| ▲ | jcranmer 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'm not really sold on the idea that nuclear weapons are a salve against conflict. The only real examples are North Korea not getting invaded and maybe tamping down some of the India-Pakistan conflicts (note that India and Pakistan have had armed conflict with each other since both acquired nuclear weapons!). On the contrary, we can see times where nuclear weapons seem to have emboldened leaders--Putin has definitely played the "you can't retaliate against my aggression, I'll nuke you" card, and the Cuban missile crisis had both the American and Soviet militaries stridently arguing for a nuclear first strike because going second would be so calamitous (it was avoided largely because both Kennedy and Khrushchev were reticent to do so). One of the striking features of the last decade or so of global politics is the willingness of middle powers to arm and fuel regional conflicts, so I think it entirely plausible that a world where middle powers like Saudi Arabia and Iran gain nuclear weapons is one where, say, the Sudanese Civil War involves nukes. | |
| ▲ | protocolture an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | >They should have smuggled nukes from the collapsed soviet Russia or do whatever was necessary to produce nukes. The plan in Iran was always self sufficiency. |
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