What if ... (Politics)

In grade 10 (2 years before Uni) a mate and I discovered that a kg of home made amatol can shift a car sized boulder, and we also discovered that nitro glycerine is very tricky stuff to make after hours in a science lab.

KNick wrote:If you needed to wait until first year at U. to learn some of that stuff, you must live in a very repressed sociaty. I had most of that information by the time I was 16, almost 40 years ago. And I still managed to get a TS clearance while I was active duty. And keep it for a decade.

KNick wrote:If you needed to wait until first year at U. to learn some of that stuff, you must live in a very repressed sociaty. I had most of that information by the time I was 16, almost 40 years ago. And I still managed to get a TS clearance while I was active duty. And keep it for a decade.

It wasnt so much learning how to do the weapons stuff as learning how to do it properly from people with phds in physics, chem and bio, as well as getting access to equipment to make it. doing it at home is all well and good, but as i noted in another thread, you risk ending up like a guy my dad knew who tried welding shut a pipe bomb.

It was only the N/B/C stuff i learnt at uni. the rest i learnt from reading books like sm stirling, bernard cornwall, john ringo, and about a dozen other authors of fiction, and a few non fiction books that i thought looked interesting at 13 or so.

I learnt how to make napalm at 15, and most of the other stuff over the years, got a first aid certified last year, have played paint ball and airsoft so i know the long pointy end goes away from me. My mum doesnt see the need for guns, so haven't actually fired a real gun yet, but i have handled real guns, even in a country where not many actually own or use them.

I have been on a science and engineering forum where up to a dozen or more of us would plan terrorism stuff out from both sides as an exercise to see how to counter it, and have a father whose job is to prevent stuff like that from ever occurring, as well as a friend who never bothered learning how to do explosives properly, and through trial and error figured out how to make pipe bombs, only fragging himself two or three times in his first small scale bombs before he learnt to be careful.


its not so much a safety conscious society as a safety conscious family, and with good reason. my dad has put his life on the line several times to stop people who luckily did it wrong, so its more a case of not doing anything until i knew how to do it right, as not to end up at the ED or morgue.



funny thing is, my brother is the long haired dude who plays around with electronics, so my parents think its him whose most likely to do something stupid like learn all this stuff...... I was the quiet one, so i think they always thought i was reading fantasy and other nerdy stuff. they were sorta right.... =D






sorry for the wall of text.




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its not paranoia if its justified....
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One of the advantages of living in an American college town. I was learning about that stuff from the Profs, free of charge just by dropping in on lectures, talking to the parents of my fellow students and watching the nightly news. After all, it was the radical 60's. Between blowing stumps for the local farmers and firearms safety starting at the age of 6, I had a fair idea of safety by the tiome I started messing with it in 10th grade in the schools physics lab. Kept all of mky fingers and didn't hurt anyone else either, thanks to a watchful teacher.

Politics always gets in the way. Overkill in clamping down on one identified gap in potential terrorist coverage (the whole shoe and nail clipper routine) causes more problems and resentment than the potential terrorist acts. Not that I would like to be a casualty of a terrorist act, but, the waste of time and mountains of expence in the over reactions is probably giving the terrorists much more benifit than the planned acts themselves.
Want to put a crimp in terrorists? Fix the criminal justice system so that when you do something really bad (lke Fort Hood shooting) you proceed in a reasonalble and logicial way, not have politicians and a lot of apparent idtiots hold up the accused as some kind of victim.

Trains arn't spectacular enough for most terrorists. The very thing that has been discussed here- screwing with a rail or two out 50 miles from anywhere- doesn't light these people up. They want exciting explosions in crowed places full of people who have no chance to defend themselves. Actual economic damage, sure, a train wreck will give that to you but not the impact of blowing up a civilian car in Times Square or gassing people in a subway system. Besides, messing with rails and train equipment can get you killed by the armed guards....and there is often not going to be anybody in the media or with a cellphone around to hear you yell somthing in Aribik as some low level security guard grants you most fervent wish with his 9mm or you discover that a train makes a real mess when it encounters a human when it is moving.

Brigade XO wrote:Politics always gets in the way. Overkill in clamping down on one identified gap in potential terrorist coverage (the whole shoe and nail clipper routine) causes more problems and resentment than the potential terrorist acts. Not that I would like to be a casualty of a terrorist act, but, the waste of time and mountains of expence in the over reactions is probably giving the terrorists much more benifit than the planned acts themselves.
Want to put a crimp in terrorists? Fix the criminal justice system so that when you do something really bad (lke Fort Hood shooting) you proceed in a reasonalble and logicial way, not have politicians and a lot of apparent idtiots hold up the accused as some kind of victim.

Trains arn't spectacular enough for most terrorists. The very thing that has been discussed here- screwing with a rail or two out 50 miles from anywhere- doesn't light these people up. They want exciting explosions in crowed places full of people who have no chance to defend themselves. Actual economic damage, sure, a train wreck will give that to you but not the impact of blowing up a civilian car in Times Square or gassing people in a subway system. Besides, messing with rails and train equipment can get you killed by the armed guards....and there is often not going to be anybody in the media or with a cellphone around to hear you yell somthing in Aribik as some low level security guard grants you most fervent wish with his 9mm or you discover that a train makes a real mess when it encounters a human when it is moving.

Disregarding terrorists though, theres still the possibility of just home grown miscontents who have a beef against the government. wasnt there a guy earlier this year or last year who thought the government taxes were evil, and so he crashed his plane into a tax office? cant remember where it was though. and there are probably more of these people around the world who just havent acted yet, or thought up a good way of doing it. after all, these people dont care as much about the big showoff. they want to hurt the government in a particular way. If one disagreed with a new infrastructure project through his neighbourhood, that might be a target for them.



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its not paranoia if its justified....
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If you want to terrorize a place you don't use bombs.

Lord Skimper wrote:If you want to terrorize a place you don't use bombs.

No, you use lawyers......

Spacekiwi wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:If you want to terrorize a place you don't use bombs.

No, you use lawyers......

You're both wrong use faceless governmental bureaucrats

Poker.

Poker, before I retired I was a faceless governmental bureaucrat!
However I do agree with you in that is where the most harm or good can be done. Many a time I settled down to watch the news where a be medalled well known general sprouted my lines. I sleep at night believing I made a positive difference, however it could have been elsewise. The term is "The Powers That Be". Being a puppet master is more fun than being a puppet, even if the puppet gets the applause.


You're both wrong use faceless governmental bureaucrats

Poker.[/quote]

Daryl wrote:Poker, before I retired I was a faceless governmental bureaucrat!
However I do agree with you in that is where the most harm or good can be done. Many a time I settled down to watch the news where a be medalled well known general sprouted my lines. I sleep at night believing I made a positive difference, however it could have been elsewise. The term is "The Powers That Be". Being a puppet master is more fun than being a puppet, even if the puppet gets the applause.

So, should we start calling you Mandarin Daryl