The Role of Government

[Socialist Tera]

can I please have the names of the scientists you asked?

Google is your friend, go look it up. I've done it a few times and have yet to find a credible peer reviewed paper showing it has negative side effects.

Even the world health organisation thinks it is bad but nah, the WHO must be evil Stalinist monsters.
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/p ... DU_Eng.pdf

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

So you never actually asked a scientist.

According to the World Nuclear Association depleted uranium is harmful if it comes into contact with people.

They do?

Health aspects of DU

Depleted uranium is not classified as a dangerous substance radiologically, though it is a potential hazard in large quantities, beyond what could conceivably be breathed. Its emissions are very low, since the half-life of U-238 is the same as the age of the Earth (4.5 billion years). There are no reputable reports of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to ingested or inhaled natural or depleted uranium, despite much study.

However, uranium does have a chemical toxicity about the same as that of lead, so inhaled fume or ingested oxide is considered a health hazard. Most uranium actually absorbed into the body is excreted within days, the balance being laid down in bone and kidneys. Its biological effect is principally kidney damage. The World Health Organization (WHO) has set a tolerable daily intake level for uranium of 0.6 microgram/kg body weight, orally. (This is about eight times our normal background intake from natural sources.) Standards for drinking water and concentrations in air are set accordingly.

Like most radionuclides, it is not known as a carcinogen, or to cause birth defects (from effects in utero) or to cause genetic mutations. Radiation from DU munitions depends on how long since the uranium has been separated from the lighter isotopes so that its decay products start to build up. Decay of U-238 gives rise to Th-234, Pa-234 (beta emitters) and U-234 (an alpha emitter)m. On this basis, in a few months, DU is weakly radioactive with an activity of around 40 kBq/g quoted. (If it is fresh from the enrichment plant and hence fairly pure, the activity is 15 kBq/g, compared with 25 kBq/g for pure natural uranium. Fresh DU from enriching reprocessed uranium has U-236 in it and more U-234 so is about 23 kBq/g.)

In 2001, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) examined the effects of nine tonnes of DU munitions having been used in Kosovo, checking the sites targeted by it5. UNEP found no widespread contamination, no sign of contamination in water of the food chain and no correlation with reported ill-health in NATO peacekeepers. A two-year study6 by Sandia National Laboratories in USA reported in 2005 that consistent with earlier studiesn, reports of serious health risks from DU exposure during the 1991 Gulf War are not supported by medical statistics or by analysis.

An editorial in the Radiological Protection Bulletin of the UK's National Radiation Protection Board stated: "DU is radioactive and doses from inhalation of dust or from handling bare spent rounds need to be assessed properly. However, the scientific consensus at present is that the risks are likely to be small and easily avoidable, especially compared with the other risks the armed forces have to take in war."8

Thus DU is clearly dangerous for military targets, but for anyone else – even in a war zone – there is little hazard. Ingestion or inhalation of uranium oxide dust resulting from the impact of DU munitions on their targets is the main possible exposure route.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Snip

Thank you ^

Now can we get back to the topic?

[Socialist Tera]

Why don't we use methods that we know that works. We tried anarchy in the Paris Commune and it failed.

The USSR was tried and it failed.

See how easy that was?

And the Paris Commune did not have 3D printers.

That is heavily debated in socialist services. I doubt 3D printers will stop the army from squashing the small anarchist communes. We will need a socialist state to squash the capitalist scum.

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

Even the world health organisation thinks it is bad but nah, the WHO must be evil Stalinist monsters.
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/p ... DU_Eng.pdf

Do you read your sources, or just assume that they agree with you?

Direct contact of depleted uranium metal with the skin, even for several weeks, is unlikely to produce radiation-induced
erythema (superficial inflammation of the skin) or other short term effects. Follow-up studies of veterans with embedded fragments in the tissue have shown detectable levels of depleted uranium in the urine, but without apparent health consequences.
The radiation dose to military personnel within an armoured vehicle is very unlikely to exceed the average annual external dose from natural background radiation from all sources

[Ardoki]

So you never actually asked a scientist.

According to the World Nuclear Association depleted uranium is harmful if it comes into contact with people.

They do?

Health aspects of DU

Depleted uranium is not classified as a dangerous substance radiologically, though it is a potential hazard in large quantities, beyond what could conceivably be breathed. Its emissions are very low, since the half-life of U-238 is the same as the age of the Earth (4.5 billion years). There are no reputable reports of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to ingested or inhaled natural or depleted uranium, despite much study.

However, uranium does have a chemical toxicity about the same as that of lead, so inhaled fume or ingested oxide is considered a health hazard. Most uranium actually absorbed into the body is excreted within days, the balance being laid down in bone and kidneys. Its biological effect is principally kidney damage. The World Health Organization (WHO) has set a tolerable daily intake level for uranium of 0.6 microgram/kg body weight, orally. (This is about eight times our normal background intake from natural sources.) Standards for drinking water and concentrations in air are set accordingly.

Like most radionuclides, it is not known as a carcinogen, or to cause birth defects (from effects in utero) or to cause genetic mutations. Radiation from DU munitions depends on how long since the uranium has been separated from the lighter isotopes so that its decay products start to build up. Decay of U-238 gives rise to Th-234, Pa-234 (beta emitters) and U-234 (an alpha emitter)m. On this basis, in a few months, DU is weakly radioactive with an activity of around 40 kBq/g quoted. (If it is fresh from the enrichment plant and hence fairly pure, the activity is 15 kBq/g, compared with 25 kBq/g for pure natural uranium. Fresh DU from enriching reprocessed uranium has U-236 in it and more U-234 so is about 23 kBq/g.)

In 2001, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) examined the effects of nine tonnes of DU munitions having been used in Kosovo, checking the sites targeted by it5. UNEP found no widespread contamination, no sign of contamination in water of the food chain and no correlation with reported ill-health in NATO peacekeepers. A two-year study6 by Sandia National Laboratories in USA reported in 2005 that consistent with earlier studiesn, reports of serious health risks from DU exposure during the 1991 Gulf War are not supported by medical statistics or by analysis.

An editorial in the Radiological Protection Bulletin of the UK's National Radiation Protection Board stated: "DU is radioactive and doses from inhalation of dust or from handling bare spent rounds need to be assessed properly. However, the scientific consensus at present is that the risks are likely to be small and easily avoidable, especially compared with the other risks the armed forces have to take in war."8

Thus DU is clearly dangerous for military targets, but for anyone else – even in a war zone – there is little hazard. Ingestion or inhalation of uranium oxide dust resulting from the impact of DU munitions on their targets is the main possible exposure route.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nuclear-fuel-cycle/uranium-resources/harmful-effects-of-uranium-and-depleted-uranium/

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

That is heavily debated in socialist services. I doubt 3D printers will stop the army from squashing the small anarchist communes. We will need a socialist state to squash the capitalist scum.

Because they did that so well the last time.

But the above poster is right, we should take this to the C&S Megathread.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=328684&start=800

[The United Neptumousian Empire]

Even ones who the people elected into power or wanted?

So the Roman, British, and Chinese empires were less legitamte than Athenian Greece?

In the modern world we've shed the need for any authoritarian government models.
Anyone trying to cling to them is living in the past, not in reality.

Libertarianism is a societal illness.

[New Werpland]

That is heavily debated in socialist services. I doubt 3D printers will stop the army from squashing the small anarchist communes. We will need a socialist state to squash the capitalist scum.

Because they did that so well the last time.

But the above poster is right, we should take this to the C&S Megathread.

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopi ... &start=800

How can 3d printer make anarchism work? I don't understand their importance beyond being something you look at and say "ooo".

[Conscentia]

[...]
I would prefer if an alternative to capitalism existed in the world today in a viable form, but it sadly doesn't.

Co-ops exist.

[New Werpland]

[...]
I would prefer if an alternative to capitalism existed in the world today in a viable form, but it sadly doesn't.

Co-ops exist.

But you wouldn't be able to put them into practice for an entire nation, people would resist it. Unless you do the micronation thing and make a co-op economy based nation in the middle of nowhere.

[Seliberari]

The governments ONLY job, in my opinion, is to fully protect and enforce the rights of its citizens. Nothing more, nothing less. Property rights, rights to their own person, all the rights they want, as long as they do not infringe another's rights.

[HMS Vanguard]

The role of government is to kill certain people and torture others (or sometimes the same people, but this is frowned upon). These are the acts that distinguish governments from other organisations that affect society but are not governments.

My answer, then, to the question of what a good government should do is, "As little as possible.".

[Genivaria]

In the modern world we've shed the need for any authoritarian government models.
Anyone trying to cling to them is living in the past, not in reality.

Libertarianism is a societal illness.

Hahaha! Well I'm not a libertarian, I'm a liberal.

[Occupied Deutschland]

In the modern world we've shed the need for any authoritarian government models.
Anyone trying to cling to them is living in the past, not in reality.

Libertarianism is a societal illness.

And the only cyour, is more cowbell.

Your well-reasoned and in-depth commentary on this supposed analogical equality of libertarianism to a societal illness is certainly convincing and impressive, though.
In the spirit of the times, I shall say that the role of government is to be a common and uniting source of derision and mockery by the populaces of the world.

[Liberty and Linguistics]

There is no objective role of government. I believe most governments should preserve law and order, look over the interests of their citizens, and preserve the nation-state.

[Conscentia]

There is no objective role of government. I believe most governments should preserve law and order, look over the interests of their citizens, and preserve the nation-state.

What about governing?

[New Werpland]

I believe most governments should preserve law and order, look over the interests of their citizens, and preserve the nation-state.

Everything not in orange is just what a government does by definition (enforce laws, preserve the nation).

[Atlanticatia]

Social engineering!

[Novsvacro]

Voluntary militia.

So basically you're advocating anarchy. It's been tried, it failed even more massively than leninism.

Evidence? If by Spain in the Civil War, that worked remarkably well. That and the Ukraine Free Territory were destroyed by Leninists intervention (espionage and military force, respectively).

[Natapoc]

The role of government is to serve the people. That's all.

[Novsvacro]

The role of government is to serve the people. That's all.

Exactly, to secure that the needs of all are met.

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

The role of government is to serve the people. That's all.

What about when the people want different, conflicting things?

[Prussia-Steinbach]

In the modern world we've shed the need for any authoritarian government models.
Anyone trying to cling to them is living in the past, not in reality.

Libertarianism is a societal illness.

Good thing I'm an anarchist!

[Prussia-Steinbach]

The role of government is to serve the people. That's all.

Exactly, to secure that the needs of all are met.

Which it pretty much never does. It just serves as a body of power-hungry psychopaths. So fuck it.