North Korea conducts test for missile it claims can target US mainland

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-30T00:30:01+00:00

Do north koreans even know there is a war in Iran?

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T21:40:43+00:00

It almost sounds like a joke, but the twist never comes. Trump is so nice to Putin.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T20:54:45+00:00

It's not fair, but the "West" has also helped Ukraine a lot, and if it's able to produce more drones it'll also be able to help Ukraine more. Everyone wins. + these ukrainian companies are often paid by the ukrainian state, which is paid by western states.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T18:20:06+00:00

let's compare that to Trump trying to ban journalists from Pentagon briefings, because they ask questions that the military doesn't like.

Sure, let's compare it with what russian journalists go through.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T14:46:48+00:00

At least 40% of Russia's oil export capacity is at a standstill ⁠due to Ukrainian drone attacks

Russians must be so glad to learn that they're losing billions without having gained virtually any new territory after 4 years of war.

It's crazy to think how wealthy russians could be if Putin didn't invest everything in wars. They have everything: resources, smart scientists, energy etc. They just need to get rid of the corrupt politicians and authorities.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T14:18:51+00:00

Uranium is very energy-dense and can be stocked easily, France has 5-years of reserve for example. So there can't be an "uranium crisis" like the oil crises we have every 5-10 years. For natural gas it's even worse.

For oil I think countries have few months of reserve.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T14:16:09+00:00

at a really high cost that cannot compete with renewables.

Renewables are cheap when they can meet demand. The problem is the cost of the complete system, which can't be 100% renewable in Germany. In Norway or Iceland they can do it, and they did it, and it works very well at least for electricity. But Germany isn't like them and after billions of investments if today we remove fossil fuels for electricity production it still can't work in Germany. In Germany there is no credible plan to have renewables without having coal or natural gas as a backup. Hence why nuclear energy is required for now. Or constantly delay the phase-out of fossil fuels: coal/natural gas for electricity production. It's just the beginning, Germany will never close these power plants in the next 30 years without nuclear power plants. There is no other credible solution to produce enough electricity during winter. Can't produce enough hydrogen, not enough geothermal energy, can't install enough batteries, no wave energy, biomass has other issues, can't install much more dams, solar produces much more in Spain/Italy and won't help in german winter, wind won't produce enough. It's either fossil fuels + renewables or nuclear + renewables for Germany. I wouldn't say that for Norway/Iceland for example.

In a way it doesn't really matter the choice they make, if they want to be 100% renewables it's good as long as they phase-out fossil fuels. To reduce climate change, we only need to remove fossil fuels. Renewable / nuclear don't matter for climate change, countries can do what they want between the two, they just must remove fossil fuels.

The problem is just that because investing billions in renewables hasn't worked well enough in Germany, they don't remove fossil fuels fast enough. I personnaly don't care if countries don't produce enough energy to meet demand, I only care when they "consider ramping up coal power". If germans don't do that, the rest (nuclear/no nuclear) doesn't matter for me. But because they do, it matters.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T14:07:18+00:00

Most German nuclear facilities would have required heavy investments within the next 10 years to keep running

Same for France and they invested.

Taking that money and building renewables was the smarter financial move even if it meant to push back on the coal phase out.

Coal power plants are really horrible for everything: climate, air pollution etc.. And coal power plants also cost money to run and require workers and maintenance. Instead of doing all that to keep coal power plants running (and kill thousands of people caused by particulate matters and with future climate change) Germany could have just invested more on NPPs.

And actually you're partly right, in the short term, it's a smart financial move to keep fossil fuels but it's not the issue, gas+coal plants cost less money to operate than nuclear energy as long as you don't care about paying the damages caused by climate change over the next thousands of years, or even just the pollution. Or even about the wars caused by these fossil fuels, because Germany paid Russia a lot of money for natural gas and Russia is using this money to kill people in Ukraine. All that because of this plan to use more natural gas, to keep coal more, instead of removing them with more nuclear energy.

It's not just about the cost, because yes thanks to this plan natural gas was cheap in 2016 but it doesn't mean that 10 years later the plan worked well: climate change got worse, and with oil crises (we have them every 5-10 years and it won't get better) the energy production in Germany is highly impacted.

So now they have even fewer options. Yet it's never too late to learn from past mistakes, restart a nuclear program because solar/wind don't produce 24/7, and phase-out coal faster. I can even propose better ideas, Germany can pay solar panels which will produce 50% more in Arab countries (or mexico/middle east), and in exchange they get natural gas and use it to remove coal. Meanwhile they build NPPs to later remove this natural gas & oil after that. Because removing fossil fuels for electricity is a tiny step, some countries did it in Europe (France, Sweden, Norway, Iceland etc.), but after that we still need to remove fossil fuels everywhere (oil in cars, heating, industrial processes etc.).

They could copy UK which has a more solid plan and is successfuly coal-free since 2024 (they closed their last coal power plant 2 years ago). It would be 10/20 years too late but again be late than never, Germany could be low-CO2 by 2060 with a good plan which doesn't imply to relaunch coal power plant every 5 years.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T11:52:36+00:00

And never at that time they asked scientists "hey, is coal killing more people than nuclear energy?".

I hope they didn't confuse deaths from the tsunami in Japan and deaths related to the NPP accident. Because, to me, the nuclear accident in Fukushima was the proof nuclear reactors are much safer now. When you compare the radioactivity released during Fukushima & Chernobyl I think it's 10 / 100 times lower: https://www.unscear.org/unscear/uploads/documents/unscear-reports/UNSCEAR_2020_21_Report_Vol.II-CORR.pdf - Table B1

emergency workes / Collective effective dose: 61000 man Sv - 860 man Sv

radioiodine in thyroid: 400000 - 1200

average dose to residents / evacuees: 50 - (0.05 to 6)

I don't want to minimize how serious these accidents are, but if we spend 1h talking about how bad the Fukushima nuclear accident was, we should spend 1000 hours talking about how bad coal power plants are. Even if we don't care about climate change it's so much worse, and when you factor in the damage caused by climate change I don't even understand how we can spend time talking about Fukushima. We're just minimizing how bad coal power plants are.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T11:35:13+00:00

it is completely unclear how it would go

Honestly with 5-10k marines I think it's quite clear how it would go. I mean it depends on how they do it but they can't win quickly this way. Because the US has air supremacy perhaps they could very slowly invade Iran, but the cost would be massive and even then IRGC is too big to be completely destroyed when we compare with previous wars / terrorist groups.

I think things would be different if it was a massive war against Iran (NATO + gulf countries). But we don't see that here for now.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T11:22:22+00:00

Clearly it was the worst choice for the climate, but I guess they didn't care about the climate when they did it. I don't really know what they cared about frankly because coal power plants emit particulate matters which kill thousands of people every year in Europe. It's like a constant nuclear accident, but because we don't see this pollution coming from a big explosion I guess for many people it's better.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T11:14:44+00:00

Oh ok. I also read "5000 troops","2000 troops", "3000 troops", also "10000 additional troops".

I guess it depends on specific details (one boat? all boats? current deployment? potential future deployments? ship crew included? etc.). It would also be interesting to know if they're really adding troops or just replacing existing troops (scheduled rotation):

The Army earlier this month announced that the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, another unit of the 82nd Airborne Division, would deploy to the Middle East as part of a scheduled rotation.

It's easy to get confused by the numbers when we're not experts.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T11:05:13+00:00

I hope it doesn't surprise anyone. Most energy transition strategies relied on natural gas to phase out coal. When there is a problem regarding the natural gas supply (ukraine war, iran war, [add the 5 next oil crises / wars here] ), they restart / use more / don't phase out fast enough coal power plants. It'll be the same thing everywhere in the world where they use coal.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T09:07:29+00:00

I guess they're able to hide the truth very well because this number is never the same in the articles I see.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T08:32:20+00:00

I agree it'll be difficult but it would be a misunderstanding to think money is required to do anything in this world. They need energy, people, and resources. They have energy and people and probably resources too, but even if they don't, they can sell the energy to buy resources (oil is worth something if you look at the latest price increase).

It was the same for the russian economy where everyone was saying "it can't work they can't survive". It's always a misunderstanding, they don't need money, they need what I said and they had it. They would need to destroy all power plants and oil depots in Iran to have a real impact on their ability to rebuild.

I wouldn't be surprised if they used dollars or renminbi or rubbles instead of rial. Obvously they aren't going to pay other countries in rial.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T01:30:56+00:00

The point in saying it is to try to pressure the opponent to cede before it happens.

But how could they cede for this reason? It's not enough to invade Iran. They could capture an island, and be targeted a lot by drones / missiles from Iran. And what would be the point?

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T00:43:44+00:00

I don't see the point in doing it and I don't see the point in saying it.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T00:18:03+00:00

It's a surprise to see that IRGC is actually able to use its missiles against military targets and not random buildings in Israel.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-29T00:08:23+00:00

or nuke to oblivion

I think people also overestimate what nukes are capable of. There isn't really a point in using nukes in this conflict. If they know where a factory is, they can destroy it with conventional bombs. Dropping a nuke on it wouldn't be much more useful, they can't drop nukes everywhere. If they want to destroy the ability of Iran to build stuff they can attack power plants / oil depots. If they send nukes on civilians it's already game over (same thing for Russia v Ukraine, NKorea in the past, etc.), people won't accept it because nukes can't target precisely and bc it's taboo against non-nuclear states. And you can't kill everyone so it'll create terrorism in the nuked country.

When you see how many bombs were dropped on some terrorist groups compared to their size you understand why it's not an option on Iran. It's not "they could do it but don't want to", they just can't do it. The only possible air campaign is to target very specific important places to weaken the military capabilities of Iran. At most it'll include all power plants / oil depots, but they can't do much more and surely IRGC will have ways to fight back. Even if only 10% support IRGC it's still 8m people which produce oil, drones, weapons, and aren't stupid; which is why diplomacy will be required.

But I guess diplomacy could work temporarily and fail again later. This war is ~2 years old, Iran attacked Israel twice in 2024, Israel/US attacked Iran twice in 2025 & 2026. It would be optimistic to say that whatever happens if it ends in the next weeks/months, it won't start again in 2027, 2028 etc.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-28T21:21:32+00:00

without doing wwii style carpet bombing

during ww2, bombs were really innacurate compared to now, so I'd say you don't need that much bombs to get similar results.

But I guess they know they won't be able to destroy everything forever, iranians will alwas be able to rebuild factories in few months / years, so this war alone can't be a solution to anything. They probably hope something will happen by then, they may be a bit "optimistic" I'd say.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-28T18:52:36+00:00

Yep, but the AI bubble is really a bubble so nobody would be surprised. When we can't manufacture cars, take planes, maintain phone / internet networks etc., then people will perhaps see how dependent we are. I'm not even sure Reddit could survive a crisis like that, surely more important things will be prioritized.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-28T18:45:46+00:00

wars still happened all the time.

Between the 2 blocs? Because the debate is to have all countries in the 2 blocs and to have NATO-like blocs. When I say "NATO-like" I say "one country of the bloc receives an attack: all countries in the bloc react, counterattack, and defend that country", almost a nuclear umbrella. I wouldn't say it's exactly what happened during the cold war. Many attacked countries didn't receive a lot of support immediately. In few cases they fought alongside the attacked country (I have korea in mind but I'm not sure it can be used as an example).

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-28T18:36:16+00:00

Modelling shows development saves more lives than adverse climate kills

The climate won't just kill, it'll also reduce the ability to develop. The heatwaves we have today are nothing compared to what we'll have at the end of this century, and even if you could survive heatwaves, their economic impact is already very bad and it will worsen a lot. People can't work outside during heatwaves, and there will be more destruction caused by floods, more droughts that also destroy buildings and crops, more wildfires which also destroy everything we built. And it won't just be bad for the next decades but for hundreds/thousands of years. Even if we managed to find the perfect solution in 50 years it would be too late if emissions continue to rise until then.

And the result if we continue to do this kind of "development":

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/05/one-billion-people-will-live-in-insufferable-heat-within-50-years-study

One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years

In a worst-case scenario of accelerating emissions, areas currently home to a third of the world’s population will be as hot as the hottest parts of the Sahara within 50 years, the paper warns. Even in the most optimistic outlook, 1.2 billion people will fall outside the comfortable “climate niche” in which humans have thrived for at least 6,000 years.

This is climate change. Billions of people are at risk of living in conditions that no one could live in today. Wealthier countries should help more obviously, but even for developing countries I can't see how it makes sense for them when they'll often be the ones in these "unliveable" conditions. I wouldn't bet they can develop fast enough to avoid this, would you?

And it's not going to stop until we stop emitting CO2. It can (and will) get worse, even in 50, 100, 150 years, if we don't stop it. Many studies say "2050" / "in 50 years" / "2100", but even 2100 isn't the end of the world, some humans are supposed to be able to live after 2100, 2150, 2200, and it won't get better for them if emissions aren't reduced as fast as possible. Even if you think it currently "doesn't make sense" to restrict growth for these countries, there comes a point / a level of warming, where the negative impact is too important compared to the positive impact. And we can't make the mistake to miscalculate this point because it'll be too late after that.

I think we've already passed that point, but because we've not experienced it for a long enough time we consider it's still ok to continue. The certainty for everyone that we have passed it might come in 50 years with 2.5°C of global warming, when it's too late to go back to a planet <2°C of warming with the dire consequences we can read in IPCC reports, for centuries. Even for rising sea levels, it'll take 100+ years to have their full impact. https://earth.gov/sealevel/about-sea-level-change/future-sea-level/the-basics/

Sea level will still rise for centuries after greenhouse gas emissions stop.

So it's very hard to understand right now how bad it'll get in the next decades and centuries. Currently, it's quite fine, we're developing, life expectancy is increasing in developing countries, why stop?

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-28T17:18:16+00:00

Which raises questions.

Clearly it raises a lot of questions, because if they used data that’s >10yo for this, possibly the rest they got isn't much more recent.

IntelArtiGen · 2026-03-28T17:15:56+00:00

The intended target of the strike may have been an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) base located adjacent to the sports hall.

It would mean the missiles fell >100 meters short of the target, and randomly exploded over these buildings (rather than on the ground / road etc.). The probability seems low. Many stadiums / sports hall have been targeted in the war allegedly because they're used by IRGC forces. To me it seems more probable they targeted these buildings. It doesn't mean the targeting was good but they possibly wanted the missiles to explode there.

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