Fascinating piece, Ryan. My first reaction was that this was kind of an unfair knock on the author, and what are the chances that the Russians would pick up on this particular book anyway, but then I thought about how often you appear to be correct, and if you are in this case, its pretty disturbing. I hope you will do a follow up after some time to let us know whether or not your thoughts on the book as a misinformation tool pan out. Thanks for the good work.
Great piece on disinformation. I noticed a spot on your forehead. If you didn't bump something, get it checked out asap. Melanoma is a bitch if you let it go.
The interview with Lex Fridman (himself worthy of an entire video from Ryan) is eyeopening, because she's either gullible, not much of a journalist, or purposefully engaging in deceptive practices for publicity and money. She's very subtle and good at it too. As an entertainer I can't blame her, but when you blur the line between fact and fiction without making it clear what you are doing, you do everyone a disservice.
I like alot of what you do but a big part of why I let my paid subscription drop is your tendency to apply a different standard based on your sense of who a claim might benefit. Disinformation thrives in an environment where everyone looks at who a statement benefits in deciding how to feel about it -- that's how we get so much bullshit on social media, people share based on who it supports not how true it is.
I absolutely support Ukraine, and sure her book may be used by bad actors to support Russia. But that's going to be true of many fair minded attempts to report the facts. Plenty of things you've said in your analysis could -- preciscely because you care about the truth -- be excerpted by supporters of Russia to help make their point (and probably will be once you inevitably get a bit more popular).
And exactly what did she do that's so bad? She didn't dig into the physics of nuclear weapons like you'd have wanted? Yes, I'd have liked her to debunk some of the widespread assumptions people have that overrate the harms of the radioactive fallout but not every book needs to address every issue and I'd kinda prefer if non-science writers didn't pretend to be science experts.
Hell, you've gotten the physics outright incorrect in some of your videos (the missile into water video) and it's no big deal, shit happens, but I feel like you aren't giving this author the same benefit of the doubt you'd like us to give you - evaluating your work based on if it's correct and informative not what political cause we fear it may help.
To be clear, I share your worry about how this might be used but I think you could have talked about why those uses might be a problem without critisizing an author for publishing a book with the contentious thesis that nuclear war is really bad.
He used the wrong assumptions to calculate the size of the splash. There is a long thread about the issue on that video but the short version is that his assumption that the splash is just a function of the value he computed is wrong (all sorts of issues like the extent to which energy or momentum matters, the non-linear rate of deceleration and what kind of approximation you should use to compute the height of the splash -- it's not a simple problem and doing it right probably requires computer modeling but the best approximations on physics exchange disagree with Ryan's approach). I think the overall conclusion stands up just based on eyeballing it but if Ryan doesn't want us to dismiss his work because there are some actual mistakes regarding the physics then why can't someone else choose not to get into the physics?
Ryan, you’re not wrong in my opinion about how Russia could use the book and podcast to promote their narrative. However, based on my experience and training, Jacobson isn’t wrong about the potential consequences of a nuclear exchange. That’s something J Q Public is unaware of on any given day. To most Americans, Russia and Ukraine are something you hear about for a minute while you’re looking for what channel Lebron James and Steph Curry are on tonight. Little do they know that in the time from tip-off to halftime, their city could be destroyed. Not because Putin or Biden are hell-bent on war but over a simple mistake caused by human error on the battlefield. Asking Americans to fund a war where there is a chance that it could escalate into something like what’s in that book and not being upfront about the risk is unethical.
Fascinating piece, Ryan. My first reaction was that this was kind of an unfair knock on the author, and what are the chances that the Russians would pick up on this particular book anyway, but then I thought about how often you appear to be correct, and if you are in this case, its pretty disturbing. I hope you will do a follow up after some time to let us know whether or not your thoughts on the book as a misinformation tool pan out. Thanks for the good work.
Ryan,
Great piece on disinformation. I noticed a spot on your forehead. If you didn't bump something, get it checked out asap. Melanoma is a bitch if you let it go.
H
I just cut my head. I'm good.
Point of order, Annie Jacobson has already been a disinformation outlet. I refer you to the more suspect passages of her book about Area 51.
The interview with Lex Fridman (himself worthy of an entire video from Ryan) is eyeopening, because she's either gullible, not much of a journalist, or purposefully engaging in deceptive practices for publicity and money. She's very subtle and good at it too. As an entertainer I can't blame her, but when you blur the line between fact and fiction without making it clear what you are doing, you do everyone a disservice.
I like alot of what you do but a big part of why I let my paid subscription drop is your tendency to apply a different standard based on your sense of who a claim might benefit. Disinformation thrives in an environment where everyone looks at who a statement benefits in deciding how to feel about it -- that's how we get so much bullshit on social media, people share based on who it supports not how true it is.
I absolutely support Ukraine, and sure her book may be used by bad actors to support Russia. But that's going to be true of many fair minded attempts to report the facts. Plenty of things you've said in your analysis could -- preciscely because you care about the truth -- be excerpted by supporters of Russia to help make their point (and probably will be once you inevitably get a bit more popular).
And exactly what did she do that's so bad? She didn't dig into the physics of nuclear weapons like you'd have wanted? Yes, I'd have liked her to debunk some of the widespread assumptions people have that overrate the harms of the radioactive fallout but not every book needs to address every issue and I'd kinda prefer if non-science writers didn't pretend to be science experts.
Hell, you've gotten the physics outright incorrect in some of your videos (the missile into water video) and it's no big deal, shit happens, but I feel like you aren't giving this author the same benefit of the doubt you'd like us to give you - evaluating your work based on if it's correct and informative not what political cause we fear it may help.
To be clear, I share your worry about how this might be used but I think you could have talked about why those uses might be a problem without critisizing an author for publishing a book with the contentious thesis that nuclear war is really bad.
What was wrong with the missile into the water video?
He used the wrong assumptions to calculate the size of the splash. There is a long thread about the issue on that video but the short version is that his assumption that the splash is just a function of the value he computed is wrong (all sorts of issues like the extent to which energy or momentum matters, the non-linear rate of deceleration and what kind of approximation you should use to compute the height of the splash -- it's not a simple problem and doing it right probably requires computer modeling but the best approximations on physics exchange disagree with Ryan's approach). I think the overall conclusion stands up just based on eyeballing it but if Ryan doesn't want us to dismiss his work because there are some actual mistakes regarding the physics then why can't someone else choose not to get into the physics?
Definitely keeping my subscription. You anticipate what’s going to happen by keeping a watch on things, and I seriously appreciate that.
A book about a nuclear war released when we are concerned about a nuclear war for the first time in many years. Pure coincidence.
Thanks for showing us this.
Ryan, you’re not wrong in my opinion about how Russia could use the book and podcast to promote their narrative. However, based on my experience and training, Jacobson isn’t wrong about the potential consequences of a nuclear exchange. That’s something J Q Public is unaware of on any given day. To most Americans, Russia and Ukraine are something you hear about for a minute while you’re looking for what channel Lebron James and Steph Curry are on tonight. Little do they know that in the time from tip-off to halftime, their city could be destroyed. Not because Putin or Biden are hell-bent on war but over a simple mistake caused by human error on the battlefield. Asking Americans to fund a war where there is a chance that it could escalate into something like what’s in that book and not being upfront about the risk is unethical.
Ryan, if you've read it, I'd be curious to hear you view on Command and Control, and how it contrasts from this book.