yeah, can't forget the thermite

yes, the collision was actually nothing to worry about, as far as the buildings themselves. The terrorists realized something that the architects and FPSEs didn't, though. High speed collisions using fuel-bearing bodies tends to atomize the fuel - which will ignite. The buidings weren't designed with that intense a blaze in mind (there are other issues with the basic construction concept, but that's for the future).


Actually, they were *awful* at hitting ships. Usually, the pilot would jink or twitch - and at those speeds, that's all it would take for him to miss. Of course, even when they hit, it was rare that the ship suffered catastrophic (terminal) damage from one plane.

It's not known how much that result was expected. It's documented, in fact, that Osama Bin Laden hadn't really been expecting them to collapse. Either way, it was (by my understanding) neither the planes nor the fire that caused the collapses but a combination of both.

That's in no small part because Japan was quickly running out of trained pilots. It's half the reason they went to kamikazes in the first place--if you don't expect a plane to last long, you don't have to build it to very exacting standards, and the pilots could just about fly well enough to hit a boat, but certainly not well enough to do much else.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Is this a Larry NIven initiative, or reality aping his (or others) fiction. That he used a similar scenerio in ?Hammer of God? was quoted above. He also used a similar idea in a story of the first Man Kzin war. Earth being peaceful and well balanced, a group of people with severe mental illness are purposely taken off their highly effective medication to stimulate them into ideas for defence.
Hmmmmmmmm
A/ Highly dubious ethics
B/ Highly dubious effectiveness - these are mentally ill people for goodness sake, not inhibited geniuses!

John

It's based on the highly dubious premise that Earth could become peaceful and well balanced.

Seriously, Niven makes some butt-kickin' aliens and worlds, but his human societies are always a little simplistic.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Many, many mentally ill people are smarter than average. A larger-than-expected percentage of creative geniuses are, too.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

To me, that term would seem to encompass a vast spectrum of conditions; what is the absolute minimum situation that it applies to?

Like Japan or Sweden? That doesn't seem impossible. (And yes, I know there are people who will take issue with Swedes and Japanese being described as well balanced.)

Also, Japan wasn't exactly peaceful in very recent history.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

They learned.

The future Earth described in Niven's Known Space books is one where everyone's biochemistry is controlled by "autodocs" to produce a near-zero violence rate in a population of eighteen billion, and where revisionist history teaches that no wars have happened since the Renaissance.

Is it realistic that the entire planet could become completely pacifist, to the point where wars are completely forgotten?

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

It would have to become both pacifistic and stupid.

. . . with a bit of Allied help. In any event, it is, historically speaking, a very recent change. I just don't see it as a useful example.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Or warlike and stupid and extremely forgetful even in the short term.

Either way, we won't need to be turning to paranoid schizophrenics as military advisors anytime soon.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I'm not sure what we're discussing.

This post:

Sci-fi writers join war on terror

and your follow-up.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Not unless we run into the Kzinti.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

At least we wouldn't have to worry about the Ratcats using terrorist tactics. Scream and leap!

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Generally speaking, your average bipolar or schizophrenic person shows creativity that is on average higher than your average "normal" person. The schizophrenics may not be as smart, and they definitely have a harder time living in society. I can't say about a lot of other disorders, and there are a lot of other disorders. OCD, though, is another one that tends to include higher intelligence; it's just misdirected into putting everything in its place or whatnot.

I don't believe many modern creative types talk about it, whether they've been diagnosed or not. So far as I know, we're pretty much looking at Brooke Shields and post-partum depression. However, inasmuch as it is possible to diagnose dead people, a lot of dead people can be diagnosed bipolar or schizophrenic based on just what we see in their work. (Leonardo da Vinci seems to have been bipolar, based on certain manic behaviour patterns; it's one of the main flaws I see in the Priory of Sion concept, leaving out the whole forgery thing. He wasn't focused enough to run a secret society!)

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"