• SuperDuper@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Wouldn’t it be better to use all that obsidian to build nether portals so we can build a public transit system on the bedrock roof?

  • Hedgehog@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    10 months ago

    Turns out it’d be a dissapointingly small sphere:

    US annual defence budget = $800 billion

    2% = $16 billion

    Obsidian cost per kg = $5

    Total kg in budget = 3.2 billion kg

    Density of obsidian = 2.6 g/cm3 = 2600 kg/m3

    Total volume of sphere = 3.2b/2600 = 1230769 m3

    Volume of sphere = 4/3 π r^3

    Radius = (3V/4π)^(1/3) = 66.48 m

    The sphere would only stand at 133m tall, I propose we instead utilise the entire defence budget for a much more skyscraper like 490m tall orb

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    My only question is why we didn’t build the orb back in the Eisenhower administration when it was most needed.

  • OtakuAltair@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    Would be a far better use of the ‘defense’ budget than what they’re currently spending it on.

  • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    10 months ago

    Thats funny because more than 2%, more like 40%, of our defense budget is going into a black orb never to be seen again and is completely unaccounted for.

    • hibsen@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I have the feeling that if we shook execs at Raytheon and Lockheed upside down for long enough a fair amount of that would fall out.

  • Blackout@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    Just imagine the size we could build if we used all of the defense budget. It’s resonant frequency would blow the eardrums of everyone on the West Coast and kill all marine life. One day when I’m presadent…

  • KISSmyOS@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Why does the government keep this from us?
    Why are they so afraid of giving the public what they deserve and want, an ominously humming obsidian sphere?
    What if China builds a mysteriously vibrating marble sphere first?
    Were all the plans for this project taken to Mar-a-Lago? Or saved on Hunter Biden’s laptop? Or hidden in some pizza restaurant?
    Just asking questions…

    • acastcandream@beehaw.org
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      10 months ago

      Please do not disregard the obsidian sphere in the Night Vale public swimming pool. Make sure to give it all due attention. But not too much attention, so as to make things weird. Too little attention, unfortunately, will also bring about its ire, and we all remember what happened last time. Simply apply the recommended amount of regard to its ominous, strangely comforting hum, as it gently lulls you to sleep.

      And now: the weather.

        • acastcandream@beehaw.org
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          10 months ago

          Nice to meet you, Big Fan. There are many properties of your anatomy I believe the sheriff’s secret police would find useful. I’ll recommend you to their internship program, which is compulsory and slightly moist.

    • Ook the Librarian@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      There have been reports of a large black orb near the dog park. Ignore them. There is no orb. Nor is there a dog park. Besides, mysterious, humming orbs are nothing to worry about anyway. So why are you bothered by these reports? And now, the weather:

      • flicker@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        In fact, I would much rather live in a community where a wholesome, humming orb would be a welcome sight. If people report every single ominous orb that they see, why, there would be less majesty in this world. That sounds like the kind of austere, silent community that Desert Bluffs wants to be, and do we really want that to be the place we call home, dear listener?

        • Ook the Librarian@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Come to think of it, just who are these people who would busy themselves submitting frivolous reports an ominous orb? Could it be Jan? Jan, who takes it upon themselves to scold the children for looking at the solar eclipse? What else don’t you want us to see, Jan?

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    In 2022, the defense dept spent 590billion dollars, 2% of that would be 11.8 billion dollars. While it is impossible to calculate the cost of constructing this sphere, it cost 25 billion dollars to develop the Airbus A380, and 150 Billion to complete the International space station.

    The US defense budget isn’t an infinite pool of money. It’s 15% of the federal budget. It’s dwarfed by healthcare spending (27%), and Social Security (24%). I’m not a war hawk, I try to bring this up in lefty spaces because skimming off the defense budget to solve social problems is a common, and silly belief.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Major_expenditure_categories

    • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The military budget is massive, not just because a ton of money gets wasted, but because the US has a large military presence across the entire planet. Even if most of the money goes to waste, that’s still enough to outspend every other military on earth. At the same time, SS is a massive project of direct payments to seniors, Medicare is massive and made more expensive by our shitty healthcare system, and US tax rates are low compared to their peak.

      Tons of companies and rich people pay negative overall taxes, even though their activities cause costly externalities to society. More than not paying their fair share, they actually pass off large bills to everyone by not paying the full costs of their business. All because US foreign policy works to spread and maintain global capitalism instead of a rule based world order like they claim, incentivizing countries to offer competitive (low) tax rates. Economic interreliance disincentivizes international wars, but it causes economic suffering that fuels nationalism which incentivizes wars, civil conflict that can turn into civil wars, and undermines democracy in favor of plutocracy. Fucking utopian capitalists.

      • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        10 months ago

        Note also absent from the defense spending budget is actual necessary gear for the troopers, such as proper helmets that protect from IED concussions and proper treatment from the DVA for TBI, of which we have hundreds of thousands of cases thanks to twenty years of War on Terror.

        Recruits are entirely expendable, according to how our budgets are allocated, which is one of the primary points of counter-recruitment. Roll a D20 for every year of your term, and on a critical fumble, you either die or, way more likely, sustain a life-ruining wound. And those are the ones they count rather than PTSD cases they send back into the fray, the rape cases they make disappear or the troopers who wash out because a senior officer has a personality conflict with them and deigns to personally make their lives a living hell until they break.

        In my own work with vets, all these stories have been commonplace, not just isolated incidents.

        So yeah, if we’re not going to treat our troops like human beings worthy of life, we can assume defense dollars are going to the cigars that Lockheed-Martin lobbyists hand out to our Senators to celebrate new contracts.