The Oreshnik, Ted Postol and YouTube

The Oreshnik missile is a modern day catapult and like its ancient predecessor it has been up to this day loaded with rocks, that is particularly heat resistant ceramics.

I owe this insight to two comments, written in Russian (thanks, translate.google.com), among the now 1554 on the following YouTube video.


First off, I didn't go through 1554 comments. When I was studying the issue, there were about 150 and it took me hours then. Except for these two comments, there have been no others pointing out the central deception in Postol's argument - and it's actually the only one - namely that the Russian military would be stupid enough to shoot a material at the ground whose boiling point is lower than that of the ground.

So, instead of the projectile evaporating first, the ground evaporates first, resulting in maximal penetration.

All the other comments were about throwing shade: Yes, a plasma is formed, but it's irrelevant. Yes, those pictures are not from Oreshnik strike sites, but the best proof for that is pointing out the actual payload.

There are two layers of preventing communication here:

1. National security. Postol doesn't want to be accused of telling the Russians how to improve the payload of the Oreshnik missile.
2. Retard funnelling. As opposed to a message board specialised in weapons systems, where retards are soon found out and shunned, general promotion platforms like YouTube and X allow them to hide under the cover of low expectations brought about by their role as general consumers without even a special interest in the information they are consuming and without any meaningful editorial function, that is: How often do you check out the favourite videos playlists on other YouTube channels? as compared to: How often do you follow a link someone posted on a message board?
   

We have content creators enough. We are however in dire need of editors. This is not by accident: editors are part of the power structure, more precisely: their role in theatre is to decree what the people are to think about.

By the way, I agree with Owen Shroyer on the Renee Good situation, i.e. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, as I think most people will, but there have been similar incidents before, I remember David Knight talking about one a couple of months ago, I think in Chicago, and that reminds me of The Augean Stables by Agatha Christie, where a faux scandal is given coverage to distract from a real one.

In that short story the distraction is justified as well, but at the same time it expresses an uneasiness with the editorial theatre, retard funnelling and the drowning of intelligent discourse. Whereas global trading relations as they are have undermined our ability to determine our own destiny - and the double think on this is shameful: On the one hand, we all profit from them, on the other, economic sanctions are supposed to destroy any regime we disapprove of - the (mostly) national communications as they are prevent us from assessing our circumstances realistically, that is: Neither can we do what we want to, nor can we even see what we need to.