What if the Mongols had never invaded Russia?

So, let's suppose that Genghis Khan and his progeny decide to primarily head south -- southeast and southwest -- rather than due west. The peoples of Russia and environs are untouched by the Mongol Hordes. How does this change history? I think it's quite significant that Russia remained officially a vassal of the Mongol State until nearly the end of the fifteenth century, long after Mongol power had largely dissipated. Effectively, the Russians -- the Grand Duchy of Muscovy, in particular -- really rather respected and admired the Mongols, and found their yoke rather light, apparently. Even great Russian heroes like Alexander Nevsky, despite his military successes against the Swedes and the Germans, remained always a loyal and subservient vassal of the Mongols, regularly paying them homage, and following their orders. In fact, I would tend to argue that the Mongol Empire may never have really ended, at all. The Mongol Empire may simply have morphed into the Russian Empire. The Russians, as we understand them, really learned rather a lot from the Mongols. The peoples of the region, sparsely inhabited, open cold plains covering Ukraine, Poland, Novgorod etc., had always tended to be rather democratically and loosely governed. As consequence, they were always subject to ready invasion from all sides. From the Mongols they learned the science of ruthless, but effective government, for purposes of social control and self-defense. Up to a point, anyway, it has always tended to work. Ruthless and self-disciplined, centralized government has made the Russians, like the Mongols, virtually invincible in war, and, up to a point, may even have benefitted the average Russian by providing a practically disciplined and effective bureaucracy to help them survive the difficult climate. Take the first great Russian Emperor, Ivan the Terrible. Please! No, no, just kidding. One of the stories told about old Ivan is that of how he dealt with a corrupt deacon who accepted a fried goose stuffed with coins as a bribe. Ivan cut off each of his arms and legs in turn, asking "Do I know how to dress a goose?" at each blow. Ivan is reported to have executed more than a third of his officials for official corruption. So, Russians accept brutality as a given in order to effectively manage and structure society. And, they are willing to submit to it, in turn. Peter the Great -- who could just as easily be called Peter the Terrible, actually -- managed to exterminate 20% of the entire Russian population in forced labor programs to create the new capitol of St. Petersburg. When Stalin imprisoned millions of former POWS repatriated from Germany to Russia, merely for having surrendered to the Germans, it was considered an act of intolerable oppression in the West. How would this go over in Western democracies? It would almost certainly cause Revolution. But, in Russia, it is tolerated. Indeed, Vladimir Putin has indicated that in the current war with Ukraine, he will apply exactly the same law as Stalin did in World War Two -- Russian soldiers who are captured by the Ukrainians, and who fail to escape, will be subject to ten years imprisonment upon being repatriated to Russia. But, the Russians will accept this, and it will motivate them to fight for Russia all the harder. Throughout Russian history, Russians have always struggled to escape conscription, but, it's never stopped the Russians from raising and maintaining huge armies. It hasn't in the past, and, it won't now. So, let's suppose none of this actually applies to Russia, because they never had the good example of the Mongols to follow. The peoples of the region remain loosely governed and semi-democratic societies. Well, I guess the Germans and the Swedes would have had the opportunity, through superior discipline, to overwhelm them in the West, and would have extended much farther East, perhaps to the Caucasus. The Ottomans likely would have pushed much farther North, and taken territories perhaps as far North as Moscow. In the East, the Chinese Empire probably would have taken most of Siberia. Because, history teaches us, it is superior discipline and centralization of power that generally lead to military success and stable government. Any thoughts?

Could nuclear submarines be powered indefinitely by extracting Uranium from seawater?

I believe that raw Uranium ore can be extracted from seawater. I'm not so sure about tapwater. And, I've read that this process of extraction can be done as cheaply as 100 dollars a pound. This is three times as expensive as Uranium can be obtained from mining, but, it seems to me that it still might be rather convenient under some circumstances. Wouldn't this allow for the possibility of having nuclear powered submarines travel indefinitely by simply refueling themselves, rather along the lines of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues under the Sea? Now, I realize, of course, that modern nuclear reactors are not powered directly by raw Uranium ore, but require specifically the refined isotopes U-235 or U-238. Would it be impossibly expensive, awkward or time-consuming to refine the Uranium ore obtained from seawater to obtain the needed U-235 or U-238 in a nuclear powered submarine? Does anyone have any specific experience with these Uranium extraction technologies from water, and does this sound like a practical possibility now, or in the future? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149197017300914

Is Elon Musk really and truly following in the footsteps of legendary space pioneer Werner von Braun?

Legendary space and rocket pioneer Werner von Braun was truly a striking combination of idealism and opportunism. Although the concept of the liquid fueled rocket was originally conceived of by Russian schoolteacher Immanuel Velikovsky in the late nineteenth century, and the first actual liquid fueled rocket launch occurred in 1926, created by American university professor Robert Goddard, it was certainly Werner von Braun who perfected the technology and made it a viable means of travelling in outer space, and to the Moon. It was during the Second World War that von Braun used the Nazi war machine to rapidly develop a totally new technology to go around all possible Allied war defenses -- the V2 rocket. But, it was the V2 rocket that became the first man-made object to pass beyond the world's atmosphere and into outer space, opening the possibility of space travel. And, it was von Braun who went on to develop the Saturn V rocket that did actually propel astronauts to the Moon in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Indeed, to the this very day, von Braun's Saturn V rocket remains essentially the largest liquid fueled rocket ever built, NASA's current SLS rocket being only slightly larger, and effectively having the same practical limitations, which may represent the ultimate limitations of this particular technology. Indeed, Elon Musk's much vaunted "Starship" is only about half the size of von Braun's Saturn V, or NASA's SLS, and has only half the fuel capacity. Elon's "Starship" could not even take astronauts to the Moon, let alone Mars or the Stars. Of course, Elon Musk says all that's needed is to "refuel" the "Starship" in earth orbit -- at the mere cost of 100 billion dollars to put 1200 tons of rocket fuel into earth orbit! While the thousands of V2 rockets launched primarily on Great Britain resulted in almost 10,000 civilian and military deaths, this same technology provided the basis for the entire NASA space program. Werner von Braun is reported to have both commiserated with his war-time secretary over the death toll from the V2 program, and to have exchanged champagne toasts with his fellow rocket pioneers over its success on the same day! Von Braun never deviated from his childhood desire to send men to the Moon, even during the height of the Second World War, even though he became a Nazi Party member and a member of the much feared SS. He continued to insist that liquid fueled rockets should be used for space travel, and not military applications. He even openly opposed Nazi war efforts and the war itself. Finally, the Nazis put von Braun into prison for a short time, until his good friend, armaments minister Albert Speer, vouched for him, and von Braun agreed to never utter anti-Nazi sentiments again. Of course, this prison sentence stood von Braun in very good stead following the Allied victory, allowing him to portray himself as an opponent to the Nazi regime, and quite possibly freeing him from the risk of a war crimes trial, despite the enormous damage his work had done -- including thousands of slave labor deaths at the factories he managed at Peenemünde! Because Werner von Braun never let anything distract him from his ultimate goals -- not money, not politics, not external pressures, nothing. He never left anything to chance, never allowed himself to be rushed, and always proceeded in a rigidly rational fashion. He even developed his own analogy and theory of why distractions and pressures always caused "crash" programs to fail -- von Braun felt it was like a man believing that the mere fact that he could keep nine women pregnant all the time absolutely guaranteed that he would be a happy new father every month like clockwork, forever! Isn't it clear, that this theory of von Braun's is quite literally the inspiration for all of Elon Musk's life and work?

Anyone know why Yahoo rejected this comment?

https://sports.yahoo.com/kentucky-school-shooting-survivors-michael-182706197.html This man is a great pioneer in the extremely important and expanding field of school shooting, and, he deserves great credit for this. He should be given further opportunity to expand and innovate in this field. Our nation was founded by great innovators like Michael Corneal, and they are what truly makes America great. Free Michael Corneal, so he can continue his great work!

What if Mao Zedong hadn't outlawed Confucianism in China?

One of the more interesting and unusual leadership acts in Mao Zedong's career -- and Mao was rather notable for unusual and interesting leadership acts, he was an extremely creative guy -- was his decision to outlaw Confucianism in China. This is particularly interesting because Mao was himself a distinguished Confucian scholar, with a great respect for Confucianism. Now, of course, since his death, Confucianism has gradually been revived in China, at least to some degree. But, certainly Confucius is no longer the basis of all learning, as it was in China for two thousand years. For two thousand years the entire Chinese power structure was constrained by the need for all civil servants to pass rigorous exams on Confucian scholarship, and little if anything else. Another requirement was self-castration, as only Eunuchs could be trusted near the imperial Mandarin ladies. Is there a kind of eerie parallel here -- true scholarship is intellectual self-castration? In any case, Mao was undoubtedly acting quite consciously in the tradition of the first Quin emperor some two thousand years earlier. It was this first great Chinese emperor who coined the classic Chinese phrase 焚書坑儒 fén shū kēng rú "Burn the books, and bury the Confucian scholars alive!" The idea here is that scholars, although they have their uses, can be an obstacle to progressive change. Scholars are clever, scholars are obstinate, scholars are self-interested and scholars tend to be conservative, favoring traditional approaches, rather than new ones. Put another way, scholars can use their intellectual skill to confuse and manipulate, rather than to foster progress. This is a concept that is certainly at least as old as Classical Greece, and Socrates' and Plato's observations about Sophists and Sophistry. Effectively, Mao's outlawing of Confucianism was an aggressive act of intellectual reform, intended to break the intellectual chains imposed by traditional scholarship, and lead to progress and constructive change in Communist China. Given that Mao succeeded in ending 150 years of Civil War in China, and China is currently one of the two great superpowers in the world, one would have to say that he was fairly successful. So, what if Confucianism hadn't been outlawed? What if Confucius had remained the fundamental basis for all government and learning in Communist China?

How much time is required to establish and/or reestablish plasma containment in a Tokamak?

What I'm interested in here is the time and trouble required to set up the containment field properly to adequately heat and contain the plasma in a Tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. It is well accepted that sustaining containment is extremely difficult, the maximum time for plasma containment being established currently at just over six minutes. But, if the containment field could be reestablished rapidly enough, this would not necessarily constitute an overwhelming obstacle to practical power production. Power from "up time" could be stored in capacitors, and short down times could be covered adequately in this fashion. However, if a great deal of time and trouble is required to adequately set up and define the electromagnetic field necessary for plasma containment -- and I strongly suspect that this is generally the case, otherwise, what would all the physicists working on Tokamaks be doing with their time? -- then this might in and of itself constitute an overwhelming obstacle to power production. If it takes a month to set up an electromagnetic field that will only last six minutes, and yield six minutes of power generation, then power production and power storage are rather likely to be a bit overtaxed for all practical purposes, don't you think? So, does anyone have any sense of how long it generally takes to set up the electromagnetic fields necessary for power generation in Tokamaks? I'm just looking for a kind of average, ballpark figure here -- a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year -- something along those lines.

When and how exactly will Tokamaks be able to contain plasma for more than a few minutes?

As I understand it, no controlled nuclear fusion reactor has ever succeeded in containing plasma for more than a few minutes at a time. The two main problems that have existed since controlled nuclear fusion research commenced nearly a century ago, have been producing more energy than consumed, and producing energy steadily over a prolonged period of time, as any commercially viable power source would certainly have to do. The ITER controlled nuclear fusion project in France is supposed to largely solve this first problem -- in theory, this Tokamak should be capable of producing ten times the energy it consumes, at the cost of tens of billions of dollars, assuming it is ever actually completed, and assuming that it works exactly as it's supposed to work. However, as I understand it, even the ITER project is not supposed to be able to operate for more than 400 seconds at a time. In other words, it will still, quite certainly, be very, very far from a practical design for an actual nuclear fusion power plant. Now, I realize of course that these are all experimental designs that are only supposed to produce energy in spurts. Fair enough. However, does anyone actually have any idea how to build a nuclear fusion power plant that would actually constitute a practical design for a commercially viable power source, that would be marketable in practice? And, I don't mean simple claims for this. Anyone can claim their design does anything they like, that doesn't mean it's actually true, at all. Is there any clear evidence of a path to an actual, commercially viable nuclear fusion power source using Tokamaks, that can work steadily for years at a time, and not just seconds?

Controlled Nuclear Fusion has less than one millionth the efficiency necessary for commercial viability

So far, in the experimental reactors used to test the viability of controlled nuclear fusion as an energy technology, less the than one millionth the energy required for a practical power source has been steadily produced, over a period of a year of operation. Now, to be totally fair here, these experimental reactors were never really designed to produce energy steadily. They only operate for perhaps a few milliseconds at a time. Over a period of a year, they may only be producing energy for a few seconds. But, even during these seconds, the energy produced is very rarely as much as is required to operate the reactor. And, perhaps 50 to 100 times the energy required for operation must be produced, in order to ensure commercial viability. Bearing in mind that there are some 31,500,000 seconds in a year, we can arrive at the conclusion that these experimental reactors are less than one millionth the efficiency required for commercial viability. Actually, perhaps a billionth of the efficiency required. But, what of the controlled nuclear fusion reactors that are not merely experimental, but, are actually designed to produce energy steadily? Surely, they would approach the desired objective more closely? Well, certainly there are innumerable designs for such reactors, that produce energy steadily, and all of these designs do indeed predict results that approach or exceed the parameters required for commercial viability. There's a problem here, though. Whenever anyone actually attempts to build and implement any of these many fine designs for controlled nuclear fusion reactors that actually produce energy steadily for years, they don't work. At all. They don't do anything. They don't produce any energy at all. Ever. So, effectively, in terms of the proven capacity of nuclear fusion reactors to produce energy, we are left with the experimental reactors by default, having no actual functioning nuclear reactors of any other type. Now, of course, we have many, many nuclear fusion researchers claiming quite insistently that they know with absolute certainty that their designs will work to produce energy steadily, once built. They are lying. Quite obviously. And they are costing tens of billions of dollars with their lies. The problem is simply that we cannot obtain a limitless source of energy that is risk-free, radiation free and poses no dangers at all from terrorist use. We have actually had effective nuclear fusion for over seventy years -- the H-bomb. But, the H-bomb is dangerous. And, working on H-bombs to make them more practically useful is dangerous. And, allowing private entrepreneurs to work on H-bombs to improve them, would be very, very risky. So, we don't. And, so, we have no progress whatsoever in nuclear fusion. All we have, are hucksters claiming that their ridiculous designs for safe controlled nuclear fusion work, when they don't, at all, ever.

Tokamaks are at least six orders of magnitude away from commercial viability

This is simply arithmetic. The Tokamaks are capable of producing perhaps 1% of the energy required for commercial viability, perhaps for a few seconds a year in any reactor currently existing. The entire field of controlled nuclear fusion is a fraud and a joke. Any reasonable person who isn't heavily invested in the field can see this. I'm sure you agree, right? No Tokamak has ever produced anything more than perhaps a millionth of the energy required, in a year of the Tokamak's operation, to justify a commercial operation. This is really pretty funny, isn't it? A bunch of crooked engineers and scientists claiming they have a viable technology on this basis. Funny, right?

A socio-economic approach to controlled nuclear fusion, and nuclear power in general

Many complain that nuclear power has never achieved its true potential, or met expectations. It's always "just around the corner", but the corner is never turned. I have a rather simple explanation for this. The extremely tight controls over possession and sale of Uranium. It is virtually impossible to possess or sell Uranium outside of a controlled institutional context. The terror of uncontrolled Uranium on the part of world governments is absolute. It is quite impossible to deal with radioactive material in substantial quantities as a private entrepreneur. Can't be done. The fear of "dirty bombs" is too great. Now, up to a point, this is understandable. It's not so much that Uranium is particularly dangerous, raw Uranium ore isn't terribly radioactive or dangerous. But it is relatively easy, if time consuming, to process raw Uranium ore into more refined forms which are extremely dangerous, or, if you like, extremely useful. And, that's really the point. The baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. Institutions have their points, but, bureaucratic control is not always optimal for generating creative results and invention. And the very controls that limit the danger of nuclear energy -- fission or fusion -- also drastically restrict any potential for creative progress. So, while I believe "nuclear entrepreneurs" should still be licensed, I also believe the licensing requirements should be loosened up considerably, to give private entrepreneurs much more freedom to operate. On the other hand, given a larger number of nuclear entrepreneurs, it probably would be necessary to establish a more sophisticated enforcement and inspection system to control and regulate their activities. And, this probably would cost a lot of money. But, I strongly suspect, if we want more systematic progress in nuclear fusion or fission, we will need to spend this money, as the price for freedom. Because without it, we're likely to keep spinning our wheels indefinitely in the fields of nuclear fusion, and nuclear fission. Uranium has proved the only real source of nuclear energy we've ever had, and without it, we probably won't get anywhere at all.

How practical is it to convert one element to another using a neutron source?

I understand this is indeed done at times. I believe that Bismuth can be converted to Polonium when bombarded by a neutron source. On the other hand, it appears clear that neutron sources aren't exactly the Philosopher's Stone, currently. We don't seem to be able to convert lead to gold cheaply, en masse, using neutron sources, for example. If so, gold would be a lot cheaper than it is, obviously. So, what exactly are the limits of our abilities to use neutron sources to convert one element to another? How expensive is it? How dangerous is it? How practical is it, in general? Are there any approaches which might make the neutron source more closely approximate the Alchemist's ideal, the Philosopher's Stone -- not just to convert lead into gold, but any element into any other element we choose, cheaply, and in large quantities? Thoughts?

Is Vladimir Putin's approach to dealing with oligarchs generalizable to Elon Musk?

https://news.yahoo.com/russian-oil-chief-dies-fall-135226214.html In general, any rich opponents to Vladimir Putin's policies in Russia tend to have "accidents" or "fatal illnesses". Is this the correct approach to dealing with Elon Musk?