The Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex
View of missile site control building turret wall during early construction, illustrating the massive amount of rebar utilized in the project. (Photo: Library of Congress)
View from south to north, south oblique of missile site control building emphasizing diesel generators and exhaust an intake towers. (Photo: Library of Congress)
It could be the opening scene of an apocalyptic science fiction film, but it’s just the U.S. military going about its business, building vast and other-worldly architectural structures that the civilian world only rarely sees.
The Library of Congress has an extraordinary set of images documenting the Stanley R. MickelsenSafeguard Complex in Cavalier County, North Dakota, showing it in various states of construction and completion. And the photos are awesome. -
The Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex in Cavalier County, N.D., was built as an anti-ballistic missile complex in the 1970s at the height of the Cold War. The geometric pyramid at the center of the military installation was once the site's missile control building and used to detect a potential Soviet nuclear attack. The circular "eyes" were actually radars scanning the horizon for inbound missiles. The complex was named for Lt. General Stanley Raymond Mickelsen, former commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Defense Command. He is recognized as a leader who brought the Army's air defense from the era of guns into the age of missiles, according to an unofficial website about the complex.
But here’s where it gets weird: The facility was officially open for business for less only than 24 hours. The complex became fully operational on Oct. 1, 1975 but on Oct. 2, Congress ended the Safeguard program and deactivated the site.
Since then, the 100-plus underground missiles at the complex have all been removed and the pyramid sealed due to environmental concerns. The 431-acre property, which includes a chapel, community center, gymnasium and office building, has remained silent, only occasionally open to visitors.
In 2012, the facility was bought via auction by the Spring Creek Hutterite Colony for $530,000, Agweek reports. It is unclear why the Hutterites, a religious group that strongly opposes warfare, would be interested in an abandoned military site. But under requirements by the federal government, the group is not allowed to make any changes to the property.
http://www.weather.com/news/news/stanley-r-mickelsen-safeguard-complex-pyramid-build-middle-nowhere-20140420
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Picture of the computer the universities used
some of the questions and answers the computer revealed
It’s been the stuff of science fiction for ages, but if scientists, professors, and students had it their way, the United States government would fire all of its elected humans and replace them with artificially-intelligent computers, whom their recent studies prove would do a better job at governing the country “by every measurable metric.”
On Monday, four universities (MIT, Berkley, Texas A&M, and Binghamton University) and DARPA reached the half-way point in what will eventually be a ten-year simulation, where hundreds of powerful computers, using the most advanced artificial intelligence available today, have been managing the United States’ federal government in place of humans elected to hold office. The study uses real-world global events, history, politics, and numerous other values, creating an alternative reality where America was run by the computers for the past five years. And in that virtual America, things are much less dystopiate than movies, video games, or books would have us believe. In fact, the simulated statistics show that America would be a much better place to live overall if we had computers running things.
On February 1st, 2010, DARPA turned on over 600 specially-built computers, with one machine for each member of the House, Senate, and US Supreme Court, with other computers simulating the President and his cabinet. The machines represent their actual constituencies; for instance, the computer called “Congress-California 27th” actually works to represent its constituents in Los Angeles, California. Since then, the computers haven’t been turned off, other than for three-hours of maintenance each month. And in that time, they’ve precisely simulated a fictional US government, even predicting major world events, like the riots in Ferguson and Vladimir Putin’s aggressions in the Ukraine.
How are the computers doing at running the country in their fictional, statistics-driven reality? Unemployment nationwide is down to 2.4%, compared to 5.6% in the real world. The value of the American dollar is nine times stronger than it is in real life. National literacy rates have tripled. The national average crime rate has decreased by 64%. The computers created a major budget surplus within the first fifteen minutes of their being turned on, and in December 2014, they managed to fully pay off our national debt and turn America into the world’s strongest lenders. Income inequality is solved, the middle class is striving, and homelessness is almost entirely eradicated. And they accomplished all of this while providing true universal healthcare to every American citizen and reducing taxes in every single bracket by more than half.
And how, pray tell, did the computers pull all of this off, you ask? Dr. Mitch Samberg at DARPA explained it best. “These computers aren’t caught up in partisanship, because they don’t believe in parties. They do what’s best for the nation first, their constituents second, and their own personal ambition is never a factor. They’ve almost completely eradicated wasteful spending, without any partisan pork projects, to the point where they’ve kept nearly all government programs in place, and they’re getting exactly how much money they need. Congress should take a look at the budget they’ve come up with, it’s really quite something.”
- See more at: http://nationalreport.net/computers-better-governing-humans-university-test-proves/#sthash.fs9hQ4JG.dpuf
Only a few cities, Washington, Dallas, were allowed coverage under the treaties of the time. That's why all the pants crapping when Reagan wanted to go Star Wars.
http://www.nuclearabms.info/HSafeguard.html
Thank you for the heads-up, Ichingcarpenter. It is an excellent example of the economist's "Guns or Butter" analogy. The thing about Guns, they don't add to prosperity -- apart from protecting those that got some.
Tyler Cowen explains the future:
Economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University has seen the future and it looks bleak for most of us. Thankfully, the United States of America may be in for good times, especially for those perched atop the socio-economic pyramid scheme, should war break out.
The Pitfalls of Peace
The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth
Tyler Cowen
The New York Times, JUNE 13, 2014
The continuing slowness of economic growth in high-income economies has prompted soul-searching among economists. They have looked to weak demand, rising inequality, Chinese competition, over-regulation, inadequate infrastructure and an exhaustion of new technological ideas as possible culprits.
An additional explanation of slow growth is now receiving attention, however. It is the persistence and expectation of peace.
The world just hasn’t had that much warfare lately, at least not by historical standards. Some of the recent headlines about Iraq or South Sudan make our world sound like a very bloody place, but today’s casualties pale in light of the tens of millions of people killed in the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Even the Vietnam War had many more deaths than any recent war involving an affluent country.
Counterintuitive though it may sound, the greater peacefulness of the world may make the attainment of higher rates of economic growth less urgent and thus less likely. This view does not claim that fighting wars improves economies, as of course the actual conflict brings death and destruction. The claim is also distinct from the Keynesian argument that preparing for war lifts government spending and puts people to work. Rather, the very possibility of war focuses the attention of governments on getting some basic decisions right — whether investing in science or simply liberalizing the economy. Such focus ends up improving a nation’s longer-run prospects.
It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government eager to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The Internet was initially designed to help this country withstand a nuclear exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military contracting, not today’s entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred American interest in science and technology, to the benefit of later economic growth.
War brings an urgency that governments otherwise fail to summon. For instance, the Manhattan Project took six years to produce a working atomic bomb, starting from virtually nothing, and at its peak consumed 0.4 percent of American economic output. It is hard to imagine a comparably speedy and decisive achievement these days.
SNIP...
Living in a largely peaceful world with 2 percent G.D.P. growth has some big advantages that you don’t get with 4 percent growth and many more war deaths. Economic stasis may not feel very impressive, but it’s something our ancestors never quite managed to pull off. The real questions are whether we can do any better, and whether the recent prevalence of peace is a mere temporary bubble just waiting to be burst.
Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/upshot/the-lack-of-major-wars-may-be-hurting-economic-growth.html?_r=0
More war means more money for somebody and less life for a lot of bodies.
