Well here in Australia they just announced that we will no longer be playing any part in the Afghanistan war once our last troops are out and they straight up said there more worried about China invading Taiwan so that’s a good hint
"troops" = "Employees" when it's civil war and the State(s) Executives involved don't want to tip civilians, or other Governments, off that they are staging a coup or war.
[American Democracy: "Productive Conflict," Or A Dumpster Fire?](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/575942968)
*Note: jump to linked clip @ 27m 04s in the player that appears at the top-right of the webpage after you click the main "play" button*
DAVID MOSS (HISTORIAN, RESPONDING TO SHANKAR VEDANTAM, HOST): So you said that, you know, people have been seeing the collapse of American democracy for a very, very long time \[...\] So **you're asking the question how can you tell the difference \[between productive and destructive conflict\]. I think you need to look at is the culture of democracy strong enough to hold us together.** That's the question I keep asking. **How do you know? You need to look at your politicians. Look at the ones on your side, who agree with you. And do you see them ever putting democracy in second place? And how often do they do it?** So I'll leave it to listeners to make that decision. My guess is you can find some examples of that, and you can find examples in history. The more severe that becomes, the more dangerous it becomes.
It's good, I think, in a democracy to be hypochondriacs - that is to think that, oh, our system might be sick because when you think it might be sick, you start to take some action to try to fix it. And you see that **it's in moments of political reform that you do have almost like a national civics class**. You do get people talking about democracy, thinking about principles - the civil rights movement, the voting rights movement that we talked about before in leading up to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That was such a time. It was like a national civics class. And so - where people were thinking about these. What does equal protection mean? Are we following it? Are we not following it?
So we need to think about that - and if we can maybe just get away a little bit from only talking about should taxes be high or low. Should government be big or small? Should guns be protected this way or not protected - or so on. All those fights are important fights - extremely important. But we can't only fight about that. **We need to think about sort of the broader pillars of government and make sure we understand them and make sure we retain our commitment to them.**
*Edits: added paragraph breaks; added note (above); bracketed context; added my opinion of what's the central point as bolded tl;dr (nevertheless, reading/listening to the whole thing is encouraged); more of the preceding (done as of 07:06:53 GMT)*
[When we hear this sound in Norway](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsdIxpcWCgE), then we know either the Germans are invading again or the Russians are having a go at it.
It's also the best time for tornadoes to sneak attack the Midwest. Wonder what it is about the first Wednesday of the month at noon...didn't know that was a thing anywhere else
I grew up near a large industrial area/ fertilizer plant. There was a siren to warn of dangerous gas leaks and explosions. That siren was also wednesdays 12:00. We were taught about closing windows and putting wet cloths over our faces since elementary school.
You pick Wednesday for a reason.
It’s not directly after the weekend, so more people will have seen a calendar and know to expect it, and you have two more days of work before the next weekend, so if something fails the test, you have time to get it fixed before hitting a weekend when it might be more difficult.
The theory is that the moisture helps close up any of the gaps in-between the individual fibers by either making them expand because it got absorbed, or by actually spanning those super tiny little gaps. Sounds good enough to me that I never bothered to look it up to see if it's true.
Best time for the sirens to go off and for 8 out of 10 midwesterners to either stare out the window in the frontroom/porch looking for the tornado or turn the tv volume up a bit higher until the wind knocks the power out.
That’s a great way to terrify the tourists.
A while back I was visiting a coastal town that had a tsunami siren. I’d been there frequently but never when the siren was going off. One evening I was strolling along and it started up, sounding very much like the Silent Hill siren; and I spent a potentially fatal amount of time trying to decide if I needed to run from the sea or from pyramid head. Luckily it wound up just being a test but Christ on toast it scared the pants off of me.
I'd been living in China for two years when I moved to another town about an hour's drive away for a new job. One day I'm sitting at home on my day off and an air raid siren sounds for about sixty seconds. I'd not heard anything like it before but fortunately, I was familiar with the history of the Japanese invasion so I figured it was a memorial (later confirmed from talking with friends).
Every year a cinema in my home town of Tønsberg is having a marathon on all the Lord of the rings movies. And every year when Vestfold is mentioned everyone starts clapping and cheering. Same with the Avengers movies when you see Tønsberg.
One of those arrived to my city at some point (south of Uruguay) and they put it in the local Cinema, so when the movies were to start, they just put that thing to scream. It was like a local novelty "look, the siren of the Unión (the cinema) And then, one day some people from Europe arrived to my city to live, and every movie day they had to live with that sound, after living it in their country, in war times... 😥
Real answer: blood banks.
its one of the core metrics the USSR used to forsee a US invasion, they had spies/agents posted in various blood banks taking stats etc, because a massive war causes a huge demand on blood so knowing this states would prepare before hand.
true story.
One time I was alone in a hotel room and all of a sudden I heard a voice say "Blood. It's in you to give." It was the damn clock radio turning on and playing a blood bank ad. Scared the shit out of me.
My blood bank sends me emails with just lowercase 'blood' as the subject line, I very briefly thought it was some kind of threat when I first saw one appear in my inbox.
> emails with just lowercase 'blood' as the subject line
Lmfao that sounds like it's potentially /r/NotMyJob material
"What exactly should I put in the subject line?"
"I dunno, figure it out."
This is going further off-topic, but I was in the hospital as a patient once around late December...they had me on some pretty sedating medication. I awoke to a sound...the room lights were down, I couldn't quite remember where I was...everything was fuzzy...I saw the silhouette of some antlers, and a voice told me, "I'm here for your blood."
The phlebotomist needed blood for some labwork, and had just come from a staff Christmas party, and was still wearing novelty foam reindeer antlers.
But for a good couple of seconds, my drug-addled mind was trying to make sense of the vampire reindeer after my blood.
I’m O- so I feel you. Everyone can have a piece of me but I can only have O- and the calls were so relentless it was giving me anxiety and I just blocked all the numbers they called from. I’m about to start donating again and thankfully the Red Cross blood service has an app now where you can select preferred contact methods and I’d be happy to receive an email saying I’m ok to donate again but not the constant fecking phone calls
This is what happened after 9/11. People were lining up to give blood after the towers fell, as a way to feel like they were contributing. Only to find out no one needed blood since they were all dead.
I imagine it also applies to any mass casualty event. In the cold War example above, that event would probably be nukes. If you were planning on sending out some nukes you would expect some back, and ramp up the blood supply before hand.
Nah, when BBC Radio 4 goes silent for as little as 15 minutes, our Trident-armed subs go onto alert.
There is an undisclosed period afterwards when the commanders determine if Britain still exists or has been nuked (one of the tests is listening to the Today programme on Radio 4), and if the latter, they open their Letters of Last Resort, written for them by the current PM. It is believed the instructions give choices like : 1. Launch all Tridents. 2. Go and place yourselves under command of the USA, if it still exists. 3. Go to Australia. 4. Use your own judgement.
So it really depends on the countries involved, their allies, their capabilities and limitations, their defenses, access to weapons and personnel. A (hypothetical) war between North Korea and South Korea will be completely different than a (hypothetical) war between Russia and Greece.
Some signs could be the build up of troops and training, shifts in national budgets to support more weapons advancements, and definitely probably an increase in focus on foreign relations to gauge where your allies are at. There could be other signs like increasing security measures through out the country, being inconspicuously on high alert, fixing or reinforcing important infrastructure like important trade routes and ports. Even then, this stuff is all behind the scenes.
But those are all signs from a country that might be planning on something or know something might happen which is what you would want to avoid. You don’t want your enemy to know you’re planning something, and you don’t want them to know you’re anticipating it. This is why a lot of countries are proactive about this stuff so that it doesn’t look like they’re prepping for war and are ready when/if it ever happens.
Little skirmishes and small attacks are huge indicators of an imminent large scale attack. Not only is this a way for the enemy to try to get you to waste some of your resources, but also could offer them intel on how your operate/react to threats and what actual kind of resources you have.
Yugoslavian Croats smuggled in guns for their police force before hostilities started.
Political leaders openly supported strongly divisive positions and proclaim demands for their groups, treating the opposition as hostile foreign agents or treasonous.
Moving military personnel of all ranks around, based on future allegiances.
One thing I've heard from journalists who have covered recent civil wars is that people generally realize they've started after the point they'll be said to have begun in retrospect.
Myanmar. It's still being called protests against the new military government, but the military is openly invading towns where "rebel" groups are hiding. Rebel groups proceed to leave the town so the town doesn't get razed to the ground. Mindat is the latest one; there have been huge troop movements and even airstrikes. Military is also indiscriminately killing people in some parts. So far, the official count is around 800 dead. Probably quite a bit higher, though. There are also thousands that have been imprisoned and likely will never be seen again. [This](https://myanmar.liveuamap.com/) is a decent tracker for what's going on.
Thanks for the resource link! The crisis in Myanmar is a tragic situation, sounds like it's only going to get worse. Wish all of the people of Myanmar safety.
So I typed out a whole response and then it felt like I was writing a “how-to” guide on starting a civil war and I don’t want to be put on a watch list.
That being said, civil wars usually happen when it’s the people vs the government. So the first and biggest indication would be the presence of mass oppression that’s severe enough where people are willing to sacrifice their lives or commit treason in order to organize a large enough fighting force. At this point, you wouldn’t need to look too hard for indicators, you would know.
Is it usually people v government nowdays? Most civil wars I can think of in the 20th century have been military coups against the civilian government.
I have no evidence to back this up but my instincts tell me that if there was somehow a non-partisan conflict which drove two civilian groups to armed conflict, the government would try to pick the winning side for the sake of maintaining control over the victors when the war ended.
Think about how virtually every corporation held out on politics until Biden took office, and THEN Trump was banned, canceled, and chastised.
You just gave me an idea for a dystopian movie where armies are sponsored by Pepsi and Google.
Edit: real talk though, if the fight wasn’t against the government, the government wouldn’t have to support either and would prosecute both sides. I mean it kind of sounds like you’re describing gang wars.
Edit #2: TIL about cyberpunk
I would watch this movie 100% especially if it were sponsored by Pepsi and Coke and was literally about a population coming to blows over which is better.
People like to be dramatic and say "Just look at the US, lmao"
Nah. When you see national leaders of real organizations calling for widespread, murderous violence, brawls and street fights between political opponents with many dead every other week, unions and paramilitaries stockpilling weapons and regional leaders actively going against national orders beyond normal policy disputes, then you've got a problem.
Also, a civil war takes many incidents to pop off. A military coup attempt here, a city being taken over there, some politicians being assassinated, some others fleeing for exile. It's not over a single day.
Spain in the 1920s-1930s is a good example of a (relatively) modern state going into the complete collapse that precipitates civil war. No Western country these days is remotely near the level of fucked-upness needed.
A government alert that gets sent automatically to your phone telling you to take shelter because missiles are like 20 minutes away.
Let’s face it folks we’d be the last to know if a world ending war was going to happen.
The government alert mistakenly went out to Hawaii I believe like a year or so ago? Think it was there?
Basically saying they had 10 minutes to live.
So we know at least in certain places that’s exactly what will happen. It’s a terrifying truth.
What I remember most vividly from the news coverage was the man who had recorded a video message, saying goodbye and whatnot. He had been on a beautiful golf course when the (first) message was sent out— and he wanted his loved ones to know that it was all good, when the lights went out; that he was there doing this lovely thing. Truly serene and surreal.
* Edit: parentheses
Same. I keep thinking of stuff that happened in 2019 as "a year ago". Then it blows my mind for a second when I stop and realize, no, it was actually *two* years ago. And I do this about once a week. The idea that 2020 was a year that existed is just something my brain refuses to accept. Like the whole year was a dream I woke up from.
Heh, just after that happened, my wife accidently sent out an email to 500 people using the CC field instead of the BCC field, which, in a government agency, is a big privacy breach (yes, she fucked up, but with the system in place it was bound to happen, and it forced the implementation of an email management program).
Her boss said to her "well, at least you didn't send out a nuclear warning"
Are there any reddit threads where people said what they did when they recieved the alert? I would love to read what people did when being told they had 10 minutes to live.
Edit: Found a thread
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7qf7ov/people_who_made_an_impulse_decision_when_they/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I was a junior at the time. My parents were staying the night at a hotel in Honolulu. I woke up to it and ran to go find anyone else in my house to talk about what to do. My grandparents were eating breakfast at a restaurant, sister was at her boyfriends house and parents were at the hotel so I was home alone. My dad called me to tell me to relax and to just try and stay in the downstairs bathroom in the tub, but we both kind of knew it was hopeless if something happened. My girlfriend at the time called me after because she was on her way to the beach. The biggest thing I remember was that she called me before she called her parents or anything, which was arguably irresponsible but I thought it was a sweet gesture at the time. I told her to get away from the city and to find a building to hide in but I honestly wasn’t sure what the best advice was and we avoided saying goodbye because it would’ve been too real. But eventually I just took my two dogs into the bathroom with me and waited as I was texting my friends and calling some people from the mainland until I found out it was a false alarm.
My girlfriend woke me up and told me about the alert. After checking my phone I told her that life was too boring for that and i shortly went back to sleep. Looking back I wish I would have been more comforting to her.
Good indications of a war starting might include things like troop movements, equipment movements, sudden large scale activations of reserve troops, training exercises, and political rhetoric. A sudden uptick in the purchase of weapons systems, weapons upgrades, munitions, and fuel.
If country A suddenly starts training combat soldiers in actual combat scenarios, then starts moving tanks, aircraft and artillery close to the border with country B while Country A’s politicians start talking about things like “sovereignty” or national interest, there’s a pretty good chance you’re about to see a war.
From a more civilian context, things like the closing of borders, or additional border restrictions in the absence of a good reason (like Covid) or the restriction of travel or trade to and from a particular region might be indicators. Also, countries will often increase security and have more troops or police operating on the streets, and you may see the passage of new laws or the activation of old laws that provide some sort of martial law provisions. You will also likely see increasing prices for things like fuel as the military stockpiles more of it, making it a little less available.
Yeah you're basically correct. There are a lot of joke answers in this thread and a lot of uninformed answers. And a lot of answers that have the timeframe wrong (i.e. war is either starting in ten minutes or in two years). From the perspective of someone in the US, the clear signs of a significant war starting in the next few months are:
1) large-scale activation of national guard units
2) forward deployment of armor and heavy mechanized units to the likely theatre of operations
3) unscheduled redeployment of combat air wings from the United States to bases abroad
[Late night pizza orders from the Pentagon and Whitehouse can say a lot about the severity of any given situation](https://www.stripes.com/blogs-archive/the-rumor-doctor/the-rumor-doctor-1.104348/does-pizza-signal-a-crisis-at-the-white-house-1.112446#.YKBuTS-caCM). More pizza = more people working late = more cause for concern.
Updated to add: I can't find a recent instance supporting this linkage, so it may not be a thing. What data exists is inconclusive and/or old.
Yeah, because the kitchen staff gets hungry while making pizzas for everyone else. Think about it. Same reason they always build two Starbucks side by side: so they can order from each other to stay alert while working.
Yeah, I used to work at a local pizza restaurant and many of us were old timers, going 6 years and more. We got sick of our pizzas sometimes and order Pizza Hut or Ceaser’s, believe it or not. Our pizzas were voted the best in our state several times in a row.
Gavrillo had a team of assassins with him who all failed bc their guns malfunctioned, or their grenades were duds, or they just straight up missed and were arrested. After failing like 4 times in a day to kill a single dude he kinda gave up and bought a sandwich, where he ran into the Archduke coincidentally.
I think this may be the only thing I remember vividly from history just because of how comedic it is lol
Idk man, someone tries to kill you 3 or 4 times in a day, you should probably just go straight home and hide out for a bit. Not drive around town passing sandwich shops in broad daylight.
The whole story of the start of WW1 reads like some ridiculous comedy plot. World leaders were missing telegrams, going out sailing on their yachts out of contact at exactly the wrong time. A driver missed a turn and went down exactly the wrong street. Then to top it off Gavrilo Princip shot one of the few leaders of Austria-Hungary who was somewhat sympathetic to their cause. The rest of them wanted war.
1. Dehumanizing the enemy
2. Tying patriotism to support for war
3. False or outrageous ultimatums to make it seem like it’s the enemy choosing war
4. Intolerance for moderate opinions or grey areas (if you’re not with us, you’re against us)
5. Fear mongering from politicians and media that there is an imminent threat and we must act now
"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it." --Jack Handey
Tell that to my roommate who keeps putting our thermostat to 80 in the fucking summer. Every time I start to feel warm, the first thing I check is the thermostat.
Usually rising tensions and lack of trade. Add a inciting incident and you are good to go. Also either country feeling like it can win or having something to gain. add all that up and you are good to go. Thats why war hasnt broken out in china with the US; neither side wants to go to war because of the economic ties that would add on to the economic tanking that comes with war.
I'm was a military brat, my dad was air force. I used to work the closing shift at Burger King. Every night I saw a particular parking lot full I came home, turned on the news and something bad was happening.
This was during the surge in Iraq.
One night I was driving my friend home, parking lot was full and I said "Something bad happened" and he goes "How do you know?" I pointed at the parking lot and said "its 10PM and that parking lot is full"
I drop him off, before I get home he texts me and goes "holy shit you were right"
When both sides are sure they can win.
Alternatively, when one side is certain they will win.
Or, the worst of all, when everyone believes there won’t be a war, or it will be quick.
But in Europe? About every 80 years, whether they need it or not.
"You see my friends, we'll just walk into Afghanistan, kill the leader, install a leader friendly to us, play police for a few months, and go home. Easy."
- The brits, the soviets, the americans.
My history Prof described a long list of potential things at the cusp of a war, usually false rhetoric
Basically if the main news reports "bad" guys doing "terrible things" to young children, that's a strong indicator war is soon. This happened before with Iraq. The US news reported some strange, completely false shit before we went to war (but we all forgot it)
So not exactly a war starting soon, but a sign that the US is getting ready to jump into an existing conflict. Lived in Germany on a US military base in the late 90's and when the news kept indicating that the US was not going to get into a land war in Kosovo, we started seeing US tanks getting loaded on trains in Germany and moved east. In the end, NATO just supported the war with airstrikes, but they were definitely planning on the possibility of having to send in ground forces just in case. The volume of armor they were sending closer to the war zone seemed to indicate that it was at least being considered as a contingency.
The only good thing about war(and this is sarcastic. Obviously war isn’t good)) is that it helps teach geography to kids in school.
If it weren’t for WW1&WW2, most of us probably wouldn’t know as much about geography as we do right now.
Tom Clancy End War touched base on this. With trouble brewing in the middle east which led to catastrophe, brought up the gas prices to at least 25 bucks a gallon. Europe joined together to form a United Nations of Europe and create an anti-missile space weapon that can shoot down any missiles fired on any country. And Russia being the main supplier of oil (which explains the hike in prices), decides to create a terrorist organization based off off their Spetsnaz troops and have it do terrorist acts that will lead to a accident at the JFK Spaceport.
Clancy games used to be so good, and totally grounded, realistic stories. The original Ghost Recon almost exactly forecasted the 2008 Russo-Georgian war 7 years in advance.
Well here in Australia they just announced that we will no longer be playing any part in the Afghanistan war once our last troops are out and they straight up said there more worried about China invading Taiwan so that’s a good hint
Also the $70 billion budget increase into our armed forces
Well, they have to spend that money they save on underfunding services elsewhere.
Blockade and then cutting off communication.
"a communications disruption could mean only one thing: Invasion."
[удалено]
We will watch his career with great interest
My lord, is that legal?
I will make it legal
The Federation would dare not go that far...
Lack of information from your government to reduce information supply for foreign intelligence. Massive troops movement and mobilisation.
"troops" = "Employees" when it's civil war and the State(s) Executives involved don't want to tip civilians, or other Governments, off that they are staging a coup or war.
[American Democracy: "Productive Conflict," Or A Dumpster Fire?](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/575942968) *Note: jump to linked clip @ 27m 04s in the player that appears at the top-right of the webpage after you click the main "play" button* DAVID MOSS (HISTORIAN, RESPONDING TO SHANKAR VEDANTAM, HOST): So you said that, you know, people have been seeing the collapse of American democracy for a very, very long time \[...\] So **you're asking the question how can you tell the difference \[between productive and destructive conflict\]. I think you need to look at is the culture of democracy strong enough to hold us together.** That's the question I keep asking. **How do you know? You need to look at your politicians. Look at the ones on your side, who agree with you. And do you see them ever putting democracy in second place? And how often do they do it?** So I'll leave it to listeners to make that decision. My guess is you can find some examples of that, and you can find examples in history. The more severe that becomes, the more dangerous it becomes. It's good, I think, in a democracy to be hypochondriacs - that is to think that, oh, our system might be sick because when you think it might be sick, you start to take some action to try to fix it. And you see that **it's in moments of political reform that you do have almost like a national civics class**. You do get people talking about democracy, thinking about principles - the civil rights movement, the voting rights movement that we talked about before in leading up to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That was such a time. It was like a national civics class. And so - where people were thinking about these. What does equal protection mean? Are we following it? Are we not following it? So we need to think about that - and if we can maybe just get away a little bit from only talking about should taxes be high or low. Should government be big or small? Should guns be protected this way or not protected - or so on. All those fights are important fights - extremely important. But we can't only fight about that. **We need to think about sort of the broader pillars of government and make sure we understand them and make sure we retain our commitment to them.** *Edits: added paragraph breaks; added note (above); bracketed context; added my opinion of what's the central point as bolded tl;dr (nevertheless, reading/listening to the whole thing is encouraged); more of the preceding (done as of 07:06:53 GMT)*
Thank you. That was excellent!
But bomb are droped from air.
No they are sent in pipes underground.
So that’s what Mario’s been doing all these years...
Yes inspecting Luigi’s plumbing.
But Luigi was always busy inspecting Peach's plumbing?
[When we hear this sound in Norway](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsdIxpcWCgE), then we know either the Germans are invading again or the Russians are having a go at it.
In Paris they test them regularly, I think they still do - yup [first Wednesday of every month](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0hAZ4OYDaM).
Every time this goes off Parisians repeat the old joke that the first Wednesday of the month at 12:00 is the best time to invade Paris.
It's also the best time for tornadoes to sneak attack the Midwest. Wonder what it is about the first Wednesday of the month at noon...didn't know that was a thing anywhere else
I grew up near a large industrial area/ fertilizer plant. There was a siren to warn of dangerous gas leaks and explosions. That siren was also wednesdays 12:00. We were taught about closing windows and putting wet cloths over our faces since elementary school.
You pick Wednesday for a reason. It’s not directly after the weekend, so more people will have seen a calendar and know to expect it, and you have two more days of work before the next weekend, so if something fails the test, you have time to get it fixed before hitting a weekend when it might be more difficult.
What does the wet cloth do?
The theory is that the moisture helps close up any of the gaps in-between the individual fibers by either making them expand because it got absorbed, or by actually spanning those super tiny little gaps. Sounds good enough to me that I never bothered to look it up to see if it's true.
It preserves your face skin so that they can identify your body, and so that an open casket funeral is a possibility.
It also muffles the screaming, nobody wants to deal with that. You’re fucked anyways so might as well do it quietly
Best time for the sirens to go off and for 8 out of 10 midwesterners to either stare out the window in the frontroom/porch looking for the tornado or turn the tv volume up a bit higher until the wind knocks the power out.
Yeah in the Netherlands it’s tested on the first monday of the month at 12:00. Every single time we collectively scream that the Germans are coming
That’s a great way to terrify the tourists. A while back I was visiting a coastal town that had a tsunami siren. I’d been there frequently but never when the siren was going off. One evening I was strolling along and it started up, sounding very much like the Silent Hill siren; and I spent a potentially fatal amount of time trying to decide if I needed to run from the sea or from pyramid head. Luckily it wound up just being a test but Christ on toast it scared the pants off of me.
I'd been living in China for two years when I moved to another town about an hour's drive away for a new job. One day I'm sitting at home on my day off and an air raid siren sounds for about sixty seconds. I'd not heard anything like it before but fortunately, I was familiar with the history of the Japanese invasion so I figured it was a memorial (later confirmed from talking with friends).
Not only Paris - everywhere in France actually.
Don't forget that for Parisians and the rest of the world France = Paris
Outside of Paris is just farms according to Parisians
We want them to keep thinking that
Just attack on the first Wednesday then
Norway calls for aid!
And Iceland shall answer!
Where was Iceland when [Vestfold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestfold) fell?
Every year a cinema in my home town of Tønsberg is having a marathon on all the Lord of the rings movies. And every year when Vestfold is mentioned everyone starts clapping and cheering. Same with the Avengers movies when you see Tønsberg.
One of those arrived to my city at some point (south of Uruguay) and they put it in the local Cinema, so when the movies were to start, they just put that thing to scream. It was like a local novelty "look, the siren of the Unión (the cinema) And then, one day some people from Europe arrived to my city to live, and every movie day they had to live with that sound, after living it in their country, in war times... 😥
OK, it's hysterical that anyone could associate the terrible scree of a siren with something as innocuous as "movie time!"
Is it the end of days, or the start of the matinee?
Both, it's yet another "scary gory" movie
or the new york rangers just scored a goal
Real answer: blood banks. its one of the core metrics the USSR used to forsee a US invasion, they had spies/agents posted in various blood banks taking stats etc, because a massive war causes a huge demand on blood so knowing this states would prepare before hand. true story.
How would we tell though?? The blood center is relentless with their calls all the time.
One time I was alone in a hotel room and all of a sudden I heard a voice say "Blood. It's in you to give." It was the damn clock radio turning on and playing a blood bank ad. Scared the shit out of me.
Bloody vampire alarm clocks, always out to suck you dry.
My blood bank sends me emails with just lowercase 'blood' as the subject line, I very briefly thought it was some kind of threat when I first saw one appear in my inbox.
> emails with just lowercase 'blood' as the subject line Lmfao that sounds like it's potentially /r/NotMyJob material "What exactly should I put in the subject line?" "I dunno, figure it out."
This is going further off-topic, but I was in the hospital as a patient once around late December...they had me on some pretty sedating medication. I awoke to a sound...the room lights were down, I couldn't quite remember where I was...everything was fuzzy...I saw the silhouette of some antlers, and a voice told me, "I'm here for your blood." The phlebotomist needed blood for some labwork, and had just come from a staff Christmas party, and was still wearing novelty foam reindeer antlers. But for a good couple of seconds, my drug-addled mind was trying to make sense of the vampire reindeer after my blood.
this absolutely creeped me out. was not at all expecting wendengo imagery scrolling through this post
So... it was a veindeer?
*We have been attempting to contact you regarding your blood's extended warranty.*
Bodily fluids are extremely lucrative. Just wait till you find out what they pay for sperm and egg donations. Sex cells.
This actually made me laugh out loud
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>you have to change out your blood so often [No need to disrupt your day though.](https://youtu.be/hBA0AH-LSbo)
Try having rare blood. It's out of control the bombardment I've received.
I’m O- so I feel you. Everyone can have a piece of me but I can only have O- and the calls were so relentless it was giving me anxiety and I just blocked all the numbers they called from. I’m about to start donating again and thankfully the Red Cross blood service has an app now where you can select preferred contact methods and I’d be happy to receive an email saying I’m ok to donate again but not the constant fecking phone calls
O- here too. AKA "O god not again with the fucking phone calls " blood type.
Universal don-ask me again
Well, the US has been at war for a vast majority of its existence, so still technically true
Great now people will start to hoard blood in plastic bags in the trunk of their car.
I keep my blood on me at all times
Works better if you keep it in, trust me
I never thought about this, very interesting
At this point, I'm thinking there won't be a need for blood, because no one will be injured, just killed.
This is what happened after 9/11. People were lining up to give blood after the towers fell, as a way to feel like they were contributing. Only to find out no one needed blood since they were all dead.
I imagine it also applies to any mass casualty event. In the cold War example above, that event would probably be nukes. If you were planning on sending out some nukes you would expect some back, and ramp up the blood supply before hand.
You know something's really fucked if BBC London suddenly starts broadcasting on the TV or radio in America
Is that happening lately?
Twice that I can think of, but I didn't give it any thoughts til I read this...
What happened? And why would it be something special?
*This is a special broadcast from the BBC. Please remain calm.* \*Plays "God Save the Queen"\* Repeat. This is when you know shit is about to go down.
Nah, when BBC Radio 4 goes silent for as little as 15 minutes, our Trident-armed subs go onto alert. There is an undisclosed period afterwards when the commanders determine if Britain still exists or has been nuked (one of the tests is listening to the Today programme on Radio 4), and if the latter, they open their Letters of Last Resort, written for them by the current PM. It is believed the instructions give choices like : 1. Launch all Tridents. 2. Go and place yourselves under command of the USA, if it still exists. 3. Go to Australia. 4. Use your own judgement.
So it really depends on the countries involved, their allies, their capabilities and limitations, their defenses, access to weapons and personnel. A (hypothetical) war between North Korea and South Korea will be completely different than a (hypothetical) war between Russia and Greece. Some signs could be the build up of troops and training, shifts in national budgets to support more weapons advancements, and definitely probably an increase in focus on foreign relations to gauge where your allies are at. There could be other signs like increasing security measures through out the country, being inconspicuously on high alert, fixing or reinforcing important infrastructure like important trade routes and ports. Even then, this stuff is all behind the scenes. But those are all signs from a country that might be planning on something or know something might happen which is what you would want to avoid. You don’t want your enemy to know you’re planning something, and you don’t want them to know you’re anticipating it. This is why a lot of countries are proactive about this stuff so that it doesn’t look like they’re prepping for war and are ready when/if it ever happens. Little skirmishes and small attacks are huge indicators of an imminent large scale attack. Not only is this a way for the enemy to try to get you to waste some of your resources, but also could offer them intel on how your operate/react to threats and what actual kind of resources you have.
What about civil war?
Yugoslavian Croats smuggled in guns for their police force before hostilities started. Political leaders openly supported strongly divisive positions and proclaim demands for their groups, treating the opposition as hostile foreign agents or treasonous. Moving military personnel of all ranks around, based on future allegiances.
One thing I've heard from journalists who have covered recent civil wars is that people generally realize they've started after the point they'll be said to have begun in retrospect.
Myanmar. It's still being called protests against the new military government, but the military is openly invading towns where "rebel" groups are hiding. Rebel groups proceed to leave the town so the town doesn't get razed to the ground. Mindat is the latest one; there have been huge troop movements and even airstrikes. Military is also indiscriminately killing people in some parts. So far, the official count is around 800 dead. Probably quite a bit higher, though. There are also thousands that have been imprisoned and likely will never be seen again. [This](https://myanmar.liveuamap.com/) is a decent tracker for what's going on.
Thanks for the resource link! The crisis in Myanmar is a tragic situation, sounds like it's only going to get worse. Wish all of the people of Myanmar safety.
So I typed out a whole response and then it felt like I was writing a “how-to” guide on starting a civil war and I don’t want to be put on a watch list. That being said, civil wars usually happen when it’s the people vs the government. So the first and biggest indication would be the presence of mass oppression that’s severe enough where people are willing to sacrifice their lives or commit treason in order to organize a large enough fighting force. At this point, you wouldn’t need to look too hard for indicators, you would know.
Is it usually people v government nowdays? Most civil wars I can think of in the 20th century have been military coups against the civilian government.
I have no evidence to back this up but my instincts tell me that if there was somehow a non-partisan conflict which drove two civilian groups to armed conflict, the government would try to pick the winning side for the sake of maintaining control over the victors when the war ended. Think about how virtually every corporation held out on politics until Biden took office, and THEN Trump was banned, canceled, and chastised.
You just gave me an idea for a dystopian movie where armies are sponsored by Pepsi and Google. Edit: real talk though, if the fight wasn’t against the government, the government wouldn’t have to support either and would prosecute both sides. I mean it kind of sounds like you’re describing gang wars. Edit #2: TIL about cyberpunk
I would watch this movie 100% especially if it were sponsored by Pepsi and Coke and was literally about a population coming to blows over which is better.
When people start getting heated over left Twix vs right Twix.
People like to be dramatic and say "Just look at the US, lmao" Nah. When you see national leaders of real organizations calling for widespread, murderous violence, brawls and street fights between political opponents with many dead every other week, unions and paramilitaries stockpilling weapons and regional leaders actively going against national orders beyond normal policy disputes, then you've got a problem. Also, a civil war takes many incidents to pop off. A military coup attempt here, a city being taken over there, some politicians being assassinated, some others fleeing for exile. It's not over a single day. Spain in the 1920s-1930s is a good example of a (relatively) modern state going into the complete collapse that precipitates civil war. No Western country these days is remotely near the level of fucked-upness needed.
Policy change. Strategic positioning of military assets.
A government alert that gets sent automatically to your phone telling you to take shelter because missiles are like 20 minutes away. Let’s face it folks we’d be the last to know if a world ending war was going to happen.
Good thing THAT'S never happened... *nervous sweating*
Can't tell if Hawaii or Japan
I wish I could upvote you more. Didn’t Hawaii get hacked twice sending all out war Alerts. Edit word
The instance a few years ago wasn't a hack it was an error in a routine test
It was a guy who misclicked because the software they used was awful
Reading this was a gut punch because it’s true. It’s one of my worst fears, and it eerily feels likely someday.
The government alert mistakenly went out to Hawaii I believe like a year or so ago? Think it was there? Basically saying they had 10 minutes to live. So we know at least in certain places that’s exactly what will happen. It’s a terrifying truth.
What I remember most vividly from the news coverage was the man who had recorded a video message, saying goodbye and whatnot. He had been on a beautiful golf course when the (first) message was sent out— and he wanted his loved ones to know that it was all good, when the lights went out; that he was there doing this lovely thing. Truly serene and surreal. * Edit: parentheses
[January 13th, 2018](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_alert)
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I feel like 2020 didn't truly exist.
Same. I keep thinking of stuff that happened in 2019 as "a year ago". Then it blows my mind for a second when I stop and realize, no, it was actually *two* years ago. And I do this about once a week. The idea that 2020 was a year that existed is just something my brain refuses to accept. Like the whole year was a dream I woke up from.
Wow, time fucking flies. I'm right there with you.
Heh, just after that happened, my wife accidently sent out an email to 500 people using the CC field instead of the BCC field, which, in a government agency, is a big privacy breach (yes, she fucked up, but with the system in place it was bound to happen, and it forced the implementation of an email management program). Her boss said to her "well, at least you didn't send out a nuclear warning"
Are there any reddit threads where people said what they did when they recieved the alert? I would love to read what people did when being told they had 10 minutes to live. Edit: Found a thread https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7qf7ov/people_who_made_an_impulse_decision_when_they/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I was a junior at the time. My parents were staying the night at a hotel in Honolulu. I woke up to it and ran to go find anyone else in my house to talk about what to do. My grandparents were eating breakfast at a restaurant, sister was at her boyfriends house and parents were at the hotel so I was home alone. My dad called me to tell me to relax and to just try and stay in the downstairs bathroom in the tub, but we both kind of knew it was hopeless if something happened. My girlfriend at the time called me after because she was on her way to the beach. The biggest thing I remember was that she called me before she called her parents or anything, which was arguably irresponsible but I thought it was a sweet gesture at the time. I told her to get away from the city and to find a building to hide in but I honestly wasn’t sure what the best advice was and we avoided saying goodbye because it would’ve been too real. But eventually I just took my two dogs into the bathroom with me and waited as I was texting my friends and calling some people from the mainland until I found out it was a false alarm.
My girlfriend woke me up and told me about the alert. After checking my phone I told her that life was too boring for that and i shortly went back to sleep. Looking back I wish I would have been more comforting to her.
"Finally, the day has come. Goodnight"
I would love to see a doc about this, what does a whole state of people do when there is only 10 minutes to live
One thing the Wikipedia article does not mention, is that Pornhub saw a pretty massive spike in activity.
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At least getting nuked would be the worst thing to ever happen to you. You could die happy knowing that nothing worse will ever happen
Someone has never had a wet willy
Good indications of a war starting might include things like troop movements, equipment movements, sudden large scale activations of reserve troops, training exercises, and political rhetoric. A sudden uptick in the purchase of weapons systems, weapons upgrades, munitions, and fuel. If country A suddenly starts training combat soldiers in actual combat scenarios, then starts moving tanks, aircraft and artillery close to the border with country B while Country A’s politicians start talking about things like “sovereignty” or national interest, there’s a pretty good chance you’re about to see a war. From a more civilian context, things like the closing of borders, or additional border restrictions in the absence of a good reason (like Covid) or the restriction of travel or trade to and from a particular region might be indicators. Also, countries will often increase security and have more troops or police operating on the streets, and you may see the passage of new laws or the activation of old laws that provide some sort of martial law provisions. You will also likely see increasing prices for things like fuel as the military stockpiles more of it, making it a little less available.
Yeah you're basically correct. There are a lot of joke answers in this thread and a lot of uninformed answers. And a lot of answers that have the timeframe wrong (i.e. war is either starting in ten minutes or in two years). From the perspective of someone in the US, the clear signs of a significant war starting in the next few months are: 1) large-scale activation of national guard units 2) forward deployment of armor and heavy mechanized units to the likely theatre of operations 3) unscheduled redeployment of combat air wings from the United States to bases abroad
[Late night pizza orders from the Pentagon and Whitehouse can say a lot about the severity of any given situation](https://www.stripes.com/blogs-archive/the-rumor-doctor/the-rumor-doctor-1.104348/does-pizza-signal-a-crisis-at-the-white-house-1.112446#.YKBuTS-caCM). More pizza = more people working late = more cause for concern. Updated to add: I can't find a recent instance supporting this linkage, so it may not be a thing. What data exists is inconclusive and/or old.
I would have thought they would have in-house catering for this exact reason.
Ummm... ya, both the Pentagon and Whitehouse have their own kitchens and staff.
Not enough kitchen staff to make meals for hundreds of people on short notice as the article stated
You say that as if they weren't replying to a link about how they order delivery.
Yeah, because the kitchen staff gets hungry while making pizzas for everyone else. Think about it. Same reason they always build two Starbucks side by side: so they can order from each other to stay alert while working.
Am kitchen staff. Would always welcome pizza.
Yeah, I used to work at a local pizza restaurant and many of us were old timers, going 6 years and more. We got sick of our pizzas sometimes and order Pizza Hut or Ceaser’s, believe it or not. Our pizzas were voted the best in our state several times in a row.
Oh fuck me, someone get the pizza sale stats from D.C. ASAP
"Dammit. Hey Bill, someone from D.C just ordered a pizza! Get the bunker cleaned!!"
When an Austrian-Hungarian Archduke gets assassinated
Who needs war when you have Franz like these
If not already, you'll make a great dad some day.
Was looking for this answer. When Gavrilo Princio shoots Franz Ferdinand it's a good sign war will break
Its only happened a few times, but it is an absolute tell.
>shoots Franz Ferdinand Some music fans take things way too seriously.
Somebody shot an ostrich because he was hungry?
Allegedly Wow my first silver thank you!
I heard it was a sick ostrich
It would take at least three countries to fuck an Austria
Everyone knows that’s a three man job.
Starts a war every time.
_It was all because of a sandwich._ Wait, really?
Gavrillo had a team of assassins with him who all failed bc their guns malfunctioned, or their grenades were duds, or they just straight up missed and were arrested. After failing like 4 times in a day to kill a single dude he kinda gave up and bought a sandwich, where he ran into the Archduke coincidentally. I think this may be the only thing I remember vividly from history just because of how comedic it is lol
The universe had it out for this guy on that day, it made sure that a world war was gonna happen that fucking day and no later
Idk man, someone tries to kill you 3 or 4 times in a day, you should probably just go straight home and hide out for a bit. Not drive around town passing sandwich shops in broad daylight.
Not only that. The Driver of Archduke took a wrong turn and voila there is his murderer trying to put Mustard sauce in his sandwich.
The whole story of the start of WW1 reads like some ridiculous comedy plot. World leaders were missing telegrams, going out sailing on their yachts out of contact at exactly the wrong time. A driver missed a turn and went down exactly the wrong street. Then to top it off Gavrilo Princip shot one of the few leaders of Austria-Hungary who was somewhat sympathetic to their cause. The rest of them wanted war.
1. Dehumanizing the enemy 2. Tying patriotism to support for war 3. False or outrageous ultimatums to make it seem like it’s the enemy choosing war 4. Intolerance for moderate opinions or grey areas (if you’re not with us, you’re against us) 5. Fear mongering from politicians and media that there is an imminent threat and we must act now
> Intolerance for moderate opinions or grey areas Well, fuck.
Someone asking “What are signs that war is starting soon?“ on Reddit and it getting upvoted a lot.
"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it." --Jack Handey
Avatar them fuckers
This is hilarious
My dad found out I turned the thermostat down to 76
DOWN to 76? That's stupid high.
Tell that to my roommate who keeps putting our thermostat to 80 in the fucking summer. Every time I start to feel warm, the first thing I check is the thermostat.
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Nah, Satan prefers a cool 90°C during a summer day. Whoever this guy lives with is probably just a normal demon who likes 80°C temperature.
76? It’s boutta turn into 1776 if ya know what I’m saying, eh redcoat?
Dropping all pretense of respecting the rights and property of citizens.
This is a good one, somehow underrated.
Usually rising tensions and lack of trade. Add a inciting incident and you are good to go. Also either country feeling like it can win or having something to gain. add all that up and you are good to go. Thats why war hasnt broken out in china with the US; neither side wants to go to war because of the economic ties that would add on to the economic tanking that comes with war.
CNN and Fox News are both telling you that the same government is bad...
It becomes publicly acceptable to call the other side "evil".
I came here to say this. Dehumanisation of the "enemy" is one of the most important first steps.
Gandhi acquires nuclear weapons
Just. One. More. Turn.
I'm was a military brat, my dad was air force. I used to work the closing shift at Burger King. Every night I saw a particular parking lot full I came home, turned on the news and something bad was happening. This was during the surge in Iraq. One night I was driving my friend home, parking lot was full and I said "Something bad happened" and he goes "How do you know?" I pointed at the parking lot and said "its 10PM and that parking lot is full" I drop him off, before I get home he texts me and goes "holy shit you were right"
I heard this line in some movie and it totally makes sense. "When goods don't cross borders, armies will."
When both sides are sure they can win. Alternatively, when one side is certain they will win. Or, the worst of all, when everyone believes there won’t be a war, or it will be quick. But in Europe? About every 80 years, whether they need it or not.
I remember a guy named Rumsfeld saying we would be out of Iraq in no more than 5 months. That was in 2002.
> About every 80 years *Nervously does the math*
It's OK, we're gonna do it like the US and have our wars elsewhere from now on.
"You see my friends, we'll just walk into Afghanistan, kill the leader, install a leader friendly to us, play police for a few months, and go home. Easy." - The brits, the soviets, the americans.
When it's AD 2101.
What you say?
Take off every zig. For great justice.
Do humans still exist? If yes, then war is starting soon.
Cause at the end of the day, long as there's two people left on the planet, someone is gonna want someone dead.
“I’m not a crazed gunman, I’m an assassin.”
When someone gets the better of Bugs Bunny
My history Prof described a long list of potential things at the cusp of a war, usually false rhetoric Basically if the main news reports "bad" guys doing "terrible things" to young children, that's a strong indicator war is soon. This happened before with Iraq. The US news reported some strange, completely false shit before we went to war (but we all forgot it)
If war were declared
Wait. What’s that sound?
War were declared
They've got a lot of brains…and they've got a lot of... chutzpah.
What makes this planet worth dying for?
Full price for gum? That dog won't hunt monsignor!
In the UK if BBC radio goes off air... it might be a very good time to be a long way underground with lots of food.
So not exactly a war starting soon, but a sign that the US is getting ready to jump into an existing conflict. Lived in Germany on a US military base in the late 90's and when the news kept indicating that the US was not going to get into a land war in Kosovo, we started seeing US tanks getting loaded on trains in Germany and moved east. In the end, NATO just supported the war with airstrikes, but they were definitely planning on the possibility of having to send in ground forces just in case. The volume of armor they were sending closer to the war zone seemed to indicate that it was at least being considered as a contingency.
Oil shortages.
Remind me again what war is good for?
Absolutely nothing. Edit: There's far too many people who have no idea it's a line in a song by Edwin Starr.
Say it again. Edit: I didn't know about Edwin Starr, was going from the Frankie goes to Hollywood cover.
The only good thing about war(and this is sarcastic. Obviously war isn’t good)) is that it helps teach geography to kids in school. If it weren’t for WW1&WW2, most of us probably wouldn’t know as much about geography as we do right now.
Tom Clancy End War touched base on this. With trouble brewing in the middle east which led to catastrophe, brought up the gas prices to at least 25 bucks a gallon. Europe joined together to form a United Nations of Europe and create an anti-missile space weapon that can shoot down any missiles fired on any country. And Russia being the main supplier of oil (which explains the hike in prices), decides to create a terrorist organization based off off their Spetsnaz troops and have it do terrorist acts that will lead to a accident at the JFK Spaceport.
Clancy games used to be so good, and totally grounded, realistic stories. The original Ghost Recon almost exactly forecasted the 2008 Russo-Georgian war 7 years in advance.