Absolute proof that Sarli is an ignorant moron

[K. A. Pital]

Vympel
Ouch. I'll add that to the smackdown.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Vympel
Ouch. I'll add that to the smackdown.

Vympel's already there my friend, Teethirtyfour...

[Mange]

Sarli seems to be almost oblivious about the SW canon.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't think he knows anything beyond the newest RPG fluff, sadly. This is why this happened in the first place.

"Little knowledge is a dangerous thing".

[K. A. Pital]

Well, duh. Sarli has essentially conceeded that he only disagreed with the non-canon 1-ship, 1-hour estimate.

I said that this cannot serve as a base to disregard Saxton's canon estimates which are well in the ballpark, as well as gave the reasons for 1 ship being able to do the same thing in a short time (should BDZ last too long, the Bothawui decimation plan would be a failure because survivors would escape the planet).

~EDIT: moving on with the fuel problem. Actually he may not be totally lost. When presented evidence, he accepts it (even as he still tries to shun down some of the less obvious implications of larger power requirements for SW ships). I just hope they recon this as simply condensed matter and leave it at that.

[Darth Wong]

Has he conceded that he was lying about his previous claims of research and scientific skill? This guy literally made stuff up out of thin air and then pretended that he'd looked it up.

[K. A. Pital]

He admitted he made his nuclear arsenal claim out of thin air.. But then argued in his defense that most people would've incorrectly estimated the nuclear arsenals too... I didn't really get that bit. If you're wrong, admit that and move on.

Frankly, I wonder why he hasn't adressed Ender's calculations for real-mass fuel on Venator? They have the Delta-v of a Venator counted and he could've shown his scientific "skill" by responding to them. Should we re-introduce him to that?

[Darth Wong]

He admitted he made his nuclear arsenal claim out of thin air.. But then argued in his defense that most people would've incorrectly estimated the nuclear arsenals too... I didn't really get that bit. If you're wrong, admit that and move on.

Frankly, I wonder why he hasn't adressed Ender's calculations for real-mass fuel on Venator? They have the Delta-v of a Venator counted and he could've shown his scientific "skill" by responding to them. Should we re-introduce him to that?

The problem is that I suspect he will only concede points if he realizes that continuing to fight them is only embarrassing. He will fight tooth and nail to defend every piece of bullshit otherwise, and at the end of the day, the fact that he ever stated a completely made-up claim with such confidence tells you everything you need to know about his character.

The fact is that he made up ALL of his claims. The "100 megaton" figure, the nuclear arsenal, even the bit about what BDZ represents. He couldn't even be bothered seriously looking up the justifications for them, or even reading Saxton's page on the subject which contains a lot of the information he overlooked. He's a lazy, lying little shit. And when he says he got good marks in physics, I'll bet money that he was talking about high school.

If the guy was halfway honest, he would admit that he has never really bothered doing research into any of his claims, and that it's mostly just made-up intuitive guesswork which he sold to Chee by deceptively masquerading as an expert.

[Ritterin Sophia]

He admitted he made his nuclear arsenal claim out of thin air.. But then argued in his defense that most people would've incorrectly estimated the nuclear arsenals too... I didn't really get that bit. If you're wrong, admit that and move on.

Then would you mind telling him to unban me for calling him and Ra'ul on their bad calculations, since that was, you know, the truth.

[Mange]

Has he conceded that he was lying about his previous claims of research and scientific skill? This guy literally made stuff up out of thin air and then pretended that he'd looked it up.

He says that he has a doctorate which involves military history, but he doesn't mention which subject he wrote his thesis in.

[Darth Wong]

Has he conceded that he was lying about his previous claims of research and scientific skill? This guy literally made stuff up out of thin air and then pretended that he'd looked it up.

He says that he has a doctorate which involves military history, but he doesn't mention which subject he wrote his thesis in.

He claims to have a doctorate in military history and he made up hopelessly inaccurate figures for the Cold War arsenals out of thin air? What school did he go to? The Pat Robertson Collegiate Institute of Bullshit?

[Patrick Degan]

Has he conceded that he was lying about his previous claims of research and scientific skill? This guy literally made stuff up out of thin air and then pretended that he'd looked it up.

Maybe this guy's an associate at the "Strategic Defense Instatute"...

[K. A. Pital]

Even if we grant him that he inadvertedly multiplied the Cold War arsenals by a factor of 10 as he claimed (40 000 versus 400 000), they're still off for like 15,000 megatons.

For someone who claims to have a military history doctorate this seems to be offensive, of course, if his subject and preferred field of study is about XX century and not about something like Atilla the Hun.

I think he read something on the subject, he actually quotes one source for a 20,000 American nuclear stockpile (at the same time, the USSR had almost nil megatons ) and then goes on to assume that the total is 40,000 (it's not, bot the USSR and USA peaked 20,000 each but at a different time in history, with total peak around 25,000 MT, and overall nuclear arsenals declined later).

I'll grant him benefit of the doubt, perhaps he really was mistaken about nuclear arsenals, and perhaps he really wasn't as well informed about nuclear winter resulting from low yields being debunked... I wonder why he even BROUGHT this into the debate, when later he acknowledged that given the canonical statements abot SW ships hte "nuclear winter" and "nuclear etc" is irrelevant for comparison, since SW ships can devoid a planet of life very fast...

[Darth Wong]

What really gets my goat is that he never even bothered reading Saxton's page, despite mentioning it explicitly. If he did, he would have seen Saxton's numerous references to incidents in the literature where an ISD conducted a BDZ operation that was clearly a total planetary sterilization. Instead, he pretended that Dr. Saxton pulled that idea completely out of thin air (ironically, the very thing that Sarli himself does habitually).

Seizing on the "1 metre melt depth" thing is a clear and blatant lie; Saxton used that as an estimate but he completely disregarded things like boiling off the oceans, heating up the atmosphere, etc., which would require more energy. He wasn't saying that the planet would necessarily be literally melted down to 1 metre depth around its entire surface; he was using this as a way to generate a conservative order-of-magnitude estimate. The real figure is probably much higher, based on the known incidents, not lower.

He lied to everyone and gave the impression that Saxton had no answer for his criticisms, when in fact if you read Saxton's page, he actually does. It's no different from the way creationists pretend that evolutionists have no answer for their arguments, when in fact they do. They count on people not bothering to check, because they are habitually dishonest.

[K. A. Pital]

Not to mention that it has been pointed out to him, exerting this firepower with many many small-powered 1 MT shots will not achieve the desired result (blowing off atmosphere), using less but more powerful gigatonnage shots like the 200 GT Saxton used would.

[Darth Wong]

He's just blowing smoke. In 1980, around the time the Cold War "peaked" before fizzling out, the best estimate was 13000 megatons, ie- well under 10000 megatons for each superpower, and more like 6000 megatons. I have no idea where someone could have gotten a 40,000 megaton figure from, nor do I buy his line about just accidentally adding another zero. If he just accidentally added another zero, then why did he say that 400 million megatons was roughly 1000 times the superpower nuclear arsenals? Did he accidentally add another zero to the nuclear arsenals and then accidentally and coincidentally remove a zero from the 1000 multiplier?

[K. A. Pital]

Well, the megatonnage for US-USSR race went like this:

The world total megatonnage never exceeded around 25K MT even by the best estimates:

From Johnston Archive on nuclear weapons.

The stockpile estimates, even if a bit inflated, reflect the situation more or less.

But to claim that it was 40,000 (or worse even 400,000) is waaay off.

[Darth Wong]

As I said though, that 40,000 retcon is just spin-doctoring on his part anyway, even though it is still much too high. He clearly meant to say 400,000. That was no accident, as demonstrated by the consistency of that figure with his other figures and the 1000 multiplier. He's just proving yet again that he's a habitual liar. He should have just admitted that he didn't do his homework, and that he was wrong to trash Dr. Saxton's work without actually making certain that his own (far less qualified) work was up to par.

In science, you refute a dissertation by doing one of your own, with as much rigour as the original, showing and supporting different results. What he did to Dr. Saxton was not something that a real expert would do. What he did was more akin to a typical "political hit piece", relying on rhetoric and appeals to motive far more than analysis. He tries to attack Dr. Saxton's character based on totally false claims about omissions and errors, and then he serves up the resulting attack piece as an impartial "correction". He is a fucking liar, and that's all there is to him. As I said, he obviously couldn't even bother reading Dr. Saxton's webpage despite mentioning its supposed omissions and flaws in his article.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The problem with the SW EU right now is that you have liars like this Sarli clown whose only real skill is deceiving people and exercising vendettas. They do not see fit to retain any technical experts on staff the way Star Trek did (although Star Trek's tech experts were underutilized, to say the least), so there's really no one on staff who can spot lies like the ones Sarli is selling.

Sarli's quite good at selling deceptions and trashing Dr. Saxton, but that's it. He has demonstrated now that he's a liar, he's ignorant, he doesn't know jack shit about physics, but he knew how to trick Chee into believing his claims of expertise. After all, Chee is no science expert either, so when Sarli sells him lies and he doesn't have anyone on hand to check these lies out, he probably buys them based on the confidence in Sarli's presentation.

Mike, do you remember this guy? You've debated him before. This is the moron who seriously tried to claim the Death Star II was 160 km because it was tens of thousands of kilometers away from Endor in every shot, and Ackbar's hologram was wrong.

[K. A. Pital]

As I said though, that 40,000 retcon is just spin-doctoring on his part anyway, even though it is still much too high. He clearly meant to say 400,000. That was no accident, as demonstrated by the consistency of that figure with his other figures and the 1000 multiplier.

Yeah. I didn't remember that bit, now I re-read it and he indeed clearly multiplied this by 1000 to get Saxton's figures; thanks for pointing out. This is flat-out dishonesty. Though he certainly toned down from his bold bullshit assertions like "any serious scientist" would agree with his nuclear winter ramblings

I must admit, I'm baffled by this. Why are people who aren't qualified allowed to write bullshit and slip it into continuity? Traviss immediately springs to mind, she thought that because she wrote some military fiction or whatever, she's qualified to judge on military engagement matters... and the whole "Iraq war" bullshit. Sarli now tries to do the same with SW ships, claiming to be skilled in physics.

The whole BDZ attempt at an attack on Saxton quickly fissled out when he was presented with evidence and to save face, he tried to claim that he merely argued against the "one ship, one hour" bit Yeah. Honesty and consistency at their prime.

This is the moron who seriously tried to claim the Death Star II was 160 km because it was tens of thousands of kilometers away from Endor in every shot, and Ackbar's hologram was wrong

What the fuck? How about, I mean, the freaking rebel fleet looking on the Death Star in front of freaking Endor and then the Death Star being visible as a huge steel ball from freaking Endor ground?!! The hologram could've been somewhat off, but the actually seen Death Star is clearly close to Endor (or it's even bigger than 800-900 km).

[K. A. Pital]

Oh, not another moron in the thread... Pains to see the derailment after we tried to present the concise argument so hard. He's clearly growing impatient and emotional about Vympel smacking him down with ICS/Hutt's Gambit...

[Mange]

What the fuck? How about, I mean, the freaking rebel fleet looking on the Death Star in front of freaking Endor and then the Death Star being visible as a huge steel ball from freaking Endor ground?!! The hologram could've been somewhat off, but the actually seen Death Star is clearly close to Endor (or it's even bigger than 800-900 km).

Yeah, his article (in PDF) can be found here. The credits are interesting, from Darkstar to Mike.

[K. A. Pital]

That's clearly non-canon bullshit.

Blooper? Okay, how the FUCK are ewoks looking up and seeing the DS explosion? Why does he totally avoid this screenshots, probably because they demolish his little version of the DS being what, tens of thousands of Km from Endor?

Though I must say verily, I am amazed. He throws out movie shots but is eager to use "Glove of Darth Vader" as a source.

If you don't like the Endor holocaust and want it gone, you could at the very least think up a more plausible explanation rather than that... bullshit.

May I be reminded what is the LFL's stance on Endor fate?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Personally, I think that scientifically speaking Endor should've been obliterated nearly instantly. But the fact it was not suggests that some sort of defense was activated when the Death Star exploded. I think its probable in the long term that Endor's biosphere was damaged or destroyed by debris, but there had to be some sort of shield blocking out heat and debris during and immediately after the explosion. There's simply too much heat, too much mass being scattered. Without a planetary shield the heat flash should've instantly immolated continental areas of Endor, and high velocity, very high mass impactors would've hit the surface. There would've been literally no time for Han and Leia to kiss in celebration, not time to have victory fires or fireworks. If even the repulsor system that held up the Death Star failed, the enormous tidal effects would've caused extreme groundquakes.

[Master of Ossus]

Oh, for fuck's sake. The Krakatoa eruption was 200MT's (twice Sarli's retarded estimate) and its effects on global climate were extant but FAR too minor to cause planetary depopulation. In fact, the death toll from the eruption was less than 40,000, IIRC. Sarli's a retard.