Ray Bradbury’s seminal book A Sound of Thunder examined some of the interesting hypothetical ramifications time travel has or had on the timeline vector. Specifically, the notion that a time traveler could or would disrupt the future evolution of a planet, if they travelled long enough into its deep geological past.
This is called the Butterfly Effect.
A very interesting phenomenon, which got its name from the myriad implications and causalities stemming from a central nodal point in time, that travel outward like the ripples of a tremor, forever changing the relief of evolution.
Theoretically, this Effect becomes apparent only if the time gap was big enough to allow the two points in time to be divided by the gulf of eons.
Consequently, the theoretical model proposed, that if the observer and traveler were situated relatively close in time and space, then the Effect must be subdued, perhaps even nil.
I beg to differ.
Let’s look at it from a different, completely fresh perspective
I believe the current geopolitical situation is altogether at odds with this premise.
Why do I say this?
The world is on the brink of the most dangerous military escalation in history.
I say this with confidence. Never before have we been so close to nuclear war as we are now.
Not in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, not during Able Archer in 1983, not even when a Soviet Strategic Missiles Command officer refused to launch a nuclear strike against a radar artifact in the mid-1980s. Not ever.
On November 21, the Russian Federation launched a hypersonic Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) on the city of Dnipro in UKR. This came as a response to its own territory being hit by ATACMS missiles launched by UKR with the approval and technical expertise of the United States of America.
The politics are not important. Not at this point. Not anymore.
Right now, Humanity is facing the risk of nuclear fire, because of geopolitics.
But I digress.
Why is this singular Russian retaliation so out of the ordinary and menacing to world peace?
Because unlike many other tens of thousands of missiles lobbed by both combatants during the last 10 years, this one used MIRV warheads.
Multiple Independent Re-Entry Vehicles (MIRV) are autonomous warheads that are destined to blanket an area and saturate it with nuclear strikes. In just so happens that RUS used this series of strikes to showcase its arsenal capabilities. In doing that, they removed the nuclear ordnance.
If they hadn’t, the one million denizens of Dnipro would not be among us today.
They’d all be dead in under a minute. That’s how long it would have taken to be annihilated.
Fact is that 21 November 2024 marked the first use of IRBMs on a battlefield.
This is a first that can open up Pandora’s Box of Nuclear Annihilation. This is not our proudest moment as humans. This could be the turning point in History, and it’s all downhill moving forward.
But where is the Butterfly Effect in all of this?
Well, it’s pretty darn simple.
It all started about 44 years ago, when the food guidelines were released in America.
That is also when the country started getting fat.
Nowadays, 68 % of US Army servicemen are either grossly obese or just overweight. Being overweight is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 30. One is obese when their BMI goes north of 30. In the past decade, according to the American Security Project, the number of obese American soldiers doubled from 10 to 20 %.
That’s right, folks, one in five people in the US Armed forces is obese.
But wait, there is more. The scientific journal BMC Public Health found in August 2023 that roughly 140,000 active-duty Army soldiers had gained weight in a nine-month span in 2020 and 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic, when the troops spent more time indoors.
As if they never heard of a treadmill. Just saying.
“Based on the results from this study … increases in BMI among Army soldiers are likely to continue unless there is intervention,” the report, which used data from the Military Health System Data Repository, said at the time.
Here comes the intervention, folks. Hold fast, it will be drastic… not.
The American Security Project said the negative stigma surrounding weight issues must be overcome.
“Obesity is a chronic disease, not a lapse in personal discipline,” its report said. “Despite this reality, the enduring stigma against overweight soldiers continues to result in punitive measures in lieu of medical treatment.”
The American Security Project
So, let me see if I get this straight, fat shaming is why American soldiers are unable to shed the many many kilograms of fat they accumulated during COVID-19. Obesity is a chronic disease – WTF of what, the mind, perhaps. Because obesity, the last time I checked, has everything to do with impulse control, and not with an organ failing to do its duty or an aging process gone bad.
And what do you mean to say by “obesity not being a lapse in personal discipline”? If it’s anything, it is a fucking lapse in personal discipline. Nobody puts a gun to your fucking head and tells you to shove a 1-pound wrap in your pie hole. WTF, I mean what the flying fuck, man!
As for enduring stigma, I cannot speak to that. Although judging by how little things have truly changed in the meantime, I would say there is no stigma, and no punitive measures either.
As for treatment, I will suggest one for the military and civilians everywhere: put the mother loving spook/fork down and hit the gym, walk, jump, lift weights, run, exercise.
It is because of the US Army’s “obesity epidemic” that we are in this geopolitical mess.
Because, and you heard it here first, folks, because fat soldiers cannot be expected to wipe their behinds, let alone jump from airplanes, roll down from tanks and APCs, fire and advance on an enemy position, withdraw, advance, stand down, fall down, get up, get down, take cover, flee, engage in hand to hand combat, and march 10-15 miles per day carrying 50-60 lbs of gear, in 24 hours.
As for obese soldiers, they can only serve as cannon fodder. There are no obese old people in peace and no obese soldiers left alive in war.
So, because the powers that be are aware of all this, they resort to trading missile fire instead.
And that is fine, well not fine, but ok, well not ok but not too bad as long as it’s conventional fire.
I pray against and hope it won’t become a nuclear one.
And that is how the law of unintended consequences works. You get a moral hazard that jumps at you like a freaking bunny out of a magician’s top hat.
And in the end, you pray the Butterfly Effect does not extend its Armageddon Wings over you.
Götterdämmerung 