Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 January 9

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January 9

Official plans in the event of very highly unlikely scenarios

I remember one time finding a PDF of a scanned document from the 60s or 70s in which the UN stated policy to the effect that if any member nation had a moon base and a citizen of another member nation were to be walking around on the surface of the moon and needing to get inside and their life depended on it (I paraphrase, but this is the gist of the language), the ones in the base needed to let the guy in. Are there other official responses for wildly unlikely things, such as planned responses actually written down to be performed in the event of an alien invasion? 69.243.220.115 (talk) 02:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I doubt there is any real plan for an alien invasion, since we have no way of knowing in advance what their capabilities might be. A moon base is something that humanity could build with our current level of technology, it would just be fantastically expensive and without any obvious purpose. An alien invasion is much less likely, I doubt the UN has any plan whatsoever for it, but a lot of the member nations probably do have a more general contingency plan for unexpected catastrophic events. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The US military has plans for all sorts of things, ranging from plans for wars with every country in the world (individually or in likely groupings) to dealing with a Girl Scout uprising. My understanding is that part of the graduation exam for officer candidates is to create a plan for dealing with a given situation; if the plan looks especially good, it gets added to the military's collection of contingency plans. --Carnildo (talk) 03:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

And just for historical perspective,in the late 60s/early 70s when the space race was still going on such things seemed a lot more likely, people (in the developed world anyway) just assumed we would all be going into space and having moon bases and space stations built in the near future. I had some great books when I was a kid about how soon going into space would be easy, your dad might work in space, you would vavcation on the moon, etc. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

In case of alien invasion, the Republican Party plans to blame the "alien-in-chief" Barack Obama. Kaiser Wilhelm II considered invading the United States, but was apparently advised not to try to take "certain sections of New York". Then of course there are those coldly calculating (or just plain cold) northern chaps hungrily eying the balmier climes of Fargo, Great Plains and Albany. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:41, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

That reminds me of "A Good Day" (The West Wing). YouTube. A Google search on "alien invasion" "contingency plan" gives some speculation but such things would probably be secret when the invader may be listening. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The US War Department in the 1920's had an official plan to invade Canada, and Canada maintained a military plan for invading the US. Edison (talk) 04:09, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I see that the Canadian plans to attack the US have been mentioned but not the corollary, War Plan Red and the rest of the rainbow war plans. Dismas|^(talk) 04:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Canada's attempt at a donut invasion has so far had only limited effect. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

War Plan Orange was used pretty much unmodified in World War II. --Carnildo (talk) 02:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I believe the UN document the OP is referring to is the "Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies". See here [1] --Xuxl (talk) 09:51, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The definition of a "wildly unlikely" scenario constantly gets smaller as technology increases and the world changes. A dozen years ago, I don't believe there were emergency plans for two major skyscrapers in New York City collapsing to the ground almost simultaneously. Now every city and every tiny village (in the U.S. anyway) has major disaster plans for all sorts of unimaginable events. Scientists and engineers and strategists are undoubtedly working on plans to deal with all kinds of weird things — if even one person thinks of it, they will write a plan for it. And still no one will think everything, and emergencies will crop up that need to be dealt with on the fly. (Sometimes literally; ask Chesley Sullenberger.) — Michael J 11:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Nature reported in 2010 that no government had plans for alien contact.[2] The International Academy of Astronautics created the SETI: Post-Detection Taskgroup to formulate plans, due to the lack of government interest.[3] They produced a protocol in 1989 and have been working on further plans.[4] --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:04, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

(Wikipedia article on SETI protocol). --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

This Cracked.com article about speeches that were (thankfully) not delivered might be of some interest.Sjö (talk) 15:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

We have Category:Disaster preparedness by country. I wrote an article on the Eisenhower Ten ages ago. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Going right back to the original point, I'd say that a "Moon Treaty" would be very much the same as the very real Antarctic Treaty System. In fact who'da thought? We have a Moon Treaty article. --jjron (talk) 16:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

My message after all these "funny" (?) responses... Some time ago I heard that a representative for Earth was elected by United Nations, in the case an alien contact occurs. But it was a hoax. emijrp (talk) 22:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Video of a debate between a Republican, a Democrat, and a Libertarian

I am looking for a video of a debate between a Democrat, a Republican, and a Libertarian in which social issues come up at some point (i.e., gay marriage, obscenity laws, secularism, etc.). I would think that there would be a better chance of seeing this come up in a debate for a seat in Congress, but it can be for a state level as well. If you can also find a video between candidates from the Republican Party, the Democrat Party, and the Libertarian Party discussing intellectual property that would be great as well. I want see a Democrat's and a Republican's reactions and responses to libertarian positions and gain some insight into the position of the Libertarian Party on intellectual property. --Melab±1 ☎ 13:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

As a word of caution, you should probably take great care not to extrapolate a given party's opinion on a particular issue from the responses given by a single candidate in one debate. The position and opinions of individual candidates do not always precisely align with the nominal party stance, nor will state branches of a party necessarily be entirely in step with the national party's policies. A Republican in California will tend to run a very different campaign from a Republican in Texas. Regardless of what generalizations or inferences you might draw from what you happen to see in a debate, you'll want to go back to the written platform documents for the candidates and parties to fact-check. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:35, 9 January 2012 (UTC)