Cold War Kid here. This is cute. Y'all now just figuring out the nuclear apocalypse is only ever minutes away? I grew up with this shit being shoved in my face <i>every single day.</i> I was the generation where they stopped doing atomic bomb drills at school because we had thermonuclear warheads and there was no point - and they told us that!<p>Then they wonder why Gen X is so apathetic. Between Nixon and The Bomb how else did they expect us to turn out? It's a natural self-defense reaction.
> Given the incalculable risks, one may wonder why nuclear arsenals still exist at all<p>Because everybody is thinking that "if we don't arm ourselves, our adversaries will, and therefore gain the upper hand". That there are risks involved doesn't count, as long as they don't prove to be real (i.e. actually happen). If they prove to be real then we'll have a moratorium of a few years until the default reasoning takes over again.<p>I'm sorry, but I don't think we are capable of breaking out of this "highway to hell".
Stanislav Petrov, a little-known Russian whose decision averted a potential nuclear war [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-10/news-briefs/man-saved-world-dies-77" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-10/news-briefs/man-save...</a>
I tend to believe an accidental nuclear war having no political reason (just because some quirk happened or because some terrorists either stole a nuke or faked a nuclear attack of another nation to cause a retaliatory strike) is more likely to happen than intentional use of a nuclear weapon by any country.
IMO, this isn't the cold war anymore. Accident nuclear hysteria is premised on incomplete survivable nuclear triad that pressures launch on warning. Many aren't aware, US nuclear posture has been launch on confirmation since Clinton. Meaning triad survivable enough that more prudent to verify nuclear explosion before assured retaliation than risk of accidental MAD. Which is just as well. We're entering era of global strike especially among US adversaries - CONUS will be increasingly vunerable to conventional strikes. Nuclear use matrix is going to start factoring in risk of 50 icbms likely targetting refineries or carries in port vs nuclear decapitation strike, i.e the entire Petrov saga where it's pretty obvious US wasn't going to start nuclear war with preemptive 5 missile strike. Basically what every US adversaries already calculates on the recieving end of US power projection using short/medium range ordnances that could all be nuclear tipped.
There was a (rumored) integer overflow bug in the game Civilization which would cause an AI that was configured for pacifism to start launching nukes.<p><a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nuclear-gandhi" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nuclear-gandhi</a>
Great explainer by Kurzgesagt - How A Nuclear War Will Start - Minute by Minute <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wmP3MBjsx20">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wmP3MBjsx20</a>
Complete and utter world annihilation from nukes has almost happened a number of times. Nuclear proliferation was one of humanity’s most disgusting and unconscionable mistakes.<p>If you aren’t familiar, look up Tsar Bomba on youtube and witness how terrifyingly destructive a 50
megaton warhead is. Then look up the abject cruelty that is the Neutron Bomb. Education on nuclear war and fallout is of the utmost importance, to get people around the world in the mindset of disarmament.
Sam Harris recently had an excellent podcast episode with Carl Robichaud (of the Longview Nuclear Risk Policy Fund) on this topic:<p><a href="https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/330-the-doomsday-machine" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/330...</a>
Obligatory reference:<p>Daniel Ellsberg's The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner<p><a href="https://www.ellsberg.net/doomsday/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.ellsberg.net/doomsday/</a>