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Being shuffled out of the way for embarrassing someone's pet project is pretty lenient in the soviet union to my knowledge. It's entirely possible to do your job but end up getting poo poo on for it because someone else doesn't like you being right.
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Jul 15, 2015 00:14
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Kaal posted:Again, Petrov and the Soviet officers who were involved: From your own quote: quote:Petrov later indicated that the influences on his decision included: that he was informed a U.S. strike would be all-out, so five missiles seemed an illogical start;[1] that the launch detection system was new and, in his view, not yet wholly trustworthy; and that ground radar failed to pick up corroborative evidence, even after minutes of delay.[7] However in a 2013 interview, Petrov said at the time he was never sure that the alarm was erroneous. He felt that his civilian training helped him make the right decision. His colleagues were all professional soldiers with purely military training and, following instructions, would have reported a missile strike if they had been on his shift.[5] This sounds to me like somebody whose previous training (and intuition) luckily caused him to ignore his military training, which he explicitly says would have lead his colleagues to report a missile strike. I don't see how that supports your argument at all.
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Jul 15, 2015 00:18
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For gently caress's sake, this is like dragging someone over coals. Look, Soviet military training emphasized a highly regimented attitude but that doesn't mean they were stupid. There was a whole system in place to prevent misinformation from causing a misfire, and multiple points where people were intended to question whether or not a reprisal was warranted. In this case, the case officer had good political knowledge of how MAD worked, and used that to immediately forestall an overreaction. If a purely militarily-trained officer had been in charge instead, perhaps they would be saying that it was their military attention to detail that was responsible for motivating their action. Or perhaps they'd have kicked it up the line, and someone else would have been asked to decide whether or not this was some mysteriously suicidal attack. Your argument is, essentially, that only luck and human spirit overcame a bureaucracy that was actively trying to destroy the planet, which is completely absurd and effectively ignores history in favor of scoring a political point. Now, according to the man himself he was just doing his job in accordance to his training and his knowledge of MAD. The Soviet leadership acknowledged that and thanked him, but then allowed him to fall prey to political machinations. These are all factual things.
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Jul 15, 2015 00:28
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Neither of us actually know what his training instructed him to do in this situation. I've acknowledged that and am merely offering an interpretation of a rather ambiguously worded interview whereas you seem to be very over confident in your beliefs, despite the fact that it implausibly asserts that the Soviets were happy leaving a very important decision in the hands of a relatively low level official. We know from the interview that you yourself posted that Petrov was completely uncertain about whether an attack had been launched and essentially made an educated guess based on his gut. If you really think that the Soviet training he received instructed him to just follow his hunch rather than reporting something he himself thought could very well be a nuclear strike then more power to you. I don't really see how this argument can progress short of you actually finding a reliable source on the exact details of how the Soviets trained their air force officers to respond to a possible nuclear attack. I also have no idea what political points you think are being scored or what the implications of this argument would be. Though, if you do see this argument as having some grand political consequences then that might help explain your apparent stubbornness against accepting that you don't actually know what his training told him to do.
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Jul 15, 2015 00:39
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His training told him to report missile attacks. In his estimation, there were no missile attacks so he didn't report that there were. I don't really see why you're having such a difficult time understanding that. Furthermore, people have been talking about this incident for literally decades. It's not so much overconfidence as already having an extensive familiarity of what I'm talking about. Helsing posted:I also have no idea what political points you think are being scored or what the implications of this argument would be. Though, if you do see this argument as having some grand political consequences then that might help explain your apparent stubbornness against accepting that you don't actually know what his training told him to do. If you don't know what the political implications are, despite regurgitating anti-nuclear talking points that have been put to rest long ago, then I'd suggest checking out some of the films and/or literature that have been created discussing this incident to further familiarize yourself with the issue. Here's an easy place to start, with the caveat that it is very much told from the American perspective: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/the-man-who-saved-the-world-watch-the-full-episode/905/ Kaal fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 00:40
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The issue here is that I'm interpreting his training as tell him "if you're machine reports a missile, tell your superior" and you're interpreting his training as saying "if your machine reports a missile, and you don't have any hunches that the attack is a false positive, then you should report it". Since it's now clear neither of us has firsthand knowledge of what his exact instructions were we can't really determine with certainty whether he was following his orders or disobeying them. We're both speculating and notwithstanding your false sense of confidence you haven't actually offered any evidence that your interpretation is more accurate. If anything I think some of the stuff you've posted suggests the opposite. If you claiming to actually "know what you're talking about" means anything other than "I read the same article you did and I'm just sure that I'm right" then now is the time to show it. Otherwise I'm happy to let people read our respective arguments and make up their own minds on this issue. Edit - Kaal posted:
Sorry but maybe you should spell out what you think the implications and why the hour long video you just posted supports your arguments rather than this just lazily accusing anyone who disagrees with you of arguing in bad faith. Helsing fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 00:47
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It is statistically highly improbable that, if the entire order of the world had multiple single points of failure that were averted only due to astonishing good fortune, that we would still be here. Unless you're looking for extremely strong proof of quantum immortality it's unlikely that repeated, astonishingly improbable acts of unprecedented aberrant behavior are the reason the world still exists.
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Jul 15, 2015 00:48
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Helsing posted:The issue here is that I'm interpreting his training as tell him "if you're machine reports a missile, tell your superior" and you're interpreting his training as saying "if your machine reports a missile, and you don't have any hunches that the attack is a false positive, then you should report it". Since it's now clear neither of us has firsthand knowledge of what his exact instructions were we can't really determine with certainty whether he was following his orders or disobeying them. We're both speculating and notwithstanding your false sense of confidence you haven't actually offered any evidence that your interpretation is more accurate. If anything I think some of the stuff you've posted suggests the opposite. Again, the issue is that you're basically ignoring anything that disputes your preconceived idea of what happened, and I would encourage you to conduct further research. In the eyes of Petrov and his immediate command he did precisely as he was trained to do. He was not a low-level button pusher, he was a Lt. Colonel who was positioned specifically to take in information from the technicians and decide when that information indicated an imminent attack. Helsing posted:Sorry but maybe you should spell out what you think the implications and why the hour long video you just posted supports your arguments rather than this just lazily accusing anyone who disagrees with you of arguing in bad faith. I don't think that you have the historical background to be critically discussing an issue like this. Hopefully that's spelled out enough for you. I don't want to be rude here, but you've basically just been digging in your heels and resisting any new information from altering your perspective. If you don't know what his orders were, or how MAD informed his decision-making, or what the Soviet military training was, or what the overall procedure was, or how and why people have been talking about this event since, then please go find out. Here's a brief clip, if that is more convenient (again with the caveat that this is an American perspective on the issue, which certainly favors the idea that all Soviets were incompetent): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9RrTzcDcw0 Kaal fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 00:51
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It seems like the substance of our disagreement is the significance of Petrov's statement that many of his colleagues likely would have reported the incident as an attack, and that such a report could easily have lead the Soviet leadership to order a counter strike. That suggests that if not for the lucky fact that Petrov, rather than one of his colleagues, was on duty then we easily could have ended up in the midst of a nuclear conflagration. This is not, as you're trying to suggest, some kind of radical or misinformed interpretation: basically everyone who has commented on this situation agrees it came disturbingly close to inciting a world wrecking conflict. As I've said repeated, I don't claim to know exactly how much discretion the Soviets assigned to their local commanders when it comes to interpreting a reported attack. You might well be right that it was within Petrov's authority to make the call that he made. I just don't think that has much bearing on the actual point of disagreement we have, which is whether or not this entire incident should be seen as an example of MAD working exactly as intended. EDIT - All that having been said, I just reread my original post and I did describe Petrov as "an individual technician", which was obviously incorrect. Of course you initially shared my mistake and also referred to him as a technician... Helsing fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 01:22
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I feel like the question here is whether or not human judgment calls are considered a part of MAD, or if MAD only concerns the official strategic responses.
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Jul 15, 2015 01:58
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Helsing posted:It seems like the substance of our disagreement is the significance of Petrov's statement that many of his colleagues likely would have reported the incident as an attack, and that such a report could easily have lead the Soviet leadership to order a counter strike. That suggests that if not for the lucky fact that Petrov, rather than one of his colleagues, was on duty then we easily could have ended up in the midst of a nuclear conflagration. This is not, as you're trying to suggest, some kind of radical or misinformed interpretation: basically everyone who has commented on this situation agrees it came disturbingly close to inciting a world wrecking conflict. That's just a bunch of unsupported hypotheticals. If he had not been working that day, and someone else had who decided to run it up the chain of command instead, and each of those layers ignored the strategic policy and the lack of corroboration, and they had recommended a retaliation, and Andropov had decided to not use the red phone and/or decided to go ahead with firing, and the missiles were actually fired, and the Americans retaliated in kind, and those missiles weren't deactivated in mid-flight ... I mean suggesting that it just came down to a roll of the dice and a gut call is just so completely reductive and dismissive of the realities of the Cold War systems. quote:As I've said repeated, I don't claim to know exactly how much discretion the Soviets assigned to their local commanders when it comes to interpreting a reported attack. You might well be right that it was within Petrov's authority to make the call that he made. I just don't think that has much bearing on the actual point of disagreement we have, which is whether or not this entire incident should be seen as an example of MAD working exactly as intended. And again, he was well within the bounds of that discretion. He could take all the time he liked to make his decision, and he could decide that it was not an attack. That was in fact his purpose as the duty officer. He instead correctly decided that it was a malfunction, based on the lack of corroborating evidence and his knowledge of MAD policy and reported it as such. I understand that you seem to just straight-up not believe me on this, but the fact is that I'm not going to go run down written sources that I haven't looked at in a decade. Since it doesn't seem like I'm making much of an impact anyway, I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree. quote:All that having been said, I just reread my original post and I did describe Petrov as "an individual technician", which was obviously incorrect. Of course you initially shared my mistake and also referred to him as a technician... He was a technician - he went to all sorts of schools to be able to get into the Strategic Rocket Forces and then command a brand-new critical strategic installation - but he wasn't a low-level button pusher. Kaal fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 02:44
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Petrov was always more of a triumph of MAD then a failing: Reagan, for basically no good reason, was being as insanely provacative as we had ever seen in the Cold War. He demonstrated that, yes, even if one participant is being hugely belligerent and also there's a technological failing that causes a false positive, basically the doomsday scenario, we still didn't fire. We shouldn't think "wow, one technician saved the world", we should think "wow, one idiot president almost ended it!"
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Jul 15, 2015 13:00
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Canadian Surf Club posted:when it comes to 21st century thinking, the totality of a "nuclear holocaust" is actually the least of our worries. Once a conflict does inevitably flair up (like coffeetable mentioned, probably India/Pakistan), a limited nuclear exchange occurs, and everyone sees that the entire world doesn't go to poo poo, the idea of dropping one or two low grade nuclear weapons in conflicts is going to be a much more digestible idea. At this point, if we ever get to a nuclear holocaust scenario, it won't be because of a big single event, but a bunch of smaller events that culminate in a "oh wow we really hosed up the atmosphere and/or a bunch of habitable places." That's a really good point. After the US lost its monopoly on nukes, thinking about nuclear war was dominated by the all-or-nothing approach. Life continuing after a limited exchange would result in a very dangerous revision to thought about nuclear war.
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Jul 15, 2015 13:31
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CoolCab posted:Petrov was always more of a triumph of MAD then a failing: Reagan, for basically no good reason, was being as insanely provacative as we had ever seen in the Cold War. He demonstrated that, yes, even if one participant is being hugely belligerent and also there's a technological failing that causes a false positive, basically the doomsday scenario, we still didn't fire. that's true. Reagan was the worst.
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Jul 15, 2015 15:13
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we did nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the horrors of both those events still haunt us today. Would we really use a nuke right now knowing that a bomb miniscule in yield by todays standards still causes strife to millions.
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Jul 15, 2015 21:52
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LeoMarr posted:we did nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the horrors of both those events still haunt us today. Would we really use a nuke right now knowing that a bomb miniscule in yield by todays standards still causes strife to millions. Yes?
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Jul 16, 2015 17:30
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I honestly think that it will happen in the next 100 or so years, and I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in my lifetime. As someone else mentioned, they are just too useful of a weapon to ignore, and the fact of the matter is that Iran will have them in a few decades, which along with india and pakistan having them makes some kind of exchange all the more likely. I do not know if it will be a small terrorist cell that uses them or a larger nation doing a tactical strike but it will almost certain happen eventually and it will definitely remind people that as long as the weapons exist the cold war will never really be over. (And let's be honest, the only way every single nuke on earth could be destroyed is if they were all launched/dropped/fired.) You're welcome! I'm a physicist
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Jul 16, 2015 19:11
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OwlFancier posted:It is statistically highly improbable that, if the entire order of the world had multiple single points of failure that were averted only due to astonishing good fortune, that we would still be here. No it's not, it's hilarious how bad people here are at statistics. Show your math so the thread can have a good laugh.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:30
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tsa posted:No it's not, it's hilarious how bad people here are at statistics. Show your math so the thread can have a good laugh. You are bad at physics, and at posting.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:37
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:I honestly think that it will happen in the next 100 or so years, and I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in my lifetime. As someone else mentioned, they are just too useful of a weapon to ignore, and the fact of the matter is that Iran will have them in a few decades, which along with india and pakistan having them makes some kind of exchange all the more likely. We've been doing pretty well with chemical weapons.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:44
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There won't be holocausts, just a series of tactical nuclear weapon detonations against human beings for the rest of the century as a necessary part of warfare. Putin is a military genius.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:45
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computer parts posted:We've been doing pretty well with chemical weapons. Not a typical chemical weapon, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis And let's not forget their use in Syria. Basically, Nonsense posted:There won't be holocausts, just a series of tactical nuclear weapon detonations against human beings for the rest of the century as a necessary part of warfare.
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Jul 16, 2015 20:38
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tsa posted:No it's not, it's hilarious how bad people here are at statistics. Show your math so the thread can have a good laugh. If you have to roll ten dice and have them all come up six or you get kicked in the nuts, you're probably getting kicked in the nuts. If you don't get kicked in the nuts, it's probably because the dice are loaded.
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Jul 16, 2015 21:20
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:Not a typical chemical weapon, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis so russia said "Meh gently caress it just gas the building" and killed both terrorists and civies at a 1:3 ratio with 400+ injured. Lol
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Jul 16, 2015 21:48
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LeoMarr posted:so russia said "Meh gently caress it just gas the building" and killed both terrorists and civies at a 1:3 ratio with 400+ injured. Lol And we pretty much know it was some kind of opioid now anyway, so it was a total dick move.
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Jul 16, 2015 21:52
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Guavanaut posted:And didn't tell the EMTs what gas they used. If they'd just hinted "hey, it's some kind of opioid" then they could have packed naloxone before moving out, but their precious chemical weapon secrecy was more important so a bunch of people had to die. They really should have just leveled the building it would be less politically messy
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Jul 16, 2015 21:57
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Guavanaut posted:And didn't tell the EMTs what gas they used. If they'd just hinted "hey, it's some kind of opioid" then they could have packed naloxone before moving out, but their precious chemical weapon secrecy was more important so a bunch of people had to die. Yeah, I think it was a gasified form of fentanyl.
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Jul 17, 2015 03:52
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LeoMarr posted:Copout, I mean really nuclear war is a terrible loving idea for russia or the US at this point. It instantly turns part of the loving world into uninhabitable zones. Utilizing them after the fact is also a factor to look at, if they nuke us we will sure as gently caress nuke them nearly immediately or at least use High Emission Low yield tactical nukes against the launcher. Terrorist attacks are a bit difference, I don't think we would respond to a dirty bomb type situation if we were indeed hit by such a weapon. It would majorly up anti-terrorism domestically and abroad for us if such an event happened, but what about honest revenge nuking a country? If the IRA nuked the white house, would we nuke Belfast? So in what capacity would we or any country truly use nukes in any way shape or form? Its not going to happen. Don't worry. We found out quickly after the fall of the USSR they were both us and them were afraid of each other. Their generals know a nuclear war is just as unwinnable as we know it to be. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 03:59
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LeoMarr posted:we did nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the horrors of both those events still haunt us today. Would we really use a nuke right now knowing that a bomb miniscule in yield by todays standards still causes strife to millions. Nukes were threatened against Baghdad if chemical weapons came out in Iraqi Freedom
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Jul 17, 2015 04:11
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OwlFancier posted:If you have to roll ten dice and have them all come up six or you get kicked in the nuts, you're probably getting kicked in the nuts. You didn't study statistics, did you?
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Jul 17, 2015 14:48
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MonsieurChoc posted:You didn't study statistics, did you? *shrug* it's pretty rational to doubt the accuracy of the odds if you appear to consistently beat them. The world isn't an ideal scenario, you're allowed to do that.
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Jul 17, 2015 15:51
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OwlFancier posted:*shrug* it's pretty rational to doubt the accuracy of the odds if you appear to consistently beat them. The world isn't an ideal scenario, you're allowed to do that. That's not how odds or statistic works though. I mean, if something is highly improbable but happened, it still happened.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:09
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MonsieurChoc posted:That's not how odds or statistic works though. I mean, if something is highly improbable but happened, it still happened. If something "highly improbable" happened, it's pretty likely that you just aren't understanding the situation. I mean sure, there's always that .03% chance that all the dice are going to roll your way, but there's a 99.07% chance that there is a fix somewhere that you just aren't seeing.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:17
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MonsieurChoc posted:That's not how odds or statistic works though. I mean, if something is highly improbable but happened, it still happened. To be honest, he's not exactly wrong. In the real world, the probability of rolling 10 6s in a row is lower than the probability of the dice being loaded, intentionally or otherwise. I very much doubt dice you buy in a local shop are perfect and roll exactly 3.5 on a big enough sample.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:21
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quote:Frankly I'm just impressed at their ability to survive a nuclear explosion well enough to be mad at us for doing it. We didn't actually nuke them, we moved them and then nuked their homes and didn't pay much attention to what and who else got contaminated. (To be fair, we didn't pay much attention to our own troops or population either.) There's a truly horrible newsreel that basically explains how the simple minded natives were happy to move when the superior white Americans asked them to and shows them paddling off in outrigger canoes. It's so dripping with white privilege, it's like something you'd create today as a parody. I'm guessing against a full on ICBM exchange between Russia and the US, but I will be very surprised if I die before there's a small scale exchange between India/Pakistan or Israel/anyone or a small nuke on a Russian or US city from terrorists.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:24
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MonsieurChoc posted:That's not how odds or statistic works though. I mean, if something is highly improbable but happened, it still happened. Yes but that doesn't mean you were right about the chances of it happening. If it keeps happening as in, we keep narrowly averting absolute global destruction by incredible luck, maybe there is something off about the assessment of the odds? The suspect part isn't that we are all still alive, but the idea that it's incredibly unlikely that we're all still alive.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:31
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OwlFancier posted:Yes but that doesn't mean you were right about the chances of it happening. If it keeps happening as in, we keep narrowly averting absolute global destruction by incredible luck, maybe there is something off about the assessment of the odds? It's incredibly unlikely that any of us would have been alive in the first place. Is there a good reason for saying that the odds against your own birth can be cheerfully discounted, but the odds against a nuclear holocaust preventing it cannot? I'm not convinced the answer is "yes", and suspect the question is subject to loads of metaphysical assumptions which are very hard to assess in any kind of rational way. I'm not sure accurately gauging the probability of existential risks is as easy as it appears on the surface. e: This argument probably has more force for someone born after 1984 or so, I guess.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:43
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The odds against my specific birth are extremely unlikely, but the odds against childbirth in general aren't. The argument is specifically for the continued existence of our non-atomically-obliterated civilisation, and that it is incredibly unlikely that we should still have a non-destroyed civilisation. It's more like you plotting out my entire life before I was born and then turning out to have been 100% correct than simply a child being born to my parents. There is such a thing as survivor bias but nuclear armageddon probably wouldn't wipe out all life on the planet, it'd just make it really lovely, so I don't think that applies. Nuclear war isn't an existential risk as much as it is a massive drop in quality of life.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:47
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OwlFancier posted:The odds against my specific birth are extremely unlikely, but the odds against childbirth in general aren't. It helps that even the groups who manage and operate ICBMs and Nuclear First Strike capabilities have acknowledged that a nuclear war is not winnable.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:48
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This argument is silly because it is trying to get technical with vague adjectives like 'incredibly unlikely' or 'insanely lucky'. If we had only a 10% chance of surviving the Cold War then that we survived is not implausible even if someone might call us 'insanely lucky' in an informal context. These numbers like '0.03%' or indeed 10% are coming from nowhere.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:56
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