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OwlFancier posted:The odds against my specific birth are extremely unlikely, but the odds against childbirth in general aren't. But it may not be incredibly unlikely that a random observer would observe a non-destroyed civilisation, if it were the case that a multiverse existed. Further to that, if that observer had been born in a period where nuclear conflict was unlikely, they would be likely to underestimate the odds of it should they rise again for exactly the reasons you're giving here.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:00
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OwlFancier posted:The odds against my specific birth are extremely unlikely, but the odds against childbirth in general aren't. You're disregarding what happened to fit your worldview. Here's what happned: there were quite a few close calls during the Clod War. Aside from the events where a malfunction indicated a launch and someone didn't raise the alarm, there were alos quite a few political close-calls, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, that were averted only because a few people worked really hard to prevent nuclear war. There were powerful political actors who believed in using nuclear weapons and the fact that they didn't is testament to the hard work of people whor ealized how crazy that is and somehow managed to stop them. To simply dismiss the close-calls we had is to dismiss a very real risk. When we say insanely lucky, it's not jsut the odds we ebat, but also what would have happened had the odds not been beaten. A 10% chance is not that improbable, but when the 90% failure state is world destruction, you appreciated that luck a lot more.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:06
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CommieGIR posted: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. IMHO, this is why a nuclear holocaust is unlikely. Everyone who can use the serious weaponry also knows the only way to win is to not play.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:09
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MonsieurChoc posted:You're disregarding what happened to fit your worldview. It helps that the military leaders on both sides didn't share the politicians point of view, because most of the guys who ran the systems had the hard data and studies that showed that a nuclear exchange was not a fight worth starting.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:10
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Kaal posted: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. It's hypothetical but not exactly unsupported given the context in which this entire incident took place, the dying Andropov's supposed paranoia toward the US, and the very small window of time in which decisions would have been made. Even the sources that you've posted portray this incident as a close call. Even allowing for the fact that obviously a documentary wants to hype the incident it's covering for entertainment value, or that Petrov might have played up the urgency of the situation to make himself look better, pretty much anyone who has looked at this incident (and a few similar incidents scattered throughout the Cold War) tends to conclude that we came disturbingly close to a nuclear war here. I don't know why you insist on seeing this basically uncontroversial claim as some kind of wild eyed anti-nuclear stance, unless it's just a debating tactic on your part. The Cold War never want hot, thankfully, but that doesn't mean there weren't close calls such as this one where having a different person on duty that day might have made all the difference. quote: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. I'm not refusing to believe you, I'm asking for some kind of verification about your claims. If you have some way of knowing what the relevant duties of a Soviet commanding officer were in this context then share them or at least give some indication of where you gleaned this information rather than vaguely alluding to something you claim to have read a decade ago. I'm open to persuasion on this point but what you're telling me goes against the grain of how the USSR operated in other policy areas. I've been lead to believe that the USSR's leadership was less inclined to delegate than the USA's leadership. Americans were more inclined to let lower level functionaries synthesize data into a detailed report that they'd then act upon, while the Soviets tended to want to sift through more of the raw data themselves. Perhaps the USSR was more willing to delegate responsibility. That's plausible, but I'm asking for some actual evidence I can evaluate rather than you repeatedly asserting you're right and posting an American documentary that doesn't actually shed any light on Soviet decision making.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:16
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Helsing posted:I'm open to persuasion on this point but what you're telling me goes against the grain of how the USSR operated in other policy areas. I've been lead to believe that the USSR's leadership was less inclined to delegate than the USA's leadership. Americans were more inclined to let lower level functionaries synthesize data into a detailed report that they'd then act upon, while the Soviets tended to want to sift through more of the raw data themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
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Jul 17, 2015 17:17
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Even if it's really crazy super unlikely, wouldn't it be better not to have that possibility exist at all?
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Jul 17, 2015 17:21
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Obviously, yes. But that's no longer an option currently.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:22
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OwlFancier posted: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. This. Nuclear weapons are somewhat overstated - we'd probably have to start from a low, low place, but it's not like killing everyone was either possible or anyone's objective. Nobody's going to carpet nuke central Africa or South Island in New Zealand or something, and though they would likely face starvation, they'd survive and rebuild.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:32
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CommieGIR posted:It helps that the military leaders on both sides didn't share the politicians point of view, because most of the guys who ran the systems had the hard data and studies that showed that a nuclear exchange was not a fight worth starting. In a few case, the reverse occurred: the american military during the Cuban Missile Crisis wanted to invade. It was the politicians who managed to go around their crazy generals and stave off war.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:32
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MonsieurChoc posted:In a few case, the reverse occurred: the american military during the Cuban Missile Crisis wanted to invade. It was the politicians who managed to go around their crazy generals and stave off war. True, and the reverse being Nixon falsely proclaiming that he wanted to nuke the Vietcong just to help reinforce the idea that he was unhinged.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:37
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MonsieurChoc posted:You're disregarding what happened to fit your worldview. I'm suggesting that we should expect more often than not, when it actually comes time to fire the nukes, that someone will stop and think "this is a bad idea" and that the cold war as a pattern of attempts to destroy the world thwarted only by the actions of an unforseeable renegade few, isn't a great view. People may bluster all they want but when faced with the inescapable conclusion that there is no winner of a nuclear exchange, people seem, with some regularity, to back off the idea somewhere along the line. And this should probably be the expected outcome.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:37
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so instead of talking about loving multiverses and loaded dice can we please discuss the likelyhood of an allout nuclear holocaust
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Jul 17, 2015 21:11
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LeoMarr posted:so instead of talking about loving multiverses and loaded dice can we please discuss the likelyhood of an allout nuclear holocaust The likelihood in this universe is 1/100d100
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Jul 17, 2015 21:13
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LeoMarr posted:so instead of talking about loving multiverses and loaded dice can we please discuss the likelyhood of an allout nuclear holocaust Not likely enough
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Jul 17, 2015 22:02
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People seem fascinated by a terrorist nuke idea, but I'm not sure why any terrorist group would actually do that. Even ISIS would probably turn literally every hand against them, unless they used a nuke on an invading American army. (This, I feel, is the probable use case for most people wanting nukes nowadays.) Like, has any actual terrorist group ever pursued this, or desired it?
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Jul 17, 2015 22:24
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The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, which is probably about as close to a real life James Bond villain as we've ever gotten, tried to acquire some nukes in the late 1980s and may have detonated a nuclear device they had manufactured themselves in the Australian outback in the 1990s. Obviously chances are that this never happened but there's enough circumstantial evidence (such as an unexplained seismic event very close to the area where they were apparently mining uranium) that you can do some fun speculation. Aum is better known for manufacturing Sarin gas that they released on the Tokyo subways.
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Jul 17, 2015 22:54
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Nessus posted:People seem fascinated by a terrorist nuke idea, but I'm not sure why any terrorist group would actually do that. Even ISIS would probably turn literally every hand against them, unless they used a nuke on an invading American army. (This, I feel, is the probable use case for most people wanting nukes nowadays.) I think Aum Shinrukyo would have readily used one. Other groups, who knows? you could get a crazy clique in charge who thinks it's a good idea. I wouldn't expect you would see many such people though, using a nuke will probably get half your continent blasted into a smooth mirror. e; hey gently caress you buddy, I will nuke you 
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Jul 17, 2015 22:55
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Strangely I notice our reaction was not to demand that Japan shut down all their nuclear reactors on the threat of an embargo. I wonder why? 
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Jul 17, 2015 23:37
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Truga posted:Obviously, yes. But that's no longer an option currently. Is it because there's just insufficient political will for something as radical as gradual disarmament, or are there actual sensible reasons for maintaining gargantuan nuclear stockpiles?
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Jul 18, 2015 06:57
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Mister Adequate posted:This. Nuclear weapons are somewhat overstated - we'd probably have to start from a low, low place, but it's not like killing everyone was either possible or anyone's objective. Nobody's going to carpet nuke central Africa or South Island in New Zealand or something, and though they would likely face starvation, they'd survive and rebuild. Abner Cadaver II posted:Is it because there's just insufficient political will for something as radical as gradual disarmament, or are there actual sensible reasons for maintaining gargantuan nuclear stockpiles?
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Jul 18, 2015 17:37
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Strudel Man posted:Any put-upon regime has very sensible reasons to want one. Pretty much this. Nuclear weapons are basically THE guarantee that your country will not be invaded, because nobody wants to put a country with nukes in a situation where they have nothing to lose. So long as they remain in the hands of rational countries, nuclear bombs/missiles are entirely a political tool for deterring military action. It's actually somewhat comforting to know that their primary use is in preventing war, even if they are still insanely scary for the catastrophic damage one could do if actually fired. E: Also, anyone claiming we'll ever see nukes used as commonplace weaponry is insane. You'd end up with an irradiated hole where any obtainable resources would be, decades worth of negative PR from the fallout and its effects (think Vietnam and Agent Orange times a thousand), centuries worth of damage to the world per bomb, and retaliation. There is 100% no reason to ever use nuclear weapons where a typical ICBM or bomber payload could just as easily do the job. Neurolimal fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Jul 19, 2015 |
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Jul 19, 2015 00:41
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LeoMarr posted:so instead of talking about loving multiverses and loaded dice can we please discuss the likelyhood of an allout nuclear holocaust I think a lot of the discussion is asking the wrong question. Let me propose an alternative analysis: The troublesome thought isn't what's the chance of a nuclear holocaust happening in any given particular year, or the chance that any given particular conflict will degenerate into nuclear holocaust, it's "what's the chance that a nuclear holocaust will eventually happen," and the longer the timescale the more that probability approaches 100%. Eventually, barring universal disarmament, it'll happen. As long as multiple nations have large nuclear arsenals, the chance of those arsenals being used is non-zero, and if you buy enough lottery tickets eventually you pull a winner. Phrased another way, the probability of a world-shattering nuclear holocaust happening eventually would seem to be (1-x), where X is the probability of universal nuclear disarmament. I unfortunately suspect that X is very small. I also suspect that when the holocaust happens, the radiation, fallout, "nuclear winter," etc., will be sufficient to abolish all human life on earth, and possibly even all land-based life. Of course, "eventually" is a long time. So, maybe not within our lifetimes? If we're lucky?
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Jul 19, 2015 00:51
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The presence of nuclear weapons on both sides didn't prevent the Pakistani army from invading de facto Indian territory in 1999. Nuclear weapons are probably enough to discourage a fullscale invasion such as the 2003 American attack on Iraq but government's may still try to to tear away bits and pieces of rival states, especially in situations where they can blaim the violence (however improbably) on some proxy force.
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Jul 19, 2015 01:01
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Eventually, barring universal disarmament, it'll happen. As long as multiple nations have large nuclear arsenals, the chance of those arsenals being used is non-zero, and if you buy enough lottery tickets eventually you pull a winner. "Large" being the key factor here. Can one nuke cause a nuclear holocaust? Some argue yes, if you hit the right place (eg, New York City). Depending on your definition of "nuclear holocaust" it might eventually happen or it might be literally impossible.
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Jul 19, 2015 01:02
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The troublesome thought isn't what's the chance of a nuclear holocaust happening in any given particular year, or the chance that any given particular conflict will degenerate into nuclear holocaust, it's "what's the chance that a nuclear holocaust will eventually happen," and the longer the timescale the more that probability approaches 100%. While this is true, trying to predict events over a nearly infinite time frame doesn't seem very practical to me. Any number of things could happen before we'd face nuclear armageddon. For instance, who's to say we would still be on this planet by that point?
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Jul 19, 2015 01:23
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It's kinda inevitable that another nuke will be used at some point in the future. Hopefully it just doesn't lead to a holocaust. I guess the interesting thing about nukes is throughout all of human history is when we've developed a new weapon with higher killing power we've produced as many as we can and liberally used them. Nukes are the one weapon where we have stopped, wisely realizing the killing power is just too high.
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Jul 19, 2015 01:24
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Samuel Clemens posted:While this is true, trying to predict events over a nearly infinite time frame doesn't seem very practical to me. Any number of things could happen before we'd face nuclear armageddon. For instance, who's to say we would still be on this planet by that point? Well, I don't think we need to posit an infinite timeframe. It's all dependent on the chance of holocaust. If, for example, the chance of said holocaust in any given year is as small as 1%, then statistically, over a hundred years, it would happen once (and once it did, game over).
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Jul 19, 2015 01:37
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IMHO universal disarmament can't happen any more. It *might* have been possible when only two sides had nukes, but now there's a bunch of people not sided with either NATO or ex-Warsaw pact who have them. There's absolutely no way 6-7 parties will want to get rid of their stockpiles at the same point in time.
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Jul 19, 2015 02:05
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Strudel Man posted:Yeah, nuclear winter from the burning of the world's major cities is what would be the more relevant global concern, as far as the species goes. I'm not entirely convinced that nuclear winter would be nearly as serious as has been suggested in the past. There were a lot of really clumsy assumptions made in the models that produced those predictions, and the same people who pushed the nuclear winter theory the strongest also made dire predictions about oil well fires in the Middle East that didn't pan out. That said, it's obviously not something I'd like to see experimentally tested.
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Jul 19, 2015 02:09
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Truga posted:IMHO universal disarmament can't happen any more. I think there's still a possible path to disarmament. Nuclear weapons are very expensive to maintain, so some powers might eventually be persuaded to dismantle under a mutual defense treaty (e.g. Britain, France, Israel, with a guarantee of support from the US) or otherwise through a brokered process overseen by outside powers (e.g. India, Pakistan). That leaves the US, Russia, and China; and once the US and Russia reduce their stockpiles substantially, it's very possible China would be open to negotiating a disarmament since they could be assured that their enormous population and army would guarantee territorial integrity. I'm not saying it would be easy at all - in fact, I think it would take enormous and prolonged effort, and it would have to remain a priority policy for key governments for many years. And even after all that, it might still fail, at least on the first attempt. But I don't think it's permanently impossible.
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Jul 19, 2015 02:19
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There won't be nuclear war because a weapon which levels a city doesn't help nuclear powers win the conflicts they get into. Dropping a nuke doesn't help the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it doesn't help Russia in Ukraine. Even North Korea has no interest in flattening the south in nuclear hell-fire. Over the last couple decades the US and Russia have quietly made massive progress in scaling back nuclear stockpiles, and securing nuclear material from falling into the wrong hands. Nuclear weapons will never be eliminated entirely (until they're somehow rendered completely obsolete), but they don't have to be. We just have to continue to live in a world where nobody in power sees anything to gain from using nuclear weapons in warfare.  Sure some terrorists are probably real keen on blowing up a city to make some point or another. However, If delivering nuclear bombs in duffel bags was as easy as in a Tom Clancy novel, I suspect nuclear delivery systems would be that and not billion dollar ICBMs which take decades to test and develop and are target #1 for the enemy's nuclear arsenal.
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Jul 19, 2015 07:10
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There was some idiot Russian troll that was posting on a youtube video. (Literally kept going "LOL. I HOPE AMERICA GETS NUKED. LOL FAT PEOPLE. LOL MCDONALDS), and I came across a few of his stupid Anti-American rantings. "Jake Wane 7 hours ago Two thirds of the world are allied with us, so you're outnumbered. Also we have more nukes. " I'm a bit puzzled as to where this dude gets his own sense of weird nationalism. In terms of countries with nuclear weapon capacities that I would imagine would probably have aided us in the event Putin would go full stupid? The US would seem to have the UK, France, and Israel as direct allies in that regard. Not to mention the nations of Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Turkey all sharing weapons that we have per a NATO agreement. I'm unsure what the hell India, or Pakistan would do. Plus I don't think the Chinese are exactly thrilled with the Russians, both presently and historically. North Korea is literally the only group of people I could see going to bat for them. Even they are just kind of a joke. But I'm a tad bit confused as to who in the world would align themselves with Russia in this idiot's fantasy land? Cuba? North Korea? FuzzySkinner fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Jul 19, 2015 |
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Jul 19, 2015 09:26
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I'm not entirely convinced that nuclear winter would be nearly as serious as has been suggested in the past. There were a lot of really clumsy assumptions made in the models that produced those predictions, and the same people who pushed the nuclear winter theory the strongest also made dire predictions about oil well fires in the Middle East that didn't pan out. Neurolimal posted:E: Also, anyone claiming we'll ever see nukes used as commonplace weaponry is insane. You'd end up with an irradiated hole where any obtainable resources would be, decades worth of negative PR from the fallout and its effects (think Vietnam and Agent Orange times a thousand), centuries worth of damage to the world per bomb, and retaliation. There is 100% no reason to ever use nuclear weapons where a typical ICBM or bomber payload could just as easily do the job. Strudel Man fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jul 20, 2015 |
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Jul 20, 2015 18:32
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The atomic bomb is the only machine ever invented that creates peace.
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Jul 20, 2015 19:10
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We've had nukes for what, 60 years now? It's really great we haven't blown ourselves up yet, lets see if we can keep it up for another 1000 years (lol)
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Jul 20, 2015 20:56
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LeoMarr posted:If the IRA nuked the white house, would we nuke Belfast? If the IRA nukes DC, then Dublin would be the appropriate counterstrike. The IRA's goal is to reunify the island of Ireland by removing the British. Since most of their money comes from the US, nuking the US would be not in the realm of considering. If the IRA had nukes, Westminster Palace wold be ground zero.  Pray for triple yield. LeoMarr posted:So in what capacity would we or any country truly use nukes in any way shape or form? During the Cold War, "mutually assured destruction" was the guiding philosophy. It turned all calculations into lose-lose: both sides could guarantee that the other side lost. As others have pointed out, it guarantees that no one will invade you. Helsing posted:The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, which is probably about as close to a real life James Bond villain as we've ever gotten, tried to acquire some nukes in the late 1980s and may have detonated a nuclear device they had manufactured themselves in the Australian outback in the 1990s. Obviously chances are that this never happened but there's enough circumstantial evidence (such as an unexplained seismic event very close to the area where they were apparently mining uranium) that you can do some fun speculation. Aum is better known for manufacturing Sarin gas that they released on the Tokyo subways. That cult did try to use anthrax on several occasions but even with their resources they were unable to weaponize it. That's why they turned to sarin. The book Amerithrax gives some details on their attempt at a biological weapon program. They did build an automated factory that built AK-47s.
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Jul 20, 2015 21:31
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Kaal posted: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. I don't disagree with the thrust of your argument, but the highlighted part is a misconception. Test missiles have flight termination systems fitted on for range safety purposes, but actual missiles are impossible to stop once launched. The reason should be obvious.
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Jul 24, 2015 12:24
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One thing that has struck me is how much the owners of nuclear weapons didn't want to use them, at least after 1949 or so. Nukes were uncomfortable last resorts, and no one wanted to be the first to fire them off or the one to start a nuclear war - even if it was to their own detriment. Everyone kept their nukes on a hair trigger just in case, but they were understood to be a counterattack weapon only.
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Jul 25, 2015 03:50
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All out nuclear warfare would be bad for the Multinational Corporations which run all of the major governments, and therefore will not happen. As long as it is against Walmart, Coca-Cola and Exxon-Mobiles best interests to not have nuclear warfare, it won't happen.
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Jul 25, 2015 04:09
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