AN/FPS-24 Radar Tower, Mt. Umunhum, Los Gatos, CA, 2024.
Several additional pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/53796724938
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this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
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@CStamp @60sRefugee @nyrath @simplenomad The thing about the escalation game is that every individual move is rational, but the game itself is completely insane. And we spend almost all our effort (especially in the 50’s and 60’s) strategizing each next move instead of finding an exit.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] 1/2: They tried to find an exit; but none logically existed. Ban nuclear weapons? Then we're back to June 1945, when total strategic (conventional) war complete with burning down cities prompted the development of nukes in the first place. International control? The USA proposed it, the Soviet Union vetoed it (while secretly working to develop their own nukes). Mutual disarmament? The first side to cheat wins.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Yeah, Nuclear fetishists love to declare that there's no alternative, simply nothing we can do. Much like the way there's no solution to health care or gun violence.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] If you're in favor of unilateral surrender to others who DON'T give up their nukes, please say so.
@60sRefugee @CStamp @nyrath @simplenomad No. But unlike you, apparently, I think the current situation is unacceptably dangerous and inherently unstable, and that working to find ways to dismantle a system in which the entire world can be blown up in less than the time it takes to get a pizza delivered should be considered an urgent international priority.
This is actually a pretty mainstream view. In fact, while the world is still quite dangerous, various treaties have made it safer.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Find "ways". People have tried for 75 years. And no it wasn't because people were evil, insane warmongers that it hasn't happened. People were scared shitless about the possibility of nuclear war practically from the day after the Japanese bombings.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] The difference between people like you and people like me is that you seem eager to give up.
Not me. I think nuclear war is fundamentally evil, and that there is room to continue to make it much less likely, if we have the will.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Give up? More like have no idea how to start. If you have a concrete suggestion beyond "do something" I'm all ears.
@60sRefugee @mattblaze @CStamp @nyrath @simplenomad I think those 75 years of effort may have helped avert the worst outcomes. Why was “Daisy” so effective in sinking Goldwater’s presidential bid?
@fivetonsflax Problem is it only takes someone like Spanky to undo all forward motion. @60sRefugee @mattblaze @nyrath @simplenomad
@CStamp @fivetonsflax @60sRefugee @mattblaze @nyrath @simplenomad I mean, yes and no. Ratified treaties do have weight, even with impulsive executives. Public opinion also does mean something. International pressure against more nations developing these weapons means fewer possible uses.
Nothing is perfect but progress is worthwhile.
See also our relative and ongoing success in reducing chemical and biological weapon stockpiles and use
@njvack @fivetonsflax @60sRefugee @mattblaze @nyrath @simplenomad Ratified treaties have no weight with someone like Spanky.
@CStamp @njvack @fivetonsflax @60sRefugee @nyrath @simplenomad One way in which treaties matter is they affect stockpile and rage of weapons he has to work with. Things take time to ramp up (and down). The president can't, for example, snap his or her fingers and double the number of land-based ICBMs overnight.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] He already has enough rage weapons to do damage. This time, it's less likely folk in charge of the military will care more about the country and world and more likely to be ass kissers. :(
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Yes, the president is, of course, enormously powerful.
I'm just saying that those powers are limited by what they come in with. If, for example, the US had completely eliminated its nuclear arsenal somehow, it's unlikely the a there's much that could be done in a four year term to reverse that.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Even just restarting nuclear testing is far from a “snap your fingers” kind of thing. Is it doable in four years, with a supportive Congress? Probably. But it’s expensive and Congress may not be as supportive as you hope.
If all that infrastructure had been maintained instead of mothballed it would be way easier.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Have you ever read “Wizards of Armageddon”? The “logic" behind some of the decisions was seriously insane and often driven by quite narrow interests. For example: initially, the (US) Navy's submarine-launched missiles were inaccurate, so they advocated a city-destroying strategy, since that was all they could hit. The Air Force denounced that as immoral, not because they felt that way but because they could come close to military targets. Later, the Navy had more accurate missiles, so they preferred a counterforce strategy. But then the targets, e.g., missile silos, were hardened and warheads were very plentiful, so attacking cities with multiple missiles or bombers was preferred by the Air Force.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
Students in my class play a simple game called the escalation game which I started a couple of years back after physicist Max Tegmark claimed there was a 1/6 chance of a nuclear war starting over Ukraine.
The first time we played we had 1/7 teams end in nuclear war. This year half of the teams ended with a nuclear war.
It's more about the competitive nature of the players than a real estimate of any probability of course.
It was very convenient that the first year my boss was in the class and I was being evaluated for my teaching abilities and we got 1/7 vs. Tegmark's 1/6. Phew!
See Ellsberg's book The Doomsday Machine.
PS Most estimates of the annual probability are lower, generally below 1% but of course not zero.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] 2/2: the problem ultimately is, what do you do about nuclear weapons in a world in which nation-states still fight wars?
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Of course we've mainly been discussing USA and Russia in this thread. It is very possible that someone else could start something that simply "gets out of hand" and pulls others into things. Or USA with the right (e.g. wrong) leadership decides to play Team America: World Police to "fix the problem".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons