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Agree with what you said and I'll underscore the 'especially' clause of your point regarding rational actors. I encourage people to watch Errol Morris' Fog of W

Agree with what you said and I'll underscore the 'especially' clause of your point regarding rational actors. I encourage people to watch Errol Morris' Fog of War which examines the life of Robert McNamara. In the documentary he states that a principle lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis is that "rationality will not save us". Rational actors believing they are proceeding in the best interests of their countries can allow a situation to escalate and cause the mutual annihilation of their civilizations. This was the case when John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev were heads of their respective states. No one should have these weapons.

ars 11y ago
> No one should have these weapons. But North Korea not having them is so much more important that even mentioning other countries in the same discussion is ludicrous.
- timonovici 11y ago
  Who knows? They are just talking big - it's even more ludicrous for the only nation who ever used nuclear weapon on civilian population to still have them, am I rite?
  - ars 11y ago
    > am I rite? No you are not. You are being simplistic and trying to make a point with meaningless platitudes. Intellectual "shortcuts" like that will not lead you to any sort of understanding.
    - timonovici 11y ago
      If my comment was meaningless platitudes, what can I make of yours? My arguments was that it doesn't matter what one is claiming - in the end what matters is what you do. The americans are the only ones so far to have nuked other people, and they still get to keep their missiles. Don't you think we are way too forgiving with them?
      - ars 11y ago
        > in the end what matters is what you do. And Americans have lots of bombs and don't use them. North Korea on the other hand tortures people routinely for fun (not for intelligence or other excuses, but literally for fun). > The americans are the only ones so far to have nuked other people They did that on the dawn of the Nuclear era when no one understood the impact or nuclear weapons. After the first two they understood things better - any not only never used them again, but worked to make sure no one else would either. > Don't you think we are way too forgiving with them? Not in the slightest.
  - s_q_b 11y ago
    Do you truly believe that Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union, or Imperial Japan would have hesitated for a second to use nuclear weapons if they had developed them first? I, for one, do not. --- Sidenote: The most remarkable aspect of the story of the atomic bomb occurred after the development of fusion weapons. The President and his chief advisors called together a committee to determine whether to wipe out the Soviet Union. The discussion took place in the Roosevelt Room shortly following the development of the hydrogen bomb. With its massive bomber fleet, unparalleled fusion technology, and large stockpile of fission weapons, the United States could have quite literally conquered the world. Yet it chose not to do so. I know of no parallel in world history where such an event has occurred. Prior to the conference, Hans Bethe of the Manhattan project wrote to the President: "If we fight a war and win it with nuclear weapons, what history will remember is not the ideas we were fighting for, but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan, who brutally killed every last inhabitant of Persia."
    - timonovici 11y ago
      The russians, which are not that different from URSS, if you ask me, have nuclear missiles. They haven't used them in Syria, or any other conflict that I'm aware of. They are stupid enough to have detonated the worlds largest nuclear weapon, I'll give them that (Tsar bomb). But not on other humans. On a deserted island. We like to vilify the russians, sure we do - but when you look at the facts as they are, a very different picture comes to your eyes. Don't let those manipulative news stories fool you.
      - s_q_b 11y ago
        Read the history of Stalin's reaction to being told of the bomb at Yalta. He encouraged its immediate use against the Japanese Empire.
    - timonovici 11y ago
      "If we fight a war and win it with nuclear weapons, what history will remember is not the ideas we were fighting for, but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan, who brutally killed every last inhabitant of Persia." I like this quote. What I like even more, is how just above it, you smudge the history as if they not detonated nuclear weapon on people, but they just refrained from conquering the world. Read what I said the same thread - in the end, what matter is what you actually do, not what you could have done, or what you claimed you would do.
XorNot 11y ago
Conversely nuclear weapons are probably the most significant reason the US and USSR never had a direct military conflict in Europe. Absent the risk of escalation, I find it unlikely that the various crises wouldn't have escalated too, at least, the take over of west Berlin (and thus probably a subsequent land war in west Germany).

ars 11y ago

> No one should have these weapons. But North Korea not having them is so much more important that even mentioning other countries in the same discussion is ludicrous.

timonovici 11y ago
Who knows? They are just talking big - it's even more ludicrous for the only nation who ever used nuclear weapon on civilian population to still have them, am I rite?
- ars 11y ago
  > am I rite? No you are not. You are being simplistic and trying to make a point with meaningless platitudes. Intellectual "shortcuts" like that will not lead you to any sort of understanding.
  - timonovici 11y ago
    If my comment was meaningless platitudes, what can I make of yours? My arguments was that it doesn't matter what one is claiming - in the end what matters is what you do. The americans are the only ones so far to have nuked other people, and they still get to keep their missiles. Don't you think we are way too forgiving with them?
    - ars 11y ago
      > in the end what matters is what you do. And Americans have lots of bombs and don't use them. North Korea on the other hand tortures people routinely for fun (not for intelligence or other excuses, but literally for fun). > The americans are the only ones so far to have nuked other people They did that on the dawn of the Nuclear era when no one understood the impact or nuclear weapons. After the first two they understood things better - any not only never used them again, but worked to make sure no one else would either. > Don't you think we are way too forgiving with them? Not in the slightest.
- s_q_b 11y ago
  Do you truly believe that Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union, or Imperial Japan would have hesitated for a second to use nuclear weapons if they had developed them first? I, for one, do not. --- Sidenote: The most remarkable aspect of the story of the atomic bomb occurred after the development of fusion weapons. The President and his chief advisors called together a committee to determine whether to wipe out the Soviet Union. The discussion took place in the Roosevelt Room shortly following the development of the hydrogen bomb. With its massive bomber fleet, unparalleled fusion technology, and large stockpile of fission weapons, the United States could have quite literally conquered the world. Yet it chose not to do so. I know of no parallel in world history where such an event has occurred. Prior to the conference, Hans Bethe of the Manhattan project wrote to the President: "If we fight a war and win it with nuclear weapons, what history will remember is not the ideas we were fighting for, but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan, who brutally killed every last inhabitant of Persia."
  - timonovici 11y ago
    The russians, which are not that different from URSS, if you ask me, have nuclear missiles. They haven't used them in Syria, or any other conflict that I'm aware of. They are stupid enough to have detonated the worlds largest nuclear weapon, I'll give them that (Tsar bomb). But not on other humans. On a deserted island. We like to vilify the russians, sure we do - but when you look at the facts as they are, a very different picture comes to your eyes. Don't let those manipulative news stories fool you.
    - s_q_b 11y ago
      Read the history of Stalin's reaction to being told of the bomb at Yalta. He encouraged its immediate use against the Japanese Empire.
  - timonovici 11y ago
    "If we fight a war and win it with nuclear weapons, what history will remember is not the ideas we were fighting for, but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan, who brutally killed every last inhabitant of Persia." I like this quote. What I like even more, is how just above it, you smudge the history as if they not detonated nuclear weapon on people, but they just refrained from conquering the world. Read what I said the same thread - in the end, what matter is what you actually do, not what you could have done, or what you claimed you would do.

XorNot 11y ago

Conversely nuclear weapons are probably the most significant reason the US and USSR never had a direct military conflict in Europe. Absent the risk of escalation, I find it unlikely that the various crises wouldn't have escalated too, at least, the take over of west Berlin (and thus probably a subsequent land war in west Germany).