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In Dr. Strangelove, the absurd behavior of buffoonish humans contributes to the doomsday scenario. Idiots blindly following the orders of a madman on one side,

by glorp 10y ago

In Dr. Strangelove, the absurd behavior of buffoonish humans contributes to the doomsday scenario. Idiots blindly following the orders of a madman on one side, and psychos constructing a completely automated self-destruct mechanism attached to a retaliatory weapon on the other side. Both are bad, but people playing the game at all, were the real problem.

ceejayoz 10y ago
You know that was a satirical fictional film, right?
- wonkaWonka 10y ago
  http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in... With great reluctance, Eisenhower agreed to let American officers use their nuclear weapons, in an emergency, if there were no time or no means to contact the President. Air Force pilots were allowed to fire their nuclear anti-aircraft rockets to shoot down Soviet bombers heading toward the United States. And about half a dozen high-level American commanders were allowed to use far more powerful nuclear weapons, without contacting the White House first, when their forces were under attack and “the urgency of time and circumstances clearly does not permit a specific decision by the President, or other person empowered to act in his stead.” Unbeknownst to both Kubrick and George, a top official at the Department of Defense had already sent a copy of “Red Alert” to every member of the Pentagon’s Scientific Advisory Committee for Ballistic Missiles. At the Pentagon, the book was taken seriously as a cautionary tale about what might go wrong. A decade after the release of “Strangelove,” the Soviet Union began work on the Perimeter system - a network of sensors and computers that could allow junior military officials to launch missiles without oversight from the Soviet leadership. Perhaps nobody at the Kremlin had seen the film. Completed in 1985, the system was known as the Dead Hand. Once it was activated, Perimeter would order the launch of long-range missiles at the United States if it detected nuclear detonations on Soviet soil and Soviet leaders couldn’t be reached. I believe that's check and mate, old chap?
  - arethuza 10y ago
    Also some of the quotes from US military leaders at the time sound like something from Stranglove: "Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) > Accounts differ as to the degree of automation of Dead Hand... more recent sources indicate the system was semi-automatic. In a 2007 article, Ron Rosenbaum quotes Blair as saying that Dead Hand is "designed to ensure semi-automatic retaliation to a decapitating strike." Rosenbaum writes, "Of course, there's a world of difference between a 'semi-automatic' doomsday device and the totally automatic—beyond human control—doomsday device."

by glorp 10y ago

ceejayoz 10y ago

You know that was a satirical fictional film, right?

wonkaWonka 10y ago
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in... With great reluctance, Eisenhower agreed to let American officers use their nuclear weapons, in an emergency, if there were no time or no means to contact the President. Air Force pilots were allowed to fire their nuclear anti-aircraft rockets to shoot down Soviet bombers heading toward the United States. And about half a dozen high-level American commanders were allowed to use far more powerful nuclear weapons, without contacting the White House first, when their forces were under attack and “the urgency of time and circumstances clearly does not permit a specific decision by the President, or other person empowered to act in his stead.” Unbeknownst to both Kubrick and George, a top official at the Department of Defense had already sent a copy of “Red Alert” to every member of the Pentagon’s Scientific Advisory Committee for Ballistic Missiles. At the Pentagon, the book was taken seriously as a cautionary tale about what might go wrong. A decade after the release of “Strangelove,” the Soviet Union began work on the Perimeter system - a network of sensors and computers that could allow junior military officials to launch missiles without oversight from the Soviet leadership. Perhaps nobody at the Kremlin had seen the film. Completed in 1985, the system was known as the Dead Hand. Once it was activated, Perimeter would order the launch of long-range missiles at the United States if it detected nuclear detonations on Soviet soil and Soviet leaders couldn’t be reached. I believe that's check and mate, old chap?
- arethuza 10y ago
  Also some of the quotes from US military leaders at the time sound like something from Stranglove: "Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) > Accounts differ as to the degree of automation of Dead Hand... more recent sources indicate the system was semi-automatic. In a 2007 article, Ron Rosenbaum quotes Blair as saying that Dead Hand is "designed to ensure semi-automatic retaliation to a decapitating strike." Rosenbaum writes, "Of course, there's a world of difference between a 'semi-automatic' doomsday device and the totally automatic—beyond human control—doomsday device."