4 ms·

It's still more likely that you need to react given that the alarm has gone off. P(attack | alarm) >= P(attack) Unless the alarm is literally random, or even

by Jabbles 10y ago

It's still more likely that you need to react given that the alarm has gone off. P(attack | alarm) >= P(attack) Unless the alarm is literally random, or even anti-correlated with being attacked. The alarm is still useful. Remember that the penalty for missing a true alarm is possibly even worse that reacting to a false alarm.

sandworm101 10y ago
>> Remember that the penalty for missing a true alarm is possibly even worse that reacting to a false alarm. That depends on the scenario. The US for a few years advocated a "total" nuclear response to any use of nukes against western nations. The theory went that any limited nuclear exchange would inevitably escalate. So to win you want to fire everything in the first round. In such scenarios ignoring a true alarm, not triggering the planned world-ending response, may be the safer choice. One nuke in the US, and zero in the USSR, may be the better outcome than hundreds landing on each side. (See "The Sum of All Fears" for how that plays out.)
duaneb 10y ago
More likely, but how much more? That seems necessary to discern to make that decision rationally.
tachyonbeam 10y ago
I'm not so sure about that. It's called "mutually assured destruction" for a reason. If you have an alarm, there is some probability that it's a false one. If the US were to respond to a false alarm by say, nuking Russia, they could expect a 100% chance that Russia would retaliate. The retaliation would be extremely severe if either the US or Russia gets nuked. You have to think that in addition to all ground-based silos (some of which would definitely survive a nuclear strike), there are stealth subs with nuclear capabilities going around. Even if the US or Russia "lost" a nuclear war, these subs would be there to exercise some kind of vengeance, and make sure that the other side is destroyed as well. If some alarm goes off and there is some chance that nukes are going to hit the US, the safest course of action is probably to prepare to retaliate, but wait as long as possible to confirm that there is an incoming nuclear strike. This might even mean waiting to confirm that some US targets have been hit before retaliating. You also should be pretty god-damn sure you know who initiated that strike before you retaliate. China, for instance, has a limited number of ICBMs. They couldn't destroy the US even if they wanted to. Russia, on the other hand, could nuke the entire world multiple times.
- arethuza 10y ago
  As an aside - worth noting that one of the UK's Trident submarines is actually called HMS Vengeance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vengeance_(S31) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vengeance_(S31)
- Jabbles 10y ago
  I meant that ignoring the alarm completely is wrong (see GP), and that some kind of reaction is needed rather than suggesting a complete retaliation.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  > If the US were to respond to a false alarm by say, nuking Russia, they could expect a 100% chance that Russia would retaliate. Unless the attack successfully disables their response. I don't think it makes sense to rely on that, but it's definitely a point that has factored into various calculations around this issue over the years.
empath75 10y ago
What's the penalty for missing the alarm? You're already fucked. It's not like those missiles aren't going to land. All you achieve by retaliating is killing the other half of humanity.
- bambax 10y ago
  Exactly. What good does it do? Unilateral nuclear disarmament is a solution that seems to be rarely discussed. The real reason so many countries have or want to have nuclear weapons is not to ever use them or even so that they serve as a deterrent against a largely hypothetical enemy; it's as a badge of "greatness". That's why rational arguments against nuclear weapons or which attempt to describe the utter craziness of it all, have so little impact.
conistonwater 10y ago
I think this isn't right because P(attack | alarm) is not the right quantity to study/optimize. That's what you optimize only if you believe that you "win" if you guess right whether the attack was real. But that's unreasonable in this context. One must consider that installing sensors comes with a cost of its own (even in terms of having to come up with protocols for handling them), one must define one's own utility function for the different outcomes, and one must come up with a sensible decision rule. Estimating P(attack | alarm) is not quite the point. I think P(attack | alarm) > P(attack) does not by itself imply that paying attention to alarms is the right thing to do. > Remember that the penalty for missing a true alarm is possibly even worse that reacting to a false alarm. The outcome of reacting to a false alarm is exactly the same as the outcome of reacting to a true alarm, and, arguably, the same as the outcome of not reacting or reacting only partially—it's all -∞ basically.

by Jabbles 10y ago

sandworm101 10y ago

>> Remember that the penalty for missing a true alarm is possibly even worse that reacting to a false alarm. That depends on the scenario. The US for a few years advocated a "total" nuclear response to any use of nukes against western nations. The theory went that any limited nuclear exchange would inevitably escalate. So to win you want to fire everything in the first round. In such scenarios ignoring a true alarm, not triggering the planned world-ending response, may be the safer choice. One nuke in the US, and zero in the USSR, may be the better outcome than hundreds landing on each side. (See "The Sum of All Fears" for how that plays out.)

duaneb 10y ago

More likely, but how much more? That seems necessary to discern to make that decision rationally.

tachyonbeam 10y ago

I'm not so sure about that. It's called "mutually assured destruction" for a reason. If you have an alarm, there is some probability that it's a false one. If the US were to respond to a false alarm by say, nuking Russia, they could expect a 100% chance that Russia would retaliate. The retaliation would be extremely severe if either the US or Russia gets nuked. You have to think that in addition to all ground-based silos (some of which would definitely survive a nuclear strike), there are stealth subs with nuclear capabilities going around. Even if the US or Russia "lost" a nuclear war, these subs would be there to exercise some kind of vengeance, and make sure that the other side is destroyed as well. If some alarm goes off and there is some chance that nukes are going to hit the US, the safest course of action is probably to prepare to retaliate, but wait as long as possible to confirm that there is an incoming nuclear strike. This might even mean waiting to confirm that some US targets have been hit before retaliating. You also should be pretty god-damn sure you know who initiated that strike before you retaliate. China, for instance, has a limited number of ICBMs. They couldn't destroy the US even if they wanted to. Russia, on the other hand, could nuke the entire world multiple times.

arethuza 10y ago
As an aside - worth noting that one of the UK's Trident submarines is actually called HMS Vengeance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vengeance_(S31) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vengeance_(S31)
Jabbles 10y ago
I meant that ignoring the alarm completely is wrong (see GP), and that some kind of reaction is needed rather than suggesting a complete retaliation.
dllthomas 10y ago
> If the US were to respond to a false alarm by say, nuking Russia, they could expect a 100% chance that Russia would retaliate. Unless the attack successfully disables their response. I don't think it makes sense to rely on that, but it's definitely a point that has factored into various calculations around this issue over the years.

empath75 10y ago

What's the penalty for missing the alarm? You're already fucked. It's not like those missiles aren't going to land. All you achieve by retaliating is killing the other half of humanity.

bambax 10y ago
Exactly. What good does it do? Unilateral nuclear disarmament is a solution that seems to be rarely discussed. The real reason so many countries have or want to have nuclear weapons is not to ever use them or even so that they serve as a deterrent against a largely hypothetical enemy; it's as a badge of "greatness". That's why rational arguments against nuclear weapons or which attempt to describe the utter craziness of it all, have so little impact.

conistonwater 10y ago

I think this isn't right because P(attack | alarm) is not the right quantity to study/optimize. That's what you optimize only if you believe that you "win" if you guess right whether the attack was real. But that's unreasonable in this context. One must consider that installing sensors comes with a cost of its own (even in terms of having to come up with protocols for handling them), one must define one's own utility function for the different outcomes, and one must come up with a sensible decision rule. Estimating P(attack | alarm) is not quite the point. I think P(attack | alarm) > P(attack) does not by itself imply that paying attention to alarms is the right thing to do. > Remember that the penalty for missing a true alarm is possibly even worse that reacting to a false alarm. The outcome of reacting to a false alarm is exactly the same as the outcome of reacting to a true alarm, and, arguably, the same as the outcome of not reacting or reacting only partially—it's all -∞ basically.