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The prevalence of close calls on the Soviet side, and their likely existence on the American side too, suggests thst the MAD system is robust to false positives
by laretluval 9y ago
The prevalence of close calls on the Soviet side, and their likely existence on the American side too, suggests thst the MAD system is robust to false positives.
- vkou 9y agoWhen I play Russian Roulette, and I pull the trigger four times with no ill effects, that does not indicate that the revolver is robust against false firings. This is the poster child for survivourship bias. How robust are we talking about? Do you think the odds of a nuclear war in your lifetime are <1%? I certainly do not.
- glhaynes 9y agoOn a time scale of about 50 years.
- mikeash 9y agoCan you quantify "robust"? The fact that these incidents have happened and armageddon has not yet happened suggests that the probability of accidental nuclear war is relatively low. But how low? Maybe the odds are one in a million per year. Maybe the odds are one in a hundred per year. I'd say that both numbers are compatible with the publicly known facts, but result in wildly different conclusions. The former number suggests that nuclear war is a minor worry and we should concentrate elsewhere. The latter suggests that human civilization is very likely to be destroyed in this way, and we should do everything possible to avert it.