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Nuclear weapons, like chemical and biological, should be abolished and never be legal again. It's quite absurd to me that nuclear weapons are legal to possess,

Nuclear weapons, like chemical and biological, should be abolished and never be legal again. It's quite absurd to me that nuclear weapons are legal to possess, but not legal to use, even in self defense of a nuclear attack. [1] What a contradiction that is. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice_advisory_opinion_on_the_Legality_of_the_Threat_or_Use_of_Nuclear_Weapons#The_legality_of_the_possession_of_nuclear_weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice...

QAPereo 9y ago
How do you enforce that law against nuclear powers?
- lxmorj 9y ago
  Powerful entities that aren't geographically concentrated like traditional nation-states. Not sure what that looks like...
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Raven with a nuclear sidecar I’m afraid...
  - wmeredith 9y ago
    Franchised small nation-states. Check out Neal Stephendon's Snow Crash if that sort of thing interests you.
SerLava 9y ago
You know, that illegality really makes logical sense. It's a crime to throw a billion people into gas chambers, and it doesn't become A-OK just because someone else threw a billion people into gas chambers too.
johndevor 9y ago
Nuclear weapons are the only things that stop countries from going to war. They're why we don't have world wars any more. I think that's a big plus for nukes!
- kevmo 9y ago
  The USA convinced every nation it's at odds with that they should pursue nukes when it toppled Gaddafi after he voluntarily quit pursuing them.
  - foobarian 9y ago
    Did you mean Saddam Hussein?
    - dboreham 9y ago
      Nope.
  - alexasmyths 9y ago
    The US did not topple Gaddafi. He was in the midst of civil war when NATO did some intervention, mostly led by UK and France. Gulf Arab states on the ground hunted him down, it was Qatari forces that likely killed him. The US did some drones, AWACS and coordination, but to suggest it was the US is not quit fair.
    - Analemma_ 9y ago
      In this case, perception is reality. If the rest of the world thinks Gaddafi was toppled because he gave up his nukes, then it’s true. At least as far as the decision to pursue a nuclear program. It’s certainly what North Korea thinks.
      - alexasmyths 9y ago
        "If the rest of the world thinks Gaddafi was toppled because he gave up his nukes, then it’s true" This is not what the world thinks. Gaddafi was not about to obtain nuclear status - not even close. There's no way he would have been allowed to anyhow. Libya is a fairly small country, smaller than Chicago, fragmented, spread apart, with no industry other than some oil. North Korea is not remotely comparable to Libya - I don't think the North Koreans see a true analogy.
adrianN 9y ago
Nuclear weapons are currently our best bet if we need to get off the planet for some reason or defend it from an asteroid. For that reason alone I'd be wary of letting the tech rot completely.
- droopybuns 9y ago
  Weapons?
  - adrianN 9y ago
    Weapons! It turns out if you want to blow up an asteroid coming your way, or at least nudge it off its course, lobbing some megatons of TNTs in its general direction is a lot harder than sending over some nukes. Also, things put on top of nukes when they blow up go really high, really fast, even if they're heavy. So if you add a nuke chute to the back of your spaceship, and some mechanism for dampening the blow you can build some really awesome interplanetary transports. With enough nukes you can even go to other stars in more or less reasonable time frames!
    - Pica_soO 9y ago
      What happened to the plan to use a laser to push it of course?
    - fpoling 9y ago
      The only realistic plan to go to the stars and return within, say, 40 years without using techno-magic is to use lasers [1]. Nukes just cannot do that at all, they are only good for efficient travel within solar system. [1] - https://www.academia.edu/1884741/Roundtrip_interstellar_travel_using_laser-pushed_lightsails https://www.academia.edu/1884741/Roundtrip_interstellar_trav...
      - marcosdumay 9y ago
        The Project Orion people had extensive calculations on how to send a city-sized ship to another star on a ~100 years trip with nukes. It is laser propulsion that is techno-magic. Even today. I won't register on whatever site to read yet another article on that, but I do bet neither the lasers nor the sail on this one could be made today.
gok 9y ago
This has literally been proposed since the very first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. [1] The problem is that nuclear weapons are too attractive to powers with weaker conventional militaries. In the 40s, that meant the Soviets stalled until they had their own nukes. Today... well, see North Korea. Weaker powers will always develop and retain nuclear weapons, because it is too attractive to make it unthinkable for stronger powers to destroy them militarily. Conversely, stronger powers feel forced to maintain a deterrence force against these weaker powers. It’s really not clear there’s a way out of nuclear weapons until they’re used again. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Plan
alexasmyths 9y ago
"The problem is that nuclear weapons are too attractive to powers with weaker conventional militaries." They are attractive to everyone. Note that the 2 biggest nuclear powers also have the most powerful conventional militaries. Nuclear weapons arguably did end full scale war as we know it and the 'cold war' is not over, it's just thawed. WW2 ended due to them basically - and Korea was stalemated when Eisenhower demonstrated artillery based nukes as a 'signal' to the Chinese. Korea was the last 'real war' - since then it's been smaller scale stuff, insurgencies, smaller nations fighting, NATO overruns (Iraq, Libya, etc.). It will take another 50-100 years to denuclearize. The only way to stand-down is to create a framework wherein there is reasonable assurance of balance of power. You can see North Korea's push to nuclearize is actually fairly rational survival strategy. Once they are fully there, they are too dangerous to fight. I'm not saying I agree, I'm saying it's a reasonably rational move for a self-interested entity. As for 'ban' - who 'bans'? There is not international power than can ban this stuff. The UN? Where is the UN's army to enforce the ban? See what I mean? ...
- xyzzyz 9y ago
  WW2 ended due to them basically I don't think you'll find many historians arguing for this point. By the time the US nuked Japanese, the war in Europe was already over, and Japanese were preparing to surrender anyway. Allies had more than enough conventional firepower to destroy Japanese cities, as shown by a single bombing of Tokyo in March 1945, which had casualty toll close to Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
  - refurb 9y ago
    Japanese were preparing to surrender anyway They were so close to surrendering that after the first nuke they had several days to surrender, but didn't until they were nuked again?
  - alexasmyths 9y ago
    Yes, we all know it would have ended without them, but not as it did.
Pica_soO 9y ago
True, we didn't have a major war since 1945. Abolishing them, would teach those hippys a lesson about reasoning with psychopaths.
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
This is going to sound like a big old troll so please let me clarify from the get go that it isn't and I'm dead serious about it. I think we should keep nuclear weapons around to lessen the risk of an alien invasion. Assuming that a hostile alien species would suffer the same kind of damage as humans from high levels of radioactivity, possessing the power to turn the Earth into a ball of highly radioactive rock is a pretty damn good deterrent for what Iain M. Banks called an "out-of-context threat" (like the one the Conquistadores bestowed upon the ancient Mexicans, say- or like what we would risk faced with a technologically more advanced alien species). So although I'm actually a pacifist and I am very worried about the prospect of nuclear holocaust (especially after hearing that nuclear weapons software runs on ... Windows XP... gulp) and although I do recognise that the threat of an invasion by an alien super-civilisation is at almost as remote as the threat from an emerging superintelligence, I still think we should totally keep a few nukes around, just in case.
- notheguyouthink 9y ago
  Unrelated: Thank you for posting unpopular/fringe ideas on HN. I often see downvotes on HN, and it frustrates me. HN is a place i visit for discussion, something that is rare on places like Reddit (imo), and the crucial part to discussion is posting interesting ideas - even if likely to be unpopular.
- yesenadam 9y ago
  >I do recognise that the threat of an invasion by an alien super-civilisation is at almost as remote as the threat from an emerging superintelligence Uh.. Is that something one can 'recognise'? (It's a way of writing that begs the question.) Seems to me the threat of the first is not high, to say the least, but who knows. The threat of the second seems very high, well, at least if there are only 'a few nukes' on the planet. Otherwise nukes will get us first. I literally can't imagine 'nukes getting us first' but it does seem likely.
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    Whatever are the odds, I can't imagine nukes helping us in either situation. A digital superinteligence (should I expect it to be organic?) will be either very concentrated or backed-up everywhere. On the first case traditional explosives will give us better bang for our bucks, and lead to less collateral losses. On the second case, nuclear weapons would destroy us much sooner than the AI. On the case of aliens, the entire problem is how to reach them. If we can get some weapon into them, yes, a nuke would probably be marginally more effective than a lump of lead, but not by a large difference.

QAPereo 9y ago

How do you enforce that law against nuclear powers?

lxmorj 9y ago
Powerful entities that aren't geographically concentrated like traditional nation-states. Not sure what that looks like...
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Raven with a nuclear sidecar I’m afraid...
- wmeredith 9y ago
  Franchised small nation-states. Check out Neal Stephendon's Snow Crash if that sort of thing interests you.

SerLava 9y ago

You know, that illegality really makes logical sense. It's a crime to throw a billion people into gas chambers, and it doesn't become A-OK just because someone else threw a billion people into gas chambers too.

johndevor 9y ago

Nuclear weapons are the only things that stop countries from going to war. They're why we don't have world wars any more. I think that's a big plus for nukes!

kevmo 9y ago
The USA convinced every nation it's at odds with that they should pursue nukes when it toppled Gaddafi after he voluntarily quit pursuing them.
- foobarian 9y ago
  Did you mean Saddam Hussein?
  - dboreham 9y ago
    Nope.
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  The US did not topple Gaddafi. He was in the midst of civil war when NATO did some intervention, mostly led by UK and France. Gulf Arab states on the ground hunted him down, it was Qatari forces that likely killed him. The US did some drones, AWACS and coordination, but to suggest it was the US is not quit fair.
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    In this case, perception is reality. If the rest of the world thinks Gaddafi was toppled because he gave up his nukes, then it’s true. At least as far as the decision to pursue a nuclear program. It’s certainly what North Korea thinks.
    - alexasmyths 9y ago
      "If the rest of the world thinks Gaddafi was toppled because he gave up his nukes, then it’s true" This is not what the world thinks. Gaddafi was not about to obtain nuclear status - not even close. There's no way he would have been allowed to anyhow. Libya is a fairly small country, smaller than Chicago, fragmented, spread apart, with no industry other than some oil. North Korea is not remotely comparable to Libya - I don't think the North Koreans see a true analogy.

adrianN 9y ago

Nuclear weapons are currently our best bet if we need to get off the planet for some reason or defend it from an asteroid. For that reason alone I'd be wary of letting the tech rot completely.

droopybuns 9y ago
Weapons?
- adrianN 9y ago
  Weapons! It turns out if you want to blow up an asteroid coming your way, or at least nudge it off its course, lobbing some megatons of TNTs in its general direction is a lot harder than sending over some nukes. Also, things put on top of nukes when they blow up go really high, really fast, even if they're heavy. So if you add a nuke chute to the back of your spaceship, and some mechanism for dampening the blow you can build some really awesome interplanetary transports. With enough nukes you can even go to other stars in more or less reasonable time frames!
  - Pica_soO 9y ago
    What happened to the plan to use a laser to push it of course?
  - fpoling 9y ago
    The only realistic plan to go to the stars and return within, say, 40 years without using techno-magic is to use lasers [1]. Nukes just cannot do that at all, they are only good for efficient travel within solar system. [1] - https://www.academia.edu/1884741/Roundtrip_interstellar_travel_using_laser-pushed_lightsails https://www.academia.edu/1884741/Roundtrip_interstellar_trav...
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      The Project Orion people had extensive calculations on how to send a city-sized ship to another star on a ~100 years trip with nukes. It is laser propulsion that is techno-magic. Even today. I won't register on whatever site to read yet another article on that, but I do bet neither the lasers nor the sail on this one could be made today.

gok 9y ago

This has literally been proposed since the very first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. [1] The problem is that nuclear weapons are too attractive to powers with weaker conventional militaries. In the 40s, that meant the Soviets stalled until they had their own nukes. Today... well, see North Korea. Weaker powers will always develop and retain nuclear weapons, because it is too attractive to make it unthinkable for stronger powers to destroy them militarily. Conversely, stronger powers feel forced to maintain a deterrence force against these weaker powers. It’s really not clear there’s a way out of nuclear weapons until they’re used again. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Plan

alexasmyths 9y ago

"The problem is that nuclear weapons are too attractive to powers with weaker conventional militaries." They are attractive to everyone. Note that the 2 biggest nuclear powers also have the most powerful conventional militaries. Nuclear weapons arguably did end full scale war as we know it and the 'cold war' is not over, it's just thawed. WW2 ended due to them basically - and Korea was stalemated when Eisenhower demonstrated artillery based nukes as a 'signal' to the Chinese. Korea was the last 'real war' - since then it's been smaller scale stuff, insurgencies, smaller nations fighting, NATO overruns (Iraq, Libya, etc.). It will take another 50-100 years to denuclearize. The only way to stand-down is to create a framework wherein there is reasonable assurance of balance of power. You can see North Korea's push to nuclearize is actually fairly rational survival strategy. Once they are fully there, they are too dangerous to fight. I'm not saying I agree, I'm saying it's a reasonably rational move for a self-interested entity. As for 'ban' - who 'bans'? There is not international power than can ban this stuff. The UN? Where is the UN's army to enforce the ban? See what I mean? ...

xyzzyz 9y ago
WW2 ended due to them basically I don't think you'll find many historians arguing for this point. By the time the US nuked Japanese, the war in Europe was already over, and Japanese were preparing to surrender anyway. Allies had more than enough conventional firepower to destroy Japanese cities, as shown by a single bombing of Tokyo in March 1945, which had casualty toll close to Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
- refurb 9y ago
  Japanese were preparing to surrender anyway They were so close to surrendering that after the first nuke they had several days to surrender, but didn't until they were nuked again?
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  Yes, we all know it would have ended without them, but not as it did.

Pica_soO 9y ago

True, we didn't have a major war since 1945. Abolishing them, would teach those hippys a lesson about reasoning with psychopaths.

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

This is going to sound like a big old troll so please let me clarify from the get go that it isn't and I'm dead serious about it. I think we should keep nuclear weapons around to lessen the risk of an alien invasion. Assuming that a hostile alien species would suffer the same kind of damage as humans from high levels of radioactivity, possessing the power to turn the Earth into a ball of highly radioactive rock is a pretty damn good deterrent for what Iain M. Banks called an "out-of-context threat" (like the one the Conquistadores bestowed upon the ancient Mexicans, say- or like what we would risk faced with a technologically more advanced alien species). So although I'm actually a pacifist and I am very worried about the prospect of nuclear holocaust (especially after hearing that nuclear weapons software runs on ... Windows XP... gulp) and although I do recognise that the threat of an invasion by an alien super-civilisation is at almost as remote as the threat from an emerging superintelligence, I still think we should totally keep a few nukes around, just in case.

notheguyouthink 9y ago
Unrelated: Thank you for posting unpopular/fringe ideas on HN. I often see downvotes on HN, and it frustrates me. HN is a place i visit for discussion, something that is rare on places like Reddit (imo), and the crucial part to discussion is posting interesting ideas - even if likely to be unpopular.
yesenadam 9y ago
>I do recognise that the threat of an invasion by an alien super-civilisation is at almost as remote as the threat from an emerging superintelligence Uh.. Is that something one can 'recognise'? (It's a way of writing that begs the question.) Seems to me the threat of the first is not high, to say the least, but who knows. The threat of the second seems very high, well, at least if there are only 'a few nukes' on the planet. Otherwise nukes will get us first. I literally can't imagine 'nukes getting us first' but it does seem likely.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  Whatever are the odds, I can't imagine nukes helping us in either situation. A digital superinteligence (should I expect it to be organic?) will be either very concentrated or backed-up everywhere. On the first case traditional explosives will give us better bang for our bucks, and lead to less collateral losses. On the second case, nuclear weapons would destroy us much sooner than the AI. On the case of aliens, the entire problem is how to reach them. If we can get some weapon into them, yes, a nuke would probably be marginally more effective than a lump of lead, but not by a large difference.