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What makes you say that? Multiple wars have taken place in the 60 years or so since global nuclear war has become possible. Most of those wars have involved at
by seszett 8y ago
What makes you say that?
Multiple wars have taken place in the 60 years or so since global nuclear war has become possible. Most of those wars have involved at least one, sometimes several of the great nuclear powers, including as (somewhat indirect) opponents.
Nuclear war doesn't seem to break out that easily.
- crispinb 8y agoHe's making the point that the politics of a human cull are feasible (ie. a nation with nukes can decide to unilaterally launch), whereas those of emission reduction are intractable (ie. requiring a serious global agreement).
- TeMPOraL 8y agoI admit it was a lazy snark, but 'crispinb understood it correctly. Nuclear war is easy to start, because one nation can unilaterally decide it. The world has also been through Cold War, when a nuclear exchange seemed like a strong attractor that we barely managed to break free of. The stories of that era are about how effort and luck helped us not nuke ourselves. But my point here can be extended to non-nuclear wars, population-elimination strategies (genocide) and extreme population control (sterilization, one-child-max-or-else). They're all adversarial, and this is something that comes easy to humans. Whereas implementing policies to help deal with climate require coordination at scale, which is something we particularly suck at.
- crispinb 8y ago> implementing policies to help deal with climate require coordination at scale, which is something we particularly suck at. Yes, quite. We're primates with a impressive cognitive, linguistic & cultural abilities, but there's nothing in our makeup or history to offer much confidence that we are capable of making hard collective decisions on a planetary scale. The naked ape may have hit its limits.