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This is why my number 1 fear for the destruction of humanity is not climate change, plague, asteroids, or super volcanoes. It’s nuclear weapons. One wrong “Oop

This is why my number 1 fear for the destruction of humanity is not climate change, plague, asteroids, or super volcanoes. It’s nuclear weapons. One wrong “Oops!” by the military and the entire world self-destructs in mutually assured annihilation. Absolutely depressing.

grp000 7y ago
I looked up nuclear close calls because I thought false positive almost-launches only happened once or twice in the past. I had no idea the last one was in 1995 or that there were much more close calls than I expected. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls
- boomboomsubban 7y ago
  The last one likely wasn't 1995, that's the most recent publicly known. There is no way that India, Pakistan, and China have zero combined close calls.
- kevin_nisbet 7y ago
  I think it may have gotten some criticism at one point (I guess what doesn't these days), but probably one of my favorite books is on this topic, Command and Control. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book) It goes through a number of accidents that I wasn't personally aware of, but also goes through a number of political items that make the whole situation very scary, Such as I think it was the US Air Forces massive push back to putting any codes on the weapon triggers, or setting every code to 0000 when finally forced to do so. Or how a technician was able to smuggle out a training nuclear bomb to show his girlfriend what he did at work, which was stored with the live nuclear bombs. Anyways, super interesting book.
perl4ever 7y ago
One oops and maybe something gets nuked, but I don't think it makes any sense to worry about the whole world being destroyed. Why would they? I mean, if the US was hit, it would be like 9/11 only bigger, and I'm sure people would be talking about glass parking lots, but why would all the missiles be launched towards everywhere? Who wants to destroy the world and why wouldn't they have done it already? Same goes for any other country.
- arthurcolle 7y ago
  I think you don't have an appreciation of the devastation that modern thermonuclear warheads are capable of, as well as the sophisticated delivery systems that the United States has concocted and refined over many, many years.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Modern warheads are smaller, not larger - everybody knows that. And what "sophisticated" means is better targeting, which is why smaller weapons can be used. Those things seem to point away from blowing up the entire world. I don't know if it's true, but there was a rumor that if one wanted to, it would be technically feasible to make a hydrogen bomb of unlimited size - e.g. crack the planet in half. However, that path was not taken.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    I think the B83 (1.2 megatons) is the highest yield weapon currently in the US arsenal. Which, while terrible (9 megatons ~= pressure wave that levels most structures in a largish city), pales in comparison to something like the B41 (25 megatons) or the B53 (9 megatons). Generally speaking, the US and Russia both realized (~70s) that building excessively large bombs was inflexible and a waste of resources. The actual first-order effects are generally smaller than what you'd expect: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
    - cma 7y ago
      MIRVs have multiple smaller bombs, that can do much more damage than a single of equivalent tonnage to their cumulative (due to volume being more concentrated over ground plane, like cluster bombs).
- ethbro 7y ago
  > why would all the missiles be launched towards everywhere? Because that's the way nuclear deterrent theory works. If you collapse the game theory calculus down, it turns into "Any technology or action that makes it less likely an adversary will respond with an unacceptable counterstrike on me makes it more likely that I will consider a first strike a viable option." Examples of technologies or activities with this result: missile defense, hypersonic reentry vehicles, hard target capable systems, smaller / tactical-sized warheads, launch site or attacker obfuscation. Raising the likelihood that in the event anything happens to me I will ensure an unacceptable number of nukes are delivered to your country is one of the easier ways of ensuring deterrence and making the entire business unpalatable. Nobody wants to destroy the world. But it's in everyone's interest to make everyone else think they're absolutely willing-to and capable-of, in the event they're strategically attacked.
chime 7y ago
Aka The Great Filter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
- powerbroker 7y ago
  This is what scares me. That life springs up all around us in our galaxy, and promptly 'F's it up before we even discover radio communications. So, if we ever find life, say on a Jovian moon, we've just increased the odds that there have been intelligent life... that just wasn't intelligent to not knock each other out.
sebazzz 7y ago
Or a software bug or hack of course. The ignition of a weapon is just some relais somewhere. The targeting is all digital also nowadays. But indeed, the biggest bug of them all is us, humanity.

grp000 7y ago

I looked up nuclear close calls because I thought false positive almost-launches only happened once or twice in the past. I had no idea the last one was in 1995 or that there were much more close calls than I expected. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls

boomboomsubban 7y ago
The last one likely wasn't 1995, that's the most recent publicly known. There is no way that India, Pakistan, and China have zero combined close calls.
kevin_nisbet 7y ago
I think it may have gotten some criticism at one point (I guess what doesn't these days), but probably one of my favorite books is on this topic, Command and Control. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book) It goes through a number of accidents that I wasn't personally aware of, but also goes through a number of political items that make the whole situation very scary, Such as I think it was the US Air Forces massive push back to putting any codes on the weapon triggers, or setting every code to 0000 when finally forced to do so. Or how a technician was able to smuggle out a training nuclear bomb to show his girlfriend what he did at work, which was stored with the live nuclear bombs. Anyways, super interesting book.

perl4ever 7y ago

One oops and maybe something gets nuked, but I don't think it makes any sense to worry about the whole world being destroyed. Why would they? I mean, if the US was hit, it would be like 9/11 only bigger, and I'm sure people would be talking about glass parking lots, but why would all the missiles be launched towards everywhere? Who wants to destroy the world and why wouldn't they have done it already? Same goes for any other country.

arthurcolle 7y ago
I think you don't have an appreciation of the devastation that modern thermonuclear warheads are capable of, as well as the sophisticated delivery systems that the United States has concocted and refined over many, many years.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Modern warheads are smaller, not larger - everybody knows that. And what "sophisticated" means is better targeting, which is why smaller weapons can be used. Those things seem to point away from blowing up the entire world. I don't know if it's true, but there was a rumor that if one wanted to, it would be technically feasible to make a hydrogen bomb of unlimited size - e.g. crack the planet in half. However, that path was not taken.
- ethbro 7y ago
  I think the B83 (1.2 megatons) is the highest yield weapon currently in the US arsenal. Which, while terrible (9 megatons ~= pressure wave that levels most structures in a largish city), pales in comparison to something like the B41 (25 megatons) or the B53 (9 megatons). Generally speaking, the US and Russia both realized (~70s) that building excessively large bombs was inflexible and a waste of resources. The actual first-order effects are generally smaller than what you'd expect: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
  - cma 7y ago
    MIRVs have multiple smaller bombs, that can do much more damage than a single of equivalent tonnage to their cumulative (due to volume being more concentrated over ground plane, like cluster bombs).
ethbro 7y ago
> why would all the missiles be launched towards everywhere? Because that's the way nuclear deterrent theory works. If you collapse the game theory calculus down, it turns into "Any technology or action that makes it less likely an adversary will respond with an unacceptable counterstrike on me makes it more likely that I will consider a first strike a viable option." Examples of technologies or activities with this result: missile defense, hypersonic reentry vehicles, hard target capable systems, smaller / tactical-sized warheads, launch site or attacker obfuscation. Raising the likelihood that in the event anything happens to me I will ensure an unacceptable number of nukes are delivered to your country is one of the easier ways of ensuring deterrence and making the entire business unpalatable. Nobody wants to destroy the world. But it's in everyone's interest to make everyone else think they're absolutely willing-to and capable-of, in the event they're strategically attacked.

chime 7y ago

Aka The Great Filter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

powerbroker 7y ago
This is what scares me. That life springs up all around us in our galaxy, and promptly 'F's it up before we even discover radio communications. So, if we ever find life, say on a Jovian moon, we've just increased the odds that there have been intelligent life... that just wasn't intelligent to not knock each other out.

sebazzz 7y ago

Or a software bug or hack of course. The ignition of a weapon is just some relais somewhere. The targeting is all digital also nowadays. But indeed, the biggest bug of them all is us, humanity.