4 ms·

Can game theory not be of use here? There are 3 scenarios: 1. No countries should own WMD. 2. Some countries can and others can't. 3. All countries should

• minikites 7y ago
  People in the USA own a lot of firearms and there are more firearm-related crimes and accidents in the USA compared to countries with low rates of firearm ownership.
  • nybble41 7y ago
    The USA is a big place, and the "firearm-related" crimes you're referring to are predominately in large urbanized areas where firearm ownership is prohibited.
    • minikites 7y ago
      >large urbanized areas where firearm ownership is prohibited Which is why we need national action. Criminals in Chicago buy firearms in neighboring Indiana, criminals in New York City buy firearms in neighboring Connecticut. The parallel to atomic weapons is similar. If many nations own atomic weapons, it's easier for an unstable/untrustworthy state to acquire them.
      • nybble41 7y ago
        Obviously the criminals get their firearms from somewhere else since they can't be purchased legally inside the city, but you'll never eliminate every possible source. Even if you put up a massive wall and have 100% success in eliminating smuggling (which is obviously impossible) these things just aren't that hard to manufacture locally using commonly available and benign tools and materials. Criminals will still have them, and regular citizens will have an even harder time defending themselves.
        • minikites 7y ago
          >these things just aren't that hard to manufacture locally using commonly available and benign tools and materials So this should be a big problem in nations with strict firearm laws, correct?
          • LyndsySimon 7y ago
            Like this? https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/deadly-diy-homemade-guns-hit-sydney-streets-in-record-numbers/news-story/5fdb4a462ef3c50afc70522879813fe7 https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/deadly-diy-homema... https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/homemade-submachine-guns-seized-near-edmonton-1.3558129 https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/homemade-submachine-guns-seize...
            • minikites 7y ago
              The first article doesn't list how many firearms are supposedly "hitting the streets" and includes this quote: >Mr Plotecki said that while there was no evidence the homemade guns had been used by local extremists, it was a concern for the future. The second article is about the seizure of four firearms. Truly a menace.
• cjsaylor 7y ago
  Why is option 3 the best choice? Doesn't that significantly increase the chances of accidents?
  • ak39 7y ago
    Option 3 is better than option 2 because it is more likely that a country with WMD will use them against a country without them (for fear of retaliation). Option 3 is an equal standoff.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
• docdeek 7y ago
  This was broadly the position of one of the most influential theorists in international relations (IR), Kenneth Waltz. His paper "The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Better” is a great read. [1] From his conclusion: "Those who dread a world with more nuclear states do little more than assert that more is worse and claim without substantiation that new nuclear states will be less responsible and less capable of self-control than the old ones have been. They express fears that many felt when they imagined how a nuclear China would behave. Such fears have proved un-rounded as nuclear weapons have slowly spread. I have found many reasons for believ­ing that with more nuclear states the world will have a promising future." [1]: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/waltz1.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/waltz1.htm
• bordercases 7y ago
  How about another option: 1 country owns a WMD?
  • servercobra 7y ago
    You can't unopen Pandora's box. It worked well enough for the few years only the US had WMDs, but that could never last.
• StavrosK 7y ago
  The more countries own WMD, the more likely it is that one will use them.
• exikyut 7y ago
  Thought experiment: option 1 is chosen, and the world proceeds to spend the the next 50-100 years obsessing over whose WMDs, exactly, have any nonzero chances of ever, ever misfiring. Humanity embarks on a top-down superoptimization campaign to perfect technology to the point that this question can be answered with ever-increasingly-higher levels of detail. Follow-on: the question of whether the ensuing yak shaving causes us to realize the WMDs are unnecessary, or whether military-driven paperclip maximization accidentally wipes out humanity.
• sputr 7y ago
  As a thought, not opinion: The benefit of option 2 over option 3 is that in the case where just enough countries have WMDs so that if anyone drops a WMD someone will respond but no other countries do you also minimize the number of surfaces for mistakes/abuses.
• WAHa_06x36 7y ago
  What's so "surely" about it?
  • ak39 7y ago
    Because now that some already have WMD, none of them is likely to give them up. The only option is for others to have them.
    • WAHa_06x36 7y ago
      Why would that make things better, rather than the fairly obvious "worse"?
• nybble41 7y ago
  > Only agreement 1 can be guaranteed to save humanity. That doesn't work either—some country will defect and develop WMDs in secret and then take over the world. Of the choices you present, the only reasonable option is ubiquitous access to WMDs (option 3), with the understanding that anyone found using them for any purpose other than a proportional response to a existential threat will be ruthlessly annihilated by everyone else.
  • minikites 7y ago
    >the understanding that anyone found using them for any purpose other than a proportional response to a existential threat will be ruthlessly annihilated by everyone else I don't understand how this outcome results in anything other than the extinction of human life on this planet.
• nkingsy 7y ago
  Option 3 meaning all countries should be able to project nuclear power on all other countries as part of the definition of sovereignty? It’s kind of a cool thought. The current nation state map seems arbitrary for such gravitas.
• tlrobinson 7y ago
  3 only works if all countries: a. have stable and rational governments, now and in perpetuity b. do a perfect job of securing the weapons c. can't covertly provide weapons to terrorists willing to use them I don't think anyone thinks it's a good idea to give say, Somalia (to pick one example), nuclear weapons.
  • keiferski 7y ago
    On the other hand, one could make the argument that, if Somalia had nuclear weapons, the world community would be incentivized to establish and maintain a secure government there. Not sure if I buy this argument, but I think it's worth considering.
• bionsystem 7y ago
  Options 1 and 2 have been tested through time. It seems that option 2 actually makes for less wars and less deaths from war than option 1, so there is a progress. Should we test option 3, and how do we roll back if it doesn't work out and turns out to be the worst option ?
• AndrewOMartin 7y ago
  This model is only valid under the assumption that all countries are equal, as that is not the case we find ourselves somewhere in a multidimensional, temporal, observer-relative, non-euclidean, indeterminate, irreducibly complex, continuous "option 2".
• xscott 7y ago
  > Only agreement 1 can be guaranteed to save humanity. Who says that's everyone's goal? There are plenty of people in the world, and even in this forum, who only care about saving "some" of humanity. And in topics about the environment or population, you'll find people (even on this forum) who aren't interested in saving any of it. > Can game theory not be of use here? Probably, but only if you understand the actual rules people are playing.