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My first intuition is how much confidence do you have that a new device that no one has ever used will behave the way the computer says it will.

by cm2187 7y ago

everyone 7y ago
Nuclear weapons are deterrents.. The goal is for them never to be used. If they didnt actually work at all that would be great. That would just be a layer of safety in case in some catastrophic turn of events they accidentally got used.
- gambiting 7y ago
  >> That would just be a layer of safety in case in some catastrophic turn of events they accidentally got used. Well, not really, if one of the superpowers sees ICBMs flying their way, they will retaliate immediately, no one will wait around to see if they actually explode or not.
  - benplumley 7y ago
    I think the point was that if the retaliation ICBMs fail in the same way, we as a species get a second chance to resolve the conflict without extinction.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  The deterrent is only as strong as peoples' belief in it. If the weapons were all faulty, and mere suggestion of it leaked out to world leaders, we'd be back in pre-MAD days in a second.
gambiting 7y ago
I mean, just as an example, literally the entire landing sequence for the Curiosity rover we sent to mars hasn't been tested in reality before the actual mission. NASA could prove that it "should" work but no actual proof could be produced(especially the sky crane part hasn't been tested), and it was a mission that has nearly deplated our entire stock of plutonium, so you'd think there would be some way to make sure this incredibly complex landing sequence will actually you know, work.
Baeocystin 7y ago
The Castle Bravo test is a good example of that. More than double the expected yield, simply because our model of Lithium 7 was inaccurate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo Big errors like this have all been tested and modeled away, but the problem is exceedingly complex, and I am just as certain enough uncertainty remains in the current models to be a genuine concern.

My first intuition is how much confidence do you have that a new device that no one has ever used will behave the way the computer says it will.

by cm2187 7y ago

My first intuition is how much confidence do you have that a new device that no one has ever used will behave the way the computer says it will.

everyone 7y ago

Nuclear weapons are deterrents.. The goal is for them never to be used. If they didnt actually work at all that would be great. That would just be a layer of safety in case in some catastrophic turn of events they accidentally got used.

gambiting 7y ago
>> That would just be a layer of safety in case in some catastrophic turn of events they accidentally got used. Well, not really, if one of the superpowers sees ICBMs flying their way, they will retaliate immediately, no one will wait around to see if they actually explode or not.
- benplumley 7y ago
  I think the point was that if the retaliation ICBMs fail in the same way, we as a species get a second chance to resolve the conflict without extinction.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
The deterrent is only as strong as peoples' belief in it. If the weapons were all faulty, and mere suggestion of it leaked out to world leaders, we'd be back in pre-MAD days in a second.

gambiting 7y ago

I mean, just as an example, literally the entire landing sequence for the Curiosity rover we sent to mars hasn't been tested in reality before the actual mission. NASA could prove that it "should" work but no actual proof could be produced(especially the sky crane part hasn't been tested), and it was a mission that has nearly deplated our entire stock of plutonium, so you'd think there would be some way to make sure this incredibly complex landing sequence will actually you know, work.

Baeocystin 7y ago

The Castle Bravo test is a good example of that. More than double the expected yield, simply because our model of Lithium 7 was inaccurate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo Big errors like this have all been tested and modeled away, but the problem is exceedingly complex, and I am just as certain enough uncertainty remains in the current models to be a genuine concern.