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I'd argue the cold war was closer to the 'hinge of history'. In fact on this very day 9/26 in 1983, a not very well known soviet lieutenant colonel prevented w

I'd argue the cold war was closer to the 'hinge of history'. In fact on this very day 9/26 in 1983, a not very well known soviet lieutenant colonel prevented what would very likely have been all out atomic war. In the grand scheme of things, everything that happened this year is probably minor in comparison to Petrov's decision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

flexie 6y ago
True. But very few people knew on September 26, 1986. There could be equally large catastrophes avoided today that we don’t know about
- drewcoo 6y ago
  There are known hinges and unknown hinges?
  - radus 6y ago
    There are also known unknown hinges.
    - klysm 6y ago
      Semi-known unknown hinges
sandworm101 6y ago
There were a great many other close calls. Rarely did it boil down to one person, but all sorts of things brought us dangerously close. And those are only the ones we know about. Who knows what mistakes have never been made public. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mist... >>As it happens, on this occasion there was no imposter – at least, not a human one. The figure skulking around the fence is thought to have been a large black bear. It was all a mistake. But back at Volk Field, the squadron was still unaware of this fact. They had been told there would be no practice runs, and as they boarded their planes, they were entirely convinced that this was it –World War Three had begun.
- peterhartree 6y ago
  Wikipedia has a good list of nuclear close calls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls
simonh 6y ago
I think the Cold War, and even WW2 are part of the current period when it comes to the ‘hinge of history’ argument. They’re not saying this year is the most influential, or even this decade. I think it comes down to the explosive industrial growth and technological advances over the last few hundred years, and next hundred years or so. It’s a unique confluence of incredible capability with little understanding of the consequences of using it. Nobody 100 years ago had the slightest clue that the industrialisation at the time could cause global warming, for example. As for examples of pivotal moments, WW2 is a good example. We came very close to the world being completely dominated by Orwell style authoritarian one party states. A boot stamping on a human face, forever. It might even still happen. With social engineering and modern surveillance technology as used in China, we could end up in a super-stable oppressive regime with no way out. Nuclear annihilation is another example. We came scarily close several times as you pointed out. Global warming is a huge issue, it may even be too late to stop massive changes in our environment that will last thousands of years and shape human history and global biology permanently. Genetic engineering could change who and what we are as a species in ways that might be hard or impossible to undo. It’s not any one of these that create the hinge either though, it’s all of them happening together.
- lrem 6y ago
  I'm afraid democracies are inherently unstable. Athenian lasted 200 years and got swallowed up by Macedonian autocracy. Roman lasted 500 years and got overthrown by the army. Polish lasted 350 years and the parliament voted to allow neighbouring empires to divide the country. The US is at 250 years and people are seriously worried about it devolving into either Gilead or Cyberpunk any moment now.
  - Gravityloss 6y ago
    Most things have finite lifespans. The benchmark for a form of government is certainly not that it should be eternal and continuous. Look at some cities in Europe. Many have waxed and waned, some even many times. They have been parts of different countries and empires. Many have influenced the world greatly for the better.
sharken 6y ago
Avoiding the atomic war in 1983 is a much larger historic event without a doubt. If anything the current time marks the point where politicians were given too much control of otherwise free countries.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Oh, it's today (er, yesterday in my TZ). I completely forgot. So a little late, but: happy Stanislav Petrov day!
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  https://xkcd.com/2052/ https://xkcd.com/2052/
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
Maybe we should call it Petrov Day?
- aeternum 6y ago
  Yes, some do, and lesswrong.com started running an interesting social experiment every year: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XfHXQPPKNY8BXkn72/honoring-petrov-day-on-lesswrong-in-2020 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XfHXQPPKNY8BXkn72/honoring-p...
Fricken 6y ago
The threat of global thermonuclear warfare hasn't diminished. The nukes are still with us.
sbmthakur 6y ago
Claims of Petrov preventing an "atomic war" are debatable. There were probably other checks built into the Soviet protocol and chain of command that would have easily detected the false positive. https://www.quora.com/How-close-did-we-come-to-a-nuclear-war-in-1983/answer/Thierry-Etienne-Joseph-Rotty-2 https://www.quora.com/How-close-did-we-come-to-a-nuclear-war...
thansz 6y ago
The cold war was very bad, but in my opinion the risk is still high and growing. The Petrov incident was just one of many close calls that have been publicly disclosed during the short time nuclear weapons have existed. - Vasily Arkhipov was a Soviet submarine flotilla commander in charge of a submersed fleet that was being bombarded by depth charges from US navel ships. A captain on one of the subs thought war had broken out and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. Vasily thought the bombardment was a signal for the submarines to surface. He was right, a ceasefire had been announced and the warships were dropping practice depth charges to try and signal the submarines should surface and communicate. link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov_(vice_admiral)#Involvement_in_Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov_(vice_admiral)... - Boris Yeltsin sat in front of an activated nuclear briefcase because Soviet radar detected an inbound US nuclear missile. The launch location and trajectory matched a war game scenerio of the US detonating a nuclear missile in the atmosphere, causing an EMP to wipe out Soviet electronics. His military officers wanted him to launch a counter attack and he only had minutes to decide. Turned out to be a missile launched to study atmospheric conditions. The Soviets were notified, as were other nations, but the message didn't get to all forces due to the internal strife and collapse the USSR was undergoing. Link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident - A computer simulation of an incoming Soviet nuclear attack was accidentally fed into NORADs network. Everyone thought it was real. The National Security Advisor was awakened by a call and almost called the President, but was luckily able to determine it wasn't real. Link - https://gizmodo.com/the-computer-simulation-that-almost-started-world-war-i-1686123550 https://gizmodo.com/the-computer-simulation-that-almost-star... There is a whole list of other incidents. Yes, many of them occurred during the cold war. They seem to have slowed down as time goes on, maybe nations are just better at covering things up. You still have incidents like in Hawaii, where residents were notified of an incoming ballistic missile from North Korea and that it WAS NOT a drill. Turned out to be a drill...(or was it)? The number of nuclear weapons worldwide has decreased, but proliferation has increased. Think of each nuclear capable nation as a node in a weighted graph. Each node is connected to every other node. The weight is the probability of conflict between the two nodes. Each time a node is added, risk goes up (proliferation). You can have dramatic changes in foreign and domestic policy, risk goes up (US politics anyone?). You can have long standing animosity between countries (India/Pakistan), risk goes up. You can have new animosities (India/China), risk goes up. There can be just plain system bugs or miscommunication as illustrated in the examples listed above. Now throw in the ramifications of climate change like political instability, infrastructure strain, resource scarcity, and refugee migrations into the mix. Or a truly mad guy with a nuke. We haven't had large scale war for a long time, but as countries deal with internal pressures and external competition for resources and global standing, the risk is never off the table. I would says the risks are still high today and are rising.
biolurker1 6y ago
The documentary is wonderful called "the man who saved the world"
disown 6y ago
It's amazing how well propaganda works. The idea that he prevented an atomic war is absurd. Firstly, he was a lieutenant colonel. Had no power to start anything let alone nuclear war. Secondly, even if he had accepted the false alarms, people up the chain of command would have figured out it was a false alarm. In what scenario would the US only launch 5 nukes? The story is obvious nonsense or propaganda and yet it gets posted over and over on social media. Why? > Petrov's decision. Petrov's decision is one of the most overhyped propaganda on social media. It's a non-story turned into a story for some reason. If people just took the time to think about the content rather than mindlessly consuming content maybe we'd get less nonsense.
Zigurd 6y ago
You can look at the present day as a loud echo of the end of the Cold War. Today's "hinge" is in large measure the culmination of Putin's revanchist asymmetrical war on the West. If he fails to get his man in America, and if Europe contains the nationalism in Hungary and Poland and passes a "European Magnitsky Act" in response to the poisoning of Navalny, we will see the end of the Putin era, and eventually see Russia join Europe. Or will see the power center of the West shift to Europe, and a more powerful, and expansionist Russia threaten peace in Europe.
vagab0nd 6y ago
On the same day, there was also a rocket launch explosion: https://whataday.info/e/2958951 https://whataday.info/e/2958951

flexie 6y ago

True. But very few people knew on September 26, 1986. There could be equally large catastrophes avoided today that we don’t know about

drewcoo 6y ago
There are known hinges and unknown hinges?
- radus 6y ago
  There are also known unknown hinges.
  - klysm 6y ago
    Semi-known unknown hinges

sandworm101 6y ago

There were a great many other close calls. Rarely did it boil down to one person, but all sorts of things brought us dangerously close. And those are only the ones we know about. Who knows what mistakes have never been made public. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mist... >>As it happens, on this occasion there was no imposter – at least, not a human one. The figure skulking around the fence is thought to have been a large black bear. It was all a mistake. But back at Volk Field, the squadron was still unaware of this fact. They had been told there would be no practice runs, and as they boarded their planes, they were entirely convinced that this was it –World War Three had begun.

peterhartree 6y ago
Wikipedia has a good list of nuclear close calls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls

simonh 6y ago

I think the Cold War, and even WW2 are part of the current period when it comes to the ‘hinge of history’ argument. They’re not saying this year is the most influential, or even this decade. I think it comes down to the explosive industrial growth and technological advances over the last few hundred years, and next hundred years or so. It’s a unique confluence of incredible capability with little understanding of the consequences of using it. Nobody 100 years ago had the slightest clue that the industrialisation at the time could cause global warming, for example. As for examples of pivotal moments, WW2 is a good example. We came very close to the world being completely dominated by Orwell style authoritarian one party states. A boot stamping on a human face, forever. It might even still happen. With social engineering and modern surveillance technology as used in China, we could end up in a super-stable oppressive regime with no way out. Nuclear annihilation is another example. We came scarily close several times as you pointed out. Global warming is a huge issue, it may even be too late to stop massive changes in our environment that will last thousands of years and shape human history and global biology permanently. Genetic engineering could change who and what we are as a species in ways that might be hard or impossible to undo. It’s not any one of these that create the hinge either though, it’s all of them happening together.

lrem 6y ago
I'm afraid democracies are inherently unstable. Athenian lasted 200 years and got swallowed up by Macedonian autocracy. Roman lasted 500 years and got overthrown by the army. Polish lasted 350 years and the parliament voted to allow neighbouring empires to divide the country. The US is at 250 years and people are seriously worried about it devolving into either Gilead or Cyberpunk any moment now.
- Gravityloss 6y ago
  Most things have finite lifespans. The benchmark for a form of government is certainly not that it should be eternal and continuous. Look at some cities in Europe. Many have waxed and waned, some even many times. They have been parts of different countries and empires. Many have influenced the world greatly for the better.

sharken 6y ago

Avoiding the atomic war in 1983 is a much larger historic event without a doubt. If anything the current time marks the point where politicians were given too much control of otherwise free countries.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Oh, it's today (er, yesterday in my TZ). I completely forgot. So a little late, but: happy Stanislav Petrov day!

MauranKilom 6y ago
https://xkcd.com/2052/ https://xkcd.com/2052/

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

Maybe we should call it Petrov Day?

aeternum 6y ago
Yes, some do, and lesswrong.com started running an interesting social experiment every year: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XfHXQPPKNY8BXkn72/honoring-petrov-day-on-lesswrong-in-2020 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XfHXQPPKNY8BXkn72/honoring-p...

Fricken 6y ago

The threat of global thermonuclear warfare hasn't diminished. The nukes are still with us.

sbmthakur 6y ago

Claims of Petrov preventing an "atomic war" are debatable. There were probably other checks built into the Soviet protocol and chain of command that would have easily detected the false positive. https://www.quora.com/How-close-did-we-come-to-a-nuclear-war-in-1983/answer/Thierry-Etienne-Joseph-Rotty-2 https://www.quora.com/How-close-did-we-come-to-a-nuclear-war...

thansz 6y ago

The cold war was very bad, but in my opinion the risk is still high and growing. The Petrov incident was just one of many close calls that have been publicly disclosed during the short time nuclear weapons have existed. - Vasily Arkhipov was a Soviet submarine flotilla commander in charge of a submersed fleet that was being bombarded by depth charges from US navel ships. A captain on one of the subs thought war had broken out and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. Vasily thought the bombardment was a signal for the submarines to surface. He was right, a ceasefire had been announced and the warships were dropping practice depth charges to try and signal the submarines should surface and communicate. link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov_(vice_admiral)#Involvement_in_Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov_(vice_admiral)... - Boris Yeltsin sat in front of an activated nuclear briefcase because Soviet radar detected an inbound US nuclear missile. The launch location and trajectory matched a war game scenerio of the US detonating a nuclear missile in the atmosphere, causing an EMP to wipe out Soviet electronics. His military officers wanted him to launch a counter attack and he only had minutes to decide. Turned out to be a missile launched to study atmospheric conditions. The Soviets were notified, as were other nations, but the message didn't get to all forces due to the internal strife and collapse the USSR was undergoing. Link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident - A computer simulation of an incoming Soviet nuclear attack was accidentally fed into NORADs network. Everyone thought it was real. The National Security Advisor was awakened by a call and almost called the President, but was luckily able to determine it wasn't real. Link - https://gizmodo.com/the-computer-simulation-that-almost-started-world-war-i-1686123550 https://gizmodo.com/the-computer-simulation-that-almost-star... There is a whole list of other incidents. Yes, many of them occurred during the cold war. They seem to have slowed down as time goes on, maybe nations are just better at covering things up. You still have incidents like in Hawaii, where residents were notified of an incoming ballistic missile from North Korea and that it WAS NOT a drill. Turned out to be a drill...(or was it)? The number of nuclear weapons worldwide has decreased, but proliferation has increased. Think of each nuclear capable nation as a node in a weighted graph. Each node is connected to every other node. The weight is the probability of conflict between the two nodes. Each time a node is added, risk goes up (proliferation). You can have dramatic changes in foreign and domestic policy, risk goes up (US politics anyone?). You can have long standing animosity between countries (India/Pakistan), risk goes up. You can have new animosities (India/China), risk goes up. There can be just plain system bugs or miscommunication as illustrated in the examples listed above. Now throw in the ramifications of climate change like political instability, infrastructure strain, resource scarcity, and refugee migrations into the mix. Or a truly mad guy with a nuke. We haven't had large scale war for a long time, but as countries deal with internal pressures and external competition for resources and global standing, the risk is never off the table. I would says the risks are still high today and are rising.

biolurker1 6y ago

The documentary is wonderful called "the man who saved the world"

disown 6y ago

It's amazing how well propaganda works. The idea that he prevented an atomic war is absurd. Firstly, he was a lieutenant colonel. Had no power to start anything let alone nuclear war. Secondly, even if he had accepted the false alarms, people up the chain of command would have figured out it was a false alarm. In what scenario would the US only launch 5 nukes? The story is obvious nonsense or propaganda and yet it gets posted over and over on social media. Why? > Petrov's decision. Petrov's decision is one of the most overhyped propaganda on social media. It's a non-story turned into a story for some reason. If people just took the time to think about the content rather than mindlessly consuming content maybe we'd get less nonsense.

Zigurd 6y ago

You can look at the present day as a loud echo of the end of the Cold War. Today's "hinge" is in large measure the culmination of Putin's revanchist asymmetrical war on the West. If he fails to get his man in America, and if Europe contains the nationalism in Hungary and Poland and passes a "European Magnitsky Act" in response to the poisoning of Navalny, we will see the end of the Putin era, and eventually see Russia join Europe. Or will see the power center of the West shift to Europe, and a more powerful, and expansionist Russia threaten peace in Europe.

vagab0nd 6y ago

On the same day, there was also a rocket launch explosion: https://whataday.info/e/2958951 https://whataday.info/e/2958951