3 ms·

Self-destruction is a kind of violence

• cheph 6y ago
  And the doomsday clock is not a measure of violence, safety or self-destruction. It is a measure of the opinion of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
  • sgt101 6y ago
    It represents something about the greatest tail risk that our society faces. This afternoon 300m people could die, all of our major ports, cultural centres, top 250 research institutes and universities, top 100 ports, most major hospitals, most power stations and on and on could be destroyed. This afternoon. The rolling consequence of this event would lead to a large number of subsequent deaths - possibly billions - within 2 years. Progress and development would be stopped for years everywhere, many regions would fall backwards by 50 or 100 years. It's possible that human civilisation would never recover. Some matter of opinion.
    • cheph 6y ago
      > It represents something about the greatest tail risk that our society faces. through what mechanism? How is the time connected to this and what procedure can I undertake to devise the number other than poll the people who set it for what they think it should be? And why should I substitute this for the definition of safety?
      • sgt101 6y ago
        There are some clear indicators that you can use : - number of warheads active - number of anti-ballistic measures in play - active conflicts involving nuclear armed powers - active conflicts between nuclear armed powers - new nuclear technologies (ie. Bayesian fuses, hyper-sonic maneuverability, suppressed trajectories) - new nuclear powers/capabilities (ie. NK gets H-bomb, NK and India deploy boomers) - change in treaties (withdrawals) - threats made by national leaders I don't know what you mean by "definition of safety" - while there are thousands of nuclear weapons in play no one is actually safe, ever.