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The exact same logic applies to nuclear weapons. How many lives have they saved by being a credible deterrent over the decades? Every country should be allowed

The exact same logic applies to nuclear weapons. How many lives have they saved by being a credible deterrent over the decades? Every country should be allowed to possess them, or else none should. I'm not even sure if the latter is desirable (it'll lead to millions of deaths in conventional warfare), but it doesn't matter, since it is completely impossible (the tech exists, so it will be used, invariably). We're left with only one logical option.

bayindirh 6y ago
Then let's declassify all nuclear weapon designs and allow everyone to build a lot of them. Furthermore, let's create economic programs to build a baseline nuclear arsenal in every country. That'll prevent a lot of wars. Some countries will object to that. Why? Isn't everlasting peace much better? Edit: Do I need to point out that I'm not writing these comments in support of war, but with a desire to spark a thoughtful conversation?
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  MAD works because both sides have something to lose. If you give a nuke to Osama bin Laden, he uses it. At the same time, I feel like there's still something there. Having nuclear weapons makes existing states much more resistant to opposition. Other states can't topple them in the traditional way because of MAD. But neither can local freedom fighters -- suppose pro-democracy forces took three major cities in China and started using them as an industrial base to wage a conventional war against the regime. The US and anyone else couldn't really help them the way France did the nascent American Revolution, because of MAD. And if they actually started winning regardless, couldn't the dying regime nuke the rebel cities? If we don't want people to live under permanent authoritarianism, maybe we still need something to level the playing field. Though it doesn't necessarily have to be nukes; establishing uncensorable distributed communications comes to mind as an anti-authoritarian power. The fact that Western countries aren't spending billions to comprehensively subvert the Great Firewall is a significant strategic failure.
  - tgragnato 6y ago
    > The fact that Western countries aren't spending billions to comprehensively subvert the Great Firewall is a significant strategic failure. I have strong opinions in this matter. The GFW is only possible because of metadata leaks that Western countries are exploiting too, for security and surveillance, or whatever. Suppose Western countries start investing billions in subverting the Golden Shield, our own infrastructure and economy would suffer too. A very naive but simple example: I tried to train https://github.com/Kkevsterrr/geneva https://github.com/Kkevsterrr/geneva against a CheckPoint and a Fortinet ... It's not been fun for those "next gen firewalls", and CheckPoint is a NASDAQ-100, Fortinet an S&P 500.
- chasd00 6y ago
  the problem with nukes everywhere is one is going to get stolen or sold and used.
jariel 6y ago
The nuclear question work entirely against your argument, and illustrates the naivte of the 'everyone or nobody' concept as totally unworkable. 'Nukes bring peace' mostly only if they are in the hands of a few major, stable powers, otherwise, nuclear proliferation probably is very bad. These kinds of moral absolutions, i.e. projecting 'rights' into nations etc. (either we all have the right or nobody does) are pragmatically irrational. Every nation is different, in a different set of circumstances, there's always some degree of moral relativism, but there's some degree of objectivity as well. We have to balance the forces to figure out what to do in a complex world, and the rules may not always be so cut and dry.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
refurb 6y ago
No, that’s not logical at all. When ISIS creates its own state in some fragment of Syria, I don’t want them to have nukes because unlike Russia or Israel, they don’t really care if they get destroyed thus MAD as a deterrent doesn’t work.

bayindirh 6y ago

Then let's declassify all nuclear weapon designs and allow everyone to build a lot of them. Furthermore, let's create economic programs to build a baseline nuclear arsenal in every country. That'll prevent a lot of wars. Some countries will object to that. Why? Isn't everlasting peace much better? Edit: Do I need to point out that I'm not writing these comments in support of war, but with a desire to spark a thoughtful conversation?

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
MAD works because both sides have something to lose. If you give a nuke to Osama bin Laden, he uses it. At the same time, I feel like there's still something there. Having nuclear weapons makes existing states much more resistant to opposition. Other states can't topple them in the traditional way because of MAD. But neither can local freedom fighters -- suppose pro-democracy forces took three major cities in China and started using them as an industrial base to wage a conventional war against the regime. The US and anyone else couldn't really help them the way France did the nascent American Revolution, because of MAD. And if they actually started winning regardless, couldn't the dying regime nuke the rebel cities? If we don't want people to live under permanent authoritarianism, maybe we still need something to level the playing field. Though it doesn't necessarily have to be nukes; establishing uncensorable distributed communications comes to mind as an anti-authoritarian power. The fact that Western countries aren't spending billions to comprehensively subvert the Great Firewall is a significant strategic failure.
- tgragnato 6y ago
  > The fact that Western countries aren't spending billions to comprehensively subvert the Great Firewall is a significant strategic failure. I have strong opinions in this matter. The GFW is only possible because of metadata leaks that Western countries are exploiting too, for security and surveillance, or whatever. Suppose Western countries start investing billions in subverting the Golden Shield, our own infrastructure and economy would suffer too. A very naive but simple example: I tried to train https://github.com/Kkevsterrr/geneva https://github.com/Kkevsterrr/geneva against a CheckPoint and a Fortinet ... It's not been fun for those "next gen firewalls", and CheckPoint is a NASDAQ-100, Fortinet an S&P 500.
chasd00 6y ago
the problem with nukes everywhere is one is going to get stolen or sold and used.

jariel 6y ago

The nuclear question work entirely against your argument, and illustrates the naivte of the 'everyone or nobody' concept as totally unworkable. 'Nukes bring peace' mostly only if they are in the hands of a few major, stable powers, otherwise, nuclear proliferation probably is very bad. These kinds of moral absolutions, i.e. projecting 'rights' into nations etc. (either we all have the right or nobody does) are pragmatically irrational. Every nation is different, in a different set of circumstances, there's always some degree of moral relativism, but there's some degree of objectivity as well. We have to balance the forces to figure out what to do in a complex world, and the rules may not always be so cut and dry.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

refurb 6y ago

No, that’s not logical at all. When ISIS creates its own state in some fragment of Syria, I don’t want them to have nukes because unlike Russia or Israel, they don’t really care if they get destroyed thus MAD as a deterrent doesn’t work.