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As mentioned in the article -- if the bomb is large enough, that no longer matters. You can detonate it wherever it happens to be and destroy your target -- alo

As mentioned in the article -- if the bomb is large enough, that no longer matters. You can detonate it wherever it happens to be and destroy your target -- along with yourself, and everyone else on the planet. Whether this is a useful strategy remains (unfortunately) up for debate.

hotpotamus 5y ago
If the goal is mutually assured destruction, then wouldn't it be more economical for all countries to just share one bomb rather than duplicate all the development efforts and go to the trouble of putting rockets under them?
- lapetitejort 5y ago
  Perhaps form an alliance with as many countries as desired, each of which gets one button wired in parallel with the rest. If any one country were to feel threatened by any other, they could just hover their hand over it.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    But with all things geopolitical, how many buttons must be pushed to reach a consensus? Or better phrased, how many do not have to push the button to make it useless?
- lliamander 5y ago
  But who gets to push the button?
  - duskwuff 5y ago
    It hardly matters. Once the button is pushed, there's no one left to care who pushed it.
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  That's a hilariously rational proposition! The whole world working together for a single goal, it's beautiful.
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  We're pretty much doing that now with global warming.
  - duskwuff 5y ago
    Except in reverse. Everyone is refusing to take their finger off of the button.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  That would be a brilliant premise for a dystopian story I think, have it set a hundred years after the single bomb was created. There could be an international organisation set to guard and if necessary detonate it, the plot could revolve around a team desperately trying to debug 100 year old sensors and triggers nobody really understands any more because the documentation is so secret.
foobarian 5y ago
I took that note as hyperbole myself. But the other comments about dev testing the bomb were interesting - there was (thankfully!) serious concern about fallout wherever the bomb would end up getting tested.
dragontamer 5y ago
The Dr. Strangelove movie was excellent in its satire of this concept. Its an insane concept, and no normal / rational human would ever dream of that argument. But the problem is that we are not all rational people. The majority of the people in the movie are rational, it only took a couple of crazies to turn the whole situation into a darkly hilarious and apocalyptic turn of events. --------- Spoilers for the old movie: That's exactly the point of the doomsday device. The problem in the movie, is that the Russians didn't announce the existence of the doomsday device yet... they were __planning__ to inform the USA on Dimitri Kissov birthday next week. Which is... a comedic but somewhat believable reason to hold back on the announcement of such a weapon. So the Russians were only crazy because they didn't inform the USA of the weapon yet. And it only took one crazy commander ("Precious Bodily Fluids") to go against the US President and start the nuclear war.

hotpotamus 5y ago

If the goal is mutually assured destruction, then wouldn't it be more economical for all countries to just share one bomb rather than duplicate all the development efforts and go to the trouble of putting rockets under them?

lapetitejort 5y ago
Perhaps form an alliance with as many countries as desired, each of which gets one button wired in parallel with the rest. If any one country were to feel threatened by any other, they could just hover their hand over it.
- dylan604 5y ago
  But with all things geopolitical, how many buttons must be pushed to reach a consensus? Or better phrased, how many do not have to push the button to make it useless?
lliamander 5y ago
But who gets to push the button?
- duskwuff 5y ago
  It hardly matters. Once the button is pushed, there's no one left to care who pushed it.
brokenmachine 5y ago
That's a hilariously rational proposition! The whole world working together for a single goal, it's beautiful.
brokenmachine 5y ago
We're pretty much doing that now with global warming.
- duskwuff 5y ago
  Except in reverse. Everyone is refusing to take their finger off of the button.
BoxOfRain 5y ago
That would be a brilliant premise for a dystopian story I think, have it set a hundred years after the single bomb was created. There could be an international organisation set to guard and if necessary detonate it, the plot could revolve around a team desperately trying to debug 100 year old sensors and triggers nobody really understands any more because the documentation is so secret.

foobarian 5y ago

I took that note as hyperbole myself. But the other comments about dev testing the bomb were interesting - there was (thankfully!) serious concern about fallout wherever the bomb would end up getting tested.

dragontamer 5y ago

The Dr. Strangelove movie was excellent in its satire of this concept. Its an insane concept, and no normal / rational human would ever dream of that argument. But the problem is that we are not all rational people. The majority of the people in the movie are rational, it only took a couple of crazies to turn the whole situation into a darkly hilarious and apocalyptic turn of events. --------- Spoilers for the old movie: That's exactly the point of the doomsday device. The problem in the movie, is that the Russians didn't announce the existence of the doomsday device yet... they were __planning__ to inform the USA on Dimitri Kissov birthday next week. Which is... a comedic but somewhat believable reason to hold back on the announcement of such a weapon. So the Russians were only crazy because they didn't inform the USA of the weapon yet. And it only took one crazy commander ("Precious Bodily Fluids") to go against the US President and start the nuclear war.