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In a sense the dice are rolled constantly. Every time someone monitors a nuclear power’s early warning system there is a risk that system will return a false po

In a sense the dice are rolled constantly. Every time someone monitors a nuclear power’s early warning system there is a risk that system will return a false positive. There is a chance the operator won’t recognize it. There is a chance the geopolitical situation will cause leadership to believe it is a true positive. There is a chance they will choose to launch on warning rather than risk loosing the opportunity at a meaningful counter attack. I agree that it’s probably impossible to estimate the probability, but it is definitely greater than 0. Eventually the dice will come up snake eyes. Hopefully not before we figure out how to stop rolling them.

LeonB 5y ago
The original article does this straw man trick of pretending that the models act like every day is independent. That’s not how it works at all. They’re not modelling the chance of a spontaneous war erupting without cause on day X. Motivated authors just pretend that’s what the models mean because it makes it easy to ridicule. Regarding this — “it’s probably impossible to estimate the probability” - ok - well. I think we have to unpack that a lot! I would say: “we can model the event.” That’s an absolute. (Anyone who disagrees with that statement just does not understand the statement) It does not mean the models are accurate. The model will provide probabilities. How much confidence can we have in the probabilities? Now this is where the difficulty lies. The probability itself will be a low number. And our confidence won’t be very high. That’s automatically creates an opening for any bad faith commentator to say launch an attack. And yet… what’s the alternative? Pretend it cannot be modelled as various commentators in this page (but not you) have done? Pretend that a model with low probabilities or low confidence can be dismissed? The best response (if we agree that nuclear war is a Bad Thing and worth avoiding) is to improve the models, not ignore them - and of course in so doing —- to try and avoid nuclear war.

LeonB 5y ago

The original article does this straw man trick of pretending that the models act like every day is independent. That’s not how it works at all. They’re not modelling the chance of a spontaneous war erupting without cause on day X. Motivated authors just pretend that’s what the models mean because it makes it easy to ridicule. Regarding this — “it’s probably impossible to estimate the probability” - ok - well. I think we have to unpack that a lot! I would say: “we can model the event.” That’s an absolute. (Anyone who disagrees with that statement just does not understand the statement) It does not mean the models are accurate. The model will provide probabilities. How much confidence can we have in the probabilities? Now this is where the difficulty lies. The probability itself will be a low number. And our confidence won’t be very high. That’s automatically creates an opening for any bad faith commentator to say launch an attack. And yet… what’s the alternative? Pretend it cannot be modelled as various commentators in this page (but not you) have done? Pretend that a model with low probabilities or low confidence can be dismissed? The best response (if we agree that nuclear war is a Bad Thing and worth avoiding) is to improve the models, not ignore them - and of course in so doing —- to try and avoid nuclear war.