4 ms·

I see one benefit from more people finally realizing that nuclear war might affect them, and be bad. I ain't no hippie, but I really hope this translates into

I see one benefit from more people finally realizing that nuclear war might affect them, and be bad. I ain't no hippie, but I really hope this translates into global nuclear disarmament once Russian imperialism is vanquished. Nuclear weapons are as sane a problem solving tool as a suicide pact.

andromeduck 4y ago
Without nuclear weapons, direct conventional war is far more likely.
- consumer451 4y ago
  Thanks for replying. While I agree, direct conventional war has a much lower likelihood of ending civilization. To be very cold about it, sure lots of people will die in direct conventional war, but they would be measured in the hundreds of thousands, not tens or hundreds of millions. Conventional war is also localized. Imagine the global economic effects (not just $, but say food and fertilizer distribution) of having clouds of fallout circling the planet. COVID lock-down ^10? ^100? ^1000?
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    > not tens or hundreds of millions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#:~:text=An%20estimated%20total%20of%2070,war%2Drelated%20disease%20and%20famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#:~:tex.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties I wonder if there's an analogous metric to wtfpm that applies to historical ignorance because it sure as hell seems to be increasing lately.
    - consumer451 4y ago
      I personally just don't see conventional war going to those numbers today, unless we completely unravel economic interdependence.
      - cwmoore 4y ago
        *ding* that would do it
      - hallway_monitor 4y ago
        If there's one good thing about global capitalism, it's that it has replaced outright violence as the best way to gain power!
      - kneebonian 4y ago
        I've posted about this too many times to repeat so your wrong WW1 yada yada
      - throwaway4aday 4y ago
        That's the same line of thinking that most people had prior to WW1 so I wouldn't be so sure. s/Germany/China/g and things will unravel pretty fast.
      - reisse 4y ago
        Syrian civil war is above 1m military and civilian casualties. War in Yemen and US invasion in Iraq are close.
  - gdy 4y ago
    26 millions of Soviet citizens died in the World War 2. Unless you think that Untermensch aren't people.
- epistemer 4y ago
  It even constrains what is done in conventional war too. Firebombing on the level of Dresden or Tokoyo would also lead to nuclear war now so those brutal tactics can't really be used anymore either. We also can't underestimate with disarmament the dangerous equilibrium of a country lying about disarmament while believing most other countries have disarmed. We might be forming a new dangerous equilibrium now though anyway with fighting a proxy war against a conventionally far weaker nuclear power.
  - cableshaft 4y ago
    Not the first time a proxy war was fought with them. The Cold War was basically four decades of proxy wars between the US and Russia. Doesn't make this not dangerous, of course. It was a dangerous game back then, too.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > The Cold War was basically four decades of proxy wars between the US and Russia. Including direct conflict that both sides pretended to be proxy conflict to manage public demands for escalation abd political fallout in the event of defeat.
roenxi 4y ago
There is a certain self-contradiction in your post - there is no question that without nukes Putin would end up in the same place as Saddam Hussein. And indeed that the Ukraine invasion couldn't have happened if they had had nukes (although what happens through the Ukrainian revolution is unclear - maybe the Russians would just have invaded then). The way war and peace have worked out over the last 70 years has making it quite clear that nuclear disarmament is unilateral suicide. Strategists across Asia are identifying that they need nukes to hold off, in no particular order, India, China and the US.
- consumer451 4y ago
  > There is a certain self-contradiction in your post I agree, there is. I am well aware of the Budapest memorandum, and in another comment I may have said something like "If Ukraine teaches us anything, it's to never give up your nukes." This still does not resolve the issue from the POV which an alien observer might experience. From that POV, you have a species which sits on the edge of self-annihilation. The replies here seem to indicate that this will be an unsolvable problem, forever. I still hope otherwise. So maybe I am a actually "hippie" in this regard. In any case, I should have qualified my OP much more.
  - FpUser 4y ago
    >"The replies here seem to indicate that this will be an unsolvable problem, forever." I can imagine that in a very long term people might evolve to the point of not needing to kill each other. But as it stands now every country is more than willing to commit murders at scale to achieve their goals assuming they're reasonably safe from "proper payback" or big economic losses.
    - consumer451 4y ago
      What drives me nuts about the current situation is that the power over nuclear annihilation currently rests in the hands of a number of people who could be fit into a small hotel. This is one of the few benefits of the centralization of power which we currently experience. You really just need a few hundred people to reach this consensus. We may never be in a better place in history to solve this problem as we are in today.
pjc50 4y ago
I feel like the same questions have been asked since Oppenheimer, and we're no closer to actual resolution. The Ukraine war makes disarmament much less likely, since Ukraine did actually surrender their nukes (Budapest memorandum https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P... ), and as a result they got invaded. How can we provide security guarantees that are better than that?
- rapjr9 4y ago
  So give Ukraine a few nukes-on-missiles and they'll be on a more equal footing with Russia and the entire nature of the war will change? It obviously is an escalation, but an escalation that seems likely to de-escalate the entire war. Russia would not be so sanguine if Moscow and St. Petersberg were at risk. Of course the downside is Putin may not care and use nukes anyway and just hope their anti-missile systems protect them. However, Russia broke the pact so it only makes sense to give Ukraine their nukes back.
FpUser 4y ago
From what I see nukes are the only thing that can protect less equipped countries from the invasion should they refuse to dance to the prescribed tune. One can argue that they needed the invasion by being bad girl but it is beyond the point. Everyone wants to live however they understand it.
newsclues 4y ago
I’ve always viewed nuclear power as the path to nuclear disarmament, since you can turn weapons into fuel. But it seems the storage problem and the renewable clean energy and environmental activists won’t view nuclear disarmament as part of the power revolution.

andromeduck 4y ago

Without nuclear weapons, direct conventional war is far more likely.

consumer451 4y ago
Thanks for replying. While I agree, direct conventional war has a much lower likelihood of ending civilization. To be very cold about it, sure lots of people will die in direct conventional war, but they would be measured in the hundreds of thousands, not tens or hundreds of millions. Conventional war is also localized. Imagine the global economic effects (not just $, but say food and fertilizer distribution) of having clouds of fallout circling the planet. COVID lock-down ^10? ^100? ^1000?
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  > not tens or hundreds of millions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#:~:text=An%20estimated%20total%20of%2070,war%2Drelated%20disease%20and%20famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#:~:tex.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties I wonder if there's an analogous metric to wtfpm that applies to historical ignorance because it sure as hell seems to be increasing lately.
  - consumer451 4y ago
    I personally just don't see conventional war going to those numbers today, unless we completely unravel economic interdependence.
    - cwmoore 4y ago
      *ding* that would do it
    - hallway_monitor 4y ago
      If there's one good thing about global capitalism, it's that it has replaced outright violence as the best way to gain power!
    - kneebonian 4y ago
      I've posted about this too many times to repeat so your wrong WW1 yada yada
    - throwaway4aday 4y ago
      That's the same line of thinking that most people had prior to WW1 so I wouldn't be so sure. s/Germany/China/g and things will unravel pretty fast.
    - reisse 4y ago
      Syrian civil war is above 1m military and civilian casualties. War in Yemen and US invasion in Iraq are close.
- gdy 4y ago
  26 millions of Soviet citizens died in the World War 2. Unless you think that Untermensch aren't people.
epistemer 4y ago
It even constrains what is done in conventional war too. Firebombing on the level of Dresden or Tokoyo would also lead to nuclear war now so those brutal tactics can't really be used anymore either. We also can't underestimate with disarmament the dangerous equilibrium of a country lying about disarmament while believing most other countries have disarmed. We might be forming a new dangerous equilibrium now though anyway with fighting a proxy war against a conventionally far weaker nuclear power.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  Not the first time a proxy war was fought with them. The Cold War was basically four decades of proxy wars between the US and Russia. Doesn't make this not dangerous, of course. It was a dangerous game back then, too.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > The Cold War was basically four decades of proxy wars between the US and Russia. Including direct conflict that both sides pretended to be proxy conflict to manage public demands for escalation abd political fallout in the event of defeat.

roenxi 4y ago

There is a certain self-contradiction in your post - there is no question that without nukes Putin would end up in the same place as Saddam Hussein. And indeed that the Ukraine invasion couldn't have happened if they had had nukes (although what happens through the Ukrainian revolution is unclear - maybe the Russians would just have invaded then). The way war and peace have worked out over the last 70 years has making it quite clear that nuclear disarmament is unilateral suicide. Strategists across Asia are identifying that they need nukes to hold off, in no particular order, India, China and the US.

consumer451 4y ago
> There is a certain self-contradiction in your post I agree, there is. I am well aware of the Budapest memorandum, and in another comment I may have said something like "If Ukraine teaches us anything, it's to never give up your nukes." This still does not resolve the issue from the POV which an alien observer might experience. From that POV, you have a species which sits on the edge of self-annihilation. The replies here seem to indicate that this will be an unsolvable problem, forever. I still hope otherwise. So maybe I am a actually "hippie" in this regard. In any case, I should have qualified my OP much more.
- FpUser 4y ago
  >"The replies here seem to indicate that this will be an unsolvable problem, forever." I can imagine that in a very long term people might evolve to the point of not needing to kill each other. But as it stands now every country is more than willing to commit murders at scale to achieve their goals assuming they're reasonably safe from "proper payback" or big economic losses.
  - consumer451 4y ago
    What drives me nuts about the current situation is that the power over nuclear annihilation currently rests in the hands of a number of people who could be fit into a small hotel. This is one of the few benefits of the centralization of power which we currently experience. You really just need a few hundred people to reach this consensus. We may never be in a better place in history to solve this problem as we are in today.

pjc50 4y ago

I feel like the same questions have been asked since Oppenheimer, and we're no closer to actual resolution. The Ukraine war makes disarmament much less likely, since Ukraine did actually surrender their nukes (Budapest memorandum https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P... ), and as a result they got invaded. How can we provide security guarantees that are better than that?

rapjr9 4y ago
So give Ukraine a few nukes-on-missiles and they'll be on a more equal footing with Russia and the entire nature of the war will change? It obviously is an escalation, but an escalation that seems likely to de-escalate the entire war. Russia would not be so sanguine if Moscow and St. Petersberg were at risk. Of course the downside is Putin may not care and use nukes anyway and just hope their anti-missile systems protect them. However, Russia broke the pact so it only makes sense to give Ukraine their nukes back.

FpUser 4y ago

From what I see nukes are the only thing that can protect less equipped countries from the invasion should they refuse to dance to the prescribed tune. One can argue that they needed the invasion by being bad girl but it is beyond the point. Everyone wants to live however they understand it.

newsclues 4y ago

I’ve always viewed nuclear power as the path to nuclear disarmament, since you can turn weapons into fuel. But it seems the storage problem and the renewable clean energy and environmental activists won’t view nuclear disarmament as part of the power revolution.