Einstein was referring to the hydrogen bomb of course. If high tech superpowers went at each other full bore with H bombs we’d probably be LARPing Mad Max, but

Einstein was referring to the hydrogen bomb of course. If high tech superpowers went at each other full bore with H bombs we’d probably be LARPing Mad Max, but so far that hasn’t happened and seems unlikely. All leaders in all these powers know that any such exchange would be mutual and thus suicidal (MAD) so the only way it happens is if you get someone truly insane in power. What has happened since the bomb was developed and what’s likely to continue are skirmishes and proxy wars. Drones are the modern weapon of such conflicts with Ukraine and the Israel-Iran skirmish being heavily drone based. This is ugly because it’s often not the soldiers of the superpower puppet masters dying but those of puppet states, and drones allow more technological powers to beat up on less technological people like it’s a video game. If nukes are used in conflict in this century it will probably be just a few in one of these conflicts, followed by an overwhelming condemnation. But the silver lining is that since the bomb was developed the overall per capita number of humans dying in war globally has fallen dramatically. As long as we continue to avoid huge scale conflict this number will probably stay low. Without the bomb it’s likely that a WWII style conflict between the US and USSR would have erupted and killed many millions more. Some argue based on this that the bomb was a peacekeeping invention. So far that’s been true but we will see how the future goes.