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That's amazing. It's terrifying to take a step back from this and think about how much incredibly sophisticated technology had to go into ensuring that we coul

That's amazing. It's terrifying to take a step back from this and think about how much incredibly sophisticated technology had to go into ensuring that we could wipe out the human race in minutes. And then, of course, there's all the technology handling the safety guards. Because we obviously don't want to wipe out the human race in minutes, so we have all these protocols and failsafes to ensure that doesn't happen unless it's really supposed to happen. All for ... nothing. Nothing, in the sense that every time Russia built more ICBMs the US had to build more ICBMs. That tit-for-tat got to incredibly absurd levels. So all of this ludicrously complex technologies, from the missiles travelling to space, the lauching of multiple guided warheads, the safety guards and nuclear weapons, the trillions of dollars ... for nothing. All a game of "mine is bigger than yours" for strategic deterence. Hopefully it stays that way.

office_drone 2y ago
> ... had to go into ensuring that we could wipe out the human race in minutes. That was never ensured. Historical casualty projections expected that, in the event of large scale nuclear attacks, the majority of the involved countries' populations would survive not only the attack but the conditions afterward.
- candiddevmike 2y ago
  For how much afterwards though?
  - jasomill 2y ago
    Indefinitely, even in the case of near-total destruction. While not exactly historical fiction, this scene from Dr. Strangelove comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y
    - morbicer 2y ago
      Have you seen Threads? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ I think the irradiation of soil everywhere would mean a total collapse of agriculture. Maybe some tribes in Papua-Ginea would survive but I am pretty sure only ghouls could live in USA and Europe.
stevenwoo 2y ago
John Von Neumann comes up in a lot of tech topics but he had some monstrous opinions particularly on this - he thought game theory proved that USSR and USA would go to war if both sides had nukes and recommended the USA strike first in order to win in the early years of USA almost monopoly on nukes.

office_drone 2y ago

> ... had to go into ensuring that we could wipe out the human race in minutes. That was never ensured. Historical casualty projections expected that, in the event of large scale nuclear attacks, the majority of the involved countries' populations would survive not only the attack but the conditions afterward.

candiddevmike 2y ago
For how much afterwards though?
- jasomill 2y ago
  Indefinitely, even in the case of near-total destruction. While not exactly historical fiction, this scene from Dr. Strangelove comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y
  - morbicer 2y ago
    Have you seen Threads? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ I think the irradiation of soil everywhere would mean a total collapse of agriculture. Maybe some tribes in Papua-Ginea would survive but I am pretty sure only ghouls could live in USA and Europe.

stevenwoo 2y ago

John Von Neumann comes up in a lot of tech topics but he had some monstrous opinions particularly on this - he thought game theory proved that USSR and USA would go to war if both sides had nukes and recommended the USA strike first in order to win in the early years of USA almost monopoly on nukes.