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This isn't nearly as terrifying as the Cold War with the USSR. We're not threatened with nuclear war, nor having the near misses that could trigger it (Cuban mi

This isn't nearly as terrifying as the Cold War with the USSR. We're not threatened with nuclear war, nor having the near misses that could trigger it (Cuban missile crisis). No one is building bomb shelters in their backyards, because right now the balance of power is very much in the United States' favor. Could things get there with another nuclear enabled power like China? Maybe, in time. Iran is not an existential threat to the US, not anywhere close to what the Soviets were. The Israelis see things differently I'm sure, but this is far from the situation in 60s - 80s.

ck2 14y ago
Just like the TSA it's our government that is far more terrifying than any imaginary threat they are supposedly protecting us against. And don't underestimate the Iranian government, they are not a third-world country like some people imagine out of ignorance - I really feel sorry for the Iranian people getting caught up in this mess.
- davidw 14y ago
  > imaginary threat Err... while I'm not stepping in to defend the TSA, I think that to call the threat imaginary ignores recent history.
  - fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
    The threat is absolutely imaginary. Obviously we have real threats, but that is NOT what the security theater is about. The security theater is mostly about purely imaginary threats. And is in fact worse at stopping the few real threats we have. Original security theater idea is from Bruce Schneier, Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater
    - davidw 14y ago
      > The threat is absolutely imaginary. Obviously we have real threats I'm not following you. Nor am I saying that I think the TSA is a good thing or an appropriate response to the threats.
  - bestes 14y ago
    Can you please cite your example(s)?
  - cjdavis 14y ago
    While the threat of terrorism is not imaginary, it is certainly negligible compared to other threats.
    - jerf 14y ago
      The physical terrorism threat is negligible. The generalized cheap-attack-with-disproportionate-damage threat I can't in good conscience write off quite so readily. Biological attacks are still scarily possible, and if we start talking computer viruses it becomes scarier again. Recall Stuxnet didn't merely inconvenience people, it destroyed hardware. If someone manages to write a virus that, say, destroys a significant number of power plant turbines, we're talking about a disaster that does in fact start killing people in addition to general inconvenience. Electricity really really is one of the lifebloods of civilization, and while the phrase lifeblood is obvious not literal it's more literal than it may appear on first glance. Cut it off and real people will really be hurt and killed. Personally I'd rate this class of threat comfortably above asteroid impact or solar flare-type disaster.
      - kbolino 14y ago
        Terrorist victims in 2001: 3,000 Murder victims in 2001: 15,000 Car collision fatalities in 2001: 42,000 Cancer deaths in 2001: 550,000 The only thing that's disproportionate is how we react to terrorism. (statistics are for United States)
        jerf 14y ago
        That's a canned knee-jerk response, not one that shows you read my message. That's not relevant data to the question of what future bioattacks or computer attacks are possible... and note my continued avoidance of the term "terrorism". Once an attack is launched the source isn't very relevant. Failing to secure our infrastructure because "terrorism isn't something to be afraid of" is still a stupid move because it leaves you open to not-terrorism just as much.
        ThomPete 14y ago
  - mistercow 14y ago
    It is an imaginary large threat based on a real small threat. Wolves that attack Puerto Rican goat herds in the night are real, but the mythological chupacabra based on them is still imaginary.
why-el 14y ago
I might have read you wrong, but in case you meant China doesn't have nuclear power, you are mistaken.
- lambersley 14y ago
  I believe the point is, what if a cold war scenario was to happen between China and USA; China being nuclear-equipped
  - acuozzo 14y ago
    > I believe the point is, what if a cold war scenario was to happen between China and USA; China being nuclear-equipped It wouldn't matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutually_assured_destruction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutually_assured_destruction
    - viscanti 14y ago
      Your faith in rational human behavior is much stronger than mine. All it takes is one person making an irrational decision (driven by anger, false sense of security, accident or other) to essentially doom everyone. Death-row is filled with people who made similar decisions (do something even though the consequences of that were dire), all it takes is one person making a similar decision on a bigger scale. MAD doesn't prevent anything, it at best postpones things and at worst forces both sides to escalate to the point where they feel they can completely destroy the other even given significant losses (i.e. building significantly more bombs than they need to destroy the planet).
bluedanieru 14y ago
The war itself isn't nearly as terrifying, but somehow the US government is finding it even easier to erode civil liberties now than it ever did during the Cold War.
- berntb 14y ago
  >>somehow the US government is finding it even easier to erode civil liberties now than it ever did during the Cold War. Iran is probably the worst country on the planet when it comes to supporting terrorism. Consider that democracies in general seems to go crazy when they have active terrorism problems and throw out human rights and the law book. E.g. Germany, USA, Israel, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, etc. (The only exception afaik is India.) It is logical because the whole point with terror is to scare civilians -- and politicians wants to be elected again. They have to solve terror problems, no matter what. You don't have to like this, in fact no one except companies earning money doing security likes it. All choices in the real world also has disadvantages, even democracy.
  - jbattle 14y ago
    I don't think it's as simple as "Iran is probably the worst country on the planet when it comes to supporting terrorism." Every powerful country uses violence to advance it's political goals. Every powerful country kills the civilians/citizens of other countries, publicly expressing varying amounts of regret.
    - berntb 14y ago
      The parallel comment by salimmadjd has a point about Pakistan maybe being even worse than Iran, when it comes to terror support (I do doubt that Saudi A as a country is worse). I might stand corrected, there. >>Every powerful country kills the civilians/citizens of other countries To explicitly target civilians is serious because it breaks the laws of war, etc. Democracies generally don't do that.
      - freshhawk 14y ago
talmand 14y ago
I disagree, any attempt to shutdown a significant part of our power grid is terrifying to me. We are at a point in our society that we cannot survive without electricity for a large amount of time. Our economy would shutdown, people will starve as easily obtainable food would go away, certain medicines that keep people alive would spoil, hospitals would shut down, and more. We are so deeply ingrained in having electricity that being forced back to not having it at all would likely kill millions before we could adapt. Especially if the attack caused a semi-permanent power grid failure, such as with an EMP.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Obligatory pointer to One Second After by William R. Forstchen[1], which is a factionalized account of what came out of the US EMP Attack Commission[2]. A power hiccup is not a problem. A systemic power failure is a catastrophe! 1. http://www.onesecondafter.com/ http://www.onesecondafter.com/ 2. http://EMPCommission.org/ http://EMPCommission.org/
  - talmand 14y ago
    I was thinking of that book but couldn't recall the name of it.
- nradov 14y ago
  A serious solar storm could damage the power grid more severely than a deliberate attack. If power surges burn out more transformers then it's going to take a long time to bring the grid back in some areas. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/solar-storms/ferris-text http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/solar-storms/ferri...
Monotoko 14y ago
As more of the world goes digital and becomes accessible on the public internet, more damage can be done. Attacking power grids, wall street, phone networks etc could very easily cause chaos, whilst it isn't as terrifying as blowing a country to pieces, it's certainly up there.
epc 14y ago
…because a virus like Stuxnet could never, ever infect a command a control system for nuclear weapons?
ChuckMcM 14y ago
I am probably in a minority but I find it more terrifying than the Cold War. At least in the Cold War when the balloon went up everybody died. In this scenario we could be alive and under increasingly onerous affronts on our civil liberties. During the Cold War I might have been called up to attack and kill Soviets, if internal threats were used to install a police state I would be called up to attack and kill my own government. Not a good choice, just ask the folks in the middle east that have been called to do that.
- afterburner 14y ago
  Onerous affronts on civil liberties were occurring during the Cold War too.
re_todd 14y ago
I think it's more terrifying today. Who would have thought a small place like North Korea kill lots and lots of Americans? It may happen indirectly, via sharing nuke technology with Iran, who is buddy-buddy with Latin American countries, which may, by proxy, end up within striking distance of millions of Americans.

ck2 14y ago

Just like the TSA it's our government that is far more terrifying than any imaginary threat they are supposedly protecting us against. And don't underestimate the Iranian government, they are not a third-world country like some people imagine out of ignorance - I really feel sorry for the Iranian people getting caught up in this mess.

davidw 14y ago
> imaginary threat Err... while I'm not stepping in to defend the TSA, I think that to call the threat imaginary ignores recent history.
- fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
  The threat is absolutely imaginary. Obviously we have real threats, but that is NOT what the security theater is about. The security theater is mostly about purely imaginary threats. And is in fact worse at stopping the few real threats we have. Original security theater idea is from Bruce Schneier, Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater
  - davidw 14y ago
    > The threat is absolutely imaginary. Obviously we have real threats I'm not following you. Nor am I saying that I think the TSA is a good thing or an appropriate response to the threats.
- bestes 14y ago
  Can you please cite your example(s)?
- cjdavis 14y ago
  While the threat of terrorism is not imaginary, it is certainly negligible compared to other threats.
  - jerf 14y ago
    The physical terrorism threat is negligible. The generalized cheap-attack-with-disproportionate-damage threat I can't in good conscience write off quite so readily. Biological attacks are still scarily possible, and if we start talking computer viruses it becomes scarier again. Recall Stuxnet didn't merely inconvenience people, it destroyed hardware. If someone manages to write a virus that, say, destroys a significant number of power plant turbines, we're talking about a disaster that does in fact start killing people in addition to general inconvenience. Electricity really really is one of the lifebloods of civilization, and while the phrase lifeblood is obvious not literal it's more literal than it may appear on first glance. Cut it off and real people will really be hurt and killed. Personally I'd rate this class of threat comfortably above asteroid impact or solar flare-type disaster.
    - kbolino 14y ago
      Terrorist victims in 2001: 3,000 Murder victims in 2001: 15,000 Car collision fatalities in 2001: 42,000 Cancer deaths in 2001: 550,000 The only thing that's disproportionate is how we react to terrorism. (statistics are for United States)
      - jerf 14y ago
        That's a canned knee-jerk response, not one that shows you read my message. That's not relevant data to the question of what future bioattacks or computer attacks are possible... and note my continued avoidance of the term "terrorism". Once an attack is launched the source isn't very relevant. Failing to secure our infrastructure because "terrorism isn't something to be afraid of" is still a stupid move because it leaves you open to not-terrorism just as much.
        ThomPete 14y ago
- mistercow 14y ago
  It is an imaginary large threat based on a real small threat. Wolves that attack Puerto Rican goat herds in the night are real, but the mythological chupacabra based on them is still imaginary.

why-el 14y ago

I might have read you wrong, but in case you meant China doesn't have nuclear power, you are mistaken.

lambersley 14y ago
I believe the point is, what if a cold war scenario was to happen between China and USA; China being nuclear-equipped
- acuozzo 14y ago
  > I believe the point is, what if a cold war scenario was to happen between China and USA; China being nuclear-equipped It wouldn't matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutually_assured_destruction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutually_assured_destruction
  - viscanti 14y ago
    Your faith in rational human behavior is much stronger than mine. All it takes is one person making an irrational decision (driven by anger, false sense of security, accident or other) to essentially doom everyone. Death-row is filled with people who made similar decisions (do something even though the consequences of that were dire), all it takes is one person making a similar decision on a bigger scale. MAD doesn't prevent anything, it at best postpones things and at worst forces both sides to escalate to the point where they feel they can completely destroy the other even given significant losses (i.e. building significantly more bombs than they need to destroy the planet).

bluedanieru 14y ago

The war itself isn't nearly as terrifying, but somehow the US government is finding it even easier to erode civil liberties now than it ever did during the Cold War.

berntb 14y ago
>>somehow the US government is finding it even easier to erode civil liberties now than it ever did during the Cold War. Iran is probably the worst country on the planet when it comes to supporting terrorism. Consider that democracies in general seems to go crazy when they have active terrorism problems and throw out human rights and the law book. E.g. Germany, USA, Israel, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, etc. (The only exception afaik is India.) It is logical because the whole point with terror is to scare civilians -- and politicians wants to be elected again. They have to solve terror problems, no matter what. You don't have to like this, in fact no one except companies earning money doing security likes it. All choices in the real world also has disadvantages, even democracy.
- jbattle 14y ago
  I don't think it's as simple as "Iran is probably the worst country on the planet when it comes to supporting terrorism." Every powerful country uses violence to advance it's political goals. Every powerful country kills the civilians/citizens of other countries, publicly expressing varying amounts of regret.
  - berntb 14y ago
    The parallel comment by salimmadjd has a point about Pakistan maybe being even worse than Iran, when it comes to terror support (I do doubt that Saudi A as a country is worse). I might stand corrected, there. >>Every powerful country kills the civilians/citizens of other countries To explicitly target civilians is serious because it breaks the laws of war, etc. Democracies generally don't do that.
    - freshhawk 14y ago

talmand 14y ago

I disagree, any attempt to shutdown a significant part of our power grid is terrifying to me. We are at a point in our society that we cannot survive without electricity for a large amount of time. Our economy would shutdown, people will starve as easily obtainable food would go away, certain medicines that keep people alive would spoil, hospitals would shut down, and more. We are so deeply ingrained in having electricity that being forced back to not having it at all would likely kill millions before we could adapt. Especially if the attack caused a semi-permanent power grid failure, such as with an EMP.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Obligatory pointer to One Second After by William R. Forstchen[1], which is a factionalized account of what came out of the US EMP Attack Commission[2]. A power hiccup is not a problem. A systemic power failure is a catastrophe! 1. http://www.onesecondafter.com/ http://www.onesecondafter.com/ 2. http://EMPCommission.org/ http://EMPCommission.org/
- talmand 14y ago
  I was thinking of that book but couldn't recall the name of it.
nradov 14y ago
A serious solar storm could damage the power grid more severely than a deliberate attack. If power surges burn out more transformers then it's going to take a long time to bring the grid back in some areas. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/solar-storms/ferris-text http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/solar-storms/ferri...

Monotoko 14y ago

As more of the world goes digital and becomes accessible on the public internet, more damage can be done. Attacking power grids, wall street, phone networks etc could very easily cause chaos, whilst it isn't as terrifying as blowing a country to pieces, it's certainly up there.

epc 14y ago

…because a virus like Stuxnet could never, ever infect a command a control system for nuclear weapons?

ChuckMcM 14y ago

I am probably in a minority but I find it more terrifying than the Cold War. At least in the Cold War when the balloon went up everybody died. In this scenario we could be alive and under increasingly onerous affronts on our civil liberties. During the Cold War I might have been called up to attack and kill Soviets, if internal threats were used to install a police state I would be called up to attack and kill my own government. Not a good choice, just ask the folks in the middle east that have been called to do that.

afterburner 14y ago
Onerous affronts on civil liberties were occurring during the Cold War too.

re_todd 14y ago

I think it's more terrifying today. Who would have thought a small place like North Korea kill lots and lots of Americans? It may happen indirectly, via sharing nuke technology with Iran, who is buddy-buddy with Latin American countries, which may, by proxy, end up within striking distance of millions of Americans.