4 ms·

Of course you can. Technology can irreversibly change societies. Do you have a technical solution to the potential for mutually assured destruction through nuc

by _cenw 2y ago

Of course you can. Technology can irreversibly change societies. Do you have a technical solution to the potential for mutually assured destruction through nuclear weapons?

jjk166 2y ago
Mutually assured destruction is a technical solution - when it is suicidal for either side to attack each other (because of a large and robust nuclear arsenal), both can be confident the other won't attack. There are potentially other technical solutions. Anti-ballistic missile systems could make nuclear strikes non viable, as could more advanced defenses. One could imagine weapons designed to remotely pre-detonate nuclear weapons making them more dangerous to possess than to use. You could by subterfuge render your adversary's nuclear capabilities inoperable. You could find technical solutions to the issues that make the countries adversaries in the first place, for example eliminating dependence on a resource you compete over. You could spread propaganda to install a friendly government. There could be and almost certainly are even better technical solutions that I don't know, and perhaps no one currently knows. Every problem ever solved was at some point unsolved.
- _cenw 2y ago
  You are misunderstanding me bringing up mutually assured destruction. Sure, it prevents preemptive strikes, but it doesn't prevent accidental launches, broken early warning systems and bad communication. Do you think the fact that we haven't done any of these other measures to a degree that the danger is no longer substantial in 70 or so years is a matter of technology or priority? If it's priority, how do we prioritize? Is that, perhaps, a non-technical problem? If it's a tech advancement problem, how do not constantly have a rolling window of uncontrolled potentially civilization-ending technology?
  - jjk166 2y ago
    > You are misunderstanding me bringing up mutually assured destruction. Sure, it prevents preemptive strikes, but it doesn't prevent accidental launches, broken early warning systems and bad communication. No I understand just fine. We are just using different definitions of problem. In my definition of problem, mutually assured destruction is a solution to the problem of nuclear strikes. Accidental launches, broken early warning systems, and miscommunication are all additional problems, which have their own solutions. There also exist alternative, better solutions to the initial problem (again nuclear strikes), which might avoid some of these additional problems. > Do you think the fact that we haven't done any of these other measures to a degree that the danger is no longer substantial in 70 or so years is a matter of technology or priority? Clearly technology. Nuclear war is an existential threat that has occupied the minds of policy makers and the public alike for decades, and there is arguably no higher priority than preventing it. If someone just had a silver bullet lying around that would eliminate that threat and allow the world to sleep easy it would have been implemented immediately, regardless of cost. It's not like our current solution is free, maintaining a nuclear deterrent is massively expensive and of course carries catastrophic risk if it fails. Substantial effort has been placed into developing some of these alternative solutions, but to date mutually assured destruction remains the best solution available. But technological advance continues, and the idea that a better solution could not eventually be found is silly. > If it's a tech advancement problem, how do not constantly have a rolling window of uncontrolled potentially civilization-ending technology? That is very clearly a different problem - preventing existential threats from being developed in the future versus dealing with existential threats already developed. Let's rephrase the question as "how do we create a situation where people aren't willing to go through the effort to create more capable weapons of mass destruction?" Again, I don't have answers to all the worlds problems, but it's reasonable to believe that a series of technical fixes to the root causes of the problem exist.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
Things like stuxnet.

by _cenw 2y ago

Of course you can. Technology can irreversibly change societies. Do you have a technical solution to the potential for mutually assured destruction through nuclear weapons?

jjk166 2y ago

Mutually assured destruction is a technical solution - when it is suicidal for either side to attack each other (because of a large and robust nuclear arsenal), both can be confident the other won't attack. There are potentially other technical solutions. Anti-ballistic missile systems could make nuclear strikes non viable, as could more advanced defenses. One could imagine weapons designed to remotely pre-detonate nuclear weapons making them more dangerous to possess than to use. You could by subterfuge render your adversary's nuclear capabilities inoperable. You could find technical solutions to the issues that make the countries adversaries in the first place, for example eliminating dependence on a resource you compete over. You could spread propaganda to install a friendly government. There could be and almost certainly are even better technical solutions that I don't know, and perhaps no one currently knows. Every problem ever solved was at some point unsolved.

_cenw 2y ago
You are misunderstanding me bringing up mutually assured destruction. Sure, it prevents preemptive strikes, but it doesn't prevent accidental launches, broken early warning systems and bad communication. Do you think the fact that we haven't done any of these other measures to a degree that the danger is no longer substantial in 70 or so years is a matter of technology or priority? If it's priority, how do we prioritize? Is that, perhaps, a non-technical problem? If it's a tech advancement problem, how do not constantly have a rolling window of uncontrolled potentially civilization-ending technology?
- jjk166 2y ago
  > You are misunderstanding me bringing up mutually assured destruction. Sure, it prevents preemptive strikes, but it doesn't prevent accidental launches, broken early warning systems and bad communication. No I understand just fine. We are just using different definitions of problem. In my definition of problem, mutually assured destruction is a solution to the problem of nuclear strikes. Accidental launches, broken early warning systems, and miscommunication are all additional problems, which have their own solutions. There also exist alternative, better solutions to the initial problem (again nuclear strikes), which might avoid some of these additional problems. > Do you think the fact that we haven't done any of these other measures to a degree that the danger is no longer substantial in 70 or so years is a matter of technology or priority? Clearly technology. Nuclear war is an existential threat that has occupied the minds of policy makers and the public alike for decades, and there is arguably no higher priority than preventing it. If someone just had a silver bullet lying around that would eliminate that threat and allow the world to sleep easy it would have been implemented immediately, regardless of cost. It's not like our current solution is free, maintaining a nuclear deterrent is massively expensive and of course carries catastrophic risk if it fails. Substantial effort has been placed into developing some of these alternative solutions, but to date mutually assured destruction remains the best solution available. But technological advance continues, and the idea that a better solution could not eventually be found is silly. > If it's a tech advancement problem, how do not constantly have a rolling window of uncontrolled potentially civilization-ending technology? That is very clearly a different problem - preventing existential threats from being developed in the future versus dealing with existential threats already developed. Let's rephrase the question as "how do we create a situation where people aren't willing to go through the effort to create more capable weapons of mass destruction?" Again, I don't have answers to all the worlds problems, but it's reasonable to believe that a series of technical fixes to the root causes of the problem exist.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

Things like stuxnet.