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Would you rather have a 5% chance of a war that kills 50,000 people, or a 0.01% chance of a war that kills 5 billion people?

by gfodor 14y ago

barrkel 14y ago
You have no idea of whether these probabilities and payoffs are correct. WWII killed tens of millions of people, not including nuclear weapons. I have zero doubt that there would have been a conventional war between US and USSR in the 20th century if it hadn't been for nuclear weapons, and that war would have killed millions. So which is better: a 100% chance of a war that kills millions, or a 0.01% chance of a war that kills 5 billion? On a calculated payoff basis, a 100% war would only have to kill half a million people before it's "worse". We don't know the probabilities here. I don't think the actual probability for global nuclear war is as high as 0.01%, for one; and I do think nuclear weapons are the biggest reason for global peace. Politicians would love to start more wars if they could.
- bryanlarsen 14y ago
  Those who have studied the issue put the annual probability of a nuclear war on the order of one to three percent per annum. People tend to dismiss the risk because it hasn't happened yet, but it's fairly easy to game many possible scenarios. This isn't the study I was thinking of, but it was the first that I found. http://phys.org/news167327145.html http://phys.org/news167327145.html
- gfodor 14y ago
  My point wasn't that the probabilities were correct, my point is that the author pretends like this "marginal utility" based argument has no merit. In a world with nuclear weapons, there is some non-zero chance of a nuclear war that results in massive casualties (if not complete eradication of the human race.) Counterbalancing this scenario with the one whereby there is more likelihood of a large-scale war but less likelihood of global extinction simply shows that the point the author is making is not as clear cut as he/she makes it out to be.

Would you rather have a 5% chance of a war that kills 50,000 people, or a 0.01% chance of a war that kills 5 billion people?

by gfodor 14y ago

Would you rather have a 5% chance of a war that kills 50,000 people, or a 0.01% chance of a war that kills 5 billion people?

barrkel 14y ago

You have no idea of whether these probabilities and payoffs are correct. WWII killed tens of millions of people, not including nuclear weapons. I have zero doubt that there would have been a conventional war between US and USSR in the 20th century if it hadn't been for nuclear weapons, and that war would have killed millions. So which is better: a 100% chance of a war that kills millions, or a 0.01% chance of a war that kills 5 billion? On a calculated payoff basis, a 100% war would only have to kill half a million people before it's "worse". We don't know the probabilities here. I don't think the actual probability for global nuclear war is as high as 0.01%, for one; and I do think nuclear weapons are the biggest reason for global peace. Politicians would love to start more wars if they could.

bryanlarsen 14y ago
Those who have studied the issue put the annual probability of a nuclear war on the order of one to three percent per annum. People tend to dismiss the risk because it hasn't happened yet, but it's fairly easy to game many possible scenarios. This isn't the study I was thinking of, but it was the first that I found. http://phys.org/news167327145.html http://phys.org/news167327145.html
gfodor 14y ago
My point wasn't that the probabilities were correct, my point is that the author pretends like this "marginal utility" based argument has no merit. In a world with nuclear weapons, there is some non-zero chance of a nuclear war that results in massive casualties (if not complete eradication of the human race.) Counterbalancing this scenario with the one whereby there is more likelihood of a large-scale war but less likelihood of global extinction simply shows that the point the author is making is not as clear cut as he/she makes it out to be.