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Let's view earth as if we are aliens (or even normal people) visiting our moon, watching the blue planet and the behavior of its inhabitants. So these consciou

Let's view earth as if we are aliens (or even normal people) visiting our moon, watching the blue planet and the behavior of its inhabitants. So these conscious people were building several 100 Mton weapons AND detonated one of them on the surface of the planet! Knowing that it would kill and destroy life and atmosphere around it and contaminate earth. AND they were starting a program for building a Gigaton weapon?? It is just surreal that anyone would even think of doing such, let alone doing so.

arethuza 2y ago
Actually, it's better (worse) than that - the gigaton bomb was really being developed to be a primary for a 10 gigaton bomb! "When you merely wish to bury bombs, there is no limit to the size."
pfdietz 2y ago
I've been told that for a sufficiently large thermonuclear bomb, it isn't even necessary to compress the secondary -- just heating it is enough. Teller's original "Super" idea would work at scale. So once you've made a big enough bomb, attach it to a big tank of deuterium with thick walls and you're good. The problem of making such a bomb comes down to the problem of economically producing deuterium.
Vrondi 2y ago
A la Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, https://youtu.be/bPBzj90Su8A?feature=shared https://youtu.be/bPBzj90Su8A?feature=shared
bdamm 2y ago
We don't really know what aliens would think, so you're anthropomorphizing. If the aliens were Klingons they might find it endearing. There's zero evidence that peace without weapons is possible.
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  > There's zero evidence that peace without weapons is possible. I think a world without defenses would not exist. To me it is just a law of nature that defenses need to exist for life to be present. Attacks are part of nature. However in that comparison I would call the gigaton bomb a self destroying auto immune disease.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > I would call the gigaton bomb a self destroying auto immune disease We had Project Sundial levels of nuclear weapons on Earth during the Cold War. The only difference in consolidating it into a single weapon is fault tolerance.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  > There's zero evidence that peace without weapons is possible. How do you apply that? To countries? Cities? Schools? Homes? Individuals? It gets ugly fast.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Essentially all of those are true already, mostly through the military and police, and mostly through Dead hand guarantees. If you destroy a city, shoot up a school, kill a family, or kill an individual, someone with weapons will likely come to retaliate even if your victim is dead
- rolph 2y ago
  it isnt the weapons, its the mentality that requires them. as long as children are trained to be highly, aggressively, competitive and benefit at the loosers expense, calling it sport, the mentality will continue.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Defenselessness is a unstable solution. It only takes one person out of 7 billion to defect. You would have to simultaneously train every child to be a pacifist, and do it with 100% success rate
psunavy03 2y ago
It's funny how people love to imagine uber-intelligent benevolent alien overlords who always happen to agree with whatever point they're trying to make. It's an extension of the "if you disagree with me, you don't actually have an opinion, you're just having an emotional reaction to my rational points" nonsense that's all over the internet.
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  Hmmm I fail to understand your reasoning. I did not write this for anyone to agree or disagree with me. It is just something I imagine, and in my imagination the aliens happen to be not klingons nor their real world counterparts. In my imagination (and i guess maybe in that of the reader of my comment as well) they are sentient logical beings not being in favor of peace nor war. So in that context those beings would think, what the f are they doing, this does not make any sense!
  - brabel 2y ago
    I suppose the reasoning is that intelligent aliens perhaps would actually think that it was a good accomplishment, given that they know of much bigger wars that involve multiple planets and perhaps themselves have bombs that are capable of destroying entire planets? There's no way to know if extremely intelligent aliens would actually be peaceful or extreme beligerent dickheads. I don't think we have any evidence of a successful species even on Earth that behaves like peace-loving hippies.
    - nuancebydefault 2y ago
      In my very limited and probably naive model, Ant > crocodile > wolf > dog > human > smarterThanHumanAlien The less evolved, the more aggressive.
      - brabel 2y ago
        There's no "more evolved" animal in your list. They are all different animals that are each perfectly evolved for the habitat they occupy (dogs are domesticated wolves, not "evolved wolves", by the way). You could argue that humans are more "civilized" , but not more evolved. But to claim that humans are less aggressive than other animals is amusing to me. Humans are the only ones capable of (and willing to commit multiple times) war and genocide on a large scale. We may be less aggressive on an individual level, normally, but in the sense we're discussing what matters is the collective aggressiveness, of which humans are in my view the greatest by far.
coffeecantcode 2y ago
Sort of describing the DeathWorlders series

arethuza 2y ago

Actually, it's better (worse) than that - the gigaton bomb was really being developed to be a primary for a 10 gigaton bomb! "When you merely wish to bury bombs, there is no limit to the size."

pfdietz 2y ago

I've been told that for a sufficiently large thermonuclear bomb, it isn't even necessary to compress the secondary -- just heating it is enough. Teller's original "Super" idea would work at scale. So once you've made a big enough bomb, attach it to a big tank of deuterium with thick walls and you're good. The problem of making such a bomb comes down to the problem of economically producing deuterium.

Vrondi 2y ago

A la Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, https://youtu.be/bPBzj90Su8A?feature=shared https://youtu.be/bPBzj90Su8A?feature=shared

bdamm 2y ago

We don't really know what aliens would think, so you're anthropomorphizing. If the aliens were Klingons they might find it endearing. There's zero evidence that peace without weapons is possible.

nuancebydefault 2y ago
> There's zero evidence that peace without weapons is possible. I think a world without defenses would not exist. To me it is just a law of nature that defenses need to exist for life to be present. Attacks are part of nature. However in that comparison I would call the gigaton bomb a self destroying auto immune disease.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > I would call the gigaton bomb a self destroying auto immune disease We had Project Sundial levels of nuclear weapons on Earth during the Cold War. The only difference in consolidating it into a single weapon is fault tolerance.
lostlogin 2y ago
> There's zero evidence that peace without weapons is possible. How do you apply that? To countries? Cities? Schools? Homes? Individuals? It gets ugly fast.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Essentially all of those are true already, mostly through the military and police, and mostly through Dead hand guarantees. If you destroy a city, shoot up a school, kill a family, or kill an individual, someone with weapons will likely come to retaliate even if your victim is dead
rolph 2y ago
it isnt the weapons, its the mentality that requires them. as long as children are trained to be highly, aggressively, competitive and benefit at the loosers expense, calling it sport, the mentality will continue.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Defenselessness is a unstable solution. It only takes one person out of 7 billion to defect. You would have to simultaneously train every child to be a pacifist, and do it with 100% success rate

psunavy03 2y ago

It's funny how people love to imagine uber-intelligent benevolent alien overlords who always happen to agree with whatever point they're trying to make. It's an extension of the "if you disagree with me, you don't actually have an opinion, you're just having an emotional reaction to my rational points" nonsense that's all over the internet.

nuancebydefault 2y ago
Hmmm I fail to understand your reasoning. I did not write this for anyone to agree or disagree with me. It is just something I imagine, and in my imagination the aliens happen to be not klingons nor their real world counterparts. In my imagination (and i guess maybe in that of the reader of my comment as well) they are sentient logical beings not being in favor of peace nor war. So in that context those beings would think, what the f are they doing, this does not make any sense!
- brabel 2y ago
  I suppose the reasoning is that intelligent aliens perhaps would actually think that it was a good accomplishment, given that they know of much bigger wars that involve multiple planets and perhaps themselves have bombs that are capable of destroying entire planets? There's no way to know if extremely intelligent aliens would actually be peaceful or extreme beligerent dickheads. I don't think we have any evidence of a successful species even on Earth that behaves like peace-loving hippies.
  - nuancebydefault 2y ago
    In my very limited and probably naive model, Ant > crocodile > wolf > dog > human > smarterThanHumanAlien The less evolved, the more aggressive.
    - brabel 2y ago
      There's no "more evolved" animal in your list. They are all different animals that are each perfectly evolved for the habitat they occupy (dogs are domesticated wolves, not "evolved wolves", by the way). You could argue that humans are more "civilized" , but not more evolved. But to claim that humans are less aggressive than other animals is amusing to me. Humans are the only ones capable of (and willing to commit multiple times) war and genocide on a large scale. We may be less aggressive on an individual level, normally, but in the sense we're discussing what matters is the collective aggressiveness, of which humans are in my view the greatest by far.

coffeecantcode 2y ago

Sort of describing the DeathWorlders series