5 ms·
Nukes gave us peace and freedom. We've had no WW3 (so far) and no one here needs to worry about being drafted into a war. Gatling might have thought his gun wo
by MediaSquirrel 7mo ago
Nukes gave us peace and freedom.
We've had no WW3 (so far) and no one here needs to worry about being drafted into a war. Gatling might have thought his gun would reduce the number of war fatalities, but but Oppenheimer thought he would end the world. Both were wrong.
Alternative take: Inventors are bad at predicting the downstream societal effects of their inventions.
- jiehong 7mo agoIt very much depends on where "here" is. At least, it gives impunity to attack others with less fear of retaliation…
- treebeard901 7mo agoLet's assume a nuclear exchange happens at some point during a war. There is a very high chance that this will cause an escalation leading to a nuclear apocalypse. Since this result is presumably inevitable at increasing frequency, it's more like nukes prevented another major world war and stole a form of peace from the future, temporarily. That peace debt might be repaid with the end of everything.
- ares623 7mo agowell whatever society is left will definitely be "peaceful" for at least a couple of decades.
- testaccount28 7mo agolet's assume the trees rise up and set fire to the ionosphere.
- KronisLV 7mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls
- nehal3m 7mo agoFunny how the unintentional close calls become more sparse with time. I wonder if that’s because humanity got better at dealing with the responsibility or because the oopsies haven’t been declassified yet.
- zabzonk 7mo ago> no one here needs to worry about being drafted into a war Lots of talk in the UK recently about conscription.
- awjlogan 7mo agoI haven’t heard a peep about conscription, can you provide a source? There was some vague national service proposal for school leavers a couple of years ago, but that was it.
- imjonse 7mo agoCroatia: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/croatia-re-launch-mandatory-military-service-after-17-years-2026-03-06/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/croatia-r...
- watwut 7mo agoGermany is already working on it. Austria made it longer.
- wat10000 7mo agoNuclear weapons traded a high probability of a major war for a low probability of an apocalyptic war. My question is, how low is that probability, exactly? Because the tradeoff looks very different if it’s one in a million per year, versus one in a hundred per year. My assessment, looking at the history and the close calls, is that it’s more like one in a hundred.
- 9dev 7mo agoIt certainly rises if the USA votes for an irresponsible crook.
- imjonse 7mo ago> no one here needs to worry about being drafted into a war. here meaning the US or HN?
- expedition32 7mo agoNuclear PROLIFERATION gave us peace and freedom. The Americans wanted to keep it all to themselves you know...