3 ms·

> look at all the damage that did. Prevented a world war for 80+ years.

by fooker 23d ago

kypro 23d ago
And if the power of nuclear warheads were democratised we'd be even safer – HN, probably.
- luma 23d ago
  The 80 years thing actually happened. One can argue about MAD and the nuclear threat, but we don't have to guess at what happened. It worked.
  - kragen 23d ago
    (insert standard anthropic-principle counterargument)
  - edbaskerville 22d ago
    The problem with MAD is it's a deterministic framework. It doesn't properly account for the risk of a war caused by mistake. If Stanislav Petrov hadn't been in the chain of command, MAD might not have worked. And it could still fail to work in the future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
- raincole 23d ago
  - Ukrainians, definitely.
- AdamN 22d ago
  That's been a posited theory for decades - it's not just some HN edgelord thing. There are some obvious problems with it of course and the P5 have instead taken a maximalist attitude towards keeping the genie in the bottle (notwithstanding Atoms for Peace and accommodating India/Pakistan when it became inevitable).
fn-mote 23d ago
> Prevented Fact: There was no world war. Impossible to prove hypothesis: nuclear weapons prevented a world war. Facing the facts about nuclear weapons means owning the good (probably prevented wars) and the bad (at the very least there were severe environmental and economic consequences).
- fooker 23d ago
  This is not mathematical logic. Of course you can't prove the causality of anything in history. The only way to do that would be to invent a time machine, delete the nukes and watch things play out. There are direct quotes from Nixon and Reagan that claims this to be true. That is enough evidence for me.
  - platinumrad 23d ago
    Surely we can do better than Nixon and Reagan.
    - fooker 23d ago
      In terms of politics, sure. In terms of cold war presidents itching to start wars, no.
- otabdeveloper4 22d ago
  > Fact: There was no world war. Akshually there is, and WW3 has been going on since 2010. (Mostly in places that aren't Europe.)
  - verdverm 22d ago
    Some people believe WW2 started many years earlier, but most historians don't put the start date at the conflicts going on before the war became intercontinental with sides working together on a global scale. War has still been going on since 1945, much earlier if not always, so akshually WW2 never ended or is just how it's always been? (mostly in places that are not "first world" / The West)

> look at all the damage that did. Prevented a world war for 80+ years.

by fooker 23d ago

> look at all the damage that did. Prevented a world war for 80+ years.

kypro 23d ago

And if the power of nuclear warheads were democratised we'd be even safer – HN, probably.

luma 23d ago
The 80 years thing actually happened. One can argue about MAD and the nuclear threat, but we don't have to guess at what happened. It worked.
- kragen 23d ago
  (insert standard anthropic-principle counterargument)
- edbaskerville 22d ago
  The problem with MAD is it's a deterministic framework. It doesn't properly account for the risk of a war caused by mistake. If Stanislav Petrov hadn't been in the chain of command, MAD might not have worked. And it could still fail to work in the future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
raincole 23d ago
- Ukrainians, definitely.
AdamN 22d ago
That's been a posited theory for decades - it's not just some HN edgelord thing. There are some obvious problems with it of course and the P5 have instead taken a maximalist attitude towards keeping the genie in the bottle (notwithstanding Atoms for Peace and accommodating India/Pakistan when it became inevitable).

fn-mote 23d ago

> Prevented Fact: There was no world war. Impossible to prove hypothesis: nuclear weapons prevented a world war. Facing the facts about nuclear weapons means owning the good (probably prevented wars) and the bad (at the very least there were severe environmental and economic consequences).

fooker 23d ago
This is not mathematical logic. Of course you can't prove the causality of anything in history. The only way to do that would be to invent a time machine, delete the nukes and watch things play out. There are direct quotes from Nixon and Reagan that claims this to be true. That is enough evidence for me.
- platinumrad 23d ago
  Surely we can do better than Nixon and Reagan.
  - fooker 23d ago
    In terms of politics, sure. In terms of cold war presidents itching to start wars, no.
otabdeveloper4 22d ago
> Fact: There was no world war. Akshually there is, and WW3 has been going on since 2010. (Mostly in places that aren't Europe.)
- verdverm 22d ago
  Some people believe WW2 started many years earlier, but most historians don't put the start date at the conflicts going on before the war became intercontinental with sides working together on a global scale. War has still been going on since 1945, much earlier if not always, so akshually WW2 never ended or is just how it's always been? (mostly in places that are not "first world" / The West)