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It reminds me of the an Soviet officer who disobeyed early warning system's alert that US had launched four ICBMs and did not immediately relay the issue up to

• JumpCrisscross 10d ago
  It reminds me of laughing at the stupid old Europeans starting a war because an Austrian numpty got himself shot in Serbia. Like, we almost sunk a Chinese ship because an AI thought the sour candies they were transporting were nukes is in the same category of shitheadedness. (I'm embellishing–we don't know what was on board.)
  • pipes 10d ago
    That's a very limited view of why ww1 started.
    • JumpCrisscross 10d ago
      > a very limited view of why ww1 started Proximate versus ultimate causes. If a war started because America boarded a Chinese vessel, it also-obviously–wouldn't solely be because of that.
      • jordanb 10d ago
        The basic problem is that they had built a domesday machine in Europe, which was the mobilization schedule. After the Franco Prussian war people realized that the next war would involve massive armies full of mobilized (conscripted) men and the country that could mobilize first would win. Countries spend decades planning for this by manufacturing enormous stockpiles of uniforms, giving their entire male population military training, etc. But the mobilization schedule for even the fastest country was still measured in weeks, but this was a process where days count. Basically once the decision was made to mobilize millions of people across an entire modern society would leap into action transforming itself into a marshal society. Millions of people getting called up, trains full of equipment going everywhere. Turning off a mobilization that was in progress was fairly difficult to conceive of, so once the decision was made the flywheel would take over, but decision to mobilize had to be made in a pressure cooker environment where hours mattered. The death of the duke wasn't the "cause" of WWI it was the starting gun for a race where the horses were all waiting impatiently at the starting line.
        • JumpCrisscross 10d ago
          Again, boarding a Chinese vessel similarly wouldn’t “cause” WWIII. But it would be a trigger and for non-pedantic usage of causation, proximate causes are also causes.
        • verdverm 10d ago
          As Indy Neidell says at the beginning of The Great War documentary ~"you can't say they slept walked into WW1 when they gave thousands of commands to move horses and men" https://www.youtube.com/@TheGreatWar https://www.youtube.com/@TheGreatWar
        • orwin 10d ago
          Not really. It took a full month for the austrian to send Serbia its ultimatum. If the ultimatum was given imediatly after the assassination, both France and Russia would have let Serbia go. Also, in France Caillaux, one of the most powerful pacifist in the government (he had the economy and was _good_ at it, which is rare enough to be noted), who was anti-war, had to be let go because his wife killed a journalist (not really a journalist, but adjascent enough so that the difference don't matter) around the same time, leaving Jaurès alone to push Viviani to let it go. Plus Viviani was with the Tsar in Russia when the ultimatum was given, which surely did not help _at all_. Especially since Rasputin was out of the capital at the time. Truly an unfortunate timing here. Plus the death of multiple diplomats involved in the prevention of WW1 at least once in 1911, who all decided to die around the same time (the last two in 1914, Pressensé and obviously Hartwig, whose death was truly, truly unfortunate). And here i'm only aware of French people who would have prevented the war (beside Hartwig and Rasputin, but everybody know about them), but i'm pretty sure even more people in Germany and in Austria could have done the same.
          • jordanb 10d ago
            Using the same logic (important diplomats dead or retired or disgraced) you could say that firing Bismark caused the war. If the top diplomats had managed to avert the Serbia crisis then the war would have been delayed until the next crisis. The fundamental problem is Europe had built itself a civilization-strattling war machine with no "abort" button and put the start button on a hair trigger (the interlocking treaty system).
  • kakacik 10d ago
    Not sure what is there to laugh at when millions died in pretty horrible ways including americans, anyway that was classical war mongering where one of the parties got exactly what they wanted (prussians/germans). That they got more than they wanted and how it folded them is part of history. This case, its bullshit machine bullshitting randomly in between specs of stolen wisdom. Nobody asked for that, nobody is in control. We all humans lose in all cases. Quite different scenarios if you asked me.
    • margalabargala 10d ago
      Dark/gallows humor is a thing, and also plenty of people use humor as a coping mechanism. It's fine not to share the same sense of humor, but if you truly lack an understanding of what someone else would find to laugh at that's an easy thing to learn to broaden your understanding of the world.
  • afavour 10d ago
    That is a below high school level understanding of what caused WW1, for what it’s worth.
    • genxy 10d ago
      You know nothing of high school students.
    • JumpCrisscross 10d ago
      I mean yes, these were grade-school classes in Switzerland. And I suspect it covered more than most high school students in America learn.
      • Henchman21 9d ago
        School in the US is little more than daycare. Source: me, who was educated in that system, and had two parents who were teachers.
  • stefs 10d ago
    the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand was just the trigger but not the reason. the war would have started anyway.
    • mullingitover 10d ago
      Same goes for pre-WWII Germany and the rise of Hitler. He takes the blame but the German electorate was toxic, bloodthirsty and humiliated. They would’ve elevated the next monster in line if Hitler hadn’t been available.
      • JumpCrisscross 10d ago
        And now we’ve created global platforms incentivised to increase outrage. Now, being optimised by AI.
      • orwin 10d ago
        only 31-40% of the german electorate was that. And it was on the decline, which is why Von Papen convinced himself he would be easy to negociate cabinet postition with Hitler.
    • cogman10 10d ago
      It's complicated. WW1 happened due to the crazy web of treaties between nations. It's not unlike nuclear holocaust and MAD doctrine. There could have been other triggers for WW1, but that's not really a guarantee. That is to say, definitely possible and maybe even likely but not inevitable.
      • jyounker 10d ago
        There's an argument to be made that WWI started because Wilhelm II was an incompetent statesman who disassembled his country's relationship with friendly states, and turned them into enemies.
        • conorcleary 10d ago
  • pocksuppet 10d ago
    We did sink many non-Chinese ships because a human thought the fish they were transporting were drugs.
• jordanb 10d ago
  Also 99 luftbaloons which was about a kid releasing some party balloons in Germany which confuses the EWS and causes WWIII. Or the War Games movie and the Norad training mistake that inspired it.
  • nrr 10d ago
    Pedantic clarification: The (original German) song itself didn't mention an actor in particular who had released the balloons, just that there were 99 balloons that flew to the horizon and jet fighters being scrambled in response. The epilogue tells of the consequent whole bunch of lasting destruction as the narrator talks about their patrols. The English translation "99 Red Balloons" is considerably different as far as the details go.
    • jordanb 9d ago
      This caused me to go on a bit of a deep dive. 99LB (the German version) has the baloons getting released and the generals deciding to treat it as an opportunity for a show of force blowing them up intentionally. 99RB, on the other hand, has the EWS confusing them with a threat causing the system itself being the source of the attack. The message between songs is different, the German version is a warning about the wrong people being in charge of the doomsday machine whereas the English version is a condemnation of the doomsday machine itself. Interestingly the band was not satisfied with the English version, mainly because they wanted to be a pop band and not a protest band and they thought the English version was too "on the nose" in its condemnation of MAD. Personally I grew up hearing 99LB on the radio but thinking about the lyrics of 99RB since I don't speak German. 99LB was more popular even in the english speaking world because it's better performed but we all saw it as an anti-MAD protest song which 99RB definitely is, but 99LB is not quite. 99RB has some really great lines missing from 99LB: The war machine springs to life Opens up one eager eye and Call the troops out in a hurry This is what we've waited for This is it boys, this is war
      • nrr 9d ago
        > generals deciding to treat it as an opportunity for a show of force blowing them up intentionally Only kinda! „Hielt man fuer UFOs aus dem All / darum schickte ein General / eine Fliegerstaffel hinterher“ They believed that the balloons were unidentified flying objects from outer space. The general panicked and sent a squadron to investigate. „Dabei waren dort am Horizont nur 99 Luftballons“ However, what they found were only 99 balloons. Still, there was a problem: „99 Duesenflieger / jeder war ein grosser Krieger / hielten sich fuer Captain Kirk“ The pilots of those jet fighters thought of themselves as warriors on par with Captain Kirk (which is funny; Starfleet is primarily a scientific organization that only incidentally wields weapons). The neighboring countries concurred: „Die Nachbarn haben nichts gerafft / und fuelten sich gleich angemacht“ They weren't able to suss out anything about these activities and felt provoked by them. Here's where the war ministers make a show of force though: „99 Kriegsminister / Streichholz und Benzinkanister / hielten sich fuer schlaue Leute / witterten schon fette Beute / riefen Krieg und wollten Macht“ The war ministers brought a proverbial match and gas can to the whole affair. They thought themselves shrewd and crafty and could smell the scent of prey, so they called for war. „Mann, wer haette das gedacht / dass es einmal soweit kommt / wegen 99 Luftballons“ Man, who could've thought that it came this far because of 99 balloons? > 99LB was more popular even in the english speaking world This song predates me by just a handful of years, so I never caught it during its radio heyday, but I can't verify this assertion from personal experience. Perhaps this is a UK-centric view? I'm unsure that much of this kind of cultural exchange made it to the US.