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Almost Everything in "Dr. Strangelove" Was True
- daveslash 13y agoColonel Batguano - man, that guy was crazy. Like, seriously bat-shit crazy!
- sroerick 13y agoI think we're well overdue for a surveillance DrStrangelove. Is it impotence that causes people to surveil? Some other voyeuristic impulse? Could be fun to explore.
- lmkg 13y agoStrongly recommend The Lives Of Others. It's not absurdist like Strangelove, but it does address the psychology and motivations of those doing the surveillance.
- dredmorbius 13y agoAbsolutely. Phenomenal movie. It also gets at the culture of corruption surveillance and power engender. Though when you realize that the surveillance required dedicated observers and resulted in paper records, you realize how vastly more capable current US operations are.
- mcguire 13y agoNot to mention something on "our precious bodily fluids".
- arethuza 13y agoAre there any contemporary figures as "interesting" as Curtis LeMay, Herman Kahn or Thomas Power - the latter being the man who said while head of SAC: "Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power
- hindsightbias 13y agoLook up Gen. Boykin among others.
- Zigurd 13y agoDianne Feinstein is way over on the side of the surveillance state, while the BRIC market share withers out from under her constituents' companies. You have to wonder where that is coming from.
- jnazario 13y agocame here to suggest people who are interested in where kubrick got his model for the character dr strangelove to study herman kahn. just read a book about him - 'the worlds of herman kahn' - and cannot recommend it enough for this subject. his book 'on thermonuclear war' was widely talked about when it came out in the 60s, one of the huge impacts that RAND had on our society. it was an absurd time as the world changed so radically so quickly and strategists scrambled to figure out doctrine, policy, strategy, and how to use the emerging thinking of game theory. another book on the evolution of nuclear policy is 'the dead hand', which looks at the emergence of nuclear deterrence from the first bomb through the recent years following the breakup of the USSR. the dead hand referred to in the title is the failsafe the soviets built to strike back once they had been demolished.
- bonemachine 13y agoI think we're well overdue for a surveillance DrStrangelove. It wouldn't work. No film depiction could possibly be as absurd as what has already been foisted onto our everyday lives already.
- baconner 13y agoEver see he SNL bit where Tina fey just read word for word quotes from Sarah Palin revealing their complete absurdity? Hilarious and very pointed commentary in one. Oh yeah. It could work.
- sroerick 13y agoDr Strangelove started as a drama. Then Kubrick was reportedly overwhelmed by it all one day and realized it was a comedy.
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoThe Cold War in general was full of all sorts of insanity no one would ever imagine to be possible. Prime example of truth being stranger than fiction. That and all good satire has truth in it. The more truth and the better illustrated, the better the satire. Kubrick was a visionary for a reason.
- timr 13y agoThe book from which this is adapted (Command & Control) is fascinating and terrifying. Everyone should read it. You'll wonder how it is that we've managed to escape truly catastrophic accidents with these weapons.
- rosser 13y agoCommand and Control kept me up reading well past when I should have been asleep many a night. I have a friend who grew up not far from the Damascus, AR silo, the story about which the book is structured around, which made it that much more compelling. After reading it, I'm convinced that sheer dumb luck has been the deciding factor in not having seen so very many unplanned nuclear detonations over the years.
- arethuza 13y agoHave you read "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War" - I found that a lot more alarming than Command and Control (although I agree that Command and Control is an excellent book).
- mikeash 13y agoAnother fun one is the Cuban Missile War timeline, a frightening alternate history of the Cuban Missile Crisis turned into nuclear war. I'm not an expert, but my impression is that it's pretty realistic. http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=65071 http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=... The timeline diverges from reality when a Soviet submarine captain launches a nuclear torpedo at an American ship, which then gradually spirals into all-out nuclear war. This very nearly actually happened: the three main officers on the submarine had to unanimously agree to use nuclear weapons, and two of them were in favor. The third one managed to talk them down.
- arethuza 13y agoThat reminds me of the novel Resurrection Day, which is set 10 years after a global war over Cuba and has a damaged US run as a miltary dictatorship and pretty much an international pariah due to the extent of the US attack on the Soviets (e.g. surviving members of SAC are regarded as war criminals). Not a bad book - my main nitpick with it being that its scenario has Western Europe coming off fairly untouched by the war which would have been extremely unlikely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Day [Resurrection Day also features a "Lake Washington"]
- tfigueroa 13y agoI think it's heartening, in a sense - and this goes beyond nuclear weapons - that as close as we are to danger, dangerous events are pretty rare. Of course, whenever I have that thought, part of me fears that I'll ironically be vaporized by an errant nuclear weapon, moments later. I reassure myself that, at least, it will be a quick end.
- bo1024 13y agoSurvivorship bias. The people who were wiped out by dangerous events aren't around to tell us how dangerous they were.
- throwaway_yy2Di 13y agoNot at all! Most deaths would be slow and horrific, from radiation burns (thermal or ionizing), radiation sickness, or blast effects like being crushed in a collapsed building. Only a lucky few would be vaporized instantly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_bombs_and_health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_bombs_and_health And you haven't considered the risk of not dying! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MCbTvoNrAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MCbTvoNrAg ("Threads redefines the word grim...")
- fennecfoxen 13y agoThis is also why the old advice of "duck and cover" was actually very relevant and good advice. If you're not vaporized, you'd prefer to avoid the oncoming blast as much as possible (and yes, even the flimsy newspaper-over-the-head helps reflect thermal energy and could seriously mitigate your burns).
- phaus 13y agoThey lost me at this: >Force pilots were allowed to fire their nuclear anti-aircraft rockets to shoot down Soviet bombers heading toward the United States. Nuclear anti-aircraft rockets?
- totalforge 13y agoCorrect. The Genie anti-aircraft nuclear weapon had no guidance system, and was therefore a rocket, not a missile.
- joyeuse6701 13y agoI was kind of in surprise at the wording too, I didn't believe they would use a nuclear anti aircraft weapon, it seemed overkill, and then I read the rationale of the genie. I'm surprised to say the least.
- aaronem 13y agoHardly overkill, when you consider these weapons were designed for use against squadrons of nuclear-armed Soviet bombers, and the abysmal performance of fighters and interceptors against bomber squadrons during World War II.
- maxerickson 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nuclear_anti-aircraft_weapons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nuclear_anti-aircraft_...
- arethuza 13y agoDuring the Cold War there were nuclear anti-aircraft missiles, nuclear anti-missile missiles, nuclear depth charges, nuclear artillery shells, nuclear torpedos, nuclear man-portable demolition charges, even nuclear recoilless guns: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device... Crazy times....
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- coldcode 13y agoExcept of course dropping a bomb on Russia (with a guy riding it).
- sehugg 13y agoThe arguments are the same as today: We don't want more controls and oversight, because our enemies could use our limitations against us to neutralize our capability, and in any case strict military discipline and comprehensive personnel screening will eliminate abuse. Sound familiar?
- jarrett 13y agoThere is one very significant wrinkle, though: The difference between ongoing practices and hypothetical, emergency actions. In the former case--ongoing practices--it is hard to make a credible argument against oversight. Some details may need to be withheld from the public to protect basic operation security. For example, the identities of overseas informants ought not to be disclosed, lest they be immediately imprisoned or executed by their governments. Nor should there be a Twitter feed giving up-to-the-minute location data on US special forces teams. These examples seem farcical, but they illustrate the point that at least some operational details genuinely deserve secrecy. (Unless you reject the underlying premise that the United States should conduct intelligence and military operations overseas at all. But that's a very different discussion.) But even though specific details may need to be kept secret--for a reasonable amount of time, until they're no longer actionable by enemies--the nature of the government's ongoing practices ought to be disclosed. The latter case--wherein lower-level officials are permitted to make judgment calls in time-sensitive emergencies--is rather different. This is the situation contemplated by the White House during the Cold War. As the reasoning went, the American nuclear deterrent must be credible, or else the Soviets would seize the opportunity and launch an unprovoked attack on the US, Germany, or both. If a communication breakdown between the White House and the military could render the nuclear arsenal unusable, that would tend to diminish the credibility of the deterrent. On the other hand, the risk of a lower-level official making the wrong judgment call and starting a world war is appreciable. Given these considerations, reasonable people could disagree on what the optimal policy would be. It is not unreasonable or morally repugnant to conclude that certain trusted military officers should be granted the authority to make a judgment call when a) the situation is an emergency, and b) the chain of command has broken down. Again, the key distinction here is between ongoing practices and emergency measures in a hypothetical, worst-case scenario. That distinction must affect our moral judgment of the respective policies.
- vaadu 13y agoOur Looking Glass aircraft(EC-135C) flew 24x7 for many years with 2 launch officers. They could launch the minuteman missiles from the air and didn't require NCA approval. It also could contact the subs via LF/VLF and tell them to launch. Their mission assumed DC and SAC HQ were already taken out.
- arethuza 13y agoSounds very like the UK Trident submarines which couldn't be dependent upon explicit authorization from a central authority. In a very British way, our ultimate deterrent relies on hand written letters from the serving PM carried by each sub: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort
- JoeAltmaier 13y agoI dunno - I think we were safer with dedicated airmen manning Minuteman silo switches. Morale dropped after the PALs were installed. They disrespected the whole idea - entered a launch code of 0000-0000. Still they knew they'd become administrators (alcoholism, spousal- and drug-abuse etc) and not the last link in the chain preventing nuclear war. How was that an improvement?
- aaronem 13y agoIn 1983, Gospodin Colonel Stanislav Petrov saved the world. Somehow I don't see the value of a system which would've made it impossible for him to do so.
- JoeAltmaier 13y agoConfused; Petrov was a human in the loop, thus saved the world? I agree with that view.
- bdunbar 13y ago> we were safer with dedicated airmen manning Minuteman silo switches. Competence is fleeting. A hundred years after Napoleon France produced the generals who 'fought' WW I.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- bananacurve 13y agoHopefully Russia doesn't have a doomsday machine.
- dreamfactory2 13y agoAccording to the article they do, and just as in the movie they kept it secret.
- arethuza 13y agoBad news I'm afraid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_%28nuclear_war%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_%28nuclear_war%29
- jamessb 13y agoThere's an interesting chapter on Nuclear Command and Control in Ross Anderson's Security Engineering: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/SEv2-c13.pdf http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/SEv2-c13.pdf
- Nursie 13y agoYou can't fight in here, this is the war room!
- hexagonc 13y agoProblems with poor morale on missile bases? The second in command at Stratcom[1] with gambling problems? Looks like we need to take humans out of the loop when it comes to nuclear decision making. We need something that will not be subject to emotions. Something that makes decisions based only on cold hard logic. . . [1] Strategic Command - in charge of, amongst other things, global strike and strategic deterrence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Strategic_Command http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Strategic_Command
- nathos 13y agoThen you read about men like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov and are are somewhat comforted that cold hard logic doesn't launch nukes.
- polemic 13y ago"Shall we play a game?"
- fuckpig 13y agoI used to use this movie to test out prospective girlfriends. If they found humor in it, they were worth a second look. If it was WTF face all the way, there was never going to be any compatibility.
- asgard1024 13y agoSounds like DRM (Digital Rights Management) problem. We have these locks on things so you wouldn't do anything questionable, but of course we can't send MPAA representative everytime you try to watch a movie, so here are the keys as well..
- GarvielLoken 13y agoAnd how was it on the Sovjet side? The article failed to explore that part. Genuinely asking.
- josefresco 13y agoHow about "Everything in Dr. Stangelove was Plausible in Hindsight" Less link-baity of a title but much more accurate.