4 ms·

Do you have any reason to believe that to be the case? I agree that self-preservation has probably been a factor in the more than dozen close-calls the world h

by oskarth 11y ago

Do you have any reason to believe that to be the case? I agree that self-preservation has probably been a factor in the more than dozen close-calls the world has seen, but I would hardly call it impossible. There are many instances of humans failing to self-preserve.

onion2k 11y ago
Do you have any reason to believe that to be the case? Yes, but only within the limited circumstances of the cold war. I strongly believe that nuclear war between two equal and opposing parties is effectively impossible. The game theorist Thomas Schelling wrote about it - each party can only 'win' by demonstrating they're more willing to risk all out destruction but, importantly, never actually go through with it otherwise they lose. With nuclear war both sides lose completely if they go through with it, but they can lose less by giving up. Consequently one side will always, eventually, capitulate before a nuclear war happens because that's actually better for them.
- oskarth 11y ago
  Schelling has been on my to read list for a while - it's definitely an interesting subject (his model on segregation is really cool too). My problem with this reasoning is that it seems to assume perfectly rational actors. For most problems you can do that in the long run, and it's generally a sane thing to assume, but in this case it's a ruin problem - one irrational person with imperfect/delayed information in a power position is enough.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    It also ignores the possibility of accidental nuclear war. Once ICBMs became common and warning times dropped to minutes, so much of the machinery of war had to be automatic (whether with actual machines, or with people given pre-baked orders and procedures) that setting it all off by accident was a serious possibility. Actually, is a serious possibility. That stuff is all still there.
- riemannzeta 11y ago
  Glad you brought up Schelling. He gave a fairly compelling answer to the question posed in this article in his Nobel acceptance speech 10 years ago. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2005/schelling-lecture.pdf http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/lau...

by oskarth 11y ago

onion2k 11y ago

Do you have any reason to believe that to be the case? Yes, but only within the limited circumstances of the cold war. I strongly believe that nuclear war between two equal and opposing parties is effectively impossible. The game theorist Thomas Schelling wrote about it - each party can only 'win' by demonstrating they're more willing to risk all out destruction but, importantly, never actually go through with it otherwise they lose. With nuclear war both sides lose completely if they go through with it, but they can lose less by giving up. Consequently one side will always, eventually, capitulate before a nuclear war happens because that's actually better for them.

oskarth 11y ago
Schelling has been on my to read list for a while - it's definitely an interesting subject (his model on segregation is really cool too). My problem with this reasoning is that it seems to assume perfectly rational actors. For most problems you can do that in the long run, and it's generally a sane thing to assume, but in this case it's a ruin problem - one irrational person with imperfect/delayed information in a power position is enough.
- mikeash 11y ago
  It also ignores the possibility of accidental nuclear war. Once ICBMs became common and warning times dropped to minutes, so much of the machinery of war had to be automatic (whether with actual machines, or with people given pre-baked orders and procedures) that setting it all off by accident was a serious possibility. Actually, is a serious possibility. That stuff is all still there.
riemannzeta 11y ago
Glad you brought up Schelling. He gave a fairly compelling answer to the question posed in this article in his Nobel acceptance speech 10 years ago. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2005/schelling-lecture.pdf http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/lau...