(March 23, 2018 at 10:07 am)popeyespappy Wrote: Nuclear war will become obsolete just as soon as someone comes up with antimatter bombs.

I don't give a shit what doomsday device humans dream up, nobody wins if all of us die.

This planet is the only home I have, the only home our species has.

(March 23, 2018 at 10:11 am)Brian37 Wrote:

(March 23, 2018 at 10:07 am)popeyespappy Wrote: Nuclear war will become obsolete just as soon as someone comes up with antimatter bombs.

I don't give a shit what doomsday device humans dream up, nobody wins if all of us die.

This planet is the only home I have, the only home our species has.

Reality doesn’t give a shit about what you chose to give shits about.

(March 23, 2018 at 10:09 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: Nuclear war will never become obsolete unless a new and even more effective weapon technology supersedes it before it could by itself halt the progress of human technology.

Instead it will become ever more likely as the technology to manufacture nuclear weapons, now 75 years old, comes within the reach of more and more nations simply as part of general progress in overall level of technology, and more and more nations will acquire nuclear weapons, making control of nuclear weapon use through effective command and control and international regimes ever more complex and difficult.

Perhaps the most likely future Unclear war would not be a all out exchange of tens of thousands of warheads as per the Cold War scenario.  So nuclear war becomes more likely to be survivable.  But in place of a single throw of dice, I think nuclear war, while smaller, will likely become more frequent.

The only question is whether, over the long term, humanity will expand its range faster than the rate at which nuclear war can consume the population and infrastructure.

You are missing my point.

I am not talking about the technology itself, I said that it already exists and we cannot turn back the clock.

I am talking about "mutual destruction". Humans have always dreamed up ways to kill, that is bad enough.

I am saying no matter what diplomacy is used, or what war tactic is employed, nobody wins if everybody dies. If our species is wiped out, what was accomplished? 

That is what I mean by nuclear war needs to be obsolete. The only people that should be trusted to control them, are the ones who refuse to use them.

I think it has been little appreciated, but there has been a fundamental change in the world since the year 2000 as far as nuclear weapon use were concerned.

Prior to the year 2000, it was generally thought that russian nuclear arsenal was a decaying relic, and America had the world’s only overpowering nuclear arsenal.  Furthermore America generally respected territorial and administrative sovereignty of other nations and generally promoted a collegial collaborative international environment.   Consequently most nations are better off without nuclear weapon under an international regime ruled benignly by a predictable and multi-lateral minded United States.

The Iraq war, the progressive American led encroachment on former Soviet sphere of influence and concurrent recovery of an angered and hostile Russia, and trump, invalided all of those assumptions, which were the bedrock of relative stability of a world in which nuclear weapon was really well within the reach of perhaps 25-30 countries.

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(March 23, 2018 at 10:27 am)Brian37 Wrote:

(March 23, 2018 at 10:09 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: Nuclear war will never become obsolete unless a new and even more effective weapon technology supersedes it before it could by itself halt the progress of human technology.

Instead it will become ever more likely as the technology to manufacture nuclear weapons, now 75 years old, comes within the reach of more and more nations simply as part of general progress in overall level of technology, and more and more nations will acquire nuclear weapons, making control of nuclear weapon use through effective command and control and international regimes ever more complex and difficult.

Perhaps the most likely future Unclear war would not be a all out exchange of tens of thousands of warheads as per the Cold War scenario.  So nuclear war becomes more likely to be survivable.  But in place of a single throw of dice, I think nuclear war, while smaller, will likely become more frequent.

The only question is whether, over the long term, humanity will expand its range faster than the rate at which nuclear war can consume the population and infrastructure.

You are missing my point.

I am not talking about the technology itself, I said that it already exists and we cannot turn back the clock.

I am talking about "mutual destruction". Humans have always dreamed up ways to kill, that is bad enough.

I am saying no matter what diplomacy is used, or what war tactic is employed, nobody wins if everybody dies. If our species is wiped out, what was accomplished? 

That is what I mean by nuclear war needs to be obsolete. The only people that should be trusted to control them, are the ones who refuse to use them.

Human mentality is it is better to risk everyone dying then to accept that I may die while my enemy lives. If anything, this sort of fuck the world to get what I want ethos echos to the ethos of the right wing popularity political current coming to the surface in the US, and Eastern Europe.

It is not popularized because how badly this would reflect upon either superpower, but during the Cold War both superpowers seriously toyed with the idea of building dooms day devices that would be hidden near their own territory, thus assuring its use would lead to the utter annilhation of its own country, but which would be so destructive that its sphere of destruction would encompass the rival superpower as well.   For the Soviets it was a thermal nuclear weapon with enhanced fall out thay weighted several thousand tons and so massive it was to be disguised as a common tramp cargo ship and docked in some obscure Soviet arctic port.  It was to be detonated if Soviet Union lost a nuclear war.  The weapons was to have a yield of tens of thousands of megatons, and would kill everyone in the northern hemisphere with blast and fallout.

America also toyed with building single enormous multi-state thermal nuclear weapons 2-3 orders of magnitude more powerful than Czar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever actually detonated, as contingency measure against a successful preemptive strike.

(March 23, 2018 at 10:13 am)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(March 23, 2018 at 10:11 am)Brian37 Wrote: I don't give a shit what doomsday device humans dream up, nobody wins if all of us die.

This planet is the only home I have, the only home our species has.

Reality doesn’t give a shit about what you chose to give shits about.

And part of that reality is I don't give a shit that you say that.

If you don't care about the prospect global destruction, I can't force you to care. But I do. 

The reality is there that a nuclear war could happen. And right now we have a nut in the White House, a KGB Thug running Russia, and a lost stooge running NK and all of them are dangerous sociopaths. JFK understood the implications, and as much as I hated Reagan's economics, even he understood the implications. 

Yes I do care about the only planet I have to live on. I don't give a shit what you think about that.

The joke, Brian, is that you're writing an Op/Ed about nuclear annihilation being bad.

It's like saying "I've put some thought into it, and you may want to sit down for this because you're in for a shock, but I don't think you should hit old ladies with your car."

It's such a unanimously held belief, the idea someone would try to explain it or convince people of it is hilarious.

The good news, I guess, is that I'm with you 100%. I think we should avoid destroying the earth with nuclear weapons.

"Worry less and DO what you can".

If doing what you can is just talking about how terrible nuclear war would be, then I am afraid that’s the same as not doing anything.

It takes a lot more than good intentions and some treaty regimes, and exhortations for other countries to not go nuclear while we tout our own nuclear arsenals.

You have to understand why countries and regimes want to have or use nuclear weapons. You have to make the removal of those reasons a higher priority and stronger imperative than other doctrines or interests.

(March 23, 2018 at 10:47 am)wallym Wrote: The joke, Brian, is that you're writing an Op/Ed about nuclear annihilation being bad.  

It's like saying  "I've put some thought into it, and you may want to sit down for this because you're in for a shock, but I don't think you should hit old ladies with your car."

It's such a unanimously held belief, the idea someone would try to explain it or convince people of it is hilarious.

The good news, I guess, is that I'm with you 100%.  I think we should avoid destroying the earth with nuclear weapons.

Hey fuckface, like I said, nobody is forcing you to take anything seriously. If you like joking about it go ahead. I could give one shit less what you think.

(March 23, 2018 at 10:56 am)Brian37 Wrote:

(March 23, 2018 at 10:47 am)wallym Wrote: The joke, Brian, is that you're writing an Op/Ed about nuclear annihilation being bad.  

It's like saying  "I've put some thought into it, and you may want to sit down for this because you're in for a shock, but I don't think you should hit old ladies with your car."

It's such a unanimously held belief, the idea someone would try to explain it or convince people of it is hilarious.

The good news, I guess, is that I'm with you 100%.  I think we should avoid destroying the earth with nuclear weapons.

Hey fuckface, like I said, nobody is forcing you to take anything seriously. If you like joking about it go ahead. I could give one shit less what you think.

If only your shit is worth something.