(November 23, 2010 at 6:15 am)lrh9 Wrote: I always have been and still am a big believer in MAD. Any rational agent will not attack or invade you if it means his/her/its own self destruction. I'd like to say I'm not a product or heir of the cold war era. I was born in 1989, the year the wall was torn down.
My primary fear of nuclear weaponry stems from the consequences if it falls into the hands of irrational agents. We've all witnessed the birth of mass terrorism. We're all cognizant of what certain types of people in the world want to do regardless of the consequences to others or themselves.
However, I still remain optimistic about the atom. MAD precisely prevents costly - in terms of human lives - mass invasions. I freely admit that I don't like the system because of its inherent flaw when it comes to irrational agents. I'd like an operative missile defense system, but it's the best system we have at the moment.
Let's not forget energy applications. No other form of energy has the potential to supply so many people with energy with so little pollution. In fact, I'd wager that there are some energy hungry endeavors that simply won't be possible without nuclear energy.
Of course I agree that we must continually strive to improve the technology and our methods of interacting with it.
Be fair, rational, and level headed.
There is nothing rational (or moral) about building enough nuclear weapons to kill mankind five times over regardless of the claims of needing to do so. You may say that you are not a product or heir of the cold war, but I'm sorry to say that that doesn't get you out from under the fact that there are thousands of nukes in this world that can snuff you and me out in a nanosecond.
"who holds the aces
the east or the west
this is the crap
our children are learning"
-Roger Waters
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
