we faced the very real threat of nuclear annihilation at any moment. It's terrifying how close we camenuclear holocaust was a threat
I don't understand why these days people talk and act as if there's no risk of nuclear catastrophe. The effect of that seems to me incomparably worse than global warming. Yet no-one seems to talk about it anymore. I read on HN sometimes people saying they won't have kids because global warming etc, but never similar reference to nuclear war.
I just looked up the famous Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists doomsday clock[0], which I hadn't heard about in years. Frighteningly, it is currently at 2 minutes to midnight, as close as it's ever been. Closer than it was at any time in the 60s, 70s, 80s. This is from the 2018 report[1]:
In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively
to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate
change, making the world security situation
more dangerous than it was a year ago—and as
dangerous as it has been since World War II.
The greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear
realm. ... To call the world nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger—and its immediacy.
On the climate change front, the danger may
seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic
temperature increases in the long run requires
urgent attention now. ...
But there has also been a breakdown in the
international order that has been dangerously
exacerbated by recent US actions. In 2017,
the United States backed away from its long-
standing leadership role in the world, reducing
its commitment to seek common ground and
undermining the overall effort toward solving
pressing global governance challenges. Neither
allies nor adversaries have been able to reliably
predict US actions—or understand when US
pronouncements are real, and when they are
mere rhetoric. International diplomacy has been
reduced to name-calling, giving it a surrealistic
sense of unreality that makes the world security
situation ever more threatening.
Because of the extraordinary danger of the current
moment, the Science and Security Board today
moves the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock 30
seconds closer to catastrophe.
It is now two minutes to
midnight—the closest the
Clock has ever been to
Doomsday, and as close as it
was in 1953, at the height of the
Cold War.
[0] https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-statements/
[1] https://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/2018%20Doomsday%...