Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

boingboing.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 62 posts

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#41

Post by dotancohen »

sto_hristo wrote: post #6

Here's a better proposal: Send this professor to orchestrate the invasion of WW2 Japan. He obviously has better ways to deal with a radicalized, ultra nationalist, psycho nation that likes outdo the Nazi in atrocities. Put on a grafana dashboard where he can track how many millions soldiers that would cost as well.

  >Put on a grafana dashboard where he can track how
  > many millions soldiers that would cost as well.
Kill civilians in a nuclear fireball order to protect soldiers from going to conventional battle?

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#42

Post by cambinoda »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #40

Well, the President has men in his service who have killed people before and would not hesitate to do it again at the President's order, be the target innocent or not. So the President would never have to bloody his or her hands and the whole trick would only cost one more senseless death, among the millions to follow immediately after. But I suppose it's an interesting reflection on the moral implications of grantin…

> So the President would never have to bloody his or her hands

You missed the point. The whole argument is that if POTUS had to kill someone, they wouldn’t make the decision to kill many others. “The winning move is not to play,” as Joshua said in War Games (1983). They wouldn’t actually put the president in the situation, it’s just a sanity check thought experiment. Nukes are expensive posturing- the big stick to hold as you speak softly.

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#43

Post by ada1981 »

cambinoda wrote: post #42
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #40

Well, the President has men in his service who have killed people before and would not hesitate to do it again at the President's order, be the target innocent or not. So the President would never have to bloody his or her hands and the whole trick would only cost one more senseless death, among the millions to follow immediately after. But I suppose it's an interesting reflection on the moral implications of grantin…

> So the President would never have to bloody his or her hands You missed the point. The whole argument is that if POTUS had to kill someone, they wouldn’t make the decision to kill many others. “The winning move is not to play,” as Joshua said in War Games (1983). They wouldn’t actually put the president in the situation, it’s just a sanity check thought experiment. Nukes are expensive posturing- the big stick to ho…

Excellent reference.

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#45

Post by dnautics »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #40

Well, the President has men in his service who have killed people before and would not hesitate to do it again at the President's order, be the target innocent or not. So the President would never have to bloody his or her hands and the whole trick would only cost one more senseless death, among the millions to follow immediately after. But I suppose it's an interesting reflection on the moral implications of grantin…

> can anyone be said to hold such power legitimately, when they have only been given this power by a small minority of the entire population that is potentially affected by the decision

Can anyone be said to hold the power to murder millions if not billions legitimately, even if they were selected by a democratic vote?

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#46

Post by sto_hristo »

XMPPwocky wrote: post #16
sto_hristo wrote: post #6

Here's a better proposal: Send this professor to orchestrate the invasion of WW2 Japan. He obviously has better ways to deal with a radicalized, ultra nationalist, psycho nation that likes outdo the Nazi in atrocities. Put on a grafana dashboard where he can track how many millions soldiers that would cost as well.

Ignoring the fact that the value of the use of atomic bombs against Japan is heavily debated to this day... Can you think of anything that might have changed from 1945 to 1981 in terms of geopolitics, such that the use of nuclear weapons by the United States might have led to some sort of global thermonuclear war? In other words- and, excuse me, I'm not very familiar with the history here- was there some other nuclea…

I guess you and the professor live in the same idealistic, perfect, and flawless suburb, where the sun shines even at night. But the world spans beyond your happy gated hippy community and it's a cruel place.

First and foremost consider who you're up against. All those lovely people in Russia, China, NK, ..., are kept at bay precisely because they know why US ICMBs are named "Minuteman." If you put a speed bump in the way of retaliation, you'll only embolden them. Fighting against an impotent, incapable, and snared opposition is anyone's dream. Why do you think China so casually runs concentration camps today, right now? And Russia so casually annexed territory of a foreign country - which, btw, handed over their nukes to Russia in exchange for protection.

"Ignoring the fact that the value of the use of atomic bombs against Japan is heavily debated to this day..."

The dimensions of the planet is also heavily debated, but that doesn't change the facts of it. The two nukes ended the war then and there, Japan capitulated without a single soldier setting foot on the mainland. Only someone to whom empathy is an alien concept and completely out of his mind can argue that invasion would have been better. If you have the imagination, picture yourself in a boat en route to certain death, you and millions like you, having to fight for every strand of grass against an enemy that considers their (unseen) emperor a god for which they will gladly die for, because it's honorable.

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#47

Post by stuaxo »

cambinoda wrote: post #42
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #40

Well, the President has men in his service who have killed people before and would not hesitate to do it again at the President's order, be the target innocent or not. So the President would never have to bloody his or her hands and the whole trick would only cost one more senseless death, among the millions to follow immediately after. But I suppose it's an interesting reflection on the moral implications of grantin…

> So the President would never have to bloody his or her hands You missed the point. The whole argument is that if POTUS had to kill someone, they wouldn’t make the decision to kill many others. “The winning move is not to play,” as Joshua said in War Games (1983). They wouldn’t actually put the president in the situation, it’s just a sanity check thought experiment. Nukes are expensive posturing- the big stick to ho…

I guess they weren't thinking of the current president.

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#48

Post by iSnow »

tgv wrote: post #4

Here's your writing prompt for today: Meanwhile, in the Kremlin ...

Since they are a less open society, we'll never really know, but it seems logical that they have been thinking about the exact same issue. Contrary to common wisdom in the USA, I've yet to see any substantial evidence that the USSR/Russia was/is hot on lobbing nukes on our heads, so it would make sense they have thought about the balance between self-deterrence and second-strike readiness.

Some argue that the Dead Hand/Perimetr system, esp. the doomsday device components, have as much the goal to chill the own guys as deter a Western first strike.

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#49

Post by sto_hristo »

dotancohen wrote: post #41
sto_hristo wrote: post #6

Here's a better proposal: Send this professor to orchestrate the invasion of WW2 Japan. He obviously has better ways to deal with a radicalized, ultra nationalist, psycho nation that likes outdo the Nazi in atrocities. Put on a grafana dashboard where he can track how many millions soldiers that would cost as well.

>Put on a grafana dashboard where he can track how > many millions soldiers that would cost as well. Kill civilians in a nuclear fireball order to protect soldiers from going to conventional battle?

Being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield. Civilians move the country's industry, which is directed towards the war effort. War is not about a front, somewhere away, in the distance, where soldiers throw lead at each other at high speeds. Everyone is involved in it one way or another. These were industrial cities related to that war effort, not summer seaside camps.

Besides... the drawn out and bloody WW, taken all the exhaustion, considering who they were up against, the cost of it...

Re: Keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer's chest-cavity (2015)

#50

Post by dotancohen »

sto_hristo wrote: post #49
dotancohen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Put on a grafana dashboard where he can track how > many millions soldiers that would cost as well. Kill civilians in a nuclear fireball order to protect soldiers from going to conventional battle?

Being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield. Civilians move the country's industry, which is directed towards the war effort. War is not about a front, somewhere away, in the distance, where soldiers throw lead at each other at high speeds. Everyone is involved in it one way or another. These were industrial cities related to that war effort, not summer seaside camps. Besides... the drawn out and bloody WW…

  > Being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield.
In my army it does. We take all precautions to shield civilians where practical. I'm an infantryman and I've seen soldiers continue to take fire to protect Arab civilians from getting caught in the middle. I cannot tell you if by policy that is a result of every time the Israeli army so much as scratches an Arab civilian that it becomes international news, but it is ingrained in most soldiers personal moral beliefs as well.

There is no lack of counterexamples that you could google, but as policy and as most soldiers' morals, protecting civilians - from both sides - is as paramount to us as the Prime Directive is to Picard.

What nation do you represent that "being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield"? I thought that was standard military procedure to avoid civilian casualties since at least the second world war.

Post reply on HN