151–160 of 389 posts
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The risk is that if you start bombing Iranian nuclear facilities that they immediately start manufacturing a nuclear bomb.
Start..?
This is indeed a very timely award. I sometimes feel like the world has forgotten that nuclear weapons still exist and are still on hair-trigger alert to obliterate major cities. Maybe the end of atmospheric testing and the success of (now defunct) weapons reduction treaties has blunted public perception to the ongoing threat that they represent, and to the need to tread carefully where nuclear powers are involved.
I really don't know what the F* they are thinking but they keep pushing further and further and hope there is no elastic snap. It's like they forgot about diplomacy with enemies --at the height of the cold war, at its Apex in the Cuba Missile Crisis, we had communication with the enemy --it was inconceivable we would not have communications with them but now it's a wild west of bluster and provocation. I'm not saying were not right in tamping down aggression, but you have to be cognizant of the perils that exist.
Quite striking is strident opponents of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki decision have few qualms about the prospects of current escalation. It's insane.
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Point is that if we can not behave on Earth how can we do it in other place.
it's an open question as to how interplanetary politics will actually go. it's possible that ancient squabbles between countries will carryover, but hopefully they won't, which means that a terrorist's nuclear bomb causing MAD on Earth wouldn't necessarily carryover to MAD on a terraformed Mars and Lunar colonies, as we saw with the Russians who boarded the ISS in blue and yellow. But even if it doesn't, Earth being…
Don't forget with-in countries.
If another planet becomes another 'country', they'll have internal disagreements.
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If I put a hammer over your head that can fall any minute you'll be worrying, but if you're born with the hammer over your head and your parents before you as well, it becomes less of a thing.
On an individual level, we all have a variety of hammers over our heads. Cancer has killed far more people prematurely than nuclear weapons. Something like 500,000 people a year are murdered. Traffic/bicycle/pedestrian accidents also kill more than nuclear weapons. Even compared to a once-in-a-century nuclear war that perhaps kills a billion people, cancer will kill roughly a billion in the next century anyway. So, f…
Mitigation of bike and pedestrian deaths is cheap. Just reform land use, advantage people over vehicles. Oops, now you're into culture and values.
Mitigation of cancer deaths is very expensive. Though we didn't invent cancer, we feel the moral imperative to "cure" it. And yet, while we're mitigating it, we're also making it worse. Cross purposes. What's your balance sheet for this conundrum?
Drugs kill lots of people. We own that one, right? How's the War on Drugs working out?
In conclusion, I wish I could wave away these dilemmas with a cute nominator and denominator. But I can barely reason about them before my head explodes. So I'm not buying what you're selling. Life's a bit more complicated, a bit more empirical, a bit less rational, than your tidy equations.
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Does it matter? It was probably obvious to the scientists working on the bomb that other countries would get it too sooner or later, including countries at odds with each other.
But was it really obvious? From what I can tell, much of the nuclear arms race happened thanks to espionage. Had information on warheads and the like been properly contained, maybe other countries would not have so easily developed the bomb.
The Soviets had people inside the Manhattan Project / Los Alamos. As the US made progress that information was fed to the Soviets/Russians.
Phenomenal choice. While 80 years is nice- it's a blip on the timescale of history. I personally think we're a button click away from going back to the stone age. I know others will disagree, but it's not something you wanna take a gamble on. I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies. And also why wars or proxy wars between nuclear powers are extremely foolish and should b…
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Yes but how? Obviously the invader is not going to stop the war and say "this was foolish". So it is up to all other nations to bow down and let them have their piece of the world.
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A lot less war under his admin than now. And I voted for the current admin. He's more jingoistic than Dick Cheney?
He’s certainly more jingoistic than Harris, as his slogans and supporters make evident.
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I have a feeling this will change real soon.