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by acqq 3483 days ago
Yes it's surely not that the humanity only

"once wielded the weapons"

the threat is still too big.

The danger of the accident increases, as people (even those in charge) start to think that if nothing really bad happened until now it won't in the future. In fact, we in the computer related professions should be more than aware how easy is for some minor bug or glitch to escalate. I've posted this just some days ago:

The nuclear weapons, ready to be launched at the moment notice "are prone to the same problems any other computer-related projects are: the amount of the damage is effectively infinitely larger than the effort needed to start it."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13030541

And the accidents happen.

We must still push in the direction of the reducing the amount of nuclear weapons. The danger is still immense.
2 comments
arethuza 3483 days ago
The sheer number of nuclear weapons has reduced dramatically since the bad days of the Cold War - but I do worry that the systemic risks of having a societal collapse are much higher these days.

Looking at the banking crisis - the UK government (and probably others) were terrified of the effects of a few banks collapsing - state of emergency, troops on streets etc. How would be cope if something really bad happened - not too well I suspect.

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acqq 3483 days ago
So what do you want to say? Do you think that the chances of states of emergency should be our only worry? Or do you think that the states of emergency can even more increase the chances of nuclear accidents, even more reducing the chance of continuation of the civilization?
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ErikVandeWater 3483 days ago
And from a 60 Minutes episode I remember, there is no built-in self-destruct. Once it's in the air, if you don't shoot it down, you expect someone - a lot of someones - to die.
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acqq 3483 days ago
Kubrick, film, 1964:

"President: "You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. The bomb, Dimitri. The hydrogen bomb. Well now what happened is, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of, well he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little... funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing. Well, I'll tell you what he did, he ordered his planes... to attack your country."

"Listen, I've been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick. Well I'll tell you. We'd like to give your air staff a complete run down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes. Yes! I mean, if we're unable to recall the planes, then I'd say that, uh, well, we're just going to have to help you destroy them, Dimitri. I know they're our boys."

"Who should we call? Who should we call, Dimitri? The people...? Sorry, you faded away there. The People's Central Air Defense Headquarters. Where is that, Dimitri? In Omsk. Right. Yes. Oh, you'll call them first, will you? Uh huh. Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dimitri? What?""

... (later) ...

"DeSadeski: the deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.

President: This is preposterous. I've never approved of anything like that.

DeSadeski: Our source was the New York Times.

President: Dr. Strangelove, do we have anything like that in the works?

Dr Strangelove: Under the authority granted me as director of weapons research and development, I commissioned last year a study of this project by the Bland corporation. Based on the findings of the report, my conclusion was that this idea was not a practical deterrent, for reasons which, at this moment, must be all too obvious.

Dr Strangelove: it's remarkably simple to do that. When you merely wish to bury bombs, there is no limit to the size. After that they are connected to a gigantic complex of computers. Now then, a specific and clearly defined set of circumstances, under which the bombs are to be exploded, is programmed into a tape memory bank.

but the... whole point of the doomsday machine... is lost... if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?"

In reality:

"Dr. Strangelove's 'Doomsday Machine': It's Real"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1132426...

"RAZ: Right. If it was supposed to be a deterrent, why didn't they tell us?

Mr. THOMPSON: And the reason they didn't tell us, there are a couple of reasons..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/05/nuclear-missile-cod...

The code was 000000

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