I say the people threatening with nukes here would turn to more subtle methods of invasion, that's their objectives. They won't destroy it because they can't have it. That'd be a waste of nukes.
Now is there someone threatening another country with nukes at the moment but not using them because he knows that'd be useless anyway and would it prove my point ?
Then I recommend you spend more time around people. Grown men have been convicted of throwing acid in an ex-girlfriend's face because "if I can't have you, no-one can."
> Now is there someone threatening another country with nukes at the moment but not using them because he knows that'd be useless anyway and would it prove my point ?
It doesn't prove your point because no country today is facing imminent extinction. Rationality changes when desperation comes into play.
> Then I recommend you spend more time around people. Grown men have been convicted of throwing acid in an ex-girlfriend's face because "if I can't have you, no-one can."
You come up with a stupid analogy based on children behavior and now you invoke people throwing acid ?
This is nickelodeon level debate here.
> It doesn't prove your point because no country today is facing imminent extinction. Rationality changes when desperation comes into play.
You are making the extraordinary (and quite childish considering you started with an analogy based on children behavior) claim that a country would nuke another one to go and settle there, it's up to you to prove it. So far, in the real world, no one has used nukes like that.
I'd follow the argument but if a guy would throw acid and was in position to throw a nuke over a country they were denied access to it's most likely plausible they have the means and resources to get into this country in a more discrete and safe way (safe as in: he's in a country that wasn't nuked).
> > You come up with a stupid analogy based on children behavior and now you invoke people throwing acid ?
> It’s called an analogy. Given we’re talking about nuclear war, it’s not an insane analogy.
It looks more like a slippery slope bias to me. You can "prove" any dangers with that analogy but it's running against what history and reality have shown us so far.
> > claim that a country would nuke another one to go and settle there, it's up to you to prove it.
> I never said they’d try to settle the wasteland. I think you’re struggling to understand the analogy.
True, true, somehow the "threaten to" stayed in the keyboard. I still stand by the fact that this analogy doesn't scale to the real world.
I’m simply making a point that humans don’t always behave reasonably in a way that would achieve their stated goals. I tried to use an analogy to make this easier but you seem confused. I could have replaced “acid” with “murder.” Would that have helped?
They won't destroy it because they can't have it. That'd be a waste of nukes.
If your civilization is on the verge of extinction then you are not concerned about wasting nukes. You are way overestimating human rationality under extreme pressure.
I think I'll be keeping my nukes to defend myself from the next bigger bully (which would allow me to keep my country) rather than waste it on the smaller one (which would give me no advantage and less nukes).
> You are way overestimating human rationality under extreme pressure.
Ironically, pretty sure the people with the power to launch nukes won't feel the same pressure as people suffering from climate change consequences. So.. keep the restless and angry gods content and they won't wage war and spread destruction.
A hypothetical country threatening NZ with nukes in this example would be presenting an argument: either let us in, or else we will nuke you - in hopes that NZ prefers being overcrowded but surviving, over being glassed. NZ will not take the deal - at first. The other country can insist more and more, until the situation is so tense that any random event could trigger launching the missiles.
And then, if NZ acquiesces and lets people from one country evacuate to their land, another nuclear country would ask for the same deal. Or they may even point half the nukes at the first country early on, to make sure that either they get the deal or no one else.
Thing with brinkmanship is that at no point anyone wants to actually use the nukes - but at every point it's locally optimal to up the threat, and there is no obvious stopping condition until someone trips over a cable, hits a launch console, and the nukes starts flying.
I say the people threatening with nukes here would turn to more subtle methods of invasion, that's their objectives. They won't destroy it because they can't have it. That'd be a waste of nukes.
Now is there someone threatening another country with nukes at the moment but not using them because he knows that'd be useless anyway and would it prove my point ?