[jonp888]

Analysed logically the aim of your post was a positive message that pushes back against "doomers", yet somehow it left me more depressed about the utter futility and meaningless of existence than any other comment I've read so far.

[sanderjd]

There is nothing "doomer" about my comment that they replied to! It's just true (as this person agrees) that everyone has the incentive to build their own nuclear weapons, because they can't trust anyone else to protect them. That's just how it is now. And maybe non-proliferation was always a pipe dream. But I do feel like we could have given it a better go!

But it's also just how it is that the biggest countries already had huge nuclear stockpiles. I'm not convinced that small countries trying to build them also is a huge contributor to that base level of risk. But we've been surviving in that state of the world for about three-quarters of a century now.

It can't be the case that being open-eyed about the current state of things is "doomer", right? I'm not speculating impending future doom, just describing current conditions as I see them.