[MediaSquirrel]

Nukes gave us peace and freedom.

We've had no WW3 (so far) and no one here needs to worry about being drafted into a war. Gatling might have thought his gun would reduce the number of war fatalities, but but Oppenheimer thought he would end the world. Both were wrong.

Alternative take: Inventors are bad at predicting the downstream societal effects of their inventions.

[treebeard901]

Let's assume a nuclear exchange happens at some point during a war. There is a very high chance that this will cause an escalation leading to a nuclear apocalypse.

Since this result is presumably inevitable at increasing frequency, it's more like nukes prevented another major world war and stole a form of peace from the future, temporarily. That peace debt might be repaid with the end of everything.

[KronisLV]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls

[nehal3m]

Funny how the unintentional close calls become more sparse with time. I wonder if that’s because humanity got better at dealing with the responsibility or because the oopsies haven’t been declassified yet.

[testaccount28]

let's assume the trees rise up and set fire to the ionosphere.

[ares623]

well whatever society is left will definitely be "peaceful" for at least a couple of decades.

[wat10000]

Nuclear weapons traded a high probability of a major war for a low probability of an apocalyptic war.

My question is, how low is that probability, exactly? Because the tradeoff looks very different if it’s one in a million per year, versus one in a hundred per year.

My assessment, looking at the history and the close calls, is that it’s more like one in a hundred.

[9dev]

It certainly rises if the USA votes for an irresponsible crook.

[jiehong]

It very much depends on where "here" is.

At least, it gives impunity to attack others with less fear of retaliation…

[imjonse]

> no one here needs to worry about being drafted into a war.

here meaning the US or HN?

[zabzonk]

> no one here needs to worry about being drafted into a war

Lots of talk in the UK recently about conscription.

[imjonse]

Croatia:

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/croatia-r...

[awjlogan]

I haven’t heard a peep about conscription, can you provide a source? There was some vague national service proposal for school leavers a couple of years ago, but that was it.

[zabzonk]

Among many others: https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2178935/uk-issued-conscrip...

[awjlogan]

One person in the Lords raising the issue in no way constitutes widespread calls for conscription.

[watwut]

Germany is already working on it. Austria made it longer.

[expedition32]

Nuclear PROLIFERATION gave us peace and freedom.

The Americans wanted to keep it all to themselves you know...