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Re:Soviet Officer Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved the W... by Symmetry on Saturday September 21, 2019 @07:35PM (#21038611)
Petrov day is going to be celebrated on the 26th, just a few days away. Whatever your nationality, whatever your profession please ask yourself: "Am I contributing to the destruction of the world? Is there something I could be doing to destroy the world less?" And then please act on that.
Re:Soviet Officer Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved the W... by avar on Saturday September 21, 2019 @09:00PM (#21038946)
Or perhaps mainly consider your nationality.

There's a relatively small minority of the world population who live in one of the two countries with arms sufficient to "destroy the world" (although some of the runners up could certainly make life worldwide more miserable).

In practice people living in those countries have pretty much all the say in whether the world will get destroyed or not by choosing to vote for some nutcase in the next election. By comparison someone in <name pretty much any other country> has next to zero chance of moving the needle on potential world destruction.

Re:Soviet Officer Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved the W... by roenxi on Saturday September 21, 2019 @11:34PM (#21039496)
The circle of people in those two countries who actually control the arsenal is very small in relation to the population. Diplomats from other countries probably have better access to them than any citizen of their own country.

Nationality plays a role in who has the actual power but anyone can promote peace and have a real impact. Influential words and good ideas can come from anywhere.

Re:Soviet Officer Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved the W... by avar on Monday September 23, 2019 @12:58PM (#21050812)
You don't need to directly control these systems to have a big influence. People in these countries (a tiny minority of humanity) opt to stay and pay the taxes that maintain these systems.

But the main moral culpability is just not caring. Nuclear safety isn't even on the mind of the average voter in the US or Russia. If it were an issue as important as major wedge issues as say guns or religion are in the US even a small fraction of the population could have a major impact.

Re:Soviet Officer Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved the W... by 1986 on Saturday September 21, 2019 @10:00PM (#21039160)
And yet, most of us living in those two countries actually have very little say in selecting the executive who's in charge of making that decision.
Re:Soviet Officer Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved the W... by acqq on Saturday September 21, 2019 @09:49PM (#21039128)
On an uplifting note, we will all go together when we go (this year is the 60th anniversary of the song recording):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs