Well let’s see...since all countries with ICBMs also have technology in place to detect or verify via satellite a nuclear launch, absolutely nothing would happen. If a real launch had taken place, they would have known about it far before they heard about a post on Twitter. The alarmism here on HN is really disappointing. This is the kind of foolishness usually reserved for Reddit.

The intended audience of such tweets wouldn’t be Russia or China, it would be the conspiracy-minded wingnuts who might take that as their sign. Who knows what they might try. At the very least it would fuel further social division.

"absolutely nothing would happen"

With tensions already high and military maneuvers are beeing held closes to each other ... such a twitter comment for sure would have had an effect.

No one would have pushed any red button because of that, but fighter jets on both sides would have been put on alarm and in the air and close to each other(as well as submarines, warships, tanks on the border..) , with a high chance of clashes. Which could have increased the escalation to the point, that someone would feel forced to put the red button.

I think brainstorming about combinations of variables that could plausibly lead to a black swan event is worthwhile, and an excellent application for the collective mental processing powers of HN. I would advocate for a new kind of discussion class for threads, to focus on discrete perspectives and goals, risk being one of the most important kinds. Smart casual conversation is excellent, but there are other types that are also excellent, but in a different way.

I think plenty could have happened. Compare with the false nuclear attack alarm in Hawaii the other year. Panic can cause all kinds of unforseeable consequences.

Right, but I think the point is that panic is the only real danger this hack could've caused. That's important in it's own right, but hacking twitter is not going to cause nuclear war. DoD has a ... tentative relationship with social media. They are not making strategic deployment decisions based off of tweets (thank God).

> since all countries with ICBMs also have technology in place to detect or verify via satellite a nuclear launch

It's lucky that those kinds of things never go wron...

"On 26 September 1983, the nuclear early-warning system of the Soviet Union reported the launch of multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles from bases in the United States."

...oh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

Indeed! Where do people think USD 2tn/year for global military go? Weapons, yes, but also military intelligence, missile detecting and defense systems, radars, sonars, spy satellites, communication efficiency and disaster prevention.

Military is not _exactly_ ran-out-of-diazepam Dave with his hunting rifle and tinfoil hat.