Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

Re:Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction? by tsimionescu on Friday November 13, 2020 @05:56AM (#25081060)

> Nuclear weapons are weapons of policy, not weapons of war

That almost sounds plausible if you don't know the long history of nuclear weapons being almost used and avoided by sheer luck. Your thesis also breaks down once you remember that the USA is building 'small-scale' nuclear weapons with the precise intention of making them usable in current conflicts.

Not to mention that the US have recently unilaterally withdrawn from the disarmament agreement with Russia, under a supposedly Russia-friendly president.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction? by throwaway0a5e on Friday November 13, 2020 @07:18AM (#25081431)

>nuclear weapons being almost used and avoided by sheer luck.

Sheer luck is an odd way to describe "so much process and procedure and checks that when something does slip through the cracks it is correctly identified as anomalous and nobody gets nuked". Sure it might not make you feel warm and fuzzy inside and near misses show where to improve the system but to pretend it's just "sheer luck" despite god knows how many man hours being spent on the problem is naive, hyperbolic and infantile.

[ Parent | on HN ]