> Attributes that distinguish WW3 from previous world wars were IIRC

You're missing the commonalities, what defined world wars: the full might of industrial economies being dedicated to military campaigns.

World War II's theatres' were incoherent–the Axis interests in e.g. China and the Pacific had basically zero stragegic overlap with Europe and North Africa. (The only parties having to consider a unified theatre being the USSR and USA.) But the entire economic surplus of Europe, Asia and North America was basically dedicated to (or extracted towards) making things that were reasonably expected to be destroyed within the year.

the "world" part of world war is also important. pretty much every economy involved was at least undergoing heavy handed rationing of goods, encouraging people to donate scrap metal, etc.

Russians are not under food rationing yet.

Here’s hoping they feel the war in Moscow and St Petersburg this year. A bit of rationing wouldn’t hurt them.

More than the war, they’ll feel the peace. More than 100% of the economic growth of the last few years has gone into war production, meaning the civilian economy has shrunk. When the weapons factories are scaled back the economy is going to hurt something fierce. Even Muscovites will notice.

This is why Putin can’t stop fighting. When the fighting stops Russia will face a reckoning. Better to postpone that day hoping that Europe runs out of steam.

ww2 history begs to differ. The USSR has seen massive economic growth in 1946-1950s.

That was a very different situation. The USSR was still catching up in industrialisation, and despite its huge losses still had vast reserves of labour in the countryside to tap. It was much more like the process of industrialisation in China that’s seen huge growth there over the last generation. Russia has already industrialised so it doesn’t have a catch-up growth opportunity in the same way. They are much more labour and resource constrained these days.

"still had vast reserves of labour in the countryside to tap"

There was a huge shortage of labor in the countryside after the war.

This labor was, pre-war, a bunch of poor, uneducated serfs (basically slaves). But leading up to WWII, they were transformed into educated, literate, laborers. Also the USSR had invested leading up to WW2 in agriculture outside Ukraine (since the Nazis controlled it).

So while there was less labor, they were far more productive labor thanks to post-revolution, post-WWI measures

So one person says, USSR was still catching up in industrialisation, the other one says, they were far more productive... what is it? The whole argument still feels far-fetched at the very least.

> This labor was, pre-war, a bunch of poor, uneducated serfs (basically slaves).

This is incorrect. Serfdom in Russian empire was abolished in 1861, long before the revolution. Peasant literacy rates, while still poor, had been gradually improving after that.

> Also the USSR had invested leading up to WW2 in agriculture outside Ukraine (since the Nazis controlled it).

What? Not only Ukraine was controlled by Bolsheviks at the start of WW2 its territories have also been extended with parts of Poland and Romania annexed by Soviets between the start of WW2 and the so-called "Great Patriotic" phase of the war.

The USSR's (well, Russia's) growth had begun before WW2, and it was in response to pre-WW1 Russian being severely underdeveloped. There was a ton of room for growth that started before WWII, and it continued unabated.

Basically, Russia up to WW2 had economic growth because it was "catching up" to the West. Industrialization was one place. Literacy was another. There was a huge effort to improve literacy after the Tsar was killed.

Finally, because the Nazis occupied Ukraine during WW2, Russia/the USSR had to develop other places during WW2 just to feed its people, which accelerated growth post-war.

These conditions do not exist today, I don't think. But this isn't my area of expertise. I just know that Russia was a feudalistic shithole until the Tsar was overthrown, and then they worked hard to turn the serfs into educated and literate people, right as they were forced by invasion to economically develop previously overlooked lands.

If you want a very pro-1% take on this, check out Anna Karenina. The "good guy" main character of the novel is a large landowner with a lot of serfs (read: slaves) whom he visits and instructs, based on latest science, how to farm better.

Same thing happened in Japan about a generation or two earlier. There's ar eason tiny, flyover Japan beat Russia in the Russo-Japanese war. Russia was totally backwards, even by "barely industrialized Japan" standards.

British Empire was heavily involved in Europe, North Africa and South-East Asia. Events in India had great consequences on Europe

The USSR on the other hand barely had any involvement in the Pacific theatre, entering in August 1945.

The USSR had to carefully keep enough land forces in the Pacific region to deter a Japanese land invasion. (Remember that Japan controlled Manchukuo.) So, yes, the USSR had little involvement, and they had to be very careful to keep it from becoming an active front.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol (that was in 1939).

Fear of the USSR entering the war against them was also a deciding factor in Japan's surrender. More so than the atomic bombs.

> But the entire economic surplus of Europe, Asia and North America was basically dedicated to (or extracted towards) making things that were reasonably expected to be destroyed within the year.

This is no longer necessary to inflict the catastrophic destruction we're really referring to when talking about a hypothetical WWIII

Their argument is that, by definition, it can’t be a world war unless all economic surplus is dedicated to war purposes.

I tend to agree with both of you, and that by extension, we will never see another world war unless society as we know it collapses significantly.

I don't think you are using standard definitions.

> A world war is an international conflict that involves most or all of the world's major powers. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war

> Total war is a type of warfare that mobilizes the totality of national resources to sustain war production, blurring the line between military and civilian activities and legitimate attacks on civilian targets as part of a war without restriction as to the combatants, territory or objectives involved. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war

It does so happen that the two world wars were also total wars.

Well first off I think we were speaking colloquially. But secondly, I think unless certain powers cross some threshold where they’re undeniably engaging “total war”, they’ll use wishy-washy terms like “special military operation” (Russia) or “armed conflict”. That’s also not to mention proxy wars (Syria) or even non-violent acts of aggression against sovereignty (Hong Kong).

In other words, “total war” is a necessary ingredient for a “world war” these days or you’ll have all of these countries claiming they’re not actually at war.

Things have changed since I was a kid. We've gone from saturation bombing and dropping nukes as the big kahuna to being able to do point assassination strikes.

Topical the Israelis just killed Khamenei.

We are not heading into WW 3. Those old rich men you worry about have to pay a much higher price in cash for their illusions of control. And that reduces what harm and how long wars can run. Keep an eye on what the markets tell everyone on Monday.

The revolution will be notably public, but not live-streamed. It will come as a swift and decisive reaction to a shock-and-awe deployment that will de-stabilize the state apparatus of a big nation outside of the “west”. The movement will be initially localized but it will spread until a perimeter of containment is setup around developed nations. Much more will come after.

> And essentially none of us will know the truth, even the reasons.

Maybe not in the details, but the general geopolitical "axes" (USA/the "West" vs China/Russia/BRICS/"Global South"/etc) have become increasingly obvious in the last years. And so far, most of the recent conflicts fit pretty neatly into that pattern.

Of course there are more things running in parallel, like the general shift to the right, Trump in the US, the specific situation with Israel/Palestine, the emergence of AI, etc.

But I don't see why any of this needs any other "grand secret cause" to explain the current conflicts.

BRICS is Russia wishing that China (much less Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates) were aligned to its interests.

A more accurate description of the way the world is trending:

US / UK / Europe / Japan / South Korea (still tied by defense, if push really comes to shove) vs Russia vs China vs Non-Aligned Nations (India, Indonesia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, etc.)

And historically (1960s), in a multi-polar world, middle powers are best served by being ambiguously aligned to force advantageous courting by major powers.

Then have a look who is supporting whom with weapons, which militaries are running maneuvers together, who is cooperating - or not cooperating - economically, who is visiting each others' summits, etc.

It's true that many countries are trying to have relationship with both sides or are trying to keep all options open - which is the most reasonable strategy, I think - but there are still two power centers emerging between which those countries are aligning themselves.

> but there are still two power centers emerging

Yes. There is US and Israel in one side, and countries trying to maintain relationships with everybody on the other.

The most ridiculous thing about people claiming that BRICS is a military pole is that it has both India and China right there in the name. I don't know if you noticed, but those two almost got in an open war just in the last 6 months.

It's the West vs China with Russia as an also-ran with nukes now unfortunately.

Otherwise you've got some regional issues which is where Iran falls. None of the major players in the region like them, even if they would prefer not to have a conflict they'd be pretty stoked if the volatile regime was gone.

Most of those non-aligned nations are pretty much aligned with the west. Indonesia is absolutely aligned with the USA and the USA it. They are the "Indo" in Indo-Pacific Strategy!

What is the "west"?

Anyway, here's a reminder that two weeks ago the big war on everybody's head was USA against NATO.

Western liberal democracies and those closely aligned with them is colloquially "the west" now when talking geopolitics.

Obviously it's not geographic as Australia and New Zealand are in the Eastern Hemisphere but would always be assumed to be part of the "west" when discussing geopolitics.

Well, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea seem to have a (fairly loose) "alliance of convenience" at the moment. "The enemy of my enemy", more or less.

Hmm, I'm not sure trading is an alliance.

I doubt NK sent anything to Russia without payment in hard currency (gold).

NK was getting some reactor hardware from Russia. 'Unfortunately' the ship that was deliveing it, Ursa Major, went under in the Mediteranean.

Bartering some e-scooters for oil is hardly an alliance. Other than China, you just have a list of outcast countries on America, Europe, or the Middle East's sh*t list.

If this spreads into a broader conflict, it remains to be seen whether Europe sticks tightly with that block. They certainly won’t align with Russia, but they may be tied so closely to China economically that they can’t afford to be dragged into a direct conflict with them. I could see a situation where they try to remain non—aligned.

Given that we now that to deploy troops to prevent the US from invading Greenland.

I'd agree, it's not a given that the US can count on Europe in a conflict with China.

But probably Europe wouldn't be trading with China or anything.

It's just given the treatment of the US administration, the US probably can't build a volunteer coalition like I Iraq - unless there is an attack on US mainland.

hmmm - but is it really "world war" 3 if it's a bunch of localized conflicts?

I'm a little disappointed that the internet and social media had little impact on universal disclosure about geopolitical matters. My sense is that governments updated their playbooks to both defend against them (e.g. minimize leaking) and leverage them (e.g. bury inconvenient information with propaganda). By comparison, I'm more hopeful about cellphones and bodycams generally reducing excessive police violence and discrimination (emphasis on "reduce").

prediction: the nuclear threat will look quaint compared with disposable million-drone swarms on land and in the air, targeting anything remotely interesting via onboard AI.

“A bunch of localized conflicts” is what contemporaries thought WWII was before people realized the larger pattern.

First, I don't think this leads to WW3 although I would agree with you that there is a general global tendency towards escalation. Still, I think we can not call this WW3 and I am not 100% certain this is a build-up to WW3 either.

As for North Korea: I think the situation is not solely about North Korea itself but China. China is kind of acting as protective proxy here. I don't see North Korea as primary problem to the USA, but to South Korea and Japan. Both really should get nukes. Taiwan too, though mainland China would probably invade when it thinks Taiwan is about to have nukes; then again China already committed to invasion - this is the whole point of having a dictator like Xi in charge now.

The situation Russia is in is interesting, because even though they are stronger than Ukraine, Ukraine managed to stop or delay Russia, which is a huge feat, even with support. As Putin does not want to stop, and Trump is supporting him (agent Krasnov theory applies), I think this has escalation potential. Putin is killing civilians in Ukraine daily - I think he does that because he already committed to further escalation against all Europeans. So Europeans need a nuclear arsenal, but european politicians are totally lame - see Merz "we will never have nukes". Basically he wants to be abused by Putin here.

> So Europeans need a nuclear arsenal, but european politicians are totally lame

Are France's 240 submarines-launched thermonuclear ballistic missiles not adequate? Despite the need for security, nuclear proliferation is extremely bad. It seems ideal for France continue to maintain their nuclear weapons while the rest of Europe keeps their hands clean.

Say what you want about France, but their military has generally been extremely pragmatic and forward thinking*.

They've seen the writing on the wall about independent nukes for decades.

* WWII front collapse being more of a political failure than a military one: politicians dictating unachievable military strategies)

Taiwan needs nukes on low flying hypersonic cruise missles now. Seems that would halt Chinese aggression.

China won't invade Taiwan because it would destroy their economy and thus their country. Would wreck the entire world economy and turn every country against them.

It's nice nationalistic rhetoric, but there is literally no upside for them.

Check your thinking. Korea currently has a DMZ dividing it from a war that never really ended and was fought to a stalemate. Their nuclear program didn’t result in military action because they currently have a gun to the head of every South Korean citizen and the backing of a large nuclear neighbour. Those are circumstances you can’t easily recreate elsewhere.

Adding to your point, Seoul is visible from North Korea, and vice-versa, and likely has enough conventional artillery aimed at it that even without nukes an invasion would be Very Bad for the Korean people.

None of that would stop the current US administration from launching a sneak attack as we've seen several times in other countries. They simply do not care about consequences.

What is the analogous example or your argument? Was iraq sitting next to a china-grade neighbor? Who's venezuela china?

I assume you mean Iran rather than Iraq, but your point still stands.

North Korea is in such poor shape that they probably can't maintain much of the equipment much less keep the personnel trained and ready to use it effectively. Not a reason to go to war, but the threat to Soul and SK in general is likely massively overstated.

I think the strategic rational for unification completely swapped about 20 years ago. Up until the early 2000s it was likely in South Korea's, and the US's, interest to find a way to topple NK and unify the peninsula. The two populations had blood ties and common culture. Technologically the gap was growing but still reasonable. It would have been close to an east/west Germany type of situation where unification took effort but ultimately was clearly beneficial. China (and Russia) would have been losers in that unification would have brought a western friendly government even closer to their border. Additionally, NK still had a chance of re-energizing and becoming a real threat to SK.

Now however NK is in such bad shape that unification would be traumatic. South Korea would take on a problem of epic proportions, caring for and bringing a population of that size back into the broader world would be exceptionally costly and definitely not guaranteed to end well, possibly destabilizing SK in the process. Their cultures have grown apart making it hard for them to understand each other. The blood ties are not really there anymore. China and Russia would likely be the winners in that everyone sees NK as crazy and anyone helping them is hurting the world so they could get rid of that baggage. China especially would gain by having rail access to massive shipping assets to deliver goods even cheaper to the world. Finally, the US would loose a major rationale for stationing forces that close to China. They could, rightfully, say that NK isn't a threat and the massive US assets in South Korea and Japan should be drawn down.

> North Korea is in such poor shape that they probably can't maintain much of the equipment

Sadly we know from events in Ukraine that NK artillery works and that they have plenty of it. Yes, it's poor quality, but far from harmless.

Also to be clear: artillery is not exactly rocket science. They idea that NK doesn't have huge stockpiles is ludicrous.

It takes more than stockpiles of shells to be able to use it and maintain offensive positions capable of causing harm. From the reports I have seen NK military in Ukraine has been mostly cannon fodder and they are very untrained. That being said, joining the war effort in Ukraine is likely increasing their readiness.

Right... shells age. They blow up in the barrel, things like that. Maybe they even intentionally blow up in the barrel. Not that I would suggest sabotage. There's no way South Korean intelligence could possibly infiltrate North Korea ;)

But even so, if there was a serious threat of war, which is unlikely because China would stop North Korea, the US would place assets in the region and as we got close to a confrontation the US and South Korea (and as things are looking, probably Japan) would begin an aerial and missile bombardment to destroy in place North Korean offensive capabilities. Some would get through of course, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of South Korean casualties, but in the context of a conventional war North Korea's capabilities would be quickly overwhelmed, at least in my opinion.

But honestly, the current status quo works pretty well for everyone except the people of North Korea, but there's not much we can do. It's a tragedy and the blame for that falls squarely on the Soviet Union and Chinese Communist Party.

... And the US, who razed every building in North Korea and killed more than 10% of the entire population of North Korea (that's entire population, including civilians).

Nope. US was there under a UN banner, and the UN force was winning until China threw manpower into the war. Never mind Soviet support. The blame goes to the communists and them alone. Without them Korea would have been likely unified under what is now the democratic South Korea we know today, but the communists in China couldn’t have a democracy so close to them, so they fought to win and establish the brutal regime that we have today in North Korea.

> Some would get through of course, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of South Korean casualties

This seems rather optimistic considering an incredibly dense South Korean city of 10M people is 20–30 miles from North Korea.

Yea I'm being optimistic - but the buildings themselves provide shelter, plus Koreans can take to the subway.

Isn't artillery precisely rocket science?

No, it is precisely ballistics.

Propellant stored in the projectile vs propellant stored behind the projectile.

Thank you.

The only way unification can ever happen will be with Chinese blessing, with or without democracy. That would mean a full exit of US forces from the peninsula, and substantial pandering to the CCP and influence in Seoul. Which isn't that far off a thought honestly - for the most part, Korea was a tributary of China. With rapidly changing demographics and economic heft in both countries, it's even more likely SK will gravitate towards China, to the point that the Chinese will find more persuasion in unification and predictability.

All probably close to correct. I wasn't arguing that unification would, or should, happen (especially by force). I was arguing that the strategic value to China, SK, the west, etc have flipped as well as the actual capabilities of NK are likely vastly overstated.

The joke here is that in 20-50 years I'll bet worst Korea will be begging best Korea to reunify given the absolutely apocalyptic state of TFR south of the 38th parallel.

Another fun trivia: Seoul and Pyongyang are closer than Washington DC (Union) and Richmond VA (Confederacy) by a considerable margin.

The DPRK is a nuclear armed buffer state and shall remain so for the forseeable future.

“The revolution will be livestreamed” is not used correctly and not what “will be televised” means. You are using it in the opposite manner actually.

Op made an evocative point but then immediately betrayed it.

It is interesting to think about the difference of livestreaming versus television.

You can stop fighting. Nobody's going to livestream anything. The truth it too important to risk making it known/visible by accident.

And what's the truth?

The Vietnam War was the first one to be "televised" on pretty much a daily basis.

While more average US citizens and service members recognized the folly in greater numbers through time because of it.

It was the somewhat more extreme faction of the anti-war crowd that would have been in favor of a revolution of some kind, mainly because Nixon needed to be toppled ASAP without a doubt, they were just the most disruptive when it comes to "whatever it takes."

That's why the old saying was coined, "The revolution will not be televised."

No, my friends, the revolution will be live.

Exactly what they were talking about if it comes to that, too bold, sensible, and popular to be spun by media any other way.

You’re all still misinterpreting the statement it has nothing to do with whatever the current fad is or current tech is. Or what tech was used when the phrase was coined.

I guess nobody will ever know unless somebody more knowledgeable steps up to the plate :\

> You’re all still misinterpreting the statement it has nothing to do with whatever the current fad is or current tech is. Or what tech was used when the phrase was coined.

I mean, I'm just quoting the Gill Scott Heron song (well worth a listen, if you like 60s spoken word protest music). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUi580gA5BQ

We'll find out decades later. Or never.

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

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

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

I'm surprised such a superstitious reply is so highly-upvoted. There's no "WW3" any more than there is time travel or blue smirfs. It's a hypothetical, but you're talking about it like it's an inevitability. That's just not logically-sound thinking.

WWII, contemporaneously, was thought of as several small regional wars: “wow, that Hitler guy has started a bunch of small limited conflicts.”

It was only when one stood back to regard the whole picture that it became clear that something larger was happening.

OP is making the same point.

When Hitler invaded Poland, it took all of two days for basically all of Europe to realize that they were about to replay the Great War (which we now call WW1).

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

Of course it took longer for it to blow up into a truly global war (Pearl Harbor etc), but a conflagration across Europe is hardly a "small regional war".

Declaring war is one thing, but if you look at how leaders actually responded it's another (notice the 8 month gap from the declaration of war, into actual fighting). They were still willing to negotiate with Hitler, because most western leadership also wanted the communists to be destroyed and thought Hitler would do just that without attacking them. They were willing to push for this literally until the tanks were invading their streets.

Once Hitler invaded France the "phoney war" turned into a real war. [1]

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

Hitler attacked several countries before attacking Poland.

Japan was already in China weren’t they?

> Reminds me of Blaise Pascal's quote: 'All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.'

Ah but this is where modern technology comes in! Social media, Tiktoks, video games, porn...

The great pacifier.

> 'All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.'

old men's*

Alexander "the Great" (mass murderer) began his conquests at the age of 20 and had conquered the largest empire the world had ever seen at the age of 26.

Hannibal was in his 20s when he lead the Carthagian campaign against Rome.

Napoleon began at 26 and had conquered half of Europe at 35.

War being a business of old men sending young men to die is a modern thing.

Young men eagerly vote for old men that promiss them war. Many young men see it as a chance to prove their masculinity and worth.

not the last few election cycles

trump got young men's votes by, inter alia, chanting "no new wars"

evne during obama's presidency, trump (and others) suggested obama would start a war to distract from dropping poll numbers

young men haven't voted for dulce et decorum est in a loooong time

This anthropologist talked about radicalization among "lost" Muslim youth, but you can draw parallels to "lost" White youth...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlbirlSA-dc

You say this because young men use TikTok as a distraction?

That's very backwards when you consider one of the things keeping WW3 from starting for so long was the continued existence of WWII veterans and the citizens of the countries they came from who sacrificed everything.

If we only still had a few hundred million of them still alive, it's the proven most effective thing anybody has ever had to prevent mindless war and/or nuclear war.

And they would all be between 100 and 150 years old by now.

Now that's elderly, and if the human race were to have been blessed with such a miracle it would be so good for them to continue teaching their lessons to those who never had the chance, and are just not mature enough to have any other clue yet.

What's missing here is the complex network of alliances that led to WWI. The Iranian regime has alienated virtually everyone, including many of its Muslim neighbors. Nor is the regime part of some overarching international movement, like the communist countries were. Who is going to lift a finger to help Iran?

I'm not supportive of these strikes. Iranians created this government, and if they want to topple it they'll have to be the ones to do it, without foreign intervention.

> I'm not supportive of these strikes. Iranians created this government, and if they want to topple it they'll have to be the ones to do it, without foreign intervention.

Well, foreign intervention kind of worked in Syria, Libya and Iraq after a few backstops, didn't it? All three countries reduced to rubble and virtually eliminated as threats to the US and Israel. Iran is next on the list, now that they're close to obtaing nukes. Let's not kid ourselves, they're not doing it for the Iranians, the're doing it for themselves. Regime change on their own terms, or if that isn't possible, yet another civil war.

If they were meaningful threats to the U.S. it would be legitimate to eliminate them, without regard to Iranian sovereignty. It’s not clear to me that was true.

Iran has been at war with the US since 1979.

No, the US has been at war with Iran since 1953

They're an existential threat to Israel and it also puts China's oil suppply chain under pressure as a bonus. Also, the US does absolutely not want them to get nukes. The regime is at its lowest popularity, so obviously this is the time to try and topple it. The problem is that it creates a power void ripe for terrorist factions to flourish in, as it was the case in Syria and Iraq.

The US spent trillions of dollars, 20 years and countless lives in Iraq and has nothing to show for it.

Agreed, nobody is going to help out Iran.

If anyone does it'll be China giving them missiles to hit a US boat.

That would make the US turn tail. Not start a war with China.

As for Iranian leadership, they just need to dig deep and wait this out. I can't imagine they don't have plenty of hardened bunkers.

Too late, the coffee pot warmer-wearing dogmeat is already gone.

> If anyone does it'll be China giving them missiles to hit a US boat.

> That would make the US turn tail. Not start a war with China.

The right kind of missiles hitting the right kind of boat could lead to a very grave escalation.

Short of hitting the US mainland.

I doubt there is anything Iran can do that make the US put boots on the ground.

There is no appetite for boots on the ground in the US. And no coalition behind the US.

That scenario has played out before.

Eight hours later Iran's navy was at the bottom of the sea.

And there is no Iranian leadership right now as far as anyone can tell.

Interestingly Iran had moderately good relations with Russia, to whom they sold drones, and China, to whom they sold oil. But indeed not enough for either to help defend Iran.

With Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, the US is bottling up Russian and Chinese global influence into smaller regional influence.

Indeed. The Gulf states didn’t want to get involved in this war for fear of upsetting local groups, but after the attacks have now jumped on board.

Iran basically has no state allies in the Middle East. Russia and China don’t seem any more committed than just arms sales.

What potential problem is upsetting the ethnic Apple cart in the region. We know countries like Iraq are a mix of Sunni and Shia with Iran supporting the Shia side quite significantly.

If the main supporting of Shia in the region (Iran) gets wiped out, Shia in varies countries like Iraq may feel much more vulnerable and make political moves preemptively.

Another aspect of a WW3 is that people- pretty much ALL people everywhere- who have nothing to do with the war will find their lives threatened or completely changed by it.

I'm less concerned about nuclear escalation than about biological escalation.

It's quite hard to destroy the human world with nukes: you can only blow up big chunks of it, maybe take out enough power plants and supply chains to drop us into a multi-decade or multi-century dark age, or maybe cause a nuclear winter, although the actual risk of that is unclear.

Whereas a year into a major war a kid in his/her basement can release something that is functionally the end of the human species.

We currently have no real safeguards against this. If we ever have descendants, they'll think we were insane during this time period and they'll be right.

Disagree: Most people live in areas dependent on the supply chain. And when the supply chain gets disrupted they aren't going to go peacefully. And there will be enough mobility that areas that could be self-sufficient get hordes descending on them.

You'd like this book - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Second_After

Haven't read it, from what Wikipedia says it sounds quite optimistic. Maybe more realistic back when it was written. I also wonder at the President dying when Air Force One went in--there's good reason it's impossible to jump from civilian airliners, but I would be amazed if Air Force One lacked some means of emergency egress--I'm not talking ejection seats, just a door.

There’s no chance a kit in a basement can produce a biological weapon that will be successful.

Oh? A lot of the old-style genetic coders got dumped on the market cheap. The sort of stuff a microbiologist could use to synthesize smallpox. The technique has been demonstrated, although on a harmless virus. The market has shifted to outsourcing to big companies (who carefully check every order against known dangers) that have much higher capital costs but much lower per-letter costs, but that didn't invalidate the old lab bench techniques.

Seeing what people can do with a home made wet lab on youtube, I’m not so sure

You’ve got me curious. Examples?

Thought Emporium is basically wizardry to me, https://youtube.com/@thethoughtemporium

OMG, thank you so much. I watch Nile's wizardry with awe and joy, and this will be another level.

Thank you

Thank you for responding. This is so cool.

> a biological weapon that will be successful

I think he meant one of these:

1) Biological agent, but not meant to be a weapon.

2) A biological weapon, but one that fails catastrophically.

Oh yeah?

https://theconversation.com/an-illegal-bioweapons-lab-was-fo...

https://abc30.com/post/illegal-reedley-biolab-connected-lab-...

Here's a paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17154

> It's quite hard to destroy the human world with nukes

what about bio weapons? smallpox in the americas, for an example of many at the page below.

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

Isn’t that their entire point?

yes, i think you're right that such was the point, and i misread it.

Smallpox, which the only remaining samples exists in a couple of secure facilities controled by superpowers for use making vaccinations in case they are wrong about their only being a few samples controled by superpowers. Everyone with an ounce of sense knows bioweapons infect both sides and nuetral parties who are no longer neutral once you infect them. It like mustard gas but worse no one other than suicidal terror groups want them and they dont have the facilities equipment samples or knowhow.

There are a lot of suicidal terror groups in the world

A good chunk of Christianity would turn around to bring about the rapture in a heartbeat if you let them. Death cults come in all shapes and sizes.

Yep! I count sects of Christianity among those groups and you're right that there are many more just waiting for the right situation and leader to really push them into full blown eschatology.

>Smallpox, which the only remaining samples exists in a couple of secure facilities controled by superpowers...

I used to believe that, too, until the Russians found a few vials in a random storage cabinet. The fact is we have no idea how many samples exist and where they all are.

Fortunately, we already know how to make a smallpox vaccine.

Not only that, but we have currently functioning distribution networks for pox vaccines. AIUI, the MPox vaccine is just a smallpox vaccine that happens to also work for MPox.

You mean the same smallpox that ran rampant in a world without vaccines and failed to destroy the world, and was still present while a humans fought a bunch of conventional wars?

"Whereas a year into a major war a kid in his/her basement can release something that is functionally the end of the human species."

How?

If a a virus is so deadly, everything it touches dies soon, it would not spread quickly but die out. If it is very contagious .. but very, very slow incubation time, so it infects the whole world, before becoming a deadly disease ... then I would say it is far beyond the possibility of a basement workshop to remotely design anything like this. I doubt the professional state labs can create something to wipe out humanity. Dramatically disturb? For sure. Covid was not really deadly in comparison, but already problematic.

> If a a virus is so deadly, everything it touches dies soon, it would not spread quickly but die out. If it is very contagious .. but very, very slow incubation time, so it infects the whole world, before becoming a deadly disease ..

This is a made up equilibrium that actually does not need to exist in nature.

Viruses and bacteria can in fact be both extremely, extremely contagious and extremely, extremely lethal.

> If a a virus is so deadly, everything it touches dies soon,

Trivially: you actually can have a virus that kills everything it touches not soon. Nothing in biology or chemistry or physics prevents it.

> Viruses and bacteria can in fact be both extremely, extremely contagious and extremely, extremely lethal.

Sure, but those two things would tend to work against it becoming a pandemic— unless it managed those two things but also kept its host healthy enough for long enough before becoming lethal to adequately spread it.

I looked into this once, it depends on how splashy the death is. A virus that made people explode instantly into a fine mist of airborne virus particles could be perfectly adequate for a pandemic (although holding off until help arrives might work even better).

"A virus that made people explode instantly into a fine mist of airborne virus particles could be perfectly adequate for a pandemic"

And what existing virus comes close to this trait?

I think we can safely assume that OP was picking a bit of a ridiculous hypothetical example to make a point that it’s possible for something to be deadly and transmissible, although in nature Baculovirus in Caterpillars has a similar mechanism (encourages their host to eat a lot, then climb to the top of a plant so when it turns to ooze it infects others) or cordyceps although both of these aren’t as highly transmissible as they hypothetical explode virus.

But the Black Death mixed high contagion and high mortality as an actual example that shows they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Oh, I would never say biological weapons are harmless, but the wiping out humanity claim I debated.

What? That's your second strawman in two comments.

Nobody said you claimed they were harmless. People are taking issue with your assertion that biological agents can be either contagious or lethal (not both), and therefore you discount its risk. This implied tradeoff between contagiousness and lethality simply is not enforced by anything in nature.

The natural emergence of a pathogen that's both highly contagious and highly lethal would be a much rarer event than the natural emergence of one that's either contagious or lethal, but we're talking about engineered pathogens. There is no reason to think that pathogens cannot be deliberately created that are both of those things.

None of you have seen ‘The Beauty’, I’m guessing.

No, but I have learned that sometimes there is a difference between fiction and reality.

Bet you’re fun at parties.

I do understand your sentiment. But also, this isn't a party

> unless it managed those two things but also kept its host healthy enough for long enough before becoming lethal to adequately spread it.

I am clearly referring to this specific scenario. There is nothing in chemistry or biology or physics that prevents it.

These are plenty of people worried about this. Just one example https://openai.com/index/preparing-for-future-ai-capabilitie...

This type of research requires experimentation (mostly failures) on extremely complex real-world equipment. Same with the nuclear weapons. AI being able to magically figure it out without experimental grounding is pure and absolute fantasy, used by companies like OpenAI and Anthropic as a justification for monopolizing AI R&D. In a sense it's not surprising this idea comes from rationalism-adjacent folks, as rationalism is mostly about the idea that experimentation is irrelevant and you can infer anything using just logic alone.

Okay, I’m inclined to agree there.. but I can’t find the reference now, I also read that the worry is that the complexity required is coming down fast, and while maybe it’s not going to happen in a basement , there could be a small scale lab, not subject to rigorous certifications and checks that offers crisper as a service, and ai could be used to .. just perturb a protein a little bit so it doesn’t trigger some known virus black list, and people could just be ordering things online.

> In a sense it's not surprising this idea comes from rationalism-adjacent folks, as rationalism is mostly about the idea that experimentation is irrelevant and you can infer anything using just logic alone.

Yeah IIRC Yudkowski famously said something about a super intelligence could derive the theory of gravity correctly by seeing only three frames of a video depicting an apple falling from a tree. This is the same Less Wrong nonsense, rejecting how vital and irreplaceable experimentation is.

There's an infinite number of explanations for the location of an object in three equally time-spaced instances. Not to mention limitations of the measuring equipment itself.

There has been a lot of research into discovering new physics (starting by discovering old physics) since the last 5-6 years and it always require:

- A lot of high-quality data - Some careful design - (Not always) some external knowledge to guide the solutions

And this is using specialized NNs for physics, where you often know underlying equations. Kind of crazy that some people are so delusional about that.

>rationalism is mostly about the idea that experimentation is irrelevant and you can infer anything using just logic alone.

Thanks for putting it the way you did. I didn't knew it was meant be that way, but it sort of confirms my suspicion that people who use the term 'rational' and 'logic' loosely often to dismiss an opposing view never really seek experimental results before having a point of view.

Viruses are perhaps the 3rd or 4th thing down the list of scary biological things people might make in their basement to end the human world.

> Whereas a year into a major war a kid in his/her basement can release something that is functionally the end of the human species.

Urgh. "No tests, no prototypes".

Imagine trying to write "Hello, World" but there's no programming language. The compilation cycle takes a week. And you can't actually control where the program runs. And also the storage device will be destroyed by light, air, and other programs on your computer if you don't handle it just right.

It is very very clear when people with no molecular biology experience start talking about biology, because it's clear you all have no idea what any part of the process looks like.

Even the vaunted DNA synthesis machines...only synthesize DNA. Which will be completely destroyed if you so much as breathe at it the wrong way (in fact don't breathe on it at all). And that's like step 2, because step 1 is "grow up a candidate organism in sterile conditions, isolate and characterize it".

That stupid longtermism movement is god damn obsessed with this concept, and it's stunning how clueless they are.

It is so frustrating indeed reading about these wildly exaggerated biological claims.

The whole synthesis pipeline requires so much specific equipment and knowledge that at your kid in his/her basement would actually need a whole lab. By the way, good luck purchasing any consumable on sigma from your basement without accreditation. And I hope you have deep pockets because cell medium is expensive.

Covid, ahem, could have been designed in a lab to be an "ideal" bioweapon. As far as viruses go it approximated just about the best bioweapon we could have made with current technology.

- very deadly

- asymptomatic spreading for a couple days

- spreads easy

- no tests/vaccine (early on)

It did kill a lot of people, that's for sure, and caused a huge disruption. But was far less disruptive, imo, than e.g. a nuke in multiple big cities would have been, even if the death toll was similar.

> very deadly

Covid wasn't "very deadly" at all.

The base variant killed millions of people. It wasn't the Black Death, exactly, but it was pretty dangrous.

Now, if you want something that will keep you up at night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npf-B5Av7aQ

It was too contagious and not nearly virulent enough to be an ideal bioweapon.

GP put "ideal" in inverted commas, and qualified with "best we could make with current technology". I doubt they disagree with you.

This paper puts some numbers around that, looking at death rates before a vaccine was available.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122...

Without a vaccination, it killed 12.9% of people who were infected, killing mostly older people and people who had multiple pathologies (eg. hypertension).

Something that contagious that kills ~13% of people infected is something I would argue is quite deadly.

Especially when half of adults in america are hypertensive.

It doesn’t kill 13% of people infected, only about 1%. Just look at the number of cases reported compared to the number of deaths. That paper was reporting 13% mortality rate among those admitted to the hospital, not among all those infected.

That’s 12.9% of hospital inpatients. All estimates I’ve seen for infection fatality rate — that is, mortality rate among all those infected — place it around 1–2%

(I don't know too much about nuclear level situations so I can be obviously wrong perhaps but here's my take on it)

> supply chains to drop us into a multi-decade or multi-century dark age,or maybe cause a nuclear winter, although the actual risk of that is unclear.

It's defintiely gonna be a hard life if WW3 ever happens but I think with hydroponics and other advancement, a localized community can still have chances of making sense of things.

It definitely wouldn't be this life where we can eat almost anything but it won't be starvation either, hopefully.

For water, we might have to do reverse osmosis or boiling+condensing to remove radiation.

The biggest issue to me seems energy. Solar energy might be hard to get if nuclear storms are made over any region which I do think iirc can even stay till decades.

Temporarily Windmills and then primarily Hydroenergy is still possible tho but it might take some time to rebuild it if it got destroyed by Nuclear attack so energy to just produce food/water is possible but everything to me feels like it would be strictly rationed. You might have some spare energy for Radio.

I am not sure how food is gonna be distributed, perhaps a new system of work would be designed within community where community gives food and you give what the community might need to get work done.

I feel like though we are gonna slowly improve our Energy situations and as we do that, society can progress back to say a mathematician who can work on theorms which might require computers/energy and just computers in general back.

The quality of life would drop but I would consider tho that the people already in war-struck regions where they don't know if they are gonna be the next target of a messy war have their Quality of life significantly dropped as well.

Now the virus point is something that I don't exist similar to Lukan's comment tho.

His French is so simple and yet, incredibly beautiful and elegant, in a way that I am not even able to express in words. Only Voltaire compares.

"tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre." -- "All the woe of man comes from one single thing only: not knowing how to remain at rest, in a room"

In the same text, he follows with:

"Le roi est environné de gens qui ne pensent qu’à divertir le roi, et à l’empêcher de penser à lui. Car il est malheureux, tout roi qu’il est, s’il y pense."

"The king is surrounded by people who think only of amusing the king and preventing him from thinking about himself. For he is unhappy, though he be king, if he thinks about it."

Epstein files have more potent power in them than any nuclear arsenal.

No way this many rich powerful people would go down without destroying at least half of the world.

It seems the admin would rather you focus on DoW or DOW. Any mention of Epstein is getting downvoted.

How many millions of documents have the past democrat administrations released in total? I’ll be waiting.

Is this a deflection? I'd be asking this question of any admin. I cannot stand what Obama and Biden let Merrick Garland get away with.

With you on the other things (we wouldn't be in this position if the Biden admin had had any interest in enforcing laws), but, other than his purely symbolic nomination, what role did Merrick Garland have in the Obama administration that Obama could "let him get away with" anything?

It makes sense. Now is the perfect time for China to invade Taiwan.

> North Korea developed nukes without being invaded

This one always interested me. I assume they were given a lot of the tech from China, and China probably told diplomats that if NK is invaded China might get involved.

The Soviet Union helped them build some research reactors, but they got the weapon tech from Pakistan.

>Contained conflagration, short targeted exchanges, probability of contamination low, material possibility of nuclear escalation.

That's describing something that's not a world war, though. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is already far worse than what you're describing as WW3. (setting aside nuclear escalation)

Am I the only reading this comment as a incoherent vague rambling? In kinder words: what is your point/thesis exactly?

There has never been a moment in the known history of humanity without war going on somewhere in the world.

I'd bet on WW3 not happening in the next 20 years.

US's military power is too strong. Russia is in such a bad shape that it can't even win Ukraine. China never goes to any war; their equipments suck as we saw in the Venezuela occurrence.

Nobody is going to help Iran. China and Russia only see Iran as the enemy of my enemy. Other than that, Chineses and Russians are likely disgusted by Iran's culture e.g. how they treat women. It would be like wtf why are we helping people like this?

The world will continue being policed by US and Europe.

The US has shown very quickly that it is not a spent power. Compare what they have done recently in Venezuela and Iran to Russia's botching of taking Kiev and the mess ever since.

But to quote Fiona Hill in regards to China, Russia and iran.

--------------------

The Chinese have told the Europeans many times when they've been asked, 'Why are you continuing to support Russia? And why do you want Russia to win?' that, 'Well, if we wanted Russia to win, they would have won.'

Also, if they wanted Russia to lose, Russia would probably have lost.

China is, again, just gauging their support and playing all of this out, gaming it out, really, as to how it affects the United States one way or another.

The same is true of North Korea and Iran, she says: support for Russia has been built on antipathy towards the United States and their own beef with the United States.

> Well, if we wanted Russia to win, they would have won.

Good joke.

How can you have WW3 when your opponent has the military power equivalent of a butter knife? Instead of wishing for a WW3, I suggest you look at all of the people celebrating in the streets of Iran and even the US.

> The revolution will be live-streamed

I disagree with you on this. The revolution will never be live-streamed because the ability to do so is gated by the same people whom the revolution seeks to overthrow.

What's being live-streamed is the evolution of the status-quo towards growing hostility, violence, wars, and indeed - fascism.