Leave below as comments your memos that grapple with the topic of the existential threat of nuclear war and nuclear holocaust, inspired by the readings (2021 Doomsday Clock Statement, "More hands needed on the nuclear football", “Why is America getting a new $100 billion nuclear weapon?”, “An existential discussion: What is the probability of nuclear war?” with useful background information at the Union of Concerned Scientists and Outrider.org. Outrider.org), movies, novels (but only one per quarter), your research, experiences and imagination! Also add a thumbs up to the 5 memos you find most awesome, challenging, discussion-worthy!

Recall the following instructions: Memos: Every week students will post one memo in response to the readings and associated topic. The memo should be 300–500 words + 1 visual element (e.g., figure, image, hand-drawn picture, art, etc. that complements or is suggestive of your argument). The memo should be tagged with one or more of the following:

#origin: How did we get here? Reflection on the historical, technological, political and other origins of this existential crisis that help us better understand and place it in context. #risk: Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the risk associated with this challenge. This risk analysis could be locally in a particular place and time, or globally over a much longer period, in isolation or in relation to other existential challenges (e.g., the environmental devastation that follows nuclear fallout). #policy: What individual and collective actions or policies could be (or have been) undertaken to avert the existential risk associated with this challenge? These could include a brief examination and evaluation of a historical context and policy (e.g., quarantining and plague), a comparison of existing policy options (e.g., cost-benefit analysis, ethical contrast), or design of a novel policy solution. #solutions: Suggestions of what (else) might be done. These could be personal, technical, social, artistic, or anything that might reduce existential risk. #framing: What are competing framings of this existential challenge? Are there any novel framings that could allow us to think about the challenge differently; that would make it more salient? How do different ethical, religious, political and other positions frame this challenge and its consequences (e.g., “End of the Times”). #salience: Why is it hard to think and talk about or ultimately mobilize around this existential challenge? Are there agencies in society with an interest in downplaying the risks associated with this challenge? Are there ideologies that are inconsistent with this risk that make it hard to recognize or feel responsible for? #nuclear/#climate/#bio/#cyber/#emerging: Partial list of topics of focus.

Movie/novel memo: Each week there will be a selection of films and novels. For one session over the course of the quarter, at their discretion, students will post a memo that reflects on a film or fictional rendering of an existential challenge. This should be tagged with:

#movie / #novel: How did the film/novel represent the existential challenge? What did this highlight; what did it ignore? How realistic was the risk? How salient (or insignificant) did it make the challenge for you? For others (e.g., from reviews, box office / retail receipts, or contemporary commentary)?

framing #nuclear

Can't help but squint at the "nuke town is racially diverse!" bit from the Why Are We Getting More Nukes article. I'm certain the publication is aware of the ironies here-- the Bulletin of Nuclear Scientists can be safely presumed to not love the idea of building world-ending missiles to boost rural economies. But really, can we unpack this? It reminds me of this whole debacle--

--where Raytheon had a bunch of its LGBT employees do interviews, write articles, etc. about how great and accepting Raytheon's corporate structure is. Let's take their assertions at face value; even if Raytheon was the most LBGT-friendly company in the world, it's still Raytheon. Slapping a pride flag onto a drone you made to kill random people for the US military... it's the absolute perfect incarnation of Twitter activism.

Nuke town is racially diverse. Nuke town is also nuke town. Its citizenry credits the nuke base as "a tool of desegregation", and I'm sure that's going to make the people its nukes are dropped on feel much better.

salience

Though our readings for this week centered around both the potential threat of nuclear war and the impending threat of global warming, each piece was underpinned by the same central question- Why doesn't humankind care more? In keeping with that, I'd like to expand my thoughts on why exactly we humans do seem to fail to fully grasp the significance of these events- leading us to then fail to adequately address them.

I study Economics here at UChicago, a discipline which typically relies on the assumption that people are rational actors. Human reactions to the threats of nuclear war or global warming, however, are a confusing mix of seemingly rational and seemingly irrational assumptions.

In "An existential discussion: What is the probability of nuclear war?," Google VP and Chief Internet Evangelist Vinton Cerf summarizes one seemingly irrational human reaction to the threat of nuclear warfare in the form of a question; "Why, then, has society "sat here" for decades assuming that, just because the Earth's explosive vest has not gone off yet, it never will?" (1) My rebuttal- perhaps humans are simply programmed to think this way, even if it makes no sense at a distance. This human phycological phenomenon- where we believe that because events have played out one way in the past, they will continue to play out that way in the future- is a completely irrational thought pattern that is observable in far more scenarios than just this one. Though the magnitude of the consequences are certainly different, this is the same as winning big at the poker table, and then betting more the next round to capitalize on your "winning streak." As the years tick by and we continue to "get lucky," we remain inactive at addressing the potential problems at hand in favor of the idea that we will continue to "get lucky" in perpetuity. In fact, this irrational line of thought is common enough to have a name- the "hot hand fallacy," as coined by psychologists Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky in their 1985 paper "The hot hand in basketball: On the misperception of random sequences". Part 1 of my answer to "Why don't we care more?" At our worst, we are irrational actors who fall pray en masse to lines of thinking that lead us astray, despite all the qualitative or quantitative framings of the problem.

Part 2? Though there are some rational reactions which we can observe in our readings, many of these lead us astray too. It is possible that we are simply unable to comprehend the idea of the end of the world- but even if we can ascertain a taste, any rational human would shove the thought down to avoid being overtaken by a lifetime of existential dread and terror. Either way- as rational and irrational actors- it seems that we are pre-dispositioned to sway towards caring less instead of caring more. After all, ignorance is indeed bliss.

(1) https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/an-existential-discussion-what-is-the-probability-of-nuclear-war/ Screen Shot 2021-03-31 at 11 51 43 PM

framing #nuclear #politics

Nuclear weapons are a global threat. This has always been a universal truth. One of the core issues surrounding this threat is the concentration in power over who can direct and target this threat. As covered in several of the articles this week, nuclear weaponry is incredibly concentrated in only a handful of people’s hands. The United States currently has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, is expanding that arsenal and its reach (“Why is America getting a new $100 billion nuclear weapon?”), and its nuclear arsenal is unilaterally controlled by a single person whose attitudes towards war and destruction can turn on a dime every few years (“More hands are needed on the nuclear football”). Several other states are in a similar position of power. The Russian Federation is a close second in terms of nuclear warhead count and has maintained individual control over it since its predecessor, the Soviet Union, first obtained nuclear weaponry. There are currently only eight officially recognized, sovereign states that maintain nuclear weapon arsenals. Of these eight, five of them are recognized under the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty. Outside of the eight recognized nuclear nations, five NATO member states have official policies in place for “nuclear sharing,” in which those nations will host another NATO member state’s nuclear weapons within their borders. There is only a single state whose use of nuclear weapons has not officially been determined but has been confirmed by several reliable sources. This paradigm of nuclear weapon concentration puts every other nation in the crossfire of conflict between the nuclear nations. There is not a single nuclear weapon stored in the continents of South America, Africa, Oceana, and Antarctica. According to a study from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2019.1606503), the United States has approximately one hundred nuclear weapons stationed in Europe within the borders of NATO nuclear sharing states. The state of Israel has repeatedly denied its possession of nuclear weapons despite conducting nuclear weapons tests. Any one of the many nuclear warheads can be launched on a moment’s notice with little to no input from anyone besides an individual head of state. The fallout and destruction from this weapon could devastate any nation, even one without possession of a single nuclear warhead or even a nuclear power reactor. Although they may not be a target, another nuclear-armed state could react to a first strike with their own nuclear strike, creating a chain reaction of global devastation. Each and every country in the world is metaphorically held at gunpoint by each nuclear-armed nation.

Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons

Nuclear Arms: A Team Effort?

framing #solutions #salience

The deployment of nuclear weapons, barring sheer accidental firings, are likely to be acts of pressured instigation or direct retaliation. Under these conditions, there is certainly stress and pressure; many input variables must be balanced to chart the best course forwards. However, ideally, there are teams of politicians, scientists, and military contractors that are involved in this decision making process. At the very least, there exists a hierarchy of technicians that must be "on board" with the firing of these weapons. Thus, we should avoid collective panic at the thought of some rogue leader or whimsical President firing nuclear weapons without appropriate due process. Dramatic portrayals of the proliferation crisis risk invoking images of nuclear wastelands and terror in the hearts of the general public; this is counterproductive to the objective at hand. Should we really use a Doomsday Clock with a clearly labelled point of "apocalypse" to describe our collective social situation? Should phrases such as "nuclear holocaust" really be invoked both formally or casually? Though nuclear arms can cause unimaginable damage and death, there has been but one instance of intentional nuclear destruction in 80 years of humanity possessing these arms. Instead, let us focus more closely on installing safeguards and uncompromising structures to prevent the accidental misfiring or temperamental deployment of nuclear weaponry.

In his book The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation, Hymans argues that the decision to develop and ultimately deploy a nuclear weapon rests on a "national identity conception," or a reflexive self-image by which leaders and people see their nations. He uses neuroscientific and psychological research methods to illustrate that the conditions for modern-day nuclear arms deployment are unlikely to be encountered, given the vast logical and identity conceptive barriers such a decision must surpass at both the organizational and the human dimensions.

This is not an argument in favor of proliferation or nuclear arms; on the contrary, it is abundantly obvious that nuclear weapons cause far more harm than good--as is the case with guns in America, people have them because "others have them," and everyone agrees that everyone would be better off without any guns at all. However, in a world in which both nuclear arms and ordinary weapons exist, we must be rational and realistic in approaching the issue with a proper consideration of incentives, public consciousness, and our modes and methods of discourse.

4-Girl-Chair-Trick-908x511

salience #framing

As I wandered along the cracked sidewalk, cement squares seemed to stretch on into infinity. No two tiles broke the same way, but the phenomenon had ceased to surprise me deep in the forgotten catalogues of childhood. It was all the same actually, wasn’t it?

While I pondered such uninteresting endlessness, I was attacked by the beautiful moment right before "too tired, too drunk" where anxiety wove itself into an attractive mirage of energy, and my recent run of misfortune became fuel for a convincing gambler’s fallacy. I couldn’t waste the opportunity. Not paying too much attention, I dove into a run-down, ramshackle bar. A poster on the door had beckoned to me, shouting “Poker Night!” in large Barnum-and-Bailey letters.

The interior was all red. Floor, walls, upholstery: even the wood making up the singular table and set of chairs at the end of the room looked cherry-stained. Men and women sat regally at each of the chairs, seeming to size each other up intently. An abstract portrait of a woman screaming in agony hung over them ominously. The dealer, an ancient gentleman, caught my eye as he dealt the flop.

“Please”, he appealed, “have a seat!” and waved me over with a surprisingly deft gesture.

I crossed the dark space between the entrance and table awkwardly and placed myself on a chair that had seemed to materialize next to him. Luckily, no one else seemed to take notice of me.

Sitting in uncomfortable silence, I started to notice some irregularities. No one was betting. Antes went out, players checked through the river, and the small pot was distributed by random chance for several rounds in a row. Looking at the faces of my opponents, I noticed that everyone except the dealer bore an uncanny likeness to a prominent world leader. Donald Trump sat to my left, Vladimir Putin was across the table. Angela Merkel and Manuel Macron sat next to each other, but though they whispered to each other frequently, it seemed they were something of an awkward couple.

I also wasn’t being dealt in. I tugged on the dealer’s sleeve and was in the process of taking out my wallet when he pushed it away.

“You can’t play here.”

His voice was firm but not unkind, so instead of walking out, I pressed the issue: “I assure you I have enough to cover my losses. I just got paid yesterday–”

“Do you have a robust economy, a workforce of millions, and a modern army?”

I stared at him blankly.

“No? Then you can’t play here.”

“Is this a bar or a madhouse? What’s going on here?” I was a little ticked off, so I couldn’t stop my voice from trembling slightly.

The dealer replied, “The great poker game of nations, of course.”

It was a madhouse, then. I couldn’t go play poker somewhere else after an event like this. Bad luck was assured. I decided to humor my senile companion instead: “If this is the great poker game of nations, who are you?”

“God. They call me many names. Atheists would refer to me indirectly as ‘the Universe’, or perhaps the set of physical laws that govern it. I am God in any case. I am the One Who Is.”

That one made me a little angry. Where had any god been all my life, anyway? Without thinking, I tried to catch this “God” in his words:

“If you are really God, then why are you spending time like this? Don’t you have anything better to do than preside over the most boring poker game of all time?”

He seemed unshaken, but he paused before answering, having sensed the malice in my words. Then:

“I watch over my creations. I also let them do what they want to do, within limits. It didn’t have to be poker. They could have played bridge, or Uno, or even solitaire. But they were always looking for the high that comes with risk. They always wanted to beat each other to the pulp, to force each other off the table at high stakes. So it’s always been poker.”

“And what is the table?”

“The earth, or at least the part of it constituting that banal stage to which so-called leaders and power grabbers are always entering, and from which they are always leaving. I suppose they imagine it’s all earth can be, so I can call it earth in front of them.”

That one sent me for a loop. I turned and looked to Donald Trump for assurance, but he had been replaced by Joe Biden, who I didn’t know like that, so I was a bit put off.

“Oh, don’t worry. Like I said, always entering and always leaving. In fact, there is truthfully no one sitting at this table, nor any table at all. It’s all representational. I hope you understand.”

Silence reigned for a minute. I would have gotten up and left then, but I felt stuck. God piped up again:

“About the boredom: I hope you don’t mind. We used to have some big plays at this table: I remember when Babylon crept up from under the table and won so many straight all-ins against the Assyrians that they were wiped from the face of history, when Alexander put down three royal flushes against the Persians in a row, when the Mongols took out almost every other player at the table and accumulated a pot so large that only inheritance squabbles could dissipate it. Everyone said that I shouldn’t have given them two aces up their sleeve in every round for a hundred years, but I make the rules, and truthfully it was mostly the natural flow of events that led them to master the military technology of their day. The cards were just a representation. I hope you understand.”

I was frightened by the apparent logic of his ravings, but God didn’t give me the chance to hide in silence again:

“But it really is better this way. I’ve been trying to convince them to stop playing for quite some time now. You’ve already noticed the redness of the room; it’s a pretty on-the-nose symbol now that I’ve talked about war. The portrait of the screaming woman you saw is supposed to remind them of the widows and orphans left behind in their games. I put real, human faces on every chip, to remind them of the lives and resources wasted whenever the house takes its cut of the pot. Sadly, nothing in that vein ended up working. They just ignore the suffering or justify inflicting more by what was inflicted on them. So I had to use the nuclear option.”

“The nuclear option?” I felt eased by the fact that I could finally pretend to add something to the conversation.

“Yes, but I suppose that now I’ve been far too on-the-nose about this, too. I really prefer to be a lot more subtle. I hope you understand. Anyway, one day I slipped the Americans two Jokers for the cost of a few chips. One depicted a big, fat man, the other a little boy who looked quite cute in a clown costume. They wouldn’t gain you anything, but they could be played at any time to remove a significant portion of any opponent’s chips from the game.”

“That seems unfair. Did they use them?”

“You bet we did,” replied a voice to my left. It was Joe Biden. “We sent the Japanese packing all the way back to Nuke-ushima! No malarkey from them after that!”

God smiled sadly, and I thanked Joe mentally. God continued:

“After that, every player clambered to get Jokers of their own. The Russians, the English, the French, and so on. A great many players slipped me some chips by the back way, and they got their Jokers. Some have thousands of them. Enough to remove every player from the table several times over.”

I was starting to follow. “So now no player bets, because if they win too much, someone else will come and play enough Jokers to blow them out of existence?”

“Exactly, my boy.” He paused thoughtfully and then frowned, “I wish I could be happy about my work, but it’s saddening, frankly. I hoped, maybe, that they would come around. I wanted them to get up and do something worthwhile. But they come back every night, stare at each other adversarially, and stress out about the possibility of the ‘Great Joker War’. They just can’t free themselves from their memories: those of victory bind them by pride and greed, those of annihilation bind them by fear. Don’t they see that the god of war has died shamefully, without a shred of honor? That the blast killed him before he could think to reach for his sword, to die with it in his hand? It seems like they can’t imagine that there’s anything beyond the experience of countless fruitless generations, or maybe they just don’t want to. Perhaps, and I dread to think this, they prefer the void of annihilation to a new infinity, one they cannot control. For now they compromise with the illusion of the same old, and they take no good measures. One day events will conspire to destroy them.”

…

“I intend to keep them safe as long as I can.”

He smiled subtly at me one last time, and with that somber thought, I was incomprehensibly whisked to my bed. My eyes opened a crack, taking in a singular ray of sunlight. It is unclear whether the words of God or that ray brought the tear to my eye, but I resolved to forget about it. It’s the best way I know.

Inspiration:

nuclear

One of the things that struck out to me related to the article ‘Why is America getting a new $100 billion nuclear weapon?’ was that the decision to develop the GBSD was not out of some deep concern for state security, but rather due to political lobbying from states with nuclear silos and multi-billion dollar defense industry corporation pressure. As other people have noted, this strikes a similar chord to the control over fossil fuel policy in this country by fossil fuel companies and the affiliated states and their legislators.

Another similarity is how both of these issues can be solved with the proper government planning and spending. Cities in the middle of Montana next to nuclear silos, or cities in West Virginia or West Texas next to natural resources shouldn’t feel that there livelihoods are tied to the existence of world threatening projects, whether military installations or resource extractions. But, the federal government frankly does not give these people a choice, and so they lobby for their continuation so that they can maintain some stable standard of living.

This seems to suggest that so long as the US and the broader world continues to abide by neo-liberalism and capitalism, these dual issues will continue to haunt us. Ethically, how can we continue to allow the development of more nuclear weapons and provide subsidies for the fossil fuel industry? However, how can we abandon the economic lifeline of the many people who would be negatively effected by this?

However, I would say that after doing the readings, I am more convinced that the threat of nuclear war is much less to be concerned about than the risks of runaway climate effects. While there is still the threat of one person having the power to end human civilization as we know it, why would anyone do it? And, it could easily be fixed by distributing the number of people who need to approve the decision. The US is the obvious choice for a country that ought to go first, given its history as the only country to use nuclear weapons to kill civilians. But at the end of the day, to be the one on to whose shoulders bears the title “Destroyer of Worlds” doesn’t seem to be something any leader would want.

origin #risk #policy

When Max Webber argued that the bureaucratic power will eventually lead human society into an iron cage, he probably did not envision that someday in the future human civilization would face a risk of being blow up by a handful of leaders with launch buttons of the nuclear weapon. the article “More hands needed on the nuclear football” and “2021 Doomsday Clock Statement” both approach the nuclear holocaust from the leadership aspects. The origin of the existential crisis can be the political system that gives the sole authority to the president to deploy the nuclear weapon. In other words, human civilization as a whole is facing the risk of uncertainty about the strategic uses of the nuclear weapon from a handful of world leaders and the risk of not knowing whether these leaders are rational enough to make the call. The declaration of no-first-use of nuclear weapons then is essentially a protocol to ensure a basic level of certainty in using the nuclear weapon and to avoid the possible nuclear fallout. However, the previous presidency of the US may demonstrate that leaving the nuclear button to only one person would essentially introduce uncertainty and future risk. With the increasing natural challenge such as climate change and global pandemics, failed cooperation among these most powerful people in the world may directly lead to doomsday for all humankind. More ironically, most leaders that can yield the nuclear weapon in the world are actually elected by their citizens. In other words, we probably choose doomsday ourselves. The presidency of Joe Biden seems to mark the return and restoration of the primacy of science-based policies. However, the polarized political situation in the US may challenge the continuation and consistency of such policies for the next decade. The sword of the nuclear weapon is still hanging above our heads. Besides the threats of giving too much decision power to the world’s leaders to use the nuclear weapon, the nuclear holocaust can also be the legacy of laissez-faire neoliberal ideology that guides the US economy. As Elisabeth Eaves pointed out, “In a country where safety net programs are limited and health insurance is a patchwork, and where unemployment remains at nearly double the pre-pandemic rate, many people in the states where the new missile will be built and based see it as a lifeline. Their elected officials take campaign donations from defense companies, to be sure, but are also trying to deliver jobs in a political environment that has been hostile to government spending on anything but defense. Defense is the safety net where other options are few.” The production of the nuclear weapon, with its disguise as the deterrence and national defense, has become the resource for welfare state policy in such a neoliberal land with a serious loathe against socialistic policies. Here, there is another irony: the very thing that provides you with life necessities can be the very thing that annihilates the place you live in.

nuclear #climate #risk

In a very grim sort of way, I find it hilarious that of the two biggest threats facing humanity, one of them, nuclear war, would be very abrupt and looming, but, until the first nuke is launched, no damage is occurring. On the other hand, climate change, is a slow and insidious killer. It's effects are seen daily, but has been creeping up on us, and we don't truly know the ecological impact of our actions for a long time. So, humanity will either go out with a bang (nuclear war) or a whimper (climate change.) With nuclear weapons, their very nature means that nothing radical can be done to "fix" the issue, yet with climate change, radical action is heavily frowned upon, such as the GND, with more moderate approaches being taken. The issue that we could act strongly against we decide not to, in my opinion because it's very out of sight. It's easy to dismiss crazy weather as isolated incidents, instead of an increasing trend that is reaching a boiling point.

origin #policy #solutions

The current situation in regards to the Doomsday clock and nuclear annihilation puts a few countries in the spotlight for “accountability” regarding discretionary use of nuclear weapons and the fallout afterwards. Take the United States, who maintains one of the largest arsenals, and when attempting to implement no-first-use policy, saw themselves in opposition to some of their biggest allies. I believe that a lot of the pressure put on the United States (and others) to maintain their nuclear power happened before the Cold War and before the first nuclear weapons were ever developed. This is an idea that I grappled with in my question this week, but the consolidation of power into the few largest, and “most powerful” countries (in the eyes of other countries) has driven us to this point. Over-intervention of sorts thrusted the United States into a position where certain countries view the United States as the ones that will handle the bigger problems when they arise. For a relatively new country, which is clearly still working on internal problems, this is a large global role to have, and we are no excused from also placing ourselves in this position. The problem becomes larger when we consider that the American people are responsible for electing the sole person responsible for a nuclear response. The political climate in the United States shifts frequently and always has, which leads me to believe that this position of retaliation or instigation should not be left up to who the American people elect every four years. There is a certain need for “more hands on the nuclear football,” but I would go further to say that we should consider a different game than nuclear football. Nuclear power and energy have been viewed as a weapon for a long time, and for good reason due to their destructive power, but if we countries are able to come together and consider the fact that this technology could save our world for a deeper threat such as climate change, it is possible to change the whole conversation about nuclear power. This responsibility, like the use of nuclear warheads, falls upon the countries who have consolidated power through a web of allies that has grown over time. They need to facilitate the shift and start the conversation, and this is a conversation that needs to be had.

risk #nuclear #power

The assigned readings this week put a lot of emphasis on the possibility of nuclear warfare and the end of humanity. What I found most appalling from these articles was definitely President Nixon's statement saying “I can go back into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.” While I understood that the President has the sole power to initiate a nuclear attack, a former president explicitly saying this was frightening. Unilateral authorization in today's period of time definitely cannot be sustainable because of the large scale impact that a nation's leader has on his citizen's. This made me think about specific situations where unilateral authorization can really go wrong. Tensions between the United States and foreign nations have not been particularly tame in recent years with former President Trump's relations with China, North Korea, and other powerful nations that have a nuclear arsenal. If any country were to launch any form of attack on foreign soil, the decision to potentially launch a massive nuclear attack in retaliation would be the beginning of the end of humanity as we have discovered throughout these readings. Things must change. The idea of a no-first-use policy amongst nuclear superpower nations may be our best hope in the short-term. However with rising tensions and the production of more nuclear weapons to add on to existing weapons (i.e. GBSD's being made even though there are existing Minuteman missiles), a nation's leader will feel the need to authorize a nuclear attack. In addition, a realization I came to was that relations between powerful nations are heavily influenced by how much nuclear power each country has. For instance, it is smart for the U.S. to have positive diplomatic relations with nations that are ahead in the nuclear race. Everybody is sort of in this limbo to avoid any sort of long-term damage that would come from a nuclear launch. With the education of the damage of nuclear warfare and the threats that it poses, I can see policy in the U.S. regarding unilateral authorization changing to something safer and much more sustainable. In addition, I hope that this carries over to other nations and everybody sees the damage that nuclear warfare would create.

6a00d83542d51e69e2011572399f72970b-800wi

nuclear #risk

One thing that became clear when reading these articles is that the threat of nuclear war has far from disappeared. In many ways, the risk of nuclear global destruction seems more prescient than it ever has been. Although the proliferation of nuclear weapons seems to be dwindling and the quantities of such weapons have been reducing since the 1980's, the existing nuclear arsenal is enough to wipe out all life on the planet many times over. One of the quotes that stuck out to me from the articles was from President Nixon, who said, "I can go back into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead." This of course raises the issue of a single person having unilateral decision making for an entire country's nuclear arsenal. Ultimately, the president is the commander in chief and is therefore at the top of the US military hierarchy. Perhaps the structure of the chain of command could use some revising while still keeping the president at the top of the chain of command. For example, perhaps a small group of the president's cabinets could have an equal vote about a nuclear strike and the president would have the power to veto the vote or create a majority. The concerns about a single trigger-person are just as glaring as they were decades ago. The very question of nuclear armament raises some important questions, though. Given the mutual assurance of destruction in the event that nuclear weapons are deployed, major powers have not been directly involved in a major conflict for generations. This has created a condition where large scale war is not just unlikely, but essentially an impossibility. As a result (and certainly with other social/economic/culture factors), the world is the safest that it has ever been. Have nuclear weapons made the world safer? Possibly, but they have also caused a circumstance where if any such weapons were used, it would likely result in the destruction of humanity. Despite all of this, nuclear weapons are still being ordered and designed. Currently there are 9,000 nuclear weapons that still remain in the local arsenal, with the vast majority being in Russia and the USA. On some level, I feel like we as a species are probably safer with only a small number of countries having the majority of control over the nuclear arsenal. Perhaps the biggest risk with nuclear weapons lies with the singular trigger person. I think it is too much responsibility to give to any single person. Individuals are fragile and subjected to mental degradation, bouts of anger, and poor decision making. All of this leaves us with a risk of nuclear destruction that will not abate until substantial changes are made.

The article ‘2021 Doomsday Clock Statement’ outlines the potential impending destruction that humanity faces due to factors like nuclear threat and climate change. It specifically focuses on how we are “100 seconds to midnight” or the closest humanity has ever been to utter destruction. The article begins by considering the political and ethical implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the world population. Specifically, the article notes that the pandemic has highlighted the gross lack of infrastructure, systems, communication, cooperation, and planning that governments exhibit in order to protect their citizens against global emergencies. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic called attention to the literally fatal aspect of dissemination of scientifically false or misleading information and news. Specifically, the article says that “online lying literally killed” in 2020. For example, false information about not wearing a mask in the presence of others led people to choose to not wear masks, which led to a more efficient spread of the virus that killed countless more people in communities. In the same way that we were not equipped with the proper measures to defend our citizens against a highly infectious virus, governments have also failed to address climate change and nuclear threat—two threats that, unlike COVID, are existential threats to all of humankind. Both global warming and nuclear threat have intensified over the years. An increase in nuclear weapons stockpiles also leads to a greater possibility of miscalculation in times of hostility and tension. Thus, the probability that we will somehow find ourselves entangled in a nuclear war is the highest is has been in human history. Governments have been developing weapons-delivery platforms which carry warheads, which would expedite the process of launching ourselves into nuclear war. Dissemination of disinformation related to nuclear weapons has a similar effect as the spread of fake news about COVID. Thus, in order to reduce the risk of nuclear war, it is imperative that correct scientific information is circulated such that people can make decisions based on science and fact rather than biased, false information. What was first deemed as 7 minutes from midnight decades ago became 100 seconds over time; this is the direction we are moving in, and it is dangerous. Ultimately, what I took away from this is that the development of nuclear weapons is less about the security of a nation and more about the power and control that it allows a nation to wield.

risk #salience #policy

The part that stood out to me the most about the subject of Nuclear Annihilations this week, was the way in which an action that could have such devastating outcomes can be green lit. Over lecture we discussed the multiple times that nuclear annihilations were prevented practically by luck, and in each situation it really came down to the choice of a sole person. It even further amazed me that in some cases, the false alarm was due to rare satellite phenomena. So essentially, a glitch in a machine, which is then seen by a person who may or may not realize it as a glitch, gives information that can be then conveyed to other leaders who could act on it. I emphasize this because I keep thinking about this possibility in relation to our freedoms as people. At any moment, any of us could become a sacrificial pawn of battle, all from an attack or retaliation based on a world leader's decision. Instead of militaristic action being a method of protecting a nation's people, it can quickly become a contest of power and revenge, all at the push of a button, and the choice of a single person. Realistically, with the existence of nuclear weapons, I don't think a fair approach to this decision could even be possible. Unlike the decision to declare war, these decisions would need to be made in the moment, as these devastating weapons travel fast. There is the possibility of implementing a two person rule, which would "require that one or more officials concur with a presidential order to use nuclear weapons before the military carries it out" (The Hill). While this possibility prevents the occasion of a gung-ho president, I can't imagine it makes this decision more fair to the innocent lives that would still be lost in the event of nuclear war. It even amazes me to think about how electing politicians to protect and lead us entrusts them with powers that no man should even have, which can result in sometimes careless tensions. In the end there is always the possibility of us being the victims of wars we never wanted.
50d3b5508ece731174698e0fc5ed5a37 (sorry this is late)

salience #risk #nuclear

While going through the readings this week, I couldn’t help but think of the old “Duck and Cover” cartoons from the 1950’s telling school children to hide underneath their desks in the event of a nuclear missile strike. Clearly this effort would be in vain, as a school desk would do absolutely nothing in the event of a nuclear strike. This idea feels similar to the way many people ignore the likelihood of a possible nuclear holocaust today. While countries like North Korea, India, and Pakistan continue to build their nuclear arsenal each day, other countries have already established a powerful nuclear arsenal, such as the United States, China, and Russia, and continually add to their arsenal. It is both easy and difficult to understand why many choose to ignore this threat to humanity itself. On one hand, the threat of nuclear war is terrifying, as in an instant entire city can be entirely whipped out as if they had never existed. Many may choose to ignore this possibility simply because it may seem so terrifying and out of their control that there is no point in worry about it (like a natural disaster, tornado, hurricane, ect.). However, at the same time, it is baffling that masses do not address this matter more urgently as it is so threatening. How has it become that multiple foreign nations can wipe out an entire country at their whim and no one seems to be able to address this. How can groups of people be able to possess that much power, with the main deterrent being they do not want to be wiped out by a nuclear strike themselves? Although it may be difficult to identify a solution, as disarming one country does not mean all other countries will disarm themselves as well, a solution must be formulated in some way, as this immediate threat is far too great to ignore.

Duck and Cover

nuclear #risk #solution

The existential threat of nuclear war cannot be overstated. If there is anything that is likely to end the earth in an instant, it is an accidental nuclear bomb going off, triggering the chain reaction of an entire nuclear arsenal exploding. An accident of this size would destroy the entire country, and the fallout from the incident would continually poison the entire planet. Even more likely than an accidental triggering of a nuclear explosion would be the misinformation that an attack was already launched. We saw an example of this when a nuclear shelter alert went out to the residents of Hawaii that an ICBM was headed towards them. If an army general in Hawaii had received this accidental message and acted upon it like it had been official, then he or she could order a nuclear attack without violating the principles of never strike first. The damage would be catastrophic, and would likely spark a more legitimate, and often more powerful counterstrike, fulfilling the prophecy of mutually assured destruction, often called MAD. If just one accidental signal could trigger a catastrophe of this magnitude, then we must put more safeguards in place to prevents situations of this kind. There need to be reduncies in place that confirm the validity of the message. These safeguards would have to act quickly, and with a high degree of accuracy. One such mechanism that could solve this problem is similar to the twin keys that launch nuclear weapons. If two people with high security credentials were required to post the same message simultaneously, then that would act as a filtering mechanism for accidental emergency signals. They would have to cross check with each other that the signal was valid, and they would have a limited amount of time to do so. If one did not receive the emergency message and slowed down the emergency signal, the message would go to the next person in the chain of command to cross examine the signal. This method would serve to decrease the possibility of an accidental nuclear holocaust caused by misinformation.

jamesallenevans / AreWeDoomed

April 1 - Introduction, Doomsday clock, Nuclear Annihilation - Memos #2