And an end to AGW!
I think it will be malcompetence or infunction. BIGLY.
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BTW notice how the governments and media of both the US and Russia have been deliberately dropping comments to bring back cold war paranoia for a while now. How do they profit from doing so? I remember the cold war, and that it did a great job at encouraging pessimism and apathy. Why bother being progressive if all you have to look forward to is annihilation? Of course, sensible people may realize that just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean that they aren’t really out to get you.
On an individual level, it is the same sword of Damocles we always have with not knowing how long we’ll live, whether there is a nuclear war or not, but prefer to not be reminded of. How do you embrace it without it caving in to despair? What I do is just ask myself: If I died the next year/week/hour - did I live as well and fully as I could? And if not, how do I? That gives me something to work towards, whether I die of a heart attack next month, a car crash next year, or a nuclear blast later on, but for the trajectory of my life and death my preparation is the same.
It reminds me of a story I heard years ago of a captured samurai who was being kept in a fort awaiting his execution at the hands of an enemy. A guard who decided to cut the condemned a break offered to share some of his figs with him while he waited, but the prisoner flatly declined, explaining that having snacks would be bad for his health. IMO that’s how you do it, not letting the threat of impending doom define you, setting a good example by still living as well as you can instead of capitulating to “fuck it, life is cheap.”
Command and Control is a very good book.
Greed, corruption and stupidity.
The immediate future will probably see an escalating series of brushfire wars, as Trump and Putin collaborate to dominate the Middle East and fuck with China. The real shit kicks off when climate impacts force the superpowers into conflict over food scarcity and refugee flows.
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I love figs, but I think it isn’t weird, because it is completely beside the point of the story. Which was that the prisoner lived by example despite even the looming spectacle of certain death. Not “figs are bad for you”, more like “I am sticking to my diet, because it is how I live”.
Mind you, I am not very good at telling stories. I heard it years ago, and tried finding it via search engine in hopes of finding a better telling of it.
Yeah but any diet that eschews figs isn’t particularly sensible, so the samurai comes off as more of a headcase than a man of iron principle. The point would be better conveyed with pork buns or cake or something. /OT
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Had to do it, sorry…
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I recently read The Limits of Safety by Scott Sagan. It’s about 20 years old but still relevant-- focusing on the sociological aspects of institutions that lead inevitably to accidents. He looks at a number of near misses with the nuclear arsenal I’d never even heard of. It’s particularly interesting how often an added safety measure causes an accident. Terrifying stuff. Makes a good case for the folly of trying to maintain nukes in the long run.
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The food item was not very relevant to the story.
It was not meal time, that’s what makes a food a “snack”. I just remembered the figs because I love figs. But I guess that makes me either a hypocrite or just a poor excuse for a samurai.
Maybe the samurai thought he was god. After all, god hates figs.
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Yeah, but who’s gonna pass up pork buns?
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I’m so glad I’m not the only one thinking that.
I would add it actually is the most logical course to give a chance to the political system you believe in: if both sides destroy the other, there’s a pretty good chance it’s the end of humankind (if not life on the planet as we know it).
If only one does, there might be a chance for the others, which means a possibility that the inevitable collapse of the surviving side’s economy may bring about a complete turn-around (even without mutually insured destruction, the use of nuclear would bring disasters on such a scale that there is no way any country could survive the aftermath. In other words the weaponry destroys both your opponent and yourself).
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Nah. We’re resilient little fuckers. Somewhere on the fringes, on the african continent perhaps, a few hundred thousand/millions will survive and breed like hell and a few centuries later it’ll start again.
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