So I definitely agree that one a nuclear exchange happens things get extremely complicated.
I do NOT agree that makes any sort of equivalency between this Zionist first-use doctrine (if it exists) and Dead Hand.
So I definitely agree that one a nuclear exchange happens things get extremely complicated.
I do NOT agree that makes any sort of equivalency between this Zionist first-use doctrine (if it exists) and Dead Hand.
stickly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I view it as a philosophical difference more than anything. Only an absolute lunatic would actually push the button without an extreme amount of pressure; it’s just not a rational action of self preservation. A Solomon plan, as in the parable, is a choice that will kill you. Say what you will about the people pulling Israel’s strings but they have enough sanity and power lust to not throw it all away.
All nuclear players are handling loaded guns. Any bluster or rhetoric is hot air because you don’t know what they’re made of until they pull the trigger. And that is the most unique decision in human history in the hands of a tiny group of people. Nobody should ever have been given the personal power to vaporize entire cities, you can’t generalize that failing to a state policy level.
Complicated dead man switches don’t solve the problem or absolve the decision maker, it’s just a layer of abstraction. You still have to choose to enable it and accept the consequences of killing millions of people. Telling the world it’s enabled is just indicating your current line in the sand (a nuclear event). That’s no different than setting a line in the sand for a conventional threat to your capital city. Either may be an understandable and high pressure threat to the individual decision makers: both are reactions to the other belligerent, both end with the button pusher dead.
And both sides always have the option to renege on their promise and launch first before that line. Even if they hold to their promise, saying “I warned you” doesn’t make a mass revenge holocaust or suicidal holocaust more ethical than the other. The only humane choice is total disarmament and deterrence with an empty gun, which will never happen of course.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
unfortunately I think the only way we’ll regress to sticks and stones is long after just such an apocalypse and all the leftovers get used up. because we’re certainly not intelligent enough to recognize the danger.
just the US alone… the idea that Trump’s insanity is next to the football 24/7 should make anyone sick if they can read and have half a brain.
ironically climate change will take a few decades to really start slaughtering people and we see it coming, but are ignoring the problem, just like nuclear weapons.
fuck my species, they’re too clever and too fucking dumb all at the same time.