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Other reasons why nuclear weapons suck

Checkerboard Strangler said:
You may want to read some of Oppenheimer's musings but the short answer is that the genie is out of the bottle and can't be put back in.
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Apparently, it can. It can't in the sense that the knowledge how to make them can't, but apparently it can in the sense that the nuclear control agency could detect anyone trying to make a bomb globally, so they can be banned.
 
lwf said:
But that objectively wouldn't be the case if nuclear weapons didn't exist, and there is an argument to be made that if nukes didn't exist, world war three might already have happened and the world would look very different. While I would rather have a world war three without nukes, my preference is no world war three at all. And the latter is what we've gotten so far with nuclear weapons.
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Your comment shows the huge danger of the weapons. What happens when incident after incident, many leaders after leaders, when there's just one weak link, one crisis that escalated or has a 'miscalculation', that there is nuclear war, and you become numb to the danger because it hasn't happened - when it almost has repeatedly and seems all but guaranteed to happen eventually?
 
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Craig234 said:
Apparently, it can. It can't in the sense that the knowledge how to make them can't, but apparently it can in the sense that the nuclear control agency could detect anyone trying to make a bomb globally, so they can be banned.
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Who runs this nuclear control agency?
 
Craig234 said:
Your comment shows the huge danger of the weapons. What happens when incident after incident, many leaders after leaders, when there's just one weak link, one crisis that escalated or has a 'miscalculation', that there is nuclear war, and you become numb to the danger because it hasn't happened - when it almost has repeatedly and seems all but guaranteed to happen eventually?
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I don't argue against the huge danger they pose. Nuclear weapons have absolutely made the world a more dangerous place. But what isn't clear is that they have made the world a more violent place. I think there is an argument to be made that the nuclear deterrent has made the world a less violent place.

That doesn't mean that I agree with the nuclear deterrent or that I think it is a good strategy. Martial law makes society less violent too, but that doesn't mean I think it is a good thing. But I don't necessarily agree with the OP that nuclear weapons are necessarily making wars more violent or more common, or that more people are dying because of them. They make wars more dangerous, which has the effect of making them less common and less tolerated.
 
lwf said:
I don't argue against the huge danger they pose. Nuclear weapons have absolutely made the world a more dangerous place. But what isn't clear is that they have made the world a more violent place.
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I don't think that's the issue or what many are arguing. There could be an argument that a nuclear armed nation feels safer to use conventional aggression, as we're seeing Putin do now, but it didn't stop Afghanistan fighting the USSR or Vietnam or the Iraqi insurgency from fighting the US. But it's not the issue; the risk of nuclear war is, and it's your comment was about how we've had no world war three with nuclear weapons, as if that's a good situation.

lwf said:
I think there is an argument to be made that the nuclear deterrent has made the world a less violent place.
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I agree, but when the world is destroyed by nuclear weapons, that won't be that important. It's somewhat analogous to saying everyone having a gun prevents some fistfights - but you watch as the numbers of shootings go up and up. The guns might prevent some conflicts, but when they don't, the damage is terrible.
 
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Cardinal said:
Nuclear weapons suck? I never thought about it like that until now.
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Yeah, I was just mentioning the lack of global-scale conventional wars since those things got invented.
 
lwf said:
The first thing that comes to my mind is "nukes."

But that objectively wouldn't be the case if nuclear weapons didn't exist, and there is an argument to be made that if nukes didn't exist, world war three might already have happened and the world would look very different. While I would rather have a world war three without nukes, my preference is no world war three at all. And the latter is what we've gotten so far with nuclear weapons.
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You've reached the wrong conclusion.
 
Craig234 said:
Apparently, it can. It can't in the sense that the knowledge how to make them can't, but apparently it can in the sense that the nuclear control agency could detect anyone trying to make a bomb globally, so they can be banned.
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Interesting.
 
Luce said:
Yeah, I was just mentioning the lack of global-scale conventional wars since those things got invented.
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If nuclear weapons are such a great deterrent, then why did 9/11 happen?
 
Antiwar said:
Gubamince!
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To include Russia and China, two authoritarian police states that use nuclear weapons to enhance their power and national interests and won’t give them up?
 
Simpletruther said:
Ok, but what do you do when Russia says "up yours" and refuses?
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He has no answer to that question other than the vague hand wave of “the International Justice System would make them do it”.
 
#43 has no sense of my humor.
 
Antiwar said:
:mad:We nuke the hell out of them!:eek:
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well I am sure that is sarcasm and its humorous, but I'm afraid I cannot take your stance seriously if you cannot answer how we are to disarm and still be safe without forcing the Russia's and china's of the world to do so as well.
 
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