|
Post by juju on Sept 27, 2013 9:02:10 GMT
|
|
|
Post by tangent on Sept 27, 2013 10:43:48 GMT
Little did we know how close we were to annihilation or at least significant devastation. A film about the nuclear winter that would have followed suggested it would have taken the earth 100 years to recover.
|
|
|
Post by raspberrybullets on Sept 27, 2013 10:57:13 GMT
I thought this was a thread about kicking back and chilling out. This is a little less laid back.
|
|
|
Post by Miisa on Sept 27, 2013 13:53:27 GMT
Wasn't almost the exact plot of Wargames, except it was the Americans?
|
|
|
Post by Alvamiga on Sept 27, 2013 17:05:32 GMT
"Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines."
|
|
|
Post by tangent on Sept 27, 2013 20:08:23 GMT
"Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines." To make a Doomsday machine, first build a hydrogen bomb and then procure 500 tonnes of Cobalt. Wrap the Cobalt around the hydrogen bomb and retire to a safe distance... Erm, there's no safe distance.
|
|
|
Post by Alvamiga on Sept 27, 2013 23:20:39 GMT
If you make a Doomsday machine then we'll all have to have one to make sure there isn't a doomsday gap!
|
|
|
Post by Moose on Sept 28, 2013 2:12:10 GMT
we've been as close before perhaps - the Cuban Missile Crisis? Granted no-one thought that anything had been launched at that time but it still might have been. I would hope that - surely? - even two countries that loathed one another as the US and USSR did would have checked first (there must have been ways) to make sure that there was no mistake. I mean how about just calling the Whitehouse and saying 'say what?'. It must have been possible.
One day the world or at least the human race will be destroyed by nuclear weapons tho. To me it seems almost inevitable. We're such fools.
|
|
|
Post by tangent on Sept 28, 2013 3:54:18 GMT
we've been as close before perhaps - the Cuban Missile Crisis? Granted no-one thought that anything had been launched at that time but it still might have been. I would hope that - surely? - even two countries that loathed one another as the US and USSR did would have checked first (there must have been ways) to make sure that there was no mistake. I mean how about just calling the Whitehouse and saying 'say what?'. It must have been possible. One day the world or at least the human race will be destroyed by nuclear weapons tho. To me it seems almost inevitable. We're such fools. Not necessarily, the Russian ethos at the time was that war was inevitable and a massive first strike without warning would give them a distinct advantage. In addition, a nuclear bomb nearly went off accidentally in North Carolina in 1961. Yes, we are fools. I used to think nuclear war would have been a disaster but I'm having second thoughts. It would probably have killed fewer people and caused less suffering than the eventual global warming we are heading for and would have given us a breathing space while we work out how to live together peacefully without destroying the planet.
|
|
|
Post by Alvamiga on Sept 28, 2013 6:02:39 GMT
I basically go through the day assuming there won't be anything like that happening, otherwise I'd not make it through the day without going [relatively] mad. I remember a conversation I once had with my grandmother about nuclear war. She thought the weapons were stupid because "you wouldn't be able to capture the place you'd bombed as it would not be liveable." She just didn't understand that it was about destruction and scaring the crap out of people, not about taking over the enemy's country. I think that speaks volumes about the thought process and it is only in more recent years that people have really started to say "Hang on! What would really happen if we used these things?" excepting certain little tinpot dictators and the like who haven't got over how great they think they are yet. As a planet, we need to get on with each other, no matter how motivated we are to destroy each other over the reasons we choose. Across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regard this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely are drawing their plans against us.
|
|
|
Post by Moose on Sept 28, 2013 22:13:25 GMT
I disagree about Global Warming. It's not that I disagree that it is happening but just that I think that long before the planet has been rendered uninhabitable that way we will have done it ourselves the nuclear way. We've not even had nuclear technology for a hundred years and look how much damage has already been caused. I do not believe that there is any way of preventing rogue states from eventually getting their own bombs. WHen that happens, I think that we are finished.
|
|
|
Post by tangent on Sept 29, 2013 4:37:01 GMT
I think it depends on the rogue state. If Saddam Hussein had got nuclear technology, he would have built up his arsenal with impunity, possibly developing a Doomsday bomb at the same time, but North Korea is too poor to have more than a few dozen nuclear bombs. In order to annihilate the world, you need a few thousand bombs and an adversary who is willing to engage in war. That is less likely to happen. If a state has the economic means of producing a few hundred nuclear bombs it is much more interested in economic stability and will become a mature nation.
|
|
|
Post by Alvamiga on Sept 29, 2013 6:08:49 GMT
It takes some pretty deranged minds to believe that nuclear weapons are a good idea.
I think I heard a quote once that was something along the lines of "Peace is knowing we can destroy them five times over, but they can only destroy us three times over."
|
|