In the grand scheme of things, everything that happened this year is probably minor in comparison to Petrov's decision.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...
It’s a unique confluence of incredible capability with little understanding of the consequences of using it. Nobody 100 years ago had the slightest clue that the industrialisation at the time could cause global warming, for example.
As for examples of pivotal moments, WW2 is a good example. We came very close to the world being completely dominated by Orwell style authoritarian one party states. A boot stamping on a human face, forever. It might even still happen. With social engineering and modern surveillance technology as used in China, we could end up in a super-stable oppressive regime with no way out.
Nuclear annihilation is another example. We came scarily close several times as you pointed out.
Global warming is a huge issue, it may even be too late to stop massive changes in our environment that will last thousands of years and shape human history and global biology permanently.
Genetic engineering could change who and what we are as a species in ways that might be hard or impossible to undo. It’s not any one of these that create the hinge either though, it’s all of them happening together.
Look at some cities in Europe. Many have waxed and waned, some even many times. They have been parts of different countries and empires. Many have influenced the world greatly for the better.
The AIs might not need to take over, we might actively hand ourselves over to them.
I think that's what GP meant when they wrote that "we could end up in a super-stable oppressive regime". Because the oppressive regimes so far weren't oppressive for long.
Oh, also switching dynasties frequently resulted in the entire previous royal family being summarily executed.
For a brief(?) summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasties_in_Chinese_history
Burning of books and burying of scholars, Qin dynasty, 213 BCE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_o...
Xianyang Palace Archives
Rome continued to rule the world for a ~15 centuries. There is still a sizable chunk of the global population that obeys Rome, even though they are not ruled by anything like the Roman Empire.
Realising that the military empire wasn't going to work any more, and changing Rome's historically laisse-faire attitude to religion into an effective method of rule... that's genius at work.
And they were overrun by the Sea Peoples, who set up their own dynasty. Overrun by Kush, who set up their own dynasty. Overrun by Persia, who set up their own dynasty. Overrun by Macedonia. Overrun by Rome. Each of those was an end of an established government.
Byzantium (and the rest of the Eastern Roman Empire) disagrees [0]. They lasted until 1453 - incidentally only 50 years before Columbus sailed.
I guess, really, I meant to imply some sort of a modern interpretation of democracy, wherein a single city (or military) voting for the entire empire wouldn't exactly cut it.
Sidenote: incidentally not coincidentally. The closure of the Silk Road and other important East-West land routes as a result of the Ottoman conquest was one of the important spurs that kicked off the Age of Discovery, as everyone scrambled to find new routes.
The Roman Republic learned from Athens’ democracy. Even late Republicans like Sulla and Cicero and Caesar recognised the Republic’s overuse of checks and balances, as well as its lack of a state army. Caesar almost uniquely recognised Rome’s broken voting system. Unfortunately, they were too late.
America’s founders were not. The lessons of the Republic gave us our strong executive and state-funded armed forces. Our Constitutional amendment process is sclerotic, but there is nothing to suggest our Republic is inherently flawed in the way Athens or Rome were.
Analyses abound about [what's wrong with American democracy](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Problems_with_the_curren...). The nail in the coffin though, will be the first part of your sentence. The American Constitution is notoriously hard to amend, which means that it is just too easy to maintain as it is by those who benefit from the status quo. We can already see this by how the will of the majority is routinely ignored through unequal representation. My opinion is that this is not sustainable and will have to be resolved through unlawful means, exactly because of the unflexibility of the law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_Sejm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Partition_of_Poland
This is incorrect. The first measurements and effects were calculated at the end of the 19th Century (quoted as 1896).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_scie...
Fossil fuel companies have paid large sums to lie about the effects of their products on climate change, just like tobacco companies have directly killed innumerous people by lying about the negative health impact of cigarettes for decades. Nowadays, the evidence that these companies collaborated on misleading the public is openly accessible but back in the 70s or 80s YOU were the enemy for trying to warn about health dangers. Climate is the same now, propaganda has done its work for a long time.
And again, the same cancerous people jump on the bandwagon of an increasingly aware public and try to profit off the new movement by ways of green-washing and other pseudo-helpful bullshit.
These are significant problems where short-term profit motivation is more influential than long-term sustainability and "positive" development of society. Our only hope is the few people in human society who are motivated enough to study, learn, read and act for the greater good.
That's kind of hingey if you ask me.
Who do you think has or rather should have more power than corporations? The state! And who is constantly crying for a less influential state? The current US administration.
As long as we as the voters do not allow the state to be the one in power but rather companies it will be companies doing whats best for them.
We can choose to buy zero emission cars and purchase products exclusively from environmentally friendly corporations. Corporations will either adapt or go bankrupt.
Even ignoring the problem of those 1% potentially being the richest 1%, there is the issue that harmful businesses often have lower costs than ethical businesses, and some consumers are too price-sensitive (or don't have time to become informed about every corporation's business practices) to vote "correctly" with their purchasing power.
High and mid income earners can and should choose more ethical/environmental businesses as they have the means to do so.
Just from the numbers yes because the other side isnt saying more or even same but less.
https://daily.jstor.org/how-19th-century-scientists-predicte...
> Arrhenius saw that this human emission of carbon would eventually lead to warming. However, because of the relatively low rate of CO 2 production in 1896, Arrhenius thought the warming would take thousands of years, and he expected it would be beneficial to humanity.
It still seems that scientists at that point looked at it more from an interesting terraforming perspective and less like a looming catastrophy perspective.
I doubt that would have lasted for long. Fortunately enough for humanity, free human are more productive than slaves.
Compare also https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FascistButIneffi... and https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DystopiaIsHard
In the end war is expensive because fighters aren’t producing food etc.
East Germany vs West Germany; North Korea vs South Korea - and that's in less than a century. On a longer timescale, think Ming and Qing dynasties compared to Europe on the same timeframe - China was much more stable during that time, but stability was not sufficient in the long run. However, the current PRC is perhaps a counterexample, though there is a lot of nuance, external conditions and multiple very different approaches that the China leadership tried out during the last 50 years.
Early tyrannical states and back-breaking agriculture outcompeted relatively free and comfortable hunter gatherers.
Also people knew about and have already experienced pollution and other effects of industrilization. Read about London big stink.
Social aspects too, ludites, social disruption, leading to labor as a political / social force. Urbanizatiin. Communism. Labor laws. Etc.
Since ancient times "birth of civilization" we have deforested, over fished/hunted/farmed.
We have continously, dramatically changed our environment and ourselves. We've already genetically engineered ourselves (modern man and medical man are quite different) and numerous other species.
Everybody in every time period believes their time is different. Is frantic changes. Is etc.
Its only because they know more about recent events. Recent events are in memory.
The more you study human history, the more you realize it has always been a dramatic.
It seems like not only we came close, but it is the very reality we currently live in, we just don't like admitting it. Although instead of one party, we have one class.
With all the new elements in society, I think we're all "finding our balance". And once we have, we'll be able to explore the future much more safely and effectively.
I guess that's the "hinge-y" argument. The negative argument might be that we're a house of cards, destined for greater instability not less, and we're experiencing what it is to fall apart.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mist...
>>As it happens, on this occasion there was no imposter – at least, not a human one. The figure skulking around the fence is thought to have been a large black bear. It was all a mistake. But back at Volk Field, the squadron was still unaware of this fact. They had been told there would be no practice runs, and as they boarded their planes, they were entirely convinced that this was it –World War Three had begun.
So a little late, but: happy Stanislav Petrov day!
If anything the current time marks the point where politicians were given too much control of otherwise free countries.
https://www.quora.com/How-close-did-we-come-to-a-nuclear-war...
Or will see the power center of the West shift to Europe, and a more powerful, and expansionist Russia threaten peace in Europe.
- Vasily Arkhipov was a Soviet submarine flotilla commander in charge of a submersed fleet that was being bombarded by depth charges from US navel ships. A captain on one of the subs thought war had broken out and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. Vasily thought the bombardment was a signal for the submarines to surface. He was right, a ceasefire had been announced and the warships were dropping practice depth charges to try and signal the submarines should surface and communicate. link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov_(vice_admiral)...
- Boris Yeltsin sat in front of an activated nuclear briefcase because Soviet radar detected an inbound US nuclear missile. The launch location and trajectory matched a war game scenerio of the US detonating a nuclear missile in the atmosphere, causing an EMP to wipe out Soviet electronics. His military officers wanted him to launch a counter attack and he only had minutes to decide. Turned out to be a missile launched to study atmospheric conditions. The Soviets were notified, as were other nations, but the message didn't get to all forces due to the internal strife and collapse the USSR was undergoing. Link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident
- A computer simulation of an incoming Soviet nuclear attack was accidentally fed into NORADs network. Everyone thought it was real. The National Security Advisor was awakened by a call and almost called the President, but was luckily able to determine it wasn't real. Link - https://gizmodo.com/the-computer-simulation-that-almost-star...
There is a whole list of other incidents. Yes, many of them occurred during the cold war. They seem to have slowed down as time goes on, maybe nations are just better at covering things up. You still have incidents like in Hawaii, where residents were notified of an incoming ballistic missile from North Korea and that it WAS NOT a drill.
Turned out to be a drill...(or was it)?
The number of nuclear weapons worldwide has decreased, but proliferation has increased. Think of each nuclear capable nation as a node in a weighted graph. Each node is connected to every other node. The weight is the probability of conflict between the two nodes. Each time a node is added, risk goes up (proliferation). You can have dramatic changes in foreign and domestic policy, risk goes up (US politics anyone?). You can have long standing animosity between countries (India/Pakistan), risk goes up. You can have new animosities (India/China), risk goes up. There can be just plain system bugs or miscommunication as illustrated in the examples listed above.
Now throw in the ramifications of climate change like political instability, infrastructure strain, resource scarcity, and refugee migrations into the mix. Or a truly mad guy with a nuke. We haven't had large scale war for a long time, but as countries deal with internal pressures and external competition for resources and global standing, the risk is never off the table.
I would says the risks are still high today and are rising.
> Petrov's decision.
Petrov's decision is one of the most overhyped propaganda on social media. It's a non-story turned into a story for some reason.
If people just took the time to think about the content rather than mindlessly consuming content maybe we'd get less nonsense.