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The goal is to be respected on a geopolitical basis. Much easier to bully a nation militarily if they can't respond with a nuke.

The goal is to end humans.

The stated goal of Iran's government is to end a specific group of humans that identify themselves as Israelis by using nuclear or conventional weapons.

Of course that's not the goal in most cases (but it obviously is the case where warfare is involved - at least ending a subset of humanity).

But if you look at food/diet changes, lifestyle changes, warfare changes, energy source/consumption changes, and so on, you can see we are working toward the end of humanity. Hopefully it will take a very long time, but there will be a tipping point where it becomes _very_ unpleasant.

Let's extrapolate with some current technologies a bit. We have these pretty cool gunshot locator systems; we have AI or robotic attack systems; we have broader control systems which can disable power and water from target zones. Heck we can control and overload industrial systems, potentially causing mass casualties.

No one sets out to end humanity. Well, most people don't. But degree by degree (pun not initially intended) we get closer to self-induced extinction.