The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History’s Biggest Mistakes
Biggest ever? more than nuclear weapons? A bit of a stretch to say ever. I think this is disputable.
Biggest ever? more than nuclear weapons? A bit of a stretch to say ever. I think this is disputable.
... so far.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/public-awareness-of-nucl...
Anything I could write seems so obvious. I can't think. I think I need a break from HN for a while. You don't seem to have been downvoted in 5 hours.
Indeed, it is. There is nothing more depressing than what we are doing to ourselves and to our own world.
> I've read some HN comments before which for some reason suggest a large-scale nuclear "war" wouldn't be so bad
No mistake, it would be absolutely terrible, country- if not civilisation-ending. None of this is any good. It is just that nuclear weapons and our current way of life are on two opposite sides of a risk spectrum: nuclear apocalypse is a very improbable event with huge consequences; our industry is a fact of life that has been more or less silently killing indiscriminately, almost innocent because we don’t see its effects as huge, memorable events. A nuclear winter might kill hundreds of millions if it happens; we’ve already killed much more than that with non-nuclear means.
So yeah, nuclear weapons are terrible, and I completely disagree with the other poster who said everyone should have them. I just wish we would see the harm we do every day as clearly as the harm we could do in exceptional circumstances.
> You don't seem to have been downvoted in 5 hours.
I think the post has been downvoted. I don’t have all the detail but I think the score has fluctuated a bit. If it can be of comfort to you.
Can you imagine? Most aviation would never have happened if this guy hadn't invented leaded gasoline.
Duh, of course it would. Aviation gasoline would have used other methods of increasing octane, and/or then we'd have made do with slightly lower octane avgas. And engines would have been designed accordingly.
The only reason why getting rid of leaded avgas has been a 40 year saga is that they have been chasing the dream of a 1:1 replacement that would require no changes to 100% of existing aircraft. Now it seems they finally have such a fuel in G100UL, we'll see if and how quickly usage of it expands to replace leaded avgas.
There's no inspection or modification of the aircraft. It's just a piece of paper. The FAA could fix the problem for those aircraft with the stroke of a pen.
It does not work. Countries would still fight conventional wars, because not everything is worth escalating. Even in your example. They are being invaded and are at risk of losing their country (well, they were at some point anyway). Do you reckon they’d throw a nuke at the US and so be absolutely certain to lose everything they have rather than fight a conventional war and having a chance at taking their country back?
On the other hand, proliferation has real risks in terms of radionuclides ending up in things like terrorist groups.
Overall, it makes as much sense as the “if teachers had guns schools would be safer” talking points.
Same applies to most current conflicts.
And about non traditional fights, maybe there would be less of those as big countries would be more careful about their actions.
Also I believe that if every school kid had a gun there would be lot less bullying. As they would be able to instantly produce credible self-defence when the society entirely fails to protect them. And they would be fully in moral right to answer with reasonable force to such actions.
Yes, and a lot more shootings. IMO the same applies to nukes. If every country had nukes then they'd be less conventional warfare, but a lot more nuclear bombings. It only takes one person to decide it's a good idea.
That’s a very interesting question! So much of the US foreign policy is predicated on the fact that there will never, ever be a war on American soil. It would definitely change the risk dessinent and the political acceptability of aggressive foreign policy.
That's a very stupid idea if you think about it for more than 5 seconds.
Which you can use as a reply to like 90% of comments on this benighted site.