[HN Gopher] Nukemap
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Nukemap
Author : room505
Score : 15 points
Date : 2021-11-11 22:17 UTC (43 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (nuclearsecrecy.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nuclearsecrecy.com)
| smoldesu wrote:
| I remember playing with this on my laptop in middle school. That
| was one of the weirdest trips to the principal's office I ever
| took.
| scrumper wrote:
| This is perennial, and no less terrifying for it.
|
| There was briefly a 3D version integrated with Google Earth that
| was even more depressing.
|
| Also check out (by the same developer, Alex Wallerstein)
| MissileMap, where you can plant a launch platform on a map (sub,
| silo etc.), assign it a missile and a warhead, and see which
| parts of the earth you can turn to glass. Stiff drink helps; all
| a bit close to home for this cold war kid.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| I find it assuring. There's so many it's such a large deterrent
| to escalating war. Noone would win.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It's also a deterrent for actually getting involved and doing
| the right thing.
|
| World powers can't directly fight anymore so Russia takes
| chunks of Europe every so often. China does the same. Ukraine
| and Taiwan, for example, lose out. We pretend there is peace.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Domination/Hegemony has been the only sense of peace
| historically. In that sense, I think that the continued
| stability of the United States as a prosperous and well-run
| democracy is very important for the world. It looks shaky
| though, and it's partly outside my control. What do I know,
| I'm in Europe. Europe is certainly not projecting any
| hegemony around.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Yeah that resonates with me. There's rarely peace, just
| quiet, created forcibly by a dominant actor.
| phtrivier wrote:
| The current situation in Europe is telling : why bother
| with sending nukes on other countries when you can threaten
| them with "bombarding you with migrants" ? Or when you can
| retaliate by "freezing financial assets" ?
|
| M.A.D. is a deterrent for total nuclear war. It's not a
| deterrent for war. One thaught "trade" would work, but it's
| still not perfect.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I would find it more reassuring if there were more evidence
| that countries are rational where war is concerned. A
| recently-concluded twenty-year war to remove and reinstate
| the Taliban is not encouraging.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Allow me to introduce you to "countervalue targeting" as part
| of what "winning" means here.
| lumost wrote:
| One concerning item with recent events is that no one can
| plausibly point to a nuclear "red line" in most of the
| existing flash points.
|
| The historic red lines in the cold war were either one side
| reaching a first-strike position, or an unstoppable ground
| invasion in which both sides soldiers were directly involved
| and tactical nuclear weapons would usefully repel the
| invasion. Even then NATO troop deployments in Germany during
| the cold war reflect both a risk that this tipping point
| wouldn't trigger a nuclear war - as well as carefully
| calculated strategies to ensure that the risk of a nuclear
| escalation was high such as by stationing tactical nuclear
| weapons in Germany.
|
| It's difficult to identify a similar red line in a likely
| conflict between any of the major nuclear powers.
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(page generated 2021-11-11 23:00 UTC)