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Odds for the survival of the human race 50-50 (pg. 5)
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
I doubt it. |
um, hello? are you kidding? Cuban Missile Crisis, U-2 spy plane incident, the Reykjavik Conference...are you serious? |
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| evil_bastard |
You're listings events, is there a point to this?
Are you trying to redeem your argument that the entire world was genuinely scared of an end to the human race by listing events?
Please elaborate, it is very difficult to work out your standpoint when you just say "cuban missile crisis". |
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| evil_bastard |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
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The second half of the article becomes very interesting:
http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/pagepub/CH2.html
Given the fact that both sides possessed 10,000 + high yield weapons I find the worst case scenario described to be very feasible. |
I never doubted such a scenario is feasible, I outlined the reasons why I'm not at all frightened. Noone I know is frightened by these sorts of things either, at best a morbid curiosity combined with a vivid imagination might leave someone day-dreaming about hypothetical scenarios, but that's much different to saying that the entire world was genuinely scared. I know plenty of people who know absolutely nothing about this stuff, how can they possibly be scared? I'm yet to meet anyone who has confided in me their fear that the human race might end. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
I never doubted such a scenario is feasible, I outlined the reasons why I'm not at all frightened. Noone I know is frightened by these sorts of things either, at best a morbid curiosity combined with a vivid imagination might leave someone day-dreaming about hypothetical scenarios, but that's much different to saying that the entire world was genuinely scared. I know plenty of people who know absolutely nothing about this stuff, how can they possibly be scared? I'm yet to meet anyone who has confided in me their fear that the human race might end. |
How old are you? What age range of people are you asking? Certainly nobody from our generation is frightened that nuclear armageddon could occurr, but try asking somebody who lived through the 50s and 60s. More likely than not, the threat of nuclear war was in the back of their minds. And if it wasn't in the back of their minds, and they lived through this period, then it doesn't appear that they were very observant :rolleyes:.
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"During the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy estimated the odds of nuclear war as being 'somewhere between one out of three and even.'"
The events support Kennedy's view: Early in the crisis, most advisors recommended military action to remove the missiles, a so-called "surgical strike." Later assessments by these same advisors concluded that, far from being "surgery," such action almost certainly would have meant a catastrophic war with the Soviet Union.4, 5
George Ball, one of Kennedy's senior advisors, wrote that when he met with the other advisors many years after the crisis, "much to our own surprise, we reached the unanimous conclusion that, had we determined our course of action within the first forty-eight hours after the missiles were discovered, we would almost certainly have made the wrong decision, responding to the missiles in such a way as to require a forceful Soviet response and thus setting in train a series of reactions and counter-reactions with horrendous consequences."
In his chronicle of the event, Robert Kennedy reports that one of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff "argued that we could use nuclear weapons on the basis that our adversaries would use theirs against us," and that "the B-52 bomber force was ordered into the air fully loaded with atomic weapons. As one came down to land, another immediately took its place in the air." The air of tension that this created was almost ignited when, at the height of the crisis, an American reconnaissance plane accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace. Khrushchev challenged Kennedy, "What is this? ... an intruding American plane could easily be mistaken for a nuclear bomber."4
http://www.globalcommunity.org/brea...an.html#Nuclear
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| quote: |
Into the early '60s, U.S. News & World Report and Life were still running cover stories with headlines such as "If Bombs Do Fall—What Happens to Your Investments," and "How You Can Survive Fallout." But after the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, the Cold War's nadir, and the historic 1963 nuclear test-ban treaty between the United States and Russia, superpower relations finally began to thaw. The warming progressed, albeit fitfully, until the Soviet Union's breakup.
Kennedy's mastery of brinksmanship and his subsequent embrace of detente contributed to a thaw at home as well. The dire measures and everyday anxieties of the Truman and Eisenhower years quickly subsided in 1963. In 1959, 64 percent of Americans surveyed by Gallup listed nuclear war as the most dire problem facing the country; by 1965 the number dropped to 16 percent.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2078892/
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http://clinton.cnn.com/SPECIALS/col...omb/opposition/ |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
You're listings events, is there a point to this?
Are you trying to redeem your argument that the entire world was genuinely scared of an end to the human race by listing events?
Please elaborate, it is very difficult to work out your standpoint when you just say "cuban missile crisis". |
umm, okay. here is it in layman's terms, since you like it that way...if you go back in history and study these events, ou'd know that the tension in the world was massive. The USA and the USSR were literally on the brink, and if one country did anything to piss the other off, it would have been the end of the world, quite simply. Now, I'm not saying that the ENTIRE world was really scared about the destruction of the world. But, you cannot deny that a LARGE majority felt it, while the others kept it as a thought in the back of their heads.
To say that this fear is common today is wrong, in my opinion. The situation is bad with such countries as North Korea, Iran, etc. But, there is not a wide-spread fear of the end of the world like there was during the Cold War. |
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| evil_bastard |
So now it's changed from "genuinely scared" to "on the back of their minds"? Are you backing up his statement or not?
Saying that Americans in the 50s and 60s had the thought of nuclear fallout "on the back of their minds" is not the same as saying "pretty much the entire world genuinely feared the end of the human race during the cold war". Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be defending this assertion. If not, then where do we disagree and what are we debating here? Personally I find it a hysterical exaggeration and posting sources from American polls and American presidents not only fails to validate his massive universal generalisation, it also appears rather ethnocentric in its attempt. |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
okay, you have to figure this. Lots of people in the world didnt even know there was a cold war. for some reason, be it lack of info. or whatever, they had no clue what was happening.
Now, some people, the more optimistic ones, didn't think that the end of the world was imminent. They just believed that the arms race would continue without dire consequences. These people kept the thought of armaggedon in the back of their minds, as a think more to ponder than believe in. On the other hand, there was a group of people who believed that the end WAS imminent. These people were genuinley scared.
If we are really arguing or not, i'm not quite sure, but that's what I was thinking, you sort it out.:D |
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| evil_bastard |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrummeRaver86
umm, okay. here is it in layman's terms, since you like it that way...if you go back in history and study these events, ou'd know that the tension in the world was massive. The USA and the USSR were literally on the brink, and if one country did anything to piss the other off, it would have been the end of the world, quite simply. Now, I'm not saying that the ENTIRE world was really scared about the destruction of the world. But, you cannot deny that a LARGE majority felt it, while the others kept it as a thought in the back of their heads.
To say that this fear is common today is wrong, in my opinion. The situation is bad with such countries as North Korea, Iran, etc. But, there is not a wide-spread fear of the end of the world like there was during the Cold War. |
Obviously there was a far higher state of alert during the cold war than exists today, noone has denied that. What I did deny was the big generalisation which you made. If you wanted to avoid ambiguity, you could have explained what you meant. Instead, you replied to my post, which used the terms "genuinely scared" (to avoid ambiguity), and attributed that definition to "pretty much the entire world".
I appreciate that you've now clarified the statement, but I'm baffled as to how you can possibly imply that I created the misunderstanding! I explicity stated my position on the matter more than once, whilst you simply listed historical events leaving me with nothing other than your original statement to go on. Now you've clarified what you meant, I realise that what you meant was not from what you said.
As it happens, I agree that people probably had the thought on the back of their minds, and some those who kept up with current affairs would have reason to be concerned, but as I said earlier, I doubt I am alone when I say that people aren't genuinely scared. The Cold War lasted decades, maintaining genuine fear for that period of time would have left the world populous a nervous wreck.
Moving away from this 'debate' (although I'm not sure we actually disagree on anything), I find the concept of the end of the world too huge to even begin to imagine, and therefore find it unnatural to be scared. Logic might dictate it's possible, but logic also dictates that if you drive a car every day you run a risk of being killed. Yet millions of people do it without the slightest hint of fear. If you survived a car crash or saw someone die in a car crash you might well fear the same happening to you, and equally were I ever unfortunate enough to see someone mutated and dying from a biological agent I would be a lot more fearful. But as things stand it is nothing but a concept, and a difficult one to imagine at that. |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| Yeah sorry about that. you have to consdier,also, when i made my posts. Anyhow, I'm sure we're trying to say the same things, but it just came out wrong. Sorry, buddy. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
So now it's changed from "genuinely scared" to "on the back of their minds"? Are you backing up his statement or not?
Saying that Americans in the 50s and 60s had the thought of nuclear fallout "on the back of their minds" is not the same as saying "pretty much the entire world genuinely feared the end of the human race during the cold war". Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be defending this assertion. If not, then where do we disagree and what are we debating here? Personally I find it a hysterical exaggeration and posting sources from American polls and American presidents not only fails to validate his massive universal generalisation, it also appears rather ethnocentric in its attempt. |
Are you arguing against me or drummerraver? If so you can address your criticisms of my argument to me rather than speaking as if I'm not here ;).
Well it's not like having a dinner date on the back of your mind ... I would say that even though people went on with their daily lives (because what other choice is there?) that they were fearful of nuclear armageddon occurring. True most of the sources are based upon documentation of what people felt in America because those are the first sources that I've found ... if you have other sources to counter my point than by all means go ahead and post them. With respect to my "ethnocentric" approach, however, the last source I posted was about the anti-nuclear groups that sprung up all over Britain and Germany because many people feared the result of a nuclear exchange. One can only assume that rational humans in other countries in Europe and Russia were similarly affected since all were living on targets of opportunity so to speak. Now granted Russia, Europe, and the US is not the entire world, so I'll alter my argument to say most people in the developed world were frightened of nuclear holocaust. In a similar regard however, even intelligent people in the 3rd world would likely have some fears of a nuclear holocaust given the escalation of tensions and the effect a nuclear winter would have upon them.
Edit: In reading your second response to Drummerraver, I'm not stating that people were constantly afraid during the entire Cold War, I'm specifically referring to crises points where nuclear attack seemed to be an inevitability. |
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| evil_bastard |
The first one was directed at you occrider, the second at Drummeraver. He posted just before I posted mine so it messed up the order ;)
Drummeraver, I'm sorry if I sounded combative, let's just put it down to a misunderstanding. I actually find subjects like this interesting, but with the amount of scaremongering and sensationalism that exists in journalism when it comes to subjects like this, I'm often inclined to read something else.
Of the scenarios listed in the very first post, I agree that a biological agent is probably the one most likely to fall into rogue hands because of the compact and inexpensive (I presume) nature of the weapon. Somehow I find the notion of "rogue machines" a bit far fetched! |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
The first one was directed at you occrider, the second at Drummeraver. He posted just before I posted mine so it messed up the order ;)
Drummeraver, I'm sorry if I sounded combative, let's just put it down to a misunderstanding. I actually find subjects like this interesting, but with the amount of scaremongering and sensationalism that exists in journalism when it comes to subjects like this, I'm often inclined to read something else.
Of the scenarios listed in the very first post, I agree that a biological agent is probably the one most likely to fall into rogue hands because of the compact and inexpensive (I presume) nature of the weapon. Somehow I find the notion of "rogue machines" a bit far fetched! |
Don't worry about it:) . Correspondences on an internet forum are not easily dealt with.
And I agree with your point. If Terminator ever appeared on my doorstep I'd run away screaming hysterically. |
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