Fungi Forums
Miscellaneous => General Chat => Not at the Dinner Table => Topic started by: PaperLuigi on April 09, 2009, 11:29:27 PM
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What is your opinion on nuclear weapons? Some argue that we should do away with them for the safety of mankind, but others argue that they keep us out of WWIII (see mutually assured destruction).
I personally think we should get rid of them, but I don't see it happening...ever. So what do you think?
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I personally feel that having nukes around is never a good thing, per se, but the MAD angle is a legitimate one. Currently, no country is stupid enough to try and nuke anyone else, since that country will just nuke them back and everyone loses. On the other hand, I feel that, because of this style of politics, millions of deaths becomes a kind of scoreboard; whereas normal bombs have death tolls in the thousands, nukes kill hundreds of millions of people, instantaneously.
Let's say country A fires nukes at country B; country B has five hours to respond before the missiles touch down. It'd be impossible to evacuate the country, and even announcing to the population that they'll all die in five hours will lead to mass panic and rioting. So country B decides to fire back and hope country A loses more people than country B. Both sides lose; it's the objective of each side to make the other lose more.
The issue with this is that, when nukes come into play, populations of innocent civilians become like poker chips - no real value, just an abstract way of keeping score.
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Considering the destructive potential of a nuclear weapon, and the fact that there's a lot of bad blood between certain countries and areas, nuclear weapons are basically a pre-emptive threat. So it's like no one can actually strike since it's one huge stand-off, and no one actually wants to because they'll be hit just as hard as their target, because of allies and such.
Getting rid of them would be nice, but how could anyone go about it? Not all nations are part of the U.N., and I doubt the ones that DO have them would even admit to having them or agree to disarm.
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Nukes, like most weapons, are pretty much only needed because they exist. The only real reason for having them is because bad guys are going to find a way to get them no matter what, and we need to defend ourselves (Like Bush said, "Our enemies never stop thinking of ways to hurt American citizens, and neither do we"). It would be great if we could get rid of them all, but some things just aren't going to happen. Communism would be great too, if it worked, but the honor system never really works on a big scale like that; not when so little leaven can leaveneth the whole lump.
So I'm somewhere between "good, mutually assured destruction" and "bad but unavoidable" on that poll. Little of both, I guess.
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No nuclear weapons. It'll probably never happen, but I want them all gone.
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Yeah, I pretty much agree with ShadowBrain. It's really only a matter of time before someone snaps. Not to mention something could go terribly wrong with the technology that controls the firing sequence.
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Nukes, like most weapons, are pretty much only needed because they exist. The only real reason for having them is because bad guys are going to find a way to get them no matter what, and we need to defend ourselves (Like Bush said, "Our enemies never stop thinking of ways to hurt American citizens, and neither do we"). It would be great if we could get rid of them all, but some things just aren't going to happen. Communism would be great too, if it worked, but the honor system never really works on a big scale like that; not when so little leaven can leaveneth the whole lump.
So I'm somewhere between "good, mutually assured destruction" and "bad but unavoidable" on that poll. Little of both, I guess.
Yes. This.
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No nuclear weapons. It'll probably never happen, but I want them all gone.
Good idea but all countries will need to agree on the worldwide ban of nukes.
Even if we do successfully eliminate nukes someone else will have worse weapons like Anthrax and other biological weapons of mass destruction. So my point is that it would be nice to get rid of nukes and all weapons for that matter, it will never be possibles as long as there are insane people.
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I just read Watchmen, so... yeah.
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So...we should teleport a giant psychic squid into Manhatten to prevent nuclear war?
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Spoiler alert, man!
...But yes, the twisted sense of it all does leave you pondering. It was, in essence, a cross between the mentality behind the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the saying (and I paraphrase) "Only when aliens avoid Earth will we stop killing eachother. We'll focus on killing the aliens".
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When they avoid it?
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If we don't have nuclear weapons we will never experience nuclear winter; the most awesome of all seasons with the exception of laser summer (obviously).
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Atomic Autumn, man.
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What? Outfall is the worst season.
Looks like TEM is ready to fight off some nuclear zombies (possibly alongside some nuclear plants).
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Atomic Autumn, man.
What are you some kind of n00b? It's Anti-matter Autumn.
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And then Springtime For Hitler.
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I hereby hate CE7 for beating me to that joke.
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I voted 'Nukes are good".
Yes. Nukes everywhere.
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Surely you jest.