[ExI] mutual assured injury

[John Clark]

On Sun, Nov 6, 2016 at 3:16 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:



> ​> ​
> In the early 90s, endgame defense from an ICBM was considered a fantasy,
> but so was a rocket that could descend nozzle-down and land on its feet.
> Well, it can do that now. We have endgame defense against an ICBM now as
> well.


​But no matter how much technology improves it's always going to be cheaper
to shoot a bullet at a stationary target ​than it is to hit a speeding
bullet with another speeding bullet, and if it's cheaper than you can have
more of them. And the offence doesn't need to be anywhere near to being
perfect, but even if the defense is successful in shooting down 99% of the
ICBM's it would still lead to the greatest catastrophe in human history.

​> ​
> the nuclear explosion never takes place because the warhead is destroyed
> on impact, there is no Strontium 90, none of the horrors that made up the
> reports written back in the day.


​A​cording
 to
​
Robert Serber
​
, the physicist who wrote the
​
first
​
lectures
​
on
​
how to
​build​
​
a atomic bomb at Los Alamos
​,​
 Edward Teller pushed for the development of a
​
10,
​
000 megaton hydrogen bomb
​
. He reasoned
​it ​
would be cheap and would require no delivery system
​because "
that particular design would probably kill everyone on Earth,
​so ​
there was no use carting it anywhere
​".​


> ​> ​
> Perhaps it will vindicate itself by holding worldwide casualties to a mere
> few hundred million.


​I quote General "Buck" Turgidson from the movie Doctor Strangelove:

"*Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do
say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the
breaks." *

John K Clark


>
>
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