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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body bgcolor=white lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'> extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Anders Sandberg<br><br></span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><br><br><span style='color:windowtext'>>…</span>While the average time to nuclear war is 97.5 years; this corresponds to a yearly risk to 1.03% if you fit an exponential distribution to it (a fairly decent fit except for the initial few years). -- <span style='color:windowtext'> </span>Anders Sandberg<span style='color:windowtext'><o:p></o:p></span></p><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'>Anders, this is an interesting number because of a popular educational video I saw in the late 1970s. The fictional US president was being briefed on the work of his military mathematicians who had determined that the probability of a nuclear war that calendar year was about 1%, with the risk of war in each subsequent year declining by a factor of about 0.9<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'>So in a mere seven years, by the end of that president’s term, the risk of nuclear war would be about half a percent in that year.<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'>The new president was delighted with that news (this was the 1970s when the cold war was threatening to hot at any time.) As the mathematicians were packing up to leave, he asked: oh by the way professor, using your model, what are the chances of nuclear war eventually? Answer: 100%.<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre></div></body></html>