[ExI] The Bomb verses a Email server
Anders
anders at aleph.se
Wed Sep 14 23:38:45 UTC 2016
On 2016-09-14 18:16, Dan TheBookMan wrote:
> Has anyone here, aside from me, read Bertrand Lemmencier's essay
> 'Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation or Monopoly?'? As one might guess, he
> argues in favor of proliferation as lowering the likelihood of war.
> One can imagine this working, but what about when proliferation
> reaches the subnational level?
http://ejpp.eu/index.php/ejpp/article/viewFile/143/125
I took a glance, and was not super-impressed. There is a fun
game-theoretic argument that things turn nice with many players, but
this all assumes rational and error-free players. It also assumes
attributability.
It also seems to underestimate the number of possible conflict surfaces:
among N players, there are N(N-1)/2 possible conflicts and if the
probability of war between two players is p, then the probability of at
least one war is P=1-(1-p)^(N(N-1)/2). If p is a function of N, to keep
this probability below 1/2 p must decline as
p(n)<1-exp(-2ln(2)/(N(N-1))) = O(N^-2). Right now N=9, so if there is
one new nuclear state the p better become 23% safer or the new state
will reduce global safety.
The "more guns make society more polite" argument has never been very
convincing with bombs.
--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University
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