[ExI] The Bomb verses a Email server

[Anders]

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