Philosophical Questions: Life

[ysabetwordsmith]

People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

Is it right or wrong that everyone seems to be accustomed to the fact that all of humanity and most of the life on Earth could be wiped out at the whim of a handful of people?


Not everyone is accustomed to that X-risk. Some people are fighting to stop it.

However, many people try to ignore it as much as they can. That's part of human psychology; don't waste energy on things you can't change, and don't let possible doom stop you from using what resources and time you do have.

Certainly it is wrong that a few nutjobs could wipe out civilization and much of the biosphere. But well, from a planetary perspective, this whole hominid experiment is starting to look like a very bad idea.
 

Comments

Safety In Numbers

[goatgodschild]

Nobody should have this power, but I would rather it be in the hands of fewer people. Not because of some superiority thing on my part, just that I think the fewer people have this power, the fewer have access to do so at all.

Re: Safety In Numbers

[siliconshaman]

Also, statistically, the fewer people with that power then you're less likely to get some nut-job who thinks 'fuck it.. Fire the missiles!'

[siliconshaman]

If you ask me, I think NOBODY should have that power. I mean, being wiped out due to natural causes, or because we screwed up is one thing... but to be deleted because someone was having a really bad day and decided to tale us all down in the ultimate mass killing?

Yeah, not cool man, not cool at all.

Am I used to this however?

Listen, I grew up in the cold war era, living less than five miles from three different strategic targets. The knowledge that everything I was, or knew, could vanish in an instant of fiery death was part of daily life. You learned to live with it, or you went slightly bonkers, or even topped yourself which I know a few of my peers did. That pervasive fear and the certainty that nothing matters because you're going to die horribly, if you're lucky eats away at you until it doesn't take much to push you over the edge.

(as an aside, that's why many of my generation made poor life choices early on, because we didn't expect to be around for the future and consequences.)

The fact that it looked like we'd gotten over it, and that hey, I might get to live and we all get to have a future that doesn't involve scrabbling to survive in a radioactive hellscape ... only for one spoiled man-child to fuck it all up again and we're right back with nuclear annihilation back on the table...

Yeah, that pisses me off like you wouldn't believe.

You don't want to know what I'd like to do to certain whackadoodles because of that alone. (not that there aren't plenty of other reasons as well, but that's top of the list.)

So, ideally, nobody should have this power. But the next best thing would be to have as few as possible people who can do it...and as many as possible who can stop them.

I forget who suggested the nuclear launch codes should be surgically implanted in the President upon taking office, and the only way to get them would be for him to take a knife and open himself up... but they were on the right track.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> If you ask me, I think NOBODY should have that power. <<

I agree.

Regrettably, Russia's war on Ukraine has made me feel that it's no longer ethical to ask countries to give up their nuclear weapons, because then you're anyone's meat. I really resent that.

>>The fact that it looked like we'd gotten over it, and that hey, I might get to live and we all get to have a future that doesn't involve scrabbling to survive in a radioactive hellscape ... only for one spoiled man-child to fuck it all up again and we're right back with nuclear annihilation back on the table...<<

So maddening.

>> You don't want to know what I'd like to do to certain whackadoodles because of that alone. <<

Feel free to burn them in effigy. Both Polychrome Heroics and Daughters of the Apocalypse offer interesting options. Hmm, and Crystal Wood.

>>I forget who suggested the nuclear launch codes should be surgically implanted in the President upon taking office, and the only way to get them would be for him to take a knife and open himself up... but they were on the right track.<<

If only.

Re: Thoughts

[siliconshaman]

It's a pity force fields aren't a thing in the real world. Imagine if every country could just throw up a wall or force dome when threatened.

As for burning them in effigy... tempting, but I think I'll keep those demons under lock & key. Nobody needs to borrow nightmares from me. People seem to have a good opinion of me, no need to fuck that up.

Annihilation

[dialecticdreamer]

I remember my first "get under the desk" drill -- I was so small that my feet didn't touch the ground when sitting in the attached chair, the first year of having one-piece desks.

And I thought-- this is no protection from a falling cinder block if it's moving faster than a straight drop. It's not going to magically protect me from radiation, fire, or smoke.

Is it any wonder that I have so much trouble BELIEVING in anything, when annihilation in seconds was the least painful option? At an age when I was still struggling to tie my own shoes, I had to think long and hard about reality versus the playacting "safety lessons" in school, and boy, did THOSE come up wanting!

Even if the Yosemite caldera could wipe us out...

Even if global warming is likely to wipe us out...

Even if an insurmountable loss of potable water PROBABLY will take us out...

I'm exceedingly disappointed that anyone, anywhere in the whole monkeysphere could think that HURRYING THAT ALONG is any kind of acceptable idea.

So, make that kind of destruction accessible to the fewest number of people possible. Then add a safeguard, something too horrible for most to contemplate (like every relative out to third cousins by marriage will be eliminated before THE button can be activated), and maybe it's a risk that won't take the species out faster than the half dozen other grave, immediate, and urgent dangers from Mother Nature.

Then again, I suspect that clinical psychopathy would play a part in ANYONE who thinks that nuclear annihilation is in any way a "lesser risk", especially against an IDEOLOGY.

The majority of the people around me are Christian; I am not. If everyone around me were Muslim, or Hindi, or Buddhist, it's not likely to change my beliefs at all. OTHER laws, like ones mandating attendance or promising literal death for apostasy, might change my behavior, but I know myself well enough to only go as far as "might."

So, we've got politicians thinking in terms of "winning" and "losing" with access to the most destructive weapons on the planet, and... I cannot even vote one of them out of office. (I worry that he won't leave office, frankly.)

Have I done my part? As far as I was able over the last forty-odd years as an adult, yes.

Then, if something terrible happens, either there is no afterlife, in which case, everything stops for me, OR... THOSE people owe ME and billions of others a detailed explanation and a planet worth of metaphysical reparations.

Coming to terms with THAT is as much part of the "nuclear weapons" question as anything else I've mentioned.