Mutually Assured Destruction: fear vs reality
From ACM March 1958. An article by WH Pickering, head of JPL, gives an explanation not usually heard.

The ICBM with a hydrogen warhead takes less than half an hour to reach its target. This means, that within a few years every city on the globe will be living with a threat of sudden death - its life dependent on one man's action. And that man is not the ruler of an enemy country, but the soldier on guard in an isolated ICBM launching site.

The least we can hope is that he is not one of those young hotheads who frequently exchange rifle shots across a frontier. But no matter who he is, his decision is the death sentence of the target city.

With this situation rapidly becoming an accepted fact, military strategists have concluded that the only answer is the threat of immediate and total retaliation. Conceptually, the enemy's missiles are detected on route and the retaliatory missiles are launched even before the enemy missiles have reached their targets.

Thus, even if the launching sites do not survive the targets, destruction of the enemy is achieved. Even after the anti-missile-missile has been perfected, this basic strategy would be maintained.

In other words, MAD was meant to guard against Deplorables in the military. Computers and MAD were meant to protect the elite world from Deplorables.

What really happened is the EXACT FUCKING OPPOSITE.

The computers were the hotheads, and a Russian Deplorable saved the world by making a HUMAN decision.

= = = = = START 2015 REPRINT:

The newly publicized story of Stanislav Petrov slaps us with a couple of big lessons.

Petrov is the sanest man in the world, and thus the grumpiest man in the world.

Petrov saved the world from nuclear destruction in 1983.

He was manning the controls for part of Russia's nuclear arsenal, watching his radar and computer screens. Suddenly a blip appeared to be coming across the Arctic from North America. Then it was joined by four more blips in the same direction, but no more. Just five blips.

He had to think fast. There were four possibilities, formed into a truth table.

False indication, don't respond: End of his career. No other harm.

False indication, respond: Instant end of America, eventual end of humanity.

True indication, don't respond: Instant end of Russia, eventual end of humanity.

True indication, respond: Instant end of humanity.


His decision was based on a knowledge of all these possibilities, plus an understanding of his instruments and the meaning of their readings. He decided that five blips could not be a real USA STRONG attack, because USA STRONG understood the End Of Humanity logic as well as he did. If USA STRONG was going to attack, it would be sending hundreds of missiles all at once because there wouldn't be a chance to send the rest after Russia's response.

He chose not to push the button, and we're all alive because he did.

Thanks, Petrov!

It didn't exactly end his career, but he didn't get any rewards either. Now he's barely surviving on a pension, but he's fiercely loyal to Russia.

Lesson #1: Trust technicians. Trust metrology. A technician who understands his instruments will make the right decision far more often than a Professional who understands theories. The Professional will ignore obvious indications of bad readings, and will often intentionally falsify the readings, to keep his theory and his grants running.

Lesson #2: Especially for the beyond-evil hypermonsters who have been misruling USA STRONG since 1989. Don't underestimate Russians. Don't assume that they will surrender because you impose some economic hardships. They are accustomed to self-sufficiency and they are good at improvising. Above all, Russians are unconditionally Russian.

= = = = = END 2015 REPRINT.

THEORIES KILL. EXPERIENCE SURVIVES.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, AI point-missing, Metrology

  ¶ 3:29 PM