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Jules
Jan 18, 2011 17:16:41 GMT -5
Post by Sigmaleph on Jan 18, 2011 17:16:41 GMT -5
There were scientists who argued that the atomic bomb could have set the atmosphere on fire and extinguished all life on Earth. Obviously it didn't, but the possibility didn't stop us. Which is part of why America is the greatest nation on Earth: we take the risks with other people's lives because we can. Not quite. The possibility of nuclear weapons igniting the atmosphere was thoroughly investigated before the first nuclear test. Report LA-602, Ignition of the Atmosphere With Nuclear Bombs.
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Jules
Jan 18, 2011 23:00:35 GMT -5
Post by MaybeNever on Jan 18, 2011 23:00:35 GMT -5
True, except that the report says outright that the complexity of the matter means that the prospect of catastrophe is not entirely ruled out; it is merely considered "unlikely". How improbable does the destruction of the planet's ability to support life have to be before one feels comfortable proceeding with a test?
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Jules
Jan 19, 2011 5:51:40 GMT -5
Post by Admiral Lithp on Jan 19, 2011 5:51:40 GMT -5
A modern equivalent might be how it's "possible, but unlikely" that the Large Hadron Collider will start spitting out black holes or strange matter & destroy the world.
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Jules
Jan 19, 2011 13:03:41 GMT -5
Post by Ian1732 on Jan 19, 2011 13:03:41 GMT -5
A modern equivalent might be how it's "possible, but unlikely" that the Large Hadron Collider will start spitting out black holes or strange matter & destroy the world. Or create a Resonance Cascade.
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Jules
Jan 20, 2011 15:21:21 GMT -5
Post by Sigmaleph on Jan 20, 2011 15:21:21 GMT -5
True, except that the report says outright that the complexity of the matter means that the prospect of catastrophe is not entirely ruled out; it is merely considered "unlikely". How improbable does the destruction of the planet's ability to support life have to be before one feels comfortable proceeding with a test? It depends entirely on what test you're trying to decide about. Or, to put it in another way, utility of killing everything*probability of that happening + expected utility of the test has to be greater than zero. We can more or less calculate the first term (a huge negative number) and the second is the one you asked about. The equation has an unknown third term. One could argue that nuclear weapon tests were incredibly important. (One could also argue that the huge negative was reduced in magnitude somewhat by the fact that, given the state of the world right then, there was a decent possibility that someone else would kill everyone anyway). But I won't argue that, because my point wasn't that nuclear tests were perfectly justified. I'm not sure if they were. My point was just that there is precedent for exhaustive analysis of the possibility of killing everything.
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