In the end, I wonder if all weren't safer because of what he did.

Post #393,935 by mmoffitt 8/31/14 11:54:14 AM Reply	In the end, I wonder if all weren't safer because of what he did. In a world with two nuclear armed super-powers, it may have been to the world's benefit that neither side could be certain their communications were secret. Especially those two nuclear powers. On one side you have a not entirely unreasonably paranoid regime, so convinced of the other power's absolute intent on its destruction that any secret transmission from the other side could have been perceived as a mortal threat. On the other, a regime who had uniquely demonstrated that it was morally capable of using nuclear weapons on civilians not once, but twice.
Post #393,964 by Ashton 8/31/14 9:44:08 PM Reply	I can go there on practical grounds (what could be more 'practical' than existential grounds?) (though the present example included at least acceptance of remuneration, not just for 'expenses'. Some didn't.) As one who has invested countless hours, from ~age 14 on, re nukes, their care and feeding and the constellation of their moment-by-moment impending-Doom, I could cite a single-volume as argument-enough: Command and Control [Schlosser, 2013] into evidence: Evidence that all-along (and doubtless for the USSR as well) we have lived-through-By-Sheer-Luck! ... the absence of a single accidental detonation (in the dis-US case: the near-closest ones being of the unnecessarily-Big versions.) Your posit implicitly covers Fuchs et al ex post facto: as these perps (memory fails exact name-associations) subsequently revealed a similar sense of ~ balancing-Enough [??] this Ultimate-stand-off. It has been and remains: of species-destroying Scale, ever wielded by a succession of average-grade homo-saps in-Power. Right Now. The thesis is inherently unProvable; So. What. this does not make it either ludicrous nor defective. FACT: had (any one of the dropped, foolishly-near-Armed [also Armed!] devices Gone Off ??? every level of speculation Would Have Gone On-Full: Instantly / in a time largely of Hair-Triggers. (This ain't just my or that particular author's paranoid dystopian fantasy: his report details are (Now!) perfectly verifiable, despite the (still prevailing) secrecies of every govt.) Maybe.. some day.. another Canticle for Leibowitz will resurrect the reputations of (some of) these heinous leakers-of-Armageddon-grade-Secrets, with some awareness, not merely of what (each?--except for the purely Greed-driven) formed their hugely-personal decisions to become Pariahs (?) Can never be 'settled' of course: the issue begs the Question: Is my allegiance to.. this particular Nation-State? higher than my allegiance to the Species? or, as today, still: "Higher than Most-Species" (a thought rarely conceived by most, IME: I aver.) Nothing is ever simple, eh? We remain in.. Luck mode. (Though less-so for accidents--a lesson which took decades of disinterest being relatively-overcome, recently.)
Post #393,969 by a6l6e6x 8/31/14 11:46:16 PM Reply	Had there been a war, because of him we would have lost! The US was an open book to the Soviets. The son of a bitch would have been eligible for parole in 2015. Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #393,976 by Ashton 9/1/14 4:31:35 AM Reply	Point well taken.. I guess I can't discriminate well, (any more?) the difference between one level of Madness and ... another one. Had there been a war.. would there have been a Winner in any sense of that word? All I know near fershure is, that M.A.D. was not just a cynical TLA. Remember 'Spasm War' back in the Rand Corp. days? (Maybe the Ancients were right: don't try to figure-out the Maya.) Either the next dice-throw or nuclear roulette.
Post #393,990 by a6l6e6x 9/1/14 1:20:27 PM Reply	Re: would there have been a Winner in any sense of that word? Not really! "The living would envy the dead." Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #394,065 by Ashton 9/3/14 6:48:56 AM Reply	If Only.. 'The World' would {sigh} at that realization, once and for all :-/
Post #394,313 by rcareaga 9/9/14 1:15:55 PM Reply	Winning WW III Gahan Wilson nailed that one several decades ago. cordially,

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