I appreciate your reply. I feel like I am learning a lot.
Have you ever read, Why Civil Defense Failed? The author argues civil defense failed because people took MAD literally. They believed that any attempts to stop or prevent total annihilation was utterly futile and only made things worse. They did not understand that an effective deterrence might be more effective and cheaper than guaranteeing total destruction. I think we both recognize the possibility MAD does not prevent conflicts but just makes them more deadly.
Civil defense during the cold war was scrapped because people believed it would create an incentive to build more weapons. Civil defense planners were believed to only be creating more targets. Your large scale alternate food production in factories would become targets in their arguments as well as any personnel trained to implement your plans. The author describes how the office of Civil Defense had its budget cut in the 60s even with the recent Cuban missile crisis. Only 7% of Americans made any preparations during the missile crisis because they thought total annihilation meant exactly that. So why bother? Senators believed any civil defense was just a way to prepare Americans for a war that is by definition not winnable or even survivable. I would still be interested to see your research on the nuclear winter effect if FEMA was properly funded and if their personnel were well trained.
Alternate foods are important but preventing firestorms would also stop other mass extinctions and ecological collapse. Being able to farm greatly decrease our chances of going extinct from a nuclear war. The argument can be made that now with nuclear arms treaties in place we should implement the safeguards that were not done during the cold war. This is because unchecked arms growth is less likely and we will forever live with the possibly of nuclear weapons being used.
The Russian dead hand was designed to let their leaders wait and see if an attack was real or a false alarm. They could arm their dead hand knowing that if they were hit that they could still retaliate. This is also true for SLBMs that would retaliate if they confirmed there was an attack against their countries. The submarine second strike ability and their near invincibility to a first strike attack ensures that cooler heads prevail during false alarms. This reduces the likelihood of accidental full scale war. Additionally if the codes are not correct then they would not be launched at countries and would land somewhere in the ocean.
Can the US soybean crop convert into vegetable oil? What about using powdered milk for essential fats?
I have not read it, but that is an interesting conclusion from “Why Civil Defense Failed.” Some of the interventions for preventing firestorming were natural gas shut off, electrical shutoff, enhanced sprinklers, and automatically closing shades. One proposed in 1967 was intentionally exploding nuclear weapons beneath the city to create a fire break to stop the spread of a mass fire-talk about fighting fire with fire! That is interesting that the political incentive might actually be greater now to prevent fire storming. Still, preparing for alternate foods would be lower cost than preventing fire storming given nuclear winter or storing more food. So that’s why I think alternate foods have a better chance of actually getting implemented. Yes, the industry that could be used for alternate foods may be targeted, but some alternate foods do not depend on industry still functioning. Furthermore, if the world were prepared for alternate foods, it could potentially provide these foods to the target countries.
The main roadblock to additional funding into alternate foods research is likely the same nuclear fatalism that also cuts into FEMA’s budget. There is some validity to their arguments that this creates more countervalue targets. This is why decentralization, redundancy and resiliency is important. This same set of properties is what motivated the creation of the internet. A mixture of agricultural science, stored foods, alternate foods, fire prevention, arms treaties, and nuclear non-proliferation should all be pursued.
Any advances in those areas, especially agricultural science like dwarf wheat, would still save many lives. Even if there is not a nuclear winter and farming is possible people will not be able to garden as if their lives depended on it. A global year long power outage is expected to kill 90% of the population even with farming as an option. I think of stored food as buying people the time to adapt and survive. It also hedges against multiple existential risk scenarios and allows people to focus on rebuilding what they can before they become generationally trapped into subsistence farming. An electrical engineer turning into a farmer to survive is a waste of talent when they could be working in their specialty. I have read that malaria is considered to be an example of a good effective altruist investment. Their ROI for a single life is $3,340 according to this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/what-is-the-greatest-good/395768/
Assume that $3,340 is guaranteed to save a life. Stored food is also guaranteed to save a life should the worst happen. Your research shows that the accepted and expected likelihood of a nuclear war is 0.3% per year. Multiplying our good ROI example of $3,340/life by our expected probability 0.3%per year gives us $1002. That is enough to buy 10 years worth of flour for one person and it is more than enough whole wheat to feed multiple people through a nuclear winter (which I think is overblown but cannot prove it yet). This looks like an even better investment when spread out over 70 years. Alternate foods should also be explored and it may be more cost effective but the stored food is guaranteed. I do not understand why someone would be against that. The high costs to save everyone might even incentivize countries to further reduce their stockpiles if the citizens in those countries demand an adequate amount of hedging against their use.
While nuclear winter gets much of the existential risk attention an easy way to reduce that risk is to reduce fallout. This means eliminating high yield groundbursts by removing the outdated hardened targets like silos and cold war government bunkers. The fallout suppresses firefighters and civilians from putting out secondary fires because they would be instructed to remain indoors for weeks or months. Civilian deaths due to fallout would likely escalate the conflict into a full scale exchange. It would also be in an attacker’s best interest to allow civilians to put out fires in order to avoid a nuclear winter.
the cost $3340 should be multiplied by 0.003 and 72 years to make a nuclear winter lifetime hedge comparison to malaria. That is $721. This is about 10 years worth of wheat grain. It is still on par with malaria prevention but also looks better if it hedges against multiple existential risks.
I appreciate your reply. I feel like I am learning a lot.
Have you ever read, Why Civil Defense Failed? The author argues civil defense failed because people took MAD literally. They believed that any attempts to stop or prevent total annihilation was utterly futile and only made things worse. They did not understand that an effective deterrence might be more effective and cheaper than guaranteeing total destruction. I think we both recognize the possibility MAD does not prevent conflicts but just makes them more deadly.
Civil defense during the cold war was scrapped because people believed it would create an incentive to build more weapons. Civil defense planners were believed to only be creating more targets. Your large scale alternate food production in factories would become targets in their arguments as well as any personnel trained to implement your plans. The author describes how the office of Civil Defense had its budget cut in the 60s even with the recent Cuban missile crisis. Only 7% of Americans made any preparations during the missile crisis because they thought total annihilation meant exactly that. So why bother? Senators believed any civil defense was just a way to prepare Americans for a war that is by definition not winnable or even survivable. I would still be interested to see your research on the nuclear winter effect if FEMA was properly funded and if their personnel were well trained.
Alternate foods are important but preventing firestorms would also stop other mass extinctions and ecological collapse. Being able to farm greatly decrease our chances of going extinct from a nuclear war. The argument can be made that now with nuclear arms treaties in place we should implement the safeguards that were not done during the cold war. This is because unchecked arms growth is less likely and we will forever live with the possibly of nuclear weapons being used.
The Russian dead hand was designed to let their leaders wait and see if an attack was real or a false alarm. They could arm their dead hand knowing that if they were hit that they could still retaliate. This is also true for SLBMs that would retaliate if they confirmed there was an attack against their countries. The submarine second strike ability and their near invincibility to a first strike attack ensures that cooler heads prevail during false alarms. This reduces the likelihood of accidental full scale war. Additionally if the codes are not correct then they would not be launched at countries and would land somewhere in the ocean.
Can the US soybean crop convert into vegetable oil? What about using powdered milk for essential fats?
I have not read it, but that is an interesting conclusion from “Why Civil Defense Failed.” Some of the interventions for preventing firestorming were natural gas shut off, electrical shutoff, enhanced sprinklers, and automatically closing shades. One proposed in 1967 was intentionally exploding nuclear weapons beneath the city to create a fire break to stop the spread of a mass fire-talk about fighting fire with fire! That is interesting that the political incentive might actually be greater now to prevent fire storming. Still, preparing for alternate foods would be lower cost than preventing fire storming given nuclear winter or storing more food. So that’s why I think alternate foods have a better chance of actually getting implemented. Yes, the industry that could be used for alternate foods may be targeted, but some alternate foods do not depend on industry still functioning. Furthermore, if the world were prepared for alternate foods, it could potentially provide these foods to the target countries.
The main roadblock to additional funding into alternate foods research is likely the same nuclear fatalism that also cuts into FEMA’s budget. There is some validity to their arguments that this creates more countervalue targets. This is why decentralization, redundancy and resiliency is important. This same set of properties is what motivated the creation of the internet. A mixture of agricultural science, stored foods, alternate foods, fire prevention, arms treaties, and nuclear non-proliferation should all be pursued.
Any advances in those areas, especially agricultural science like dwarf wheat, would still save many lives. Even if there is not a nuclear winter and farming is possible people will not be able to garden as if their lives depended on it. A global year long power outage is expected to kill 90% of the population even with farming as an option. I think of stored food as buying people the time to adapt and survive. It also hedges against multiple existential risk scenarios and allows people to focus on rebuilding what they can before they become generationally trapped into subsistence farming. An electrical engineer turning into a farmer to survive is a waste of talent when they could be working in their specialty. I have read that malaria is considered to be an example of a good effective altruist investment. Their ROI for a single life is $3,340 according to this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/what-is-the-greatest-good/395768/
Assume that $3,340 is guaranteed to save a life. Stored food is also guaranteed to save a life should the worst happen. Your research shows that the accepted and expected likelihood of a nuclear war is 0.3% per year. Multiplying our good ROI example of $3,340/life by our expected probability 0.3%per year gives us $1002. That is enough to buy 10 years worth of flour for one person and it is more than enough whole wheat to feed multiple people through a nuclear winter (which I think is overblown but cannot prove it yet). This looks like an even better investment when spread out over 70 years. Alternate foods should also be explored and it may be more cost effective but the stored food is guaranteed. I do not understand why someone would be against that. The high costs to save everyone might even incentivize countries to further reduce their stockpiles if the citizens in those countries demand an adequate amount of hedging against their use.
While nuclear winter gets much of the existential risk attention an easy way to reduce that risk is to reduce fallout. This means eliminating high yield groundbursts by removing the outdated hardened targets like silos and cold war government bunkers. The fallout suppresses firefighters and civilians from putting out secondary fires because they would be instructed to remain indoors for weeks or months. Civilian deaths due to fallout would likely escalate the conflict into a full scale exchange. It would also be in an attacker’s best interest to allow civilians to put out fires in order to avoid a nuclear winter.
*correction
the cost $3340 should be multiplied by 0.003 and 72 years to make a nuclear winter lifetime hedge comparison to malaria. That is $721. This is about 10 years worth of wheat grain. It is still on par with malaria prevention but also looks better if it hedges against multiple existential risks.