As Aaron notes, the “Petrov Day” tradition started with a post by Yudkowsky. It is indeed somewhat strange that Petrov was singled out like this, but I guess the thought was that we want to designate one day of the year as the “do not destroy the world day”, and “Petrov Day” was as good a name for it as any.
Note that this doesn’t seem representative of the degree of appreciation for Petrov vs. Arkhipov within the EA community. For example, the Future of Humanity Institute has both a Petrov Room and an Arkhipov Room (a fact that causes many people to mix them up), and the Future of Life Award was given both to Arkhipov (in 2017) and to Petrov (in 2018).
I think Arkhipov’s actions are in a sense perhaps even more consequential than Petrov’s, because it was truly by chance that he was present in that particular nuclear submarine, rather than in any of the other subs from the flotilla. This fact justifies the statement that, if history had repeated itself, the decision to launch a nuclear torpedo would likely not have been vetoed. The counterfactual for Petrov is not so clear.
As Aaron notes, the “Petrov Day” tradition started with a post by Yudkowsky. It is indeed somewhat strange that Petrov was singled out like this, but I guess the thought was that we want to designate one day of the year as the “do not destroy the world day”, and “Petrov Day” was as good a name for it as any.
Note that this doesn’t seem representative of the degree of appreciation for Petrov vs. Arkhipov within the EA community. For example, the Future of Humanity Institute has both a Petrov Room and an Arkhipov Room (a fact that causes many people to mix them up), and the Future of Life Award was given both to Arkhipov (in 2017) and to Petrov (in 2018).
I think Arkhipov’s actions are in a sense perhaps even more consequential than Petrov’s, because it was truly by chance that he was present in that particular nuclear submarine, rather than in any of the other subs from the flotilla. This fact justifies the statement that, if history had repeated itself, the decision to launch a nuclear torpedo would likely not have been vetoed. The counterfactual for Petrov is not so clear.