Gyroscopic Investing

I try to watch this test of a tactical nuclear weapon every few months.

It never ceases to creep me out.

Think about the kind of mindset it takes to build a weapon like that.

It's basically a gun that shoots a round that will destroy a city.

http://youtu.be/4RKXuQ8lOe8 (2:20)

Mandatory devil's advocate playing: Isn't it just an extension of the mindset that would create a missile, a piece of field artillery or a cannon?

Pointedstick wrote: Mandatory devil's advocate playing: Isn't it just an extension of the mindset that would create a missile, a piece of field artillery or a cannon?

Yes, but I always like to think that if people saw the damage they were doing more closely it would make them less likely to do these things.

Some pale pencil neck Air Force captain pushing a button in a missile silo in Nebraska is somehow less appalling than an Army infantry captain pulling a trigger on the battlefield and watching the city that used to be in front of him turned into a smoldering crater.

I have to think that if Harry Truman had toured Hiroshima after ordering the nuking of the city and saw the brutal and indiscriminate civilian carnage his order had inflicted, he might have been willing to wait more than three days before doing the same thing to another civilian population.  Maybe not, though.

Here is a still shot from the test:

Here is a 3 minute clip from 1961 of the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated.  The Russians did this one.

It's sort of beautiful, in an awful way.

The real action starts at 1:20:

http://youtu.be/ZOaAQVExrYQ

***

Largest U.S. nuclear weapon test (also very impressive and awful):

http://youtu.be/iLNPEry7B_o (4:11)

Conventional weapons can be mighty damn destructive as well.  Firebombing a city to deliberately create a firestorm isn't as quick as a nuke, but the overall effect is pretty similar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm

Mutually Assured Destruction kind of, sort of, worked.  We have not had a worldwide conflict in 60 or so years, probably because everyone is ultimately scared of letting this cat out of the bag.

WildAboutHarry wrote: Mutually Assured Destruction kind of, sort of, worked.  We have not had a worldwide conflict in 60 or so years, probably because everyone is ultimately scared of letting this cat out of the bag.

Yes, it does probably work with two somewhat rational superpowers that are opposed to one another, yet on the same level militarily.

It's probably a thing of the past however, but nukes still exist unfortunately.

clacy wrote:Yes, it does probably work with two somewhat rational superpowers that are opposed to one another, yet on the same level militarily.

It's probably a thing of the past however, but nukes still exist unfortunately.

It is, admittedly, easier with two superpowers than proliferated nukes, but the threat of nuclear annihilation as an enforcer of reasonable behavior still works, I think.  Although in Dr. Strangelove there was concern about "... our deterrent lacking credibility.  The idea was for plan R to be a sort of retaliatory safeguard."

What strange times...

MediumTex wrote:
Largest U.S. nuclear weapon test (also very impressive and awful):

http://youtu.be/iLNPEry7B_o (4:11)

This is the same one Harry Browne witnessed in 1954, when he was in the army. According to his Wikipedia page, he had a top secret atomic energy clearance.