Originally I was going to make this a short status update on Facebook but then I decided I would put it here because I had too much to say to fit into one status update. Yesterday, I was watching a short video on Youtube about the very real possibility of humanity going extinct due to nuclear war. In my opinion, nuclear technology should only be used for power generation and nothing else. No one should have nuclear weapons.
I believe this is reasonable (although unrealistic unfortunately to think that we will live in a world free of nuclear weapons) because humans have had the ability to kill each other since the beginning of time. However, only since 1945 have we had the ability to kill the entire planet and everyone and everything on it. No one should have that amount of destructive power. We as humans have the ability to kill many, many people in various different horrible ways without killing the entire planet as a side effect.
The worst feeling for me as a new father is that I am powerless to protect my daughter against this threat. Every parent wishes their child(ren) have the ability to grow up safe, happy and healthy. Unfortunately, our world is populated by fallible humans and human based systems to prevent nuclear war. Frankly, I am amazed that we have gone this long without an all out nuclear war or huge global accident/terrorist attack.
Currently, something like The United States, Russia, China France, The UK, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and North Korea control all of the worlds confirmed nuclear weapons. With the U.S. and Russia holding the vast majority. Just the U.S. and Russia alone, have enough nuclear weapons to kill everyone and everything on the planet many times over.
These few countries that have nuclear weapons want to tell the rest of the world that they can keep their nuclear weapons (or even produce more) without consequence yet they do not want to allow other countries to develop nuclear weapons. The U.S. is constantly fighting with Iran and North Korea trying to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons (or producing more than they already have) yet the U.S. is unwilling to destroy their own nuclear weapons.
If I was North Korea or Iran why would I listen to the U.S. if they are unwilling to do the exact thing they are asking of me, why would I want to listen to them? I am not anti American by any means. But what right do we have to tell the rest of the world what they can and can't do? I am anti destroy all of humanity with nuclear weapons.
Another way to look at this would be, if I tell my daughter that she can't have any chocolate ice cream but I sit there and eat some chocolate ice cream right in front of her and additionally I am the owner of an ice cream store so that I can produce more ice cream anytime I want and I can refuse to share it with anyone else. The situation that we have with nuclear weapons is exactly the same.
The idea that having a huge amount of nuclear weapons to prevent nuclear war is a bad one. Mutually assured destruction benefits no one. I cannot go back in time and prevent the invention of nuclear weapons. Nor can I destroy every nuclear weapon ever made or prevent their misuse. The current system we have of checks and balances to prevent all out nuclear war is not a good one and frankly I am surprised that we have not had a failure so far. We need to improve this system.
The best I can hope for is that my daughter can grow up in a better world than I have and maybe one day humanity will be free of the threat of extinction from nuclear war and we can worry about robots gaining sentience and killing us all. Sorry this blog post has been so depressing, I try not to think about this stuff too much because it just depresses you knowing that you can't do anything about it. Gotta live your life to the best of your ability with the time you have.
For all of the problems that we have in the world, there is still a ton of beauty and good things also. I try to focus on those. Thanks for reading my rant if you made it this far.
No comments:
Post a Comment