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Aucbvax.1600 fa.arms-d utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!REM@MIT-MC Wed Jun 10 16:12:58 1981 Likelihood of Nuclear War Preface: This message impressed me favorably so I asked if it was ok to forward to ARMS-D. Jon send a message saying "ok" and adding more commentary, which I've appended to the end, plus a final remark by me.

Date: 9 Jun 1981 2201-CDT From: Jon Webb <CS.WEBB AT UTEXAS-20> Subject: Likelihood of Nuclear War To: REM at MIT-MC cc: cs.webb at UTEXAS-20

I think the odds against our making it to the end of this century without nuclear annihilation are very bad. I think this is what is going to happen: small countries are going to build nuclear weapons. This will happen because the technology is becoming more familiar and easier to get ahold of, just like in calculators. There is a learning process any country goes through once it acquires nuclear weapons. All countries so far (except US) have learned not to use them during this learning process. This will not happen always. Some small country will use one. Then another ... Eventually nuclear war will not seem like such a terrible thing: no worse than any other war. So even big countries will use them. This will eventually lead to an all-out nuclear conflict, I expect some time in the 90s. We will all die; our civilization will perish, there will be no beauty left in the world.

I want to stop this, you see, but I don't know anything really useful to do.

Jon -------

Date: 10 Jun 1981 1144-CDT From: Jon Webb <CS.WEBB AT UTEXAS-20> Subject: Nuclear war To: REM at MIT-MC cc: cs.webb at UTEXAS-20

Yes, you may forward my message to ARMS-D.

The problem the anti-ICBM satellites belonging to specific nations is that we would try to build improvements into ours: we would get into another arms race, except now it would be extended into space.

Right now we have a kind of a feedback situation: USSR builds more weapons, which makes us nervous, so we build more weapons, which makes them nervous, etc. What we want to do is to create a "negative feedback" situation. I don't know how to do this. But imagine we could build a machine that would, say, eat nuclear weapons & have offspring. The supply of nuclear weapons would start to decrease. This would make people feel safer, so they'd build less weapons, which would be easy because the offspring of this machine would be eating them anyway, and eventually things would stabilize at a much lower level than now. Then we could maybe have realistic negotiations which would get rid of the rest of the weapons.

Obviously such a machine cannot exist. But think in terms of a sociological change which would work that way... maybe there is some way to start a change in our society-mind that would work that way. I think it's the only way little people like us can really affect things.

Jon ------- Comment by REM -- I'm more concerned about doomsday than I am about a random arms race. I'd much rather engage in a truly DEFENSIVE arms race, where we combat MAD, get rid of MAD, replacing it with a system that doesn't leave us 20 minutes from armageddon. Even a massive arms race, of purely defensive weapons, is better than what we have now. <MY OPINION>

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