"Zero Powers" <zero_powers@hotmail.com> writes:
> Why wouldn't the policy of mutually assured destruction
> work for us the way it did to prevent full-scale nuclear war?
MAD works when the participants are few and rational. Two or three
sides that are more interested in their own survival than blowing each
other up can sustain MAD for a long time, possibly indefinitely. But
if you cannot see from where the attack came from in the first place,
if you have many sides, they are fallible or irrational, then MAD does
not work.
The worry isn't the US versus Russia, but the Knights Of The Oppressed
Earth versus anybody they don't like.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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