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Path: utzoo!watmath!water!watcgl!jchapman
From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Canadian participation in Star Wars.
Message-ID: <2008@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Jun-85 10:33:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2008
Posted: Mon Jun 10 10:33:52 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Jun-85 02:29:12 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <5685@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 75

> > ...  Do the majority of people
> >  in, say, North America really have a "better dead than red" attitude?
> >  Personally I think most people would rather risk soviet domination
> >  (which, as the original message points out, would necessarily be of
> >   a temporary nature) than risk [the nasty consequences of nuclear war.]
> >  ...  I also think there would
> >  be few people in the soviet union who would be willing to make this
> >  trade.   
> 
> It all depends on the size of the risk; not all risks are equivalent.
                        ^^^^              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  Quite true.  I think that in a risk taking situation you should
  use a measure that includes both the cost and the size of the
  risk; e.g.  (consequences of risk not working out)*(probability of
  risk not working out).
  What would a reasonable probability of nuclear war be? If we include
  war precipitated by accidental detonation/launch or phantom attacks
  being percieved by "defense" installations as well as actual planned
  attacks then perhaps a probability greater than 0.0000000....0000000001
  would be resonable.  How about the consequences?  Since we are talking
  about what would very likely be the complete anihilation  of all life
  on earth I think a value of infinity would be appropriate.
 
> As witness the lack of popular revolt against the current situation (the
> anti-nuclear marchers are numerically insignificant against the population
> of the nations involved), most people are willing to take a (perceived)

 What do you consider insignificant? Polls indicate more than half of
 the canadian public does not want cruise testing in canada. Anywhere
 from 50,000 to 80,000 people (depending on whose estimates you want
 to believe) were in the last vancouver peace march ( I know that this
 is insignificant compared to the US/USSR populations but it is large
 for Canada and we do participate in the nuclear arms race in one
 way or another).

> small risk of nuclear war to avoid a (perceived) large risk of Soviet
> domination.  This is a reasonable approach, since life inside the Soviet
> Union and its satellites is not a lot of fun.  Even people who have never
> known anything else sometimes find Soviet life intolerable to the point of
> risking the near certainty of harsh punishment for rebellion, as witness
> the Novocherkassk [sp?] incident and others.  Avoiding this is worthwhile.
> 
> On the other hand, "better dead than red" is a political slogan rather than
> something most people really agree with all the way.  Most people, most
> of the time, would rather be live cowards than dead heroes -- if those
> are *really* the only choices.  Most people don't really think that the
> current situation is that simple; they would prefer to face *neither*
> Soviet rule nor nuclear war.
  Yes, most people, ..... but what about Reagan and/or the joint chiefs?
   Are you really that confident that Ron would rather give in to the
   soviets than commit global holocaust.  Are you also sure that a war
   will not be started by mechanical/electronic/human-judgement error?

> 
> As for the temporary nature of Soviet domination, when "temporary" is
> defined as centuries, it's permanent as far as most folks are concerned.
> -- 
  Well as far as I personally/physically am concerned it is permanent
  too.  However from a racial perspective it is but the bat of an eye
  whereas nuclear war is the end.  Making decisions and promoting
  behaviour whose beneficial consequences will not be experienced for
  extremely long periods is, I hope, not completely foreign to the
  human race.  I hope for example that few (although I know there would
  be some) people would condone the dumping of nuclear waste in
  geologically unstable sites merely because they probably wouldn't leak
  out for a couple of centuries.  I suppose my attitude is, sure it's
  harder and costs more to do something correctly, but why not get it
  right while there is a chance to do so.



> 				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> 				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
  John Chapman
....!watmath!watcgl!jchapman