How many times has the world/humanity/civilisation (probably civilisation at the largest) been saved from disaster by the actions of one person?
Is this something that’s common enough to show up as the reason for there being no apparent aliens out there? Maybe once you get to world-civilisation level, there are so many chances for collapse, that some of them get through and keep civilisations from advancing.
That doesn’t seem like a strong enough filter to me—at least I really hope not—I have no desire to experience the post-apocalyptic genre personally.
[edit] Typos, spacing—looked a bit wall-of-words. Also curse big thumbs on little keyboard.
How many times has the world/humanity/civilisation (probably civilisation at the largest) been saved from disaster by the actions of one person?
There might be a few unknown Vasilis/Stanislavs, and a couple of actions/inactions of leaders (e.g., Kennedy) that prevented a world-wide disaster, but before the atomic age it would be hard to single-handedly cause a civilization-threatening disaster.
This has not stopped writers and movie-makers to explore the trope ad nauseam though...
During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, LeMay clashed again with U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Defense Secretary McNamara, arguing that he should be allowed to bomb nuclear missile sites in Cuba.
He opposed the naval blockade and, after the end of the crisis, suggested that Cuba be invaded anyway, even after the Russians agreed to withdraw. LeMay called the peaceful resolution of the crisis “the greatest defeat in our history”.
Unknown to the U.S., the Soviet field commanders in Cuba had been given authority to launch—the only time such authority was delegated by higher command. They had twenty nuclear warheads for medium-range R-12 ballistic missiles capable of reaching U.S. cities (including Washington) and nine tactical nuclear missiles. If Soviet officers had launched them, many millions of U.S. citizens would have been killed. The ensuing SAC retaliatory thermonuclear strike would have killed roughly one hundred million Soviet citizens, and brought nuclear winter to much of the Northern Hemisphere.
Kennedy refused LeMay’s requests, however, and the naval blockade was successful.
When General LeMay was named vice chief of staff of the Air Force in 1957, General Power became commander in chief of SAC and was promoted to four-star rank. But, although Power was LeMay’s protégé, LeMay himself was quoted as privately saying that Power was mentally “not stable” and a “sadist”.
When RAND proposed a counterforce strategy, which would require SAC to restrain itself from striking Soviet cities in the beginning of a war, Power countered with:
Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!
It seems unlikely that we would have been looking at a missile crisis in the first place if Nixon had been president, so it’s not clear that Kennedy decreased existential risk on net.
Are you asserting in the cases of Petrov and Arkhipov that events would not have turned into full scale war or that you think it is likely that additional events in the chain could have prevented that? If the first, I’m curious as to your logic. If the second, how proximate a cause do you need before you think you can speak of someone saving the world?
So: zero is my rounded estimate. The argument the destruction of civilisation would have ensued if Vasili Arkhipov had acted otherwise seems flimsy and insubstantial to me—and similarly for the other claimants. It all adds up to less than 0.5.
Are you asserting in the cases of Petrov and Arkhipov that events would not have turned into full scale war or that you think it is likely that additional events in the chain could have prevented that?
Self-evidently the destruction of the world requires the first and not the second. My estimate is based on the joint probability—and not on the consideration of just one factor or the other. So: since neither factor is insignificant, I reject the dichotomy.
how proximate a cause do you need before you think you can speak of someone saving the world?
It would usually be better to give probability estimates than to crudely divide the population into “saviours of the world”—and “everyone else”.
Petrov himself didn’t have the authority to launch a counterstrike, nor would his word have been sufficient for it—the system was designed to require multiple sources reporting a launch. Petrov did do something valuable anyway: he exposed a flaw in the Soviet early-warning system.
Because there has not yet been a potential disaster that bad, or because more than one person was important to the disaster being averted?
We do have enough nuclear weapons to kill all humans, and there is some chance of them all simultaneously being detonated—so I would not endorse the first clause. The second clause is not the only alternative, though: consider also the case where the probability of disaster per unit time is small.
We do have enough nuclear weapons to kill all humans
It’s not clear this is the case, actually, despite it being a part of the common culture. Nuclear winter style scenarios are possible, but even then it’s not clear that all humans would die.
How many times has the world/humanity/civilisation (probably civilisation at the largest) been saved from disaster by the actions of one person?
Unknown. It wouldn’t surprise me for example if there were a few Cold-War crisises that are still essentially classified. But the technology has only really been sufficiently bad to have a chance to destroy humanity in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Even when the US and USSR both had nukes in the 1950s it is unlikely therw would have been enough to wipe out humanity.
Interestingly, I think the best case for human actions leading to world destruction take us back thousands to millions of years—where the butterfly effect leads to the action of each individual having a large effect on the future. Since the dead outnumber the living maybe around twenty-to-one, I figure they have the biggest chance of doing something that eventually has the effect of averting the end of the world.
How many times has the world/humanity/civilisation (probably civilisation at the largest) been saved from disaster by the actions of one person?
Is this something that’s common enough to show up as the reason for there being no apparent aliens out there? Maybe once you get to world-civilisation level, there are so many chances for collapse, that some of them get through and keep civilisations from advancing. That doesn’t seem like a strong enough filter to me—at least I really hope not—I have no desire to experience the post-apocalyptic genre personally.
[edit] Typos, spacing—looked a bit wall-of-words. Also curse big thumbs on little keyboard.
There might be a few unknown Vasilis/Stanislavs, and a couple of actions/inactions of leaders (e.g., Kennedy) that prevented a world-wide disaster, but before the atomic age it would be hard to single-handedly cause a civilization-threatening disaster.
This has not stopped writers and movie-makers to explore the trope ad nauseam though...
Favouring nomination of Kennedy.
Curtis LeMay was Chief of Strategic Air Command:
During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, LeMay clashed again with U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Defense Secretary McNamara, arguing that he should be allowed to bomb nuclear missile sites in Cuba.
He opposed the naval blockade and, after the end of the crisis, suggested that Cuba be invaded anyway, even after the Russians agreed to withdraw. LeMay called the peaceful resolution of the crisis “the greatest defeat in our history”.
Unknown to the U.S., the Soviet field commanders in Cuba had been given authority to launch—the only time such authority was delegated by higher command. They had twenty nuclear warheads for medium-range R-12 ballistic missiles capable of reaching U.S. cities (including Washington) and nine tactical nuclear missiles. If Soviet officers had launched them, many millions of U.S. citizens would have been killed. The ensuing SAC retaliatory thermonuclear strike would have killed roughly one hundred million Soviet citizens, and brought nuclear winter to much of the Northern Hemisphere.
Kennedy refused LeMay’s requests, however, and the naval blockade was successful.
One more thermonuclear anecdote from Wikipedia:
It seems unlikely that we would have been looking at a missile crisis in the first place if Nixon had been president, so it’s not clear that Kennedy decreased existential risk on net.
Zero times: that has never happened.
Are you asserting in the cases of Petrov and Arkhipov that events would not have turned into full scale war or that you think it is likely that additional events in the chain could have prevented that? If the first, I’m curious as to your logic. If the second, how proximate a cause do you need before you think you can speak of someone saving the world?
So: zero is my rounded estimate. The argument the destruction of civilisation would have ensued if Vasili Arkhipov had acted otherwise seems flimsy and insubstantial to me—and similarly for the other claimants. It all adds up to less than 0.5.
Self-evidently the destruction of the world requires the first and not the second. My estimate is based on the joint probability—and not on the consideration of just one factor or the other. So: since neither factor is insignificant, I reject the dichotomy.
It would usually be better to give probability estimates than to crudely divide the population into “saviours of the world”—and “everyone else”.
Petrov himself didn’t have the authority to launch a counterstrike, nor would his word have been sufficient for it—the system was designed to require multiple sources reporting a launch. Petrov did do something valuable anyway: he exposed a flaw in the Soviet early-warning system.
Because there has not yet been a potential disaster that bad, or because more than one person was important to the disaster being averted?
We do have enough nuclear weapons to kill all humans, and there is some chance of them all simultaneously being detonated—so I would not endorse the first clause. The second clause is not the only alternative, though: consider also the case where the probability of disaster per unit time is small.
It’s not clear this is the case, actually, despite it being a part of the common culture. Nuclear winter style scenarios are possible, but even then it’s not clear that all humans would die.
OK. I was really just trying to say that I agreed that there was some chance of a rapid violent end of humanity.
Nuclear winter → reglaciation → meteorite strike—or whatever scenario you prefer.
Almost certainly more than we know about, but I would put good odds that it’s less than, say, fifty.
Great Filter on wikipedia.
Unknown. It wouldn’t surprise me for example if there were a few Cold-War crisises that are still essentially classified. But the technology has only really been sufficiently bad to have a chance to destroy humanity in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Even when the US and USSR both had nukes in the 1950s it is unlikely therw would have been enough to wipe out humanity.
Interestingly, I think the best case for human actions leading to world destruction take us back thousands to millions of years—where the butterfly effect leads to the action of each individual having a large effect on the future. Since the dead outnumber the living maybe around twenty-to-one, I figure they have the biggest chance of doing something that eventually has the effect of averting the end of the world.
Timeless Protagonist Theory?