Dictators in general are bad for humanity’s chances, since they sometimes try to acquire nuclear weapons and sometimes go crazy or play ultimatum games. A
It seems very difficult to get enough nukes to be a serious existential risk. Even a nuclear war between Pakistan and India would make things unpleasant but humanity would clearly survive. There’s been no example since Stalin of a situation where a dictator had enough nuclear weaponry to start a nuclear war that had the opportunity to destroy humanity, and even then it is likely that a nuclear war in that time period would not have destroyed humanity completely.
Fewer dictators will reduce existential risk, but only at an indirect level since fewer dictators means fewer resources spent dealing with them and will be spent elsewhere, so there will be some small trickle down to things that decrease existential risk.
There’s been no example since Stalin of a situation where a dictator had enough nuclear weaponry to start a nuclear war that had the opportunity to destroy humanity, and even then it is likely that a nuclear war in that time period would not have destroyed humanity completely.
I don’t think Stalin qualifies even remotely. The Soviets tested their first thermonuclear bomb in summer 1953, a few months after Stalin’s death. During his lifetime, they didn’t amass more than a few dozen ordinary A-bombs of power similar to those that Americans delivered on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Moreover, this was long before ICBMs, so the only delivery option were strategic bombers, and the quality of Soviet aviation left much to be desired. All in all, Stalin could hardly do more than wreck a few cities in Western Europe (if even that), with casualties and destruction probably lower than those of conventional WW2 bombing campaigns.
No, not really. Khrushchev had to operate with the consent of the Politburo. The leading Party members were pretty aware of what happened with Stalin and didn’t want it to happen again. During most of the post-Stalin era, the Soviet Union was run far more like a bureaucratic oligarchy than as a one-man dictatorship.
It seems very difficult to get enough nukes to be a serious existential risk. Even a nuclear war between Pakistan and India would make things unpleasant but humanity would clearly survive. There’s been no example since Stalin of a situation where a dictator had enough nuclear weaponry to start a nuclear war that had the opportunity to destroy humanity, and even then it is likely that a nuclear war in that time period would not have destroyed humanity completely.
Fewer dictators will reduce existential risk, but only at an indirect level since fewer dictators means fewer resources spent dealing with them and will be spent elsewhere, so there will be some small trickle down to things that decrease existential risk.
I don’t think Stalin qualifies even remotely. The Soviets tested their first thermonuclear bomb in summer 1953, a few months after Stalin’s death. During his lifetime, they didn’t amass more than a few dozen ordinary A-bombs of power similar to those that Americans delivered on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Moreover, this was long before ICBMs, so the only delivery option were strategic bombers, and the quality of Soviet aviation left much to be desired. All in all, Stalin could hardly do more than wreck a few cities in Western Europe (if even that), with casualties and destruction probably lower than those of conventional WW2 bombing campaigns.
Ok. That’s completely correct. In that case there’s really never been an occasion when a dictator had the ability to cause an existential risk event.
Nikita Khrushchev doesn’t count as a dictator?
::doesn’t really know all that much about the Soviet Union::
No, not really. Khrushchev had to operate with the consent of the Politburo. The leading Party members were pretty aware of what happened with Stalin and didn’t want it to happen again. During most of the post-Stalin era, the Soviet Union was run far more like a bureaucratic oligarchy than as a one-man dictatorship.