It feels fairly important to me that in real life, Petrov had a “maybe destroy world, are you feeling lucky?” button. (It sounds like we disagree on this?)
Like, relaying information up the chain of command a) doesn’t automatically mean that they launch a full scale counterattack, b) that doesn’t mean the US automatically launches a full scale counterattack, c) my current belief is that full scale nuclear war probably cripples the northern hemisphere but doesn’t literally kill all humans (which is what I think most people mean by ‘destroy the world’)
Petrov was not the last link in the chain of launch authorization which means that his action wasn’t guaranteed to destroy the world since someone further down the chain might have cast the same veto he did. So technically yes, Petrov was pushing a button labeled “destroy the world if my superior also thinks these missiles are real, otherwise do nothing”. For this reason I think Vasily Arkhipov day would be better, but too late to change now.
But I think that if the missiles had been launched, that destroys the world (which I use as shorthand for destroying less than literally all humans, as in “The game Fallout is set in the year 2161 after the world was destroyed by nuclear war), and there is a very important difference between Petrov evaluating the uncertainty of “this is the button designed to destroy the world, which technically might get vetoed by my boss” and e.g. a nuclear scientist who has model uncertainty about the physics of igniting the planet’s atmosphere (which yes, actual scientists ruled out years before the first test, but the hypothetical scientist works great for illustrative purposes). In Petrov’s case, nothing good can ever come of hitting the button except perhaps selfishly, in that he might avoid personal punishment for failing in his button-hitting duties.
(I edited in more reply you may want to respond to. I think the button wasn’t actually designed to “destroy world”, it was designed to launch a counterattack. Petrov did seem to think it would based on some other quotes of his, but, like, AFAICT he was wrong. I think this is also true for Arkipov)
Granting for the sake of argument that launching the missiles might not have triggered full-scale nuclear war, or that one might wish to define “destroy the world” in a way that is not met by most full-scale nuclear wars, I am still dissatisfied with virtue A because I think an important part of Petrov’s situation was that whatever you think the button did, it’s really hard to find an upside to pushing it, whereas virtue A has been broadened to cover situations that are merely net bad, but where one could imagine arguments for pushing the button. My initial post framing it in terms of certainty may have been poorly phrased.
There is an upside to being the kind of person who will press the button in retaliation. You hope never to, but the fact that you credibly would allows for MAD game theory to apply. (FDT, etc. etc.)
It feels fairly important to me that in real life, Petrov had a “maybe destroy world, are you feeling lucky?” button. (It sounds like we disagree on this?)
Like, relaying information up the chain of command a) doesn’t automatically mean that they launch a full scale counterattack, b) that doesn’t mean the US automatically launches a full scale counterattack, c) my current belief is that full scale nuclear war probably cripples the northern hemisphere but doesn’t literally kill all humans (which is what I think most people mean by ‘destroy the world’)
Petrov was not the last link in the chain of launch authorization which means that his action wasn’t guaranteed to destroy the world since someone further down the chain might have cast the same veto he did. So technically yes, Petrov was pushing a button labeled “destroy the world if my superior also thinks these missiles are real, otherwise do nothing”. For this reason I think Vasily Arkhipov day would be better, but too late to change now.
But I think that if the missiles had been launched, that destroys the world (which I use as shorthand for destroying less than literally all humans, as in “The game Fallout is set in the year 2161 after the world was destroyed by nuclear war), and there is a very important difference between Petrov evaluating the uncertainty of “this is the button designed to destroy the world, which technically might get vetoed by my boss” and e.g. a nuclear scientist who has model uncertainty about the physics of igniting the planet’s atmosphere (which yes, actual scientists ruled out years before the first test, but the hypothetical scientist works great for illustrative purposes). In Petrov’s case, nothing good can ever come of hitting the button except perhaps selfishly, in that he might avoid personal punishment for failing in his button-hitting duties.
(I edited in more reply you may want to respond to. I think the button wasn’t actually designed to “destroy world”, it was designed to launch a counterattack. Petrov did seem to think it would based on some other quotes of his, but, like, AFAICT he was wrong. I think this is also true for Arkipov)
Granting for the sake of argument that launching the missiles might not have triggered full-scale nuclear war, or that one might wish to define “destroy the world” in a way that is not met by most full-scale nuclear wars, I am still dissatisfied with virtue A because I think an important part of Petrov’s situation was that whatever you think the button did, it’s really hard to find an upside to pushing it, whereas virtue A has been broadened to cover situations that are merely net bad, but where one could imagine arguments for pushing the button. My initial post framing it in terms of certainty may have been poorly phrased.
There is an upside to being the kind of person who will press the button in retaliation. You hope never to, but the fact that you credibly would allows for MAD game theory to apply. (FDT, etc. etc.)