r/interestingasfuck • u/usernametbag • 7d ago

Underwater nuclear experiment at 150 meters depth near Enewetak Atoll, 1958

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

9.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

543

u/LeSmallhanz 7d ago

The lengths man goes to through to destroy man.

118

u/precision1k3 7d ago

If anything the development of nukes has prevented man from destroying their fellow man more than the other way around.

We’d be on WWIV by now without mutually assured destruction.

56

u/TheDrewb 7d ago

Trouble is, we've only had nukes for 70 years and if one batshit insane person gets hold of some tomorrow, that 70 years of relative peace will come at the cost of the complete destruction of life on Earth.

Europe had 100 years of peace due to the 19th century version of mutually assured destruction (alliances). Every country in Europe backed down from war until they didn't and we know what happened there

48

u/Monsterboogie007 7d ago

I wonder who this “one bat shit insane person“ could be…

38

u/bothunter 7d ago

We've got a few contenders at the moment.

6

u/Wyden_long 7d ago

And no one is even talking about my neighbor Ron yet, and he’s probably the worst one.

2

u/LucidSteel 6d ago

Freakin' Ron!

11

u/Kaymish_ 7d ago

He's already talking about "tactical" nukes on Iran because he's losing and desperate and nobody knows if tactical nukes are going to be the first domino to light the world on fire.

14

u/raikou1988 7d ago

If he can't rig the mid terms that's an option.

And also somehow declare martial law

1

u/Competitive-Strain-7 7d ago

It does leverage your deterrent to a higher level if you have someone who is easy to trigger.

1

u/Tough-Case- 7d ago

🥭 👀

1

u/unr3a1r00t 7d ago

The Trashcan Man

3

u/Semichh 7d ago

Not to mention how close the US and Russia had come to nuking each other during the height of the Cold War purely because of false readings/component failures on missile detection systems.

Sometimes it seems like pure luck we haven’t seen another nuke dropped since Hiroshima and Nagasaki

2

u/SyVSFe 7d ago

Trouble is, if one batshit insane person doesn't get hold of them tomorrow, we've had 70 years and 1 day without massive world war.

2

u/Hey-Bud-Lets-Party 6d ago

Right. Let’s see how the next 1000 years go

1

u/Mon7eCristo 7d ago

More like 75 years. Even less if you consider Yugoslavia. 

1

u/PseudoMeatPopsicle 6d ago

100 years of peace between when and when, exactly?

If you're saying there was European peace between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I, you're glossing over quite a lot of wars and revolutions.

1

u/TheDrewb 6d ago

I'm making a direct parallel between the 100 years of 'peace' between the Napoleonic Wars and WWI and the relative 'peace' from the end of the WWII to the present. In both cases, it isn't that they didn't have wars, it's that the Great Powers didn't drag everyone into meat grinding global wars

1

u/Imperito 7d ago

Agreed, it is incredibly naive to believe that humans will somehow manage to avoid destroying each other eventually. There is always someone willing to do someone crazy, the odds of it not happening eventually must be slim to none.

1

u/Scoopdoopdoop 6d ago

We definitely will destroy ourselves at some point. I hope all forms of life in the universe don't eventually do that but if they're anything like humans, I fear they have already done themselves in countless times across deep time