Tyler Cowen: prediction

Transcript context

…If you follow through with that thinking, which I get as an intellectual exercise, then you’re saying it’s great we have so many nuclear weapons because, if by accident, China launches against us, then at least we’ll show morality, or at least you’re saying a 60 percent chance of showing morality in the final moments. All of America will die, and all the Chinese will live, which would be exactly the premise of many of the individuals who are for more nuclear weapons in the first place. I would say a 60 percent to 70 percent chance that we retaliate, not that we do nothing. But a decent chance we do nothing. Who understands really what goes on in the president’s mind? Because it is up to the president, as you point out repeatedly. Yes, no, okay. Again, we’re intellectualizing here. Doesn’t what you are suggesting really underscore this idea that this is madness to even have these arsenals that are capable of such things? Now remember, I’m not a peace activist. That’s not my job. My job is, as a national security reporter, to tell you the story of what would happen, what could happen in nuclear war: a scenario, not nuclear war: the only scenario. The takeaway, I believe, is that more nuclear weapons make us less safe, and I think you might be saying the same thing.…

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