Hank: countries that want nuclear weapons will find it easier to get them (2018)

prediction · status: unresolved · last event: predicted (2018-07-13) · owner: Hank

In July 2018 Hank predicted that, as the barriers to building nuclear weapons fall and the penalties lose force, countries that want them will find them easier to get.

About: nuclear weapon

date	event	what	video
2018-07-13	predicted	The barriers to making nuclear weapons are falling and the penalties less effective, so countries that want them will find them easier to get.	Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? 00:07:44

What is said about it

16 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).

• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: John's last video, on huge shifts in global power causing short-term catastrophe, made Hank think how deeply wonderful it is that we have got through 73 years as a nuclear species without destroying ourselves. — 00:00:00
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — The description adds a view the video skipped: some experts argue nuclear weapons brought greater peace and prosperity and have done more good than harm, a commonly held viewpoint. — video description
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank relays the commonly held argument that the threat of nuclear weapons has kept major powers from fighting each other; it has maybe increased proxy wars, bad for the Middle East, some of Africa and a particular Asian peninsula, but, they say, that beats World War III. (hedged) — video description
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: There are about 195 countries, and only nine of them have access to nuclear weapons. — 00:00:15
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: India developed nuclear weapons in the 70s. — 00:01:31
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: In 1991 Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan briefly had nuclear weapons because they already had them when the USSR collapsed and they came into existence. — 00:01:41
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: By volume the US and Russia hold the vast majority of nuclear weapons; everyone else is roughly tied for last, North Korea 'extra last'. — 00:02:05
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: More states have tried to get nuclear weapons than have them. — 00:02:26
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: Some countries got together at the UN to create a treaty under which signatories without nukes would not pursue nuclear weapons programs. — 00:03:35
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: Over the years every country signed except India, Pakistan and Israel, which all subsequently developed nuclear weapons. — 00:03:47
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: For a signatory, developing nuclear weapons is literally against international law. — 00:04:06
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: Reason eight: for those and many other reasons, including humanitarian ones, most countries just don't want nuclear weapons. — 00:05:17
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: International relations experts talk about a norm against nuclear weapons: they are seen as taboo, and developing a program as wading into the muck. — 00:05:27
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: A country, leader or people, will only want nuclear weapons now if it feels threatened by the international order: when it is unstable, autocratic or on bad terms with its neighbours. — 00:06:03
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: The path forward may be to keep creating a world with few benefits to having nuclear weapons, so few countries want them not from fear of penalties but for lack of advantage. (hedged) — 00:07:52
• 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: Nuclear weapons have been used only twice in war, which Hank recognizes was done by his country. — 00:08:28