What it does tell us is this: at the height of the nuclear arms race the USA and USSR collectively had in excess of 70,000 nuclear warheads.[1]
71 years have passed since the first nuclear bombs were used. That's 71 years without an accidental detonation nor a nuclear weapon used in an act of aggression on enemy soil.
Nuclear weapons exist and we aren't doing too bad of a job coping with that.
But, I suppose, as Steven Pinker is fond of saying: no one has ever recruited activists to a cause by announcing that things are getting better, and bearers of good news are often advised to keep their mouths shut lest they lull people into complacency. Also, a large swath of our intellectual culture is loath to admit that there could be anything good about civilization, modernity, and Western society.[2]
A man falls off the roof of a ten-story building. As he's passing a third-story window, the occupants within can hear him shout: "So far, so good!"
Given the many. many known nuclear close calls (And I'm just counting the ones that were likely to cause a nuclear war - not domestic mishandling of materials), this is an insane position to take, with our current nuclear arsenals.
Four times in our nuclear history, the decision of one man saved us from armageddon. We are only having this conversation because people like Stanislav Petrov made the right decision - after the entire command-and-control system surrounding them failed.
What do you suppose is the risk per year of nuclear war? One in a hundred? One in a thousand? One in a million?
Going 71 years without it is compatible with all of those numbers, yet they mean very different things for our ability to prevent nukes from being used, and for our likely future.
I personally don't find it particularly comforting that we've made it this far. Just because we've made it 71 years doesn't mean we'll make it another 71.
71 years have passed since the first nuclear bombs were used. That's 71 years without an accidental detonation nor a nuclear weapon used in an act of aggression on enemy soil.
Nuclear weapons exist and we aren't doing too bad of a job coping with that.
But, I suppose, as Steven Pinker is fond of saying: no one has ever recruited activists to a cause by announcing that things are getting better, and bearers of good news are often advised to keep their mouths shut lest they lull people into complacency. Also, a large swath of our intellectual culture is loath to admit that there could be anything good about civilization, modernity, and Western society.[2]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/books/review/the-better-an...