Modern nuclear and biological weapons are destructively unprecedented in history
Evidence
The sad fact is the Cold War arms race left us with weapons unlike any that have ever existed, placing us in uncharted and dangerous territory. Modern nuclear and biological weapons are unfathomably destructive. It’s tough to imagine the sudden death of billions of people. What would that postapocalyptic planet look like? Climate, crops, forests, food—all would be irrevocably altered in ways catastrophic to humankind. Biodiversity: gutted; ecosystems: shattered; basically, every aspect of life as we know it, including all the people we know and care for, as well as all the others we’ve never heard of, would be ashes and dust. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 596
Categorization
- XREF: Directly reverses the book’s own fourteen-chapter thesis that human and animal weapons are similar — key payoff moment. — connects to: Cold War arsenals could destroy all civilization thousands of times over; Human WMDs exceed any animal weapon in destructive capacity — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 609
Related
- Human WMDs exceed any animal weapon in destructive capacity (similarity 0.92)
- Cold War arsenals could destroy all civilization thousands of times over (similarity 0.87)
- Cold War arsenals grew to planetary overkill capacity (similarity 0.86)
- Low-cost bioweapons manufacture destroys the logic of deterrence (similarity 0.83)
- Proliferating nuclear weapons increase the risk of accidental world-ending war (similarity 0.82)
- Nuclear weapons make war as an instrument of policy obsolete (similarity 0.81)
- Comparisons of animal and human weapons have a long scholarly tradition. (similarity 0.80)
- Biological weapons can now be assembled for a few thousand dollars (similarity 0.80)
- Military stockpiled over a billion aging cluster submunitions. (similarity 0.80)
- Identical circumstances trigger and collapse arms races in animals and humans. (similarity 0.80)
- The evolutionary drivers of animal weapons also explain human weapon elaboration. (similarity 0.79)
- Explosive shells made the largest wooden warships obsolete nearly overnight. (similarity 0.79)
- A weapon’s true kill range spans ecological and genetic time, not just space (similarity 0.79)
- Weapon evolution is judged by competition among designs, not human survival (similarity 0.78)
- Costly advanced weapons deter rivals just like large animal weapons (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Human WMDs exceed any animal weapon in destructive capacity
#corroborates(0.70) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 609