No development required, I think they can open a drawer somewhere and pick one of several soviet designs. If they want a nuke, they can build one right away.

It would cost them the support of their allies, however, and they cannot afford that.

It’s saber rattling.

I switched my main gaming computer to Mint after testing it on a laptop. Being away from Windows is awesome. You know how everything always wants your attention on Windows? Your antivirus proudly announces its existence. Windows wants to know if it should remove some printers? Some PDF software needs updated RIGHT NOW. There’s a license change please acknowledge this 20 page document. Animated attention grabbing everywhere. I always think FUCK OFF when presented with this bullshit.

You know what - Mint doesn’t do that. I’ve not been internally shouting at my own computer since I went that way.

It is serene.

Just power-hungry generals? Anything more to the story?

Yeah that’s not the problem we’re talking about, it’s about still being presented with these 45 years later, with memories from a time when you were a stupid little kid.

Stupid brain.

Yeah, there is, not by chance, a “story” in “history”. It needs to be told, by somebody who knows how to do that. Learning facts from old books, the studying, is one part, weaving them into a whole, the telling, the other.

Germany, born early seventies. Background, there was a strong “never again” sentiment after WW2 and to that end we were educated about the horrors of war from an early age. WW2 and the Third Reich was discussed in school and also very present in living memories of grandparents and their friends.

It was made very clear to us where the first nukes would drop (Germany) and who would drop them (Germans). Flexible response was explained to us, the Nato strategy of using nukes first, as well as MAD. We were given estimated times from sirens blaring to explosion. We visited a bunker, and we were imagining nuclear hellscapes and asking ourselves if one should even try to enter a bunker to try to survive. Pershing II were discussed and MIRV, which were new technologies at the time.

Sonic booms from military jets were common, we would respond to that with “Russians are coming”. Not fear, but fatalism was the usual response, and a large number of young men would reject draft and opt for civilian service, wanting to do something productive during service instead of training to get pulverized in the first wave.

Then came Gorbatschow, and Reagan would still pursue his star wars programme, which left us scratching our heads.

There are many factors at play.

Survivability is much higher. A lot of the deaths are attributable to secondary opportunistic infections that are now treatable with antibiotics, which did not exist at the time. We now have a plethora of treatments that did not exist at the time, for example many people were saved from death by covid by giving extra oxygen for just a few days. That would have helped h1n1 victims too.

When I turned 50 they asked me if I planned to grow up now 😂