That would be worse than not having nukes at all. If anyone finds out who used the nukes, they will end you. If not, you will horribly damage the economy, which will hurt you a lot.
Sometimes states (or rulers or generals) are deluded about their chances in war; or accept high risks of being destroyed in exchange for a high chance of destroying someone else first; or don't think in terms of rational cost/benefit or risk/prize analysis at all.
If not, you will horribly damage the economy, which will hurt you a lot.
I don't understand. If you nuke an enemy and nobody knows it was you, then presumably you damage their economy, not your own, which would not hurt you. What did you mean?
A Ph.D student in neuroscience shot at least 50 people at a showing of the new Batman movie. He also appears to have released some kind of gas from a canister. Because of his educational background this person almost certainly knows a lot about molecular biology. How long will it be (if ever) before a typical bio-science Ph.D will have the capacity to kill, say,a million people?
Edit: I'm not claiming that this event should cause a fully informed person to update on anything. Rather I was hoping that readers of this blog with strong life-science backgrounds could provide information that would help me and other interested readers assess the probability of future risks. Since this blog often deals with catastrophic risks and the social harms of irrationality and given that the events I described will likely dominate the U.S. news media for a few days I thought my question worth asking. Given the post's Karma rating (currently -4), however, I will update my beliefs about what constitutes an appropriate discussion post.