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The_Jaded_One comments on Happy Petrov Day - Less Wrong Discussion
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I haven't seen a convincing closure of the debate about whether Petrov was actually the only serious obstacle to WWIII. Obviously he did the right thing, I'm not trying to take that away from him, but I'd be very interested in hearing a more thorough analysis of what would have happened if he had reported up the chain of command that the computer said the US had launched ONE (EDIT: LATER 5) missile(s) but that since one missile launch was a pretty stupid thing to do, it was probably an error.
In general, it's good to reward people from stopping a mistake even if they are not the last possible place for it to be caught. Defense in depth!
Yeltsin decided not to retaliate in 1995, during another false alarm. It is not clear Andropov would have acted the same way, given the very different levels of tension in 1995 and 1983.
But I would like to know whether he averted a 1% chance of disaster or a 50% chance or an 80% chance.
I mean would the leadership launch in response to being told that ONE missile had been fired? Were they complete retards?
Looking at the relevant US experience, very likely.
Still, having an insecure PAL code is not the same as pressing what is effectively a 20-minute delayed suicide button based upon the most obvious of false alarms.
Note that the Americans did have the insecure code and the Russians did not press the button X-D
Sure, for what he did he deserves billions of dollars on prize money. The expected utility loss conditional on him making the decision to report the alert must be trillions of dollars.
It's was five missles.
Does that make a difference? As far as I am aware there is no strategic use for 5 nukes as an opening move...