#stanislav petrov
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HAPPY STANISLAV PETROV DAY
forty years ago today, this ONE GUY identified a false alarm of an American nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, singlehandedly averting nuclear war :D
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39 years ago today, the world didn’t end
It could have. On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet military officer, was monitoring his country’s early-warning missile detection system, when it showed intercontinental ballistic missiles incoming from the United States: first just one, then four more.
For the past several decades, both superpowers--the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics--had lived in fear of just such an attack. Almost certainly nuclear in nature, the incoming missiles were the starting gun to World War Three.
The scope of the destruction would be unparalleled. A single nuclear exchange--strike and counterstrike--between the two powers would kill anywhere from 136 million to 288 million people. Another two billion would likely die in the following years, as nuclear winter led to mass starvation.
But Stanislav Petrov realized something was wrong. He--like his American counterparts--had been trained to expect that the first strike, when it came, would be catastrophic, involving hundreds of missiles. That was why a retaliatory strike was supposed to be launched immediately, before the aggressor’s missiles even made impact--because once they had, the victim might no longer be capable of striking back. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction, it was called.
Five missiles didn’t make sense. So, instead of reporting to his superiors--who would begin the process of launching the retaliatory strike--Stanislav Petrov continued to monitor his station. No more missiles appeared, and the original four disappeared, never showing up on the land-based radar system.
It had been a false alarm--an unusual reflection of the sun off high-altitude clouds, detected by the early-warning system’s satellites, and erroneously interpreted by its computers. The Americans had never launched a single missile--but if the Soviet Union had launched a counterstrike, then they would have, each side “retaliating” until there was no one left alive to figure out what had really happened.
The world didn’t end that day, because Stanislav Petrov--when he saw something terrifying on his computer screen--stopped and thought about it. He considered other explanations, and he looked for additional information that would support one explanation or another.
And he saved the world.
Happy Stanislav Petrov Day!
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...It's a bit late for this, but I would like to propose a Thanksgiving alternative, for anyone who feels uncomfortable celebrating Thanksgiving but does not want to jettison one of the very few holidays that everyone gets by default without religious connotations.
Vasily Arkhipov Day.
Vasily Arkhipov Day is currently in late October, but the Cuban Missile Crisis ended on November 20th. if one celebrates Vasily Arkhipov Day on the first Thursday after the 20th of November, that lines up with the current days off most people have pretty well.
Vasily Arkhipov was a Soviet Commodore who successfully argued against launching a nuclear attack on the US during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His cool head in a crisis, powers of persuasion, and unwillingness to jeopardize humanity's future averted a nuclear war. He appears to have been a stand-up guy in his personal life, as much as any historical person can be, and ... y'know... actively saved the world.
You have your feast, you have your parade, you have your sports game. You have your moment of quiet reflection/thankfulness if you want one, you have a narrative to share that reflects cultural ideals that you actively want to reflect. "We survived despite it all, let's eat" is a good basis for a holiday, and it's one you can feel good about celebrating.
I don't have any strong feelings about Thanksgiving either way- it just wasn't a big deal for my family growing up- but if you are uncomfortable with your current excuse to celebrate and want to have a celebration anyway, here's one that might work.
#thanksgiving#vasily arkhipov#stanislav petrov#(tagging him because his day is earlier but it's also a good one)#(just too early in the year)#general malarkey#tumblr malarkey
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#meme#memes#shitpost#shitposting#humor#funny#lol#satire#funny memes#dark humor#funny humor#comedy#history#history memes#the cold war#stanislav petrov#irony#joke#parody
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TODAY WE CELEBRATE WE ARE ALIVE BECAUSE ONE MAN DECIDED NOT TO END THE WORLD, AGAINST ALL THE TRAINING AND PROTOCOLS, AGAINST ALL THE PRESSURE AND THREATS.
"You don't start a nuclear war with one missile. Nor five."
Stanislav Petrov, hero of the USSR and the World. We owe you all.
#Stanislav Petrov#Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov#Станисла́в Евгра́фович Петро́#26 September 1983#Petrov's Day#September 26th
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Honestly, a spiritual sequel to Oppenheimer could seriously work if you account the Cold War, the KAL007 incident, and Stanislav Petrov being the guy who stopped the possible nuclear war. Building it from the destroyer of the world to the savior of the world.
#Oppenheimer#oppenheimer movie#j robert oppenheimer#stanislav petrov#it'd be a lot but it could work
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Aaaw, I missed Stanislav Petrov Day!
For those of you too young to know, once upon a time, in this case 1983, Stanislav Petrov saved the world from nuclear annihilation single handedly by using his head instead of believing malfunctioning instruments.
None of us would be here right now if he had followed procedures and started a nuclear war with the west.
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One man in Russia, Stanislav Petrov, saved the world from a nuclear war in 1983. I was 13 years old, unaware of how close my life came to changing or ending. The article is a sobering reminder of just how fragile our existence is.
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/26/17905796/nuclear-war-1983-stanislav-petrov-soviet-union
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Thinking of Stanislav Petrov today, and the debt of gratitude we all owe him.
For my generation, the most terrifying thing during our early years was the threat of nuclear war, and accidents from nuclear power plants.
I had no idea how close we actually came to the former until I learned about Stanislav in recent years.
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2017 –The Man Who "Saved the World"
Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (Russian: Станисла́в Евгра́фович Петро́в; 7 September 1939 – 19 May 2017) was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces who played a key role in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident.[1] On 26 September 1983, three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to five more. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm.
His subsequent decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military protocol,[3] is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in a large-scale nuclear war which could have wiped out half of the population of the countries involved. An investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned. Because of his decision not to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike amid this incident, Petrov is often credited as having "saved the world".
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Scientists Say We're Closer to Nuclear Armageddon Than Any Other Point in History
Story by Noor Al-Sibai
Image credit: Mark Stevenson/UIG via Getty / Futurism
Original published by Futurism on January 24, 2023.
Black Pilled
The scientist-activists who run the Doomsday Clock have once again ticked it forward, bringing humanity's estimated chances of its own nuclear annihilation closer than ever.
A statement published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the group behind the Doomsday Clock, cited Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the potential for a "hot war" between NATO and Russia as its reasoning for moving the clock a mere 90 seconds to midnight.
Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and the scientists who would have been his colleagues had the US granted him security clearance to work on the atomic bomb-building Manhattan Project, the BAS has every year since 1947 warned of the preceding annum's biggest risks to humanity — and this year, those risks are all about Russia.
"Russia’s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict — by accident, intention, or miscalculation — is a terrible risk," the statement reads. "The possibility that the conflict could spin out of anyone’s control remains high."
Hot War
While not mentioned in the statement, the country formerly known as the Soviet Union has some pretty jarring past precedents to take into consideration: the 1983 "false alarm" incident in which USSR radar picked up and subsequently alerted officials about phony readings from the West that were initially interpreted as warhead-carrying spy planes coming out of the US.
The protocol, which wasn't followed, would have been to strike back. If Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet Air Defense officer in charge of the early-warning station located that detected the misinterpreted signals, hadn't trusted his gut when it told him they were false alarms, nuclear war would almost certainly have broken out.
Back in the present, the concerned scientists note that beyond just the heating up of the new cold war, Russia's Ukrainian aggression has also "undermine[d] global efforts to combat climate change," and its fake news about Ukraine developing bioweapons may indicate that it's doing exactly that.
While "there is no clear pathway for forging a just peace that discourages future aggression under the shadow of nuclear weapons," the BAS urged open engagement with peace talks between NATO and Russia — not just for the sake of heading off war, but for the sake of helping the planet avoid further catastrophe, too.
More on nukes: New Study Shows Where You Should Hide To Survive A Nuclear Attack
#futurism#doomsday clock#nuclear war#russia#ukraine#armageddon#nukes#albert einstein#atomic bomb#atomic warfare#manhattan project#NATO#ukrainian invasion#stanislav petrov#back in the ussr#latest#tech
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Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Yesterday was International Day For The Total Elimination Of Nuclear Weapons. No, I am not making this up and yes, I am serious.
Following the High-level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament held at the United Nations on 26 September 2013, the General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/68/32 calling for “the urgent commencement of negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament for the early conclusion…
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#a near miss#Atomic Energy Commission#global disarmament#Stanislav Petrov#the road to peace#United Nations General Assembly
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Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) dir. Stanley Kubrick
#happy stanislav petrov day#1964#dr strangelove#Stanley Kubrick#Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb#cinematography#cinematografer#screenshot#wallpaper#movie still#art of movie#art of films#screencaps
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