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Ranchius said:

Probably not. We made it through over 40 years of the cold-war without it escalating into another world war, and the most critical events during that period were arguably more severe than the situation we're in right now. 

Jumpin said:
Ranchius said:

Probably not. We made it through over 40 years of the cold-war without it escalating into another world war, and the most critical events during that period were arguably more severe than the situation we're in right now. 

Yeah, people don't realize how crazy the Cold War actually was. The lines which were crossed. But as a reminder of how bad things were even during the lifetimes of some of us, in the 1980s (Andropov era). It's difficult to appreciate how much close we were to open war between the first and second world.

A few weeks after this event, nuclear war almost happened:

Nah. You're both forgetting there was structure to society during the Cold war. Two clear "kings" in America and Russia. Those "Kings" now have their kingdoms coming apart at the seams. This is so much more dangerous than the cold War unless countries, mainly the US can show it is strong and the boss of the world equal or greater than all else but at least equal. The hegemony seems to be in question and not once during the Cold War up until the USSR fell apart were they anything else than perfectly matched. That structure kept the craziest of possibilities from happening but in a world where there is no clear hedgmony and the "kings" power is in real question than smaller nations see opportunities. China as one example banded together with Russia, Iran Venezuela and so on have a real shot at the west. Basically what I'm trying to say is the balance of power seems to be uneven and that a Cold war 2.0 will not be the same as the evenly matched Cold war, it'll be far more messier, complicated and crazier shit will happen especially with AI advancement and (touch wood) some sort of AI arms race between the west and China. God forbid.

Also, people and government workers were so much more... sane, back them. People in the west are not the same as the people who lived through the Cold War. I would not trust a government employee these days over one from back then to keep us safe with common sense decision making.