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. 

All challengers to the USA are still scared of them despite Biden's foreign policy being so weak. That speaks volumes about how strong the USA and its allies actually are.

Granted, the USA is at a fork in the road right now with the upcoming election. One path will result in a stronger America and the other in chaos. The latter isn't the more likely outcome at this moment, but it's still in play.

At the same time, you are falling into the trap of romanticizing the past, so you are led to anxiety. What remains just as true today as it was during the Cold War is that no nation wants a world war and no nation wants to use a nuclear weapon, and that will continue to be true even if the USA somehow puts Trump back into the White House.

I agree. A lot hinges on the election. Two very different outcomes with both good and bad to both of them.

No nation wanted nuclear war but how long did that take before they knew the full depth of what they were dealing with, how many nuclear tests and saber rattling and close calls. I still think the Day After, that TV film was the turning point for both leaders and civilians to really understand the full implications and that was in the 80's, 40 odd years after the technomogy was born.

Now, if it's AGI/ASI then it goes back straight back to zero on the scale of knowing what is being dealth with and the fog of war gets shrouded again, first not even the people who make AI (if it follow from current tech) know exactly what's goin gon calling it a black box technology let alone the people in charge and it's an evolving technology, nukes were static in their destructive power but AGI/ASI is limitless, the change in warfare and the combating of moves made fron the other side would be insanely rapid if you think about it and that's basically all we can tell cause we can't imagine it, the best we have is sci fi and it's likely to be far more mind bending than any science fiction . Idk, perhaps you're right and it's romanticism of the past it may be but it just seems like it'd be way messier and people are less trust worthy to handle that messiness.