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C00002 00002	dyson[s84,jmc]		Review of "Weapons and Hope" by Freeman Dyson
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dyson[s84,jmc]		Review of "Weapons and Hope" by Freeman Dyson

	Ho-hum, here's another book on the danger of nuclear annihilation.
We are told of the dangers and the various proposals for avoiding them.
Unfortunately, the prospect of nuclear war is like the prospect of getting
cancer.  It's very bad, but none of the recipes for prevention inspire
much confidence.

	Dyson's remedies - actually he doesn't put faith in any one -
don't inspire confidence either, but at least he has some new things
to say - new to me anyway.

xxx
a very tactful book
Dyson outlines the various points of view rather well, but he doesn't
attempt to outline the beliefs that underly each of them.  Perhaps this
would be untactful.

	It's better to be safe than sorry, and we should be willing
to take a lot of trouble and go to a lot of expense if this will
make us safe.  We should even be willing to change long held attitudes.
However, what constitutes safety?

	One way of looking at the matter involves noting that we are
38 years into the nuclear weapons age and no-one has been bombed after
the beginning.  Therefore, if we can preserve the present situation
with regard to the forces tendencies toward and away from war, this
might be considered as safe as we can get in the absence of a convincing
proposal for reducing the danger.  In that case we should look for
danger in whatever is new.

	One major novelty is the Soviet preponderance in land based
missiles.  Some say this puts us in enormous danger, and others
say it is unimportant.  Finding the arguments inconclusive, I tend
to favor the proposals for countering the Soviet preponderance on
the grounds that this minimizes novelty.