
Soviet Officer Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved the World' (2017) - Anon84
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/18/551792129/stanislav-petrov-the-man-who-saved-the-world-dies-at-77
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montalbano
Very inspiring, I am embarrassed not to have known of his story before today.

It's worth also referencing Vasili Arkhipov, who also showed us the importance
of individual action:

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/27/vasili-
arkhi...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-
soviet-submarine-captain-who-averted-nuclear-war-awarded-future-of-life-prize)

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awestley
Not everyone can say they saved the world (and it be true).

RIP Mr. Petrov.

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wolph
I wouldn't call it saving. It's more like not destroying.

You would hope that for a world ending event they would need verification from
multiple stations reporting at the same time though...

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adventured
I would call it saving it.

He specifically acted against bad information and what he was supposed to do,
which required bravery and critical thinking to avoid catastrophe. It was also
potentially risking very bad consequences for himself, as his superiors easily
could have put him in prison, disappeared him, or otherwise punished his life
- even just out of spite - for what he did. He says it was a good thing that
he was working that shift and he is right. The odds are extremely high that
anybody else would make that phone call up the chain of command, and from
there the odds of a nuclear response escalate rapidly.

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Symmetry
Petrov day is going to be celebrated on the 26th, just a few days away.
Whatever your nationality, whatever your profession please ask yourself: "Am I
contributing to the destruction of the world? Is there something I could be
doing to destroy the world less?" And then please act on that.

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avar
Or perhaps mainly consider your nationality.

There's a relatively small minority of the world population who live in one of
the two countries with arms sufficient to "destroy the world" (although some
of the runners up could certainly make life worldwide more miserable).

In practice people living in those countries have pretty much all the say in
whether the world will get destroyed or not by choosing to vote for some
nutcase in the next election. By comparison someone in <name pretty much any
other country> has next to zero chance of moving the needle on potential world
destruction.

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roenxi
The circle of people in those two countries who actually control the arsenal
is very small in relation to the population. Diplomats from other countries
probably have better access to them than any citizen of their own country.

Nationality plays a role in who has the actual power but anyone can promote
peace and have a real impact. Influential words and good ideas can come from
anywhere.

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avar
You don't need to directly control these systems to have a big influence.
People in these countries (a tiny minority of humanity) opt to stay and pay
the taxes that maintain these systems.

But the main moral culpability is just not caring. Nuclear safety isn't even
on the mind of the average voter in the US or Russia. If it were an issue as
important as major wedge issues as say guns or religion are in the US even a
small fraction of the population could have a major impact.

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mLuby
A hero of the Soviet Union, if not officially.

Please add the publish date (September 18, 2017) to the title; it's called
Hacker News not Hacker Archives.

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mieseratte
To be fair, HN isn’t strictly related to current events.

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aiyodev
Yes it is. That’s what the word news means.

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timwaagh
And who programmed the system that detected the missiles? Was there ever a
post-morten of this incident?

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api
Stuff like this makes me wonder about quantum immortality. Maybe we just
happen to be in the timeline where we didn't nuke ourselves.

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jonstewart
Needs "(2017)" in the title.

