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Dragons, Nuclear Weapons, and Game of Thrones (thebulletin.org)
Slashdot reader Dan Drollette shared this article from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists where a specialist in nuclear security analyzes Game of Thones, citing dragons "as living, fire-breathing metaphors for nuclear weapons."
Despite the fantasy setting, the story teaches a great deal about the inherent dangers that come with managing these game-changing agents, their propensity for accidents, the relative benefits they grant their masters, and the strain these weapons impose upon those wielding them. "Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only [Daenerys Targaryen, one of the series' heroines] has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world," George R. R. Martin said in 2011. "But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I'm trying to explore.
"The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn't mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn't give you the power to reform, or improve, or build."
It makes for a bleak outlook. Or, as a character repeatedly warns in the first episode: "Winter is coming."
"The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn't mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn't give you the power to reform, or improve, or build."
It makes for a bleak outlook. Or, as a character repeatedly warns in the first episode: "Winter is coming."
the curtains are just blue.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
If dragons are nuclear weapons, does that make the white walker's dragon a broken arrow?
A major spoiler here if you've not watched the previous seasons, but taking your dragons deep into the heart of the undead kingdom was exceedingly stupid, basically like having a cavalier attitude to nuclear weapon security and handing over a Fat Man to a rogue nation.
Now the undead have one and they are blazing a path south (though to give them credit, they are not unthinking monsters, they stoped along the way to hang some artwork). Without the dragon the wall guards could have just spent years dropping flaming pitch on the things.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They also like to censor Game of Thrones.
GoT is just dumb slasher porn with no "deep meaning".
dragons are not dumb but can be stubborn at times. Undead ones who really know what will happen and if they can be snapped out of it.
Chinese Dragons are not REAL Dragons!
At one time someone tried to imply that Tolkien's books were about the Cold War and that the rings were nuclear weapons. Tolkien was having none of it and pointed out how the story would have to be different to mirror that.
This is even more of a stretch.
Lots of nations had plans for nuclear weapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Some got very near to testing.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
a specialist in nuclear security analyzes Game of Thones, citing dragons "as living, fire-breathing metaphors for nuclear weapons."
Dragons in Mythology are comets with long illuminated trails. Sometimes comets break up having multi-cores, and these are a hydra or a Serpent of the Sky famously one in the past had Seven Eyes. This is what much symbolism is all about. Like in the Renaissance secrets are still kept from the public and so occultists hide messages in art still today to bypass oppression. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is Rome, Juliet is the Comet that destroys Rome, hence the Great Tragedy. Re-watch that and take note of the celestial remarks made of Juliet by Romeo.
Dragons fought off by Hercules or Egypt's Set, etc. represent a near end of civilization saved by herculean effort to recolonize. This is masonic wisdom 101. Death's Scythe is the shape of a Comet / Meteor / Falling star. Death or Father Time, (since civilization is cyclic), is often depicted with The Maiden and broken "Roman" columns. Melancholia is an art style about the fall of Rome due to a Dragon who destroyed the world.
Checkout The Comet of 1811 - For a year this comet wrecked havoc with the world, causing geomagnetic disturbances all over the world, liquefying ground in South America, swallowing entire regimens of troops, causing thousands of earthquakes in New Madrid alone. The war of 1812 is basically a cover for this disaster, written out of history by the Hidden Hand (who's avatar was Napoleon at the time, nudge nudge wink wink).
Sorry folks, Both Dragons and Nukes are just allegory for the comets that destroy the world... Hail Eris! Who throws her Golden Apple (comet) upon the Table of the Gods (this world), and throws the gods into chaos as they fight over it (cataclysm). "God is in His Heaven, All is Right With The World" Tthat "god" is a Dragon / Comet, folks, when he's not here all is OK, but when he appears, watch out!
Slashdot has most definitely not jumped the shark, but it has been throughly teabagged by the dragon.
Slashdot has not only jumped the shark, it's now rotten driftwood washed up on some godforsaken beach in the middle of nowhere.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Quite possibly the dumbest thing I've seen on the internet in a while.
Setting aside their naked effort to garner clicks by mentioning dragons, the analysis is puerile as well a backwards: rehashed sophomoric arguments from the cold war era, framed by a necessity to hew to the simile, rather than trying to glean useful insights through metaphor.
Much of the article discusses the issues of uni polarism (ie GoTs situation) which hasn't been relevant since what, 1947? and never will be again.
-Styopa
No, Dragons aren't Nuclear Weapons. Dragons are flying fortresses with napalm bombs. Nuclear weapons aren't merely raining fire from the sky. They nearly obliterate everything within a given radius and cast invisible radius over an even larger one. More importantly, ICBMs can rapidly launch multiple warheads at a speed that makes dragons (or planes) look like snails. Only in the sense that nuclear weapons are the "ultimate" weapon is there any sort of real comparison. Otherwise, it's a pretty horrible comparison.
Apparently these people have their noses so far up their own backsides that they don't think "Deterrence" is a goal in and of itself.
They apparently think that guns/nukes are little Evil generators that are responsible for Everything Bad in human history. And if they'd never existed, the world would be this felicitous land of fairies and unicorns.
NEWSFLASH!
PEOPLE ARE ASSHOLES!
This means that they're only as good as they NEED to be to keep the world from killing them outright.
Could we be as effective in stopping antagonistic regimes from nuking anyone standing in their way if they didn't KNOW FOR A FACT that we possess the power to glass their little shithole countries multiple times over?
In short, NO.
So, while NOBODY like the fact that the world has this much concentrated megadeath just lying around, looking for an excuse.
The fact that it exists serves as a warning to any tin pot dictator with delusions of grandeur.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This is not just a bad analogy; it's a horrible, morally bankrupt analogy.
There are two important things to consider about nuclear weapons: 1) They inevitably result in enormous collateral damage to noncombatants, including children; 2) they cause environmental damage that affects everyone on the planet, including the ones who used the nuclear weapons.
I think there is a strong case to be made that nuclear weapons violate basic laws of war, in the same manner that biological weapons do. (Go ahead, fight me. You're unlikely to change my viewpoint on this).
GOT's dragons do none of the above. They're big flying flamethrowers, and the show has established that they can be used in a relatively surgical manner.
Yes in fact the wall kept out the wildlings, until they were invited to cross so they could help fight the undead.
The undead would have been hanging out for a long time being burnt to a crisp from above, had they noted a dragon to melt a section of the wall.
So yes, even after building a wall a tank can indeed get through it. But since not everyone has a tank it's still a good idea to build a wall to keep out the vastly greater numbers without tanks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Come on Slashdot... this is garbage, just a desperate reach to piggyback on the high trending GOT with some irrelevant garbage editorial.
They're the M1 of that world.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Probably more akin to when the Soviets inevitably got themselves a nuclear weapon - suddenly, having dragons flying about doesn't seem as great of an idea anymore.