Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

Hotheads 407desire for a comfortable life for themselves, their family, and their friendsmay have braked the ambitions of many an emperor.THE DOOMSDAY MACHINEIt is 1962, and you are the president of the United States. You have justlearned that the Soviet Union has dropped an atomic bomb on NewYork. You know they will not attack again. In front of you is the phone tothe Pentagon, the proverbial button, with which you can retaliate bybombing Moscow.You are about to press the button. The nation's policy is to retaliate inkind against a nuclear attack. The policy was designed to deter attackers;if you don't follow through, the deterrent would have been a sham.On the other hand, you are thinking, the damage has been done.Killing millions of Russians will not bring millions of dead Americansback to life. The bomb will add radioactive fallout to the atmosphere,harming your own citizens. And you will go down in history as one ofthe worst mass murderers of all time. Retaliation now would be sheerspite.But then, it is precisely this line of thinking that emboldened theSoviets to attack. They knew that once the bomb fell you would havenothing to gain and much to lose by retaliating. They thought they werecalling your bluff. So you had better retaliate to show them it wasn't abluff.But then again, what's the point of proving now that you weren't bluffingthen} The present cannot affect the past. The fact remains that if youpush the button, you will snuff out millions of lives for no reason.But wait—the Soviets knew you would think it is pointless to proveyou weren't bluffing after they tried to call your bluff. That's why theycalled your bluff. The very fact that you are thinking this way brought onthe catastrophe—so you shouldn't think this way.But not thinking this way now is too late . . .You curse your freedom. Your predicament is that you have the choiceto retaliate, and since retaliating is not in your interests, you may decidenot to do it, exactly as the Soviets anticipated. If only you didn't have thechoice! If only your missiles had been wired to a reliable nuclear-fireballdetectorand went off automatically. The Soviets would not have dared to