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Happy Petrov Day! On Sept 26, 1983, Petrov disobeyed orders to report what appeared to be an American nuclear attack (but later turned out to be a false alarm), thus probably averting full fledged nuclear war. Petrov Day celebrations are some of my favorite:

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Aella

@Aella_Girl

Each year, my community throws parties, and pairs with sister cities with a 'destruct' button. If you push the button, your sister city has to end the party and all go home (or in other versions, destroy their cake). If they push their button, you have to go home.

9:46 PM · Sep 26, 2021

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I love this ritual because of how meaningful it is; there's real consequences, and the existence of the unpressed button feels like a celebration of humanity's ability to cooperate, to decide despite threat and fear that we will in fact treat the other with kindness.

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Ideally, (1) the software that implements this should give a false alarm to one party, and (2) no-one playing should be aware of (1). Only works for one year, of course.

QC (4/10 Substack posts)

@QiaochuYuan

Sep 27, 2021

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@Aella_Girl

someone suggested an even more extreme version where if someone gets button'd they are not allowed to celebrate petrov day ever again which i kind of admire on some level

@pyromuffin@mastodon.gamedev.place

@pyromuffin

Sep 27, 2021

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@Aella_Girl

at our rationalist house in boston we had lit candles to represent the great inventions of humanity and did a bunch of readings.

banananananananananana

@viergeld

Oct 26, 2021

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@Aella_Girl

That’s awesome