Alex WellersteinVerified account

I also worry that the American populace's lack of real understanding the nature of the nuclear era has made them brittle to risk.

That they think a nuclear-armed DPRK makes them much more threatened than before. Rather than just a bit more. That they were never safe.

I don't think we'll ever live in a world where the nuclear risks of this sort will ever diminish. I'm not that optimistic.

If the risk of an event is nonzero and never diminishes, do the laws of probability not say that the event will eventually happen?

Over an infinite timescale, sure. It's not the infinite I'm concerned with, though.

So it's not unlikely that we'll see a nuclear war rather soon, but we're certain to see one if nuclear disarmament is never completed?

If one is considering extremely long timelines, then lots of possible futures are conceivable, good and bad.

I take "nuclear abolitionism" to be about the relatively short term (e.g., decades, not centuries).