The Nuclear Wild West
The Great Simplification #97 with Chuck Watson
On this special episode, I am again joined by risk expert Chuck Watson for a candid discussion of the nuclear developments between Russia and the United States. As the world’s attention is focused on the events in the Middle East, US testing and development of new nuclear weapons and Russia’s decision to pull out of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty last week have been overlooked and underreported by major media. Yet, a wider view suggests these trends represent some of the most imminent risks to life on Earth as we know it.
Chuck Watson has had a long career in military and intelligence work, with a specialty in natural and human made disaster modeling. He worked for the US Air Force, was an attache to US Ambassadors to the Middle East Robert McFarland, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as a Soviet expert. Chuck has worked as an advisor to the military for over four decades with a particular emphasis on big data, open source intelligence, with an emphasis on the Soviet Union and Russia. Chuck is also the founder and Director of Research and Development of Enki Holdings, LLC, which designs computer models for phenomena ranging from tropical cyclones (hurricanes) and other weather phenomena, earthquakes, and tsunamis, as well as anthropogenic hazards such as industrial accidents, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction.
What is the history behind this framework of trust that took decades to develop, and how quickly might our current fear spiral destroy it? Are the people in positions of power aware of the dangers of this situation and acting with appropriate caution? What should concerned individuals and leaders understand and advocate for to minimize this truly existential risk?
In case you missed it…
Traditionally, when we think of net and gross income, we only think of direct government taxes that subtract from what we take home. In this Frankly, I expand on our conventional definition of “taxes” to highlight nine other categories that will ‘tax’ our modern lifestyles. These other taxes - resulting from our system’s ecology - will factor into the way society can pay for the goods and services we’ve become used to. As converging global crises intensify and each add their own ‘tax’, can we learn to manage with a smaller “net “ resource balance sheet - and maintain our time, sanity, and humanity through the coming decades?
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