A few small goofs nearly threw the world into nuclear war.

Personally, I think we're more likely to see misunderstandings snowball and jump start the apocalypse than we ever will be because some evil bastard decided on a first strike.

For the most part I like to believe that most people default to good, for lack of an inherent belligerents. We're more likely to nuke^H^H^H^H kill our neighbors because of misscommunication or cascading failures than because we'd like to see them all wiped out. Most people have dampers on the level of crazy, if nothing else because they want to keep living more than they hate folks.

I rather like the comparison the article makes to Damocles Sword. Because at best, the risk of going to thermonuclear war over a 49¢ part failing may depend on someone not wanting to end the entire world without being pretty darn sure it was with their last breath. And between the major powers we've got more than enough nuclear weapons to keep the fallout going.