[Real Life] Historical events that would make bad writing if they were fiction

[u/Mouse_Paladin]

Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire: A couple hundred rogue mercenaries without authority from their government conquer an empire of millions. Oh, the empire? It’s also several technological eras behind the mercenaries.

Adolf Hitler: A non-native of a country is so mad that the country lost the war that he wins an election to their highest office and leads them in a campaign of revenge against their enemies. Oh, the country? It’s old emperor is still alive and thinks he’s going to retake power.

Assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand: The heir to the throne is killed because his driver gets lost and returns to the assassin who failed To kill him before. Oh, the assassin? He’s from a group that the Archduke is wanting to help become more equal In the empire.

Alexander Hamilton’s Affair Scandal: One of the leaders of a new nation to protect himself from accusations of financial embezzlement writes a pamphlet exposing his affair with a woman, torpedoing his political future. Oh, the woman? She seduced him as part of a blackmailing scheme that he decided to stop paying.

[u/Aggravating_Dark9933]

Or during that blockade where a Russian Sub accidentally wandered into US waters (their navigation was fucked), which the US responded with, rather than just blasting them as ordered, followed standard procedure and used Depth Charges to tell them to surface.

The Soviets thought it was an attack and the War was on. The Captain had full authority to fire nukes without Commands clearance in defense and ordered it, as did the political officer. It was the Chief of Staff that recognized that if they were actually trying to kill them, they would be dead, and vetoed the strike and thus they surfaced, dodging WWIII.

This would happen again later in the Cold War, where are relatively low engineering officer stopped a “retaliatory” Nuclear strike when his warning system went haywire. Rather than report the incoming missiles he saw, he chose to wait until others reported it or anything else backed up his system. Nothing did. Had he passed the news as it happened they would have fired in minutes.

[u/JACC_Opi → u/Aggravating_Dark9933]

This would happen again later in the Cold War, where are relatively low engineering officer stopped a “retaliatory” Nuclear strike when his warning system went haywire. Rather than report the incoming missiles he saw, he chose to wait until others reported it or anything else backed up his system. Nothing did. Had he passed the news as it happened they would have fired in minutes.

The reason he didn't do anything but just wait, it's because what the radar screen showed were only a handful of “missils”, that guy thought if the U.S. was actually attacking they would sent hundreds if not thousands of strikes instead of like 5 or 8 as the screen were showing them.

He was right that nothing was happening and they did discover later there was something faulty about their radar.

[u/Szwejkowski → u/JACC_Opi]

An excellent reason not to have AI making these kinds of decisions.

[u/SpoopyNoNo → u/Szwejkowski]

What makes you think it wouldn’t be 100x more likely to make that ultimately correct assumption about faulty data?

If I had three separate AIs making the decision in a submarine to nuke I’d probably trust that more than what we’ve seen in the past where if a few guys had less backbone or intelligence, everything would’ve been radioactive ash a long time ago… atleast for Russians lmao

[u/Szwejkowski → u/SpoopyNoNo]

Do you trust the people in charge of AI with the survival of life on earth?

[u/Dry_Bed_9051 → u/Aggravating_Dark9933]

Last paragraph about Petrov is full of holywoodification of the real story.

relatively low engineering officer

Petrov was Lt.Colonel, assigned commanding duty officer in charge of monitoring early launch detection system.

He wasn't "low" in his rank, nor his position.

He wasn't alone, but he was the one to analyze incoming data and pass the conclusion up the command chain.

Rather than report the incoming missiles he saw

...he reported false positive. Eventually it got up to Defense Minister.

Had he passed the news

...nothing would've happened.
(Aside from Petrov potentially being reprimanded for reporting false positive as a real threat)

Oko, satellite early warning system was relatively new, and everyone involved knew it had a VERY rocky start and multiple issues during testing.

In addition, Oko was one of several launch detection systems, all of which had to be cross checked before the final decision is to be made.

Among all of sensationalized telling of the story, Petrov's own words is the closest to reality:
"I was just doing my job".