Guaranteed mutual self-destruction of humanity on the blockchain

A doomsday device is a type of nuclear weapon designed to extinguish all life on earth, that will be activated based on certain triggers. The idea of such a device is based on the game of chicken in game theory.

The game of chicken:
Two people drive at full speed horizontally towards each other. The one that steers away losses their pride. If the collide both loose their pride and their life.

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Game theory states that there is one certain way to win this game. And that is to prove to the other side that you will not steer away. For example because you have ripped the steering wheel from your car and thrown it out of the window.

A doomsday device follows the same logic. When a conflict of interest arises you threaten mutual destruction. You only need to make sure that you also cannot influence the doomsday device and prove to your enemy that you have no more control.

With the invention of blockchain technology we can finally build the perfect domesday device. All you need is a sufficient amount of nuclear bombs and a smart contract controlling them without human supervision. You make the smart contract public and as soon as that contract will evaluate to true the entire humanity will be annihilated.

Now everyone knows that you have created an absolute law, close to the laws of nature. We all now have to live with that new law. But there are still many risks.

• Security of the blockchain. Certainly this should be implemented only on the most secure PoW blockchains. Otherwise it is too easy to resume control over the smart contract and prevent it from firing, or firing it when it should remain passive.

• The condition should not be to easy to trigger. No single person should be able to act in a way that will result in the doomsday device from activating. Activation should be tied to big human-wide decisions only.

• Offline security and maintenance. The smart contract can be considered to be relatively safe, but there are also the physical parts. These need to be secured from attacks as well. Currently the technology for this does not yet exist, but we may see a lot of development in these areas in the next ten years.

Then the question is not weather we like the possibility of smart contract doomsday devices, they are a possibility and eventually they will happen. As for many things the technology may be used to achieve good and bad outcomes. They for example can be used to take nukes out of human hands, by making sure the world will be destroyed as soon as a nuclear device is activated anywhere. The can also be used to enforce certain treaties that nations have signed with each other.

In any case, given the technology is secure, it should be better to have nuclear weapons controlled by open smart contracts than by government actors that may or may not use them based on closed criteria and human emotion.