Post by @natematias@social.coop

What can tech policy folks learn from the nuclear age about the role of science in policy?

My read of the summer is Benjamin Wilson's new book "Strange Stability" about the backstage arrangements of nuclear physicists during the Cold War.

https://natematias.com/portfolio/2026-08-23-strange-stability/

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣

@natematias@social.coop 31 min. ago

Wilson's book Strange Stability checked off a bingo card of issues that could have easily been in AI policy news today:

- warnings of existential risk from well funded insiders
- scientists who keep secret their industry ties
- definitions of science that uphold the politics of profit and war
- claims that only insiders can truly understand the scientific issues
- a popular movement against harmful tech valorizing its creators
- whistleblowers who profit from business interests they mildly critique in public

J. Nathan Matias 🦣

@natematias@social.coop 15 sec. ago

In one astonishing tale, Wilson shows how the physicists Hans Bethe and Richard Garwin were “assertively hand-held” by Scientific American into becoming unexpected nuclear whistleblowers—after submitting a draft to support the weapon their article eventually opposed

https://thebulletin.org/2026/01/how-hans-bethe-and-richard-garwin-served-the-missile-defense-system-they-publicly-criticized/

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

How Hans Bethe and Richard Garwin served the missile defense system they publicly criticized

During the Cold War, two physicists became public "opponents" of the Pentagon's antiballistic missile systems. But they kept doing private work on behalf of the administration's policy.

Brian Vastag

@brianvastag@mas.to 16 min. ago

@natematias Thanks for posting this. I read your review and Wilson's piece in BAS...interesting stuff. Until recently, a friend of mine was a senior editor at SciAm and I'm curious if he knows the Bethe/Garwin story.

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