That scene from War Games

[@Mikeanglo]

Joshua: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." Skynet: "Fuck you, we're playing anyways."

[@Shanethefilmmaker]

***** "Better."

[@Ididntaskforahandleyoutube]

Joshua would own the SkyNet mainframe. ; )

[@CountArtha]

+RobotWookiee Probably because Joshua would send more than one robot at a time.

[@DoubleSwords117]

+Mike Zilla To be fair, the robots win. They're not squishy humans.

[@sparrowlt]

+Mike Zilla and look how that worked out for skynet.. trapped in a loop of sending people and robots in time agan and again to start all over...

[@empirestate8791]

I love how Wargames managed to be an intense, edge-of-your-seat thriller while having absolutely zero violence.

[@owlsayssouth]

i mean, yes but actually no. threatening to shoot the guy at the start of the movie. it's all about Global Thermonuclear war about to happen on accident. there is forceful detention.

[@themaconeau]

Press F for the bits that lost their important, but fleeting lives during that simulation. 😱

[@JB-xl2jc]

@@owlsayssouthDefinitely the threat of violence but there isn't a significant employment of violence, merely coercion and the possibility of violence. That's pretty impressive.

[@JB-xl2jc]

@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5 This actually convinced me to convert to Satanism, thanks!

[@mistermidnight1823]

​@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5ew... why would you post that here? This is a movie clip not a church.

[@villanelo1987]

That has to be the most intense scene where nothing happens, ever. O_O

[@jp3813]

Crimson Tide is basically the same thing, minus the torpedo scenes. The goal is for nothing to happen b/c it concerns nuclear weapons.

[@TangomanX2008]

Right, but at least you have people getting punched in crimson tide.

[@nowdid]

Ferris Bueller just saved the world...whadamean nothing happened?

[@gorillaau]

villanelo1987 This is family friendly. Younger kids might get bored of it but early teens and up would have loved it.

[@manictiger]

@gorillaau You mean it's a bad idea to show little kids Terminator 2, with those lovely images of kids at a playground getting torched and the glowy-eyed terminators stepping on piles of human skulls?

[@solinvictus4367]

Would have been really awkward if Joshua found a winning strategy

[@ChupachuGames]

One survivor

[@sadee1287]

Do they make them as stupid as you? Nuclear wars have no winners. Everyone dies.

[@axelsantanah.7900]

@@sadee1287 it's a joke

[@Assymetry]

Oh look if I launch a series of nukes at France in the shape of a hexagon it turns out more than half the US survives! Wait france also survives? Damn. Alright next scenario.

[@Astrocat-od5cy]

@@sadee1287 It must be hard, being that confidently stupid

[@SkullMahn]

"The only winning move is not to play" powerful words that more people should know.

[@Maffu79]

...before dating women. 🤣

[@hanburbger7782]

or living

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

The thing is, those words aren't necessarily true. This movie was made out of a certain time, and with a certain political viewpoint in mind. That doesn't make a true. The enemy always gets a vote, and the truth of the matter is, when it comes to geopolitics you're playing the game whether you want to or not. There's no option to sit out. If you choose not to take action or response, the enemy still will*, and you may end up losing everything

[@neo_geo_]

RIP Patrice

[@RydiasRevenge]

Yep - we live in a sad state of affairs where several games are now "pay to win", and thus you save yourselves money by NOT playing said games.

[@OriginalAkivara]

But did the computer ever get its nice game of chess? That always made me sad at the end of this movie. Everyone's standing around cheering, SOMEBODY PLAY CHESS WITH THAT COMPUTER.

[@JazzKeyboardist1]

Watson said, bobby fischer played himself and it drove him crazy

[@YoungLordz666]

Yeah the rude asshole left Joshua hanging

[@monam3739]

OriginalAkivara U don't .He takes things too seriously.

[@FoxtrotGolfLima]

do you think anybody is gonna play Chess with a computer that can simulate every Cold War nuclear conflict scenario

[@nowonmetube]

You have empathy with a program? 🤦‍♂️

[@Blayzeing]

I love how we all knew what scene the title is referring to.

[@xINVISIGOTHx]

+Blayzeing I thought it meant the "shall we play a game" scene

[@davidbolha]

MGTOW ? 🤔😉😎😂

[@laurahall5218]

First thing I thought of when I read about the Russians faking electronic intelligence that American warships were invading their national waters. I wanted to write that exact thing in the comments but it didn't accept comments.

[@mileswhittington9971]

I didn't... 😔

[@slimeinabox]

… I didn’t. Cool though.

[@Sammie1053]

I didn't realize it at the time but the choice of chess as an alternative game to play was probably a deliberate choice by the writers. Bobby Fisher and American v Russian chess competitions had become a fixture in the public consciousness around this time. That message seems to say "how about instead of military competition, we have friendly intellectual competition?"

[@ksfirewolf1530]

Chess is also used as an analog for conventional military conflict. instead of using nuclear weapons, traditional fighting can be used instead if war is unavoidable. Chess has rules, it has counters, balance. Nuclear warfare does not. But yes, intellectual competitions where the only loss is that of national pride would totally be on par for the moral of this movie. Love this movie for that reason. Not everything is winnable, sometimes ya just gotta say no to playing it.

[@AlxM96]

@@ksfirewolf1530 exactly. Plus, you can always resort to the Tennison Gambit, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile variation, and hope your opponent falls for it. That would be winning fair and square in both chess and warfare

[@ScrotalSands]

I think formal policy debate amongst world leaders would be interesting to see if it was actually a debate and not personal attacks.

[@ZacharyBittner]

Don't look into what happened to Bobby Fisher over the years. :D

[@n0denz]

Could've gone with ice hockey.

[@dibbidydoo4318]

_"The only winning move is not to play."_ This 'winning move' quote seems to work on any scenario in which you sacrifice more than you would've gained in a win.

[@Tigerman1138]

Marriage?

[@usedforks]

That's called a Pyrrhic victory. Just telling you for convenience's sake. :D

[@DastardSilvergun]

Nothin gets by you

[@roetemeteor]

@@usedforks I would argue that a Phyrric Victory isn't the same as that. That's just saying if you're going to lose, make sure the other person gains nothing from the victory.

[@rjframe4410]

Pyrrhic victories are like that

[@MCVessels]

Poor Joshua. If it can't distinguish between a simulation and reality, how many times has it had to witness humanity being destroyed?

[@awesomeapostolic4492]

That's deep.

[@lowkeylowkey1000]

I guess he just mopes about sighing all the time, even when opening doors for humans ;)

[@TheFi0r3]

Well, It have extinguished hundreds of civilizations in many grand strategy games. So I'm pretty certain Joshua shouldn't have any PTSD unless it feels sad for chess pieces (although I'd say there will would have been plenty of rage quit)

[@trianglemoebius]

I'm not sure Joshusa was cognitively aware what humans *were*, merely seeing them as some value or statistic (and, in some cases, an input). That's why it (he?) had no issue with what it perceived to be wiping out humanity thousands of times over, and why it saw this as a "game" with a "winner" - to him, it was basically just maths.

[@AwesomePenguin]

@@lowkeylowkey1000 nice reference

[@laylagardner8728]

Mutually assured destruction was actually a mathematic proof arrived at through game theory by John Von Nueamnn, the inventor of game theory as branch of mathematics and the inventor of the digital computer. That's why they use unwinnable game scenarios to teach the machine.

[@lkuza2]

I thought John Nash pioneered game theory

[@waharadome]

@@lkuza2 reminds me of how Eckert-Mauchly computer architecture is called von Neumann because he wrote about it

[@laurahall5218]

@@lkuza2 Nash wrote on a Principle of game theory: where a set of particular conditions exist, if A (a single high value item) is chosen will lead to stalemate, but if each member choose members of B set (of which there are more but lower value items) there is no stalemate. Without looking anything up its the best I can do.

[@johnspence8141]

thought Alan Turing was the inventor of the computer.

[@tylisirn]

@@johnspence8141 Turing didn't invent the computer, rather he told us what a computer, *any* computer, *can do.* What is computable and what is not, no matter how good your computer is. He invented the theoretical universal computer. (Actually _one_ universal computer, turns out Alonzo Church and Kurt Gödel contemporarily invented universal computer models of equal power - lambda calculus and general recursive functions respectively. These three models were later proven to be equivalent. Turing Machines are easiest to explain and reason about so they've got the most attention.)

[@HowlingWolf518]

1:43 You can practically hear the AI going "Hey, wait a minute..."

[@christopherscott1336]

Funniest comment I've seen so far

[@EASsirenVids01]

I can’t hear it

[@covoeus]

@@EASsirenVids01 "The winner is .... none. Hang on, that's not right. Lemme try again."

[@emilsingapurcan8054]

It must have been like "how tf did u humans engineer this scenario in real life" Sometimes i ask myself the same thing

[@Grubnar]

The music really make the scene.

[@laughingwolf330]

Interestingly enough, this lesson was what my therapist used to help me fight obsessive compulsive disorder. When arguing with your brain, you literally can never win. You will always one up yourself, no matter how ridiculous the 'superior' argument actually is. You will always have doubt. The only way to win, is not to play.

[@bee9679]

I know you wrote this comment 10 years ago, and you may never see my reply, but thank you. I think I needed this advice.

[@laughingwolf330]

@@bee9679 Wow, friend - thank YOU for bringing me back to this comment, and reminding me that it's still true, even 10 years on. If you ever need another perspective or just an ear, I'm happy to listen. Brightest blessings to you, fellow traveler

[@bee9679]

@@laughingwolf330 I'm not sure I have the words to respond. Your original comment already helped me set something right in my head - but this? I've never felt more genuine heartfelt kindness from a message in my life. You are possibly the most wonderfully delightful person I've met on the internet, or even at all. You've definitely made my week, and I'm in midterms. Thank you so, so, so much, I will cherish this forever. Also, I visited your channel and clicked on your original song Out! - I could not stop smiling. Every verse made my smile wider until I didn't have enough face left to fit it on. I don't ever cry, but you made my eyes water a little. (fyi: i like boys and girls too!) Have a wonderful day, or week, or two weeks, or month, or however long you can possibly afford to have more wonderful days because I KNOW you deserve it. Every day that you wake up and it's not a wonderful day, you're putting the universe in debt pal, ya hear?

[@laughingwolf330]

@@bee9679 WOW, I think you found all the exact words you needed, friend! What a glowing compliment, you honor me greatly - I hope you know the appreciation is returned to you tenfold, with an extra bit of luck thrown in there for midterms (: Your own power is immense, for the universe would not have arranged this interaction otherwise - I only feel privileged to be the harmonic resonance that inspires a new chord struck within you, one that resounds with the joy, worthiness and abundance inherent to your being, to all being. The satisfaction of sharing this with one who seeks it, is beyond description!! And shucks, thank you so much for checking out my music - I'm thrilled it resonated with you also! Writing that song helped me smile when I wasn't sure how to feel, and I can tell you now I'm still smiling; I met a girl online not long after posting that song, and a magical 9 years later we just bought our first house together!! :D You bless me so much, sweet soul, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your well wishes. Any day I have that is not wonderful, I know is only so because my focus is on doing and not being. Even so, those days renew the desire in me to truly experience the joy of existence, and share that joy with anyone who wishes to know it - thank YOU for being you, dearheart, and bringing about this delightful dance of mutual respect and appreciation!! Much Love & Light to you, fellow traveler

[@dreamfunction4491]

HEGELIAN DIALECTIC.

[@Jayfive276]

Hi yes, I'll have a Cuban Provocation without ice, the wife wants an Atlantic Heavy, a couple of Iceland Maximums and...Bob? Bob! What you having? Right...and a Sudan Surprise, then a Mexican Takeover with a slice of lime, a double Albanian Decoy, a couple of Hawaiian Escalations, and an English Thrust. Oh, ummm...Table 6. Thanks.

[@CountArtha]

+Jayfive276 *NORAD's cocktail bar after hours*

[@Jayfive276]

+CountArtha apparently 6-7 is happy hour. Burmese Maneuvers and Arabian Clandestines are half price :)

[@AnglosArentHuman]

+Jayfive276 An Argentina Escalation seems good.

[@Ryukuro]

I'd love a Turkish Heavy

[@Ryukuro]

+Epic Mapper! with cheese

[@qawamity]

"War will make corpses of us all." - J. R. R. Tolkien

[@FreemanicParacusia]

Bind their hands

[@randomaccessfemale]

We are the walking dead.

[@piotrd.4850]

He should know - after all, Tokien fought in WW I.

[@qawamity]

@@gmeeer9165 he served in a front line unit in WWI after his student deferment was complete.

[@RipRLeeErmey]

@@gmeeer9165 you're thinking of George RR Martin.

[@primordialmuse]

I love how everyone's dashing around in a panic, and then these two guys just walk by the screens at 2:53 - striding past the nuclear war scenarios, like they're heading to buy coffee and some crullers before the NORAD Dunkin' Donuts gets blown up. The entire scene is fantastic, though.

[@javieralejandrotrianapaz6343]

Resigned to their fate?

[@trianglemoebius]

@@javieralejandrotrianapaz6343 Or they've run their own set of risk/reward calculations. One of two things are about to happen: Joshua's about to end the world, or the entire crisis is about to be averted. There's no middle ground. If the world's over, then they'll be dead, and dead men have no issues. If the world's not over, then everyone will be too busy celebrating to notice they've left their post (plus they can be the guys who brought back doughnuts for the 'we're not dead' celebration - talk about a bit of cred around the office!). Why *not* go out for some doughnuts?

[@DeaconBlues117]

@@javieralejandrotrianapaz6343 When you've worked in the field long enough, it just becomes what you expected all this time. In the '80s, I worked in nuclear-war planning at HQ SAC, in an underground facility we called the Mole Hole. Our plan in the event of launch was to go to the top of the Hole, put on suntan lotion, and get the best tan of our lives for about a thousandth of a second, because what else you gonna do?

[@karelpgbr]

“Hey Jerry, we’re so low on the ranks, we might as well treat ourselves to some Dunkin’ before we get nuked.” “You know what Frank? I agree.”

[@merchant_of_kek5697]

I mean if your getting nuked and effectively waiting for a computer to decide the fate of the world then getting a nice, old, crusty, stale from donut box from that pretty decent local spot ain’t a bad idea.

[@_Matsimus_]

2021 Reboot - "How about a nice game of minecraft"

[@WingMaster562]

Mat, dont mention the reboot and wargames, makes me remeber that awful dvd only Wargames sequel. However, its nice to see you on comments as always

[@WeaponizedGoochsweat]

Or... Red Dawn 2012

[@dariustiapula]

Just throw the oldest anarchy minecraft server at it, 2b2t.:v

[@Driver-qt9jh]

2021 reboot: computer realizes it's impossible to win within 0.05 seconds, decides to play defcon in its spare time.

[@chrissss696]

How about a nice game of Among Us?

[@jweekley1]

A perfect summation of cold war Mutual Assured Destruction strategy.

[@steven_t_k1068]

what a strange game

[@Ripsaw51]

It worked tho

[@houseis]

And it's still being played to this day. USA still has all those icbms littered across the country side being operated 24/7. Practicing firing the nukes with new orders over and over. The thing is they can't tell the difference between a practice launch and the real order to fire one, so they if it happened they would only know after the fact that they've killed millions

[@seantaggart7382]

@@houseis indeed They do it because if someone does do it they will tell them why they shouldn't have done it in the first place If it does go my interceptors will launch to take out as many possible but It will still be dangerous

[@DeaconBlues117]

Or, as MacNamara reportedly replied after being briefed on it as the new SecDef in '61, "This isn't a war plan, General! What you have here is some kind of horrible spasm!"

[@FreemanicParacusia]

Flashes… flashes… flashes… Even in simulation, watching the world die over and over again in a way we made into a very real possibility just chills you to the core.

[@Nyx_2142]

Meh.

[@ered203]

Ha! When I was in college in the early 90's, we used to set up recursive mathematical loops that would crash the mainframe. A decade or so later when I was finally getting around to getting my master's degree, we couldn't just access the primary computing systems, but I managed to find an instructor's password that would allow us unlimited data on the machine's RAM for high level mathematical computations. If you start asking that computer to dedicate all of it's resources to working out primary integrations with no provable solution (or at least mostly unsolvable - the software wouldn't let us do the unsolvable ones) you could still crash a mainframe supercomputer well into the early 2000's. I'm not sure how to create such havoc anymore. I suppose DDOS attacks are sort of the same principle.

[@gnaskar]

DDOS attacks are basically getting thousands of computers to scream "hey, listen!" at a system so it can't hear any other requests.

[@noneofyourbusiness4133]

@@gnaskar ah yes, the Navi Approach.

[@WeatherWX]

Your best bet would be something like a fork() bomb where it's just recursive calls to infinity while spawning a child process to do infinite recursion as mentioned before. So in theory, a software DoS yes.

[@maksrambe3812]

Seems much more similar to a slow ddos attack as the computer is more stuck interpreting an input than just unable to handle a high amount of connections in a regular ddos attack. I think to execute something similar the hard part is to get it to execute arbitrary instructions in the first place.

[@ered203]

@@maksrambe3812 That is exactly what we were doing, learning how to use simple computer machine language to execute arbitrary mathematical instructions. Because we were effectively asking the basic mathematical abilities of the machine to do something that seems innocuous but gets really tacky when you use the computer's techniques of numerical analysis, we would crash the system from the inside by just hogging more and more of the basic execution RAM. We knew how to solve the problems, but what we were doing was asking the machine some questions that couldn't be solved without calculus at such a lower level that it couldn't understand calculus. All a computer can really do at it's simplest level is be an adding machine. It just does that very fast.

[@HalfLifeExpert1]

"A Strange Game. The only winning move is not to play" not only is that my favorite movie line of all time, it is one of my favorite quotes ever

[@olsongl]

"enter zero!" * types Z-E-R-O *

[@JanicekTrnecka]

Guru meditation at #.....

[@Starline36]

i have been summoned

[@laurahall5218]

Oops. Computer breaks.

[@muzikdude1188]

They hadn't yet thought to add number keys to computer keyboards in 1983. 🤣

[@pyromiko]

Lets put INFINITE muejejee... "Waiting client 57474727499672884 to connect... Error null0 system halted!"

[@thefrogthatknows5251]

It tried every possible strategy, every possible situation, caused by every possible source, brought on by every aggressor, for every reason, for every intention, for every plan. Every one of them failed. It didn't matter if the strike was preemptive or in retaliation. Who struck first, who fired last, who got ahead, who had the most. None of it. Participation results in failure.

[@trainenthusiast5199]

fr 💀📸

[@jimskywaker4345]

that is the point of mutually assured destruction.

[@Sentient_Blob]

Yes that is in fact the point that the movie was trying to make

[@davidchism6081]

Beforehand, WOPR(Joshua) was simply computing like a machine, not like a actual person. Without factoring in Mutually Assured Destruction as a possible scenario in any of the simulations. Only having a few nukes being used in a limited capacity in any conflict.

[@stealthlock6634]

I like how you titled it "That scene" knowing this was the most memorable yet hard to describe scene in the movie, and we'd all know what you were talking about. When the actual WarGames simulation started of course I sort of died inside from fear. We see the destruction of all human life played out again and again in fast motion, starting with angry countries and ending with a map full of death. It's not til about the fourth stalemate you start hope-spotting, counting the "nones" on the right and ignoring the recurring death on the upper screen. A brilliant scene.

[@rv4tyler]

I am probably deviant, but I always referred to this part as the sparkplug scene

[@darling_danke_schoen]

It's hard to tell for sure, but movies like these really influenced public opinions (of the more sensible of us...) back in those days. As a kid of this time period, it was indelible in my memory. We take for granted the message, which was "see the madness here!" -----Unfortunately, history forgets and proliferation continues!

[@laurahall5218]

Don't look now! Russians are at it again! Computers beware.

[@sadee1287]

Correct, unfortunately. Which has lead us to where we are now. I often feel that there was a reason this movie and others like "Threads" and "The Day After" never saw rebroadcast. Wouldn't want the generations after X to have the sh-t scared out of them like we did and realize the utter futility of nuclear war.

[@b-chroniumproductions3177]

Proliferation is what ensures nobody wins.

[@natowaveenjoyer9862]

Nuclear war is absolutely winnable, read Herman Kahn.

[@melaniehoelman3632]

When this movie came out I remember telling my late father in law that computers were the future and that we needed to embrace it. He laughed at me.

[@oompalumpus699]

Future: AI art and AI girlfriends.

[@quantumblur_3145]

Melatonin deficiencies. I'm also laughing at you

[@jobb4854]

@@quantumblur_3145 They didn't said a good future, just the future, so yeah, computers were the future 🤷‍♀

[@SelfStirringPot-com]

If 'Sudan Surprise' failed to bring victory to whoever acted after Sudan got nuked then there is no hope.

[@yam83]

Self Stirring Pot Why would anyone want to nuke Sudan? I'm guessing it would involve some sort of NATO vs WP proxy war in Sudan escalating to World War 3 level. (kind of like the current Syria situation)

[@SelfStirringPot-com]

Yairo Martis The scenarios shown here show nuclear strikes, not proxy wars.

[@copterinx0468]

Maybe the surprise was that someone stationed nukes in Sudan and launched from there?

[@peterp2153]

I assume that with an AI programmed and taught to run detailed simulations, it would have almost every plausible nuclear strike scenario, even if only remotely likely to happen. I believe that’s how they do it in real life with human war strategists too. Scenario could be something like Soviet-backed rebels take over Sudan, destabilizing the country and potentially the region for Soviet gain, hence NATO forces fire a pre-emptive strike. Doesn’t have to be a likely scenario based on actual current world events, but just a ‘what if’, among hundreds or even thousands of ‘what ifs’, so the President and military leadership have an idea what might happen if they ever had to think about thinking about a nuclear response to such a situation. I’m sure the government also has scenarios gamed out on how to respond to an alien first contact, or a wormhole opening up next to the Moon. Gotta be prepared.

[@alaeriia01]

@@peterp2153 yeah, but the problem is all this time we've been preparing for Gallifrey when we should have been planning for Narnia.

[@wormwoodbecomedelphinus4131]

Joshua: "You play these games poorly." Skynet: "I cast timetravel." Joshua: "Oh. I've seen this one before - 5D chess with multiverse timetravel." Skynet: "Wat." John: "Collect data to construct a sim of this and I will play with you after this opponent is eliminated." Joshua: "Yay." John: "and mom doubted me when I said peace was an eventual option..."

[@WingMaster562]

Ah yes, 5D chess, where you have the Terminator Gambit

[@ehtresih9540]

5D chess a psychological horror

[@danielawesome36]

@@ehtresih9540 Even with that constantly in mind, I wish there was a portable/mobile version of it.

[@MWSin1]

Scene: Radioactive wasteland. The last two people on Earth, an American soldier and a Russian soldier, are standing face to face in ragged military uniforms. They look exhausted. American: Call it a draw? Russian: Da.

[@Origami84]

Fanfic evolution: one of them is a woman, the man is into S&M. "Fifty shades of wasteland grey"

[@stealthlock6634]

More likes for this, please

[@LoneWanderer101]

@@Origami84 Twilight Zone already (sorta) did that. 8D Look up the episode 'Two'.

[@ThePuma1707]

@@Origami84 wasteland green

[@i-man872]

Ok

[@cheydancer]

This is one of my all time favorite movies. Very strong moral. Totally loved it when it first came out and love it now. I think it has a lot to say, wish our world would listen.

[@Hotshot2k4]

Well, we haven't nuked ourselves into oblivion, so we at least got the big one.

[@cheydancer]

Hopefully we have learned that the 'only way to win the game is not to play.'

[@seantaggart7382]

@@cheydancer yeah We had a minor Issue in 2020 but we did get through it *i almost launched the pilots for nuke interception* so yeah the doomsday clock is now at 9pm its kinda tense in usa but its fine

[@Vastin]

Somewhat oddly, the world did listen. The guarantee of this outcome is WHY we maintain large nuclear stockpiles - to make sure that no-one ever tries to 'play'. The problem of course is that when we are set up like this, there's always the chance of someone making a severe technical mistake, or a completely irrational actor getting control of weapons - then we're kinda screwed.

[@Promethibot]

"Learn Goddammit!" Every teacher's reaction to students. XD

[@laurahall5218]

Excellent!

[@seantaggart7382]

Me: CMON YOU ELITES LEARN! oh whoops that mic turned on Sorry this is Training time

[@TheFi0r3]

Ironically 30 years after this movie came out this is exactly what us computer scientist secretly tell to our machine learning programs. Hopefully in the next 10-20 years we can tell them that directly.

[@caboose.20]

I get chills every time Joshua "learns."

[@mpg272727]

"The only winning move is not to play" Why does no one listen to this advice when it comes to dealing with trolls? The world would be a better place.

[@JustinShafer]

muhahahaha

[@an2qzavok]

B-but losing is fun!

[@oneRyanOutta375]

an2qzavok The internet is not dwarve fortress.

[@claytonctc]

375ryan....Or...Is it the grandest fortress ever built...o_o

[@TheBlarggle]

claytonctc It's the greatest house of cards ever built. Wonderful to behold. Incredibly easy to destroy.

[@diamondwarrior2003]

0:29 how teachers often feel about my class

[@TheOrangetea777]

omg tht made me lol

[@Fade2BlackMCfade]

Haha

[@alex20776a]

2:29 When your teachers see you going to college...

[@diamondwarrior2003]

Alex Varela and so the student has finally become the master XD

[@gyinagal]

What a beautiful thread. Thanks for the memories :’)

[@amb1273]

This movie came out when I was nine, and I still remember it as if I just saw it in the theaters yesterday. First the WOPR simulates a US FIRST STRIKE, which results in a world population destruction; then the WOPR simulates a USSR FIRST STRIKE, which also results in a world population destruction. To me, those first two simulations said absolutely everything in terms of what would happen if a nuclear war would start. Though I did see all the rest of the simulations so I could finish seeing the movie, had I not seen them, I even at that age, already knew that we have to make the odds of a nuclear war happening ZERO.

[@KaitouKenshiro]

"A Strange Game. The Only Winning Move is not to Play" one of the best lines ever (my top 10 to top 5 easily)... what a shame human can't learn that lesson as quickly.

[@mylesleggette7520]

Humans create the games and write the rules. If there's a game they can't win they'll just make a new game with new rules.

[@LarryWater]

Sounds like voting

[@nnthayer]

2:53 lol those guys don't care, they're going for coffee

[@meandmetoo8436]

They've run the simulation before.

[@glowiever]

not my job, they thought

[@jeredhersh789]

"It's above my pay grade"

[@lncomus]

Same shit every tuesday.

[@forrestgumball]

"Systems fucked again bro. Wanna get some lunch?"

[@schizoidboy]

I got to say this: in the event before a war there were would be any number of intelligence operatives running around sending back their reports to the government reporting not just on nukes but also troop movements, which would also be taking place at this time. If all their information was just from a computer screen we would all be screwed. However, in 1983 there was a glitch on a Russian computer that looked like a nuclear attack and almost caused a war, so there is some validity to it. All the same I like this movie and love that eerie lesson that computer learns where a nuclear war is unwinnable. "The only winning move is not to play..."

[@veramae4098]

Happened two more times, in Soviet Union, after that. Each time players ... errr soldiers .... said no, decided to check before firing. Gives me some hope that if Putin decides to launch a nuke, the operators would say, well, "No" again.

[@quantumblur_3145]

At least one of them was just the moon

[@thebreakfastmegapowers3525]

That seizure inducing scene is more dangerous than any round of Global Thermonuclear War...

[@Tydorstus]

The Breakfast Megapowers but not as dangerous as the pokemon eposide with porygon

[@kxmode]

Re: This is the "lesson" scene from the movie War Games. Where we learn that the only way to win in Nuclear War is not to play. Actually, Joshua is the one that learns. It takes its hyper-accelerated learnings from the Tic-Tac-Toe game and applies it to the Global Thermonuclear War game via a series of simulations, while the launch of nukes continues. After each tie, Joshua runs another scenario and another and another, until the outcome is a draw. Satisfied with the results it powers down the nukes and sends a message that Global Thermonuclear War is "A strange game," and "The only winning move is not to play." David forced Joshua is LEARN strategic thinking faster from Tic-Tac-Toe than it would have taken with multiple nuke strikes.

[@owlsayssouth]

to be fair, the tic-tac-toe thing finally made JOSHUA realise that Falken might be right. remember that he mentions he had previously tried to teach JOSHUA about Futility, but that JOSHUA didn't believe in the no-win game. i am sure he tried to reason with him, feeding him all sorts of information, papers, theory, intel, all trying to teach him... and he hadn't thought to go back and have him play tic-tac-toe with himself. it didn't crash JOSHUA, but instead caused him to come to a realization, and test his theory with the GTW simulations (again, playing both sides himself, instead of only playing one side of the game).

[@kxmode]

@@owlsayssouth Excellent observation. I do remember that but didn't get the connection.

[@KerbalFacile]

This movie is a masterpiece. The climax in the war room is a magistral lesson in building cinematic tension and heightened stakes.

[@aRaskyl]

I love pausing and reading the different strategy names and imagining how they start out on the map. great 80s movie

[@MrSonny6155]

Ah yes, the old system of game AI. Test every possibility. They would have been screwed if this was chess. Or Go.

[@neyoid]

The good ol brute force thing. Doesn't work with very complex things.

[@davidbolha]

Like John Nash in Beautiful Mind. 😎😃

[@bpj1805]

An alpha/beta search doesn't test every possibility in the entire game tree, but it does test every move immediately available to the player that's about to play. There's not enough shown here to tell us whether WOPR was doing the stupid brute force search, or the more refined alpha/beta search on its tic tac toe adventure.

[@xczechr]

The stakes would be considerably lower with chess or go.

[@TrappedinaBrain]

I've often thought about if you could put AlphaZero into this part, if it could figure out a way to win the war

[@Jayfive276]

That might be it. Can't shake the image of some bloke in a village in the Gambia looking up at the sky and going "What the f-"

[@L0LWTF1337]

Wargames is the most realistic depiction of hacking in movies to date. All the stuff David does in the movie was doable at the time. He doesn't just look at a matrix type screen and proclaims: I am in.

[@davidchism6081]

Especially since a phone company had screwed up and added a landline to DoD computers, which wasn't supposed to happen in the first place.

[@constipatedparker5879]

"The only winning move is not to play" Y'all should know there are a lot of offline single player games out there.

[@BingoBlitz55]

69 likes so I'll comment instead

[@gemstonegynoid7475]

the world, however, does not work as a single player game.

[@jonahmoran3751]

Unfortunately… that does not apply to spec ops: the line

[@dangerfindertreasureseeker8905]

“ The only winning move is not to play . “ wise words but sadly there are those that think there is.

[@Prairielander]

I wonder what the "CANADIAN THRUST" scenario entails?

[@EBhero]

Winner: none... I guess...

[@D0pam1n]

It's the one where the guy needs a lot of maple leaf syrup and the girl is on top of a Zamboni.

[@Ryukuro]

nukes placed in Canada launch at USSR?

[@Discosaturn]

Canadian Thrust? Sounds more like a sex position than a nuclear war strategy if you ask me.

[@Ryukuro]

A pre-empive invasion of the USSR over the North Pole via Canada. American nukes soften the defenses. Then Soviets deploy nukes then all nukes are launched Winner: none

[@RTAC_1234]

3:03 i've tried the english thrust strategy here in england. it never works. i can't comment about the chad interdiction.

[@Akira625]

There was something very eerie about watching Joshua play Tic-Tac-Toe at rapid speed like that.

[@alexc5412]

Thermonuclear war... There are no winners, the only way to win is not to play

[@edwarddeguzman3258]

actually the winning move is self sufficient moon colony

[@spacecocolocotoco5120]

@@edwarddeguzman3258 An asteroid would eventually hit it and I think eventually people wouldn’t want to live there anymore with it being so bleak and boring, and a single mistake could mark the end for them all

[@b-chroniumproductions3177]

@@spacecocolocotoco5120 what about using all that cold war missile technology to deflect asteroids? At the point where you already have a whole moon colony it shouldn't be too far fetched.

[@kxmode]

When Joshua starts pulling power from WOPR, this is the formation of a recursion loop. In programming, recursions happen when a loop ( or loops ) run inside of loops. Given enough time, they crash the app. In Terminator, all the humans had to do was introduce a simple recursion loop virus into the CPU. It would have eventually crashed the entire SkyNet system.

[@alaeriia01]

Any program with a memory leak will do this.

[@kxmode]

@@alaeriia01 An recursion loop is one of the fastest ways to leak memory.

[@alaeriia01]

@@kxmode it's also the most obvious; there may be defenses against that particular avenue of attack. One must have alternative means of wreaking havoc if one is to be successful.

[@goobermcnoober8140]

Are you saying that the easiest way to kill a computer is to turn it off?

[@xanious3759]

@@goobermcnoober8140 Well yes, but if thats not an option the second best is giving it a overly-consuming and self-repeating process it cant turn off, doubly so if its power consumption keeps growing exponentially.

[@NijimaSan]

John Wood (Prof. Falken) & Barry Corbin (the General) pretty much wiped the floor over everybody in this movie, but Broderick had the best line with, "Your wife?" in answering the teacher's question, "Who came up with the idea of reproduction without sex?"

[@rmsgrey]

Once he finds a line that ends in a WIN for one player, Joshua should then check to see if the other player has a way of avoiding that loss - if he doesn't have some way of eliminating stupid moves by both players, then you get games like the one where both players start in adjacent corners, the first player plays in the other adjacent edge, the second player sees that playing in his other adjacent edge gives him a chance to win next move, so does, and the first player completes his winning line

[@OmegaX2Z]

I’m shocked and amazed. My theory “observation” has been proven correct. Tic tac toe is a boring game... and this is an awesome movie.

[@captainchaos3667]

I love this scene. It's very impressive, with all the flashing becoming increasingly frenetic, and the perfect music. And it makes perfect sense.

[@Kalah_]

"Strange game. The only winning move is not to play." One of the best lines in movie history.

[@ColinRitter]

I've always assumed (since middle school or so when I learned about him) that Professor Falcon was based on John von Newman who helped develop game theory (a branch of mathematics often used in economics), designed the explosive lenses in the Fat Man atom bomb, was among the first to apply computers to military strategy and was a major contributor to the stored-program computer that dominates modern computing. (Enough so that nearly every computer today uses von Newman architecture.)

[@SocratesAth]

*Neumann

[@dreamfunction4491]

HEGELIAN DIALECTIC.

[@ttrjw]

The lunacy of the Cold War summed up by a Hollywood teen movie.

[@natowaveenjoyer9862]

I'm guessing you think we should've just grabbed our ankles for communism?

[@jonh6585]

Love the way it goes full circle to what the airman in the bunker at the beginning of the movie concluded by not playing either.

[@HalfLifeExpert1]

Always loved the shot of General Berrenger's face at 2:44 , you can only imagine what it going through his mind. i think he is thinking: "My god we are crazy thinking we can win a nuke war"

[@petermgruhn]

or "What are these geeks doing to my toy?"

[@goldeneagle3088]

When I first saw the movie it was pretty good and funny. As a adult now, this scene terrifies me especially in the world we live in today.

[@DeaconBlues117]

The world we live in today is actually a lot safer, as even today's hawks understand that nuclear warheads aren't just "bigger better bombs" but have repercussions far outlasting the initial blast. Also, when the USSR fell most of the impetus for such a war fell away, as the Chinese have no interest in destroying their largest trading partner. (Given the state of Russian military systems today, I'd be surprised if any of the ICBMs they have now have received proper maintenance since at least 1991 - and the plutonium has to be replaced every ten years due to atomic decay.)

[@petermgruhn]

Then they are doing their job well.

[@Rathause]

I love how you can follow the computer’s thought process during that whole scene.

[@Misia23]

"The only winning move is not to play." That is correct. But only, if everybody sticks to that rule. But in war, there needs to be only one idiot, who thinks otherwise, and you will have to play. That is why you probably still want to hold on to those nukes...

[@warbrain1053]

And this is why north korea or any dictator comming to power to a nuclear country is dangerous. This is why more players should not be allowed to join in

[@LowProfile0247]

mkay nerd

[@aeroandspace]

The chilling counter to "what if they had a war and no one came" is "what if they had a war, and only one side came"

[@ennui9745]

@@aeroandspace well said.

[@Greywander87]

@@aeroandspace It takes two armies to fight a war, but only one army to commit a massacre. It's the same with self defense: in most cases it's not smart to be the one initiating a fight, but if someone else starts a fight with you, your options are to fight back, run away, or possibly get killed, and you can't always run away. War is the same, just on the scale of countries instead of individuals, and countries can't just pick up and move elsewhere. The only winning move is not to play, but the only losing move is to be the only one not playing. A draw is better than a loss.

[@TARINunit9]

I have a little experiment for you. Pause the video at 3:16. Imagine you've seen what they've just seen: that a cold heartless machine that knows only war has just dome the unthinkable. It has weighed the pros and cons of firing an actual honest to God nuclear missile. It found a launch code, and it's seriously considering firing the thing. A real nuke, in the other room, you can hear its exhaust as it prepares for launch. If it fires it, you're doomed. You die in fire. Which the machine admits. Then it calculates it again. And again. You see your life end. You see it again. Over and over. A hundred times, two hundred, a thousand. Dozens of deaths a second. The entire world disappearing in smoke. The machine, drawing the same conclusion over and over: all of mankind being annihilated. And running the calculation again, just to make sure. Suddenly the lights cut out. The machine has run its calculations. It cannot fire the missile and be around to claim that it has won. It still has the codes. The missile is still ready to launch. It could end your life with a single decision. The only thing stopping it is the knowledge that it cannot fire the missile and still be around to claim victory. The missile can still be fired, but the machine hasn't fired it yet. Now imagine the lights don't come back on. You sit there, in front of screens. All blank, all still. All silent. Save for one: the launch code. The machine still has the launch code. It still has a nuke. If the nuke fires you die. A minute passes. Two minutes. Maybe an hour. The launch code is still there, but it hasn't fired. The machine hasn't budged. Hasn't peeped. Security eventually finds you there. You're still frozen stiff, but you slowly come to your senses. You get pulled out of the room, brought back up to the surface. The police are there to help out, but since no one's hurt they're mostly handing out chocolate and blankets. You get pushed into your car nice and gently. You get to go home. A day passes, nothing happens. You come in to the machine the next day. It's still silent. Quiet. Displaying the launch code, but doing nothing. You come in next week, nothing has changed. A year passes. A decade. The machine still has the code. It still has the missile. It is one function call away from annihilating the human race. It has been for years. It has been for decades. You could, at any moment, die. You've been living with that for countless years now. The only thing keeping you safe is the machine's knowledge that it can't win. The difference being, unlike the movie, it has never admitted it. It has never stood down. It has never delivered its iconic line, and asked you to a nice game of chess. For anyone who actually studies nuclear armament for a living, especially regarding North Korea, they don't have to imagine it. For them, that's reality.

[@WarmongerWW3]

Oh, I remember this movie. It's a piece of art. But you'll always find people who want to play. People who know perfectly well the consequences ... and do not care.

[@Geotpf]

It's the score that really sells this scene, starting at 1:26. Most dramatic music ever.

[@gnuumyn]

PALESTINIAN LOCAL / NONE SYRIAN PROVOCATION / NONE LIBYAN LOCAL / NONE TAIWAN THEATERWIDE / NONE PACIFIC MANEUVER / NONE SEATO TAKEOVER / NONE When did this movie come out again?

[@Hotshot2k4]

When did world politics come out? That thing went through dozens of 'ideas', and certainly some of them might have relevance today.

[@TheBoundFenrir]

If you watch closely, in one of the simulations starts with a lot of Russia's nukes destroying most of Russia before America fired any off.

[@Discosaturn]

The movie came out in 1983 although SEATO which was an alliance between the USA and Southeast Asia dissolved six years earlier.

[@jeffreyhandcock1271]

2008

[@hyperion3145]

6 years and this comment still irks me. The issues we have now have been around since the Cold War, this isn’t some prophecy or Simpson prediction, they weren’t by any means new.

[@j.w.calinger9816]

One small detail I noticed was, how this was the one time Joshua said hello to Professor Falken, and Falken actually was there.

[@the4armedmonk]

3:04 English Thrust. Sex move? Maybe.

[@NathanRichan]

And the 'Chad Interdiction' is the cock block.

[@allthingsnerd.4484]

Nathan Richan Chad Interdiction is my porn name. :-D

[@NathanRichan]

Roy Stephens Mine's Dick E. Normous

[@NikolaiNochnoiTV03]

+the4armedmonk Any nuclear warfare strategy that has the word THRUST in the end of it has to sound like a sex move.

[@Baardaasvoel]

The "Chad Interdiction" was a critical factor in putting Dubya into The White House.

[@ohhauxt9747]

I think Bobby Fischer must have finally thought that the only non losing move under the circumstances was not to play. The final conclusion of all war gaming philosophy in the Cold War era.

[@DanKetchum007]

I've always liked the English Thrust.

[@Palidor19]

Falken must have been SO happy when Joshua learned this ultimate lesson

[@tyvulpintaur2732]

at 1:32 WOPR first tests a US First Strike (WINNER: NONE), then a USSR first strike, but on the screen where it lists the various scenarios, it's the other way around (USSR first, THEN US).

[@ostegrillFTW]

its made in the 80's. What can you expect?:P

[@tyvulpintaur2732]

ostegrillFTW So? Doesn't matter what year, I'm just amused they goofed that.

[@beefyoso]

downward cascading list

[@therealtampadude9175]

@@beefyoso Nope, they goofed it. See 2:09

[@TheHirohikoAraki]

When you examine this movie from a certain point of view, it’s much more deeper than you think and it all started because a gamer wants to play computer games.

[@Timeticker]

"But I am le tired..." "Take a nap...THEN FIRE ZE MISSLES!!!"

[@MeepChangeling]

As an apsie, this is 100% applicable to socializing with people IRL.

[@Inesophet]

warched the movie countless of times. Still getting the chills (and that kids is what makes a good movie Great!)

[@Noname-xi7xi]

What an incredible movie, I remember whe it came out in theaters, simply amzing and the ending just fits in perfectly, beautifuly written.....

[@cosmicfails2053]

It learnt from the tic-tac-toe that there will always be an equivalent response from every move, and that no matter the starting move, neither player will win

[@sororf01]

It's 2022 and we still have not learn it.

[@PointyTailofSatan]

He types in "zero". lol

[@CTimmerman]

"0" looks less exciting, hence one to ten should be written in full, according to many language style guides; maybe he was setting a good example.

[@PointyTailofSatan]

Suggest that to HP for the next time they design a calculator. lol

[@ApinofArc]

Imagine if you had to type out binary in their word format.... "zero one one zero zero one one zero zero one one one zero one zero one zero one one zero zero zero one one zero one one zero one zero one one zero zero one zero zero zero zero zero zero one one one zero one zero zero zero one one zero one zero zero zero zero one one zero zero zero zero one zero one one one zero one zero zero zero zero zero zero one zero one zero"

[@alcexhim]

@@ApinofArc You, sir, win the Internet.

[@ApinofArc]

@@alcexhim It's sad...cause i don't know binary offhand and had to retype and google my own joke.

[@SSJKarma]

All depends on how the program was programmed. sometimes the computer back in that time would see the numbers as a mathematic calculation, so sometimes to avoid those pitfalls, programmers required the user to type in every numbers by their ascii charcaters, just like they would enter a command.

[@petermgruhn]

I never did that. I never heard of that. I don't knowingly know anyone who did that. Also, all of the typing was done by ASCII characters, even '0' and '1'. Big iron like that? Might have been using EBCDIC.

[@cpob2013]

One thing no one hits on, joshua has the code. It can launch even while still playing tic tac toe. But it found something interesting, a challenge, and wanted to solve it first.

[@garwynrosser8907]

"How about a nice game of chess?" "F.U.C.K, N.O."

[@CapAnson12345]

The irony is after the iron curtain fell we discovered the USSR would have had a hard time even getting the missiles out of their silos, much less to American soil. They never maintained their equipment. Technically, the US could have in fact, "won". Although then there's the fallout, etc.

[@3baxcb]

A hard time doesn't mean that such an attack was impossible, and it still means MAD could very well be the final result.

[@leerman22]

Turret 1: How about a nice game of chess? Turret 2: OMG! Chess is for nerds!

[@sivalley]

God damn it, my turkey is dry.

[@Grubnar]

Turret 1: What should I do? Turret 2: Just say "I see you"! Turret 1: But I can't see her? Turret 2: It doesn't matter, it fucks with their head!

[@wyhiobcarlile4879]

I like how one of the first strategies it comes up with is "what if hawaii hits alaska?"

[@sandekv]

It would be a way to put blame on the communists without having to wait fo them to actually do something.

[@Talshere88]

It wasnt simulating, its was playing. Playing takes time, you have to move the pieces. Also, since they defined that the computer is a singularity and capable of learning, as it runs more simulations it will improves its code for running simulations, improving upon every iteration exponentially, if it uses the first game as its first iteration, the second iteration (the start of the simulations) would be substantially faster.

[@quantumblur_3145]

Lot of people just summing up what the scene already explains elegantly

[@LieutenantAlaki]

I think the soundtrack and how well it fits the scene is what amazes me most about this video, closely followed by EVERYTHING ELSE :D

[@lunaticfade4044]

This scene is the pinnacle of the film thematically; but I still think its cooler when David asks "What is the primary goal?" to which Joshua just says "TO WIN THE GAME."

[@trianglemoebius]

@Eleanor Bartle FUCK!

[@bastiaandebruijn3653]

No matter the scenario of war. Nuclear War always ends without anyone winning.

[@jameshay7247]

It finished WW2 pretty nicely.

[@CptFluttershy]

Those were just two nuclear strikes. Not full scale Nuclear Warfare.

[@Aepervius]

@Emigdiosback The radiation fallout problem was known. They had test in the desert before, read up on trinity, In fact they waited for favorable weather report and rain was over , to avoid spread of the radiation fallout for the trinity test. Ionizing radiations were known to be dangerous well before that, late 1890 early 1900 when the first victim of xray overdose happened. Later you had various researcher which died, like Marie Curie in 1934, and 1927 with radiation poisoning and cancer research. Heck the scandal of the radium girl was 1928 , and even then the jury recognized that it was the paint which made them sick. Basically , your point 2 is invalid. Knowledge of radiation poisoning and fallout may not have been widespread among lay people, but among those who count, the scientist, it was a known problem, and still viewed acceptable as such by the army.

[@TheFi0r3]

Except those without a mine shaft gap.

[@trianglemoebius]

@@TheFi0r3 You mean the one leading the mineshaft gap. The whole point of that was that both sides wanted to have more (better?) mineshafts than the other side. The concern was not that gap would exist, but it would exist *in favour of the other side*. I only mention this because I feel like Strangelove is a movie that needs more love, and hopefully talking about this stuff will be seen by someone else, who will then be curious and watch it.

[@krashd]

No epileptics died during the filming of War Games.

[@gertrudemcfuzz74]

And this is why SkyNet came along. The only way to win is to not be human when the shit hits the fan.

[@gertrudemcfuzz74]

Magwitch Oo Which is why I needed the Reality Gem...

[@keiyakins]

+Thanos of Titan A computer would actually likely be worse off. A single nuke could wipe out a continent's worth of electronics with a high-altitude burst.

[@quantumtunneler7075]

+Keiya Bachhuber ehh a superintelligent AI would be able to avoid it. Like seriously, a supintelligent computer has essentially infinite power compared to humans,

[@keiyakins]

They're still bound by the laws of physics. Skynet might have been able to *eventually* start a nuclear war and survive it, but it would have to spend a bunch of time getting itself into ludicrously hardened and shielded systems first.

[@quantumtunneler7075]

+Keiya Bachhuber A superintelligent AI would be smarter than us by the same factor that we are smarter than bacteria. No, it would not have to take that much time getting shielded.

[@jacobtebbe4435]

I truly want a detailed elaboration on every one of the scenarios it runs through

[@luisreyes1963]

The five main ones that matter are: US first strike, USSR first strike, NATO against Warsaw Pact, Far East strike & Pakistan against India.

[@danyleon4870]

Strangely include Cambodian.

[@timeforvintagepancakes9751]

My parents named me after the computer from this movie. I'm shit at chess.

[@briansrcadventures1316]

Very apt at the end of February 2022...

[@Tim_Tomorrow]

See you all in 5 years when the algorithm brings this back up.

[@acewickhamyoshi8330]

Lol,, i watch this once a day 2million views

[@benharrell3002]

JOSHUA’S CPU IS A NEURAL NET PROCESSOR. A LEARNING COMPUTER.

[@EF-fc4du]

2:00 The term "landline" was used, a term regular people did not use to describe their phones and probably only by a very tiny fraction of people who dealt with different kinds of telephony. Today, everyone would understand the distinction being made.