Peter Thiel

Factual · Other global risks

“And then you end up building not dozens but thousands and thousands of them in the 60s and 70s.”

Peter Thiel, interviewee · 18 November 2024 · Apocalypse Now? Peter Thiel On Ancient Prophecies And Modern Tech (Hoover Institution)

Thousands of nuclear weapons, not just dozens, were built in the 1960s and 1970s.

Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

Judge against historical nuclear stockpile data. True: during the 1960s and 1970s the nuclear powers (mainly the US and USSR) built thousands of nuclear weapons, so stockpiles reached the thousands or tens of thousands. Mostly true: thousands were built, but a large share of the build-up happened just outside those decades (e.g. the late 1950s) so the dating is slightly off. Mostly false: weapons in the thousands existed but mostly had been built before 1960. False: production in those decades was only in the dozens or hundreds.

Evidence

1. History of the U.S. Nuclear Stockpile 1945-2013 Federation of American Scientists (Robert S. Norris, Public Interest Report, Summer 2013) · August 2013

   “The historic high of the U.S. stockpile was reached in 1967 with 31,255 nuclear warheads.”

2. History of the U.S. Nuclear Stockpile 1945-2013 Federation of American Scientists (Robert S. Norris, Public Interest Report, Summer 2013) · August 2013

   “By my estimation, the United States has produced approximately 66,500 nuclear weapons from 1945 to mid-2013, of approximately 100 types.”

3. History of the U.S. Nuclear Stockpile 1945-2013 Federation of American Scientists (Robert S. Norris, Public Interest Report, Summer 2013) · August 2013

   “This stockpile, beginning in the mid-1950s, has been characterized by great dynamism and turnover.”

4. U.S. Reveals Nuclear Force Plan, Arsenal Levels Arms Control Association · 4 June 2010

   “According to those figures, the U.S. stockpile reached its peak in 1967, at 31,255. It declined gradually thereafter to 19,008 in 1991,”

Reasoning

E1 and E4 show the U.S. stockpile peaked in 1967 at 31,255 warheads and stayed in the tens of thousands as it slowly declined afterward. That means the U.S. stockpile from 1967 through the 1970s was in the tens of thousands, not dozens [E1][E4]. Because the peak came in 1967, the build-up continued well into the 1960s. E2 adds that the U.S. built about 66,500 weapons from 1945 to 2013. This is consistent with the criteria's 'true' standard, although the evidence gives stockpile levels rather than production by decade. The evidence does not give the size of the stockpile in the late 1950s, so it cannot show whether much of the build-up came before 1960.

Cite this claim

Peter Thiel, “Thousands of nuclear weapons, not just dozens, were built in the 1960s and 1970s.” (said 18 November 2024). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_13f87fcf4ec0, method 0.1.0+3e03e2df. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_13f87fcf4ec0