General Theory of Nuclear Weapons Corpus
A broader account of what the nuclear structure does to the world
The General Theory takes the next step beyond Nuclear Singularity Theory. It asks a larger question: if nuclear weapons have become a single structure rather than a collection of separate devices, what follows from that? What kind of world does that structure produce, and how does it shape the behavior of the people living inside it?
The answer is not limited to weapons or deterrence. The Nuclear Weapons Corpus influences how states think, how institutions act, how risks interact, and even what counts as serious action. It becomes part of the underlying structure of modern life.
This work is nearing completion and is projected for release in June.
One of the central claims of the General Theory is that what people usually call “nuclear war” has never actually taken place.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were catastrophic and decisive, but they occurred at the end of a conventional war. They reveal something important, but they are not what later doctrine came to describe as nuclear war.
In that sense, humanity has been living inside the structure of nuclear war without ever fully entering the thing that is constantly being modeled and anticipated.
That raises a practical question: if we develop a general theory of the Nuclear Weapons Corpus, what do we do with it?
The answer is not simply policy. It has to do with entering the same level of modeled reality where governments and military systems have already been operating for decades.
The official world already runs on scenarios, simulations, and strategic abstractions. It does not just describe a possible nuclear future; it rehearses one.
If that is the case, then people need some way to enter that same level of thinking, rather than remaining outside of it.
This is where N-LARPS comes in.
N-LARPS — Nuclearistic Live Action Role Playing — is a way of engaging that same level of symbolic and strategic space. If the system operates through models and scenarios, then one response is to create forms where people can begin working within that same field.
It is a way of stepping into the game that has already been underway.
KardtricK is one example of this.
It creates a structured form of symbolic play using an ordinary deck of cards, training memory, dreaming, and long-range thinking in a way that connects back to the nuclear condition.
But the idea goes back further.
My first N-LARP was in 1986, with Save Madonna from Nuclear War, Inc.
That project moved nuclear war out of its usual abstract setting and into a public, symbolic form. Looking back, it was an early version of the same move.
N-LARPS is the broader framework. KardtricK is one developed form of it.