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What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

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Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#51

Post by tomalpha »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #17

I'm currently living in Japan. So obviously I have a plan for nuclear war. First, I'm going to press send on the doomsday draft which is sitting in my e-mail. Second, I'm going to go to youtube and play "We all go together" by Tom Leher. Third, I got a bottle sitting in my desk that I'm going to pop open. Presumably I'll be in the office at the time so one final round with the coworkers. The people in this article se…

> I'm currently living in Japan. So obviously I have a plan for nuclear war.

I can't tell whether this is meant seriously or not, but assuming it's serious, I'm genuinely curious as to why this is "obvious"? Is this historical (Hiroshima/Nagasaki) or due to current political tensions?

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#52

Post by harryh »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #17

I'm currently living in Japan. So obviously I have a plan for nuclear war. First, I'm going to press send on the doomsday draft which is sitting in my e-mail. Second, I'm going to go to youtube and play "We all go together" by Tom Leher. Third, I got a bottle sitting in my desk that I'm going to pop open. Presumably I'll be in the office at the time so one final round with the coworkers. The people in this article se…

What's in your doomsday draft? "I love you" and such to friends and family or also more practical concerns?

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#53

Post by harryh »

herbst wrote: post #44
brndnmtthws wrote: post #2

I live in New York City and I felt a small degree of panic when the reports showed up on Twitter. However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, es…

> However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". Why? What really surprises me the most is that this seems to be a common thought. Did that happen before? Do you simply misstrust your government so deeply that you can not even assume something important like this is done right? Really if i would get such a message on my phone (not even sure if my country does that) i would de…

Bayesian reasoning. Most positive tests for unlikely events are false positives.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#54

Post by true_religion »

herbst wrote: post #44
brndnmtthws wrote: post #2

I live in New York City and I felt a small degree of panic when the reports showed up on Twitter. However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, es…

> However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". Why? What really surprises me the most is that this seems to be a common thought. Did that happen before? Do you simply misstrust your government so deeply that you can not even assume something important like this is done right? Really if i would get such a message on my phone (not even sure if my country does that) i would de…

I felt the same way, but its not because I distrusted the government. The situation didn't feel like one wherein nuclear missiles would start being fired (or any missiles of any kind).

There's got to be some sort of build up before a conflict before it can't catch people in shock (hence the rational of actual surprise-attacks).

If tomorrow you read that Canada had invaded New York City, would you believe it instantly out of trust for your news agencies and government, or think that perhaps someone somewhere screwed up or was making a silly joke?

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#56

Post by brndnmtthws »

herbst wrote: post #44
brndnmtthws wrote: post #2

I live in New York City and I felt a small degree of panic when the reports showed up on Twitter. However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, es…

> However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". Why? What really surprises me the most is that this seems to be a common thought. Did that happen before? Do you simply misstrust your government so deeply that you can not even assume something important like this is done right? Really if i would get such a message on my phone (not even sure if my country does that) i would de…

For me it's 2 things:

1) it seems incredibly unlikely, and

2) these systems haven't really been tested adequately for me to have much confidence in their utility.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#57

Post by true_religion »

bvod wrote: post #7

I find it really annoying that top two articles on HN are completely separate from engineering. Since when have posts from news sources been able to not just make it to the front page, but dominate the front page? Years ago, coming to this site helped me to become an engineer and changed the way I think about problems. But now I don't get that, and instead get plenty of feel-good articles and useless posts that don't…

That's the thing... you've become a good engineer already so you can't get anything out of low hanging fruit anymore.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#58

Post by MicroBerto »

politelemon wrote: post #43

> and an employee pushed the wrong button I would assume that was how it was explained to the governor, and that the actual system is software based (right?) - there couldn't possibly be an actual physical 'ballistic missile alert' button right next to the 'shift change' button. In which case, the triggering of this alert is probably a bit more complex. However, this is treated as a sensitive system so there likely w…

They are clearly lying, that much is certain.

The question is why, and there are far too many rabbit holes to go down for this one. For now I'll just settle for "bad people stirring things up for terrible reasons".

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#59

Post by tome »

herbst wrote: post #44
brndnmtthws wrote: post #2

I live in New York City and I felt a small degree of panic when the reports showed up on Twitter. However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, es…

> However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". Why? What really surprises me the most is that this seems to be a common thought. Did that happen before? Do you simply misstrust your government so deeply that you can not even assume something important like this is done right? Really if i would get such a message on my phone (not even sure if my country does that) i would de…

Hawaii does not seem like a plausible target for a nuclear missile.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#60

Post by gdubs »

ashleyn wrote: post #14
brndnmtthws wrote: post #2

I live in New York City and I felt a small degree of panic when the reports showed up on Twitter. However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, es…

Growing up I got the impression that a fallout shelter was a purpose-specific room deep underground. So every time I saw the "Fallout Shelter" sign on a building, I figured it was built with one of these "secret underground rooms". Think dedicated, locked stairwell that goes a thousand feet underground; after all, that's how it was pictured in my "Way Things Work" book. When we went to the bank, it was something of a…

Off-topic, but if the book you’re referring to was the How It Works encyclopedia set, that was how I also learned about everything. My grandpa gave the set to me, and it included an incredible amount of material - illustrated and fascinating for a wide range of ages (this was long before we had internet). It is how I also learned about nuclear weapons, though I don’t specifically recall fallout shelters.
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