Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 381 posts

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

#261

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

wbl wrote: post #178
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…

You can survive a nuclear war. People survived very close to the hyoocenter of Hiroshima, even without warning or knowing about fallout.

You can survive a single small nuclear explosion if you're a comfortable distance from it and/or happen to be underground and protected.

Your odds of still being alive five years after a full scale war are tiny, unless you have your own concrete bunker a long way from any likely targets, and it's conveniently equipped with a near-infinite supply of water, food, livestock, seeds, farming equipment, and fuel.

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

#262

Post by hateduser2 »

rdiddly wrote: post #245
hateduser2 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you call those things assumptions? That says more about you than the people you claim are assuming these things.

What's your point?

Was it unclear? That these are conclusions from evidence not built in popular assumptions. I don’t believe these things by training and for a long time I didn’t believe them. I’ve grown to believe themninstead.

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

#263

Post by tux1968 »

CocaKoala wrote: post #141
chiefalchemist wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The USA has actively created plenty of shitholes - in places where the faces are not pure European white - and that gets zero public reaction. The current POTUS uses the word shithole to describe a group of countries and he's X, Y and Z. Yeah, Trump is a moron. But the hypocrisy of the press and the public is a moral violation.

You're aware that a lot of people are upset about the sentiment expressed and not the word used to express it, correct?

Isn't the sentiment expressed by that word essentially "country with a lot of problems"? Is it much worse than saying "ours is the best country in the world"? Both are pretty insulting.

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

#264

Post by roywiggins »

cookiecaper wrote: post #133
cantrip wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think it's one of the worst reactions you could have. Without any indication of how bad the attack actually is, you should really assume the best and set yourself up to be able to survive. What if it's a conventional bombing, or you're not directly in the blast zone? Or if the nuke fails to detonate? The immediate aftermath if the most important time. While he's futzing around with Youtube and getting drunk th…

>What if it's a conventional bombing, or you're not directly in the blast zone? Or if the nuke fails to detonate? Yeah, this has been the most frustrating thing reading all of these accounts. A "ballistic missile" does not necessarily have a nuclear warhead. I don't see anyone correcting this and it seems like an important thing to know.

Not all ballistic missiles are nuclear, but anyone throwing one will expect that the recipients will assume it's nuclear and be likely to respond in kind and not wait to find out which. So who would want to launch a ballistic missile without a nuclear payload, if the response is probably nuclear?

The US has tried to build conventional missiles for fast global strike capability but it's somewhat complicated by the Russians being unable to distinguish them from nuclear ballistic missiles...

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

#265

Post by Blazespinnaker »

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…

It depends if you have kids or not that you are responsible for. We can all make that choice for ourselves, but when you have kids most of us have a moral code to protect them from ‘sudden death’.

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

#266

Post by patch_collector »

weaksauce wrote: post #237
cbr wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a member of the church I'm atheist, but if things were going horribly wrong LDS would be high on my list of people to be around.

Why is that?

Speaking as a Mormon, we're highly encouraged to be prepared for the future, regardless of if that means losing a job, a natural disaster (hurricane, earthquake, etc), or unstable individuals with big, red buttons on their desk.

The Church has encouraged people to have a minimum of a 72-hour kit (typically a backpack or backpacks with everything your family would need for 3 days away from home), as well as storing as much water and food as is possible in your circumstances, ideally a year's supply.

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

#267

Post by Erik816 »

McKayDavis wrote: post #149
dmarlow wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will you do if you can't get into your church building?

I had considered that too and breaking a window to gain access was an option. I'm not a member of the church, but I chose this building specifically as it was most likely to have other people seeking shelter there who also had keys to the building. Indeed, the first family to arrive after us lived a block away and I did verify they do have a key.

Doesn't breaking a window to get in negate the "sealed windows" advantage of the location?

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

#268

Post by rabidrat »

FooHentai wrote: post #244
jonnycomputer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing that you don't have children. And no, your plan isn't as good as any other; its just one that suits your own fatalistic attitude toward the risks involved.

"I have decided that if I'm ever about to crash my car I will unclip my seatbelt and steer violently to the side. My plan is as good as any other plan"

More like, "if I find out that the airplane is about to crash in a few minutes, I will unclip my seatbelt and roam around the cabin". You have control over your car, you have no control over the airplane or the bomb.

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

#269

Post by titanix2 »

tomalpha wrote: post #51
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?

Yeah, this isn't "obvious" at all. North Korea is not at war with Japan. What could it even gain from it anyway? Just war for the sake of war and have their country destroyed and their government overthrown? This doesn't make sense at all. Don't forget a lot of NK elite including Kin Jung-Un himself were educated in Europe. They know the state of the world.

So when I'll go to Japan again latter this year as a scholar, NK is the millionth thing I'll care. Because the risk isn't real, it's mostly propaganda towards a country that is trying hard to exists. I think the most important thread are actually the US and how they're unnecessarily adding fuel to the fire at any occasion.

In addition, I would mention that the mere existence of NK is a by product of the US intervention in the Korea War. Should the communist forces won like they did in China & Vietnam, the country would not have been parted like it is. And the situation towards capitalism would have started a normalisation like in China and Vietnam.

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

#270

Post by fapjacks »

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…

Yes, exactly, thank you. The world has sharp corners and it appears that tourists and people who recently moved to Hawaii apparently have no idea that Hawaii's a fucking target. It's the center of the universe in the Pacific. There is an entire division of troops there, and carriers, and planes, and missiles, and nukes and nuke subs. Hawaii is the most tunneled piece of American soil. All of these people crying on the floor in the fetal position seem to have successfully lived out their lives inside a fantasy bubble where nothing goes wrong. I wonder how they would feel if they knew how dangerous it was to drive on the highway. It was actually less dangerous to go to Iraq than it was to drive on American highways. It's clear these fragile souls have no idea what's out there waiting for them.
Post reply on HN