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Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

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Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#231

Post by CydeWeys »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #192
kzrdude wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A different perspective, not trying to justify killing civilians. No matter which way a leader comes to power, the population pays the taxes and the ultimate tolls. This means that when we are on the inside, in the country, we can't be more or less complacent with a bad dictator than a bad elected leader, we always pay the price for what they do. It's always our problem.

Back-channel peace negotiations had been taking place for quite a while before the war ended. There was a large faction in the Japanese leadership that wanted to end the war, because it was widely understood to be unwinnable. The offer was a negotiated surrender that would end hostilities with some face-saving concessions - specifically for the Emperor. There isn't a perfect historic record of the negotiations, but i…

The face-saving concessions were an important sticking point.

The Japanese leaders didn't deserve them after what they'd did, and it really would have changed the entire post-war dynamic between Japan and other countries, and even more importantly, between the Japanese government and its own people.

Here's one term from the Potsdam Declaration, which the Japanese rejected: "The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established."

It's not unreasonable to say that had the Allies not continued prosecuting the war and pushing for unconditional surrender that Japan might not have ended up with a democratic government at all. It would have been much worse if the emperor and military figures had stayed in charge, and could have easily led to more repeats of wars of Japanese imperialism.

So yeah, I think it's important to look at it holistically and see what the actual long-term outcome after the war was (which was about as ideal as was possible), vs. what would've happened had we just ended the war as quickly as possible to minimize casualties but without getting wholesale reforms in the Japanese form of government.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#232

Post by dTal »

saul_goodman wrote: post #96

Maby they did sneak in, but fool me once: http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html The last time someone posted pictures claiming they rode their motorcycle through the forbidden zone it caused a stir because that is expressly forbidden because of the risk of picking up contaminated dust. Enclosed tour vehicles only for this reason. Then apparently, in the case of kiddofspeed, we find out she rode her motorcycle to t…

Funny story - dosimeters don't tick. Geiger counters tick.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#233

Post by ChuckMcM »

effie wrote: post #212
ChuckMcM wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, and that same text is also in various meta studies about Cell phone towers causing cancer. And it is the problem in general with statistics based meta studies which where lampooned in XKCD[1] and lamented by the American Council on Science and Health[2]. The summary bit might be "These studies point to areas that should be looked at but offer neither hypothesis or prediction and thus not 'science' s…

> there is no study that links low level ionizing radiation to any harmful effect on humans This does not mean much. The direct destruction effect of strong radiation on cells is cumulative, the longer you're exposed, the greater harm done. Given the physics and biology knowledge, our best bet so far is that effect of weak but extraordinary radiation is cumulative as well. It will increase probability of cancer and l…

"The direct destruction effect of strong radiation on cells is cumulative, the longer you're exposed, the greater harm done."

This statement is not actually true in the general case, and that is part of the problem. It, like many others involving the effect of radiation on people, originated in the late 50's when there was little data and it was difficult to experiment. A great article on that is here (https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/11...) but in a nutshell, the more we learn about DNA the more we discover that having evolved in a "low level radiation" environment it does a really good job of completely repairing/eradicating the damage done by low to moderate levels of radiation.

That does not say you can't get more harm faster than your DNA can fix it, which clearly you can. But the level where the damage is "cumulative" (aka permanent) is much much higher than we previously estimated based on our limited data.

Given modern tissue engineering it is conceivable could could actually do some solid experimental work in the field with a tunable radiation source and a set of growing tissue samples. Nobody has done that yet that I can find (I don't have access to a wide variety of journals in Biology that I do in some of the other sciences) but if they are please post their research here.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#234

Post by guscost »

speaker1 wrote: post #193
guscost wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the older western reactors were much better. Look up “positive void coefficient” and “passive nuclear safety”.

Sure, but Fukusima incident speaks itself for their safety.

After a magnitude 9 earthquake, one of those older reactors at Fukushima "just" melted down, and core material probably hasn't escaped secondary containment (unfortunately the water pumped through the core is a different story). In contrast, during a botched safety test the reactor core at Chernobyl exploded.

The impact to the surrounding environment was many orders of magnitude greater at Chernobyl, which is what happens when the reactor core explodes.

~50 people died at Chernobyl from acute radiation exposure in the first few weeks, and a couple employees actually got exploded. Lots of people died in the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, but none like that.

Please consider how you're hurting folks' ability to make good decisions when you spread misleading absolutist nonsense.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#235

Post by jaggirs »

cambaceres wrote: post #228

"When that material then started to smolder downwards out through the floor of the chamber, it threatened to come into contact with a large amount of water that had pooled there as a result of early firefighter attempts to put it out with hoses. This would have ignited a second reaction that would have been the equivalent of a 5 megaton explosion. It would have leveled Kiev and Minsk, and would have ejected the nucle…

The HBO series chernobyl says the same pretty much. I suppose thats a better source, but not by much.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#236

Post by soperj »

CydeWeys wrote: post #157
soperj wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at least not on the terms that we were demanding (and got) Terms that were un-necessary. Japan still has an emperor no? Could have ended the war much earlier if they wanted to.

It's hard to say with certainty. It's not like we can re-run history and try it again. Japan certainly turned out well with what did happen; it's not clear that a better outcome would have resulted from a less total surrender on their part. There's a lot of value in helping to move forward when you admit that you were completely beaten, not just mostly beaten; the latter leaves the door open for a repeat. And another…

>They started the war, killed millions of people in the process (including many millions of civilians in Asia), and then had the gall to try to bargain for decent surrender terms after all that horror they caused? Nope. Sometimes harsh punishment is necessary.

Wonder what you have to say about what the US deserves after the Iraq war?

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#237

Post by soperj »

dalore wrote: post #225
soperj wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at least not on the terms that we were demanding (and got) Terms that were un-necessary. Japan still has an emperor no? Could have ended the war much earlier if they wanted to.

Emperor yes, military no. What's the point?

The point was a month before that the Japanese tried to surrender and their only condition was still having an emperor.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#238

Post by CydeWeys »

soperj wrote: post #236
CydeWeys wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to say with certainty. It's not like we can re-run history and try it again. Japan certainly turned out well with what did happen; it's not clear that a better outcome would have resulted from a less total surrender on their part. There's a lot of value in helping to move forward when you admit that you were completely beaten, not just mostly beaten; the latter leaves the door open for a repeat. And another…

>They started the war, killed millions of people in the process (including many millions of civilians in Asia), and then had the gall to try to bargain for decent surrender terms after all that horror they caused? Nope. Sometimes harsh punishment is necessary. Wonder what you have to say about what the US deserves after the Iraq war?

Not the same situation at all? Japan was defeated utterly in WWII. We were nowhere close. We chose to leave; we didn't need terms.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#239

Post by Fins »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #189
Fins wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something that Soviets very much want the world to believe, but they have never had shown how they could even possibly get their troops anywhere near Japanese mainland, what with Russian/Soviet/Russian navy historically being more dangerous to people who serve there than any enemy. And whatever happened in Manchuria or Korea didn't really concern Japan by that point anyway.

There were no either Japanese Navy nor Japanese Air Force at this point, so quality of Soviet Navy does not matter. All they would need to do is to transport enough bodies to the islands.

You can't really move a massive invasion force on wooden rafts. Unless they would've asked form some D-Day leftovers, it's just not very feasible.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#240

Post by Fins »

Bendingo wrote: post #165
Fins wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something that Soviets very much want the world to believe, but they have never had shown how they could even possibly get their troops anywhere near Japanese mainland, what with Russian/Soviet/Russian navy historically being more dangerous to people who serve there than any enemy. And whatever happened in Manchuria or Korea didn't really concern Japan by that point anyway.

There were enough of Soviet troops to invade Japanese puppet Manchukuo, and they were planning on going to Hokkaido. [1] Japan was plenty concerned, especially remembering the last time they met USSR military. [2] In fact, memories of that smashing were arguably the reason Japan turned east to Pearl Harbour, rather than west to Soviet Union. [3] [1] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/red-army-i... [2]…

Oh, they had enough troops for Manchuria, but of course at that time what happened there wasn't all that important to the mainland, and USSR had little in the way of ability to get there anyway.

What Zhukov had shown at Khalkhin Gol, just as against Germans, was that with a significant advantage in manpower and equipment (double the manpower, 7 times the tanks) Soviets can actually beat up someone.

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