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Radiation spikes in Chernobyl

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Re: Radiation spikes in Chernobyl

#131

Post by jltsiren »

ineedasername wrote: post #124

Does someone have any insight on why Russia would expend resources taking this site? AFAIK it doesn't have anything useful or produce any power, except maybe the possibility that mishandling it could invoke the terror of regional disaster. (Unless that's the point?)

Others have already mentioned the location between Kyiv and the Belarusian border. Another reason could be that there are huge wetlands on the Ukraine–Belarus border, with only a few major roads across. If Russia wants to move troops and supplies in that general region, they have to pass by Chernobyl.

Re: Radiation spikes in Chernobyl

#132

Post by thow-58d4e8b »

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #90

This is ridiculous panic. They haven't cracked open the NSC or anything like that. It's just dust. Long lived radionuclides kicked into the air that emit alpha and beta radiation - practically harmless unless you're playing around in it like a sandpit. Please don't let your attention be diverted from the matter at hand.

Yeah, most people don't have a proper mental model of radiation - it tends to be discussed either as a virus, or as a poison. It's neither - it doesn't multiply, it is not transmissible, dilution works perfectly well; and as a bonus - it gets less dangerous on its own with time

Re: Radiation spikes in Chernobyl

#133

Post by ineedasername »

belval wrote: post #113
connordoner wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might argue that’s a price you pay when murdering innocent civilians in land that isn’t yours, no?

Not to be a apologist of what Russia is doing (really really against the current invasion/occupation) but from what we've seen around social media, it's not clear that the actual soldiers on the ground understand that they aren't "liberating" the Ukrainians from actual Nazis. They are fed misinformation on a daily basis and at least some of them see themselves as the "good guys". It does not excuse anything really, b…

I think that's perfectly fair. In most of the West we may lament one-sided networks or echo chambers on & offline, but our access & awareness of alternative opinions seems much higher. Whereas Russian media outlets are much more constrained, and Russian misinformation try to poison the well by throwing out so many things that there's no way for the average person to easily sift through it all. Throw in few small kernels of truth and the fact that no one really want's to see themselves as villains & I can see how the misinformation may take root. Given a dozen narratives along with no choice but to follow orders in the military, why not latch on to the narrative that doesn't cast you as a villain?

Although it's a lot more difficult to defend & give such a benefit of the doubt to soldiers like the ones in the tank that went after & drove over a car [0 video 0]. Thankfully there's another video I came across showing a crowd of people dismantling & literally chiseling away at the wreck to save the person miraculously still alive. It's hard to describe the feeling when you see, in a single situation, the absolute worst and the absolute best of human nature.

[0 video] https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukrainian-man-miraculously-sur...

Re: Radiation spikes in Chernobyl

#134

Post by beebmam »

G3rn0ti wrote: post #8
nuccy wrote: post #3

Russians came from Belarus and with their tanks disrupt the radioactive soil and create dust [1]. The internal systems and the reactors themselves are in nominal state without changes. 1. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-says-chernobyl-radia...

The thing with radioactivity is: it may be invisible but it is luckily very well detectable. Gamma ray spectrometers are super sensitive but that does not mean the detected levels are actually posing a threat to humans.

It depends what you mean by radioactivity. There are particles that rarely ever interact with matter, like the neutrinos, and are virtually impossible to detect except in highly sensitive experimental conditions.

Re: Radiation spikes in Chernobyl

#135

Post by ineedasername »

perihelions wrote: post #27

Tangentially, if you appreciate being able to read raw, unfiltered OSINT like OP (@OAlexanderDK) dug up, you'd be interested to know Twitter mistakenly suspended his account twice in the past three days [0] -- one among a large number of legitimate OSINT people covering Ukraine. The existence of this kind of HN thread is fragile. You can also read Twitter Site Integrity's apology and response [1], or independent repo…

>apology and response

Twitter: We do not trigger automated enforcements based on report volume, ever

That really isn't reassuring when whichever methods Twitter uses failed nonetheless. And they merely stated that volume isn't the trigger for automated enforcements. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't one of the factors considered. Regardless, it comes down to either bad algorithms or bad human interpretations, or both.

Re: Radiation spikes in Chernobyl

#136

Post by thow-58d4e8b »

ineedasername wrote: post #124

Does someone have any insight on why Russia would expend resources taking this site? AFAIK it doesn't have anything useful or produce any power, except maybe the possibility that mishandling it could invoke the terror of regional disaster. (Unless that's the point?)

It's on the way to Kiev, the exclusion zone means there are no large urban settlements to fight over, and it's also using the West's weaknesses against itself - reality: topsoil has somewhat elevated levels of radiation compared to normal background radiation. The sarcophagus around the molten core is basically indestructible. public perception: radioactive cloud will make all Europe uninhabitable

Re: Radiation spikes in Chernobyl

#137

Post by ineedasername »

mzs wrote: post #101
perihelions wrote: post #27

Tangentially, if you appreciate being able to read raw, unfiltered OSINT like OP (@OAlexanderDK) dug up, you'd be interested to know Twitter mistakenly suspended his account twice in the past three days [0] -- one among a large number of legitimate OSINT people covering Ukraine. The existence of this kind of HN thread is fragile. You can also read Twitter Site Integrity's apology and response [1], or independent repo…

I support OSINT but this particular person has repeatedly been wrong and alarmist - plus he toots his horn for being right even when he's wrong: https://twitter.com/badc0fee/status/1495914223427276804 This particular case is likely armor kicking-up radioactive dust, and since the ground is wet it's not much of a problem: https://twitter.com/badc0fee/status/1497253041854025728

>he's wrong

It's a bit surreal that the 3rd entry down in the more "more tweets" suggestions (for me*)for that link is as follows:

Credit it where it's due: Hyundai have knocked it out of the ballpark with the Potato Storage Capacity (PSC) on the Ioniq 5

Good job there Twitter, really hit the nail on the head trying to surface other relevant tweets.

*And that's me not logged in, with no Twitter account at all, cookies cache etc. cleared.

(With respect to this particular person, being wrong or alarmist still shouldn't be sufficient to get banned. Heck, a few days ago there were reasonable people saying that speculating on a Russian invasion was alarmist. [0] She has expressed regret for that view now, though she still claims [1] that U.S. raising the alarm is possibly what caused the invasion. It's a strange line of reasoning: "Putin was just putting 100k+ troops there, not invading, but because you think he was going to invade he now had no choice" )

[0] https://www.democracynow.org/2022/2/22/nina_khrushcheva_on_p...

[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/02/24/1082746202/did-the-u-s-push-p...

Re: Radiation spikes in Chernobyl

#139

Post by JulianMorrison »

yumraj wrote: post #72
nuccy wrote: post #3

Russians came from Belarus and with their tanks disrupt the radioactive soil and create dust [1]. The internal systems and the reactors themselves are in nominal state without changes. 1. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-says-chernobyl-radia...

So, the Russian soldiers are all probably breathing this dust and their equipment will spread it to where ever they deploy in Ukraine? That doesn't sound good at all.

If they have any sense they'll be wearing NBC suits and filtering respirators.

They (or their leadership) may not have any sense.

Re: Radiation spikes in Chernobyl

#140

Post by cmrdporcupine »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #128
mdoms wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not to be a apologist of what Russia is doing [... apologism]

I live in the balkans... The main sentiment here, especially amongst the older people is, "russia is strong enough, that they can do the stuff america has been doing for decades now", but due to media influences, it's not a "war for democracy" and "saving the locals", as the americans would paint eg. attacking afghanistan after a few saudis flew a few planes into a few buildings. My personal and very contraversial op…

Whataboutism isn't an argument and these are also false equivalencies.

Hundreds of thousands of us were out in the streets protesting when western countries attacked Iraq. Most of us are the same people angry about Russia in Ukraine.

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