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Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

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41–50 of 141 posts

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#41
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with your overall point, but the comparison is not a particularly good one; you are comparing knowledge of a black site decommissioned in the 1960s to one of the most famous events in human history.

I think "most famous events in human history" is probably overstating it, and even then it wouldn't be well known anyways. Outside of the HN bubble, the average 18 year old person (even in america, as opposed to russians) would not be very informed about Chernobyl. I'd say Chernobyl is a lot less famous than WWII or 9/11 or events of that sort. And even for big historical events... if you go to a Taylor Swift concert…

I think what you say is overall plausible, however in western Europe many more people would know what happened in Chernobyl. To be frank I am not sure that would be the case in Russia tho, and even more so in the cohorts of young soldiers that camped close by.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly, I know the pyramids exist, but would you actually fund them on google maps without using the search bar?

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.9717687,31.1322225,620m/data... I knew they were outside of cairo, which means close to the river generally. and was just going to walk the nile but "sphinx cafe" showed up when I got close. You can seem the ok from sattelite view no the top right half. I was just going to look for giza but I found them before I saw giza pop up. I didn't search I scrolled from north america.

it's not they are small and hiding from you either. i would have suggested similar to your approach to follow the river. as you approach, you will see them.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#43
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "most famous events in human history" is probably overstating it, and even then it wouldn't be well known anyways. Outside of the HN bubble, the average 18 year old person (even in america, as opposed to russians) would not be very informed about Chernobyl. I'd say Chernobyl is a lot less famous than WWII or 9/11 or events of that sort. And even for big historical events... if you go to a Taylor Swift concert…

Around the time the Shuttle program was ending, I made a casual reference to Soyuz to a Russian national. "Huh? «Union?»" No man. Soyuz, the space rocket. Literally the only way to get to the ISS right now. Your country's manned space program. That Soyuz? "If you say so." Amazing they even kept it going! We've over here twisting ourselves in knots in embarrassment that we let our only spaceflight system sunset and ar…

Would they know who Yuri Gagarin was? I would assume they would teach that a Russian was the first person in space while at the same time ignoring embarrassing things like Chernobyl in the classes. Just like I'd assume that they teach defeating Hitler, but ignoring the things Stalin did.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#44
post #39
post #2

> The IAEA sent experts to do a radiological survey in the CEZ in April, but their focus wasn’t on determining the cause of the spikes. Investigators instead wanted to determine if Russian soldiers who dug trenches in a small section of the CEZ had released dangerous levels of radiation in that area that could have sickened the soldiers or anyone else who passed through that area. (The IAEA determined the radiation l…

The story of Russians digging holes and getting radiation poisoning was propaganda, just like Ghost of Kiev. The levels of radiation in the soil are not high enough to cause radiation poisoning, except for very few hotspots that they'd have to go looking for. It's mostly alpha radiation left which is dangerous only if radioactive particles are inhaled. I'm more inclined to believe the IAEA. Also, >They concluded that…

> It's mostly alpha radiation left which is dangerous only if radioactive particles are inhaled.

As someone who's dug a few ditches in my day, I'll testify that dry dirt is pretty easy to inhale.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#45
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many Americans, younger or not, would raise an eyebrow if invited to go camping around Hanford? The Russian soldiers might have heard about Chernobyl, but had no idea a) that they were there or b) how far the contaminated zones extended.

The US National Park Service hosts free tours to the B Reactor at Hanford! https://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/

You could(/can?) also travel the exclusion zone as a tourist. Including to one of the excavator claws where the adventurous couch warriors are able to test their meter and make selfies.

The even dumber are getting smuggled in for illegal tours. Meaning you get somebody who knows the area and run past the patrols and sleep in the ruins. Quite stupid but there is youtube. They are also coming after the people who stole all the scrap metal.

Chernobyl is also not the only place, people also visit abandoned cold war bunkers which can look quite amazing. But are also often heavily contaminated and off limits to the public.

Some examples are at @ExploringtheUnbeatenPath (NATO command bunker) and @shiey (Chernobyl) on youtube. Legal options are already quite nice and dont give you too much cancer. In Russia you will also go to Prison for a very long time when caught climbing a derelict antenna, let alone visiting bunkers. If i recall they got very annoyed when Russian teens climbed all the Stalin towers.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#46
post #5
post #2

> The IAEA sent experts to do a radiological survey in the CEZ in April, but their focus wasn’t on determining the cause of the spikes. Investigators instead wanted to determine if Russian soldiers who dug trenches in a small section of the CEZ had released dangerous levels of radiation in that area that could have sickened the soldiers or anyone else who passed through that area. (The IAEA determined the radiation l…

Being from the West, it is very difficult to think that information black out can be achieved at such a level that younger generations would know nothing of a disaster on the level of Chernobyl.

If you’re posting here, you probably have some degree of bias.

Of course the millennial crowd interested in engineering is going to know about Chernobyl. But if you ask the average Gen Z not associated with tech or engineering, I bet they’d have no idea.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#47
post #2

> The IAEA sent experts to do a radiological survey in the CEZ in April, but their focus wasn’t on determining the cause of the spikes. Investigators instead wanted to determine if Russian soldiers who dug trenches in a small section of the CEZ had released dangerous levels of radiation in that area that could have sickened the soldiers or anyone else who passed through that area. (The IAEA determined the radiation l…

Everyone knows about Chernobyl. Most likely what they didn't know was where they are. I saw too many videos of soldiers asking locals for directions in the first days of war.

Lots of the Russian soldiers come from regions without widespread indoor plumbing, to put some perspective to how backward and disconnected some people are.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#48
These may not be radiation spikes at all. They supposedly don't match what should be happening if they were real, so:

The patterns led him to conclude that the data was likely manipulated — either by a remote hacker or someone with direct access to the server that processed the data.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#49
post #44
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story of Russians digging holes and getting radiation poisoning was propaganda, just like Ghost of Kiev. The levels of radiation in the soil are not high enough to cause radiation poisoning, except for very few hotspots that they'd have to go looking for. It's mostly alpha radiation left which is dangerous only if radioactive particles are inhaled. I'm more inclined to believe the IAEA. Also, >They concluded that…

> It's mostly alpha radiation left which is dangerous only if radioactive particles are inhaled. As someone who's dug a few ditches in my day, I'll testify that dry dirt is pretty easy to inhale.

He is right, that part of the exclusion zone is relatively harmless. Greenpeace has the coordinates in their report, if i am not too far off people still eat mushrooms from such conditions.

The story here seems to be tanks driving off the roads, not the digging at the camp site.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#50
post #39
post #2

> The IAEA sent experts to do a radiological survey in the CEZ in April, but their focus wasn’t on determining the cause of the spikes. Investigators instead wanted to determine if Russian soldiers who dug trenches in a small section of the CEZ had released dangerous levels of radiation in that area that could have sickened the soldiers or anyone else who passed through that area. (The IAEA determined the radiation l…

The story of Russians digging holes and getting radiation poisoning was propaganda, just like Ghost of Kiev. The levels of radiation in the soil are not high enough to cause radiation poisoning, except for very few hotspots that they'd have to go looking for. It's mostly alpha radiation left which is dangerous only if radioactive particles are inhaled. I'm more inclined to believe the IAEA. Also, >They concluded that…

Ehh, that’s mostly a semantic argument.

People without acute radiation syndrome / radiation poisoning can still face significant long term health effects. So yea nobody’s hair was falling out, but they still had sufficient radiation exposure to have long term impacts.

However, these are also soldiers in a war. Their risks of being shot or bombed etc drastically outweigh the risks from radiation here.

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