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

Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

theautopian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 216 posts

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#161

Post by ashoeafoot »

killjoywashere wrote: post #45

> engineers mused over whether there was anything to be done top stop a torrent of enemy missiles falling across the nation. These superweapons seemed to promise destruction on an overbearing scale, threatening the very existence of human civilization itself. THEY STILL DO!!!! This is what drives me nuts about our politics: so many people seem to think we can flirt with the sort of nationalism (1) that led us into WW…

The whole idea that regional nuclear exchange can be avoided is bonkers. The very machine designed to keep humans progressive and peacefull ,to keep the hothouse of "peacefulness delusion " alive at full blast is the very same driving up the stakes of it happen sooner then later. Thats peters dilemma. Thats why we have to crash the trolly before it can pick up more speed after clicking mineffortmaxreward. we had 15 years of prep.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#162

Post by akdor1154 »

dullcrisp wrote: post #116
BurningFrog wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WW1 kicked off due to a royal getting murdered in broad daylight which triggered a cascade of alliances. Nationality had nothing to do with it. The murderer Gavrilo Princip was a Serbian nationalist, who committed the murder for nationalist reasons.

So you’re saying that if we want to avoid World War 3 we have to get rid of nationalism in Serbia ?

Having met a few Serbian nationalists that's actually not a bad idea.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#163

Post by fsckboy »

killjoywashere wrote: post #45

> engineers mused over whether there was anything to be done top stop a torrent of enemy missiles falling across the nation. These superweapons seemed to promise destruction on an overbearing scale, threatening the very existence of human civilization itself. THEY STILL DO!!!! This is what drives me nuts about our politics: so many people seem to think we can flirt with the sort of nationalism (1) that led us into WW…

you have it all backward

>we can flirt with the sort of nationalism that led us into WWI and WWII

who are you speaking for? because nationalism didn't lead us, the US, into either world war; a desire on the part of our elected officials to save/preserve our democratic European allies did; that and a direct attack from the Empire of Japan.

>Mutually Assured Destruction is still a thing

yes, and thank God, because Mutually Assured Destruction is what we call that which has kept and keeps the peace. As far as nuclear weapons go, fear of being on the receiving end is what deters their use.

The Russians keep mentioning the use of nuclear weapons; it's important not to back down in the face of that, because if we do, it will only repeat and increase. Iran, well you have to decide if they are just a different ideology, or if they are a death cult. If they're just a different ideology, MAD will work there too; if they are a death cult, you should advocate that we mutually assure their destruction before they get any.

running around like a headless chicken setting the hands on a mythical clock does not achieve anything except scaring people, and people don't do their best thinking when scared.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#164

Post by toast0 »

niccl wrote: post #150
redox99 wrote: post #22

The title and some of the comments assume it would be something like if you take 15 extra minutes you would just die . When in reality it would just be an increase in cancer risk. If it were THAT contaminated they'd use the AREA CLOSED the article mentions anyways. To be fatal within days you need about 10,000 mSv of exposure. Even with heavy fallout, exposure would probably be around 10 mSv per hour.

I'd read the title as 'if you see this there's a nuclear war going on and it will escalate and you'll die' Maybe not what was intended but that's how I see it

If there's time to manufacture and place these signs, and there's still a nuclear war going on, I think I've vastly misunderstood MAD doctrine. I wouldn't be surprised if war continued after nuclear strikes, but I'd think you'd use them up pretty soon. And it's gotta take at least 6 months to put up new speed limit signs on a stretch of highway.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#165

Post by strogonoff »

killjoywashere wrote: post #45

> engineers mused over whether there was anything to be done top stop a torrent of enemy missiles falling across the nation. These superweapons seemed to promise destruction on an overbearing scale, threatening the very existence of human civilization itself. THEY STILL DO!!!! This is what drives me nuts about our politics: so many people seem to think we can flirt with the sort of nationalism (1) that led us into WW…

When top officials and other generally influential people transparently behave like self-centered sociopaths or psychopaths, it is difficult to see them too worried about survival and prosperity of citizens. Themselves those people are not going to have trouble surviving a nuclear winter (a thought experiment is needed to determine whether they will even suffer from it all that much on a personal level, compared to ordinary people many of whom would just perish).

Especially with MAD, but with modern technology in general, caring about survival and prosperity of your own citizens means caring about peaceful coexistence with other countries.

In this context, a degree of nationalism is not bad and may in fact be important (if another country is being hostile and you do nothing, that is not a peaceful coexistence); it’s isolationism that is actually worrying: having every mature participant depend on each other is a great way to make them usually not want to eliminate each other.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#166

Post by protocolture »

tipiirai wrote: post #142
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalists are not motivated by reason. Just telling them they're going to start a nuclear war isn't a deterrent. Loyalty, sacrifice, obedience, ethnicity, borders, tradition, etc are their primary motivators today. If they have to end the world with nukes to protect "their" nation, then by golly, that's what they'll do. Self-preservation isn't as important as preservation of the ethos . Look at any white nationali…

Well said. I can strongly feel this happening in Finland, which became a racist country in one year.

I mean how long does it take to radicalise 20 odd people.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#167

Post by protocolture »

killjoywashere wrote: post #68
ls612 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAD precludes total wars of national survival ala WW2. It does not at all preclude the sorts of cabinet wars that were fought between the European powers for centuries before Napoleon.

If we crossed the Yalu River today, do you think we'd be alive tomorrow to talk about it? Nuclear deterrence, as part of the taboo, prevents any nation from violating the sovereignty of a nuclear power. The only exception I know of is the Yom Kippur War, and if there is ever a person who never received a well-earned Nobel Peace Prize, it's Golda Meir.

>prevents any nation from violating the sovereignty of a nuclear power.

Is Ukraine still sitting on a bunch of russian land?

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#168

Post by AnthonyMouse »

mminer237 wrote: post #138
hhmc wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also worth considering is that, even if higher limits reduce the rate of accidents, accidents at higher speeds are almost universally more severe. Obviously this is true, and especially important at low speeds, but I wonder how much difference there is between 70 and 80 — I would have assumed they are both typically fatal

The energy is exponential. It takes 30% farther to stop going 80 than it does going 70. One of my favorite trivia is the scenario that a car going 50 mph sees an obstruction in front and slams on its brakes and stops just in time just tapping it. A car next to him going 70 mph sees the same object, has faster reflexes, and hits his brakes at the exact same spot of the road. He slams into the object at 50 mph. Just th…

> The energy is exponential. It takes 30% farther to stop going 80 than it does going 70.

That's when the issue is stopping distance.

The issue on highways is that you have, for example, two cars in the left lane going 55 MPH and a third approaches going 70 MPH. One of the slower cars sees this and moves over but only at the same time as the faster car is changing into the same lane to pass on the right, so now both lanes are blocked, the faster car hits one of them and they're both edged off the road into a stationary object at highway speeds.

Does it matter if they hit the stationary object with significantly more energy? Probably not; dead is dead.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#169

Post by Ekaros »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #50
killjoywashere wrote: post #45

> engineers mused over whether there was anything to be done top stop a torrent of enemy missiles falling across the nation. These superweapons seemed to promise destruction on an overbearing scale, threatening the very existence of human civilization itself. THEY STILL DO!!!! This is what drives me nuts about our politics: so many people seem to think we can flirt with the sort of nationalism (1) that led us into WW…

The current government is going to weaken Western alliances. China is going to take Taiwan. Japan and South Korea are going to rapidly develop nuclear weapons programs. North Korea will increase the range of its missiles to reliably hit the entire US. The entire Middle East is going to nuclearize, with Iran first and then Saudi Arabia (the Trump white house was trying to arrange this last term, I suppose they'll succ…

On other hand world where everyone does not have nuclear weapon has been absolutely proven to be utter total failure. We should try one with everyone having nuclear weapons to see if it prevents more wars. Maybe fear of death in the aggressor nations would prevent their evils.
Post reply on HN