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There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

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Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#331

Post by paulorlando »

billiam wrote: post #259
paulorlando wrote: post #201

It seems quaint now, but it’s astonishing how much the fear of war (especially nuclear annihilation) affected mid-century fiction. In addition to "There Will Come Soft Rains" we have short stories like Stephen Vincent Benét’s "By the Waters of Babylon." In that story, society has been bombed back to the stone age. Even religion is a stone age recreation. Something like hot and cold running water seems like it must co…

Quaint? We are the closest we've ever been to nuclear annihilation, according to the experts: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/timeline/

Yes, it's not part of the daily fear and considerations people take anymore.

No more nuclear duck and cover drills; no more fallout shelters scattered around cities.

Look at the history of that clock and tell me if you think it's a useful timepiece.

Maybe this is a bit, but just a bit, better (though backward looking): https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+bomb%2Cnuc...

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#332

Post by TimTheTinker »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #320
jdsnape wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure, but it doesn’t pervade public consciousness in the same way. Not sure why, perhaps because the memory of mass-scale war has faded with the previous generations.

Fear of nuclear war was useful for midcentury US elites because it could be transmuted into fear of Communism. Since 1991 it just isn't as useful for that purpose, so the culture industry doesn't push it anymore. Their use against Japan in WW2 has also (just about) fallen out of living memory.

[flagged]

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#333

Post by kbelder »

billiam wrote: post #259
paulorlando wrote: post #201

It seems quaint now, but it’s astonishing how much the fear of war (especially nuclear annihilation) affected mid-century fiction. In addition to "There Will Come Soft Rains" we have short stories like Stephen Vincent Benét’s "By the Waters of Babylon." In that story, society has been bombed back to the stone age. Even religion is a stone age recreation. Something like hot and cold running water seems like it must co…

Quaint? We are the closest we've ever been to nuclear annihilation, according to the experts: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/timeline/

That they claim something so blatantly ridiculous is one of the reasons they have no credibility in my eyes.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#334

Post by apelapan »

openasocket wrote: post #295
apelapan wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear annihilation on any sort of global scale is further off than ever in the past 60-70 years or so. The doomsday clock is mostly worrying about climate change, conventional war and Facebook boomers spreading and believing fake news. I don't mean that things are fine, just that Nuclear annihilation is less of a concern than some make it out to be.

With the expiration of New Start earlier this year, there are no nuclear arms control agreements in effect between the US and Russia, which hasn’t been the case since the 1960s. Russia, China, and the US are all actively modernizing and developing new nuclear capabilities. China has been greatly expanding their nuclear arsenal, building hundreds of new silos. North Korea has an expansive set of tactical and strategic…

Risk of any use of nuclear weapons is quite different from "nuclear annihilation". There are vastly fewer and vastly less powerful nuclear bombs/warheads today than 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago.

The shelling of Mauripol in Ukraine at the beginning of the current war was roughly equivalent to Hiroshima in explosive yield. It had a lot more destructive power though, since it was distributed across a huge amount of explosions, and blast damage falls approximately with the square of distance to center of explosion.

Mauripol in 2022 was not a place you wanted to be in. When a bomb falls on top of you, it makes no difference if it is small nuclear or large conventional, you very much die anyway.

I'm not trying to make war seem nice or sell the idea that the world is heading in a great direction, I'm trying to make the point that nuclear annihilation is less of a threat today than before.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#335

Post by [deleted] »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #332
ElevenLathe wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fear of nuclear war was useful for midcentury US elites because it could be transmuted into fear of Communism. Since 1991 it just isn't as useful for that purpose, so the culture industry doesn't push it anymore. Their use against Japan in WW2 has also (just about) fallen out of living memory.

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#336

Post by stronglikedan »

billiam wrote: post #259
paulorlando wrote: post #201

It seems quaint now, but it’s astonishing how much the fear of war (especially nuclear annihilation) affected mid-century fiction. In addition to "There Will Come Soft Rains" we have short stories like Stephen Vincent Benét’s "By the Waters of Babylon." In that story, society has been bombed back to the stone age. Even religion is a stone age recreation. Something like hot and cold running water seems like it must co…

Quaint? We are the closest we've ever been to nuclear annihilation, according to the experts: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/timeline/

I mean, we have nukes, so we're one day closer to nuclear annihilation each and every day, and I'm not even an expert!

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#337

Post by lowbloodsugar »

inigyou wrote: post #187
Denote6737 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you say that like trump wasn't stopped from launching nukes at iran by one of his military advisors.

Come to think of it, why hasn't Israel launched any? We know they have them, Iran knows they have them, and they're not as restrained.

I would assume that while Iran doesn't have the material for a bomb, they have enough nasty material for an air burst to do significant long-term impact. They couldn't possibly use it unless Israel nuked them first.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#338

Post by mindslight »

Terr_ wrote: post #324
sorokod wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, usage of tactical nuclear weapons comes up again and again from Russian sources, driven by the situation in the Ukraine war.

Plus the current US President has purged most of of the military leaders who might resist any unwise or unlawful orders regarding nuclear weaponry. (Or just in-general, for that matter.) Potential orders he mused-about during his first term. https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/military-officials-ousted-r... https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2024/10...

Yeah, the US regime has basically been speed running the impotent dictator's playbook. Start from a place of weakness and incompetence, and cause a bunch of senseless destruction to distract from it. Using tactical nuclear weapons would be right in line with that, especially after having started this quagmire in Iran with no way to win.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#340

Post by UncleOxidant »

paulorlando wrote: post #201

It seems quaint now, but it’s astonishing how much the fear of war (especially nuclear annihilation) affected mid-century fiction. In addition to "There Will Come Soft Rains" we have short stories like Stephen Vincent Benét’s "By the Waters of Babylon." In that story, society has been bombed back to the stone age. Even religion is a stone age recreation. Something like hot and cold running water seems like it must co…

When I was in high school (late 70s) we lived on Hood Canal in Washington state less than 10 miles from the Bangor Nuclear submarine base. My dad would often joke that it was probably the best location to live when WWIII starts because we'd just be instantly annihilated instead of having to suffer through some kind of post-nuclear hellscape.
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