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What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

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Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#101

Post by scarecrowbob »

hotpotamus wrote: post #28
scarecrowbob wrote: post #3

This reminded me of the better documentary films I have seen, The Atomic Cafe (1982). It is a well-crafted film, with a neat-o formal technique of only using found footage/ audio to describe the history of US atomic-age propaganda. More interestingly to me, it offers a useful commentary about the contradictions between the use of media to present nuclear wars a survivable and possibly necessary event but simultaneous…

Dr Strangelove was obviously about the absurdity of trying to plan for nuclear war, but the ending credit scene of nuclear bombs exploding while playing "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynne sounds like it might have influenced "The Atomic Cafe". Interestingly, the detail in the linked document that made me think of a movie was the improvised lean-to shelter. One of the protagonists in the British film "When The Wind Blow…

Yes, I can certainly agree that the ending montage in both films is similar enough that we'd suspect one influenced the other.

I used to really enjoy bringing Strangelove into my history of film classes as an opportunity to talk about obscenity and the end of the US PCA-- the opening sequence of "Try a Little Tenderness" across the mating of a tanker and a bomber is the first of many, many implied situations

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#102

Post by sammalloy »

HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #39
stareatgoats wrote: post #18

The site is down so I can only speculate what it recommends. Whatever it is, I suspect it is not a list of suggestions for how to avoid nuclear disasters altogether. Because that is simply not in vogue. It seems we must all accept as something inevitable to have the specter of millions dead, if not billions, if not life as we know it, hanging over our heads for time eternal. Because we as humans are seemingly only en…

What’s your alternative? Everyone agreeing to sit round the campfire, hold hands and sing kumbaya? You can’t possibly be this naive. There’s something uniquely frustrating about seeing somebody like you, who has a completely naive and childlike worldview, assuming that YOU are just a genius and everyone else is an idiot.

> What’s your alternative? Everyone agreeing to sit round the campfire, hold hands and sing kumbaya? You can’t possibly be this naive.

I can’t speak for the OP, but this is an issue I’ve been interested in for some time. I think the alternatives are many, but it involves a multipronged approach, starting with reforming the financial sector, which helps fund warmongering in several different sectors, followed by slowly converting the defense industry into a civilian engineering sector (climate change remediation, infrastructure rebuilding and development, space based energy, transportation and habitation) combined with tearing the heart out of the arms sector and enforcing the law against so-called "lords of war" who help arm both sides. That’s just to start. The idea that peacetime can be more profitable than wartime needs to be a new mantra supported by financial incentives and large scale engineering projects that help benefit everyone instead of diverting resources to build more weapons and make a few companies wealthy while squandering the wealth of public treasuries that could otherwise support their people. The idea that war is a still a legitimate solution to a problem is the psychological hurdle that needs to be overcome. Nobody has to accept that this is the way it is. It requires courageous acts of individuals to stand up and say one word: no. I ain’t gonna study war no more. It’s really that simple. The hard part is getting the momentum for everyone to stop doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#103

Post by blacksmith_tb »

bsagdiyev wrote: post #57
function_seven wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My entire financial planning model is founded on a lack of global thermonuclear war. Now I need to figure out what to short so I can take advantage of this black swan event? Eh, this is good for crypto.

Let me just login in to the intern... oh right. Well the radios should still wor... no? Shit. I need to pay for clean water from my neighbor.

You mean ARPANET won't survive a nuclear war? What a case of false advertising.

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#104

Post by ravi-delia »

mistermann wrote: post #90
ravi-delia wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not! Is this because I have failed to imagine a world without a nuclear threat, or because the problem is very hard? Not the former! As proof see counterexample- I can imagine a nukeless world just fine.

I'm confused - do you know what it takes to avoid nuclear disaster (in fact) or not?

> Absolutely not!

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#105

Post by someguy212 »

kaoD wrote: post #82
bsagdiyev wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me just login in to the intern... oh right. Well the radios should still wor... no? Shit. I need to pay for clean water from my neighbor.

This is the only thing that makes me want to learn radio. I don't want to buy expensive gear, but being able to build my own DIY QRP (low-power) DX (long-distance) CW (Morse) transceiver? Count me in. Too bad there doesn't seem to be extensive information to introduce us digital engineers to the hobby. I don't want a kit. I want to learn the fundamentals so I can be ready when the society collapses and the ham überme…

Here you

https://disaster.radio/

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#106

Post by newbYhrly »

kaoD wrote: post #82
bsagdiyev wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me just login in to the intern... oh right. Well the radios should still wor... no? Shit. I need to pay for clean water from my neighbor.

This is the only thing that makes me want to learn radio. I don't want to buy expensive gear, but being able to build my own DIY QRP (low-power) DX (long-distance) CW (Morse) transceiver? Count me in. Too bad there doesn't seem to be extensive information to introduce us digital engineers to the hobby. I don't want a kit. I want to learn the fundamentals so I can be ready when the society collapses and the ham überme…

There won’t be Rpis, old phones, and WiFi gear laying around?

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#107

Post by lostlogin »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #5

I suppose this is of special interest now since Poland, a NATO member, got hit by what sounds like an errant missile from Russia recently. [1] Reading the first part, I think the best thing that could happen in the event some big red buttons get pushed is that if you're next to a military base you're probably going to be vaporized along with it if you can't evacuate. Trying to survive that kind of thing sounds way wo…

It seems to have been an errant middle from Ukraine, fired by Ukrainian forces, not from Russian forces.

https://www.reuters.com/world/poland-blast-caused-by-missile...

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#108

Post by lostlogin »

int_19h wrote: post #66
pfdietz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This came in handy when that meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk a few years ago. A teacher remembered the training and had everyone hide under desks, and they were spared laceration from the blown-in windows.

In Russia, this kind of training is not a long-gone relic - there's a class in school that's dedicated to survival in various situations, covering all kinds of stuff from emergency first aid to making shelter in the wilds. A subset of that is dealing with anthropogenic disasters, and a subset of that is civil defense. If I remember correctly, we had two hours covering nukes alone - likely targets in the vicinity, wha…

Probably quite handy if that is all the training you get before your call up and your country is threatening nuclear war.

Re: What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent [pdf]

#110

Post by MisterMower »

otikik wrote: post #93
bulbosaur123 wrote: post #75

It seems that most of you are ignoring that there are plenty of actors out there that actively seek destruction and ways to promote it. It's not that people are stupid. Many people of power are both intelligent and actively evil , as in-- working against your interests of survival--especially when their positions are threatened. In fact, in some rare scenarios, nuclear destruction might even make logical sense to som…

We are 8bn people. Of course there’s gonna be some wackos on that lot. Not so many with access to nuclear weapons, fortunately. Worms might not be a very detailed geopolitical simulator. The ninja rope was nice thoug.

> Of course there’s going to be some wackos on that lot. Not so many with access to nuclear weapons, fortunately.

How would we know, one way or the other? I mean, it only takes a few wackos to trigger such a scenario. And there are clearly a lot of wackos among 8 billion people. Doesn’t seem far fetched to me at all.

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