Live data from Hacker News

What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

newyorker.com

281–290 of 381 posts

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#281
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What surprises me is that the foreigners in Japan are the ones who are scared about that situation, Japanese people don't care that much.

Western people are largely indoctrinated with the idea of life being sacred and the necessity to protect it all costs; many Asian cultures are much more matter-of-fact about death as the worldview is more cyclical than teleological and reincarnation is quietly assumed as the natural order of things.

Change western people to Americans and you might be correct. My experience is that a lot Europeans, New Zealanders and Australians tend to be pretty relaxed about world events. Not to say we don’t have our panic merchants but they do tend to be in the minority.

Sorry Canadians, I didn’t mean to lump you in with your southern neighbors.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#282
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a member of the church I'm atheist, but if things were going horribly wrong LDS would be high on my list of people to be around.

Pro: A bunch of them are nutty doomsday preppers, with a lot of food supplies in their basements. Con: The polygamy, child abuse, and endless fast and testimony meetings get kinda old after a while.

I’m not a Mormon, or even a Christian, so I have no stake here.

What the fuck? No. I’ve traveled all over, and met a lot of Mormons and have Mormon friends. The most sinister thing they’re into is family game night. Ok, I’m no fan of the missionary thing, but again, as a non-Christian I appreciate that the Mormons take no for an answer, and will still hang out with you.

Their religion is wacky, but so is every religion. They have cults, but so do all religions. So... no.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#283

Must be a terrible thing, if anything good can come out of this I hope it alerts people to the horrors of nuclear war. I am puzzled by why we speak so much about global warming but almost nobody talks about nuclear war. Global warming is not remotely as dangerous as nuclear war. Sure it will make crops fails some places, cause water shortage for some millions, force people to move off the coast etc. But it will not k…

If nuclear war is that close to happening, then we are already too far gone to address it. Who is going to be the one to convince Trump to decommission some of America's nuclear weapons?

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#284
post #203

I live on O'ahu and was holding my phone when the emergency alert came in at 8:07am. I yelled "Oh my God!" and ran to show my wife the message. I've run through this scenario a few times in my head before and I knew every minute was critical -- so I went into action mode immediately. I told my two kids to get dressed now because we were leaving in exactly 1 minute. The reason we were leaving is our house is single-wa…

> cell phone charger I don’t think it would work in the given scenario?

There are plenty of situations where you have to deal with the reality of a nuclear blast that cell phones would still work. It's not all just ground-zero or nothing.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is mostly right, but there is still some room for concern. First off, those anti-missile defenses have never been tested in anger and we can't be 100% sure they will work. (I'd love to think we have an effective boost-phase defense in place, but I gather that's not going to be a reality for a few years yet, at best.) Second, what I think Kim really wants to use those nukes for, besides leverage in the sa…

What would be the point of arming SK over having a nuclear sub in the area? Would anyone really believe SK could launch them of their own volition? Surely they would be nothing more than US bombs in SK soil.

Seems to me that if Kim thought there was even a possibility that South Korea could retaliate on its own, with nukes, it would make him less likely to launch an offensive attack.

But you're right. We don't really want to put nukes under the control of the South Korean government. Convincing the Chinese and Russians that yes, we really will do that if we see no alternative, wouldn't be easy.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#286
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember an occasion when I lived with a partner - the fire alarm had gone off and I immediately got out of bed and started putting my pants and shoes on. She asked why, I said "so we can go outside. What are you doing? Let's go." She said she didn't understand the point - if it was a REAL fire, wouldn't they just come get us or tell us? I don't know how prominent this thought process is, or why so many people don'…

I wouldn’t expect someone to come get me if there was a fire, but I suspect I would have a fairly low sense of urgency. Fire alarms in my experience have had an incredibly high false positive rate, either due to unannounced drills, pranks, or “correct” operation (e.g. smoke from the stove).

Which is exactly the point of fire drills, to teach people to leave the building calmly.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#287

I live in New York City and I felt a small degree of panic when the reports showed up on Twitter. However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, es…

North Korea is really the only viable country that we'd be hit by nuclear weapons from, and they have no way of "pummeling" NYC.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#288

Everyone is talking about nukes... I doubt nk has a compact nuclear warhead that can fit on a ballistic missile. Maybe in another 5-10 years, but not right now. They most likely have chemical and biological weapons, as confirmed by the nk soldier that defected and had anthrax antibodies in his blood.

We already know they have compact nuclear warheads

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/north...

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#289
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US/Russia/France have already detonated thousands of full power nuclear weapons all across the globe, primarily for testing. Although major cities would be ash, with millions lost in the senseless conflict, life would go on. You'd likely only have health problems if you had acute exposure to the blast. If you live somewhere irrelivant, radiation exposure won't be much more of a concern than it already is currentl…

Why two centuries? Most areas of the world are extremely unlikely to be involved in a nuclear conflict and/or receive significant damage.

[deleted]

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#290
post #287

I live in New York City and I felt a small degree of panic when the reports showed up on Twitter. However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up". If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, es…

North Korea is really the only viable country that we'd be hit by nuclear weapons from, and they have no way of "pummeling" NYC.

An accidental launch from Russia/China/India/Packistan is more likely than North Korea waking up one day with a death wish IMO
Post reply on HN