Scientists have figured out the reason London fog killed 12,000 people • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists have figured out the reason London fog killed 12,000 people

#31

Post by CamperBob2 » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

MrZongle2 wrote: post #30

CamperBob2 wrote: post #2

So the compounds released from burning coal and the compounds found inside natural fog – an aqueous medium made of, you guessed it, water – work together to make droplets of sulphuric acid, the same stuff that makes 'acid rain'. Remind me again why we can't have nuclear power?

"Remind me again why we can't have nuclear power?" Ignorance and fear. The Three Mile Island accident (1979) took place less than two weeks after the release of the movie The China Syndrome , the plot of which featured a coverup of a major nuclear accident. Activists seized the opportunity, and then-President Jimmy Carter (who had personal experience with nuclear engineering) failed to properly rein in public fears o…

Wow, that Post-Gazette article is illuminating. I knew Carter was a nuclear engineer, but I wasn't aware of how well-positioned he was to argue against people like Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader, and how ineffective he was at doing so. What an unfortunate lost opportunity.

I wonder if Nader's work fighting against nuclear power has ultimately cost more lives than he saved through auto safety advocacy.

Re: Scientists have figured out the reason London fog killed 12,000 people

#32

Post by Retra » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #23

Retra wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just as likely for some very literate future humans to build a city on top of it and have it seep into their ground water. Or maybe even a volcano or earthquake knocks it all out into our oceans. It's not about other people being too stupid to handle it. It's that we're too stupid to handle it right now, so any way we handle it is liable to be a huge mistake in both unforeseen and easy-to-predict ways.

I think you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. Nobody is going to build a city on top of anything in Antarctica. The other calamities you mention aren't going to happen either, at least not in any location chosen for this purpose. Meanwhile, people are dying right now from fossil fuel emissions. It just doesn't look all edgy and apocalyptic on CNN the way a nuclear accident does, so you don't care.

I don't actually think sticking it in Antarctica is a bad idea. I'm not arguing about that. I just think your attempt at making a 10,000-year prediction about human behavior and construction is absolutely crazy.

You don't even know what people are going to do 200 years from now, let alone 10,000. Try to image how much is going to happen in that much time. How many people will have lived and died? What is the population of Earth? What is the climate like? We just wouldn't build a city out there to drill for oil? Or any reason? Extrapolate this out.

Re: Scientists have figured out the reason London fog killed 12,000 people

#33

Post by CamperBob2 » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 7:30 PM UTC

Retra wrote: post #32

CamperBob2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. Nobody is going to build a city on top of anything in Antarctica. The other calamities you mention aren't going to happen either, at least not in any location chosen for this purpose. Meanwhile, people are dying right now from fossil fuel emissions. It just doesn't look all edgy and apocalyptic on CNN the way a nuclear accident does, so you don't care.

I don't actually think sticking it in Antarctica is a bad idea. I'm not arguing about that . I just think your attempt at making a 10,000-year prediction about human behavior and construction is absolutely crazy. You don't even know what people are going to do 200 years from now, let alone 10,000. Try to image how much is going to happen in that much time. How many people will have lived and died? What is the populat…

Think about how inhospitable Antarctica is. If it didn't have breathable air, it would be like living on Mars. No one has ever lived there as far as we can tell, prior to scientific outposts established in the last 100 years or so. That's been true for millions of years and it will unquestionably be true for 10,000 more... unless of course we manage to melt all the ice by continuing to burn fossil fuels.

Again, the concern isn't about people who might build settlements to drill for oil or extract other resources. People who are doing that will be able to understand warning signs and keep themselves safe, and possibly even recycle what we've left behind. The problem is that, if our civilization falls for whatever reason, people who stumble across our disposal sites might not understand the warnings at all. Or worse, like you suggest, they might treat them like the Pyramids and try to plunder them without the slightest understanding of what they're getting into.

This will not happen in Antarctica because stupid people (as you put it) can't go there in the first place.