[HN Gopher] Nuclear War Survival Skills (1987)
___________________________________________________________________
Nuclear War Survival Skills (1987)
Author : marcodiego
Score : 123 points
Date : 2021-09-10 14:07 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.oism.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.oism.org)
| timonoko wrote:
| In 1970's the doctrine of Finnish Army was very much post-nuclear
| prolonged guerrilla/revenge war. We learned that fresh birch-
| leaves are nukular-free nourishment unlike berries and mushrooms
| or small animals. Also you must dust yourself with fir branches
| frequently for fall-out particles.
| nabla9 wrote:
| To feed any meaningful number of men who move a lot, that's not
| enough.
|
| Instead of hunting, you visit local farms that have stored hay
| safe from the fallout and have cattle kept indoors. You take
| what you need and leave receipt.
| timonoko wrote:
| Actually birch leaves have nourishment value close potatoes
| to 400 kcal/100 grams as I recall. And lots of vitamin C. But
| they taste very bad. We tested that too, with prolonged
| boiling and Tabasco, birch leaves are at least semi-edible.
|
| This scene we were presented was a wasteland, no farmers
| left. The purpose of this operation was too keep the
| wasteland wasted. Some Estonian "Forest Brothers" survived 40
| years to see their country free again. That was the doctrine
| at that time.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Product: Birch leaves minced - Bulk Characteristic
| Look and color: Green Flavor: Bitter herbal
| Nutrition 100 g: kJ 66 / Kcal 16, total fat 0,2 g
| of which saturated fat 0 g, Carbohydrate 3 g, of
| which sugar 1,8 g, protein 7 g
|
| 16 kcal seems more reasonable.
| timonoko wrote:
| Cant argue with facts at the moment. All I know birch is
| more fulfilling than Reindeer Moss that former SS-officer
| Noko was enjoying in 1944.
|
| However. This book from 1963 seems familiar "Guerilla
| Warfare, conditions and outlines". Maybe there is some
| cooking recipes, too: https://www.doria.fi/bitstream/hand
| le/10024/130579/Sotataido...
| nabla9 wrote:
| Official up to date recipes:
|
| Puolustusvoimat, Luonnonmuonaohje (LUMO) 1985
|
| https://puolustusvoimat.fi/documents/1948673/2258487/PEVI
| EST...
|
| Tuon mukaan koivunlehtia pitaa syoda 1.1 kiloa elinvoimat
| yllapitavan (5 MJ) energian saamiseksi, eli olisi hieman
| parempi kuin pettu. Ei hullumpi (108 kcal/100g) Noin
| suurta maaraa ei suositella.
| timonoko wrote:
| Yes. "Luonnonmuonaohje" is the word. On this particular
| kayaking trip I was totally obsessed with post-holocaust
| living on the Baltic sea. Macaroni/BirchLeaves/Tabasco
| was the menu. You can get used to it.
| https://youtu.be/0P-wd3qzCBA
| friendly_chap wrote:
| Something is off with that calculation. Carbs and protein
| = 4kcal per gramm, fat is 9kcal per gramm.
|
| 0.2*9 + 7*4 + 3*4 = 41.8kcal
|
| Not going to make you fat but not too shabby either,
| especially the protein content. Seems you run into
| protein toxicity issues pretty fast around 1000kcal, but
| if you enter ketosis it might be a good way to protein so
| your muscles don't waste.
| [deleted]
| User23 wrote:
| A number of diagrams in the print edition are 1:1 scale and won't
| work at any other size. If you want this book be sure to get a
| correct print edition.
| zabzonk wrote:
| My Dad's strategy for survival was: buy lots of canned goods. At
| the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis he was an RAF V-bomber
| captain, and when he wasn't on QRA he would rush into our flat in
| Doncaster, dump tins of beans and rush out again. I was about 9
| years old at the time, and didn't really grasp what might be
| about to happen.
|
| It was all a bit futile really - the base he flew from
| (Finningley) was then one of the RAF's biggest bases, and would
| have been smeared as a prime target. Doncaster, around five miles
| from the base would have been incinerated.
|
| As someone that spent most of his young life living in nuclear
| bulls-eyes, I do sometimes feel a bit lucky!
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| > he was an RAF V-bomber captain
|
| Massive respect, I love the whole history surrounding the
| V-bombers.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Are you american? I'm just curious because that's the
| impression I get from "Massive respect".
|
| The V-Bombers are very cool, of course, highly recommend Mark
| Felton's YouTube channel as he has some very niche stories
| about them e.g. simulated bombing missions of the east coast.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Pah! You call those niche! How about flying a booster for
| the UK's crappy space programme in the Vulcan's bomb-bay
| from Lincolnshire to the Woomera rocket site, Australia,
| illegally crossing Indonesian airspace on the way, because
| they figured out that the Indonesians would probably not
| detect the Vulcan (early stealth) and if they did they had
| nothing that could intercept it. And then the whole Vulcan
| crew fell asleep for about an hour, while the plane carried
| on on autopilot.
|
| Strange but true - my Dad was the captain.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The fact that we developed a rocket and then immediately
| scrapped it is really testament to the spirit of the
| British government.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| Thanks for the Youtube links, something to watch this
| weekend.
|
| No I'm British - I wasn't aware that "massive respect" was
| American, and shall try and correct my error :)
| trixie_ wrote:
| We need to be more aware that there are many submarines in the
| ocean with 200 long range nuclear warheads each. One sub can
| pretty much hit every city within a 4,000 mile radius. It's a
| terrifying constant threat that the vast majority of people are
| oblivious to.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Actually this is quite interesting. Some propose that the US
| should get rid of all land based deterrence, since the "enemy"
| whoever they are, would use bunker Busters against land based
| missiles, causing much more damage than if they only used air
| bursts against cities. I'm inclined to think they are right.
| dang wrote:
| Some past threads:
|
| _Nuclear War Survival Skills (1987) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305892 - Sept 2017 (213
| comments)
|
| _Nuclear War Survival Skills (1987)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9158642 - March 2015 (1
| comment)
|
| _Nuclear war survival skills (1987 Edition)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283571 - April 2010 (15
| comments)
| alexgmcm wrote:
| Having seen Threads, I'm not sure surviving a nuclear war would
| even be desirable.
| RGamma wrote:
| IMO not. Large-enough scale nuclear war would indicate to me a
| colossal failure as a species. It might be best to leave behind
| the fellow apes for good.
|
| Will watch the movie.
| ramses0 wrote:
| "Failsafe" too. Old, black and white. Spooky. :-)
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| ...don't. This movie was horror on an existential level, and
| left me with a firm conviction that surviving a nuclear war
| would be the worst of all outcomes.
| RGamma wrote:
| The worst it could do is broaden my horizon. As long as
| it's fiction I don't mind, but thanks for your concern :)
| aqsalose wrote:
| I thought the picture Threads painted was silly at the later
| parts. After the nuclear war, the next generation loses grammar
| and ability to speak coherent sentences?
|
| Just because it is gritty, doesn't mean it is realistic. WW1
| and WW2 both managed to be horrifying in _unanticipated_ ways.
| echoradio wrote:
| Watching "Threads" made me realize I want to be at ground zero
| if I'm ever in the vicinity of a target for a nuclear strike.
| ganSo wrote:
| True. Watching that movie was a mistake. I just felt bad the
| entire time. Just felt like absolute ass. There is something to
| be said about art that just makes you feel awful the entire
| time.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| That's more insane than having the war.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmMqMYgswsA&t=609s
| UpHereAlone wrote:
| I bought a pack of iodine pills when Trump starting taunting King
| Jong Un on Twitter calling him "Rocketman".
|
| Would they realistically protect someone from the immediate
| effects of the radiation from a nuclear bomb?
| time0ut wrote:
| No. They protect your thyroid from absorbing radioactive
| iodine. You still have to protect yourself from other forms of
| fallout. The linked book goes into extreme detail on all
| aspects of this.
| nimbius wrote:
| After reading the book, its pretty clear why most world leaders
| abandoned the idea of thermonuclear war as anything but a
| culpable strategy.
|
| Nuclear weapons with a twenty (or more) mile radius of fallout
| have the immediate ability to bridge the class divide. Whereas
| traditional munitions disproportionately interact with the poor
| (soldiers and combatants) a nuclear detonation could thrust an
| opulent family into fallout bunker squalor in mere minutes, and
| pin them there for half a decade. the prospect of survival
| contingent not on your wealth as in a traditional war, but on
| your interpersonal and improvisational survival skill was
| certainly looked upon with scorn.
| wongarsu wrote:
| On the other hand the replacement of existing hierarchies with
| meritocracy seems to be one of the appealing things of post-
| apocalyptic scenarios for average people.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Yes, but what hierarchy would replace what we have now?
|
| Do you want RoadWarrior/MadMax? Because that's how you get
| RoadWarrior/MadMax.
| chasd00 wrote:
| right, the merit in "Post apocalyptic meritocracy" would be
| the most equipped, most armed, most violent, and the most
| followed.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Looking back at ancient cultures, how many millenia would
| it take for Grecian democratic ideals to re-evolve from a
| hoard of gun toting MAGAs? Let alone Descartes level
| introspection?
| Iolaum wrote:
| Until you factor in there that merit in immoral behaviors
| such as pillaging, looting and bullying will also be a big
| factor.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| In that sort of survival situation, meritocracy would mean
| survival of the fittest. But not necessarily the person with
| the most/best survival skills. You will have different groups
| lead by what they perceive is the "best" person.
|
| Your local groups will probably consist of:
|
| Religious groups
|
| Groups centered around politicians
|
| Scouting groups
|
| Survivalists
|
| Law enforcement groups
|
| Military groups
|
| Gangs
|
| Each of those groups will be vying for control of limited
| resources with varying degrees of violence.
|
| For the average person, all they will see is a rapid decrease
| of the average lifespan. The leaders who make it to the top
| will do everything in their power to keep themselves and
| those who they favor at the top.
|
| I think a good example of this is North Korea, Afghanistan or
| any of the other Middle East countries where the government
| collapsed and there was not a single clear leader.
| 7952 wrote:
| Group's can succeed because they are communal. The
| survivalist idea of an isolated compound does not work.
| Because the larger group of people who can _work together_
| will out man you. The best survival strategy is to make
| friends with your neighbors. And to be in a town and city
| with less territory to control. Ethnic communities can do
| this kind of thing really well.
| mtoner23 wrote:
| Post apocalyptic meritocracy doesn't poll very well last i
| checked
| kypro wrote:
| Worse, it doesn't even seem realistic. Far more likely
| you'll have anarchy and those with the resources to do so
| will create social hierarchies.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| It would be a meritocracy of sorts, but what talents
| would you be optimizing for?
|
| My guess would be: Willingness to use violence, cunning,
| manipulation, organization.
| throaway46546 wrote:
| Doesn't sound all that different from the status quo.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Exactly
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| You'd just get rule by sociopaths - as usual.
|
| No genuine meritocracy anywhere.
| swader999 wrote:
| Yes, watch or read The Road.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| No thank you, once is enough.
| swader999 wrote:
| Indeed.
| duxup wrote:
| You're going to be in a new one. Generally, I expect it won't
| be very pleasant / the 'law' a bit less predictable.
| Emma_Goldman wrote:
| Meritocracy is economically efficient but often congeals into
| an ideological dogma justifying a plutocracy of the talented,
| even though talent is - to a very great extent - an
| undeserved function of genes and environment outwith one's
| control.
| hospadar wrote:
| Personal hot take on meritocracy: I think that "talent" is
| a tricky thing. Meritocracy (which I might define as "how
| much you get/are paid/are given access to is based on your
| talent and/or contribution to society") based on talent
| sounds maybe sort-of fair if "talent" is either innate or
| purely self-driven.
|
| If instead "talent" is (primarily) about the quality and
| extent of your training/schooling (and there's a lot of
| research to suggest that in most domains, it is) than even
| a very effective meritocracy is going to (IMO) perpetuate
| wealth and class disparities (5-year-olds don't decide to
| go to a great preschool and pay for it themselves, their
| parents do).
|
| If I were a wizard trying to make a society with lots of
| upwards mobility I'd make it a lot harder to transmit
| generational wealth/privilege and try a lot harder to make
| sure everyone has the same resources/opportunities. I'm
| sure that would come with a ton of its own problems (even
| outside of just pissing people off), but it does seem worth
| at least acknowledging that any kind of merit-based
| assessment of people is going to be super biased towards
| those with wealth and privilege.
|
| It seems very unlikely to me that an apocalypse scenario
| would lead to a _more_ merit-based society - rather that it
| would wipe out a lot of social protections & aids that _do_
| exist (both from the government and civil society at large)
| for those currently at the bottom of the economic ladder.
| Whether we'd go feudal or just kinda-worse-than-we-are-now
| I certainly have no idea.
| arethuza wrote:
| The work that coined the term _meritocracy_ was actually
| describing a dystopia - for the very reasons you mention
| around education:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy
| javert wrote:
| That only bothers people who want to make life "fair" at
| the expense of what is practical.
|
| There is a reason we let people keep the wealth they build.
| It's not because it's "fair." It's because taking it away,
| and having the brutes or demagogues decide how to
| distribute it, makes the society a hellhole.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "Demagogues decide how to distribute it, makes the
| society a hellhole"
|
| Fortunately corporate management and promotions are so
| different frin politics, no way would a demagogue or
| someine incompetent be in position of power and decide
| how to distribute wealth
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| You should try visiting the Scandinavian hellholes to see
| how bad this can get.
|
| They're so backward they don't even have hundreds of
| thousands of health insurance bankruptcies every year.
| opo wrote:
| >>...There is a reason we let people keep the wealth they
| build.
|
| >You should try visiting the Scandinavian hellholes...
|
| It is misleading to group all of the Scandinavian
| countries together in terms of wealth inequality.
|
| Here are the latest available wealth inequality numbers
| for the Scandinavian countries:
|
| Denmark 0.838
|
| Finland 0.742
|
| Iceland 0.694
|
| Norway 0.798
|
| Sweden 0.867
|
| As a comparison the US is 0.852
|
| The entire range for the world (where there are stats) is
| 0.498 - 0.902
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth
| _in...
| javert wrote:
| Wouldn't work in the Americas, which have a far lower
| average level of human capital. You can't redistribute
| what has not been produced. There are lots of examples of
| this in history.
|
| By the way, the US health system crisis is caused by
| regulatory capture. There is no way to regulate the
| regulators to prevent this. At least, not in a failed
| democracy such as the US.
|
| Probably the only way to regulate the regulators in a
| society as complex as the US and most other countries
| (contra Scandinavia) is with strict constitutional
| principles. That's the only way I know. Once you put
| "people" in charge, corruption and other dysfunctions
| eventually reign.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Are there any "not failed" democracies in your
| estimation? If so, what are they doing right that the US
| is doing wrong? Or is the whole Democratic experiment a
| failure?
| mikem170 wrote:
| (not the person you are replying to...)
|
| One might look at Switzerland. A big difference between
| there and the U.S. seems to be that the people can
| petition for a vote on adding or removing any law or
| amendment they don't like, at any of their three levels
| of government. Contrast that to the U.S., where this
| ability doesn't exist in most places, including the
| federal government which was designed to be responsive to
| the states and not the people.
|
| The Swiss also have a tradition of local power where
| possible, to the point that most of their social programs
| such as health care are handled by cantons (states) that
| average a third of a million people each. While in the
| U.S. we have literally a thousand times that many people
| arguing over health care at the federal level.
|
| Here's a bunch of info on the Swiss political system:
| https://wolf-linder.ch/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Swiss-
| poli...
| foobarian wrote:
| It is an interesting question how various countries would
| turn out after a big civilization reset like a nuclear war.
| Seems like it would likely go the feudal route with the
| cruelest warlords rising to the top in various locales
| (pretty much like narco-lord ruled Mexico). How would the
| United States turn out? Would the Ohio valley turn into its
| own kingdom? Texas its own? All of Northeast probably. I wish
| there was historical fiction along these lines.
| wongarsu wrote:
| A lot probably depends on the amount of infrastructure left
| standing. In most of history kingdoms/empires would grow to
| roughly a week's travel time from the capital, since that's
| an area that can be effectively governed. Anything larger
| than that needs a strong local government, which eventually
| causes a separatist movement.
|
| If a nuclear war destroys a large portion of highways and
| communication equipment, you probably end up with Houston
| being ruled by one group, Dallas by another and San Antonio
| forming a government with Austin.
| genericuser314 wrote:
| I think in any scenario where "nuclear war destroys a
| large portion of highways and communication equipment"
| then Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin will all be
| smoking craters.
|
| Here's the 1990 FEMA assessment of nuclear targets in
| Texas:
| https://www.webpal.org/SAFE/state/TX/tx_nuclear.htm
|
| Assuming that's accurate, my guess is that Odessa/Midland
| and Laredo would be Texas's major population centers.
| arethuza wrote:
| I can recommend _A Canticle for Leibowitz_ - it covers your
| last point:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I wouldn't call it "historical fiction" since that takes
| "what really happened" as its starting point. On DDG, a
| query of "post apocalyptic fiction" finds over 1,000 books.
|
| I don't think all of them (e.g. _The Hunger Games_ ) are
| what you're after, but some of them surely are.
|
| [1] https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1840.Best_Post_Apoc
| alypt...
| tristor wrote:
| > I wish there was historical fiction along these lines.
|
| Ah, but there is. I highly recommend S.M. Stirling's
| Emberverse series:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emberverse_series
|
| Well worth the read. One Second After:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Second_After is another
| great choice.
| scruple wrote:
| Ah, thank you so much for linking "One Second After." I
| had seen someone recommend this book on HN previously but
| had lost track of the comment and the title of the book.
| ornornor wrote:
| Just finished reading One {second,year} after. It was
| entertaining but a lot of the story revolves around
| military inspired heroics and battles. You can tell the
| author is into military fiction.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Not strictly nuclear war but
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer%27s_Hammer is a great
| read about if a comet nucleus hits the earth, immediate
| aftermath/ survival and ends with society just beginning to
| reform.
| Steltek wrote:
| Ironically, in that book a nuclear power station is a
| plot device and the key to humanity's survival.
| leto_ii wrote:
| I find your take comically misguided and naive.
|
| There are, first of all, some basic things that need to be
| established: what is merit? how do you rank people based on
| their merit? can this ranking be objective and absolute? are
| the people with most "merit" also the most moral or capable
| to lead? are differences in merit meaningful in any way? why
| would the most "meritorious" end up on top after the
| apocalypse?
|
| Aside from this, I'm pretty sure that life after a nuclear
| holocaust will be much worse for the average survivor than
| their life before the event. At best people would revert to
| some pre-modern self-governing communes (which are not
| necessarily a bad thing, it's just that they would lack a lot
| of things in terms of healthcare, nutrition etc.). At worst
| we would get Mad Max or Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" or smth
| along those lines.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> the prospect of survival contingent not on your wealth as in
| a traditional war, but on your interpersonal and
| improvisational survival skill was certainly looked upon with
| scorn.
|
| Why wouldn't wealth come into play?
|
| The wealthy have more resources to prepare for any kind of
| contingency to include nuclear war:
|
| https://www.cnet.com/features/inside-the-survival-condo-nucl...
|
| Granted, the reaction time needed to get into a protective
| bunker is greatly reduced in a thermonuclear first strike, but
| the poor don't even have a survival bunker to escape to.
| JohnnyHerz wrote:
| I see that you skipped the topic of Nuclear Warfare and went
| straight to Class Warfare.
|
| I surmise that you have a political point of view you wish to
| propagate.
| hollerith wrote:
| >pin them there for half a decade
|
| Try 3 weeks (details in the submitted book).
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > Try 3 weeks
|
| Unless you starting lobbing salted nukes at each other.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Why so complicated? Just target nuclear power and
| reprocessing plants.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| Worry more about accidental or forced use. Worry less about
| intentional use.
| nimbius wrote:
| What i was trying to get at I think was the supreme irony of
| the apex of the cold war...that a nation so bent on the
| destruction of class through marxist leninism forged in turn
| the perfect sword to obliterate it, and that its capitalist
| enemy at the time seemed to have no choice but to pursue an
| utterly nihilist brinksmanship it knew it was forbidden to
| pursue in any spirit other than rote patriotism.
|
| the history of the bay of pigs comes to mind. Fidel Castro,
| in my opinion, may have been the only communist to have the
| outright conviction to use nuclear arms, save Leonid
| Brezhnevs legendary temper and the Brezhnev doctrines closed
| fisted threat to glass the soviet states who fell out of
| line.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I'd really like to know why you're getting downvoted. This
| is a fascinating observation.
| chasd00 wrote:
| During the Cuban Missile Crisis Castro was certainly ready
| to use them and certainly ready to suffer the consequences.
|
| Clip from Fog of War
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtUfBc4qQMg
| pvg wrote:
| Universal conscription, 'total war' efforts, etc, have crossed
| class divides for the better part of a couple of centuries and
| are still in wide use so that theory doesn't seem to have quite
| the explanatory power you're suggesting.
| phreeza wrote:
| If you are unprepared and don't make use of your resources
| _before_ war comes to your doorstep, conventional war also
| bridges class divides just fine.
| eplanit wrote:
| The (proper) _strategic_ idea was as a deterrent, not _wanting_
| to use them in an offensive manner. The strategy was in making
| an attack on "us" carry the high probability of annihilation
| of the attacker, thereby discouraging it -- it wasn't about
| "hey, let's nuke that country, then we'll gain an advantage".
| fossuser wrote:
| That came later iirc - initially they were thinking of using
| them prior to running infantry in.
|
| I think there are old public test videos where they actually
| did this kind of thing.
|
| I also recall a group of scientists trying to elevate the
| understanding of the e-risk (pugwash conference?).
|
| Basically people were becoming too comfortable with the idea
| of nuclear war because they knew how to "duck and cover" and
| had a little bomb shelter in the yard.
|
| See this: https://youtu.be/IKqXu-5jw60
|
| Dr. Strangelove is also worth watching for a satirical take
| from that time.
| malloryerik wrote:
| Something unforgettable here:
|
| Nuclear test in China, with supporting attacks by infantry
| and cavalry, all in grand heroic style.
|
| 3 1/2 minutes: https://youtu.be/CzRX06Xqu80
|
| or the quick version: https://youtu.be/CzRX06Xqu80?t=81
| rpeden wrote:
| Looks like a similar idea to the Desert Rock tests [1].
| Though I don't think any of the Desert Rock soldiers
| galloped onto an atomic battlefield on horseback while
| wearing a gas mask and wielding a sword like one of the
| guys in your video did.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXX-1MIMr2E
| malloryerik wrote:
| Interesting, thanks.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> The (proper) strategic idea was as a deterrent, not
| _wanting_ to use them in an offensive manner. The strategy
| was in making an attack on "us" carry the high probability
| of annihilation for the attacker, thereby discouraging it
| -- it wasn't about "hey, let's nuke that country, then
| we'll gain an advantage".
|
| > That came later iirc - initially they were thinking of
| using them prior to running infantry in.
|
| I think you have to differentiate strategic and battlefield
| usages. IIRC, some people considered using them
| strategically when the opponent couldn't retaliate in kind.
| However, the Soviets had them within five years and the
| Chinese had them by 1965, I think.
|
| I think tactical battlefield uses were on the table for
| much longer, because NATO felt like it could not win a
| conventional war in Europe, but that may have taken the
| form a nuking a corn field on your border (maybe even in
| your territory) that the invading army is passing through.
| It sounds like Russia may still have similar plans
| ("escalate to de-escalate"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon).
| dsimms wrote:
| or at sea! Nuclear mines, torpedos, etc. A lot easier to
| take out that SSBN or carrier I guess.
| genericuser314 wrote:
| It's impossible to know what would have happened if they
| hadn't, but if Julius and Ethel Rosenberg helping the
| Soviets achieve nuclear parity prevented the US from
| "using them when the opponent couldn't retaliate in kind"
| then they should be thought of like Snowdens or Assanges.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg#
| Sov...
| tablespoon wrote:
| > It's impossible to know what would have happened if
| they hadn't, but if Julius and Ethel Rosenberg helping
| the Soviets achieve nuclear parity prevented the US from
| "using them when the opponent couldn't retaliate in kind"
| then they should be thought of like Snowdens or Assanges.
|
| Eh, no. The Rosenbergs were consciously acting as spies
| for a foreign power, which is treasonous conduct no
| matter how you look at it.
|
| Putting them next to Snowden makes _Snowden_ look bad. At
| least publicly, he made every effort to avoid doing
| anything like what they did.
|
| Also, IIRC, MacArthur was relieved of command in Korea
| because he wanted to nuke the Chinese, and that was
| decades before they even had an atomic weapon to
| retaliate with. That means you can't point to nuclear
| parity as the only reason the US didn't use them after
| the end of WWII.
| pasabagi wrote:
| Eh, they sent the USSR a couple of drawings of circles,
| and Ethel Rosenberg apparently did some typing. They
| were, loosely, spies for a foreign power, but their
| impact was absolutely negligible and their execution was
| essentially a lynching.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Eh, they sent the USSR a couple of drawings of circles,
| and Ethel Rosenberg apparently did some typing.
|
| And all Snowden did was copy some files to some flash
| drives. Describing significant acts in a mundane way
| doesn't make them less significant, it just omits all the
| important facts.
|
| > They were, loosely, spies for a foreign power, but
| their impact was absolutely negligible
|
| This doesn't sound like "loosely":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semyon_Semyonov
|
| > In 1942 Semyonov persuaded Vasily Zarubin to transfer
| Julius Rosenberg and his contacts from the CPUSA-Jacob
| Golos channel to the direct control of the Rezidentura,
| with himself as the assigned case officer. The actual
| transfer occurred on Labor Day weekend, 7 September 1942,
| at a meeting in Central Park. Bernard Schuster brought
| Rosenberg to the meeting. Rosenberg was then subjected to
| a thorough vetting and recruitment process to include
| training in tradecraft and a probationary period.
| Alexander Feklisov was assigned to assist in managing
| Rosenberg. Once the formal recruitment of Rosenberg was
| completed Semyonov used Rosenberg to conduct formal
| recruitments of two of Rosenberg's friends from City
| College of New York, Joel Barr and William Perl.
|
| Impact is also irrelevant. If someone robs a bank, but
| does it incompetently and only makes off with $50,
| they're still guilty of robbery.
| pasabagi wrote:
| They were a young couple with infant children and they
| were both electrocuted to death, in Ethel's case, for
| typing out her husband's letters.
|
| There's no collection of acronyms and russian names you
| can add to that that makes it any less of a crime. Prison
| would have been extreme. The electric chair was pure
| barbarism.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > They were a young couple with infant children and they
| were both electrocuted to death,
|
| The appropriateness of the punishment is an entirely
| separate issue.
|
| > in Ethel's case, for typing out her husband's letters.
|
| You're describing things in a misleadingly mundane way
| again.
|
| The relevant question there is "did she know what was
| participating in?" If Julius robbed a bank and Ethel knew
| about the plan, willingly drove the getaway car, and went
| to jail for it; then it's misleading to say she went to
| jail for "driving her husband around." She went to jail
| for _being an accomplice to a crime_.
| pasabagi wrote:
| > You're describing things in a misleadingly mundane way
| again.
|
| I take your point, but why don't we turn this framing on
| its head? 'Two soviet spies sentenced to the death
| penalty for espionage', is less mundane, but it's also
| correspondingly far less close to what objectively
| happened. It's worth keeping in mind here that legal
| language, especially around penal methods, has
| justification and euphemism baked in. Legal language is a
| way of framing mundane and often dimly connected events
| so they make sense from the perspective of basic legal
| categories: defendants, guilt, etc.
|
| The actual concrete facts- they knew and stole nothing of
| value, they died in excruciating agony, especially Ethel,
| who was repeatedly electrocuted until she caught on fire,
| and they left two children orphans, are all raw facts, no
| framing needed. The legal dimension, the manners in which
| we understand culpability, crime, and punishment is all a
| structure that is used to describe, rationalize, and
| interpret right and wrong in our society. The actual
| penal system, the incarceration or execution of
| criminals, is the concrete, real body of criminal law.
| You can argue about the merits of _really-existing-
| criminal-justice_ all you like, but you can 't exclude it
| from the discussion.
| genericuser314 wrote:
| The degree to which our ethics should be
| consequentialist, or they should evaluate intent is worth
| discussing, but as consequences become more significant
| intent becomes more insignificant. I don't care if
| someone 'looks bad', or breaks _any_ law if they prevent
| nuclear war.
|
| Stanislav Petrov disobeyed orders in the face of "30
| layers of verification" telling him to report 5 incoming
| nuclear missiles.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| Well it was at first. Even after Japan, the US Airforce
| considered nuking Korea, but were eventually convinced not to
| by the Marines and Army who argued that deploying nuclear
| weapons risked a similar move by the Soviets on the
| battlefield where soldiers were centralized. Remember that
| the nukes back then were much, much smaller.
|
| Also, a bit of a nitpick, but we do _use_ nuclear weapons. We
| have for the past 70+ years. We haven 't _deployed_ them
| since Japan, but their role as a deterrent is a form of use.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > it wasn't about "hey, let's nuke that country, then we'll
| gain an advantage".
|
| Initially LeMay wanted to strike the Soviets first with nukes
| while the US had the monopoly on that technology, because his
| reasoning was that when the Soviets would have it, they would
| not hesitate one second to strike the US with it.
|
| I can see his point, in the context of the time. Glad that
| nobody followed his recommendations, though!
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| > the prospect of survival contingent not on your wealth as in
| a traditional war
|
| This hadn't occurred to me. And it makes perfect sense. See:
| all the rich techbros buying up land in New Zealand [1], or the
| Bush family buying up aquifer land in Paraguay[2]: get away
| from the blast zones!
|
| Did you read this from a book? I'd be interested in it.
|
| [1] Crazy prepper site but a good article:
| https://tacticalgunsurvival.com/why-rich-preppers-buy-land-i...
|
| [2] https://5minforecast.com/2015/04/24/why-did-george-bush-
| buy-...
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Pretty much and especially if you live in a city - really no
| survival is possible.
|
| However, _some_ in rural areas would survive - the odds would
| not be good but some would so humanity would survive the "eye
| of the needle" this would cause. Just not most people
| individually.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > especially if you live in a city
|
| yes, for multiple reasons:
|
| - cities are clear targets for nuking
|
| - even if partially nuked, a city would be unsustainable once
| its roads and pathways are destroyed. Cities live by
| concentrating massive amounts of food and resources from
| outside cities, once the chain is broken a city falls.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I have absolutely no doubt human race would survive. We are
| distributed enough and there is plenty of still developing
| areas. Now modern civilization very much less so.
| phreeza wrote:
| We'd survive the first few months after nukes start to fly,
| after that I'm not so sure. The vast majority of humans
| live in areas where the climate and environment makes
| survival without a lot of cultural knowledge very hard. Add
| to that fallout, possible climate effects from the nukes, I
| can easily see a non-zero probability of total extinction
| within a couple of years.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I'm thinking of current subsistence farmers, specially in
| Africa and South America. Nuclear war has some impact,
| but I don't think all areas in world are heavily
| affected. I doubt absolutely all of these will be hit to
| extinction level. Developed countries on other hand
| surely massive starvation to boot.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I don't believe there are any Southern Hemisphere nuclear
| powers currently. Would northern hemisphere powers
| deliberately target folks in the Southern Hemisphere? If
| not, I expect most of them would survive.
| toss1 wrote:
| Pretty close approximation for cities, although it depends on
| the city geography & wind, the yield & number of denotations,
| etc.
|
| The most common first impression does seem to be that "of
| course it's not survivable, why even think about it?".
|
| However, a quick look at any map of effects shows that the
| zone of survivable effects extends far beyond the reach of
| lethal effects, to the extent that 90%+ of the total affected
| zone is quite survivable for those who manage to avoid the
| initial thermal radiation and flying debris from the shock
| wave. Of course there are many who wouldn't want to live in
| the aftermath, but that is a different question.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| > Of course there are many who wouldn't want to live in the
| aftermath, but that is a different question.
|
| A pretty important one, I think. Paramount to, "Would you
| like to live in hell?" And especially having children -
| you'd need to be extremely stupid or sadist to have a child
| in such a world, especially knowing the high chances of
| them being born malformed etc.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Birth defects are not the problem here. Even cities which
| were bombed in wwii didn't have extreme levels of birth
| defects. The numbers I have seen estimate an increase
| from the current 6% to something like 6.1% after nuclear
| war. The completely breakdown of power generation and
| supply chains would be a much bigger threat.
| cwbuckm12 wrote:
| I have the original handbook somewhere in my basement. Good read.
| sleibrock wrote:
| Reminds me about a game where you grab all your belongings as
| quickly as you can, jump into your fallout shelter, and survive
| for as many days as possible with your family. It's pretty
| morbid.
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/368360/60_Seconds/
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > Original Edition Published September, 1979, by Oak Ridge
| National Laboratory, a Facility of the U.S. Department of Energy
|
| Since government works are public domain, I wonder why this text
| (or another one like it) hasn't appeared in the Fallout game
| series.
| time0ut wrote:
| I've read this book a few times now. It is quite interesting. I
| am pretty sure if there was a nuclear war I would just be
| screwed. I live about 15 miles from a naval base. My entire
| survival strategy starts with "hope that Russian ICBMs are
| accurate so I don't die instantly...". Not sure anything in the
| book would help me after that point, but worth a shot I guess.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Pretty sure significant targets - larger cities and significant
| facilities - would get a barrage instead of a single weapon.
|
| Multiple relatively small warheads spread across an area are
| far more damaging than a single super-nuke, which is why Tsar
| Bombas fell out of fashion.
|
| At one point it was rumoured there were _hundreds_ of warheads
| aimed at Moscow. Even Dick Cheney was shocked when he found
| out. It 's a reasonable guess Washington and London would have
| had the same treatment.
|
| I'm not sure anyone even knows what that would do to an area,
| except possibly turn it into a pool of radioactive lava.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Pretty sure significant targets - larger cities and
| significant facilities - would get a barrage instead of a
| single weapon.
|
| Yup, this was already discussed (I forgot where, sorry)
| before, I think the US back in the 70s or 80s had plans for
| example to send at least 5 or 6 nukes on each target, just to
| be sure they would be completely destroyed. And if I remember
| correctly they had several dozens of thousands of targets,
| meaning that everything apart from small villages would be
| nuked to the ground. Even smaller cities, relatively
| speaking.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| /armchair psychology
|
| Disaster/collapse/conspiracy fantasies are a product of those who
| were impacted by something that caused deep hurt in their life.
|
| You imagine the abstraction of your pain via these fantasies.
| However simple it was, or serious, you recollect through the
| conduit of the world ending, for that's what it felt like to you.
|
| Very odd, too human.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I'm the first in four generations of my family to not (yet)
| experience war firsthand, so at least in my case it's more
| about being aware how prone to conflict the area I live in is.
| otikik wrote:
| > conspiracy fantasies
|
| Stanislav Petrov
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| When the book was first authored 6 or 7 states had nuclear
| weapons, but only 2 had the means to deliver those weapons
| intercontinentally. Today 8 or 9 states are nuclear capable and
| most have intercontinental delivery systems.
|
| Setting aside intentional use, the probability of accidental or
| forced launch has increased significantly. The difference between
| an industrial accident & military accidents are only semantic
| after the fact; and some of these states have accident rates that
| are deeply troubling.
|
| One might reasonably expect Japan, S. Korea, Saudi Arabia and
| others to join the nuclear club soon, particularly as/if the US
| conventional deterrent fades & its nuclear umbrella deterrent
| grows more uncertain.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Still, only 2 states have the power to unleash universal
| destruction - all the others have delivery systems but they
| don't have much quantity, so their weapons are essentially a
| deterrent force that can be used to either retaliate for a
| nuclear attack (thus, hopefully, preventing one) or used in an
| ultimatum to prevent invasion of their homeland or
| capitulation, but that's it, they can do extreme harm to the
| target, killing millions of civilians, but they can't eliminate
| an opponent state the way USA or Russia can.
| tester756 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
|
| >Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko
| nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a
| missile had been launched from the United States, followed by
| up to five more. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm,
| and his decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military
| protocol, is credited with having prevented an erroneous
| retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO
| allies that could have resulted in a large-scale nuclear war.
| An investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite
| warning system had indeed malfunctioned.
|
| >Had Petrov reported incoming American missiles, his superiors
| might have launched an assault against the United States,
| precipitating a corresponding nuclear response from the United
| States. Petrov declared the system's indication a false alarm.
| Later, it was apparent that he was right: no missiles were
| approaching and the computer detection system was
| malfunctioning. It was subsequently determined that the false
| alarm had been created by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-
| altitude clouds above North Dakota and the Molniya orbits of
| the satellites, an error later corrected by cross-referencing a
| geostationary satellite.
|
| >Petrov later indicated that the influences on his decision
| included that he had been told a US strike would be all-out, so
| five missiles seemed an illogical start; that the launch
| detection system was new and, in his view, not yet wholly
| trustworthy; that the message passed through 30 layers of
| verification too quickly; and that ground radar failed to pick
| up corroborative evidence, even after minutes of delay.
| However, in a 2013 interview, Petrov said at the time he was
| never sure that the alarm was erroneous. He felt that his
| civilian training helped him make the right decision. He said
| that his colleagues were all professional soldiers with purely
| military training and, following instructions, would have
| reported a missile launch if they had been on his shift.
|
| >But nuclear security expert Bruce G. Blair has said that at
| that time, the U.S.-Soviet relationship had deteriorated to the
| point where "the Soviet Union as a system--not just the
| Kremlin, not just Andropov, not just the KGB--but as a system,
| was geared to expect an attack and to retaliate very quickly to
| it. It was on hair-trigger alert. It was very nervous and prone
| to mistakes and accidents. The false alarm that happened on
| Petrov's watch could not have come at a more dangerous, intense
| phase in US-Soviet relations."[23] At that time, according to
| Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB chief of foreign
| counterintelligence, "The danger was in the Soviet leadership
| thinking, 'The Americans may attack, so we better attack
| first.'"
| mLuby wrote:
| > One might reasonably expect Japan... to join the nuclear club
| soon
|
| That would be surprising, but there's more history in favor of
| it than I'd expected:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_progra...
| jmnicolas wrote:
| I know we're not supposed to question why a link was posted here,
| but... why? ;)
|
| I mean I thought about a lot of bad scenarios and how to prepare
| for them, but a nuclear war is probably not survivable, you're
| just going to prolong the pain a few more days / months.
|
| To have any chance you probably would have to stay at least 5
| years in an underground bunker. The guys on the TV shows Alone
| (I'm watching the first season now) are getting crazy just after
| a couple weeks of isolation.
|
| The Germans have an excellent saying for these kind of
| situations: better an horrible end than an horror without end
| (sorry if my translation isn't accurate).
| _Microft wrote:
| It was mentioned in the thread on the Castle Bravo nuclear test
| and OP had a good intuition that it might catch on:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28478338
|
| Edit: _sigh_ , another PDF on my digital tsundoku pile ("in"? -
| as it is resembling a set more than it does a stack?).
| goda90 wrote:
| Why try to survive? That's something people have to ask
| themselves individually really.
|
| I took a wilderness survival course in college. We were usually
| out in a park practicing skills, but one day we just stayed in
| the classroom and our teacher talked about what drives people
| to survive extreme situations, even when they have little
| experience or training to do so. He brought up cases of parents
| going the extra mile to save the child they were lost with. He
| mentioned Hugh Glass and his drive for revenge after being left
| for dead from a bear mauling. Viktor Frankl observed a
| concentration camp prisoner who was always optimistic until the
| day he saw his family brought into the camp, and then he died
| soon after. For some people it could be a biological urge to
| keep living. Or maybe their religious beliefs drive them.
| nosianu wrote:
| One of the best authors for these kinds of stories (about
| hard-core survival) is Jack London. You can even select a
| theme: Tropical islands and storms, ships and the ocean, or
| ice-cold Yukon and gold rush? Animal centric (Call of the
| Wild, White Fang)?
| jmnicolas wrote:
| > Why try to survive?
|
| I don't question trying to survive bad scenarios in general
| but nuclear in particular.
|
| People seem to say a nuke isn't as bad as we think, but the
| problem is that in case of a nuclear war, there won't be only
| one nuke, so the amount of radioactivity will be very high
| and a nuclear winter mean that even if you survive
| radioactivity nothing will grow for at least 5 years so
| you'll end up starving.
|
| I could see myself try to take on a "Mad Max" like scenario,
| not a nuclear one.
| Borrible wrote:
| 'Better an end with horror than horror without an end.'
|
| A saying attributed to Ferdinand von Schill, shortly before his
| death fighting in the streets of Stralsund. Von Schill is a, in
| the wider population, mostly forgotten 'German' or better
| Prussian hero of an uprising against french occupation in
| Napoleonic times.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_von_Schill
| techer wrote:
| Stolen from Reddit: A slight correction: the fixed phrase in
| German is "Lieber ein Ende mit Schrecken als ein Schrecken
| ohne Ende", which translates as
|
| "Better a horrifying ending than a horror without end"
| Borrible wrote:
| Oh, its fine.
|
| Translation is interpretation.
|
| So, mine is not the the only valid one.
|
| And, it's a saying handed down by people admiring his
| determination.
|
| I'm German.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Have you forgotten the Great Toilet Paper Riots of 2020?
|
| We're having trouble surviving a (reasonably mild by
| comparison) pandemic as a species that has killed millions! Now
| multiply what we've seen by several orders of magnitude. With
| all the greed and guns in the USA... oof.
| Ekaros wrote:
| And when the global manufacturing, logistics and supply
| chains actually break down. It won't be pretty...
| echoradio wrote:
| I live in an affluent area that gets hurricanes. You know
| when a storm is coming because certain shelves of goods are
| wiped out -- non-perishable items, bread, water.
|
| When the pandemic hit, these were the same items people
| hoarded (in addition to toilet paper). Why? The pandemic
| wasn't going to shut off a fridge/freezer. It wasn't going to
| disable the water system. People reacted in the only way they
| knew for a crisis they experience often -- not what the
| actual situation was.
|
| It served as a reminder that when a major, acute crisis hits,
| most people are not going to be thinking rationally. They're
| going to rely on whatever instincts have been developed.
|
| I can't even imagine what extremes would result from a fast-
| moving crisis like a nuclear explosion.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| _The Germans have an excellent saying for these kind of
| situations: better an horrible end than an horror without end
| (sorry if my translation isn 't accurate)._
|
| You are the reason I come to HN. Sometimes we know, but few can
| say it. Thanks.
| duxup wrote:
| When I think about it I certainly wouldn't want to have my
| family live through it.
|
| But I would like to ... see what happens. Maybe try some effort
| to record observations and such, bury it in the hopes someone
| finds it. It might be horrible, but I can of course end it at
| anytime if I wish. I would not expect any kind of comfortable
| long term survival.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| This is addressed right up front in the book, interestingly
| enough.
|
| > "While working with hundreds of Americans building expedient
| shelters and life-support equipment, I have found that many
| people at first see no sense in talking about details of
| survival skills. Those who hold exaggerated beliefs about the
| dangers from nuclear weapons must first be convinced that
| nuclear war would not inevitably be the end of them and
| everything worthwhile. Only after they have begun to question
| the truth of these myths do they become interested, under
| normal peacetime conditions, in acquiring nuclear war survival
| skills. Therefore, before giving detailed instructions for
| making and using survival equipment, we will examine the most
| harmful of the myths about nuclear war dangers, along with some
| of the grim facts."
| arethuza wrote:
| That's nice if you are in a rural part of the US - less so if
| you are in densely populated and heavily targetted (at least
| during the Cold War) locations like the UK.
|
| Edit: _Optimistic_ estimates by the UK government predicted
| 65% of population killed (53%) or seriously wounded (12%) in
| the short term - a real attack is likely to have been much
| worse:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg
|
| NB This _optimistic_ scenarios was used in the writing of
| Threads.
|
| Edit: Think about that: Threads was optimistic!
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| For me the lack of urgency in "prepping" for existential
| disasters is that I have far more pressing concerns, like
| avoiding bankruptcy and homelessness.
|
| If I were sitting on a mountain of cash and hard assets, I
| would be more willing to invest in prepping. But until then,
| I've got little to protect anyway, and I'm not about to drop
| $800 on filling a bag with some supplies to last me a week in
| the apocalypse.
|
| Surviving post-collapse would be an adventure for everyone,
| but an unpleasant one for most. I've found the best way to
| resolve any existential concern is to continue working on
| long term goals of wealth acquisition and self improvement.
| Come the apocalypse, I'd rather be the guy with the army than
| the ex-programmer begging for food in exchange for repairing
| a home owner's smart fridge.
| ramses0 wrote:
| (old) Shoes, underwear, toilet paper, bottles of water,
| travel hand sanitizer, marine rations, first aid kit, u.s.
| army field survival guide (book).
|
| Basically as much water as you can carry and 2-3
| packets/pouches/bricks of emergency shortbread/fake-cake.
|
| My threat models are 1) 3-day general disruption in
| services (water, electricity)... 2) immediate local
| disruption (fire, tornado), 3) "let's go camping!"
|
| Basically pack a "let's go camping" backpack (heavy on
| bottled water and a few extra of those emergency bricks),
| and throw it in the car whenever you go "out" for like a
| hike or a weekend road trip or whatever.
|
| The more you actually pick it up, use it, handle it, and
| travel with it... the more you'll figure some useful
| adjustments to it.
|
| It doesn't have to really cost much money in any case, just
| don't throw away your next pair of shoes... grab your
| ugliest "TechBro" free backpack, and stuff 5 liters of
| water in there. You'd already be way ahead of the game in
| case of a widespread disruption of services.
|
| I tend to keep my "dopp kit" (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toiletry_bag ) in there when
| I'm not traveling which has my spare razor, q-tips, etc.
| ...again, total cost is nearing zero to get started, it's
| usually about making sure you've gathered useful things you
| already have into the same place.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| This is good advice, but see, my problem is that I'd eat
| the marine rations when I run out of food next week, and
| I'd reach for the toilet paper as soon as it was out of
| stock at the shop. So now every time I go shopping I've
| got to refill the buffer. And next time I switch
| landlords, I have another bag to move!
|
| Maybe it's a bit more like the old bear quote. You just
| need someone else to be prepared...
| ramses0 wrote:
| Perfect! It's actually better if you interact with it
| regularly... which reminds me it's time to rotate the
| rations in my kit. Dessert for the week! :-D
|
| Technically you should have multiple bags. One in the
| car, one by the bed, one in the shop. Again, it's more of
| a mindset, and what's the cheapest, comfiest buffer you
| can get away with. For me: water, shoes, toilet paper,
| marine rations. Sanitizer b/c it's not the earthquake
| that gets you, it's the diarrhea caused by poor hygiene
| afterwards.
| jessriedel wrote:
| You generally can get a large fraction of the benefits of
| preparing for a rare risk of very bad events with minimal
| time investment. See for instance Rob Wiblin's nuclear war
| cheatsheet, which takes about 60 seconds to read:
|
| https://www.facebook.com/robert.wiblin/posts/801710894825
|
| (Pastebin to avoid facebook login:
| https://pastebin.com/xeyr5CwX )
|
| It's not too hard to argue that something like that is
| worth re-reading, say, annually.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| > but... why? ;)
|
| Because it is interesting? Because it is one of those things
| which fits in the frame of mind of many a hacker-type? For the
| same reason that some of us wear hiking boots in the server
| hall, just in case a mountain might spring up there?
|
| > a nuclear war is probably not survivable
|
| Of course it is, just look at how Japan came out of one. Would
| it be a pleasant experience? No, of course not, but the same
| was true for Hamburg, Tokyo and Dresden during the fire
| bombings, London during the Blitz, Stalingrad during the
| beleaguerment, the northern part of the Netherlands during the
| "hunger" winter of '44-'45. We like to read about war, watch
| movies about war, sing songs about war, create and look at art
| about war but few people actually want to experience war.
|
| > at least 5 years in an underground bunker
|
| As long as only "normal" nuclear weapons are used a few weeks
| would probably be enough, long enough for the fallout to be
| washed away by rain. The next step would be to leave the area
| and head for "the hills" - or any other area which was not
| directly attacked nor in the fallout plume of an attack.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| Japan took "only" 2 low yield bombs. We're speaking nuclear
| war here, with nukes flying left and right.
|
| > As long as only "normal" nuclear weapons are used a few
| weeks would probably be enough
|
| For the "lulz" read about cobalt nukes. I have read somewhere
| that Russia had some but I can't confirm it.
| cortesoft wrote:
| The nuclear weapons we have now are WAY more powerful than
| the ones used on Japan, and only two were dropped. An all out
| modern nuclear war would be a lot more devastating.
| korethr wrote:
| If you read the linked book, it covers this point. Yes, the
| tech exists to build bombs with multi-megaton yields and
| has existed for decades However, those super-big explosions
| are actually less tactically and strategically useful. More
| useful are smaller explosions that can be placed with more
| precision, and the tech needed to hit with precision has
| only improved over time. It is more likely that deployed
| weapons would have yields measured in kilotons. While
| bigger than Nagasaki, probably still closer to Nagasaki
| than Tsar Bomba
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Yeah radioactive decay from fallout is exponential. The
| hottest isotopes decay rapidly. It might be 5 years in the
| worst locations, but not everywhere.
| rdevsrex wrote:
| I read somewhere that some nuclear ware strategists
| considered a 30-40% global fatality rate an acceptable
| outcome of nuclear war, which lead to the idea of strike
| first being ok. I hate to think what an advanced AI would do
| if it thinks the best things for humanity is less humans. An
| anti-natalist AI with nukes is not a good thing.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| There is no need for an AI to come up with such a
| sentiment, there are plenty of people who see humans as a
| plague on the earth which it is better off without. The
| chance of some of these people triggering a nuclear
| exchange far exceeds the change of some future W.O.P.R. [1]
| getting the world into a conflict.
|
| [1] https://www.dataplusscience.com/WOPR/wargames.html
| forgetfulness wrote:
| I think you're just taking general feelings of
| frustration for humanity's short-sightnedness a tad too
| seriously, I've yet to see any group wanting to organize
| the demise of humanity based on what usually drives those
| sentiments, like the destruction of nature or cruelty
| towards animals and humans, in comparison to, say...
|
| Religious people making decisions with far-reaching
| consequences based on their religion's eschatology.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| I'm not so much thinking of people who want to totally
| eradicate humanity - these do exist [1] but they'll find
| it hard to gain enough adherents to get themselves in the
| position to trigger a nuclear exchange. The people I'm
| thinking of are those who'd like to see the world
| population reduced to what they consider to be a
| 'sustainable' level - neo-Malthusianists, radical
| Ecrocritics, etc. As you mentioned above there are also
| those who'd like to 'immanentise the eschaton' driven by
| religious zeal, e.g. Islamic State awaited the army of
| "Rome," whose defeat at Dabiq, Syria, would initiate the
| countdown to the apocalypse [2]. They did not succeed but
| the recent fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban might spell
| trouble for neighbouring Pakistan - a nuclear power -
| where the intelligence service ISI is suspected of being
| more loyal to extremists than to the Pakistani government
| [3].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinct
| ion_Mov...
|
| [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/
| what-is...
|
| [3] search for 'Pakistan ISI extremists' or something
| similar
| arethuza wrote:
| For the early 1960s according to Daniel Ellsberg:
|
| _" The total death toll as calculated by the Joint Chiefs,
| from a U.S. first strike aimed primarily at the Soviet
| Union and China, would be roughly 600 million dead. A
| hundred Holocausts"_
|
| 600 million was known at the time to be an underestimate
| and then add in what the Soviets would have done then over
| a billion is probably realistic. World population at the
| time was about 3 billion.
|
| Edit: Worth noting that this US strike would have killed
| about 100 million in _Western_ Europe.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _but a nuclear war is probably not survivable_
|
| Do read the first chapter of the linked webpage.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| I'll do, but I'm pretty sure the author is assuming one nuke
| detonating in your area. If this is a nuclear war there's a
| good chance thousands of nukes will be detonated.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| What it really comes down to is that with or without this info
| you most likely live your life mostly the same until a
| catastrophe strikes. When it does you're either dead or need to
| make a new life. Now based on your saying, are you going to
| really off yourself voluntarily, or will you make the best of a
| bad situation? And if you are going to make the best of it, it
| would've been real nice to study about what supplies to have
| prepared and what you're going to do now, rather than go blind,
| and without the internet resources to help you anymore.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| Either you take a massive dose of radioactivity (nuclear war
| means several nukes) and suffer horribly 'till death or you
| starve because nuclear winter.
|
| I have read about it a long time ago so don't quote me on
| this, but a nuclear winter is supposed to last at least 5
| years. Do you have the financial means and space to store
| that much food and rotate it regularly? I don't and frankly
| I'd rather not bother.
|
| Once nuclear winter is over, do you know how to grow your own
| food? You might not be able to hunt because all animals will
| either be dead or killed by other hunters.
|
| This scenario is very very hard to overcome. Not impossible,
| but only a few very prepared and or very lucky individuals
| would survive.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I have really considered same. Why bother. The surviving part
| is harsh, but what comes after that? Most modern nice things
| will be gone for years. Would that really be even worth living?
| jmnicolas wrote:
| Honestly I wouldn't mind loosing modern nice things, as long
| as I can go outside and trying to get food in a "normal"
| environment.
|
| Puking blood while cancer eats me from inside, starving
| because animals are dead and the sun is hidden so no
| agriculture... way too much for me.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| About what comes after: Our ancestors lived with a lot worse
| than that. The people who walked across the US on the Oregon
| trail did it. I'm sure we could do it too.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Just because some people lived in forests before me and
| burned down them to farm or ate the trees don't mean I want
| to do that...
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| My personal strategy has been to find a body of water not in the
| direction of the prevailing winds and steal a sailboat to live on
| for at least 2 weeks as the more radioactive isotopes decay.
| q1w2 wrote:
| The fact that I've had exactly the same idea makes me wonder
| how many sailboats might be left in the harbor when the time
| comes...
| detritus wrote:
| Mine's always been 'move to the Falklands'. Not the sort of
| thing one can do at the drop of a hat, mind.
| michaelmcdonald wrote:
| Why the Falklands?
| detritus wrote:
| I've been fascinated with the place since my father worked
| there after the war, and as a Northern Brit I'm comfortable
| in and like rugged, remote landscapes.
|
| More to the point, most of the bad shit to happen after a
| significant nuclear exchange will hit the Northern
| hemisphere and wind currents being what they are will
| mostly keep the fallout up there. Well, here.
| mhh__ wrote:
| + Penguins (admittedly in a minefield)
| detritus wrote:
| My father's one piece of advice, having spent a lot of
| time flying out to take photos of the landscape and
| penguin colonies and such was - "Whatever you do, never
| go downwind of a penguin colony". Cute little buggers
| stink!
|
| I think the Falklands reached a milestone in mine
| clearance, wherein they believe most of them are dealt
| with now.
|
| Still, 'most' implies an unnerving possibility of chance.
|
| - ed: I realise, belatedly, that this circles back to the
| original conceit - staying out of the way of noxious
| winds :)
| Ekaros wrote:
| I actually wonder would Argentina get to their territorial
| claims if Brits were preoccupied with other stuff...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I imagine our concept of "country" or "state" wouldn't
| survive a nuclear war.
| detritus wrote:
| If there was a risk of a nuclear war, I'd not be surprised
| if the UK sent some level of force down there as a 'back
| up'.
|
| Besides that idle thought- there's quite a lot of materiel
| down there already, so unless the UK withdrew war machines
| to help in the global annihilation, Argentina would still
| face some stiff opposition.
| jacknews wrote:
| I'm not sure why this was posted, although the nuclear risk does
| currently seem higher than in the last couple of decades, with
| China eyeing Taiwan, etc.
|
| OTOH, nuclear war might halt the climate crisis, over-population,
| etc.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > OTOH, nuclear war might halt the climate crisis, over-
| population, etc.
|
| Well when everyone's dead or starving for sure your first world
| problems will fade away.
| gumby wrote:
| I took a class on strategic deterrence and game theory as an
| undergraduate in the early 80s. Even then I took it in part for
| its weirdness -- in my entire life I was not able to take the
| threat of global nuclear war seriously.
|
| Basically I figured that it wouldn't really happen because the
| consequences were too extreme; in the case of accidental
| discharge the ability to survive was a crapshoot at best Ly under
| my control (e,g. I live across the street from Draper Labs).
|
| In fact the preparations for fallout shelters and the like always
| seemed like a failure of imagination.
| Borrible wrote:
| Making babies, quickly and a lot?
|
| Because of a higher mortality rate, decreased fertility,
| increased rate of deformities, and an overall short and brutal
| life?
|
| I mean, you have to think about the future...
|
| https://bookauthority.org/books/best-obstetrics-and-gynecolo...
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