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My plan for a total exchange is to be under the hypocenter of the first blast. I don’t even want to be aware that humanity is finished, never mind try to scrape

My plan for a total exchange is to be under the hypocenter of the first blast. I don’t even want to be aware that humanity is finished, never mind try to scrape by with Mad Max.

Clubber 9y ago
Tensions were so high in the 80s, I remember me and a few other kids discussing that very thing with a teacher in 3rd grade on the playground. (back when kids actually had daily recess plus P.E.)
- metaobject 9y ago
  My kids still have daily recess and PE.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    Mine have no daily recess and PE once a week. :(
- QAPereo 9y ago
  This is literally the decade and context in which I had the same discussions!
  - skygazer 9y ago
    Me too. We're either all 43, or there's something about that third grade recess.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      Pretty close. How did that happen!? I feel like I was 23 just a few weeks ago!
      - KGIII 9y ago
        Did they still make you do the drill where they'd set off the fire alarm and you'd have to crawl under your desks? I'm a bit older and that was mandatory at my school. I am not sure why they felt a desk was good protection from a nuclear blast. Considering that my school was usually right next to a base, it probably would have been a fairly direct blast. We were rather morbid kids and I think our leading child-theory was that they made us do that so that it would be easier to count the bodies. This would have been in the sixties. I'd later go to a boarding school that was really remote, and they didn't make us do the exercise. In hindsight, getting under the desk while being that far from any likely blast might actually have afforded us some protection from falling debris.
        alethiophile 9y ago
        In most any kind of disaster, secondary effects kill way more people than primary effects. Even if it seems silly, taking effective measures against the secondary effects is very worth doing. (Also, for nuclear bombs specifically, hiding under the desks keeps kids out of view of windows, and hence not vulnerable to being blinded/burned by a flash.)
        KGIII 9y ago
        For example, one school was maybe a mile outside the front gates in Quantico. No desk is going to help us there. We were going out in the very first volley, regardless of furniture.
        alethiophile 9y ago
        Fair. But most schools aren't, and they aren't going to roll out those procedures unevenly.
        KGIII 9y ago
        You may be right, though things were far less standardized back then. When I went to boarding school, they had no such drills. I'm not sure if that compares, as it was also in a different State. So, you may be right. I dunno, really.
- cocoablazing 9y ago
  The mid-80's were actually the peak of cold war TNW preparation. NATO's provocation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 Soviet response: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYAN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYAN
civilian 9y ago
"Humanity does not ask you to be happy, it asks you to be brilliant on it's behalf."
- QAPereo 9y ago
  If we nuke ourselves, I posit that humanity is a failure to be abandoned, maybe even a contagion to be contained.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
dataisfun 9y ago
Completely agree. Survival past that point would probably be a worse outcome. Just imagine the long tail of life when fully aware of humanity's self immolation. Combine that with the fact that most of the people likely to survive are the most paranoid of today's preppers, one shudders at the thought of plodding through an existence trapped in the most neurotic subreddits come to life.
- mulmen 9y ago
  I'm not convinced that peppers are as prepared as they think they are. Post-annihilation we need people who build civilization, not that hide in holes. Good luck living in a shipping container surrounded by a few inches of Quickrete from Home Depot while a hungry mob led by the most charismatic survivor looks for a way in.
  - AcerbicZero 9y ago
    You are seriously underestimating the paranoia in parts of the prepper community if you think they don't have contingencies for that exact situation.
    - jamiek88 9y ago
      There will be more hungry humans than they have bullets. Also, hungry humans will have bullets. It's America.
      - AcerbicZero 9y ago
        I mean, this topic is pretty far from any reasonable assumptions, so if you want to base your doomsday survival plan on charging into the killings fields of a crazy dude with pallets of ammo and AR-15s be my guest. I was just highlighting the point that some people are exceptionally over prepared for just about any scenario, not trying to argue the merits or morality of it.
    - mulmen 9y ago
      I'm sure they have thought about it, I just don't think they have a workable solution.
mulmen 9y ago
At an old job my boss was excited to have paid off his RV trailer. By owning it outright he was free to paint it in his favorite camouflage scheme. He said his plan was to go live in the woods "when the bombs drop". I told him my plan was to go in the flash. I have no desire to die, certainly not in nuclear holocaust. I also don't think anyone really knows how best to survive or even prepare for such a world. "I'll go in the flash" is really just my way of saying that doesn't enter into my decision to live in a populated area or own an RV. We don't really know what the world would look like if the bombs did drop so I don't go out of my way to avoid such a world by not surviving the first moments. I would rather avoid it by stabilizing the geopolitical landscape. That's probably going to take more than a Thursday though. Having said all this just prepare like you would for anything else. We're much more likely to face hurricanes, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions anyway. If we look at those environments the world post-WWIII may not be so bad actually. Sure our iPhones probably wont work and the cancer rate will be high but that doesn't mean it will go full mad-max either. We have human civilization because that's our natural state, I think there is reason to be optimistic even in the face of nuclear annihilation.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  It is possible to plan for survival in the aftermath of a limited nuclear exchange (and other non-Earth-destroying disasters). One's life could still be made quite miserable by even a mid-size disaster, yet so many people are unprepared, sometimes even proudly and deliberately so.
crispinb 9y ago
There is a kind of beauty in the blast, so if I knew it was going to happen I wouldn't mind being perched on a good viewpoint beyond the blast radius. I'd then jump straight on my motorbike and have a first ride sans helmet (compulsory here), then slam the bike into a tree at 200kph.

My plan for a total exchange is to be under the hypocenter of the first blast. I don’t even want to be aware that humanity is finished, never mind try to scrape by with Mad Max.

Clubber 9y ago

Tensions were so high in the 80s, I remember me and a few other kids discussing that very thing with a teacher in 3rd grade on the playground. (back when kids actually had daily recess plus P.E.)

metaobject 9y ago
My kids still have daily recess and PE.
- Clubber 9y ago
  Mine have no daily recess and PE once a week. :(
QAPereo 9y ago
This is literally the decade and context in which I had the same discussions!
- skygazer 9y ago
  Me too. We're either all 43, or there's something about that third grade recess.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    Pretty close. How did that happen!? I feel like I was 23 just a few weeks ago!
    - KGIII 9y ago
      Did they still make you do the drill where they'd set off the fire alarm and you'd have to crawl under your desks? I'm a bit older and that was mandatory at my school. I am not sure why they felt a desk was good protection from a nuclear blast. Considering that my school was usually right next to a base, it probably would have been a fairly direct blast. We were rather morbid kids and I think our leading child-theory was that they made us do that so that it would be easier to count the bodies. This would have been in the sixties. I'd later go to a boarding school that was really remote, and they didn't make us do the exercise. In hindsight, getting under the desk while being that far from any likely blast might actually have afforded us some protection from falling debris.
      - alethiophile 9y ago
        In most any kind of disaster, secondary effects kill way more people than primary effects. Even if it seems silly, taking effective measures against the secondary effects is very worth doing. (Also, for nuclear bombs specifically, hiding under the desks keeps kids out of view of windows, and hence not vulnerable to being blinded/burned by a flash.)
        KGIII 9y ago
        For example, one school was maybe a mile outside the front gates in Quantico. No desk is going to help us there. We were going out in the very first volley, regardless of furniture.
        alethiophile 9y ago
        Fair. But most schools aren't, and they aren't going to roll out those procedures unevenly.
        KGIII 9y ago
        You may be right, though things were far less standardized back then. When I went to boarding school, they had no such drills. I'm not sure if that compares, as it was also in a different State. So, you may be right. I dunno, really.
cocoablazing 9y ago
The mid-80's were actually the peak of cold war TNW preparation. NATO's provocation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 Soviet response: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYAN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYAN

civilian 9y ago

"Humanity does not ask you to be happy, it asks you to be brilliant on it's behalf."

QAPereo 9y ago
If we nuke ourselves, I posit that humanity is a failure to be abandoned, maybe even a contagion to be contained.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

dataisfun 9y ago

Completely agree. Survival past that point would probably be a worse outcome. Just imagine the long tail of life when fully aware of humanity's self immolation. Combine that with the fact that most of the people likely to survive are the most paranoid of today's preppers, one shudders at the thought of plodding through an existence trapped in the most neurotic subreddits come to life.

mulmen 9y ago
I'm not convinced that peppers are as prepared as they think they are. Post-annihilation we need people who build civilization, not that hide in holes. Good luck living in a shipping container surrounded by a few inches of Quickrete from Home Depot while a hungry mob led by the most charismatic survivor looks for a way in.
- AcerbicZero 9y ago
  You are seriously underestimating the paranoia in parts of the prepper community if you think they don't have contingencies for that exact situation.
  - jamiek88 9y ago
    There will be more hungry humans than they have bullets. Also, hungry humans will have bullets. It's America.
    - AcerbicZero 9y ago
      I mean, this topic is pretty far from any reasonable assumptions, so if you want to base your doomsday survival plan on charging into the killings fields of a crazy dude with pallets of ammo and AR-15s be my guest. I was just highlighting the point that some people are exceptionally over prepared for just about any scenario, not trying to argue the merits or morality of it.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    I'm sure they have thought about it, I just don't think they have a workable solution.

mulmen 9y ago

At an old job my boss was excited to have paid off his RV trailer. By owning it outright he was free to paint it in his favorite camouflage scheme. He said his plan was to go live in the woods "when the bombs drop". I told him my plan was to go in the flash. I have no desire to die, certainly not in nuclear holocaust. I also don't think anyone really knows how best to survive or even prepare for such a world. "I'll go in the flash" is really just my way of saying that doesn't enter into my decision to live in a populated area or own an RV. We don't really know what the world would look like if the bombs did drop so I don't go out of my way to avoid such a world by not surviving the first moments. I would rather avoid it by stabilizing the geopolitical landscape. That's probably going to take more than a Thursday though. Having said all this just prepare like you would for anything else. We're much more likely to face hurricanes, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions anyway. If we look at those environments the world post-WWIII may not be so bad actually. Sure our iPhones probably wont work and the cancer rate will be high but that doesn't mean it will go full mad-max either. We have human civilization because that's our natural state, I think there is reason to be optimistic even in the face of nuclear annihilation.

pmoriarty 9y ago
It is possible to plan for survival in the aftermath of a limited nuclear exchange (and other non-Earth-destroying disasters). One's life could still be made quite miserable by even a mid-size disaster, yet so many people are unprepared, sometimes even proudly and deliberately so.

crispinb 9y ago

There is a kind of beauty in the blast, so if I knew it was going to happen I wouldn't mind being perched on a good viewpoint beyond the blast radius. I'd then jump straight on my motorbike and have a first ride sans helmet (compulsory here), then slam the bike into a tree at 200kph.