> People widely laugh at "duck and cover" as if it was some huge joke. ... While the majority of the population would be at a distance from the closest explosio

> People widely laugh at "duck and cover" as if it was some huge joke. ... While the majority of the population would be at a distance from the closest explosion where ducking and covering would save them. Having grown up during the cold war, I'd say that people thought "duck and cover" was ridiculous not because of some misunderstanding about its usefulness in protecting one from blast, though that misunderstanding might have existed. The reason everyone thought it was ridiculous was that everyone realized that surviving and having to deal with a completely smashed infrastructure and radioactive fallout was an extremely terrible, shitty outcome that you were not going to save yourself from by hiding under a desk or something.