3 ms·

For whatever reason there came to be a general belief that the drills were pointless or just propaganda. In reality they were very worthwhile and provided meani

For whatever reason there came to be a general belief that the drills were pointless or just propaganda. In reality they were very worthwhile and provided meaningful preparedness training. The bomb isn't what always kills people: it's the building falling on top of you that will kill or maim you, and knowing what to do when the building is falling down can drastically improve your chances of survival. The assumption that most people have is just that nukes just evaporate people like in Terminator 2. That's not the case for most of the danger zone. This fascinating book on the topic of preparedness is available for free here: http://www.oism.org/nwss/ http://www.oism.org/nwss/ It includes a lot of detail, diagrams, and explanations about topics like fallout. Unfortunately many students who become politicians tend to be dramatically misinformed about how nuclear weapons work which leads to some systematically incorrect assumptions that have wide-ranging consequences. Most of what people believe about nuclear weapons and nuclear technology in general is false.

fossuser 9y ago
Part of it is that there's a public risk with this sense of 'preparedness'. If large amounts of people feel comfortable with nuclear war breaking out because they have their bomb shelter stocked in the backyard that poses an existential risk for everyone. While people may overestimate the vaporization radius of a specific bomb we definitely don't want a larger underestimation of the affect of large scale nuclear conflict. This was kind of the point of the pugwash conference, to remove nuclear weapons from political escalation more generally. If we're not successful at this and it escalates or becomes political that might be the end of it. “In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.” https://pugwash.org/1955/07/09/statement-manifesto/ https://pugwash.org/1955/07/09/statement-manifesto/

fossuser 9y ago

Part of it is that there's a public risk with this sense of 'preparedness'. If large amounts of people feel comfortable with nuclear war breaking out because they have their bomb shelter stocked in the backyard that poses an existential risk for everyone. While people may overestimate the vaporization radius of a specific bomb we definitely don't want a larger underestimation of the affect of large scale nuclear conflict. This was kind of the point of the pugwash conference, to remove nuclear weapons from political escalation more generally. If we're not successful at this and it escalates or becomes political that might be the end of it. “In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.” https://pugwash.org/1955/07/09/statement-manifesto/ https://pugwash.org/1955/07/09/statement-manifesto/