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But Chernobyl was not a worst case scenario. It was bad but the Soviet government did respond to it seriously. It could've been much worse had they not. In fac

But Chernobyl was not a worst case scenario. It was bad but the Soviet government did respond to it seriously. It could've been much worse had they not. In fact, that's what this article gets entirely wrong about the film. The most disturbing thing the film highlights is not the gruesome deaths of a handful of individuals. It's how the disaster could've been much worse.

falcolas 7y ago
> the Soviet government did respond to it seriously If by seriously you mean covering up the problem so the appropriate experts could be brought in to contain the problem before the fallout covered half of Europe, or in not providing proper shielding for the first responders, or by not providing proper funding and training for the staff at Chernobyl... sure, they took it very seriously. /s
- DubiousPusher 7y ago
  I have read many books about the Soviet Union. The government was full of perverse incentives which encouraged fraud, deception, denial and corruption. The dogma was so perverse it lead to a total corruption of logic and reason. To the point it essentially warped reality. In the Soviet Union, to ask for a better tool was to imply that your managers were incompetent. Or the tool designers were. Or the manufacturers were. All of whom were appointed by the government. A government which saw itself as the manifest will of the people. To imply something wasn't good enough was to imply the Russian people themselves weren't good enough. That horrendous logic may have been self inflicted but it none the less set the ground rules for any action taken by the government. The inadequacies you point out say nothing about how seriously the Soviet government took Chernobyl. You will find the exact same problems pervade almost every single Soviet government initiative.
beat 7y ago
How it could have been worse, and why. The layer after layer of lies and coverups going on within the Soviet government are very much at odds with the heroism of those actually on the ground. Kinda like working IT in a big American corporation. :)
izzydata 7y ago
Indeed. They showed clearly that they were willing to throw near limitless resources at solving the problem before it became a worst case scenario. The worst cast scenario being the core reaching either the giant pool of water in the plant or the ground water beneath the plant which may have made a huge part of the continent uninhabitable.
CyanBird 7y ago
In the chernobyl podcast, where a lead director and producer of the show talks about it, he said a haunting line that in my opinion is nothing but the truth >Chernobyl could only happen in the Ussr, but the Ussr was the only country with the capabilities to solve it Only a nation with the colosal human, and natural resources such as the ussr could have "solved" the chernobyl problem

falcolas 7y ago

> the Soviet government did respond to it seriously If by seriously you mean covering up the problem so the appropriate experts could be brought in to contain the problem before the fallout covered half of Europe, or in not providing proper shielding for the first responders, or by not providing proper funding and training for the staff at Chernobyl... sure, they took it very seriously. /s

DubiousPusher 7y ago
I have read many books about the Soviet Union. The government was full of perverse incentives which encouraged fraud, deception, denial and corruption. The dogma was so perverse it lead to a total corruption of logic and reason. To the point it essentially warped reality. In the Soviet Union, to ask for a better tool was to imply that your managers were incompetent. Or the tool designers were. Or the manufacturers were. All of whom were appointed by the government. A government which saw itself as the manifest will of the people. To imply something wasn't good enough was to imply the Russian people themselves weren't good enough. That horrendous logic may have been self inflicted but it none the less set the ground rules for any action taken by the government. The inadequacies you point out say nothing about how seriously the Soviet government took Chernobyl. You will find the exact same problems pervade almost every single Soviet government initiative.

beat 7y ago

How it could have been worse, and why. The layer after layer of lies and coverups going on within the Soviet government are very much at odds with the heroism of those actually on the ground. Kinda like working IT in a big American corporation. :)

izzydata 7y ago

Indeed. They showed clearly that they were willing to throw near limitless resources at solving the problem before it became a worst case scenario. The worst cast scenario being the core reaching either the giant pool of water in the plant or the ground water beneath the plant which may have made a huge part of the continent uninhabitable.

CyanBird 7y ago

In the chernobyl podcast, where a lead director and producer of the show talks about it, he said a haunting line that in my opinion is nothing but the truth >Chernobyl could only happen in the Ussr, but the Ussr was the only country with the capabilities to solve it Only a nation with the colosal human, and natural resources such as the ussr could have "solved" the chernobyl problem