3 ms·

I have been watching documentaries recently of the Chernobyl cleanup - it is stunning. The bravery of the soldiers(or ignorance) is amazing. The fact that they

by phlux 16y ago

I have been watching documentaries recently of the Chernobyl cleanup - it is stunning. The bravery of the soldiers(or ignorance) is amazing. The fact that they were called "Liquidators" and "BioRobots" is very interesting. It is also interesting that they say they evacuated 100K residents then used 800K liquidators is crazy. If you haven't seen footage of the accident - check it out. When they first drilled into the reactor, they were stunned to find that it was empty. The rods had melted entirely and poured through the bottom of the reactor and fused with sand to make a massive graphite-fuel-rod-glass blob that was extremely radioactive. They got close enough to it to film it.

Detrus 16y ago
The Battle of Chernobyl http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319... is a good documentary to check out. They sacrificed hundreds of men in a rush to stave off a secondary explosion that would have made a far larger uninhabitable zone.
varjag 16y ago
"Biorobot" was mostly an inside joke. "Liquidator" however was, and is, an official term in former USSR, there are no derogatory connotations with it.
- phlux 16y ago
  I wasn't really taking any derogatory connotation from either, but both terms still evoke a very [stoic] [serious] [chilling] reaction from me. Note: [] cant quite figure out how to articulate the feeling I get looking at film of these men performing these duties and knowing that they fully are aware that they are doing this and it is going to kill them - but that it MUST be done. That is just serious humanity there.
- kemiller 16y ago
  "Robot" is already derived from the russian word for work. Is that connected or no?
  - Detrus 16y ago
    Biorobot refers to the people who cleaned up the reactor roof with shovels after a remote controlled shoveling car, a "robot" had its electronics fried from the radiation. The pun is robots are expendable, so are biorobots. It's not related to the work word origin. The biorobots wore handmade suits of lead armor, so they were covered in metal, like robots. I'm getting it from here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319... Even if you speak Russian it's hard to decipher their puns. "Liquidator" is an official term, but also has connotations. Not sure, but I remember it's associated with death squads.
  - bluekeybox 16y ago
    "The word robot was introduced to the public by the Czech interwar writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot#Etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot#Etymology)
  - varjag 16y ago
    Not directly, the word itself is derived from Czech. Biorobot in particular is a sci-fi cliche, which, with official stressing on TV that robots are also involved in clean-up, made the joke.

by phlux 16y ago

Detrus 16y ago

The Battle of Chernobyl http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319... is a good documentary to check out. They sacrificed hundreds of men in a rush to stave off a secondary explosion that would have made a far larger uninhabitable zone.

varjag 16y ago

"Biorobot" was mostly an inside joke. "Liquidator" however was, and is, an official term in former USSR, there are no derogatory connotations with it.

phlux 16y ago
I wasn't really taking any derogatory connotation from either, but both terms still evoke a very [stoic] [serious] [chilling] reaction from me. Note: [] cant quite figure out how to articulate the feeling I get looking at film of these men performing these duties and knowing that they fully are aware that they are doing this and it is going to kill them - but that it MUST be done. That is just serious humanity there.
kemiller 16y ago
"Robot" is already derived from the russian word for work. Is that connected or no?
- Detrus 16y ago
  Biorobot refers to the people who cleaned up the reactor roof with shovels after a remote controlled shoveling car, a "robot" had its electronics fried from the radiation. The pun is robots are expendable, so are biorobots. It's not related to the work word origin. The biorobots wore handmade suits of lead armor, so they were covered in metal, like robots. I'm getting it from here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319... Even if you speak Russian it's hard to decipher their puns. "Liquidator" is an official term, but also has connotations. Not sure, but I remember it's associated with death squads.
- bluekeybox 16y ago
  "The word robot was introduced to the public by the Czech interwar writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot#Etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot#Etymology)
- varjag 16y ago
  Not directly, the word itself is derived from Czech. Biorobot in particular is a sci-fi cliche, which, with official stressing on TV that robots are also involved in clean-up, made the joke.