There is a lot to know about nuclear war and how to survive one, and reading the comments there seems to be a lot of ignorance. I'm ignorant too. What I do know

There is a lot to know about nuclear war and how to survive one, and reading the comments there seems to be a lot of ignorance. I'm ignorant too. What I do know is that if things escalate into total nuclear war between the US and Russia it may NOT be the end as we know it. But you should know some things to be prepared. Like where the likely targets are, what kinds of bombs will hit those targets, and the effects of those bombs. It would be helpful to understand a little about practical nuclear fusion and fission, the fission products that plutonium decays into, and how it combines with dust to form fallout. It's good to know what alpha and beta particles are, what gamma radiation is, the impact on the body. I think this is necessary research if you want to make the best decision because, yes, sometimes the government does lie to you (see: Covid PPE lies in 2020) and you have to make your own choices. In the Covid case it was an obvious lie that could be penetrated by understanding the basics of disease transmission and epidemology - stuff you can learn in an evening. I've done a bit of this research, and the odd thing to me is that, from what I've read, potassium iodide (KI) only protects the thyroid from being harmed by I-131. The key question is how the radioactive I-131 gets into your body in the first place. I think its fallout, but I'm not sure. I mean, how could significant amounts of iodine enter your body? You'd have to breath a lot of radioactive dust, and at that point is your thyroid really your primary concern? But there are lots of other questions. Like, why only iodine? Why only protect the thyroid? Because there are other fissile products, and there are many other organs in the body, some of which you need to live. Plus, I-131 is used intentionally as medicine, so why defend so hard against something that is not necessarily even lethal? I don't know the answers, yet. In the interim, one possibility is that KI is a placebo to help people feel like they're "doing something" even though the pill might help defend one very small vulnerability in the pantheon of challenges you face if a nuke goes off nearby (or if fallout sprinkles on you or your house or the farm that grows your food). But honestly, if you're eating fallout dust you're putting a strong beta emitter into your stomach and I'm a little unclear how a well-protected thyroid helps you at that point. Here, I will share some links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine-131 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine-131 (This was the best link to start with on wikipedia to research KI specifically, it turns out.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_product_yield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_product_yield https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ0wwCb0c8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ0wwCb0c8Q (Charming 1950's filmreel about basic nuclear fission/fusion concepts and how bombs work) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHBb25lzNVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHBb25lzNVM (Ted-Ed, basic, short video that basically says, "Get inside and stay there for 24 hours"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon