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> However the Canadian system (which is heavily based on the American system) is setup differently. All alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alerts'. None

> However the Canadian system (which is heavily based on the American system) is setup differently. All alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alerts'. None of the other alert levels are used. That's the dumbest thing ever. A presidential alert basically means "nukes incoming."

mrguyorama 4y ago
Here in the states, the Trump administration sent one out as "a test". I was not sober at the time and I genuinely was very nervous for the few seconds it took to open my phone and read the message.
- toast0 4y ago
  It was pretty widely publicized before it happened, and I think it even got delayed a few days, during the business day. Honestly, I can't imagine it will ever be used for reals[1], but testing it once seems reasonable. [1] few disasters, man made or natural, reach national scope. Even a grid failure would likely only reach half the country, but do you need a national alert for that? What useful content could it have? Many inbound nukes is about all I could see it used for, but I expect that would cause more panic and be less useful than not sending a message... And I'm not convinced a decision to send a message would be made in a reasonable amount of time. State or local messaging seems more likely.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Many inbound nukes is about all I could see it used for, but I expect that would cause more panic and be less useful than not sending a message.. What now? Sure it would cause less panic--in same the way shooting someone in the head unannounced would cause less panic than giving them warning to duck. If the nukes are incoming, "avoiding panic" is the wrong priority. > And I'm not convinced a decision to send a message would be made in a reasonable amount of time. State or local messaging seems more likely. IIRC, they're triggered directly for NORAD (or whatever it's called nowadays). There was actually a false alarm alert in the 70s, and it did get out quickly (google "code word hatefulness").
    - toast0 4y ago
      > There was actually a false alarm alert in the 70s, and it did get out quickly (google "code word hatefulness"). Well it got out quickly, but the cancellation was slow. I have no doubt that the alerts would go out quickly, if there was a decision to send them (and assuming the means to send them is still around). More and more of these systems has gotten automated so there's no one at the local stations who would need to decide to send or not. I'm just not sure that the 25 minutes or so between detection and impact is enough time to decide to send an alert, amidst all the other activities that would certainly need to be done.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Here in the states, the Trump administration sent one out as "a test". I was not sober at the time and I genuinely was very nervous for the few seconds it took to open my phone and read the message. That's kind of understandable, though. If the nukes really are incoming, you want to make sure your alert system actually works, and the only way to really do that is to test it.

mrguyorama 4y ago

Here in the states, the Trump administration sent one out as "a test". I was not sober at the time and I genuinely was very nervous for the few seconds it took to open my phone and read the message.

toast0 4y ago
It was pretty widely publicized before it happened, and I think it even got delayed a few days, during the business day. Honestly, I can't imagine it will ever be used for reals[1], but testing it once seems reasonable. [1] few disasters, man made or natural, reach national scope. Even a grid failure would likely only reach half the country, but do you need a national alert for that? What useful content could it have? Many inbound nukes is about all I could see it used for, but I expect that would cause more panic and be less useful than not sending a message... And I'm not convinced a decision to send a message would be made in a reasonable amount of time. State or local messaging seems more likely.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Many inbound nukes is about all I could see it used for, but I expect that would cause more panic and be less useful than not sending a message.. What now? Sure it would cause less panic--in same the way shooting someone in the head unannounced would cause less panic than giving them warning to duck. If the nukes are incoming, "avoiding panic" is the wrong priority. > And I'm not convinced a decision to send a message would be made in a reasonable amount of time. State or local messaging seems more likely. IIRC, they're triggered directly for NORAD (or whatever it's called nowadays). There was actually a false alarm alert in the 70s, and it did get out quickly (google "code word hatefulness").
  - toast0 4y ago
    > There was actually a false alarm alert in the 70s, and it did get out quickly (google "code word hatefulness"). Well it got out quickly, but the cancellation was slow. I have no doubt that the alerts would go out quickly, if there was a decision to send them (and assuming the means to send them is still around). More and more of these systems has gotten automated so there's no one at the local stations who would need to decide to send or not. I'm just not sure that the 25 minutes or so between detection and impact is enough time to decide to send an alert, amidst all the other activities that would certainly need to be done.
tablespoon 4y ago
> Here in the states, the Trump administration sent one out as "a test". I was not sober at the time and I genuinely was very nervous for the few seconds it took to open my phone and read the message. That's kind of understandable, though. If the nukes really are incoming, you want to make sure your alert system actually works, and the only way to really do that is to test it.