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> 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?

> 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.