6 ms·

I finished the book recently, it was quite a long read. I can tell that the author definitely covered a wide variety of possible explanations to the reduction o

by Evgeny 12y ago

I finished the book recently, it was quite a long read. I can tell that the author definitely covered a wide variety of possible explanations to the reduction of violence. Was it exhaustive or not, I can't tell. The most surprising and unsettling for me was the vivid depiction of the levels of violence as they existed in the society (or societies) even relatively recently. I kind of take it for granted that I am fairly physically secure in my everyday life, my chances to die in a war are vanishingly small, and chances to be robbed not that much higher. Makes me grateful that I was not born just a few hundred years ago, and of course that I live in the more developed part of the world.

arethuza 12y ago
"my chances to die in a war are vanishingly small" Worth noting that a lot of us who were around before '89 didn't think this way back then.
- hga 12y ago
  They might not have been "vanishingly small" (looks to my right to the Civil Defense Block Mother sign we put up in the late '60s), but I and most of the people I knew rated the chances as "small".
  - arethuza 12y ago
    I heard air raid sirens go off in Edinburgh (by accident) in what was probably late '83 and really did get a scare - everyone else round about looked pretty terrified as well. Interestingly, that might have been at the same time as Able Archer - a coincidence I'm sure and not something we learned about until years after. [NB Recent accounts suggest that we'd never have got the "4 minute" warning anyway - so had the UK been hit by salvos of Soviet MRBMs and follow up bombers we'd never have known.] The BBC certainly didn't help our state of minds - I still have the mental scars of watching Threads and the particularly grim QED - A Guide To Armageddon.
    - hga 12y ago
      Ah! About that I'm not a good person to listen to, for I was born, raised, and have retired to a city that's a hair's breath from the USA's "Tornado Alley", and for that reason we are deadly serious about Civil Defense. So during tornado season, every Monday at 10 am if the weather was good, the sirens would sound for testing. And they of course sound when a funnel cloud was sighted, and they saved a lot of people from death or injury (in my case) the 3rd time in my life when it was for real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado and http://www.ancell-ent.com/1715_Rex_Ave_127B_Joplin/images/ http://www.ancell-ent.com/1715_Rex_Ave_127B_Joplin/images/ That said, surviving nuclear war isn't that difficult. Threads was ludicrous propaganda; if your nation is prepared (UK and US no, Switzerland and Israel yes), or if you're lucky and either aren't in the path of serious fallout or can arrange a shelter ... well, one theme of Threads was correct, medium and longer term survival is the trick. But the portrayed bigger environmental effects as well as cancer rates and the like were flat out lies (this based on reading the Wikipedia summary and my 45 years worth of study of nuclear war survival). Don't know about that Q.E.D. episode, but it was unrealistic: while the U.K. is like many other nations in being a "one bomb nation", that is, taking out the one central city takes out almost everything and everyone important "at the top" (compare to the US were D.C. is nothing but government, however much they like to pretend it's e.g. a cultural center :-), London would get a nice saturation spread of more efficient sub-megaton warheads :-(. If your government had really cared, and could afford it (that's the trick, I suppose, post-WWII and serious socialism), it could have been arranged that you'd get that 4 minutes warning and have a blast shelter to get into. By the same token, the US could have spent 1/3rds of a year's Cold War "defense" budget and outfitted enough shelter spaces for every resident, including a year's worth of food. But don't worry, sooner or later nuclear weapons will again be used in anger :-(, and a lot more people and nations will get serious about surviving them. If you want be prepared today, take a gander at Nuclear War Survival Skills, the book on expedient nuclear war survival: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War_Survival_Skills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War_Survival_Skills (Note you need the real, green cover book to get the correct scale diagrams to make a Kearny Fallout Meter, not to mention the need for a paper copy if the lights go out/EMP messes things up, but the free on-line versions will get you started.)

by Evgeny 12y ago

arethuza 12y ago

"my chances to die in a war are vanishingly small" Worth noting that a lot of us who were around before '89 didn't think this way back then.

hga 12y ago
They might not have been "vanishingly small" (looks to my right to the Civil Defense Block Mother sign we put up in the late '60s), but I and most of the people I knew rated the chances as "small".
- arethuza 12y ago
  I heard air raid sirens go off in Edinburgh (by accident) in what was probably late '83 and really did get a scare - everyone else round about looked pretty terrified as well. Interestingly, that might have been at the same time as Able Archer - a coincidence I'm sure and not something we learned about until years after. [NB Recent accounts suggest that we'd never have got the "4 minute" warning anyway - so had the UK been hit by salvos of Soviet MRBMs and follow up bombers we'd never have known.] The BBC certainly didn't help our state of minds - I still have the mental scars of watching Threads and the particularly grim QED - A Guide To Armageddon.
  - hga 12y ago
    Ah! About that I'm not a good person to listen to, for I was born, raised, and have retired to a city that's a hair's breath from the USA's "Tornado Alley", and for that reason we are deadly serious about Civil Defense. So during tornado season, every Monday at 10 am if the weather was good, the sirens would sound for testing. And they of course sound when a funnel cloud was sighted, and they saved a lot of people from death or injury (in my case) the 3rd time in my life when it was for real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado and http://www.ancell-ent.com/1715_Rex_Ave_127B_Joplin/images/ http://www.ancell-ent.com/1715_Rex_Ave_127B_Joplin/images/ That said, surviving nuclear war isn't that difficult. Threads was ludicrous propaganda; if your nation is prepared (UK and US no, Switzerland and Israel yes), or if you're lucky and either aren't in the path of serious fallout or can arrange a shelter ... well, one theme of Threads was correct, medium and longer term survival is the trick. But the portrayed bigger environmental effects as well as cancer rates and the like were flat out lies (this based on reading the Wikipedia summary and my 45 years worth of study of nuclear war survival). Don't know about that Q.E.D. episode, but it was unrealistic: while the U.K. is like many other nations in being a "one bomb nation", that is, taking out the one central city takes out almost everything and everyone important "at the top" (compare to the US were D.C. is nothing but government, however much they like to pretend it's e.g. a cultural center :-), London would get a nice saturation spread of more efficient sub-megaton warheads :-(. If your government had really cared, and could afford it (that's the trick, I suppose, post-WWII and serious socialism), it could have been arranged that you'd get that 4 minutes warning and have a blast shelter to get into. By the same token, the US could have spent 1/3rds of a year's Cold War "defense" budget and outfitted enough shelter spaces for every resident, including a year's worth of food. But don't worry, sooner or later nuclear weapons will again be used in anger :-(, and a lot more people and nations will get serious about surviving them. If you want be prepared today, take a gander at Nuclear War Survival Skills, the book on expedient nuclear war survival: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War_Survival_Skills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War_Survival_Skills (Note you need the real, green cover book to get the correct scale diagrams to make a Kearny Fallout Meter, not to mention the need for a paper copy if the lights go out/EMP messes things up, but the free on-line versions will get you started.)