Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded(paleofuture.gizmodo.com)
paleofuture.gizmodo.com
Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded
https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/62-rare-nuclear-test-films-have-been-declassified-and-u-1821302584
88 comments
Born in the late 60s, so teenager in the 80s in the UK. I recall that exact same fear of every passing aeroplane. In our case the cultural equivalents of OTB and DS were Threads and The Day After, and the Protect and Survive announcements that Frankie Goes To Hollywood sampled in Two Tribes.
I find it interesting that the terror of the global thermonuclear war seems to have disappeared from the popular psyche, even though exactly the same weapons are still there ready.
I find it interesting that the terror of the global thermonuclear war seems to have disappeared from the popular psyche, even though exactly the same weapons are still there ready.
I recall a film I saw on TV as a kid called Testament which just killed me. It depicted a family slowly dying off after their town is bombed. I cried for a few nights after seeing it. I've never watched it since. I wonder if I could handle it now as an adult.
What does OTB and DS mean in this context?
It's not that strange since all countries are well aware that any country that would start a third world war would get annihilated within minutes by the rest of the world.
If World War 3 didn't start during the Cuba Missile Crisis, it's extremely unlikely it would start now, not just because of the increased nuclear arsenals that all participants have accumulated since then but also for very trivial economic reasons.
If World War 3 didn't start during the Cuba Missile Crisis, it's extremely unlikely it would start now, not just because of the increased nuclear arsenals that all participants have accumulated since then but also for very trivial economic reasons.
The risk is still there. You can talk about economic reasons or MAD all you want, but then some idiot loads a training tape into the live system, or scientists launch a sounding rocket and somebody forgets to tell the early warning people, or a head of state starts going crazy, and suddenly you're one bad decision away from catastrophe.
Some things are much improved since the Cuban Missile Crisis. For example, the US Air Force is no longer eager to wage preemptive nuclear war on our enemies. Some things are much worse, though, such as the transition from bombers to ICBMs, resulting in a need to launch quickly to respond to an attack and an inability to recall a strike, or the change from a bipolar to a multipolar world with multiple conflicting nuclear weapons states.
I think of it in terms of probability per year. The fact that we haven't had a nuclear war yet suggests that this probability isn't super high. 10% would be implausible given history. But 1% is pretty plausible. So is 0.0001%. There's a massive difference between those two probabilities, though! 0.0001% means it probably doesn't matter, and human civilization is very likely to either collapse from some other problem or advance to a point where MAD can't happen long before a nuclear war breaks out. 1% makes it perhaps the most dire threat we face.
I personally think it's closer to 1% than 0.0001%. The systems are error-prone and too many of the people involved are stupid or potentially insane.
Some things are much improved since the Cuban Missile Crisis. For example, the US Air Force is no longer eager to wage preemptive nuclear war on our enemies. Some things are much worse, though, such as the transition from bombers to ICBMs, resulting in a need to launch quickly to respond to an attack and an inability to recall a strike, or the change from a bipolar to a multipolar world with multiple conflicting nuclear weapons states.
I think of it in terms of probability per year. The fact that we haven't had a nuclear war yet suggests that this probability isn't super high. 10% would be implausible given history. But 1% is pretty plausible. So is 0.0001%. There's a massive difference between those two probabilities, though! 0.0001% means it probably doesn't matter, and human civilization is very likely to either collapse from some other problem or advance to a point where MAD can't happen long before a nuclear war breaks out. 1% makes it perhaps the most dire threat we face.
I personally think it's closer to 1% than 0.0001%. The systems are error-prone and too many of the people involved are stupid or potentially insane.
>I think of it in terms of probability per year. The fact that we haven't had a nuclear war yet suggests that this probability isn't super high.
This is super misleading reasoning because of anthropic bias. There are many possible Earths. On all the ones were nuclear war happened, we wouldn't be here to observe it. You can only ever observe the "surprising" result that you continue to exist. So you can't use it as evidence in a probability estimate.
We came so close to nuclear war on multiple occasions. The chance can't be that low.
This is super misleading reasoning because of anthropic bias. There are many possible Earths. On all the ones were nuclear war happened, we wouldn't be here to observe it. You can only ever observe the "surprising" result that you continue to exist. So you can't use it as evidence in a probability estimate.
We came so close to nuclear war on multiple occasions. The chance can't be that low.
Nuclear war wouldn’t wipe out humanity. We, for dome value of “we,” would be around to talk about how it happened.
I doubt most of the people here would be alive and the population would be significantly reduced.
Can we really apply the anthropic principle so narrowly? Are we to conclude that my risk of death when crossing the street could be really high, and I can’t tell anything from the fact that it hasn’t happened because I wouldn’t be around to think about it if it had?
You can look at how often other people are hit by cars. You can also look at "close calls" where you were almost hit but miraculously saved.
But if you have personally walked into traffic without looking hundreds of times, I'd think you are just lucky. And that using your survival as a single data point is just survivorship bias.
But if you have personally walked into traffic without looking hundreds of times, I'd think you are just lucky. And that using your survival as a single data point is just survivorship bias.
>The Day After
Ronald Reagan was only convinced nuclear war was bad after watching this TV movie starring Steve Guttenberg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After#Effects_on_polic...
>President Ronald Reagan watched the film several days before its screening, on November 5, 1983. He wrote in his diary that the film was "very effective and left me greatly depressed," and that it changed his mind on the prevailing policy on a "nuclear war".
Ronald Reagan was only convinced nuclear war was bad after watching this TV movie starring Steve Guttenberg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After#Effects_on_polic...
>President Ronald Reagan watched the film several days before its screening, on November 5, 1983. He wrote in his diary that the film was "very effective and left me greatly depressed," and that it changed his mind on the prevailing policy on a "nuclear war".
As a kid I had nightmares for ages after watching 'when the wind blows'. I can't recommend that film highly enough.
Threads indeed, this one really brought it home:
"the film was the first of its kind to depict a nuclear winter. Certain reviewers nominated Threads as the "film which comes closest to representing the full horror of nuclear war and its aftermath, as well as the catastrophic impact that the event would have on human culture" (from Wikipedia)
"the film was the first of its kind to depict a nuclear winter. Certain reviewers nominated Threads as the "film which comes closest to representing the full horror of nuclear war and its aftermath, as well as the catastrophic impact that the event would have on human culture" (from Wikipedia)
> while deranged world leaders measure each other's manhood by "mine's bigger than yours
Not much has changed in 70 years.
Not much has changed in 70 years.
>> while deranged world leaders measure each other's manhood by "mine's bigger than yours
> Not much has changed in 70 years.
Well, that's not entirely true... At least, with regards to nuclear arsenals and weaponry, the last few decades have been marked by a substantial reduction by the original nuclear powers.
(Granted, there has also been some uptake, most notably India and Pakistan.)
> Not much has changed in 70 years.
Well, that's not entirely true... At least, with regards to nuclear arsenals and weaponry, the last few decades have been marked by a substantial reduction by the original nuclear powers.
(Granted, there has also been some uptake, most notably India and Pakistan.)
Not much has changed since recorded human history.
One of my profs in Uni said that it was difficult to find more than a few years in recorded history without active war.
I would argue there has fundamentally been change post WWII, and that is (1) the MAD doctrine--which limits active war--as well as (2) the push towards borderless states / globalization--i.e. even though Sweden is defined as sovereign, the institutions of the world dictate that if it doesn't do what the US says--whether that be torturing suspects at the US's demands[1] or taking down websites--they don't have much of a choice.
During WWII the drive for technology was extreme because of the threat of being conquered. And throughout all of human history our ancestors lived with this threat. We don't really have this threat anymore.
There is a Keynes quote, where he put it, "it is better for man to toil over their bank accounts than each other." Our wars are kind of laughably phony, and the real battle is over numbers in bank accounts--which seems to be the only reason we go to war now anyways (for all parties involved).
We do have a new kind of religion we are all following in a way in the sense that money and dieties are only endowed with whatever faith or meaning we give them. And in makes sense to do it because they've set it up so the rewards and punishments are as such.
So in a way I think this can be seen as the world'd largest and most successful social engineering project in history. I think it is a fundamental change in the nature of our masters.
1-https://www.hrw.org/news/2005/05/19/sweden-violated-torture-...
I would argue there has fundamentally been change post WWII, and that is (1) the MAD doctrine--which limits active war--as well as (2) the push towards borderless states / globalization--i.e. even though Sweden is defined as sovereign, the institutions of the world dictate that if it doesn't do what the US says--whether that be torturing suspects at the US's demands[1] or taking down websites--they don't have much of a choice.
During WWII the drive for technology was extreme because of the threat of being conquered. And throughout all of human history our ancestors lived with this threat. We don't really have this threat anymore.
There is a Keynes quote, where he put it, "it is better for man to toil over their bank accounts than each other." Our wars are kind of laughably phony, and the real battle is over numbers in bank accounts--which seems to be the only reason we go to war now anyways (for all parties involved).
We do have a new kind of religion we are all following in a way in the sense that money and dieties are only endowed with whatever faith or meaning we give them. And in makes sense to do it because they've set it up so the rewards and punishments are as such.
So in a way I think this can be seen as the world'd largest and most successful social engineering project in history. I think it is a fundamental change in the nature of our masters.
1-https://www.hrw.org/news/2005/05/19/sweden-violated-torture-...
I'd say something has changed since we're currently experiencing one of the most prolonged periods of peace in the last 2000 years (Europe) [1] and generally the world over [2]. This could be because the "price" of conflict has gone up, but still, it is something to think about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Europaea https://www.salon.com/2014/01/15/were_living_through_the_mos...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Europaea https://www.salon.com/2014/01/15/were_living_through_the_mos...
Except for that bit where we had a major war in former Yugoslavia.
The EU is the one thing that stands between more war in Europe and where we are today. Quite a few forces are acting to split it up. Let's hope it is robust enough to withstand those attacks.
The EU is the one thing that stands between more war in Europe and where we are today. Quite a few forces are acting to split it up. Let's hope it is robust enough to withstand those attacks.
This hasn't been much more peaceful than the century following the Napoleonic Wars, which makes a lot of the political grandstanding going on terrifying.
[deleted]
Isn't there war going on in the Middle East?
That does not change the fact that life for the average human today is, on the whole, more peaceful than at any point in recorded history. It is all too easy to lose track of this when you hear about all the horrific happening around the world every day
Average westerner, maybe...
It's more than just for the average westerner, but also for the average human, isn't it?
According to this, the absolute number of war-related deaths around the world has been decreasing for decades now. This is especially amazing since we've been experiencing a massive population increase since WW1.
https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Wars-L...
According to this, the absolute number of war-related deaths around the world has been decreasing for decades now. This is especially amazing since we've been experiencing a massive population increase since WW1.
https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Wars-L...
That's a fascinating chart. Yes, it shows that war deaths have been decreasing for decades, but it contradicts that great-grandparent's claim that "life for the average human today is more peaceful than at any point in recorded history". Looking at the red line, it seems that there have been many peaks and valleys in the last 600 years. We're in a local valley (more peaceful period) right now, but it doesn't suggest a long-term trend to me.
Also, deaths alone do not give the whole picture.
Sure, maybe fewer die. But what about the number of people displaced by war? And what about those that survive but are missing limbs etc?
Sure, maybe fewer die. But what about the number of people displaced by war? And what about those that survive but are missing limbs etc?
In terms of elemental psychology, probably not. But the weapons have changed, and moving from conventional to nuclear weapons is a sort of phase shift.
I've heard it hypothesized that the drills were intended, in part, to make the populace fear in order to support certain policies. Without the drills, the threat of nuclear war would be only theoretical. Having lived through it, what is your impression?
I didn't live through the drills, but they were pretty smart. The popular scorn towards "duck and cover" is completely undeserved. Those drills would have saved a lot of lives if war had actually broken out. The popular misconception of nuclear weapons is that there's a zone of total destruction and that's about it, but in reality there are huge areas where buildings would collapse or windows would shatter but people could easily survive with some protection. Protection like being under a sturdy piece of furniture.
Which is very useful, but doesn't solve the problem that those people will almost certainly die of radiation exposure from fallout 2-4 weeks later, unless they get to a shelter within 15 minutes or so, and stay there for 2-4 weeks, at a minimum, without running out of supplies or going mad.
Or that they'll die of starvation and disease 2-4 months later.
Or of the effects of nuclear winter 2 to 4 years later.
Or that virtually everything they're used to - food manufacture and distribution, electronics, machinery, transport, energy, medicine - will no longer be working, and maybe one survivor in a thousand will have the skills and knowledge needed to start even the most basic rebuilding program.
Or that they'll die of starvation and disease 2-4 months later.
Or of the effects of nuclear winter 2 to 4 years later.
Or that virtually everything they're used to - food manufacture and distribution, electronics, machinery, transport, energy, medicine - will no longer be working, and maybe one survivor in a thousand will have the skills and knowledge needed to start even the most basic rebuilding program.
First of all, "duck and cover" is from the 1950s. Before ICBMs existed, and before there were as many bombs as later on.
>those people will almost certainly die of radiation exposure from fallout 2-4 weeks later, unless they get to a shelter within 15 minutes or so, and stay there for 2-4 weeks, at a minimum, without running out of supplies or going mad.
Many people survived at Hiroshima. Not everyone is downwind of fallout. Even if you are, many of the projections I've seen show many expected survivors.
>Or that they'll die of starvation and disease 2-4 months later.
We wouldn't run out of food anywhere near that quickly. The US has vast supplies of stored food and unslaughtered animals. And radiation doesn't create disease.
>Or of the effects of nuclear winter 2 to 4 years later.
Nuclear winter has been greatly exaggerated. AT worst the growing season would be reduced and it would get a bit colder.
>those people will almost certainly die of radiation exposure from fallout 2-4 weeks later, unless they get to a shelter within 15 minutes or so, and stay there for 2-4 weeks, at a minimum, without running out of supplies or going mad.
Many people survived at Hiroshima. Not everyone is downwind of fallout. Even if you are, many of the projections I've seen show many expected survivors.
>Or that they'll die of starvation and disease 2-4 months later.
We wouldn't run out of food anywhere near that quickly. The US has vast supplies of stored food and unslaughtered animals. And radiation doesn't create disease.
>Or of the effects of nuclear winter 2 to 4 years later.
Nuclear winter has been greatly exaggerated. AT worst the growing season would be reduced and it would get a bit colder.
"Duck and cover" dates from a time when an all-out nuclear war would have resembled General Turgidson's description of an outcome where we "get our hair mussed." It still would have been devastating beyond anything in human history (except for what would have happened to Europe and the USSR) but it the country would have been left largely intact. Most of what you describe is what would have been the aftermath of a war some decades later, when the USSR's ability to strike the US had increased by orders of magnitude.
Fallout is the one thing that would have been a major danger, but it tends to be directional depending on winds. Lots of people would have been close enough to an explosion to benefit from "duck and cover" without being subjected to lethal amounts of fallout.
Fallout is the one thing that would have been a major danger, but it tends to be directional depending on winds. Lots of people would have been close enough to an explosion to benefit from "duck and cover" without being subjected to lethal amounts of fallout.
[deleted]
There's a big scramble in the Department of Energy to preserve (and declassify, where possible) a lot of the data from the days of atmospheric testing, which is literally rotting. It's some of the only real world data we have on e.g. fallout dispersal, which is important for building the simulations that would allow emergency workers to safely operate in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. It's also of interest for nuclear forensics, which is highly relevant at the moment with the situation in Korea.
Btw, here is one of recently declassified soviet videos about first nuclear bomb test.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BIDzZygIq0
It's a kind of report, explaining experiment setup, equipment, test process and results. Russian, no subtitles but picture itself explains a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BIDzZygIq0
It's a kind of report, explaining experiment setup, equipment, test process and results. Russian, no subtitles but picture itself explains a lot.
If you're ever in Vegas, the National Atomic Testing Museum is a great place to go: http://nationalatomictestingmuseum.org/
And if you are in Hiroshima, the museum dedicated to the atomic bombing of the city is worth visiting. Makes you really sad.
Direct link to the videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/LivermoreLab/videos
my favorite detail is the evaporating (almost explosively converted into plasma by the sheer intensity of the energy being radiated) tower that the weapon was placed on top of and the cables which were keeping the tower vertical - the 5 spikes at the belly of the fireball
https://youtu.be/woR7j72zE0U?t=9
https://youtu.be/woR7j72zE0U?t=9
I feel conflicted that these explosions are so beautiful to watch, and I always wanted to see one in the sky where the ground didn't interfere with the cloud. Now I have but I'm not really satisfied because it references a possible destruction of humanity?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n3uane1UT8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n3uane1UT8
>it references a possible destruction of humanity?
imagine a guy who has a gun in a drawer at home and who smokes 2 packs a day. What is going to kill him with pretty high probability? The same way the humanity is with nuclear weapons and climate change.
imagine a guy who has a gun in a drawer at home and who smokes 2 packs a day. What is going to kill him with pretty high probability? The same way the humanity is with nuclear weapons and climate change.
How is climate change anywhere near as dangerous as a nuclear war?
Climate change is already happening, and well on its way to being both catastrophic and irreversible.
So? What's the worse that can happen? Some cities slowly get flooded and some storms become more frequent? The worst case of nuclear war is all cities get destroyed and humanity is sent back to the stone age. They aren't even comparable.
Roman Empire closed shop when grain production in Mediterranean basin became no more due to the warming up of the climate. At the same time the rest of Europe warmed up and dried up a bit so it stopped being a cold swamp, and it allowed for the European civilization to get started. During the peak of heat 1000 years ago the Mediterranean basin belonged to Caliphates - the world leading, at the time, in many respects civilization which came out of dry and hot Arabia and which was significantly pushed back by Europeans during the next several hundreds years of cooling down. That cooling down became Little Ice Age during which we have Black Death, famines, etc. with European population getting decimated from time to time. Whole human history is basically history of changing climate and its effects upon empires/cultures/civilizations. Viking Age. Mongols ruling all the connected space covered with grasses - ie. where cavalry is unstoppable - during period with just enough rain/snow for such a huge space to balance between swamp and desert, and the period of such delicate balance was naturally relatively short with Pan-Mongolia splitting relatively quickly into pieces separated by deserts/rivers/swamps. Or check out the Late Bronze Age collapse for example.
The point here is that couple degrees change over several centuries have very profound effect upon human civilization. These days we've stepped into the territory of couple degrees (and probably more with the process having significant chances to become runaway) over several decades. That is bound to result in dramatic changes.
One can try to argue that our civilization today is well insulated from climate changes. And that one will be wrong. Just consider the very recent examples. 198x were the coldest point in the 80 years cycle and that resulted in low grain yields in USSR. It coincided with low oil prices thus resulting in food shortages in USSR, and as result the USSR just disappeared as the hungry people couldn't care less. The same thing with Arab Spring which was triggered by the drought and resulting food shortages : https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-an...
So :
1. human civilization is very vulnerable to climate change effects and
2. the climate change, more severe than the ones which have destroyed civilizations in the past, is happening now orders of magnitude faster than those climate changes of the past.
The point here is that couple degrees change over several centuries have very profound effect upon human civilization. These days we've stepped into the territory of couple degrees (and probably more with the process having significant chances to become runaway) over several decades. That is bound to result in dramatic changes.
One can try to argue that our civilization today is well insulated from climate changes. And that one will be wrong. Just consider the very recent examples. 198x were the coldest point in the 80 years cycle and that resulted in low grain yields in USSR. It coincided with low oil prices thus resulting in food shortages in USSR, and as result the USSR just disappeared as the hungry people couldn't care less. The same thing with Arab Spring which was triggered by the drought and resulting food shortages : https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-an...
So :
1. human civilization is very vulnerable to climate change effects and
2. the climate change, more severe than the ones which have destroyed civilizations in the past, is happening now orders of magnitude faster than those climate changes of the past.
Your theories on the rise and fall of civilizations is pretty speculative. I've heard dozens of theories of why Rome fell. Everyone and their brother has a pet theory.
But even if you are right, it's irrelevant. Yeah, ancient civilizations were sensitive to famines and climate. We are way past that. Some of our biggest cities are in regions that were near uninhabitable before air conditioning or insecticides. Our modern irrigiation technology give us the ability to grow crops in areas that used to be desolate. We produce several times more food than we actually need. If the absolute worst case scenarios of climate change happened, our civilization would easily continue.
But even if you are right, it's irrelevant. Yeah, ancient civilizations were sensitive to famines and climate. We are way past that. Some of our biggest cities are in regions that were near uninhabitable before air conditioning or insecticides. Our modern irrigiation technology give us the ability to grow crops in areas that used to be desolate. We produce several times more food than we actually need. If the absolute worst case scenarios of climate change happened, our civilization would easily continue.
> it's irrelevant. Yeah, ancient civilizations were sensitive to famines and climate. We are way past that. Some of our biggest cities are in regions that were near uninhabitable before air conditioning or insecticides. Our modern irrigiation technology give us the ability to grow crops in areas that used to be desolate. We produce several times more food than we actually need. If the absolute worst case scenarios of climate change happened, our civilization would easily continue. Our modern irrigiation technology give us the ability to grow crops in areas that used to be desolate. We produce several times more food than we actually need. If the absolute worst case scenarios of climate change happened, our civilization would easily continue.
tell those triumphal words of our civilization glory to the 800M people today who is officially live in hunger. Or to the next couple of billions who will quickly find themselves deep in the extreme poverty/hunger if economy gets noticeably worse, food price increase and/or some shortage of food/water/etc. happens.
I suppose that you, like me, is in the top 5-10% of the global Pareto distribution of our civilization goodies, and even if there are severe food/water/energy/etc. shortage and/or food prices increase even 10 times, we'd still not be going to bed hungry even though we'd possibly have to give up some of the less necessary things. So from our point of view "civilization would easily continue". Not so to the majority of the world population though.
tell those triumphal words of our civilization glory to the 800M people today who is officially live in hunger. Or to the next couple of billions who will quickly find themselves deep in the extreme poverty/hunger if economy gets noticeably worse, food price increase and/or some shortage of food/water/etc. happens.
I suppose that you, like me, is in the top 5-10% of the global Pareto distribution of our civilization goodies, and even if there are severe food/water/energy/etc. shortage and/or food prices increase even 10 times, we'd still not be going to bed hungry even though we'd possibly have to give up some of the less necessary things. So from our point of view "civilization would easily continue". Not so to the majority of the world population though.
First of all, you are arguing against a straw man. I never said "climate change wouldn't be bad". I said it wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as a full nuclear war. You can't even compare the two.
Anyway I'm sick of this meme that we should care about everything that happens to the third world. Look at Africa. Their population is growing exponentially. It's already far above of any reasonably sustainable size. And their economy is actually deindustrializing. They are going to suffer no matter what happens. Climate change is the least of their problems. And there is nothing we can do the help them.
Anyway I'm sick of this meme that we should care about everything that happens to the third world. Look at Africa. Their population is growing exponentially. It's already far above of any reasonably sustainable size. And their economy is actually deindustrializing. They are going to suffer no matter what happens. Climate change is the least of their problems. And there is nothing we can do the help them.
>First of all, you are arguing against a straw man. I never said "climate change wouldn't be bad". I said it wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as a full nuclear war. You can't even compare the two.
my point is that nuclear war is a straw man while climate change presents clear and imminent planet-scale danger to our civilization.
>Anyway I'm sick of this meme that we should care about everything that happens to the third world.
Well, beside that caring about weak and less fortunate is our normal human trait, we brought the climate change upon the whole planet, so we should bear at least some responsibility. Anyway, hunger and poverty isn't limited to the third world - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States
"Research from the USDA found that 14.9% of American households were food insecure during at least some of 2011, with 5.7% suffering from very low food security.[3] Journalists and charity workers have reported further increased demand for emergency food aid during 2012 and 2013."
>Look at Africa. Their population is growing exponentially. It's already far above of any reasonably sustainable size.
Africa is big and with a lot of resources. It can sustain much bigger population.
>And their economy is actually deindustrializing.
there is a bunch of very different countries with very different population, economy, society. Some countries have recently or currently have civil wars and as result are in chaos. The same is Syria which was pretty highly developed country just 7 years ago.
>Climate change is the least of their problems.
it is one of the major causes of the current (Arab Spring) and future civil (and may be between states) wars which would wreak havoc upon the involved countries/societies.
my point is that nuclear war is a straw man while climate change presents clear and imminent planet-scale danger to our civilization.
>Anyway I'm sick of this meme that we should care about everything that happens to the third world.
Well, beside that caring about weak and less fortunate is our normal human trait, we brought the climate change upon the whole planet, so we should bear at least some responsibility. Anyway, hunger and poverty isn't limited to the third world - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States
"Research from the USDA found that 14.9% of American households were food insecure during at least some of 2011, with 5.7% suffering from very low food security.[3] Journalists and charity workers have reported further increased demand for emergency food aid during 2012 and 2013."
>Look at Africa. Their population is growing exponentially. It's already far above of any reasonably sustainable size.
Africa is big and with a lot of resources. It can sustain much bigger population.
>And their economy is actually deindustrializing.
there is a bunch of very different countries with very different population, economy, society. Some countries have recently or currently have civil wars and as result are in chaos. The same is Syria which was pretty highly developed country just 7 years ago.
>Climate change is the least of their problems.
it is one of the major causes of the current (Arab Spring) and future civil (and may be between states) wars which would wreak havoc upon the involved countries/societies.
That's what those are? Wow, thanks for the explanation! I always thought that was some weird quirk of the mushroom cloud.
This is called the rope trick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_trick_effect
Since a couple other people mentioned that this was a really good Wikipedia article (and I thought so too), I looked through the Wikipedia revision history in detail to see how it got written.
It's essentially written by one person (Wikipedia user Deglr6328) over a span of 2 years during 2004-2006 followed by hundreds of edits over the next decade by around a dozen users to improve wording, style, references, links, and photos.
The pattern for the best material on Wikipedia seems to be that of one subject matter expert or enthusiast writing the basic article and a small hardcore group of Wikipedia editors improving it (and who do improve it greatly -- I'm not minimizing their part). But you need the initial expert or super-passionate person to get it started.
It's essentially written by one person (Wikipedia user Deglr6328) over a span of 2 years during 2004-2006 followed by hundreds of edits over the next decade by around a dozen users to improve wording, style, references, links, and photos.
The pattern for the best material on Wikipedia seems to be that of one subject matter expert or enthusiast writing the basic article and a small hardcore group of Wikipedia editors improving it (and who do improve it greatly -- I'm not minimizing their part). But you need the initial expert or super-passionate person to get it started.
That was a fascinating read, thanks for linking that!
Wow, that's one of the best written Wiki articles I've ever read, thank you for the link.
Checkout the closeup https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYbNlgQyz84
One fun thing about photos of early nuclear tests is that the US accidentally published enough info that revealed the top-secret yield of the Trinity test bomb in photographs in Life Magazine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield#Calculati... -- all you need is dimensional analysis. Whoops.
“Let’s just hope we don’t see a new atomspheric nuclear explosion (test or otherwise) before they’re done with their preservation project.”.... fat chance. North Korea will do an atmospheric nuclear test in the next six months, if not three
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Do we have high def color footage of nuclear explosions? That would be cool.
Check out the documentary "Trinity and Beyond" - it has a lot of quality footage, much of it colour.
There's ten minutes on youtube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvnWXf6UZXY. Captures the essence of the film nicely. There's this weird 'end of the world' kind of undertone to the film. Genuinely scary stuff.
This is some absolutely incredible footage. I had no idea there was color footage of the actual bombings in Japan.
Well, like TFA says hopefully we won't have any new videos of above-ground nuke "tests".
Hard to really say the difference between a nuclear war and the U.S., Russia, UK France and others setting off vast numbers of atmospheric nuclear weapons in the 20th century.
Here's a realistic look at what an all-out nuclear war in 1988 might have been like: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html
Spoiler alert: about four fifths of Americans end up dead, and about one third of all humans on Earth. The survivors contend with famine and plague on a scale never before seen. Most of the world's industrial capacity is destroyed.
I find it fairly easy to distinguish that scenario from the world we live in, personally.
Spoiler alert: about four fifths of Americans end up dead, and about one third of all humans on Earth. The survivors contend with famine and plague on a scale never before seen. Most of the world's industrial capacity is destroyed.
I find it fairly easy to distinguish that scenario from the world we live in, personally.
That's pretty fake and assumes a lot of capabilities the USSR never had. Satellite mounted nuclear weapons, anti-ICBM missiles, ground to space lasers, "killer satellites", etc never existed. I think the writer enjoys pro-USSR fantasies.
The Soviets had and the Russians still have anti-ICBM missiles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-35_anti-ballistic_missile_sy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-135_anti-ballistic_missile_s...
Killer satellites were developed starting in the 60s and deployed operationally in 1991. It seems reasonable to think that some pre-operational capability might have existed in 1988: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/is.html
I'm not sure where the nuke satellites and lasers came from.
When it comes to answering the question of "what would a post-war world look like?" the only significant system out of these is the nuke satellites causing an EMP. That could (and probably would) have been just as easily done with standard ICBMs so I don't think it changes the answer very much.
Killer satellites were developed starting in the 60s and deployed operationally in 1991. It seems reasonable to think that some pre-operational capability might have existed in 1988: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/is.html
I'm not sure where the nuke satellites and lasers came from.
When it comes to answering the question of "what would a post-war world look like?" the only significant system out of these is the nuke satellites causing an EMP. That could (and probably would) have been just as easily done with standard ICBMs so I don't think it changes the answer very much.
> Satellite mounted nuclear weapons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment...
> anti-ICBM missiles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-35_anti-ballistic_missile_sy...
> ground to space lasers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra-3
> "killer satellites"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istrebitel_Sputnik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment...
> anti-ICBM missiles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-35_anti-ballistic_missile_sy...
> ground to space lasers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra-3
> "killer satellites"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istrebitel_Sputnik
Population density near the blast sites? Not that they all did the right thing, and real people were absolutely affected. But there is a significant difference.
FWIW, declassified intelligence purporting to show Soviet nuclear targets in Australia suggest that large cities would have been spared direct strikes.
Continental Europe, especially Germany, was an exception because of expectations of immediate ground warfare and the likelihood of tactical nukes. But arguably that's less an exception and more a variation of the same logic.
[1] Decapitation means you've nobody to negotiate with in a timely manner, ensuring the enemy will resort to unleashing every last nuclear weapon at their disposal. Neither side was stupid enough to have unleashed everything at once. All scenarios I've read described an escalation in launches over 1 or 2 days, sometimes longer, with opportunities for negotiated or even unilateral ceasefires.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/secrets-out-soviets-did-not-target-cities-20120805-23ny1.html
Continental Europe, especially Germany, was an exception because of expectations of immediate ground warfare and the likelihood of tactical nukes. But arguably that's less an exception and more a variation of the same logic.
[1] Decapitation means you've nobody to negotiate with in a timely manner, ensuring the enemy will resort to unleashing every last nuclear weapon at their disposal. Neither side was stupid enough to have unleashed everything at once. All scenarios I've read described an escalation in launches over 1 or 2 days, sometimes longer, with opportunities for negotiated or even unilateral ceasefires.
> suggest that large cities would have been spared direct strikes
That's an Australian assessment of what they expected the Soviets to do in the 1980s.
The actual behaviour largely depends on the specific war-plan and epoch.
Actual Soviet documents from the 1950s show the Soviets planned to 'troll' the West by nuking a few non-Central-Front cities, such as Darwin or Perth, and assessing the response. Would the USA or NATO reply in kind, or back down?
> generally, both the Soviets and Americans avoided population centers as well as (IIRC) decapitation strikes
Not at all. Have a read at these US targets from one of the 1950s SIOPs:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/us/politics/1950s-us-nucl...
While many are industrial facilities, government buildings and the like, one for each city is simply designated “Population.”
In later years the targetting turned more towards counterforce ( military targets ) as the CEP of missiles crept down into the hundreds of metres. But before the mid-1980s that simply wasn't feasible
That's an Australian assessment of what they expected the Soviets to do in the 1980s.
The actual behaviour largely depends on the specific war-plan and epoch.
Actual Soviet documents from the 1950s show the Soviets planned to 'troll' the West by nuking a few non-Central-Front cities, such as Darwin or Perth, and assessing the response. Would the USA or NATO reply in kind, or back down?
> generally, both the Soviets and Americans avoided population centers as well as (IIRC) decapitation strikes
Not at all. Have a read at these US targets from one of the 1950s SIOPs:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/us/politics/1950s-us-nucl...
While many are industrial facilities, government buildings and the like, one for each city is simply designated “Population.”
In later years the targetting turned more towards counterforce ( military targets ) as the CEP of missiles crept down into the hundreds of metres. But before the mid-1980s that simply wasn't feasible
If you read "Command and Control" by Eric Schlosser it provides further proof for that. At the height of cold war, US had over 400 missiles ready to strike Moscow directly, purely because of lack of coordination between different forces(so US Army wouldn't share their attack plan with US Navy or the Airforce, so combined they would have launched over 400 missiles at Moscow, a complete overkill).
The British also had about a few dozen warheads and several hundred decoys aimed at Moscow starting in the early 1980s. This was actually pretty sensible: the British wanted an independent deterrent, and with a small force, their solution was to deter the USSR by making sure Moscow would be destroyed. The large number of warheads and decoys was needed to guarantee success against the Soviet missile defense system around Moscow. Smaller players with their own arsenals can complicate things considerably.
A major problem when trying to decode nuclear war strategy is that the rational thing to do after the missiles have started flying is different from the rational thing to threaten beforehand. If your goal is nuclear war, you want to threaten the enemy with complete and utter destruction from which they will never recover. Once it starts, you want to focus on the enemy's ability to attack you further, and probably ignore the enemy's civilian population and infrastructure. But it's hard to present the "total destruction" option as a credible threat unless you actually set up your forces to go through with it.
A major problem when trying to decode nuclear war strategy is that the rational thing to do after the missiles have started flying is different from the rational thing to threaten beforehand. If your goal is nuclear war, you want to threaten the enemy with complete and utter destruction from which they will never recover. Once it starts, you want to focus on the enemy's ability to attack you further, and probably ignore the enemy's civilian population and infrastructure. But it's hard to present the "total destruction" option as a credible threat unless you actually set up your forces to go through with it.
Of course the UUSR government would have evacuated and dispersed into remote outposts, just as the US and UK planned to. (Although lacking space and possibly security, it's not obvious the UK government centres would have survived for long.)
A more challenging question is - what happens when you get hundreds of warheads detonating in a small area? At a guess that number of explosions would punch its way down into the bedrock. It might even leave a lake of molten crust that would take years, if not decades, to cool.
Detonations in seismic areas might trigger huge earthquakes. (SF would be a very bad place to be.)
Whatever the outcome, it's a fair guess there would be unplanned consequences of all kinds. Most would be very negative, which makes rational (?) planning difficult.
A more challenging question is - what happens when you get hundreds of warheads detonating in a small area? At a guess that number of explosions would punch its way down into the bedrock. It might even leave a lake of molten crust that would take years, if not decades, to cool.
Detonations in seismic areas might trigger huge earthquakes. (SF would be a very bad place to be.)
Whatever the outcome, it's a fair guess there would be unplanned consequences of all kinds. Most would be very negative, which makes rational (?) planning difficult.
I can only guess that the initial explosion(s) would knock out the systems on ones coming after, so a huge percentage of them would be dead on arrival, unless they were decently spaced out, or somehow all arrived and detonated at the same time. (I guess explosion interference from previous explosion is a serious topic of research when it comes to nuclear warfare, if anyone has any good reading material on this please post)
Your guess is correct! See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fratricide
Key quote: "It appears that two weapons targeted on a silo must arrive at least ten seconds apart to avoid fratricidal fireball effects, and less than one minute or more than one hour apart to avoid fratricidal nuclear dust cloud effects."
Key quote: "It appears that two weapons targeted on a silo must arrive at least ten seconds apart to avoid fratricidal fireball effects, and less than one minute or more than one hour apart to avoid fratricidal nuclear dust cloud effects."
Sure, but there's still a very stark difference between the population around a military base and some remote atoll, artic outpost, remote desert etc.
Most US air and naval bases are in close proximity to population centers.
Most US air and naval bases are in close proximity to population centers.
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The clips here don't have the bizarre choreographic beauty of the Dr. Strangelove finale, but they bring back the all too keen anxiety and existential terror of being powerless, while deranged world leaders measure each other's manhood by "mine's bigger than yours." Fine, you proved that yours is big enough, it doesn't really matter whose is bigger any more than whose hair is dumber, now can we _please_ return to sanity?