I think it's useful to know and understand things. How a nuclear war would play out might not correspond to what your imagination or popular culture say they will. I started reading that book about 6 months or so ago after coming across it on HN, and I thought it was pretty interesting in an abstract way. Now the idea of nuclear war is closer to the forefront of my attention, but I think it's good to know approximately what to do and why if I find myself as an involuntary participant in a nuclear war.
An important thing to understand is that it's not like everyone within some radius dies and everyone outside it lives. In the event of nuclear war there will be a lot of people in marginal areas that could survive based on luck or doing the right things. Those "duck and cover" films kind of get a bad rap, but I wonder if this is a good moment in time to notify whole populations of how to survive a nuclear strike. Even something like an episode of John Oliver or Steven Colbert's show where they explain how to protect yourself from gamma radiation might save thousands or millions of lives in the (hopefully unlikely) event that things spiral out of hand.
Many people will say they'd rather just die quickly, but for someone to die needlessly when they could have survived and moved to another city is kind of sad. If all of Russia and all of NATO unload all their nukes at each other, then maybe anyone in any affected country who happened to survive will have a very bad time, but you wouldn't know that on the ground. Maybe most of the nukes don't work. Maybe it was a limited exchange, and only a few cities got hit. Maybe they only targeted military targets, and most cities without military bases are fine. No one knows.
We purchased a home that has concrete outer walls and a basement. I actually did give thought to how handy it might be to live in a concrete house in case the city about 10 miles away gets bombed.
According to the book, a big risk is "skyshine": gamma radiation from the decay of radioactive particles that get spread into the atmosphere. Concrete walls are pretty good, and being underground is pretty good, but the problem with basements is that the materials above you that most houses are made of aren't terribly effective at blocking gamma radiation. So, even in a basement you'd still want to get under some thick/dense materials if you can.
I hope this information does not ever come in handy.
Been thinking about this and its the best thing that could happen to you in such a scenario. I wonder if people would move towards city centre than away from it when the alarm sounds.
I've been looking for Geiger counters to buy in the EU and the good ones are all sold out. Ironically, some of the best vendors appear to be in Russia and Ukraine, and you can't buy from them now.
A reference to an indiana jones movie where one survives a nuke by being inside a fridge before the blast wave flings the fridge quite far. He crawls out, groans a bit, and walks off unharmed.
Heh, well you can print it you really need. But hopefully your plans include enough solar/wind/hydro/bicycle powered generator to occasionally charge an ebook reader with a few watts every month or two. EMP protection for a small ebook reader isn't hard, a small well grounded metal box should be fine. Put in a small solar charger in there as well.
Of all the challenges I wouldn't put a working ebook in the top 10 worries.
It would be nice to have it in printed form, but just reading it before you need to use it (which we all hope never happens) is a good idea.
Unfortunately, most of the things that one would be likely to die from are things you have to deal with immediately or almost immediately, so knowing about them in advance could help a lot.
Surviving nuclear armageddon is comparably easy and only boils down to a combination of luck (i.e. not being close to any military installation or major population center) and having access to shelters with enough supplies for a few weeks to sit out the most dangerous radiation phase. The first days of a full all out nuclear war would only kill a small percentage of humanity (still 100+ million, but far from everyone). However, most people (i.e. billions) will eventually die due to lack of food. When the global climate drops 10 degrees for a few months and all surface level soil is polluted by radioactive byproducts with long half life, no country will be able to produce enough food anymore. If you're not 100% self sustaining (including indoor food, air and water production) like a permanent outpost on mars would have to be, you're definitely better off dying in the blast.
That seems absurdly exaggerated. IIRC, the concept of nuclear winter was junk science and the cities that actually have been nuked were successfully rebuilt soon afterwards.
This is what amuses me about doomsday preppers. I'm like: what are you really preparing for? Like that's just something I'd never want to be right about to justify the time and expense of prepping. And for what? To live a little longer in a post-armageddon world?
I think a lot of people like the idea of upheaval and a fresh challenge. For some, the daily grind doesn't play to their advantages whereas maybe apocalyptic survival of brawn does. I imagine the reality would never be the adventurous romp they expect when tinned food dwindles and plants aren't producing because temperatures have dropped...
Probably also depends on the scale. There's the $x00k bunker with air/water filtration and shelves of long-life food, or there's stashing some tins and having a rough idea of where you might go if it came to it.
The TV show Last Man On Earth does make it look kind of fun (no radiation, no zombies)...
Last Man on Earth works because most people died very quickly and there's no competition for the remaining resources. Post-nuclear war would be absolute hell. If you don't die of starvation you'll probably be murdered.
It really depends on what kind of scenario we're talking about. At the moment in time someone is affected by a nuclear blast in their vicinity, it's unlikely that person knows what else is going on in the world. A nuclear blast is bad, but how bad are things globally? No way of knowing, really, at least for awhile. Maybe most of the nukes targeted at your country were duds. Maybe they were never launched. Maybe some were intercepted. If one could survive just by hiding under thick materials for a week or two then travel to an unaffected city, I think a lot of people would prefer that if they knew it was an option.
I remember seeing an episode on how some doomsday preppers were burying prefab underground shelters on their property and stocking it with food/water/weapons/etc. There was this guy being interviewed who smiled and said he wasn't stocking anything, but he wasn't too worried. He said he'd mapped out all the prepper locations around his property and if things went south - his sons would harden their tractors with steel plates and pull those things out of the ground to "harvest" the goodies within.
I particulary like Edward Teller's foreword insights. It seems the USSR was well equiped to start and survive a nuclear war. Luckily it never happened.
If you look at the poor state of some shelters in Ukraine (part of the USSR until the 90's), they should brush up on their survival skills.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 93.6 ms ] threadAn important thing to understand is that it's not like everyone within some radius dies and everyone outside it lives. In the event of nuclear war there will be a lot of people in marginal areas that could survive based on luck or doing the right things. Those "duck and cover" films kind of get a bad rap, but I wonder if this is a good moment in time to notify whole populations of how to survive a nuclear strike. Even something like an episode of John Oliver or Steven Colbert's show where they explain how to protect yourself from gamma radiation might save thousands or millions of lives in the (hopefully unlikely) event that things spiral out of hand.
Many people will say they'd rather just die quickly, but for someone to die needlessly when they could have survived and moved to another city is kind of sad. If all of Russia and all of NATO unload all their nukes at each other, then maybe anyone in any affected country who happened to survive will have a very bad time, but you wouldn't know that on the ground. Maybe most of the nukes don't work. Maybe it was a limited exchange, and only a few cities got hit. Maybe they only targeted military targets, and most cities without military bases are fine. No one knows.
I hope this information does not ever come in handy.
Nevertheless, knowledge is power, and I learnt something today. Better safe than sorry.
Of all the challenges I wouldn't put a working ebook in the top 10 worries.
Unfortunately, most of the things that one would be likely to die from are things you have to deal with immediately or almost immediately, so knowing about them in advance could help a lot.
Luck, and not being murdered for your supplies by your fellow post-nuclear wasteland survivors…
I always see people claiming surviving a nuclear holocaust is no biggie, but they never address the violence that would occur.
This is what amuses me about doomsday preppers. I'm like: what are you really preparing for? Like that's just something I'd never want to be right about to justify the time and expense of prepping. And for what? To live a little longer in a post-armageddon world?
Yeah that's a pass.
Probably also depends on the scale. There's the $x00k bunker with air/water filtration and shelves of long-life food, or there's stashing some tins and having a rough idea of where you might go if it came to it.
The TV show Last Man On Earth does make it look kind of fun (no radiation, no zombies)...
If you look at the poor state of some shelters in Ukraine (part of the USSR until the 90's), they should brush up on their survival skills.