Agreed. I would propose that each “tecreation” (product of technology) exists within a “spectrum of help or harm”. Some products, like lamps, have very little harm built into them. (Although almost anything could be used as a blunt weapon). Some things, like nuclear weapons, are solely for the purpose of killing. They seem unable to be “beat into plowshares”, so to speak. — 0 thru 9

Haha, I remember the idiocy of the "atomic for peace" campaign...

We are like the hungry ghosts of Buddhism. — 0 thru 9

Hehe, pretty witty statement there.

Haha, I remember the idiocy of the "atomic for peace" campaign... — Wallows

Yea, nuclear fission energy with all its dangers and radioactive waste, is not really sustainable. And it simultaneously makes me cringe and chuckle when reflecting on the fact that they used to put uranium into dentures, for that glow-in-the-dark smile. :grimace:

Yea, nuclear fission energy with all its dangers and radioactive waste, is not really sustainable. — 0 thru 9

Well, here I disagree. Nuclear is remarkably safe and sustainable. The amount of nuclear waste is trivial (would fit in a football field stacked a meter high).

Anyway, I'm actually pro-nuclear. I've done my research on the matter and think it's pretty safe alternative to coal and gas.

The amount of nuclear waste is trivial (would fit in a football field stacked a meter high). — Wallows

Not in my backyard, dangumit! :mask: I will concede that it is renewable non-fossil fuel that may end up saving us, especially with some improvements. It needs top-notch equipment and personnel, which this cost-cutting economy seems averse to. I think The Simpsons and Chernobyl have soured me on the whole nuclear deal. I can be bribed to change my mind though...

No worries. :smile: I would always support encouraging others to read Eisenstein.

Go back to sleep; you're dreaming again... :joke:

Go back to sleep; you're dreaming again... :joke: — Janus

The American Dream need a mention here. It seems we like to sleep a lot in America, despite all the amphetamine and methylphenidate we are feeding to American born kids in school who don't want to study. I heard the people in India don't even need to compete with foreigners they do that themselves. And, the Chinese are off the scale with their command economy meshed with mercantilist tendencies.

Chernobyl — 0 thru 9

Yeah, there's a new series coming out from HBO about Chernobyl.

Have a looksie.

In ancient Egypt, the hearts of the dead were measured against the feather of Maat, to determine their passage in to the afterlife. Maat being truth, law and balance.
Should the hearts outweigh the feather, they are be fed to Ammut - which would lead to a second death.

Now, swap out Ammut for the ego; the constant cravings for fame, power, items and so forth.
You feed over yourself and all your time, trying to please a thing that won't be pleased, and whereas you may have lived a content life, gratifying yourself - you throw everything away and start chasing a dangling carrot. And so, by throwing life away during the act of living, acquire a second death - realised at the moment of passing away, when all your regrets suddenly start piling up. — Shamshir

Thanks for sharing that. I think our general nature (somewhere in there) is to have enough, no more, no less. Our “cultural conditioning” on the other hand, says MOAR! To the victors go the spoils, to the victims go the toils. So moar is always better!

It is a useful skill to be able to tell your cultural conditioning to shut up sometimes.

. I think The Simpsons and Chernobyl have soured me on the whole nuclear deal. I can be bribed to change my mind though... — 0 thru 9

How about this graph?

Yeah, there's a new series coming out from HBO about Chernobyl. — Wallows

Interesting, surely will be dramatic (even if the story isn't untold, but well documented). Yet in order to put things into perspective, I would urge people to review the United Nations report from 2005 on the Chernobyl disaster, link: CHERNOBYL: THE TRUE SCALE OF THE ACCIDENT

Those who don't bother to read the thing, here's a quote:

A total of up to 4,000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded.

As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004.

And let's put this into perspective on just how many are killed by coal fired nuclear plants YEARLY:

(Forbes) According to all studies on the subject, coal kills over ten times more people than any other energy source per kWh produced, mainly from fine toxic particulates emitted from coal plants. And coal kills ten times more people in the developing world than in America, simply because they lack regulations like our Clean Air Act.

In fact, our Clean Air Act is the single piece of legislation that has saved the most American lives in history. It is why coal kills over 300,000 people in China each year, but only about 15,000 Americans per year.

(See Forbes article Pollution Kills More People Than Anything Else)

So there you have it. The worst possible nuclear accident ever will kill roughly a third that are killed just in the US in one year thanks to coal power.

And of course there are sane opinions about the subject:

I encourage anyone anti-nuclear to check out this documentary or film about nuclear energy and dispelling the prejudices about it:

Chernobyl was much worse than it was reported to be. The explosion was very bad bad to start with, and the arrogance and stupidity of the Soviet system made it much much worse. The Exclusion Zone? That didn't help the people in Byelorussia who were soaked in a radioactive rain storm a few days later, leaving the soil more radioactive than the soil in the Exclusion Zone. (just one little example)

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
by Adam Higginbotham

Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
by Kate Brown

Dispatches from Dystopia: Histories of Places Not Yet Forgotten Kindle Edition
by Kate Brown

@ssu

As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004.

There were a lot more than 50 "liquidators" at Chernobyl exposed to massive doses of radiation, doses falling into the rapid fatal-effects range.

Two nuclear plants supply a lot of my electricity. There have been no accidents at these plants (that we know of) in the 30-40 years that they have been operating. I am reasonably confident that they will continue on until decommissioning in the next few decades. Both plants have large containers of spent fuel stacked up. I'm not worried about somebody stealing them (they're way too heavy to surreptitiously swipe) but eventually they will have to be put some place. We're not making much progress in finding that place.

If the nuclear plants in my backyard are just fine, the history of nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel production is pretty bad. American and Soviet (now Russian) operations have been filthy. For instance, the Rocky Flats plutonium bomb plant, located not far from Denver, had a fire which burned off much of the roof and the particle filters on the ventilators. Quite a few pounds of plutonium aerosol drifted down on Denver. There were huge releases of radioactive material at the Hanford plant (the site of cold war US Plutonium production), the Idaho reactor research center, and other places.

Ozersk was the Hanford equivalent in the USSR. A river ran out of it, loaded with enough radioactive isotopes that standing next to the river for an hour gave a person a 200 rem dose. The soviets moved all the Kazakhs that lived along the river to somewhere else, right? No, indeed. Ozersk was a secret facility that officially did not exist, and the waste flowing out of the plant was also secret. So... no. The people were not moved away. A tank of waste, buried and covered with a cement plug, went critical and blew up -- an atomic explosion about the size of the Nagasaki or Hiroshima bombs. Very messy.

How about Hanford. Surely America wouldn't do stuff like that! How about running water from the Columbia River through the huge reactors and flowing it directly back into the river? How about the visible plumes of radioactive material (like yellow plumes of radioactive iodine) that came out of the stack above the plant where the fuel rods were dissolved in acid? The plume didn't dissipate as planned, but would quite often curl down to ground level in places like Walla Walla, Washington -- or onto the people who worked and lived at the plant.

All the waste buried in those places is still there, still gnawing through the walls of the tanks, leaking into the adjacent ground...

Fukushima was, perhaps, inauspiciously located. But it was also inauspicious to put the spent fuel storage pools above ground in the buildings with the reactors. What, were the Japanese stupid? No, the plant was built according to American power plant plans. Some of our plants are designed the same way.

The military on the one hand, and the capitalists on the other hand can not be counted on to put safety first. That goes for command economy communists too.

Get a few beers, maybe some puffs of cannabis and enjoy the documentary I posted in this thread on Friday or whenever you have your happy hours or two.

I find arguing with anti-nuclear sentimentality as futile and ultimately leads to frustration.

It's a pretty good documentary, that leaves you edified and satisfied with it.

There's also this report which was passed on to the UN about Chernobyl from the WHO, which I believe was quoted by ssu.

https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/

Have a looksie.

I don't seem to be able to find the link. Could you repost it, please. Thanks.

It's not 1080p; but, it might suffice for anyone interested in the facts of the matter.



If that one doesn't work, here's one with German subtitles.

There were a lot more than 50 "liquidators" at Chernobyl exposed to massive doses of radiation, doses falling into the rapid fatal-effects range. — Bitter Crank

As I said, the UN/WHO have come to the conclusion that 4 000 people likely will die of the accident. Equivalent to 27% of Americans that die annually thanks to pollution from coal plants.

The popular anti-nuclear stance is more of a religion of ignorance and stupidity that simply rejects any objective understanding of the reality of energy production and energy policy. And the spineless politicians go with the flock to appease the clueless voters. Who cares about the actual effects as everything can be spun.

Just take Angela Merkel's decision in 2011 (after Fukushima) to close down all German nuclear plants by 2022, which was hailed as great news by the typical idiots. So what was the actual result of closing down the nuclear plants? German has to use more coal energy. Wind and solar power, although having been increased, have not been able to replace nuclear energy. Hence if Germany's carbon emissions shrank during from 1990 to 2010, after 2011 it has increased it's carbon emissions and has been busy opening new coal plants. Last year the German energy minister has admitted that the country will fail to meet it's ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions for 2020. Germany still produces roughly 40% of it's energy from coal. And of course, coal generated electricity is imported from Poland. Partly thanks to the hysteria against nuclear energy.

And it has still 7 nuclear power plants working, that should be closed in three years.

As I said, the UN/WHO have come to the conclusion that 4 000 people likely will die of the accident. Equivalent to 27% of Americans that die annually thanks to pollution from coal plants — ssu

From the WHO link I posted:

He explains that there have been 4000 cases of thyroid cancer, mainly in children, but that except for nine deaths, all of them have recovered. "Otherwise, the team of international experts found no evidence for any increases in the incidence of leukemia and cancer among affected residents." — Joint News Release WHO/IAEA/UNDP

Yeah, go figure.

Just take Angela Merkel's decision in 2011 (after Fukushima) to close down all German nuclear plants by 2022, which was hailed as great news by the typical idiots. — ssu

I never did figure out why nuclear was so vilified in Germany? Was this Kraftwerk's doing?

Anyway, Japan, which is more cool-headed on the issue is perhaps the only nation where "consume less" would apply following Fukushima. I heard hand washing your apparel is making a return there. Hyperbole and that kind of stuff aside, they are reopening their nuclear power plants one by one. Otherwise, they're limited to importing coal from China or some other country.

I never did figure out why nuclear was so vilified in Germany? Was this Kraftwerk's doing? — Wallows

I think that the anti-nuclear power stance comes from the issue that people are simply so ignorant that they link nuclear energy to nuclear weapons. Of course there was a huge peace movement in Germany during the Cold War as obviously Germans understood that they would be the central battlefield in a possible outbrake of WW3. Back then even Germany itself had an arsenal tactical nuclear weapons (which sounds astounding now). You can argue that it's easy to be against everything nuclear when you oppose deployment of nuclear weapons. And do remember the absolute hysteria of Fukushima. The actual earthquake and tsunami were of little importance after Fukushima happened: who cares how many died (15 000+) if there is a nuclear power plant accident!

That ignorant scepticism we will see in reality if an actual energy producing fusion reactor will be built, I'm sure of it. A lot of people will be sceptical of nuclear fusion power.

On the other hand coal has been used for ages, it employs a lot of people in Germany and with nuclear we have the image of in our minds of Hiroshima and radiation a silent killer that we cannot smell or notice. With coal? Well, just to cook food every day with an open fire is very dangerous to your health. But of course who wouldn't know the nice comforting smell of smoke from a fire?

I think that the anti-nuclear power stance comes from the issue that people are simply so ignorant that they link nuclear energy to nuclear weapons. — ssu

Ignorant Germans? Sort of hard to grasp in my limited world view.

Anyway, Japan was bombed twice by nuclear bombs, yet still had to deal with that stigma along with lack of natural resources by opting for nuclear.

Is France with their 80 or so percent of electricity derived from nuclear the only sane nation with respect to nuclear?

*Scratches his head*

Oh, those fucking stupid people thinking about nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants at the same time. How could they make such an OBVIOUS dumb mistake? — Ever Wise

OK, so let's track what happened. First came nuclear weapons. They weren't a secret. Hundreds of them (a good sized war's worth) were being exploded in the atmosphere, every one of them blasting an isotope salad into the atmosphere, to be distributed by wind and water. All that went on from 1945 until 1963. After that, tests were conducted underground.

The concern about nuclear bombs didn't disappear in 1963, of course. We could just stop worrying about fallout from above-ground tests. Nuclear bombs remained in production until the late 1980s, when I think we all had accumulated something like 36,000 bombs.

The first Earth Day was 49 years ago--22 April, 1970. I don't remember it. I suppose it was about butterflies and pesticides, trees, flowers, and children. It probably wasn't about CO2 levels in the atmosphere. though acid rain was a known consequence of burning coal and oil. CO2 hadn't become a big issue, yet.

Nuclear power plants were on line were humming away by 1970. In 1970, though, people were still worried about nuclear weapons. They had not gone away. Then there was the 3 Mile Island accident, which wasn't so very terrible but the people were frightened, the way sheep are frightened when they see a wolf. The brakes were slammed on and not much new happened in nuclear power. But the plants that were operating continued on, pretty much.

Chernobyl happened in 1986. This was much worse than 3 Mile Island. This one blew up, blasting tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

People are afraid of plutonium, uranium; cesium 137, iodine 131, strontium 90, and lots of other isotopes that they had heard about during atomic testing. These and other isotopes came out of the Chernobyl blast. I suppose we could forgive people for thinking that a dusting of plutonium or iodine 131 is what killed the liquidators at Chernobyl. What killed people there were gamma rays -- harsh, penetrating, ionizing radiation. Workers brought to hospital from Chernobyl were themselves emitting gamma radiation.

About this time, give or take a few years, CO2 became an issue, and as a decade or two have passed, seems like the most pressing issue of the day -- no longer atom bombs (though they haven't disappeared), radiation from nuclear power plants (which haven't disappeared either). Those who have inquiring minds that want to know, are now aware of how exceedingly dirty nuclear weapons production has been. Suspicion might have continued to dissipate had not an earthquake's tsunami wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant. Another melt down, another mess. Not to worry, the levels of radiation are not too much above background radiation. It's all being diluted, we'll clean it all up, everyone will be happy again, yada yada yada.

So, friends, we have more to worry about now. There are the still ticking atom bombs; all the nuclear power plants that haven't blown up yet, and all the CO2 that is clearly screwing things up. The Ozone Hole seems to be OK for now. Bees are disappearing, along with other non-honey bee pollinators, and that could be really bad. Human sperm counts are dropping around the world (about 50% since WWII). Childhood cancers--which were once a rarity--are fairly common now. Various chemicals being used resemble hormone molecules, and these look-alike chemicals are screwing up development of fish and humans (other animals too).

If there is a common enemy here, it's capitalists and state monopolists (USSR) that have always preferred to externalize the costs of their profit making by dumping the crap in the river, blowing it out the stack, burying it in holes (out of sight, out of mind), or just using the lumpen proles as a sponge to soak it all up.

So I watched it. I wasn't as taken with it as you were. Yes, it's good to recognize that nuclear power presents us with some real, substantial advantages at this point in time. Yes, it's true that coal and oil (not to mention autos running on oil) have killed far, far, far, far more people than even nuclear weapons, let alone nuclear power plants.

People feel like they have been tricked, and in fact they have been tricked about a lot of things. Tricked, fucked over, screwed, cheated, and been had, altogether. The solution, doing away with capitalism and unmitigated industrialism, is unacceptable. I don't want to go back to the original daylight savings plan--you go to bed at sundown and get up at sunrise. Without industrialism, we won't even have kerosene, and we've pretty much wiped out cetaceans so whale oil is out. That leaves a wick in grease for lighting.

Our choice seems to be "all or nothing". We either keep the whole industrial thing running (until it buries us with a plastic stake through our hearts) or we slip back into a pre-industrial, real simple agrarian economy.

Here's a question: when two people argue about "USSR" or "America," are they arguing about the same USSR or America?

Perhaps the reason they argue so much is because each side is arguing about a different USSR or America (but call their mental representations by the same name).

Come again?

So I watched it. I wasn't as taken with it as you were. — Bitter Crank

Well, I thought the whole documentary with pretty good packed with testimonies, facts, and a lack of ulterior agenda or policy.

So, what's preventing you from stop worrying and learn to love nuclear?

Nothing. I love nuclear as much as I love CO2, pesticides, RoundUp, and PCBs. What's not to love? Why, it's probably powering the very computer I'm using, right now. As for burying the waste from the power plants, well fuck it. We'll all be dead before we get the perpetual storage system built, anyway.

Apres moi, le deluge.

In order to argue about a topic (e.g. Is "America" good) your brain has to have a mental representation of America. For example, if Bob says "America is evil", then what Bob is actually saying is:

"I have some memory of America and I interpret this memory as EVIL."

Then when Tom counters with:

"But America is actually good. YOU'RE evil."

What Tom is actually saying is:

"I have some other mental representation of America. It differs from yours and I think you're wrong."

But if both Tom and Bob have different mental representations of America, doesn't that mean that each person is talking about a different America (but call it by the same name)? Tom is talking about Tom's representation of America and Bob is talking about Bob's mental representation of America. Since these representations are not the same, then in effect each person is talking about a 'different' America.

A broader question: Why do we assume that if two people use the same "words" they're thinking the same "concepts?"

You can't step into the same river twice. In fact, you can't step into the same river once.

Most people find something sufficiently constant about the USSR or America to use these terms as if they represent something reasonably stable and commonly perceptible to all observers. Granted, everybody on earth has a distinct perspective on the world, and supposedly no two of them is alike. How the hell do we ever communicate?

We communicate by being familiar with the most common denominators in complex fractions like "Europe", "soil", "birds", "philosophers", and "USSRs". Once we get past the shallows of common denominators, then we have to get more specific: "When I was in Moscow in 1992, people on the streets displayed more than the usual minimum of soviet enthusiasm." [disclaimer: I have never been in Moscow.] Or, "It is wonderful to visit Washington, D.C. when the cherry trees are blossoming." That's probably true if you don't get mugged while you are traipsing around under the pink petals. [disclaimer: I have not seen Washington's famous cherry trees in bloom. Caveat: They are probably a lot like cherry trees blossoming elsewhere in the world.]

They assume there is something sufficiently constant about the USSR or America to use these terms.

At what point is this assumption inaccurate? For example if two people have completely different mental representations of America, then doesn't that mean each person is thinking about a different America?

Again, if there are NO common denominators in two people's mental representations of a word, then why do we assume that when each person uses that word they're referring to the "same" concept?

Again, if there are NO common denominators in two people's mental representations of a word, then why do we assume that when each person uses that word they're referring to the "same" concept? — YuZhonglu

The USSR is the same entity whether you think it was the workers' paradise or the nightmare from hell. The United States is the same entity whether you think it is the perfect democracy or a racist, sexist disaster. Correspondence between person A's apprehension of the USSR and the USA and person B's apprehension of the USSR and the USA will never be 100%. It might be only 50% or 25%, but that is sufficient to allow for a discussion.

Almost everything there is has many aspects. We all know that, and don't expect 100% correspondence with the people we talk to. People who do expect 100% correspondence quickly become tiresome and we stop talking to them.