303. The old days when we knew we lived with nuclear holocaust

Reading Noam Chomsky, one thing that really caught my mind was his references to what he sees as the clear and present danger of nuclear holocaust befalling our planet. According to his research, there have been 75 near misses in the last forty years, including several in which the only thing that prevented nuclear disaster was a middle rank officer refusing to follow protocol to give the World another chance, showing that a single human can be rational when huge, carefully designed decision making systems, full of failsafes, can be the opposite. This got me thinking about nuclear drills in the 60s and 70s, exercises run at schools, at least in the US, to ensure that, in case of a nuclear attack, children would know to get under their desks, clearly more about instigating a hate of the Soviet in the population than about imparting life saving skills. At least, nowadays, even though the risk has not diminished, we are spared the theatrics and awareness. And, after all, ignorance is bliss

Length: 1,001 characters

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

149. It's all about the bike

28. Patience is one of the differences between life science and property development

34. The 'Todos tus libros' platform