Threads (1984)
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Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed the devastation that can occur from nuclear bombing.
What we are witnessing is the kind of contrarianism that could blot out a nuclear Apocalypse.
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How many of those nuclear bombs were detonated in civilian populations?
The remaining detonations can be seen below.
Wildlife is doing great around Cherynobl as it is a human exclusion zone.
And how are they doing? Would you like to move yourself to any of those wonderfully scenic locations? I hear the rent is crazy cheap.
The prospect of nuclear war is horrifying, but Threads ain't a documentary or a view from a certain future.
The scariest films are those which are "based on a true story." It doesn't matter if is actually based on a true story. It only matters that the people watching the film believe that it's based on a true story.
The "science" fiction movie is more insidious than the "based on a true story" movie, because it is presented as a quasi-documentary--the true facts as revealed by the scientists! Ooga-booga! Audiences swallow this stuff hook, line, and sinker making these films the most effective of propaganda films.
HBO's Chernobyl (2019) is one of these films. It massively overrepresented the threats posed by the disaster and what actually happened. This series was "Birth of a Nation" for the anti-nuclear lobby. The only "truth" that most people know about Cherynobyl is what they saw in that mini-series.And what people "know" is informing our energy policy in a century in which it will be very important to find the best trade-offs to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.
Hurrah! We're now all idiots because we "saw" what happened. Moving images are powerful lies--we see it happen--and so our monkey brains process this as "experience."
As for Threads, the truth is we don't really know what the result of a nuclear war would be. We have enough information to know that we don't really want to find out, but we have no basis for assuming that the human race would go extinct or even get set back to the stone age.There have been more than 2,000 nuclear weapons detonated since 1945. The world still appears to be here.
The film is a fear-mongering Cassandra dressed up in the bland style of a BBC documentary, which is actually powerful stuff.
The "science" fiction movie is more insidious than the "based on a true story" movie, because it is presented as a quasi-documentary--the true facts as revealed by the scientists! Ooga-booga! Audiences swallow this stuff hook, line, and sinker making these films the most effective of propaganda films.
HBO's Chernobyl (2019) is one of these films. It massively overrepresented the threats posed by the disaster and what actually happened. This series was "Birth of a Nation" for the anti-nuclear lobby. The only "truth" that most people know about Cherynobyl is what they saw in that mini-series.And what people "know" is informing our energy policy in a century in which it will be very important to find the best trade-offs to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.
Hurrah! We're now all idiots because we "saw" what happened. Moving images are powerful lies--we see it happen--and so our monkey brains process this as "experience."
As for Threads, the truth is we don't really know what the result of a nuclear war would be. We have enough information to know that we don't really want to find out, but we have no basis for assuming that the human race would go extinct or even get set back to the stone age.There have been more than 2,000 nuclear weapons detonated since 1945. The world still appears to be here.
The film is a fear-mongering Cassandra dressed up in the bland style of a BBC documentary, which is actually powerful stuff.
It's important to remember that with better technology nuclear bombs will become more powerful. The world may be still turning but there's only so much that life on earth can endure.
I've read that, based on where I live in NJ, my location is just far enough from New York City (the primary target of all nuclear-armed enemy nations) where we won't be incinerated immediately, but rather will suffer the burns, severe injuries, radiation poisoning & many of the other horrors depicted in Threads.
But maybe with the upgrades in technology (that TheVanillaGorilla mentioned) I'll get lucky and just have my brain fried before I even know what's happening!
But maybe with the upgrades in technology (that TheVanillaGorilla mentioned) I'll get lucky and just have my brain fried before I even know what's happening!
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It's important to remember that with better technology nuclear bombs will become more powerful. The world may be still turning but there's only so much that life on earth can endure.
The existential threat is not nukes per se, but our cleverness which far outstrips our wisdom. It's CO2, plastics, AI, persistent chemicals in the water cycle, things we cook in labs that escape, etc., etc.
To make rational decisions, however, or at least have informed consent as citizens of Earth, we need to have a clear-eyed understanding of what our various technologies do (or would do). Cherynobl and Threads are not films that enhance our rationality in this regard, but rather offer an exaggerated appeal to emotion (i.e., fear). The image as club.
Perhaps we're not rational creatures. Perhaps we need the club. Perhaps no matter how much we're informed of a clear and present danger we will shrug until it is too late. Perhaps we need to be scared into doing the "right thing" in light of what the technocrats know is "best." If so, however, we should stop using words like "democracy," and we'd better hope that the people who have appointed themselves to manage the human wildlife are benevolent.
Two. And the nation of Japan endures as do the cities which were bombed. In fact, they're doing fine.
The remaining detonations can be seen below.
Wildlife is doing great around Cherynobl as it is a human exclusion zone.
Most U.S. tests were done in the South West. Plenty of people still live there. Rent is about the same there as anywhere else.
The prospect of nuclear war is horrifying, but Threads ain't a documentary or a view from a certain future.
The remaining detonations can be seen below.
Wildlife is doing great around Cherynobl as it is a human exclusion zone.
Most U.S. tests were done in the South West. Plenty of people still live there. Rent is about the same there as anywhere else.
The prospect of nuclear war is horrifying, but Threads ain't a documentary or a view from a certain future.
I knew Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still populated, but I thought I had heard somewhere that residents had been duped into believing it was safe to remain there and had been getting disproportionately ill there due to whatever fallout remained.
That may have been a documentary about those who never moved away to begin with and stayed there in the first years after the bombing.
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Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed the devastation that can occur from nuclear bombing.
Ohhh that damm well hurt 🤕 Well what's the trick then??
I knew Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still populated, but I thought I had heard somewhere that residents had been duped into believing it was safe to remain there and had been getting disproportionately ill there due to whatever fallout remained.
Fallout comes in two varieties. The first is a small amount of carcinogenic material with a long half-life. The second, depending on the height of detonation, is a large quantity of radioactive dust and sand with a short half-life.Nuclear testing has changed the planet such that we're all basically radioactive now. Some scientists have even called for making 1950 a new year zero on a calendar, because it marks a clear geological boundary between radioactive and non-radioactive. There is still radioactive crap in the air from those 2,000+ tests around the world.
There is no doubt that radiation results in all sorts of nasty results, including cancers that haunt people later in life. However, that would not be the end of human life as we know it. Later life cancers mean fewer people get to meet their grandparents. The world keeps on turning.
For all those above ground bomb tests (Heaven knows what the underground tests did to the ground water),suppose those bombs had been dropped in anger in some war. Would the planet know or care? The lingering background radiation would be the same. The United States nuked the American Southwest and Pacific Islands over 1,000 times!
In way, we're already living in the Fall Out video game.
I've read that, based on where I live in NJ, my location is just far enough from New York City (the primary target of all nuclear-armed enemy nations) where we won't be incinerated immediately, but rather will suffer the burns, severe injuries, radiation poisoning & many of the other horrors depicted in Threads.
See those four overlapping yellow circles in Washington state? That's where I live
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Threads is a great film, and whether or not what happened in that film would really happen - an all-out nuclear war would be the most terrible event in all recorded history, and the world would be forever altered. It would take many generations to get back to any semblance of normality. The recovery would be hard and slow.
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We miss you Takoma
We miss you Takoma
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