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I'm worried, What happened to the lessons of the last century? I had a grandmother who lived through both world wars and lived to own and use a smartphone.
Much important history has faded from living memory. We mock, harass and intimidate our historians and philosophers.
We for get the optimism and courage of our parents' generation who stood up for civil rights, equality and social justice. We look the other way as hard-won rights are eroded. We sit idly by while we let tyrants exploit us and dismantle our democratic structures and rob us of our sustenance.
At times like these I turn to popular music for inspiration and wisdom. I would like to share one particular retrospectively enthusiastic piece I've recently discovered from more optimistic times and I'd like to think it hasn't been in vain quite yet. We are still the human race.
It's by Montrose (also a Scottish town) and is called Space Station #5 and goes like this:
Start, with the sun
And move on out
The future's in the skies above
The heavens unfold
And a new star is born
Space and time makin' love
Now, I'm sure that's the sort of thing Homer Simpson had on his 8 track in his car back in the day.
I don't care. It's much better than war.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @01:00AM (21 children)
About 3-4 years until the global nuclear exchange now. Make the most of them. After the bombs fell, around 4 billion people died of starvation and other complications during the year of hell. Crops failed worldwide.
It's not the end of humanity. It's more like the bronze age collapse. Life will go on.
I don't think there's anything that can be done to stop it, unless the international working class organizes and uses its immense political power to put an end to this madness.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @03:08AM (3 children)
What international working class?
What we have now is serfdom by fawning over rich elites such as Trump, Musk, Bezos, Gates and Murdoch.
Do you think the Kim Cardassian generation are going to start a revolution? They're too busy trying to find a sugar daddy/momma on TikTok.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @04:27AM
You're absolutely correct. We're fucked. I don't know if I want to live to see the post-atomic horror.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 12 2022, @05:19PM (1 child)
I get my sugar babies from the grocer.
https://www.tootsie.com/candy/sugar-babies/sugar-babies [tootsie.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 13 2022, @09:12AM
Always love comments on international relations from former, (no longer, not for a long time) supply clerks in the floating forces. Almost as good as stratergy from a former Kaiser forces corporal, or an Italian bersagliere (corporal, as well). Keep trying, Faux News spouting fascist Runaway! Jews will not replace Tucker Tarlson! Hardly ever!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @03:20AM (3 children)
I don't think anyone in the US or Europe would make it out alive - we're too clustered in cities, and every population center will be a target, if only to destroy manufacturing capability. Whoever's on the other end (Russia, China, or both) probably wouldn't fare any better. Would India be involved? Japan? There's enough nukes to take care of them all, so might as well scratch them off. All that's left is Africa, South America, and a few islands, maybe. Time to migrate!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @03:59AM (2 children)
It depends how much dust and ash blows around the planet and how long it takes to settle out of the atmosphere. Could be a year [wikipedia.org]. Maybe not as much will reach the southern hemisphere and they would still have a harvest. Time of year would be a factor as well in the severity of the year of hell.
City dwellers are completely doomed. It might not be the blast itself but the firestorm will get them. But that's a small part of the entire death toll.
Relevant documentaries:
The War Game (1965) [BluRay] [1080p] [YTS.AM] [magnet]
Threads 1984 [magnet]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 12 2022, @05:22PM
Not a documentary, but definitely worthy of mention.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053137/ [imdb.com]
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38180.On_the_Beach [goodreads.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @10:06PM
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @05:26PM (3 children)
Truck on brother!
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @10:00PM (2 children)
hey hey hey
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 13 2022, @04:47PM (1 child)
I said keep on truckin'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 13 2022, @05:08PM
Truckin' my blues away!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday February 13 2022, @08:30AM (7 children)
We both know that's not going to happen in this timeline. My main concern is, can we rebuild a technological civilization after this? I've had nightmare-scenario images of a world permanently locked into Iron Age technology, simply lacking in the concentrated and discoverable resources needed to jumpstart another Industrial Revolution afterwards. Species-wide extinction would be preferable to that.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 13 2022, @08:46PM
There's a lot that can be done with steam power. I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to go from a great steam age to a digital, solar-powered renaissance. Cars and jet engines might not happen again, and that wouldn't be a terrible loss imho. Mass travel over long distances would still be possible with trains.
This all could be for the best.
A big factor will be the quality of knowledge that survives from this era. If we can figure out how to help future humans regain the knowledge of present society, that could work against the nightmare scenario. Maybe we should be printing out hard copies of wikipedia and burying them across the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 13 2022, @09:02PM
Steampunk can be cool, have a look at Mortal Engines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plA7N05y81M [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 15 2022, @08:25AM (3 children)
what are you talking about?
we'll always have wood to burn hot enough to work metals, and a lot of metals are easily accessible at the moment (cars and other shit).
which means early 20th century technology is easily accessible (and from there it's 100 years to today).
by "easily accessible" I mean you just need to start from stone-age technology with a couple of good books, and in one generation you should have a working steam engine if you're working with a moderately sized community.
I can understand having nightmares, but please try to use common sense in your waking hours.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 15 2022, @02:23PM (2 children)
Common sense? These are multi-generational city dwellers that don't know how to use a screwdriver, let alone *imagine* any kind of fabrication.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 16 2022, @03:54AM (1 child)
I do a bit of light carpentry actually :) Y'know, to keep up with the lesbian stereotypes?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 25 2022, @10:57AM
What's lesbian about a girl handling wood?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 15 2022, @03:06PM
Like what resource? As noted, even timber farming would get you enough energy for an industrial society. And solar cells, integrated circuits, etc aren't that hard to make even if you ignore that we would have massive supply of those things in the wake of a nuclear war.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 15 2022, @08:59AM
international working class?
what the fuck can they do against an increasingly paranoid psychopath like Putin?
Ukraine is lost in the medium term, just like Hong Kong.
nobody's gonna do anything about it.
but Putin won't solve his internal problems by taking Ukraine.
all we can hope for is that, just like the US system was able to stop trump, the russian military will be able to hold putin's circle back from the nukes if he decides that he wants to take the world with him when he's going down (in my head, he's more and more likely to end up like ghadafi or ceausescu).
because if anyone from outside russia goes in to try to take them away, the nukes will be launched.
really, the best-case scenario would be that putin somehow gives up on his ambitions of staying in power for the rest of his life, and retires by his own volition in secluded luxury. I think he could get a promise from the CIA for protection from whoever rules russia after him.
but is he still sane enough to see this?