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Nuclear weapon testings are highly damaging to human health and to ecosystems, in addition to their threat to international security. To contemplate their resumption is to disregard decades of scientific knowledge.
What's that about disregarding decades of scientific knowledge you say? That's ridiculous. Anyway, pass the raw milk and beef-tallow fries. Everyone knows that eating right is just as effective against disease as those dirty vaccines full of CHEMICALS! Also, get those 5G towers out of our neighborhoods. We don't want our CHILDREN exposed to harmful radiation! I am now an expert about all of these things after scrolling Facebook and listening to RFK Jr. The Facebook groups I'm in even have certificates you can print out, so you know it's legit.
Hold on, my favorite influencer just said that the ancient Greeks were right about the Four Bodily Humors! This changes everything! According to her, everything I've been experiencing must be caused by an imbalance between the Melancholic and Sanguine humors. Luckily for me, all I need are some amethyst crystals, essential oils, zinc supplements, and of course Ivermectin, and I'll be good as new.
Russia couldn't invade even if they wanted to. They do just fine with their bot farms and cyber attacks. I'd be surprised if even a quarter of their nukes are even functional. Maintenance gets deferred, and the money for it is pocketed in a kleptocracy like Russia. Their GDP isn't much larger than Canada's, and their population is not even half of the US. Mexico could repel a Russian invasion.
That's either impossible at our current level of technology, or extremely expensive and difficult A nuclear weapon has so much destructive force, it's hard to comprehend.
The part that I was referring to when I said "impossible" was the environmental health costs, not the bomb. I was clarifying that in my second comment.
>What were the environmental and human costs of China's recent test in 2020? Or the Russian's in 2019?
Without having looked into those specific cases, radiation could've leaked into the groundwater, causing poisoning of local fauna and flora. If the radiation spread further, then it could have caused problems in nearby towns and settlements.
The detonation itself can cause disruption of the local soil environment, again causing damage to the local flora and fauna.
There is no leaking into groundwater or disruption to the local soil environment damaging flora and fauna when you do these in secret deep underground salt caverns chosen for the express purpose of conducting secret tests. All of this is just a "could've" thing you made up. A thought experiment. You can't point to any actually realized costs incurred.
>All of this is just a "could've" thing you made up. A thought experiment. You can't point to any actually realized costs incurred.
Man you gotta stop being a dick. Like you're being really aggressive here, and I want to have this conversation with you, but you're kinda pissing me off.
Calm down.
Secondly, I fully acknowledged that I didn't look into the cases. I have a job that I'm doing and I'm doing these messages in between tasks.
>There is no leaking into groundwater or disruption to the local soil environment damaging flora and fauna when you do these in secret deep underground salt caverns chosen for the express purpose of conducting secret tests.
For the 2020 and 2019 tests you mentioned. They're in countries famously known for their secrecy around weapons, and more specifically not on good terms with the US. Do you think we're likely to find information about those tests easily available online?
Wikipedia has this to say about potential fallout from nuclear tests:
Soil absorbs the reactive chemical compounds [i.e. local soil damage], so the only nuclides filtered through soil into the atmosphere are the noble gases, primarily krypton-85 and xenon-133. The released nuclides can undergo bio-accumulation. Radioactive isotopes like iodine-131, strontium-90 and caesium-137 are concentrated in the milk of grazing cows [i.e. damage to local fauna]; cow milk is therefore a convenient, sensitive fallout indicator.
Yes, I'm speaking in hypotheticals, but it's really not hard to see how detonating a nuclear weapon underground could lead to contamination of the local area.
A properly chosen site can minimize damage, yes, it cannot fully eliminate damage.
It is in fact possible, and it has in fact been done.
They're not just "sticking a bomb underground and detonating it", these are carefully selected and prepared sites. Or they can be, at any rate - I'm sure you'll be able to dig up some example somewhere of an underground test site that was poorly thought out. There were a lot of nuclear tests back in the day.
I mean the problem is what do we consider "no environmental health costs," because some damage will be done. You're detonating a nuclear weapon on a planet with life that is literally everywhere.
They say that you're never further than 6 feet from a spider, so all the spiders in the cave you blew up die. Presumably all the worms do too. All the soil bacteria in the area surrounding it. What about the groundwater? Does that get affected too? Does the nuclear explosion release gas? Is the site perfectly sealed? Well it's probably impossible to perfectly seal anything, so no, which means some amount of potentially poisonous gas is released.
There's always some amount of environmental damage. That comes with existing in the environment.
Where does the damage end? I don't know. Does anyone?
They can be simulated to a very high degree of accuracy, down to interactions between individual molecules. There is nothing significant to be learned by detonating them for real, at this point it would just be a very expensive and destructive fireworks display.
It allows collection of real world data to quickly iterate and modernize your nuclear arsenal. It's not done to intimidate as evidenced by the fact it's conducted in secret.
You cant really do secret nuclear tests anymore, not since we have had stuff in orbit. The characterisitic double flash is very detectable from space, and if its an underground test, then seismometers can locate it.
You might be able to get away with a very low yield, sub critical test in an underground chamber thats specially designed for such a test... but thats not really going to give you a lot of useful info for the expense it would take.
China did this in 2020, used supercritical yields, and it was only revealed to the public this month In 2019 we accused Russia of "probably" conducting similar such tests. They continue to perform experiments on decoupling which allow them to better hide the optical and seismic signatures from these covert activities. Whatever expense it costs they are paying it in order to enhance their weapon designs.
Just like with most of their intelligence, all they can say is it might have happened. We don't know definitively and the only reason we can say we think it occured is because we performed our own decoupling experiments in 2021 and 2023 after what we now can say was a nuclear test by China, probably. Before gathering that test data we did not know what the signature of such an underground test would look like.
_haha_oh_wow_ | a day ago
>disregard decades of scientific knowledge
It's all the rage these days unfortunately.
EnvironmentalCook520 | 23 hours ago
Disregarding decades of scientific knowledge? Just another day for the current administration.
NIRPL | a day ago
The only thing us humans are good at these days is the disregard of scientific knowledge.
CyclingTGD | 22 hours ago
MAGA doesn’t believe in science.
HundredSun | 19 hours ago
Also stands for Make Asbestos Great Again.
tsardonicpseudonomi | a day ago
WMD have always been for capitalism and never for science.
Taman_Should | 23 hours ago
What's that about disregarding decades of scientific knowledge you say? That's ridiculous. Anyway, pass the raw milk and beef-tallow fries. Everyone knows that eating right is just as effective against disease as those dirty vaccines full of CHEMICALS! Also, get those 5G towers out of our neighborhoods. We don't want our CHILDREN exposed to harmful radiation! I am now an expert about all of these things after scrolling Facebook and listening to RFK Jr. The Facebook groups I'm in even have certificates you can print out, so you know it's legit.
Hold on, my favorite influencer just said that the ancient Greeks were right about the Four Bodily Humors! This changes everything! According to her, everything I've been experiencing must be caused by an imbalance between the Melancholic and Sanguine humors. Luckily for me, all I need are some amethyst crystals, essential oils, zinc supplements, and of course Ivermectin, and I'll be good as new.
Pull-Billman | 14 hours ago
I made a joke to a co-worker the other day and they told me my humor was bad. I need to find an apothecary...
Odd_Buyer1094 | 15 hours ago
Our food , and water supply is actually more damaging and dangerous.
Key_Pace_2496 | 13 hours ago
Disregarding decades of scientific knowledge is kind of this administration's schtick...
Opposite-Chemistry-0 | 12 hours ago
Thats why tests are done in low income areas. The rich who dont pay taxes won't be affected. The poor can enjoy fireworks. Its a win win.
Lower_Ad_1317 | 9 hours ago
Starting nuclear testing again ?
Ok so either there is a level of insanity at the top of the nuclear pyramid or the devil is real.
I’m not sure which fact is less bad.
-Axiom- | 20 hours ago
Better to test them to scare each other than to use them on each other.
It looks like the World forgot what nuclear weapons actually are.
TipAfraid4755 | 19 hours ago
Because posturing waving their members at each other is considered mature politics nowadays
fgorina | 15 hours ago
Well, they disregard scientific knowledge in vaccines, climate science, contamination so why they shouldn’t disregard it for nuclear weapons?
Mikolf | 20 hours ago
What's more damaging to human health is getting invaded by Russia after giving up your nukes on the promise of not getting invaded.
refusemouth | 20 hours ago
Russia couldn't invade even if they wanted to. They do just fine with their bot farms and cyber attacks. I'd be surprised if even a quarter of their nukes are even functional. Maintenance gets deferred, and the money for it is pocketed in a kleptocracy like Russia. Their GDP isn't much larger than Canada's, and their population is not even half of the US. Mexico could repel a Russian invasion.
cityshepherd | 8 hours ago
I think that person was specifically referring to Ukraine in their comment
costafilh0 | a day ago
Nothing can 100% replace a real test. The only reason we don't do them anymore is the political cost.
Autumn1eaves | a day ago
And the environmental costs, human health costs, international security costs, and, yes, the political costs.
FaceDeer | 19 hours ago
When detonated underground in a properly prepared site there's no environmental or human health costs, the byproducts remain contained.
Autumn1eaves | 17 hours ago
That's either impossible at our current level of technology, or extremely expensive and difficult A nuclear weapon has so much destructive force, it's hard to comprehend.
TelluricThread0 | 14 hours ago
China just does them in secret all the time. Last one was just a few years ago. North Korea does it too.
Autumn1eaves | 4 hours ago
It's not hard to stick a bomb underground and detonate it.
It's impossible to detonate a nuclear weapon underground and have "no environmental or human health costs".
TelluricThread0 | 4 hours ago
First, it's impossible and extremely expensive. Now it's not hard and you "just stick a bomb undergrounddetonate it." You have to pick a lane.
What were the environmental and human costs of China's recent test in 2020? Or the Russian's in 2019?
Autumn1eaves | 4 hours ago
The part that I was referring to when I said "impossible" was the environmental health costs, not the bomb. I was clarifying that in my second comment.
>What were the environmental and human costs of China's recent test in 2020? Or the Russian's in 2019?
Without having looked into those specific cases, radiation could've leaked into the groundwater, causing poisoning of local fauna and flora. If the radiation spread further, then it could have caused problems in nearby towns and settlements.
The detonation itself can cause disruption of the local soil environment, again causing damage to the local flora and fauna.
TelluricThread0 | 4 hours ago
There is no leaking into groundwater or disruption to the local soil environment damaging flora and fauna when you do these in secret deep underground salt caverns chosen for the express purpose of conducting secret tests. All of this is just a "could've" thing you made up. A thought experiment. You can't point to any actually realized costs incurred.
Autumn1eaves | 3 hours ago
>All of this is just a "could've" thing you made up. A thought experiment. You can't point to any actually realized costs incurred.
Man you gotta stop being a dick. Like you're being really aggressive here, and I want to have this conversation with you, but you're kinda pissing me off.
Calm down.
Secondly, I fully acknowledged that I didn't look into the cases. I have a job that I'm doing and I'm doing these messages in between tasks.
>There is no leaking into groundwater or disruption to the local soil environment damaging flora and fauna when you do these in secret deep underground salt caverns chosen for the express purpose of conducting secret tests.
For the 2020 and 2019 tests you mentioned. They're in countries famously known for their secrecy around weapons, and more specifically not on good terms with the US. Do you think we're likely to find information about those tests easily available online?
Wikipedia has this to say about potential fallout from nuclear tests:
Soil absorbs the reactive chemical compounds [i.e. local soil damage], so the only nuclides filtered through soil into the atmosphere are the noble gases, primarily krypton-85 and xenon-133. The released nuclides can undergo bio-accumulation. Radioactive isotopes like iodine-131, strontium-90 and caesium-137 are concentrated in the milk of grazing cows [i.e. damage to local fauna]; cow milk is therefore a convenient, sensitive fallout indicator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_nuclear_weapons_testing
Yes, I'm speaking in hypotheticals, but it's really not hard to see how detonating a nuclear weapon underground could lead to contamination of the local area.
A properly chosen site can minimize damage, yes, it cannot fully eliminate damage.
FaceDeer | 14 hours ago
We've been doing underground nuclear tests since 1957.
Autumn1eaves | 4 hours ago
Yes, but it still has environmental and human health costs. Just not as significant as above ground nuclear tests.
You said "no environmental or human health costs", and that is impossible.
It's not hard to stick a bomb underground and detonate it. It's very hard to make sure it doesn't leak into the groundwater the next time it rains.
FaceDeer | 3 hours ago
It is in fact possible, and it has in fact been done.
They're not just "sticking a bomb underground and detonating it", these are carefully selected and prepared sites. Or they can be, at any rate - I'm sure you'll be able to dig up some example somewhere of an underground test site that was poorly thought out. There were a lot of nuclear tests back in the day.
Autumn1eaves | 3 hours ago
I mean the problem is what do we consider "no environmental health costs," because some damage will be done. You're detonating a nuclear weapon on a planet with life that is literally everywhere.
They say that you're never further than 6 feet from a spider, so all the spiders in the cave you blew up die. Presumably all the worms do too. All the soil bacteria in the area surrounding it. What about the groundwater? Does that get affected too? Does the nuclear explosion release gas? Is the site perfectly sealed? Well it's probably impossible to perfectly seal anything, so no, which means some amount of potentially poisonous gas is released.
There's always some amount of environmental damage. That comes with existing in the environment.
Where does the damage end? I don't know. Does anyone?
Youpunyhumans | 23 hours ago
They can be simulated to a very high degree of accuracy, down to interactions between individual molecules. There is nothing significant to be learned by detonating them for real, at this point it would just be a very expensive and destructive fireworks display.
TelluricThread0 | 14 hours ago
Then why is China doing it in order to develop their next generation nuclear arsenal? Haven't you told them you can just simulate it?
Youpunyhumans | 6 hours ago
Why? Intimidation, to swing their dick because the US wants to do so as well.
There are no good reasons for it.
TelluricThread0 | 5 hours ago
It allows collection of real world data to quickly iterate and modernize your nuclear arsenal. It's not done to intimidate as evidenced by the fact it's conducted in secret.
Youpunyhumans | 4 hours ago
You cant really do secret nuclear tests anymore, not since we have had stuff in orbit. The characterisitic double flash is very detectable from space, and if its an underground test, then seismometers can locate it.
You might be able to get away with a very low yield, sub critical test in an underground chamber thats specially designed for such a test... but thats not really going to give you a lot of useful info for the expense it would take.
TelluricThread0 | 4 hours ago
China did this in 2020, used supercritical yields, and it was only revealed to the public this month In 2019 we accused Russia of "probably" conducting similar such tests. They continue to perform experiments on decoupling which allow them to better hide the optical and seismic signatures from these covert activities. Whatever expense it costs they are paying it in order to enhance their weapon designs.
Youpunyhumans | 4 hours ago
Revealed to the public is the important part here. I can pretty much garuntee the top brass knew about it the day it happened.
TelluricThread0 | 4 hours ago
Just like with most of their intelligence, all they can say is it might have happened. We don't know definitively and the only reason we can say we think it occured is because we performed our own decoupling experiments in 2021 and 2023 after what we now can say was a nuclear test by China, probably. Before gathering that test data we did not know what the signature of such an underground test would look like.
Karma_1969 | 21 hours ago
Does anything need to 100% replace a real test? Is "good enough" not good enough?