LastWeekTonight
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2014–2026
15:22 · 22M views · Jul 28, 2014
A Last Week Tonight segment on the US nuclear arsenal and how poorly it is maintained and secured. It covers weapons accidents, outdated launch protocols and security problems.
HN recommends it as a funny but sobering overview of nuclear weapons safety failures.
8 comments from Hacker News
Reminds me a lot of his report on nuclear security. this video A lot of times as a citizen I think you feel that something is "off" with different Government jobs but can’t put what exactly. And then you watch one of those reports and be like "holy duck, how can it be this bad and what are they doing to my people and with my taxes?" Different country, but a lot of times when dealing with the government I think why are the people working there always grumpy, and then one gave me the "tour" of what they have to deal with that is hidden from the public eye. Working toilets? Nah, they had to go outside around the building into Porta Potty’s. He showed me like fifty places in the building with mold. Not the fun white one you get on cheese. I am talking about black fungus out of stranger things eating half the wall. Some offices had signs saying working in a different office today with the date printed to 1998. Inside water was dripping from the ceiling. He is like that’s why we are grumpy. Ever since I bring a piece of cake and some hot coffee when I have to deal with government employees and thank them for their service. They are allowed to be grumpy working under conditions I would expect from a third world country.
Nuclear warhead security has always been problematic, not just the facility producing the materials. Watch [1] because reading the rest just make everyone dizzy. Our launch protocol relies on very outdated technology. Not that there is anything wrong with old technology in general (as long as the protocol is well-established)... We don't even want to bring up the recent unfortunate Navy crashes... we ought to really step up. "Shoot yourself in the foot." [1]: this video [2]: [LINK] [3]: [LINK] [4]: [LINK]
Also, a list of the nuclear weapons which got lost [LINK] There is a drove of stories around nuclear weapons, I also enjoyed "Missile doors left open while Air Force nuclear officer slept" with the explanation, that they left it open for the food delivery guy. [LINK] John Olivers episode on it is also amazing. this video For a weird one meet one of the masterminds responsible for them: this video
I'm guessing this popped up here after appearing on reddit yesterday. John Oliver did a good report on it. this video [LINK] It's pretty frakked up. Edit: Oh, and the cold war is heating up: [LINK] None of this is settling.
My problem with nuclear disasters or really any kind of bigger scale environmental damage is, that you have no control over other people's actions and failures. You therefore can not argue, that the technology is fine as long as we all use it securely, because you simply can not ensure that for countries you have no control over. And it is not only the small countries. We trust developed nations with nuclear technology, when we really should not [0]. Fukushima happened, many smaller scale incidents in the US happened [1] and in Germany the nuclear waste is a constant issue [2]. Unfortunately when using a shared resource like "world security", the free rider problem occurs, so everybody keeps using it. When you enlarge the time period in which we use nuclear power/weapons long enough the probability, that we mess things up on an even larger scale than Chernobyl or Fukushima ultimately approaches 1. While I hate, that people forget that nuclear power does run on fuel and we have to handle the waste for generations to come, I am very thankful, that they also forget to think of peak uranium [3], which in my mind as a layman might solve the problem. [0]: this video [1]: [LINK] [2]: [LINK] [3]: [LINK]