Alex writes, "Another factor that was significant was gender: women tended to take the warning signal more seriously than men, and to report a stronger emotional response to it, and they also were more apt to seek out more information about it."
Gender seems an under explored factor of the nuclear weapons threat. Even though the fate of t…
Alex writes, "Another factor that was significant was gender: women tended to take the warning signal more seriously than men, and to report a stronger emotional response to it, and they also were more apt to seek out more information about it."
Gender seems an under explored factor of the nuclear weapons threat. Even though the fate of the modern world hangs in the balance, we seem unprepared to ask questions like:
Would we even have a nuclear threat in a world without men?
Or, as a place to start, a world with far fewer men. A tiny number of men can impregnate huge numbers of women. Later, men will not be necessary for reproduction of the species.
For now, we could set aside trying to answer this question. We could just observe that even though the modern world could be destroyed at any moment, we're not willing to even consider discussing a question like this. The idea of a world without men will be dismissed with a lazy wave of the hand with the claim that it is "unrealistic and unreasonable". That's understandable. But then we might go on to ask this....
What's "realistic and reasonable" about a pattern of thinking and behavior that has CONSISTENTLY FAILED to remove the nuclear weapons threat for 75 years? Why is consistent, persistent, ongoing failure with no end in sight considered "realistic and reasonable"?
Things have been this way for our whole lives, looks like they always WILL be this way. And we are correct in that assumption- Until the day we aren't.
"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen."
-Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
I don't have a fallout shelter. I do have several months worth of food, fuel & supplies on hand as a matter of course but it could never be enough for a year + of nuclear winter. I'll probably just go outside and watch the horizon.
Alex writes, "Another factor that was significant was gender: women tended to take the warning signal more seriously than men, and to report a stronger emotional response to it, and they also were more apt to seek out more information about it."
Gender seems an under explored factor of the nuclear weapons threat. Even though the fate of the modern world hangs in the balance, we seem unprepared to ask questions like:
Would we even have a nuclear threat in a world without men?
Or, as a place to start, a world with far fewer men. A tiny number of men can impregnate huge numbers of women. Later, men will not be necessary for reproduction of the species.
For now, we could set aside trying to answer this question. We could just observe that even though the modern world could be destroyed at any moment, we're not willing to even consider discussing a question like this. The idea of a world without men will be dismissed with a lazy wave of the hand with the claim that it is "unrealistic and unreasonable". That's understandable. But then we might go on to ask this....
What's "realistic and reasonable" about a pattern of thinking and behavior that has CONSISTENTLY FAILED to remove the nuclear weapons threat for 75 years? Why is consistent, persistent, ongoing failure with no end in sight considered "realistic and reasonable"?
Normalcy bias is a bitch.
Things have been this way for our whole lives, looks like they always WILL be this way. And we are correct in that assumption- Until the day we aren't.
"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen."
-Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
I don't have a fallout shelter. I do have several months worth of food, fuel & supplies on hand as a matter of course but it could never be enough for a year + of nuclear winter. I'll probably just go outside and watch the horizon.