This may be my only opportunity to brag. :-) that once upon a time in the 70s I had my own Oregon Road project when I hitchhiked from Florida to Oregon and back on $100. I've had a life long love affair with Oregon ever since. If interested, check out Adam Rockwell here on Substack, who provides daily updates from his spot on the Oregon coast.
Returning to the topic at hand, I would agree that fiction is often more powerful than fact. Video games are certainly the medium of the moment, as best I can tell.
That said, my best guess is that nothing too meaningful is likely to happen with nuclear weapons until after the next detonation. It seems extremely difficult for us to grasp existential scale information in the abstract. It's like our own personal mortality. We know it, but we don't really KNOW it.
It will be interesting and fun to follow along as you unfold this project. If it's anything like NukeMap, it should be brilliant.
With respect to the Rajneesh cult in Oregon that Alex mentioned in his wrap up, just a thought...
I think it entirely likely that Jonestown, Synanon, Rajneshpuram and others were all started with good intentions but the inevitable Cult of the Leader (and a certain enforced philosophical narrowness and rigidity) eventually morphed them into something other than a positive influence. Or far worse. The Soviet Union - a product of 19th century utopianism and a reaction to an unresponsive and exploitative nobility- bled its peoples and failed exactly in that way. But at its heart was the idea of building something new and better. Even something as odious as Nationalist-Socialism in Germany had its utopian aims but only for a narrowly defined "in" group. And, of course, it had no real philosophy or theory of governance - there was no body of reasoning (economic or otherwise) to draw on - just the whims and musings of a Leader of the worst stripe.
This may be my only opportunity to brag. :-) that once upon a time in the 70s I had my own Oregon Road project when I hitchhiked from Florida to Oregon and back on $100. I've had a life long love affair with Oregon ever since. If interested, check out Adam Rockwell here on Substack, who provides daily updates from his spot on the Oregon coast.
https://substack.com/@adamrockwell
Returning to the topic at hand, I would agree that fiction is often more powerful than fact. Video games are certainly the medium of the moment, as best I can tell.
That said, my best guess is that nothing too meaningful is likely to happen with nuclear weapons until after the next detonation. It seems extremely difficult for us to grasp existential scale information in the abstract. It's like our own personal mortality. We know it, but we don't really KNOW it.
It will be interesting and fun to follow along as you unfold this project. If it's anything like NukeMap, it should be brilliant.
With respect to the Rajneesh cult in Oregon that Alex mentioned in his wrap up, just a thought...
I think it entirely likely that Jonestown, Synanon, Rajneshpuram and others were all started with good intentions but the inevitable Cult of the Leader (and a certain enforced philosophical narrowness and rigidity) eventually morphed them into something other than a positive influence. Or far worse. The Soviet Union - a product of 19th century utopianism and a reaction to an unresponsive and exploitative nobility- bled its peoples and failed exactly in that way. But at its heart was the idea of building something new and better. Even something as odious as Nationalist-Socialism in Germany had its utopian aims but only for a narrowly defined "in" group. And, of course, it had no real philosophy or theory of governance - there was no body of reasoning (economic or otherwise) to draw on - just the whims and musings of a Leader of the worst stripe.