lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
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Post by lenbrazil on Dec 20, 2005 13:21:52 GMT -4
According to a BBC documentary "dirty bombs" are not nearly as dagerous as we've been led to believe. Comments?
Edited to fix the link -- LunarOrbit Edit #2 -- The link appears to be unfixable...
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
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Post by Al Johnston on Dec 20, 2005 13:52:17 GMT -4
I think the "dirty bomb" is in many ways the ideal terror weapon, in that it preys on our irrational fears to produce an effect out of all proportion to the number of casualties (most, if not all apparently, of which will be inflicted by the conventional explosive). Fortunately, one reason that we have thus far been spared may be that the cost and difficulty of manufacturing them is also disproportionate to the damage they do. For the few additional cases of cancer that it might cause in time to come, it's not worth the bother of assembling the additional mass of radioactive material.
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Post by ktesibios on Dec 20, 2005 20:13:07 GMT -4
Irrespective of the likely lack of serious casualties due to the radioactive material, such a bomb could have serious and lasting effects.
Remember that we live in a culture where relatively few people know anything useful about radioactivity and its hazards. I know someone who is convinced that lasers are dangerously radioactive because "laser" stands for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation", and no amount of explanation of the electromagnetic spectrum or the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation could dissuade her from that belief. The word "radiation" trumped everything.
Remember also that there are quite a few people who will reflexively reject expert technical opinion because it comes from someone who possesses expertise.
If a dirty bombing took place, no matter how well the bomb site was decontaminated, how small an area was contaminated, how small the actual risk was or how well this was explained to the public, there would be an awful lot of people who would be afraid to go anywhere near the site for a long time to come.
If that happened in a busy, economically important area, the effects of irrational fears could be very concrete and serious.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Dec 20, 2005 22:38:12 GMT -4
Dirty Bombs are based about ignorance. They can only "affect" an area so big (most think about a city block) and while costly, that can be decontaminated pretty quick. The death toll would be comparable with a normal weapon. As such, I don't that that anyone would really bother with them. They are harder and more expensive to make, more dangerous to the maker, easier to locate and do similar damage to easier, cheaper and less detectable weapons.
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lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
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Post by lenbrazil on Dec 20, 2005 23:08:30 GMT -4
Has anyone heard any indication that any terrorist group had planned to or thought about using such a device? Or was this an invention of the sensationalist media or an administration that wants to milk justifiable as well as irrational fears of terrorism for political advantage?
It seems like in this case we should take Public Enemy's advice and "Don't Believe the Hype"
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
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Post by Al Johnston on Dec 21, 2005 8:09:20 GMT -4
I'd suspect that most thinking about "dirty" weapons was done by cold war nuclear weapons designers contemplating increasing the lethality of their product.
Of course, the variability in the amount of fallout produced by a nuclear weapon owes more to whether the fireball intersects the ground ("groundburst" vs "airburst") than to the composition of the bomb itself.
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Post by Retrograde on Dec 23, 2005 5:09:06 GMT -4
to produce an effect out of all proportion to the number of casualties It will have to do very well indeed along that dimension to top the events of the 11th of September 2001. Some statistics are found here.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Dec 23, 2005 6:34:50 GMT -4
So when does the "War against Motorism" start?
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lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
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Post by lenbrazil on Dec 23, 2005 10:13:36 GMT -4
So when does the "War against Motorism" start? I remember reading a report in the NYT years ago which compared how concered people with certain dangers compared to statistical probability. IIRC it found that many more people die driving to and from the beaches where shark attacks have occured than die in shark attacks.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Dec 23, 2005 11:18:01 GMT -4
So when does the "War against Motorism" start? I remember reading a report in the NYT years ago which compared how concered people with certain dangers compared to statistical probability. IIRC it found that many more people die driving to and from the beaches where shark attacks have occured than die in shark attacks. That wouldn't surprise me at all: sharks kill very few people worldwide: one reason attacks make headlines is because they're so rare.
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Post by frenat on Dec 23, 2005 12:37:43 GMT -4
I heard around 150 people die each year from falling coconuts. That's much more than from shark attacks and of course proves that its more dangerous to stay on the beach! ;D
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Post by Tanalia on Dec 23, 2005 20:02:50 GMT -4
I heard around 150 people die each year from falling coconuts. That's much more than from shark attacks and of course proves that its more dangerous to stay on the beach! ;D The original report on coconut deaths won an Ig Nobel award (2001, Medicine), and can be read here. In short, over a 4 year study at a hospital in Papua New Guinea, there were 4 addmissions involving head injuries from falling coconuts, 2 of which were fatal. The 150 number was just someone's guess at what a world-wide annual figure might be. Most coconut related injuries are actually people climbing the trees and falling. Like most urban legends, once started, it will never go away.
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Post by Glom on Dec 24, 2005 10:30:25 GMT -4
This series aired a while ago and was rather excellent. It wasn't specifically about the dirty bomb but it got onto it in the last episode. It was mostly about the history of the rise of the Islamists and how the neo-cons used fear to get what they want, the classic "Vote for me and I will save you from the barbarians at the gate".
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Post by ktesibios on Dec 24, 2005 15:16:19 GMT -4
And how do the numbers of people who die in auto accidents, air accidents, shark attacks, terrorist attacks or under coconut palms compare with the numbers of people who die in a bed? Brr. If you think about it, you might never lie down again.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Dec 24, 2005 16:04:38 GMT -4
"I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my Grandad, not screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus"
;D
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