There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Elon Musk draws fire for playing down impact of America’s atomic bombing of Japan: ‘Not as scary as people think’

Elon and Trump make the worst possible argument for nuclear power I have ever heard:

“Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed but now they are full cities again,” the multibillionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX and X said.

“That’s great, that’s great,” Mr Trump responded.

“It is not as scary as people think, basically,” Mr Musk added.

They joked about nuclear power facing a “branding problem”.

“We will have to rebrand it,” the former president told Mr Musk. “We will name it after you or something.”

QuentinCallaghan ,
@QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz avatar

The Japanese people witnessing those events might have a second opinion.

pineapplelover ,

This guy studied physics at MIT right? Doesn’t know how dangerous atomic bombs are?

moon ,

He didn’t study at MIT. He studied at UPenn and lied about having graduated from there two years earlier than he did, for some reason

pineapplelover ,

Ah my mistake. Reading his wikipedia right now, it says, “he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, where he earned two degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in physics, and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the university’s Wharton School.” Had no idea Bachelor of Arts in physics was a thing. But economics is Bachelor of Science? What happened there? Is that a mistake? Physics is a hard science.

yemmly ,

At some schools, any major can result in a BA or BS depending on which electives you take.

UnfortunateShort ,

Definitely resulted in huge pile of BS with Musk.

Huckledebuck ,

Yeah, it’s my perception that the BA for sciences are for people that want to teach high school and lower. That’s how i got a math degree. I’m not sure if i could’ve handled any applied math. Abstract algebra kicked my ass twice, and diff eq took me a couple of months in to get comfortable with.

ECB ,

My school offered a BA in physics. I never knew anyone who took it (I did the BS) but they claimed it was aimed at theater set- designers.

Honytawk ,

He didn’t graduate in Physics either. Only got his degree 2 years after he left school and the school received a “generous endowment”.

He bought his Physics “degree”

Zahille7 ,

I’d like to take a moment to share this video about what happens to the human body at different zones of the blast. It’s pretty horrific, but simulated.

classic ,

How fast would the disintegration in zone 5 (fireball) happen? Would the nervous system even register it?

meco03211 ,

Wouldn’t feel a thing. At minimum the blast would travel at the speed of sound ~343m/s. Nerve conduction velocity is on the range of 120m/s. Your nerves would be vapor before the signal reached its destination.

Tom_Hanx_the_Actor ,

This is both comforting and incredibly morbid. Idk how to feel.

nucleative ,

No need to feel

Honytawk ,

You wouldn’t feel it, that is the point

Zink ,

The absurd amount of radiation (thermal included) would get there even faster!

meco03211 ,

I figured. I was just sure the minimum would be speed of sound. Other than speed of light, I’ve no idea what the maximum would be.

Zink ,

I want to say the shock wave moves faster than the speed of sound, but yeah it’s hard to beat the speed of light.

The chain reaction happens super fast, so all that energy is dumped in a practical instant.

classic ,

Okay then. I call shotgun for zone 5

meco03211 ,

Sounds good. I’ll choose zone 0. Or whatever is outside the blast radius. Good luck.

TheBigBrother , (edited )

Nuclear bombs are a problem because it’s something just a fucking insane genocide will use. Isn’t about it will do a lot of damage it’s cos it kills everyone in a big radius WO distinguish if they civilians or army.

nothing ,

Big difference between the original atomic bombs he’s talking about and current (or even decades-old) thermonuclear weapons. This is just ignorant rambling from someone that wants to be “smart”.

capital_sniff ,

Meanwhile, Annie Jacobsen has a recent book on exactly this subject that has been making the rounds these past months. Those two have to be living in a small bubble to not know about this book.

Archer ,

Never heard of it

LustyArgonianMana ,
@LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world avatar

Title of book?

capital_sniff ,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War:_A_Scenario

LustyArgonianMana ,
@LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world avatar

Thank you!

Xaphanos ,

I only recently learned of this:

youtu.be/olFmklCCccE?feature=shared

RagnarokOnline ,

This and Grave of the Fireflies are the two depictions of Japanese tragedy during WWII that I always think of

SarcasticMan ,
@SarcasticMan@lemmy.world avatar

Elon is like that greasy kid in high school who would correct the History teacher with facts he learned by posting on /pol/. “Actually, the slaves loved being slaves because they got free housing and healthcare.”

Can someone please line his shit ass up against the wall already?

PugJesus ,

Nuclear power does have a problem where perceptions of danger greatly outweigh the actual danger.

Trying to make nuclear power sound safe by saying that a nuclear bombing isn’t that bad is not helping. I fucking hate these two dipshits.

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Right? I’m not an anti-nuclear person in general (although I think it’s becoming mores superfluous as other methods become more efficient), but “thousands of people died and then they built a new city, so don’t worry” is so fucking stupid.

PugJesus ,

(although I think it’s becoming mores superfluous as other methods become more efficient),

Yeah, nuclear power plants are expensive and slow to construct. 20 years ago, hell, 10 years ago, I would’ve said “Yes, building new plants or making major expansions is still a good idea.” Now? Renewables are advancing so fast that it’s probably economically unwise to make major investments in nuclear power.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

exactly. it isn’t that they’re unsafe, its that there’s more effective options that aren’t oil.

solidgrue ,
@solidgrue@lemmy.world avatar

Nuclear energy has insane energy density in terms of MJ/kg (something like 3.9 x 10^6 ) versus chemical fuels (4.5 x 10^1), but it’s grossly inefficient because most of the output is waste heat and “hot” isotopes-- the last things we need. I don’t have hard numbers on hand but I wouldn’t say nuclear is more than a few tens of percent efficiency. Then there’s the capital costs to build, maintain and operate plants PLUS costs to source, refine, transport, and store the fuel, and then transport and discard (contain) waste product. Not worth it at scale.

Versus Solar, Wind and Tidal which are far less energy dense per unit mass of working fluid¹, but enjoy up to 80% efficiency, and are relatively easy to scale.

Nuclear still makes sense, I think, in interior areas like the American Midwest where wind and solar are fickle, and transportation (transmission) costs for tidal would be unsustainable.

¹ Not a fair comparison because solar efficiency is quantized on intensity x area / time, while wind and tidal would quantized on flux density, or (mass / area) x velocity (over time?).

SGforce ,

I think it would make the most sense at high latitudes. Where they don’t get enough sun for solar and maintenance on iced-up turbine blades would be a pain in the ass.

partial_accumen ,

Nuclear still makes sense, I think, in interior areas like the American Midwest where wind and solar are fickle, and transportation (transmission) costs for tidal would be unsustainable.

There’s another downside to depending on nuclear power that wasn’t so much an issue in the past, but is now, and will be even more in the future: the required cooling capacity to operate a nuclear reactor.

The reason nuclear power plants are built next to large bodies of water is that the waste heat needs to be dispersed somewhere. The heat is transferred to the body of water (lake, river, sea or ocean). Except now with climate change the bodies of water are already warmer so they cannot take away as much heat. In other places drought is reducing the amount of water, meaning less waste heat can be carried away. If you can’t get rid of waste heat from your reactor, you have to turn it off until you have sufficient heat dispersal available.

This isn’t theoretical. Its been happening sporadically for almost a decade. Here’s an article from 2018 detailing Finland having to turn off reactors because of ocean temperatures too high to operate.:

“Finland’s Loviisa power plant, located about 65 miles outside Helsinki, first slightly reduced its output on Wednesday. “The situation does not endanger people, [the] environment or the power plant,” its operator, the energy company Fortum, wrote in a statement. The seawater has not cooled since then, and the plant continued to reduce its output on both Thursday and Friday, confirmed the plant’s chief of operations, Timo Eurasto. “The weather forecast [means] it can continue at least a week. But hopefully not that long,” he said.”

I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about this when they recommend nuclear power for a climate changing world. Its only going to get hotter from now on, which means we’ll be able to effectively only use less nuclear power plant capacity.

_bcron ,

Elon Musk the self-proclaimed engineer is also totally disregarding that a nuclear bomb does a whole lot more than knock down buildings. A tactical neutron bomb might level 4 city blocks but only an idiot would correlate how easy it is to rebuild with relative safety. Nobody would want to be within 200 miles of that

Zombiepirate ,
@Zombiepirate@lemmy.world avatar

I’m beginning to think this Musk guy isn’t as smart as he lets on…

Honytawk ,

You’d already know that if you hear him talk about something you have knowledge about. He is spewing bullshit so confidently, only a layman would think it sounds logical.

But to hammer it home.

Elon has a degree in Economics. He tried to go for Physics as well but he wasn’t smart enough.

Only 2 year after he left school did he get a degree, when the school received a big donation. He just bought his degree.

Didn’t stop him from claiming he got the degree during those 2 years either. He even got sued for that.

Gsus4 , (edited )
@Gsus4@mander.xyz avatar

Fuck, it’s always worse than you already knew. What a phoney.

MediaBiasFactChecker Bot ,

The Independent - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for The Independent:
> MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom
> Wikipedia about this source

Search topics on Ground.Newshttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/elon-musk-japan-nuclear-attacks-b2595497.html

Media Bias Fact Check | bot support

apfelwoiSchoppen ,
@apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world avatar

He should be strapped to a spacex rocket and sent to the sun. It isn’t as scary as you think.

JeeBaiChow ,

Tell trump it’s ok to go at night, when the sun is cool.

HootinNHollerin ,

He’ll be blind from staring so he won’t feel much

Bumblefumble ,

The SpaceX rocket unfortunately isn’t powerful enough to launch anything into the sun, but yes.

P00ptart ,

I’m sure we could modify it to make it possible. Even if we miss… 🤷🏼‍♂️

Honytawk ,

Doesn’t need to reach the sun.

Even exploding on launch is enough.

That said, such an explosion would that be more or less scary than the sun?

apfelwoiSchoppen , (edited )
@apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world avatar

Not as scary as people think.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •