Going Out With A Bang! Nuclear War Part 1.

"If you think the cost of Education is expensive, you should see the price of Ignorance." Derek Bok

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Albert Einstein

The Cost of Ignorance. Nuclear War Part 1. Going Out With A Bang!  

How can we expect to have a scientific, viable, sustainable, just, free and truly global civilization if we, the custodians and inhabitants of Earth, are not equipped to critically evaluate evidence, exploit science to it's full potential and enable basic human freedoms? The answer is: we can't.
If one has an educated, humanistic, secular, and scientifically literate populace then it almost axiomatically follows that we are not destined for a 21st century rife with insignificant, petty, myopic and greedy human squabbles (unlike all the previous centuries, this one could be different - better or worse). The fate of our unique species, and of our rare, life preserving Earth is currently hanging tenuously in the balance, on an ever diminishing foothold. Nothing in the vast indifference of the cosmos is coming to save us from ourselves. If there is to be change, it must be us that make it.

The creation, amelioration, and seemingly inevitable proliferation of fusion nuclear technology cannot be undone, but it can be controlled to a degree, by us, but only if we choose to, and only if we work together. An unlikely ending to a serious situation I grant you. As one looks around at the copious nukes in stockpiles from semi-stable to developing countries such as the USA, Israel (allegedly, as they deny Atomic Energy inspections), Russia, China, UK, France and India, to the countries that could likely or easily make them if they choose, such as Japan, Ukraine, or Western Europe. and to the unstable or despotic nations aspiring or acquiring their own defensive fusion bombs such as Iran, North Korea or Pakistan. (Iran could possibly make them now, if they wanted, but like North Korea they choose to employ nukes as a source of political leverage). An alien or an impartial onlooker observing this curious behaviour might conclude that we are a suicidal species, or very, very naive - or both. The stakes could not be higher, figuratively, metaphorically but more of all literally. Theoretically fusion bombs can in principle have arbitrary high explosive capacities, this is a sobering fact that is worrying in of itself - in a nutshell it means a single nuclear bomb could permanently terminate our nuclear naive, and our potentially great species forever.

I could have expended the use of the words 'terrifying' or 'horrific' etc. in the first paragraphs - and not used them as overstated hyperbole, but as accurate descriptions. I could have used these instead of the more impotent words "worrying" or "sobering" but I did so deliberately. There are critical and very real dangers with nuclear weapons that require the employment of adjectives far more prescient or nightmarish to accurately describe the scenarios nuclear weapons could or might have brought about. In other words I will reserve the use of some adjectives and semantics to give more power to the most serious nuclear scenarios, or to deliberately embellish the terror inherent in the most destructive weapon in mans arsenal.

We are only a few hundred years clear of the million year dark ages that we evolved from, most humans had to endure in this unimaginable ignorance, in stark contrast to our scientifically enabled, relatively enlightened present position. Noting this and adding the fact that fusion bomb explosions are basically apes exploiting the same chemical reaction that makes stars shine - this should make you pause. It should really achieve the desired reaction of fear in you, or rather should be self-evidently petrifying from the start. Nuclear weapons, especially the fusion type are scary, if they do not frighten you yet, a quote from Yoda may be applicable here: "you will be", if you already are concerned get ready for recurring nightmares as I run through some doomsday scenarios. Humanity destroying Humanity, perhaps this is the ultimate in irony, and irony (as this statement alludes to) is in no short supply within our species as a whole, or within our observed self destructive tendency to make weapons that can only be used to extirpate the human experiment. :)...

Part 2 Here: http://bradysharrett.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/having-blast-ignorance-unleashed.html

Thanks, Brady. 3fs.org.