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- Thread starter Nittany Ned2
- Start date
There's a several part documentary on one of the history channels where they go into tremendous detail about what, how, and why it happened. Its extraordinary what the Soviets did to their people, sending wave upon wave in, right up to the exposed core, without any protection or heads up about what they were facing. They sent miners in directly under the core to avert further massive explosions, and they practically all died. The helicopter pilots they brought in from Afghanistan who flew right over the core almost all perished. The soldiers they sent out in rubber suits onto the roof to collect the pieces of the core and the list goes on and on. They estimated about a half million casualties all told.
Really? Wiki had it far far less. Do you have a link? Not disputing, I would just like to read more
I read an article many years ago about household pets that were abandoned during the evacuation. Cats were surviving. Dogs on the other hand were totally dependent on people for food and were starving.
Everything you said would be true if you weren’t completely wrong.
I don't have HBO so I can't watch it yet. However, a few years ago I found a book called "Voices from Chernobyl" by Svetlana Alexievich which was very disturbing. These are accounts, in detail, of the people who went thru this when they lived in Chernobyl. They are very personal stories with fairly graphic details. I just happened to pick up the book because I was in high school when it happened and remembered it being in the news but not understanding how bad it really was until I read this book.
I watched this last night on HBOgo. Russia comes back to me when I watch: I can smell it. I recall the veterans wearing their medals on their suit jackets. Also, what an awful time the late 80's were with the horrible electrical equipment and medical care compared to today. A very compelling story to say the least. Some of those guys are heros: giving up their lives to save thousands, probably.
The speech by the old man and the pounding on the table by the plant manager are epic.
On the production side, the episode was filmed so darkly it was hard to watch. I am sure this was done on purpose to add mood. I typically watch TV late at night after my wife and daughter go to bed. I keep a light on in the kitchen/bar area behind the living room. I had to turn off all lights to have any hope of seeing the screen.
The speech by the old man and the pounding on the table by the plant manager are epic.
On the production side, the episode was filmed so darkly it was hard to watch. I am sure this was done on purpose to add mood. I typically watch TV late at night after my wife and daughter go to bed. I keep a light on in the kitchen/bar area behind the living room. I had to turn off all lights to have any hope of seeing the screen.
Well, all of the action in this episode occurred at night. Hopefully new episodes will be clearer to watch.
https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/1980s/chernobyl
While not the documentary series, this talks about a lot of the major points in the series. The entire town was exposed to high levels of radiation, in addition to the massive numbers of people brought in to clean up. Gorbachev has stated the strain on the economy to clean it up may have been the biggest reason for the Soviet Union's collapse.
The series first episode had me riveted.
However I was asking myself could the workers, scientists etc. have been so poorly trained and in denial of what was happening.
Did the producers and writers embellish the facts to make a point?
There were POVs from some people but they were shouted down, could the Soviet mantra be so strong that the leaders could not think of the consequences and for the sake of human life plan properly or take steps of caution.
Instead like lemmings follow a mantra to death.
No doubt there were heroes after the first few hours but those first few are puzzling.
However I was asking myself could the workers, scientists etc. have been so poorly trained and in denial of what was happening.
Did the producers and writers embellish the facts to make a point?
There were POVs from some people but they were shouted down, could the Soviet mantra be so strong that the leaders could not think of the consequences and for the sake of human life plan properly or take steps of caution.
Instead like lemmings follow a mantra to death.
No doubt there were heroes after the first few hours but those first few are puzzling.
This Commie spokesperson stated things like this are impossible in Russia. This was similar to Citizen X about a mass murderer in Russia. Impossible (my azz)! These 80 yr. old oligarchs live way in the past. When the Iron Curtain went down I said don't do business with these corrupt jerks. Russia being Russia, it will never change. USA.
all great questions...there were several that just could not believe that the core "exploded". They didn't know or feel that this was a possibility. Many people in leadership roles, in times of life/death crises, feel people get squirrly and cannot report the truth so they are disbelieved. Sometimes, it is the leaders that get squirrly.
At the heart of communism and socialism, is that people are too dumb to think for themselves. As a result, the govt elites have to think for them. As such, the elites become so elite they no longer are rooted in reality. So the reports are considered from "the little people" and elites cannot be challenged. I feel like this was the heart of the party official cutting off outside communication, basically, "for their own good."
Also, being originally from Middletown Chernobyl draws my interest. I had a friend ( A former Big 33 qb) who worked at TMI and died in his mid-40's from some type of weird cancer. I'll never trust our government even in my last dying breath.
This happened to me, twice, in Russia. I was at Shermeanko airport but there was nobody at the ticketing counter. So I stood there, assuming someone would notice a customer asking for service (of course, there is no such thing as customer servicer but that is another story). In a few minutes, there were twenty or more people in line. When a rep finally came up, who spoke very good English, I asked for a seat assignment. As she gave me one, she asked me why everyone was in line. I told her that I didn't know, I just got into line. She laughed and said that the Russians just thought I knew something they didn't so they got in line just to see if they could take advantage. later, my interpreter, told me it goes back to the Soviet days. In those days, there were always shortages. So when you could get something, you did. If you didn't need it, you sold it on the black market. Her example was you might be walking home after work and see a line. Once in line, you learn that they are selling size 9 brown shoes. You may not need them, but someone does. So you buy them at X, double the price, and sell them at 2x to someone who needs size 9 brown shoes.
Early in my career, I worked for companies that have a similar culture. The employees are not empowered, and management wants to be involved in every decision, no matter how small. Employees end up telling management what they want to hear, and management becomes insulated from reality. I felt that it was imperative to my well-being (and humanity) to get away from those cultures, and I was lucky enough to do so many years ago. But when a country is run on those principles, it often isn't possible for people to leave, and you see the impact with events like Chernobyl, mass killings, etc.
Yeah... a friend of mine always asks "why hire smart people if you are going to tell them what to do?". I've made a very good career of understanding what my client's personal agenda is, and addressing that regardless of the company's goals and aspirations. If you area a VP in a 15,000 person company, you simply want to be promoted. You couldn't care less how much scratch it makes for the stockholders (although you cannot say that out loud).
bwifan
Well-Known Member
well, it is true, and there is no singular success model. In pure capitalism, there are those that will be exploited because they don't have the capacity to take care of themselves. Kids and the elderly included.
I look at it as a sinusoidal wave. Pure capitalism allows for much greater crests but, also, much greater troughs. Socialism/communism is flat except for the party leaders. Moderate models allow for some clipping of the size of the crest or trough. It just a matter of how much clipping is "right sized".
Like we have in the Susquehanna?
https://www.pennlive.com/life/2019/...usquehanna-river-and-then-returned-alive.html
https://www.pennlive.com/life/2019/...usquehanna-river-and-then-returned-alive.html
I look at it as a sinusoidal wave. Pure capitalism allows for much greater crests but, also, much greater troughs. Socialism/communism is flat except for the party leaders. Moderate models allow for some clipping of the size of the crest or trough. It just a matter of how much clipping is "right sized".[/QUOTE]
I will give them credit for being about 10 years ahead of the dash cam curve.
I will give them credit for being about 10 years ahead of the dash cam curve.
I will give them credit for being about 10 years ahead of the dash cam curve.[/QUOTE]
ha! in the US, the dashcam will be confiscated as "evidence" as iPhones are today during arrests.
well put. also remember this is the 80's, not modern day Interent age. So those people living in a small town in communist russia only know what they read in the government controlled paper. So the answer to the question is "no", they pretty much had no idea how bad it was as how would the have? And the communist government in Russia (just look at WWII and how Russia treated it's soldiers and people) would not even lose one minute of sleep sending thousands of people to their death or care about the workers they sent in to clean up the mess. They were peasants and peasants are worthless in Russia. Send in 300 workers who are 100% guaranteed to die due to radiation to save tens of thousands if it spread is a simple choice for a Russian communist elite government employee to make. Hell, the communist government would have sent in 1,000 people to their death if it saved even 5% less bad press coverage at the time. In communist russia, most russian citizens were not much higher than livestock in most cases to the communist government elite.
I was living in Tokyo at the time of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster (3/11/11). The media would report huge increases in radiation in Tokyo, e.g., radiation levels up 300%!!!. But the baseline radiation levels were so low, such increases were in no way dangerous. On its worst day, Tokyo's radiation level was lower than an average day in Hong Kong. The media will always sensationalize for ratings. And when you add in the numbers and science involved in nuclear physics, the media is beyond its depth.
Post_ShockTherapy_MackDaddy
Well-Known Member
Yeah, right. Everyone was expecting the core meltdown when they lowered the cameras into the core.
They were able to lower the cameras FIVE feet into the core and over 50% was melted down. And, let's not forget MET-ED lying to Lt. Gov Scranton informing him their was NO release of radiation.
Now, don't you feel like a donkeys behind for challenging me.
Go to the 48:30 Mark.
Thank God Jane Fonda Jack Lemon and Michael Douglas got to the bottom of that nuclear disaster. Here they are protecting america, and they are deadly serious.
If you’ve ever read Solzhenitsyn, none of this would come as a surprise.
Talking nuclear science with a mentally unstable male nurse is like talking to an Ape. That irony is not lost on me. Part of me feels like a "donkeys behind" for engaging you. But that being said, destroying you is not only very easy, it's fun. So here we go:
Your entire post is moot. Not just because you lack mental stability, and any sort of qualification to discuss this topic... but because we obviously are talking about severity in terms of exposure to the public, not a private companies loss of equipment. Which you either don't understand, or avoided on purpose. Either way, you didn't even make the case that the damage to the reactor was worse than expected. Worse than who expected? What were their expectations? You provide no evidence. You parrot that 50% of the core was melted, yet the typical reactor core has 12 feet of active fuel. Apparently you can't do (5/12) math either. There essentially was no release of radiation, on average those living within ten miles received the equivalent of a chest X-ray. (Let's not forget that some researchers believe that low doses of radiation might actually be beneficial to ones health.) When there is essentially no radiation release, it's easier to tell ignorant nut jobs like you that there was none.
So I look forward to your next post. You will inevitably not focus on the bold point above the renders your first response entirely moot, rather you will focus on the rest of my post... which was uneccsary on my part. But I did it not only to further crush you, but also as bait. I will crush your next post, and the next, and eventually you still stop flailing around and slink away with your tail between your legs because that is what you always do... and you probably have a lot of asses to wipe.
Post_ShockTherapy_MackDaddy
Well-Known Member
Post_ShockTherapy_MackDaddy
Well-Known Member
Also makes me wonder how much worse Fukushima was than what they told us.
Here's the ORIGINAL post you aka @pandaczar12 responded to:
"We are talking Japan, not the Soviet Union. Two completely different styles of government, and two completely different style of reactor (GE BWR vs. RBMK).
If anything, the media has likely portrayed it as worse than it really is to drum up ratings."
THEN, OF COURSE, I RESPONDED.
You seem to forget the ELEPHANT in the room. All THREE disasters WERE worse than AUTHORITIES said they were.
Sure, you pointed to Japan and Russia, yet omitted USA. Why is that? It's clear that MET ED lied and the disaster was WORSE than what they led the public to believe.
Odd, how you then brought in the media to (ahem) claim they made it worse simply to drum up ratings.
You see, now you want to move the goal posts and argue about something different.
The core didn’t melt down, it exploded!I thought this site would never be inhabitable after the first FOOTBALL. MELTDOWN.
Wait.
Not poorly trained, poorly informed. As stated above, there was no internet back then and the Soviets had total control of the flow of information (news, science, etc.).
True, and the methods they use to reinforce this thinking is quite tragic.
LOL - I had many similar experiences as you describe in the airport and above. I worked on a large aluminum plant project that was installed just outside of Ekatinburg in the early 1990s. Between 1989 and 1992, I spent one week out of six in the USSR for meetings on this project. Most of these were in Moscow and sometimes we would go to the Urals and visit the site. Occasionally, we would visit a remote region of the USSR to evaluate another potential project to convert defense plants to produce consumer goods.
Naturally, I got to know a lot of citizens on a personal level. It was crazy how they lived two lives. One behind their walls where they could speak freely and live how they chose and one where they were in public/work settings and they had to comply. I could go on forever with examples, but I am certain that the people that went into that plant truly felt that they had no choice. And, trust me, there is a very specific social status system in place among the non-elites as well.
I lived in the Urals area for nearly one year as we commissioned this plant. It was impossible to get the people to work overtime even if our company would absorb the labor cost. We learned that they had to shop and tend to their gardens after work in order to "survive". This was summer season.
When winter rolled around, I thought we could get some overtime going since gardening duty was over. It was just the opposite, they had to shop even harder to make ends meet. Your description about the shoes is spot on. None of the stores had any signage to identify them as stores and you had no idea what you would find when you went in. You simply got in line and hoped for the best. Long lines meant something good but a real possibility of them being "out" when your turn came. Medium lines (maybe good, maybe have when I get there). Imagine the frustration!!
Here is a "real life" example of what the shopping experience was like in this industrial town:
Monday:
Shop A: Moldovan Brandy (quite good but unaffordable to Soviets), Fifty pound sacks of Chinese Rice, White ladies summer dresses (in winter) in two sizes only
Shop B: Beer, Mittens, Ski Poles, Oranges from Kazakhstan, Hunting Knifes
Shop C: Girls boots (size 5 & 7), Chocolates from Finland and Alternators for a Zhiguli
I will never forget the looks on our Soviet visitors' faces when we took them to a Wine and Spirits Shop (State Store back then) and to a Giant Eagle when they visit our home offices in Pittsburgh. The elder Communist Party chiefs truly thought it was staged!
Awesome post. Thank youNot poorly trained, poorly informed. As stated above, there was no internet back then and the Soviets had total control of the flow of information (news, science, etc.).
True, and the methods they use to reinforce this thinking is quite tragic.
LOL - I had many similar experiences as you describe in the airport and above. I worked on a large aluminum plant project that was installed just outside of Ekatinburg in the early 1990s. Between 1989 and 1992, I spent one week out of six in the USSR for meetings on this project. Most of these were in Moscow and sometimes we would go to the Urals and visit the site. Occasionally, we would visit a remote region of the USSR to evaluate another potential project to convert defense plants to produce consumer goods.
Naturally, I got to know a lot of citizens on a personal level. It was crazy how they lived two lives. One behind their walls where they could speak freely and live how they chose and one where they were in public/work settings and they had to comply. I could go on forever with examples, but I am certain that the people that went into that plant truly felt that they had no choice. And, trust me, there is a very specific social status system in place among the non-elites as well.
I lived in the Urals area for nearly one year as we commissioned this plant. It was impossible to get the people to work overtime even if our company would absorb the labor cost. We learned that they had to shop and tend to their gardens after work in order to "survive". This was summer season.
When winter rolled around, I thought we could get some overtime going since gardening duty was over. It was just the opposite, they had to shop even harder to make ends meet. Your description about the shoes is spot on. None of the stores had any signage to identify them as stores and you had no idea what you would find when you went in. You simply got in line and hoped for the best. Long lines meant something good but a real possibility of them being "out" when your turn came. Medium lines (maybe good, maybe have when I get there). Imagine the frustration!!
Here is a "real life" example of what the shopping experience was like in this industrial town:
Monday:
Shop A: Moldovan Brandy (quite good but unaffordable to Soviets), Fifty pound sacks of Chinese Rice, White ladies summer dresses (in winter) in two sizes only
Shop B: Beer, Mittens, Ski Poles, Oranges from Kazakhstan, Hunting Knifes
Shop C: Girls boots (size 5 & 7), Chocolates from Finland and Alternators for a Zhiguli
I will never forget the looks on our Soviet visitors' faces when we took them to a Wine and Spirits Shop (State Store back then) and to a Giant Eagle when they visit our home offices in Pittsburgh. The elder Communist Party chiefs truly thought it was staged!
I see you didn't respond to anything in my previous post... a predictable move, your only option really. You know I tried to make this easy on you, when in my first post I told you that you were completely wrong. You've done nothing but waste your time and prove me right.
1) Are you insinuating that me and BBrown are the same poster? or are you just confused?
2) You should read an entire post before attempting to respond. The original topic was Chernobyl. Someone else brought up Fukushima. It should be pretty clear why I didn't bring up USA... Unlike you, I try to stay on topic. US nuclear power was not relevant to the discussion.
3) You obviously don't understand the definition of the word "disaster". While you may not understand nuclear science, I assume you can at least use google. Search for "nuclear disasters", and right next to a picture of the Chernobyl disaster, you get TMI "Accident". Let me google that for you.
4) All three incidents were not worse than Authorities said they were. You provide no proof otherwise. In my last post, I've shown what the impact to the public was from TMI. Please try to keep up.
5) Everything I post seems odd and confusing to you because you are way out of your league on this topic. Stay in your lane bro.
When you reply, please try to stay on topic, and please take your meds beforehand.
Too dumb to think for themselves is probably too harsh. Probably better stated as too scared to think for themselves. When you live in a country if you make the wrong decision or not the approved decision and get sent to the gulag...you tend to have the person higher up the chain make the decision.
Conditioned, is probably a better word. They also have more dedication to the family, and parents work for the family. So if you are disgraced in the eyes of the party, you have no options and your family doesn't either. I suspect, when the worker was dispatched to go look into the core facing almost certain death, he did so for his family knowing his life was over.
Great post. My family and I lived in Poland in 1972. I was very young (4-5) and don’t remember a ton, and was insulated from the real tough stuff, but my mom can tell stories. Trying to cook for a family of 7 was rough. She nicknamed the meat market in our village the “meatless meat market” because its shelves were always near empty.Not poorly trained, poorly informed. As stated above, there was no internet back then and the Soviets had total control of the flow of information (news, science, etc.).
True, and the methods they use to reinforce this thinking is quite tragic.
LOL - I had many similar experiences as you describe in the airport and above. I worked on a large aluminum plant project that was installed just outside of Ekatinburg in the early 1990s. Between 1989 and 1992, I spent one week out of six in the USSR for meetings on this project. Most of these were in Moscow and sometimes we would go to the Urals and visit the site. Occasionally, we would visit a remote region of the USSR to evaluate another potential project to convert defense plants to produce consumer goods.
Naturally, I got to know a lot of citizens on a personal level. It was crazy how they lived two lives. One behind their walls where they could speak freely and live how they chose and one where they were in public/work settings and they had to comply. I could go on forever with examples, but I am certain that the people that went into that plant truly felt that they had no choice. And, trust me, there is a very specific social status system in place among the non-elites as well.
I lived in the Urals area for nearly one year as we commissioned this plant. It was impossible to get the people to work overtime even if our company would absorb the labor cost. We learned that they had to shop and tend to their gardens after work in order to "survive". This was summer season.
When winter rolled around, I thought we could get some overtime going since gardening duty was over. It was just the opposite, they had to shop even harder to make ends meet. Your description about the shoes is spot on. None of the stores had any signage to identify them as stores and you had no idea what you would find when you went in. You simply got in line and hoped for the best. Long lines meant something good but a real possibility of them being "out" when your turn came. Medium lines (maybe good, maybe have when I get there). Imagine the frustration!!
Here is a "real life" example of what the shopping experience was like in this industrial town:
Monday:
Shop A: Moldovan Brandy (quite good but unaffordable to Soviets), Fifty pound sacks of Chinese Rice, White ladies summer dresses (in winter) in two sizes only
Shop B: Beer, Mittens, Ski Poles, Oranges from Kazakhstan, Hunting Knifes
Shop C: Girls boots (size 5 & 7), Chocolates from Finland and Alternators for a Zhiguli
I will never forget the looks on our Soviet visitors' faces when we took them to a Wine and Spirits Shop (State Store back then) and to a Giant Eagle when they visit our home offices in Pittsburgh. The elder Communist Party chiefs truly thought it was staged!
My grandmom would send us care packages filled with stuff we couldn’t get - I.e. pretty much everything. One time she sent gum. The kids in our school essentially rioted when we brought some to school for them.
We did get really cool Warsaw Pact army toys for Christmas, though. I wish I had saved those - they’d be worth a fortune. Also had great fur hats - fur freaking works.
There was a tannery near our village. A canal that ran along the main road to Warsaw always smelled of whatever chemicals they used. When I smell that smell - whatever it was - it instantly sends me back 47 years to Poland.
I don’t think he’s saying the people are actually dumb. He’s saying that those who implement communism/socialism believe that individuals are too dumb to think for themselves so elites naturally need to dictate to them, then everyone must obey as a collective.
Awesome. I've never been to Poland but my wife visited there in the late 1990s. She told me she tipped a waiter $5 and the waiter started crying. On the fur hats, I bought three of them. My interpreter shielded us from the normal vendors and took us to some place with, like, 100 small wooden huts. At one hut, they were selling the hats. We bought three, rabbit fur, for less than $15. They had mink and others but we just wanted them for show.
Our first trip, we flew over on Aeroflot. It was a 747 out of JFK. Half of the toilets quit working so the plane smelled like woman's time-of-the-month for the second half of the trip. The USA boxing team was on the flight. (the last time I was there I ran into a guy working out in a PSU t-shirt at the Holiday Inn Moscow gym, he was a PSU Basketball player playing for a team in Turkey in Moscow for a game). Anyway, they had several old box TV's on a piece of wood and were showing black and white short clips: two russian guys always trying to get out of govt work groups. it was kind of like watching laurel and hardy. But one clip was meant to teach americans about social norms. One of these norms was the pecking order on who gets to sit. the priority went something like this: handicapped, preg women, old women, women, old men, young men. So, a week later, I am at the airport in Kaliningrad with my wife and another couple having a beer at the empty airport lounge. After a while, I feel a rapping on my chair. I look down and there is a 40-ish guy lightly tapping my chair with his foot. I look around and the place is full with no place to sit and he's standing there with his mom (by appearance). I stand up and give her my seat. The two are very gracious. In my next few visits, I see this play out several times as people are reminded to give up their seat on the bus, train, or whatever.
Finally, the last time I was there, my driver and interpreter (who was also a guide at the Kremlin museum and gave us an inside tour) stopped to let her off a few blocks from our hotel (the Kremlin Marriott Triviskya). We decided to get off and go to dinner and then walk back to the hotel (the hotel always took our passports while we were there, for some reason). We asked her for a dinner reservation. She said there was a new, upscale place that just opened nearby that was popular with americans. We said that sounded good and asked the name. "Fridays" was the answer. We ended up going to the Pushkin Cafe. We each had an appetizer, full meal, coffee, a desert and drink and the bill came to ~ $36 for the four of us. Pushkin is a famous Russian poet from pre-revolution, old-russia vintage.
Finally, we had cause to use the Russian medical system. Of course, everything is free. As a result, their medicine was more of a "prove you do not have X ailment" instead of prove that you do. So you could walk in at any time and get whatever you wanted. But they basically get you a checkup to see what is not wrong with you as opposed to looking at what is wrong with you. As such, doctors were a dime a dozen. Realizing the medical doctors had a much lower public profile than Drs. here, we asked about the pecking order of jobs. Our interpreter said this: Party Official, Military Officer, Writer/Poet/Actor/Singer, Engineer, Professor, Doctor. That was only one person's opinion but striking in how different it is from the US.
