Tomb It May Concern

Whimsical Ways to Die: Nuclear War

• Patrick Dobbins

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In this episode we discover that nuclear war may not be all it’s cracked up to be. 

Read more here:  
Nuclear War: A Scenario https://a.co/d/7gKBLFC

Visit us on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/tomb_it_may_concern/

Patrick:

Hello, and welcome to Make Concern, the podcast where we stare into the abyss. And see what stares back. I am your host, Patrick

Asher:

Patrick I am Asher.

Patrick:

Asher.

Asher:

Yeah. for you. Okay, I'm ready.

Patrick:

How do you feel about nuclear Holocaust?

Asher:

feel nuclear holocaust? I

Patrick:

I was hoping to be able to talk you out of it, but it seems I'm going to be preaching to the choir here today because it's not good.

Asher:

So

Patrick:

you know what today's episode

Asher:

is? Today's episode is

Patrick:

Today's episode is the first in a series I'm gonna

Asher:

to call

Patrick:

A series? First in a series I'm gonna call, Whimsical Ways That We Will All Die.

Asher:

Die. Oh my god. I'm so scared.

Patrick:

And I thought I'd start with The big daddy of them all, nuclear

Asher:

Wow. So are these going to be like, are they going to be subtitled, Like a subcategory of our current

Patrick:

Oh yes. So we're going to have a whole series.

Asher:

How many do you anticipate?

Patrick:

there, there are so

Asher:

Endless. Look, he's, if you guys could see him right now, he's so excited.

Patrick:

am so excited about this.

Asher:

And the history that you should know is that every time we ask Patrick what he's reading, it's something just like absolutely just horrifyingly tragic. It's his favorite category of reading, of leisure reading.

Patrick:

leisure reading, and this episode is actually based on one of those books.

Asher:

What is it? we'll get there. You're like, calm down. Calm down. Take it easy.

Patrick:

Take it easy. We'll get

Asher:

take a sip of your beverage. Yeah.

Patrick:

Asher, what are you drinking, by the way? If I could ask?

Asher:

So one thing don't, if my dad is listening to this, I'm sorry. Cause I always said my dad made the best Bloody Marys, but it is officially Patrick that makes the world's best. I really truly think it could win awards

Patrick:

Bloody Mary.

Asher:

It is and now we've switched to he found because of a regular bar a dill vodka

Patrick:

local vodka maker. I don't remember what it is, but it is actually

Asher:

It is so fucking

Patrick:

Lake County. I think. Yes. It's dill vodka. It

Asher:

It's epic

Patrick:

Yes. And it's not

Asher:

It's so

Patrick:

he

Asher:

It's a whole meal. And it's not even he hasn't put any fancy things in there. There's no, it's just the drink, but it's all you need. Anyway,

Patrick:

It is, as my brother would say, delicious and nutritious.

Asher:

vegetables in there.

Patrick:

There are

Asher:

Yeah. Yeah.

Patrick:

So anyway, So before we get into the main

Asher:

Yeah. Yeah.

Patrick:

I want to talk about one of the reasons I'm into this topic.

Asher:

Yeah, I think anyone understanding that even your friends who've known you for a very long time would be helpful.

Patrick:

that. fiction. So whether it be books or movies, tv shows, but a lot of it is video game based. I love a post

Asher:

You sure do.

Patrick:

video game, and we don't really talk about it on the podcast, but as a kind of a side gig from this

Asher:

side. There's a reason we can do this podcast and it's because Patrick has so much fucking equipment for his initial side gig,

Patrick:

my initial side

Asher:

which is streaming Intergalactic Patrick, that's really hard to

Patrick:

Intergalactic underscore Patrick, so you can

Asher:

Oh shit. Intergalactic underscore Patrick on Twitch. And you should watch him because it's super fun. It is. It's a great time. It's one of

Patrick:

so I play mostly horror games and a lot of horror games take place in a post apocalyptic hellscape. And, one of my favorite games of all time, going back years and years. I've actually never streamed it, I don't think, because it's not a traditional horror game. It's not really a horror game. I love the Fallout series. And,

Asher:

Yes. So there is renewed interest in the Fallout

Patrick:

there is renewed interest in the Fallout series because there was this television show that just came out. And so everybody watched the Amazon show about it, but I've been a fallout fan for years. In fact, my game, cause right now they're up to fallout four. It's been a long time since they've made a new fallout game. I have a feeling it's not going to be much longer because of the. Success of the

Asher:

the success

Patrick:

But, they're up to Fallout 4, there's a multiplayer game called Fallout 76, but my Fallout game, what I consider my Fallout game, was a game called, it was Fallout 3, and I have a very deep emotional attachment to Fallout 3, because when I lived in Tokyo, the only thing I had with me for fun was my

Asher:

Xbox,

Patrick:

and I took Fallout 3 with me, it's Even though Tokyo's a great city and there's tons to do there, as an American who didn't speak Japanese, I felt very

Asher:

felt very isolated.

Patrick:

Six

Asher:

months. And,

Patrick:

And, I logged so many hours on Fallout 3 when I lived in Tokyo. And, I just adore that game to this day, and it takes place in a post nuclear apocalypse world. And I've consumed a lot of media around the nuclear, around nuclear apocalypse over my years. And, I recently read a new book that came out that I would recommend to anybody

Asher:

Yeah, he tried to get me to read this and when he told me about it, I was like absolutely not

Patrick:

I've recommended this book to everybody. I bought a

Asher:

I will

Patrick:

my brother because I loved it so much. And when I say loved it, I mean hated

Asher:

Yes,

Patrick:

the book is called Nuclear War, a Scenario, and the author's name is ann jacobson And I love horror movies. I love horror books. I love horror video games. It is the scariest

Asher:

you said, that's what you said.

Patrick:

ever read in

Asher:

was like, why would I read that? I already feel scared all the time.

Patrick:

it is the most terrifying thing I have ever consumed,

Asher:

I

Patrick:

right? And I have eaten a gummy bear that is like 15 million Scoville units and this is the worst thing I've ever consumed,

Asher:

ever consumed. So

Patrick:

I think everybody has a pretty good idea of what a nuclear war would be

Asher:

like.

Patrick:

but it is so much worse. than what we even think it is.

Asher:

In the reality of what it would look like. In

Patrick:

the reality of what it would look like, nuclear war is so much worse and so much more awful than we could even imagine. And what the funny thing about it is, it's intentional that we don't know that. And I'll get to that

Asher:

get to that in a moment.

Patrick:

is so not funny. let's talk a little bit about nuclear

Asher:

nuclear war.

Patrick:

You shouldn't feel

Asher:

I feel upset. I feel scared already.

Patrick:

because there is going to be, I will say, a moment of clarity at the end that I will

Asher:

You're going to get us there. As

Patrick:

as the

Asher:

Right now I feel dread. That's all I feel. Oh, there's dread. And I feel dread, but delight with this bloody Mary.

Patrick:

Good, good. You're gonna need more

Asher:

Yeah. I need to take a

Patrick:

Because this is gonna be pretty bleak.

Asher:

They all are really good.

Patrick:

I'm gonna ask you a question.

Asher:

Okay.

Patrick:

On our previous episode, you asked me to take a guess at like, how long it would take somebody to die in an assisted

Asher:

Yeah. That it felt more fair.'cause you're more informed in general.

Patrick:

But I was very wrong.

Asher:

Yeah, true.

Patrick:

I was very

Asher:

Yeah.

Patrick:

From the moment A nuclear weapon is launched. I'm not saying the moment a nuclear weapon lands or blow something up. I'm not talking about from the time we figure out what happened. I'm talking about from the moment somebody on the globe Pushes a button and launches a nuclear weapon. How long do you think it would be before the world as we know it comes to a complete and sudden stop.

Asher:

and sudden

Patrick:

How long will it take for the end of the world from that moment? a little shorter?

Asher:

Shorter than three days?

Patrick:

Little shorter.

Asher:

we'll say 60 hours.

Patrick:

you're in the neighborhood in the double digits, but not ours. They figure, that from the moment a nuclear weapon launches doesn't hit anything. The world ceases to exist as we know it in 72 minutes, 72 minutes. And I'm not talking like, Hey, a few bombs are going here and there. I'm talking about complete. No, I am talking about complete annihilation of human civilization, 72 minutes from the moment of launch.

Asher:

Let's just end the episode here. So

Patrick:

You're going to ask me how do they know this

Asher:

How do they know this?

Patrick:

and why do they know

Asher:

Why do they know this?

Patrick:

so people have been working on this subject for 60 years since the Soviets want exploded their first nuclear weapon right people have been working trying to figure out what the ramifications of a nuclear

Asher:

Mm-Hmm.

Patrick:

and over that time they have done lots of studies lots of simulations, and they've about 30 years ago, the U. S. government assembled a group of experts on the

Asher:

topic,

Patrick:

ranging from former secretaries of state, former chairmen of the joint chiefs, people who do this academically for a living, they have all these brilliant people in the room, and they ran, I think it was like several weeks of different scenarios of what would happen if a nuclear war started. They ran scenario after scenario, after scenario, after scenario, after scenario. There wasn't a single one of those scenarios where the world didn't end in about 72 minutes.

Asher:

crazy.

Patrick:

And what's insane about it, okay, It is literally policy that this will happen. This is not a case where some madman, now the initial strike may be a madman. In the book, the scenario that they lay out starts with Kim Jong un launching a single nuclear weapon at the United States, but that's just one of a myriad of scenarios U. S. Policy which is predominantly described in this book is not that if you press a button and launch a nuclear weapon at us we're going to push a button and launch a nuclear weapon at you. U. S. policy is that if you launch a nuclear weapon at us, we're going to launch all of our nuclear weapons at Or at least enough nuclear weapons to completely obliterate your country. It is policy. The U. S. President, and this blows my mind, from the moment the U. S. President is notified that somebody has launched a nuclear weapon, And they know this because we have satellites all over the place that are

Asher:

Just to, on the U. S. or anywhere?

Patrick:

in the U. S. If

Asher:

they're launching it at the U.

Patrick:

But the fact of the matter is we have so many nuclear armed countries that no matter, almost no matter what happens, every nuclear armed country is gonna get involved.

Asher:

Of course. Yes. I have so much anxiety right now. Okay.

Patrick:

From the moment that there is a detection that a nuclear weapon has been launched, Which is instantaneous. they figure between the time it launched, between the time the button is pushed and the time the, the US government would be alerted in seconds, like under 10 seconds would know a nuclear weapon has been launched. From that point in time, the US president has six minutes to not decide. If they're going to retaliate, but how they're going to retaliate. And when I say how, I don't mean, Hey, are we going to launch nuclear weapons? Right? No, no, no. They're going to launch nuclear weapons.

Asher:

like, how many? It's

Patrick:

how many will it take to obliterate that country, it is not a decision. It is policy. Someone launches a nuclear weapon at us. We unload on them full stop. And the reason they do that is it's deterrence.

Asher:

Well, yeah, I assumed that. That

Patrick:

is one of the reasons why we haven't had a nuclear war, at least in theory, is that if anybody knows that they launch a nuclear weapon, their entire country is going to get just demolished. Now, remember I said, That just because, so this is North Korea, in this example, in this book, they talk about North Korea. One of the problems with nuclear weapons, is that they don't respect international borders.

Asher:

Uh huh.

Patrick:

So in this scenario, we launch nuclear weapons. You know what the fastest way to get a nuclear weapon to North Korea is? Fly it over Russia. Do you think Russia's gonna know the difference between us launching a nuclear weapon at North Korea versus launching a nuclear weapon at us, or a nuclear weapon at them? No, because they've got the same type of systems that we do and they're going to say, Oh, the U. S. just launched nuclear weapons. They're probably, probably launch them at us. They're pushing the button.

Asher:

doesn't this sound so fucking stupid?

Patrick:

It is

Asher:

Why is it still this way though? can't you give it like 20 minutes? Because to, for everybody to take a deep breath, it's like conflict resolution 1 0 1.

Patrick:

I honestly think that if we could this is a technology that we would go back in time and Uninvent,

Asher:

I mean, truly,

Patrick:

Because It takes one instance for this to happen,

Asher:

Oh

Patrick:

right? One instance. so at this point. Things are leveled, right? It is escalated to the point where

Asher:

blown us up. Russia's blown us up. Oh,

Patrick:

Oh, and by the way, we're retaliating at Russia,

Asher:

retaliating at Russia. That's because we've

Patrick:

we've still got lots of, lots of, uh, uh, lots of bullets in the

Asher:

There's still a few minutes left. Yeah, it

Patrick:

doesn't take much to blow up North Korea. We've got lots in the chamber. Don't push the button. We're launching nuclear weapons at them. And then everybody, the NATO's involved in the whole thing. Then the whole thing goes to hell. So let's talk about what a nuclear war Would look like, right? ground zero. Where a nuclear weapon lands. Okay? We all have an image of what it is. It's just as terrible as you think it is, right? It is complete and utter decimation of anything within a multi square mile area. You're talking a million degrees Fahrenheit, everything just vaporized within a certain radius, buildings, people, cars, dogs, cats, everything just, just completely obliterated. If you were unfortunate enough from a distance, there's a scene in the fallout television show where the bombs are going off and people are watching the bombs going off, right? You couldn't watch the bombs going off. Well, you'd watch one bomb going off, but you wouldn't see the rest because you'd go blind,

Asher:

if you were going to say that.

Patrick:

right? Because the flash of light would be so harsh. Anybody who could see it would go blind,

Asher:

What?

Patrick:

So at ground zero, everything is just completely decimated, okay? Outside of that, there's a huge fireball, wipes out a bunch of stuff for many, many, many miles outside that. But let's just say, You survived that.

Asher:

How far away would I have to be to survive that?

Patrick:

Depends on how many megatons the bomb is, right? Depends on the size of the bomb. they

Asher:

bomb. Is there an average?

Patrick:

I don't know, it's a big area, right? in the, in the book, they blow up the Pentagon. They shoot a nuclear weapon, eventually a nuclear, a one megaton bomb, which is small, comparatively. Blows up the pentagon and takes out most of Washington DC. Okay, and that's one megaton. That's a relatively But let's say you survive that say you're just like on the periphery, right? You're buried under rubble. Whatever you're like Oh, I'll just wait here and for the rescue crews to come there are no rescue crews One of the most frightening things I learned in this is there's no plan to come get you first You All the people who were supposed to rescue you, all the fire departments and all the police, they're all dead, But even if they aren't, no one's gonna come in there because it's filled with radiation and fire and death, You are on your own. FEMA, this is, there's so many things in this book that absolutely blew my mind. So the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is responsible for taking care of people, in a

Asher:

I wanted to work for them a long time

Patrick:

There you go. You go work for FEMA. So if there's a hurricane, they come in, they put up trucks and they do all that. And they house people and they help people in floods and hurricanes and tornadoes, whatever.

Asher:

Not today. Not on this nuclear day.

Patrick:

FEMA has no plan for a post nuclear war situation. You know why? Cause there's no point in

Asher:

Because there's no

Patrick:

because there's nothing they can do. The, their only mandate post nuclear war is to save some government officials.

Asher:

save some

Patrick:

try to keep, to try to keep the government going,

Asher:

going. Try

Patrick:

try to keep the government

Asher:

government going.

Patrick:

Right? Try to keep them going. otherwise everybody's on their own.

Asher:

this policy. We should start from scratch. This is not smart.

Patrick:

and they are basically starting from scratch. And oh, by the way, democracy is out the window, The government as we know it is gone. Everything's, everything is completely obliterated. Everything's, all the things that you think would protect you in this situation. So let's just say, remember, have you ever watched those old newsreels from like the 1950s with Duck and Cover, and people had fallout shelters

Asher:

Oh, sure. Yeah. Backyard.

Patrick:

all this stuff. They're not gonna help you. Ducking and covering, obviously not gonna

Asher:

you. Obviously

Patrick:

Fallout shelters? Fallen shoulders ain't gonna help you. You've put yourself into a broiler. because the air above you is gonna become superheated. And you're just gonna cook down there. The only way you survive this situation underground is if you're in one of the government bunkers, which is like miles underground. and even then you still be,

Asher:

you're going to be going to feel like, it's going to feel like this room after the end of a podcast recording.

Patrick:

you're pretty much, you're pretty much just in a broiler down there and you're just going to cook and die

Asher:

Dehydration.

Patrick:

dehydration. So all the things that people did to protect themselves,

Asher:

useless,

Patrick:

But here's the thing. And I mentioned this earlier, why do we know? all this. And why do we know this now but we didn't know it then?

Asher:

then?

Patrick:

Because the government knew this.

Asher:

this.

Patrick:

They've always known this.

Asher:

this. They've always

Patrick:

They've always known this. They've known this since the beginning. did you ever see the movie War Games? With Matthew Broderick, it's the story about the AI computer, this is from the early 80s, where they say at the end of the movie is the only way to win a nuclear war is not to play. That is literally correct. The U. S. government didn't tell anybody this because there was no

Asher:

no point in

Patrick:

They knew that there was no point in anybody worrying about this because if it happens, we're all fucked.

Asher:

fucked.

Patrick:

There's no going back. It is the end of everything as you know it. Basically, you've heard the saying, the living will envy the dead. That was built for this situation. And this is a cloud. a mushroom cloud, if you

Asher:

you will.

Patrick:

that we as a civilization have been living under since

Asher:

That's so crazy and so scary.

Patrick:

And these weapons have proliferated. There are more countries with nuclear weapons now than were

Asher:

they making more of them?

Patrick:

Not today. Officially,

Asher:

Okay, but unofficially

Patrick:

But unofficially, probably. We know North Korea has them. Iran

Asher:

When we say has them, not that it matters, because it sounds like one is enough, but how many do we think most countries

Patrick:

most of the countries that we would worry about probably only have a handful.

Asher:

But again, it's all you need.

Patrick:

Interestingly though, The nuclear weapons aren't The only con I wouldn't say the only concern, but aren't the only problem. You can have a nuclear weapon, but you got to deliver it some way.

Asher:

Oh, right.

Patrick:

Yeah. You got to get it to where it's going. And the most dangerous way to do that is an intercontinental ballistic missile. Being able to launch a missile from one country through the atmosphere, and hit another country, You can't just put it on a catapult and throw it. Ain't going to go anywhere. but we know. That, for example, in this book, North Korea does have those delivery vehicles, They do have intercontinental ballistic missiles. They could do it. Do other countries that have like Iran, if Iran has a nuclear weapon, we think they probably do the same thing with Pakistan. Pakistan has them. India has them. Not that India would, but India and Pakistan might get into a fight at some point. do they have, do they all, do they have intercontinental ballistic missiles? Don't know.

Asher:

a fight at some point. Uh, do have, do do they have intercontinental ballistic missiles? Don't know. anyone would even want to consider this? Over what principle? But like, don't you think

Patrick:

that's not true.

Asher:

just thinking about

Patrick:

country has. What,

Asher:

What? Who? Us, probably? Us. Yeah,

Patrick:

two on, two on Japan in keep thinking about

Asher:

I just keep, cause I keep thinking about I can, and I'm very, I'm not claiming to be informed in anything. I'm, part of my trauma response to things is to like, sometimes not think about these things and to not collect a lot of information because it consumes my thoughts if I'm being transparent. And so when I think about like, you know, the money that we're funding to, right now to Israel to bomb like Gaza and stuff, I'm just like, what is it, what is stopping anybody from being like, yo, United States, like fuck off, please stop giving people money to fucking destroy other country, you know, whatever the thing may be. Um, all of it in general, this has always been very painful for me, because the end of it, the end is the end. It just

Patrick:

It just takes

Asher:

Yeah. And That's

Patrick:

thing. It's only one chance. It's only one instance. And that, again, that's what this book is about. it's Kim Jong un basically goes crazy and pushes a button. That's it. And that's all that ends the world as we know it.

Asher:

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I just was like, it's just like so hard to understand.

Patrick:

to alright, So I talked about like blowing up Washington, D.

Asher:

Yeah.

Patrick:

Which, obviously, right?

Asher:

An obvious target. It's an obvious target. Yeah.

Patrick:

But you say to yourself, Asher, you say to

Asher:

say to

Patrick:

I live out in Montana.

Asher:

I don't have to worry about those.

Patrick:

I don't have to worry about this. No one lives out here.

Asher:

And they have a physician assisted

Patrick:

And they have a physician assisted I live out here, nothing to worry about, it's all good. Not so fast.

Asher:

so fast.

Patrick:

Because you know what is in places like Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska?

Asher:

consider

Patrick:

Places that you and I would consider the middle of

Asher:

out

Patrick:

You know what is out there? Nuclear silos. Because the federal government puts nuclear weapons in the middle of

Asher:

middle of nowhere. That's

Patrick:

And you know what that makes them? Targets. First strike targets. So even those places where you think, wouldn't, you wouldn't think that they would get

Asher:

you wouldn't think that they

Patrick:

Now, are you familiar with a concept called the nuclear triad?

Asher:

Mm mm.

Patrick:

That, that makes you, that gives you and Donald Trump something in common because he didn't know what it was either.

Asher:

don't ever, no, thank you.

Patrick:

the nuclear triad is the three different modes of nuclear weapon delivery that the United States

Asher:

States controls.

Patrick:

There's land based nuclear weapons, there's air based nuclear weapons, meaning

Asher:

airplanes, and

Patrick:

and there's sea based nuclear weapons. The most dangerous we have are the sea based nuclear weapons. Yes. Because they're moving, right? the land base? They don't move. You go on Google Maps, you can find them. So can our enemies. Those are gonna be the first things hit, right? So those nuclear silos in the middle of nowhere, they're all gonna be wiped out, right? Those are getting bombed Cities are getting bombed. The country's getting bombed. Everything's getting bombed. So, you're not safe.

Asher:

everyone could see my face. I don't think I've blinked in ten minutes.

Patrick:

so at this point. we're 72 minutes in. Everything's lit up like a Christmas tree, Thousands of nuclear warheads have been launched. People are dead. Cities are decimated. Countrysides are decimated. everything's done. Then things get bad. Yes, because we have only just

Asher:

have

Patrick:

We have only just begun.

Asher:

We have

Patrick:

Let's talk about environmental damage, shall

Asher:

Let's talk about environmental damage, shall we? Okay, so

Patrick:

Okay, so let's talk about environmental

Asher:

environmental damage.

Patrick:

everyone knows about nuclear winter. Nuclear winter started getting publicized decades ago, So the whole concept of nuclear winter is that with all of these bombs going off, It's going to kick up a ton of dust and debris and smoke from, not only from the bombs, but from the smoldering city and the ashes. Of civilization, right? It's all going to go into the atmosphere

Asher:

the atmosphere.

Patrick:

for maybe years. The sun is effectively blotted out. The temperature of the earth drops precipitously plants, vegetations, dead, Can't grow anything. Cause there's no sunlight

Asher:

in.

Patrick:

things freeze over, we have, ice age type event. Now it would reverse

Asher:

Global

Patrick:

global

Asher:

warming, All right.

Patrick:

What would help with that? But there's not going to

Asher:

is at this point, are we assuming there's much human life left?

Patrick:

Oh, there may be some human life left. I'm not saying that everybody's going to die, because think of it. There are places, say you live in the South Pacific,

Asher:

Yeah. Okay.

Patrick:

right? You're going to have some people there. You're going to have, you're going to have, humans are,

Asher:

there's a few.

Patrick:

yeah, humans can, are going to make

Asher:

it There's a few left to live in

Patrick:

a few around, right?

Asher:

to live in this. Hell yeah.

Patrick:

right? There are going to be some people who make it through. But like I said, living, envy the dead.

Asher:

Yeah.

Patrick:

Hold on to that

Asher:

Okay.

Patrick:

So. we know about nuclear winter, right? We know that's gonna happen, Oh, and not to mention all the radiation that's been released by the

Asher:

hanging out. Just hanging out. Mm-Hmm.

Patrick:

But here's what people don't think about a lot when they think about nuclear What else gets blown up during a nuclear Animals, What do we have about three miles to the east of us?

Asher:

Power plant? What

Patrick:

What kind of power plant?

Asher:

I don't know what it is. Perry power plant, that's all I

Patrick:

It's Perry

Asher:

I don't know. Nuclear power plant. Oh, it is a nuclear power plant. That's why everyone gets to live there really cheap.

Patrick:

Yes. there are about, there are over 90 functioning nuclear power plants in the United States.

Asher:

States. Wow.

Patrick:

Every one of those, not every one, because let's hold that thought, but a large portion of those are going to blow up. We will have

Asher:

90 Chernobyls.

Patrick:

The explosions or whatever, right? They're going to get, they're going to get damaged and they're going to either get damaged or explode or whatever just from the initial blast, So a large portion of those. are going to fail, and we are going to have the equivalent of 90 Chernobyls just in the United States. Not to stop mentioning, and we have a low amount of nuclear weapons compared, or nuclear power plants compared to the rest of the world, right? all those nuclear power plants are suddenly going to be spewing out radiation, and they're, and unlike Chernobyl, there ain't gonna be nobody there to

Asher:

it,

Patrick:

So you've got all these Chernobyl's all around the country that are just All around the world. that are just spewing radiation into the atmosphere as a secondary effect of the nuclear war, So you've got all of that going on.

Asher:

Yeah, I'd rather be dead.

Patrick:

What else gets blown up? Every chemical plant, every industrial facility. So you have a Massive stew of every toxic chemical and toxic gas just flowing out into the world because of the damage that was done to these facilities. Okay.

Asher:

Okay. I'm here in this conversation, even though I don't wanna

Patrick:

But, remember, I said not all of them will get blown Not all of them will get blown up. Some things will survive. Oh, one thing that may get blown up that I forgot to mention. Dams.

Asher:

Why? Just for

Patrick:

Dams are, dams will blow up if you hit it with a nuclear

Asher:

nuclear weapon. Oh, I okay, I thought you meant like they were intentionally targeting them.

Patrick:

No, I mean they may, but they could, but yeah, either way. so massive

Asher:

flooding. Yeah, massive flooding.

Patrick:

the massive flooding because of the damaged But some of those things may not get blown

Asher:

up. Okay. Oh, is it? I don't feel like it is right now. Nothing feels safe.

Patrick:

you know what does

Asher:

get blown up? What?

Patrick:

All of the critical infrastructure that keeps those things running. So the electric grid, roads, the water system, telecommunications, all those things that keep those

Asher:

functioning

Patrick:

major, operations functioning are all gone. Not to mention the people

Asher:

Mm-Hmm. that are running. Mm-Hmm.

Patrick:

So even those things that didn't explode or blow up, it's only a matter of time before those go too,

Asher:

Right.

Patrick:

Their electricity is gone, their water's gone, their people are gone. It's only a matter of time before something goes terribly wrong at all those. So, even though they may have survived the explosion, they're gonna go too, but you've survived

Asher:

don't want to survive. No.

Patrick:

have made it

Asher:

I don't want to.

Patrick:

So you have gone underground.

Asher:

I've boiled. I've boiled.

Patrick:

No, you've been down far enough miles below the ground, right? You had your food, you survive,

Asher:

Mm mm.

Patrick:

And you're down there

Asher:

What, months? 20 years. Years?

Patrick:

Oh yeah. It's going to take, it's going to

Asher:

it's gonna take years. Years? Oh my

Patrick:

It's going to take a long time before you're going to be able to come up.

Asher:

gonna be able to

Patrick:

Because all the radiation, the, the, the

Asher:

How would anyone know?

Patrick:

Oh, let's just say you have a geer counter up there and you're just watching the radiation drop as

Asher:

This is all theoretical. Because

Patrick:

This is all theoretical. I know, but I'm just, because you're gonna be dead anyway, so this is all just

Asher:

anyway. So it's just a

Patrick:

little, little icing on the cake here, just a little. Little cherry on the Sunday. So you've gone 20, 30 years. You're living underground, You've gone through menopause. So you're no good for the species

Asher:

whatsoever. Useless, absolutely useless,

Patrick:

but you decide, Hey, you know what? I'm going to go up to the surface. The radiation's gone. The fallouts, acceptable. The chemical signatures are all okay. I'm going to go up to the surface. One problem. Did you bring your SPF 500 sunscreen? Because you know what else that nuclear war did? Wiped out the ozone layer.

Asher:

ozone layer. Wiped out the ozone

Patrick:

The ozone layer that we have that protects us from all the UV rays? It's gone.

Asher:

rays? Gone.

Patrick:

So, there is no natural protection from UV rays anymore. The estimate at least in this book and the studies that they've done, the amount of time that it would take. For the Earth's surface to get back to a point where it would be habitable is 20, 000

Asher:

000 years. Holy shit.

Patrick:

And that all happens in 72

Asher:

Oh my god. is the most terrifying thought experiment that's ever of time

Patrick:

that we have been

Asher:

have been alive in the world

Patrick:

world could have ended twice. Holy

Asher:

And to that a society,

Patrick:

and to think that we as a society. And as a civilization invented this technology.

Asher:

And put somebody like, Donald Trump as our president repeatedly to just really piss everyone off and be like, Do we want to just bomb? We should just end this now, probably, cause this is a joke. Did

Patrick:

of movie fame. By the way, did you see the movie Oppenheimer? I didn't like it. I'm one of the,

Asher:

I was going to say, I don't think there's many people that said they didn't like it. I didn't see

Patrick:

I was not particularly thrilled with the

Asher:

the eye. Interesting.

Patrick:

and it was really, and I'm sorry, I'm getting off on a little bit

Asher:

of a tangent. I think we all need a tangent. Yeah. I desperate need a tangent.

Patrick:

tangent is for anybody who has seen the movie, they spend a disproportionate amount of time in the movie, focusing on the fact that he was suspected of having communist sympathies and of the investigation around that, which for me feels like one of the lesser interesting things about Robert Oppenheimer. And it was like, why are you guys focusing on it? This guy built the single most destructive weapon in the history of mankind, and simply the worst thing ever created. Everything we're talking about right now. When he looked out at that mushroom cloud and thought, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

Asher:

God.

Patrick:

He was right! We have lived to this point. We have lived to this point by what appears to me just to be luck.

Asher:

that's what it feels

Patrick:

There have been instances where people have accidentally started this. There was a famous incident where the U. S. military, I think it was the U. S. military, accidentally identified a group of geese

Asher:

Oh, I read about this one time,

Patrick:

as, as bombers

Asher:

coming forward. Oh my God.

Patrick:

The U. S. Air

Asher:

no.

Patrick:

dropped a nuclear weapon on. North Carolina one time by accident,

Asher:

No.

Patrick:

Just accidentally dropped it. Fortunately, it was fortunately wasn't activated, didn't go off, but they did it. So

Asher:

it truly luck, sheer luck,

Patrick:

right? And the fact of the matter is these aren't getting uninvented. If, if anything, they

Asher:

I'm like, why are they making more? This isn't like it, it doesn't make, am I just stupid? is this like a stupidity thing

Patrick:

this is insanity. But the incentives for countries like North Korea and Iran pariah

Asher:

I'm just, I'm, I just want everyone to know in case they can hear this. I'm stress eating olives from this bloody Mary.

Patrick:

good. They have an incentive. They want deterrence too,

Asher:

I guess deterrence, I understand that is an incentive. Okay. I get it,

Patrick:

but it's a perverse

Asher:

yeah. And at what, like at what costs though, I'm like by, by doing that, you're just. Re incentivizing everybody else to do more, and then, and it sounds like all we really need is every country to have fucking one of these

Patrick:

And every one that is made is just another opportunity for something to go wrong and kick off all

Asher:

this. And for another fucking stupid human error. Correct.

Patrick:

that's all it takes is one, one to do this.

Asher:

Patrick, here's what I think our friendship is doing to me. Thank you. I think it is, you know when, I think it was, I can't remember what episode, it was with Brittany. You're like, you're an optimist. think you're undoing it. Cause right now I'm like, humans are the worst. That's awful.

Patrick:

Yeah, they, this technology was invented. It's not going to get uninvented.

Asher:

you say there was like a silver lining or a positive, what did

Patrick:

yes. yes. there is an epilogue. There is a kind of a silver

Asher:

a silver one. Okay, are we through the terror yet? Or did you, do you have

Patrick:

Oh, you mean, are we through the 20, 000

Asher:

years No, I mean like, are you done, are you

Patrick:

pretty much

Asher:

I don't want to ruin your, you know, I, the, and for people should be informed.

Patrick:

do you need any, do you need any other bad

Asher:

I don't. But if there's more to share there, I don't want to ruin it.

Patrick:

There's an entire book. Like I said, it's called called nuclear Jacobson. Fantastic book takes it's literally a minute by

Asher:

I'll never read this book. Truly.

Patrick:

Telling of what would happen. but, as I was saying, these aren't gonna get uninvented. Time will continue to march on. More people will get them. At some point, something bad's gonna happen. Right? Well, if not, you will be. But here's the silver lining. And it's not really a silver lining. But it is a, you will be. a way to look at things. Okay. Have you ever seen them? I don't know why I'm

Asher:

know why I'm asking you. But

Patrick:

there is an absolutely magnificent movie called Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Asher:

a

Patrick:

It's a Stanley Kubrick movie from the early 60s. Most anybody who's a movie buff has probably seen it.

Asher:

seen It's very famous. Peter

Patrick:

Peter Sellers is the star. He plays three roles. It's a comedy, and it's absolutely And when I got done reading this book, that's kind of how I felt. There's no reason to worry. If it happens, what am I going

Asher:

going to

Patrick:

We're all going to be dead. Everybody I know is going to be dead, I'm not one of those people who's going to be in a bunker three miles underground. There's a nuclear power plant right

Asher:

right down the street. Literally so close All of us. I mean, prospectively.

Patrick:

Everybody I know is going to be dead. I'm going to be dead. Most people are going to die

Asher:

Yeah. instantaneously. sounds nice.

Patrick:

you die, if you're at ground zero, you die so fast that And this is true for most, if you die in an explosion, most people don't feel it because you die before the signal of pain can even get to your brain.

Asher:

Okay, I'd like to be at ground

Patrick:

Yeah, I mean, you were just flash, boom, done, the ground temperature heats to about a million degrees Fahrenheit within milliseconds,

Asher:

This is crazy. So,

Patrick:

is there a reason to worry about it? No. huh. Because if it happens, look, it's not like it's going to drag out. It's going to be,

Asher:

72 minutes.

Patrick:

could, you'll die faster from a nuclear war than you will from doctor assisted

Asher:

A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Patrick:

Yeah. Yeah. You die a hell of a lot

Asher:

Oh my God. good Lord.

Patrick:

So the point being is all right. there's nothing that I can do about that. It's not like a global warming thing where, Oh, if I drive, you

Asher:

know, I

Patrick:

I, yeah, I should recycle. I should. I should drive an electric vehicle, not a Tesla, but I should drive an electric vehicle. I should lower my carbon footprint, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ain't nothing I can do about this. And my dad used to say, ain't no use worrying about something you have no control over. And you want to talk about something that you and I have zero control over? It's this, and it's not like it would be something that would, have a long, you know, be a, like a long term issue. It would be a very short term issue

Asher:

us. Yeah, 72 minutes to be precise.

Patrick:

lot and probably a lot less than that. We probably, it probably wouldn't even get on the

Asher:

Yeah, true. We wouldn't even have time to worry. Correct. It would be over.

Patrick:

Yeah, exactly. we would be dead before we even knew what was

Asher:

was going That's reassuring in a weird way.

Patrick:

See, that's what I mean. That's

Asher:

That's what I

Patrick:

said at the end of the episode, there would be a sort of a

Asher:

Did we talk about this? if you would want to know, if you could, if you could look into the future and know when you died or did we talk about that?

Patrick:

I don't think we've talked about that, but that's an interesting thought. Would I want to know when I'm going to die? Um, I mean, it feels like it'd be useful knowledge.

Asher:

conflicted about it because there's part of me that, like, I don't think I want to know, like, Part of me would want to know, like, how much time I have left so that I can, maximize

Patrick:

Your retirement.

Asher:

Yeah, just, like, my life and my connections with people, but I also know with the tremend obviously, I've, stopped breathing for this entire episode, the amount of anxiety that I have, I think it would, like, It's kind of like when you're like, you know, you go back to work on Monday. And so you've ruined Sundays because you're so stressed about going back to work. yeah.

Patrick:

Yeah. Ooh, yes, be Sunday scaries, it'd be life

Asher:

life scaries. Yes. So I think for me, the answer is not knowing is better, which is why the nuclear, like it would happen so fast that we wouldn't know would probably be my best interest. Think

Patrick:

a situation where an asteroid's coming

Asher:

coming towards did you watch, what's that movie? up?

Patrick:

no, I did not. Well, I watched

Asher:

like This is the one time. You

Patrick:

kind no, it just was like, eh.

Asher:

Dave didn't like it either. I loved that movie. I thought it was great, and I was like, this is exactly how this would go. Yeah. I know the premise, But there's a lot of knowing. The whole point is that there's a lot of

Patrick:

And that's exactly right. And remember I said at the beginning that nuclear war, I felt, was the granddaddy of them all. And I said that knowing that, okay, there's also an asteroid. But There's a difference between the two. An asteroid, we're going to know that in advance, right? We're going to see that come in and at least we'll have some way to like, if people decide to do something about it, we might be able to do something about it, right? We might have the technology to this,

Asher:

this is a choice

Patrick:

this way. It

Asher:

but I'm saying people have a choice to, to do it. And asteroid is just that's just a natural phenomenon.

Patrick:

we as a civilization, as a species could get banned together and do something about it. Nuclear war, ain't nothing we can do about it. It's, if it happens, it happened, And nothing's going to stop it. And we're all going to die

Asher:

In less than 72 minutes.

Patrick:

in less than 72 minutes. And if you, for some reason, and somehow through some miracle happen to make it through

Asher:

You will wish that you

Patrick:

you'll wish you're dead, which by the way, I mentioned at the very beginning, like post apocalyptic literature and all that stuff. None of that. It's like. Like, they have people, like, living out, like, in, uh, the Fallout series, people, like, living out on the surface. No, no one's living out on the

Asher:

on the surface. No, no one's living out on the surface.

Patrick:

yeah. that television show, I think, takes place, or the video game series, depending on when it is, takes place, I in some cases, a couple hundred years after. That's not

Asher:

That's Not enough enough time. Not enough 000 years. years. 20, 000. Everybody.

Patrick:

you'd be talking about a situation where some of those nuclear power plants, They'll be spewing out radiation. They could be spewing out radiation for

Asher:

that long. Right.

Patrick:

right? That was the problem with Chernobyl. I, I actually did finally watch the television show. I've read multiple books on Chernobyl because of course

Asher:

Because, of course, you have.

Patrick:

the best one, I wish I could remember the author of it. It's called Midnight in Chernobyl. Really, really good book. Really, really

Asher:

good. I feel like somebody else talked to me about this. Maybe it was you, though. It was probably you. Uh, but

Patrick:

the pro one of the problems with the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the, why they were so like urgent to, to get it sealed up and everything, because that reactor was just going to just be pumping out radiation till, for, it's, I don't, I can't, I don't remember exactly, but it's like thousands of

Asher:

It's just gonna be pumping out radiation. in the

Patrick:

again, in the United States, there's going to be 90 of those

Asher:

those.

Patrick:

hanging around. It ain't going to be nobody dropping boron on each, each reactor. It's just, it's just going to go off. And then you got all those nuclear reactors all over the world doing the same thing.

Asher:

Wild.

Patrick:

And there's no power and the roads are all damaged. there's no clean

Asher:

water. There's no wifi. You

Patrick:

there's no wifi.

Asher:

your ticky talkie is dead.

Patrick:

there's no Tic Tac. Everybody's worried about Tic Tac getting banned. Ain't going to be no

Asher:

Ticky talkies dead. So basically there's no point in even existing because ticky talkies not here.

Patrick:

Yeah. That would be the

Asher:

be the end of the conversation between them. It might be an

Patrick:

But here's the, here's another, I wouldn't say bright spot, but another way to look at it. I've mentioned him on an earlier episode. George Carlin has a bit about People who lobby for environmental issues. He says, he makes the comment that, they're saying, they say things like save the earth. He was like, you're not saving the earth, you're saving us. So the earth will be fine. We're fucked. Right. Because the earth, the earth, survived this. right? The earth survived worse than

Asher:

this. Yeah. Right. Right. Right.

Patrick:

I mean, we've, I mean, the earth will just, The Earth's gonna be, the Earth is going, there's nothing we can

Asher:

do keeping a ball of something. Yeah.

Patrick:

yeah, the Earth will continue to survive and it'll grow and, yeah, it'll, we've got, the Earth's gone through multiple, I think, how many extinction events were there, like five or six or seven, something like that, mass, mass extinction events, everything from like, huge volcanic, eruptions, like all over the globe to, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. There've been terrible things that have happened to the earth surface, and it just keeps on carrying on, 20, 000 years in geologic time is

Asher:

nothing. a

Patrick:

blink of the eye, 20, 000 years, nothing.

Asher:

years,

Patrick:

And so maybe we come here, we do that. And the earth just says, yeah,

Asher:

And go bye bye.

Patrick:

go bye bye.

Asher:

Let's try this again actually, this didn't

Patrick:

let's, let's just start. You got, you know what? You guys

Asher:

did me a favor. Yeah, actually for doing that for me because now I don't have to do

Patrick:

And hopefully you guys have forgotten how to build those

Asher:

things. Yeah, let's try doing this without those next time. humans didn't prove to do many things. Right. So

Patrick:

Not a, not in this

Asher:

Yeah. exactly.

Patrick:

Well, that's all I've got. unless you're,

Asher:

no, I mean, unfortunately it rendered me mostly speechless, which is not helpful for a podcast, but No. Holy shit.

Patrick:

Yeah. But it is a, it is a terrifying, prospect. And as I said earlier, I had an image in my head of what a nuclear conflict would be like, and it was mostly driven from fictional

Asher:

Yeah, Nothing in my brain said 72 hours and 20, 000 years. You know what I'm saying? Nothing in my brain was like, those are the truths. Like, obviously like, you know, couple hundred years was, you know, if I, I don't even know that I, the thought experiment had ever gone that far. Um, but also like the master 72 hours is just like a mind blowing. Amount of time,

Patrick:

Now the one thing I will say about that time period that she says in the book before we, it would be livable again. The one caveat I will make to that is how quickly the Chernobyl exclusion zone bounced back.

Asher:

oh,

Patrick:

after the plant had its accident, it was kind of the same thing. They thought it would be like hundreds of

Asher:

Yeah.

Patrick:

Before that area would be livable or anything, it bounced back really fast. There's a very vibrant ecologic system in that area, the radiation seems to have really dissipated. There are animals, plants, hasn't been as much cancer in animals and mutations in animals as they thought they would. don't get me wrong, it ain't great,

Asher:

and it's

Patrick:

nearly as bad as they initially Thought it would be a lot. And actually, you know what it is though? It's interesting. A lot of the animals that are in the woods, there are a lot of wild dogs. Is that the dogs from the town that got evacuated, the government went around and tried to kill all the dogs because they thought the dog, the dogs and cats

Asher:

would all be would be sick and

Patrick:

would all be sick and be carrying radiation. But of course they didn't get all of them. There's a very big community of wild dogs in the Chernobyl exclusion zone that are all the ancestors of the dogs that were left there in 1986 when the, when the population evacuated. And, but they've seemed to, they

Asher:

obviously they're okay if they're still around.

Patrick:

Yeah. Yeah. You can find, you can find like, uh, websites that talk about the dogs of Chernobyl

Asher:

Wow. That's fascinating.

Patrick:

Yeah. But that's, I guess that's one positive.

Asher:

like there's, there's stuff that there's, there's, there's stuff that, There's probably a lot of like, unknowing. There's no way to actually know. Um, it seems like there's quite a bit

Patrick:

it's only 2, 000 years rather than 20,

Asher:

still, still so many years. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. thank you so much for this, interview. I can't wait for this mini series.

Patrick:

humankind. Let's do like another 10

Asher:

Oh my gosh. Let's do like another 10 episodes before another one of these. I don't know how to recover from this.

Patrick:

you will. that bloody Mary will help.

Asher:

Couple of those. Yeah.

Patrick:

listening, Masher, and thank you to all the

Asher:

listeners.

Patrick:

all. follow us on Instagram at to whom it may concern. Send your feedback if you have any thoughts

Asher:

thoughts. And, and, check out Patrick's streaming. Oh, yes. Intercollective Patrick, if you want to see some of this, in action, him actually playing these video games.

Patrick:

See me playing these video games and see see what the setup

Asher:

like. Yeah, it got me through the pandemic and, uh, that's how we all, we all built a little community around it. join us.

Patrick:

All right. Thanks everybody. Have a great, have a

Asher:

rest of the day. Love you to death. Love you. Bye.