Hacker News Reader

Comment by roymurdock | Hacker News Reader

As a 23 year old I can only imagine what it was like to live through the cold war with the colossal fear of nuclear annihilation soaking into every activity/decision.

I feel like it must have been so overwhelming yet intangible - in some ways a nuclear holocaust is much less painful than losing a loved one in a car accident or seeing your country splinter into violent factions. A nuclear holocaust is a quick, binary event - either it happens, or it doesn't.

I also can't imagine what the fear of being drafted into a WWII or Vietnam War situation would feel like.

Would love to hear what anyone with experience has to say about those "ages" of fear relative to this new one of mass-media/technology-produced fear.

View on HN

Over 100 million of us watched The Day After when it aired, a TV movie about nuclear war. So not only was it top of mind, the range of media alternatives was so much smaller.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After

But.... Imo. Top Of Mind did not last at all. Sure for 2 weeks we talked about it. But "it" was the movie. Not the fact destruction is coming.

Interesting...even with a greater existential threat...the lack of available media made it less of a focus? Even if people had wanted to discuss, they wouldn't have had the platform or information available to have a discussion about the threat of nuclear war?

< the lack of available media made it less of a focus?

Yes x10. Atomic war..any subject, really. We didn't know what we didn't have. If it wasnt on the tv or paper it didn't exist.

"Oddballs" talked about DDT, women's rights, ozone layer, Poverty, gambling, single parenthood- you name the subject.

Letters to editors gave others' voices. But no way to communicate back. Magazines gave voices too, but weekly or monthly.

Aside from civil rights and anti Vietnam war organizing there was not much organizing going on.

I recall a spray painted "go to dc Jan 20" on a pinball joint in my university city hometown.

Printed flyers on poles organized people for war protests.

The first real "always talked about " thing was Watergate hearings and then of course the Iran hostages and Nightline each night. Constant update on the subject.

Talk radio did not exist back then. Am radio djs talked but. Never political

It actually did have an effect on policy and was cited in Ronald Reagan's own memoirs. This is mentioned in the Wikipedia article.

I'm not sure where some of these other responses are coming from, but the cold war was very much front and center for my generation, growing up in the 70's and early 80's. If you want to get a good feel for the grinding fear that the possibility of nuclear war instilled in people, just watch the movie "Testament" or read the book "Alas, Babylon" and you'll get a good idea of what that fear was based upon. As another poster indicated, there was nothing "binary" about nuclear war unless you were lucky and were within the blast radius and it killed you instantly.

> As a 23 year old I can only imagine what it was like to live through the cold war with the colossal fear of nuclear annihilation soaking into every activity/decision.

If they had Facebook back in the days of the cold war, the country would have gone insane with fear in less than 1 year. Social media is an amplifier for base, brutish emotions.

Years later it was told that Russia has nukes on the beaches of cuba.[0] we were very close to THE war. Nobody knew about it. Till much later.

[0] http://www.cubanmissilecrisis.org/background/frequently-aske...

If Facebook was around then i doubt the outcome would have been the same.

There's nothing binary about a nuclear attack. Ask any survivor or family member of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I'm thinking more about MAD - mutually assured destruction of entire nations/much of the world, rather than 1 or 2 "isolated" nuclear attacks. Point taken though.

<I can only imagine what it was like to live through the cold war with the colossal fear of nuclear annihilation

It was NEVER top of mind. Remember, the only news was evening broadcasts for 30 minutes or ap/upi reports in local papers. New York times didn't make it to my state except Sundays. It was NEVER a conversation growing up. Back then to find out if your team won you would have to wait for the paper 2 days later if it was not the local team.

<drafted into a WWII or Vietnam War situation would feel like We

Wwii everyone enlisted. No question. Different times. Vietnam draft was real anxiety.

Late 70's, 80's, nobody worried much about it except at the fringes in the US. The Nuclear Freeze movement got a lot of attention in Europe, 99 Luftballons got some play in the US, kids danced. But the masses in the US had gotten used to the Detente/SALT Treaty era.

The early boomers were scarred somewhat (and still are) by red menace training. They might take stuff like Red Dawn as a serious drama, while it was a bit more like Rushmore for the rest of us.

Having lived through the Cold War imagine how pissed off I am at the authoritarians and fear mongers pushing an insignificant terrorist threat for power accretion and profit. Cold War information weapons have been turned against the people. Fuck that, and the people who did that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com