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Comment by daxfohl | Hacker News Reader

I spent a couple days obsessed with this shortly after moving to Seattle (from small town Midwest) a few months ago.

Wouldn't mind having something similar for impending mega-earthquakes and tsunamis.

Wait, why did I move here? Oh, I guess I got sold on the rain and the high cost of living. :)

You can combine nuclear speculation with (induced) tsunamis with the (hypothetical) Russian Status-6 Ocean Multipurpose System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_weapons_of_mass_des...

Well, that's terrifying.

And brilliant. Terrifyingly brilliant.

Terrifying. Brilliant. Terrifyingly brilliant. Brilliantly terrifying.

I realize that the standards for discourse on HN are higher, but in my defense, this weapon terrifies me beyond the capacity for rational thought.

Holy hell. Einstein's quote about World War IV being fought with sticks and rocks wasn't hyperbole.

For what it's worth, the Midwest would be a prime target during a nuclear war due to its ICBM silos. There aren't many places far away from both population centers and military targets that could be considered safe. Maybe New Zealand.

Patagonia is more realistic.

Not even... Falklands are just right there..

I live in Berlin. Used to be targeted by dozens if not over a hundred nukes. Bonus: from both sides.

So over quickly, rather than wasting away from fallout, nuclear winter and the complete and total collapse of civilization.

Exactly.

Would I like to be nuked? No.

Would I like to live out The Road or Mad Max (depending on your preference of atmosphere)? Doubly no.

The cynical truth, though, is that faced with that decision you'd still choose the second option.

Nope, I really wouldn't. I am highly pain-averse. And the point of being targeted by 50+ nukes is that I wouldn't even have to make that choice :-)

Weird, I've found a situation where my insane pain tolerance could help me. (From migraines)

With two kids, "the road" sounds tragically awesome. Okay awesome is the wrong word. But something. Blinking out of existence: ick.

I'm sure that can change your outlook. My first child is scheduled for a fall release, might change my answer.

Doesn't change right away, takes time. But somehow over the last 4.5 years it has. (Ask me before then, yeah absolutely blinking out is the way to go.) Then again, as always, ymmv. Congratulations.

Inevitably any large population centre is going to have nearby military defences, so any large population centre is a target, right?

With that many nuclear weapons existing... Who cares?

(People wondering if they have a hope of survival by fleeing somewhere preëmptively, though I don't know if that's noble…)

Interesting article at DefenseOne about the Midwest as "nuclear sponge."

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/02/welcome-americas-nuc...

> I got sold on the rain

So sorry for no rain in last 54 days. ;)

Haha this always doesn't get the credit it's worth, from what I hear. The haze lately is weird though.

There exist expected inundation maps for the Washington coast I believe, due to the threat of that mega tsunami earthquake.

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