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Comment by awrence | Hacker News Reader

I loved the show but in case you missed it this was a very eye opening take that seems genuine.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-hbos-cher...

The budget and format of the series required this kind of concentration of information in the form of the single scientist and the "villains." Anybody with 10th grade reading comprehension can see these as literary devices. I walked away with a clear understanding that the Soviet system was to blame, that was expressed clearly. The "villains" were simply artistic manifestations of the overall system. The author of this piece is being pedantic.

I have a problem that it fictionalised what it was claiming to criticise. Did soldiers point guns at miners? No. Did a soldier frog march Anatoly Sitnikov to the roof of the reactor? No. Was the minister of mining some weasly beurocrat ignorant of mining? No he was an ex-miner.

I do have a problem where the important reality of how the scientic problems were solved by a large team working together is reshaped into single superwoman who works weekends and sleeps at her desk in a continuation of our bullshit work myths. How teams work successfully is much more valuable thing to dramatically explore.

And ultimately, I am skeptical about the popular framing that this was a "could only happen to Soviets" disaster. Western governments/companies have lengthy history of suppressing profound chemical disasters causing mass cancers (tobacco, roundup etc.), suppressing information about known safety problems allowing more people to die (Boeing), putting a brave face on a crisis using their own family (BSE and John Gummer) and being slow/callous about the health of civilians in a crisis response (Katrina) and suffering nuclear safety accidents due to contravening procedures e.g. Los Alamos is being shutdown due to it's poor safety culture.

I see the root causes as fundamentally human and not unique to the Soviet system but people are not taking that message. Instead it's being used to stir up anti-Soviet sentiment in the current and absurd Cold War II that we are currently brewing. Sigh.

That said, great series, loved it!

> And ultimately, I am skeptical about the popular framing that this was a "could only happen to Soviets" disaster.

No doubt that callousness towards humanity abounds throughout the world, and of course in the US and the rest of the west. Soviet/Russian socioeconomics are so fascinating because they are a superpower on a budget. Callousness + shoddiness + scale, in my eyes, make this disaster uniquely Soviet. While your examples show profound inhumanity, their scale pales compared to Chernobyl.

I agree the clean-up is stunning in scale but in terms of the causes then I only see a regularly repeating pattern. The China Syndrome maps out quite nicely how it would happen in a commercial reactor i.e. pressure to not report problems leading to falsifying safety reports leading to potential critical situations. Commercial companies often have existential pressure to cut costs to meet goals leading to safety violations and it happens all the time PG&E, South West, PCA... it's an endless list.

Just read this a few hours ago, is there any other published information for corroboration?

From what I gather from the New Yorker piece, this mini-series is ok as long as one takes into consideration that it's a historical drama, not documentary?

On the technical/nuclear side, there's a strong critique here [1]. They really embellished on the characterization of the health impacts. For instance, in the epilogue they said: "Between 4,000 and 93,000 people died" where the correct statement is "A large international team of expert scientists estimated that up to 4,000 people will eventually die from early cancers on top of a population where millions would have without the accident, and a fringe group of anti-nuclear people said 93,000 without basis."

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/06/06...

> fringe group of anti-nuclear people said 93,000 without basis

This is the line being pushed by pro-nuclear people every time this show comes up on social media. Thankfully we have better sources than a random person's blog on Forbes!

Let's take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...

"an April 2006 special report in the peer-reviewed, scientific journal Nature detailed in response—the accuracy and precision of this United Nations-led joint group's projected death toll of 4,000 were immediately contested, with several of the very scientists, physicians, and biomedical consortia whose work the joint group had cited alleging publicly that the joint group had either misrepresented their work or interpreted it out of context"

"By 2016, some Ukranian and Belarussian physicians charged with treating large numbers of former liquidators in the decades since the accident were calling for more comprehensive studies and urging that the IAEA's estimated toll of disaster-related deaths from long-latency diseases be revised upwards"

Uh huh. From one of the guys who says 93,000:

"Grodzinsky says low-dose radiation causes genomic instability, which induces mutations in affected cells that can only be detected after they have divided several times. The damage inflicted on the victim's DNA is then passed to their children, thus explaining the health problems suffered by liquidators' families." [1]

This is without basis. Many studies have failed to find any real support for this kind of conclusion. For instance [2]. Many people in the area THINK more people must have died from Chernobyl. Problem is, there isn't strong evidence for it.

Also from [1]:

Not all experts from the region are critical of the Chernobyl Forum's findings. Viktor Opekunov, chairman of the atomic energy subcommittee of the Russian State Duma, told an interviewer earlier this month: “These are serious specialists who can be trusted and I consider that the conclusions made by the Chernobyl Forum reflect reality.”

Members of the Forum's research team have defended its findings in the run up to the anniversary, saying it could not allow health effects to be attributed to Chernobyl without scientific evidence of a link.

Yury Sayenko, a professor from the Institute of Sociology of Ukraine's Academy of Sciences, says he agreed with the report's finding that the mental health impact of the disaster was greatest of all.

“There has been a cult of suffering around Chernobyl”, he says. “Our research show victims' subjective assessment of their circumstance is usually twice as bad as the reality. We need to help them recover their hopes for the future.”

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

[2] https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1104294

There is a long series of photos and text after the final episode that explains most of the fictionalized parts of the series and the real life outcome for most of the major players. IMHO the New Yorker piece has the perspective of a Soviet history expert who is extremely unhappy that their version of what is important to be shown was not shown or not accurately portrayed, watch Chernobyl for entertainment and a little enlightenment, but not for 100% fidelity to history. I can give a small example of what people complained about (spoiler like New Yorker piece). A helicopter crash in the TV series for which one can also view the historical footage - the historical footage is inexplicable - there's no obvious reason for it to happen but the TV show changes it so it has visible, plausible reasons to the viewer.

In each case the helicopter crashes when a rotor blade strikes a heavy crane cable.

Yes, but an attempt at brevity in my post and to not spoil too much - the history shows the copter in clear skies and strikes, to an outside observer ignorant of all the facts, easily avoidable (crane with ) cable, where the show introduces a smoke cloud and talks about the radiation danger and has the comm equipment start to fail as the copter gets closer to the smoke, telling a slightly different but more complete story than just viewing the historical footage.

There's an accompanying podcast with the writer that's excellent and goes into great depth on some of these decisions "the cheronbyl podcast"

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