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Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

A plan which involves 520 nukes of 2 megatons each, putting it roughly in the same ball park as some of the Project Orion proposals.

I mean, you might accidentally solve the Middle East peace process if nobody wants to live there any more, but I don’t think it will be a popular solution to either that or the Suez monopoly…

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Man the 60s were really a time of laissez-faire nuclear projects huh. I mean I'll be the first to say the pendulum has swung too far the other way but boy were they ever enthusiastic.

It seems that every time someone invents a new hammer, people use it to solve every problem, whether it's the right tool for the job or not. When viewed through the lens of hindsight, the advertisements are quite amusing.

In the 1890's it was "electricity." In the 1920's it was "radio." In the 1940's it was "radar." In the 1950's it was "atomic" everything. In the 1960's it as "space" this and "space" that. In the 1970's it was "jet." In the 1990's it was "cyber." Today, it's "blockchain" and "AI."

Some of it works. Most of it is snake oil. But people keep buying based on trendy keywords. People are just built that way.

Has blockchain solved a single problem yet?

How to get paid for Ransomware attacks?

It could but gatekeepers aren't happy.

Comparing blockchain to electricity and nuclear science is just depressing for me :/

They both consumed the lives of many of the smartest folks of the time :)

Studying nuclear engineering should be worthwhile. Studying power system engineering was.

Blockchains aren't.

Haha, yes, I'm known around here for sharing that view.

Today it's "lidar"

None of them ever happened AFAIK, but there were some crazy ideas.

The Soviets did use a few nukes to stop oil well fires!

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