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Comment by ALittleLight | Hacker News Reader

I'd bet they have pretty low personal risk. Where would the risk come from? I could see being close to radioactive materials as a risk - though hopefully there is sufficient shielding to negate that. I don't see much risk from people attacking you to take the nukes. I feel like that doesn't happen very often. Maybe some risk from lots of vehicle miles traveled.

It seems like an awesome job for someone with the right set of preferences. Spend half your time training, working out, going to the range. Half your time on long road trips. Huge responsibility, but extremely low chance you'll ever need to actually do much. Kind of like being a cop who never has to arrest or deal with people.

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From having watched lots of dash-cam videos recently, I would guess traffic accidents are the riskiest things they regularly deal with.

If the truck is still operating afterwards, I expect they don't stop - they let another vehicle that is full of federal agents from the convoy deal with it.

> Spend half your time training, working out, going to the range.

That right there makes it pretty attractive. Lots of people do those things for fun. If that's half your "workload", it totally makes sense to do a job like this, especially if you're not a city person since that's a solid salary if your not in a high cost of living area.

> I don't see much risk from people attacking you to take the nukes. I feel like that doesn't happen very often.

given that Russia didn't lose any nuke in the chaotic 199x (didn't lose or they were quickly recovered) I think there is no credible/feasible/capable interest/threat for the nukes.

> given that Russia didn't lose any nuke in the chaotic 199x

Serious question (in more ways than one): do we really know that to be true? How?

Of course it's possible that some Russian nukes were stolen, and someone's been keeping them in a warehouse for the last 25 years, and we'd never know. But I find it likely that if someone had stolen a nuke, they would have sold it, and the kind of people that would buy it would have used it by now.

I'm making two assumptions:

1. you don't steal a nuke unless you're going to sell it or use it

2. you don't buy a nuke unless you're going to use it (for blackmail or to blow something up)

And (2) would have been easily noticed.

I think there's one other possibility. It could be stolen to study and reverse engineer. You're probably looking at state actors instead of random third parties, but enemies of Russia would probably want to see the level of technology they're using. And states trying to develop their own nukes might be able to learn a lot from having a first hand example.

I'd be quite surprised is someone who lost/had stolen and then recovered a nuc would admit to this taking place. I really don't think we would know if this had happened.

The US government spent a lot of money upgrading Russian nuclear security and paying personnel in the 90's so precisely this would not happen. Same with the rocket scientists.

I have heard that one of the recent projects to redefine the kilogram independently of an artefact was essentially a job creation scheme for unemployed Russian nuclear scientists to stop them being hired by people with more nefarious intentions.

Source? I'd be somewhat surprised if these job creation projects are happening much anymore given that a lot of the 90's era scientists will have retired or emigrated by now. I think most emigrated.

It might have been a while ago- here [0] is a link to a press release from 2005 saying that the isotopic enrichment of silicon-28 for the Avogadro Project (to redefine the kilogram using a perfect sphere of isotopically pure single-crystal silicon-28) was done at two Russian institutions.

Here [1] is a 2004 press release from the International Science and Technology Center, whose first objective is to "Provide weapons scientists in the CIS the opportunity to redirect their talents to peaceful activities." Page 9 describes their involvement in the Avogadro Project.

Here [2] is the project description on the ISTC website.

[0]https://www.ptb.de/cms/en/presseaktuelles/journals-magazines...

[1]https://www.istc.int/upload/files/6yoyjz8txt44oc0g8cs8.pdf

[2]https://istc.ru/istc/sc.nsf/html/projects.htm?open&id=2630

> I feel like that doesn't happen very often.

It has been the plot of several movies/books/etc.

Any that were non-fiction?

The documentary Command and Control [0] included a small part about the recovery and transport of a warhead after an accident in which they missile it was mounted on exploded.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(film)

That still wasn't an attack, though. (Though it might have been as dangerous as if it were...)

And it was also caused by a maintenance accident at a silo if I understood the wiki correctly. Not a transport incident at all.

Fiction writers often create a compelling story by making something reality-shaped out of low-probability dangers.

Hate to burst your bubble but we don’t actually live in a movie. I think.

That being said, the quoted line kind of raises the question: how do we know?

I suppose given the use of the word “feel” the GP doesn’t actually know, but that’s not really my point anyway. My point is rather – if there in fact were incidents involving these nuclear material couriers, would it make the news or remain secret as a matter of national security?

>Hate to burst your bubble

Burst all you want, but it doesn't mean my comment wasn't true. You can want this conversation to only go one direction (real life), but it's the internet and conversations can diverge. The fact that it has been involved in plots is still relevant. Some people might actually find it interesting even if it steers the convo in a manner you don't approve.

A: I wonder how often event X occurs? I imagine it's not very often. B: It happens in movies a lot.

To me, as a native English speaker, B is clearly implying (with their "technically true" statement) the statement "Event X happens a lot in fiction, therefore I infer that Event X happens a lot in real life". Statements are read in the context of the preceding conversation.

> I think.

I dunno, I feel like I'm living in a future designed by folks who looked at Robocop, Starship Troopers, and a few other bits of dystopian sci-fi and instead of treating it as a warning decided that it would make a swell instruction manual.

Hmm... maybe its my german heritage, but i don't see Starship Troopers as THAT dystopian:

Every politican has skin in the game (mandatory military service for gaining the right to vote or be voted for)

No racism or sexism or other discrimination, at least there are no traces for that in either the movie nor the novel.

If you don't want to join the military: No problem, you don't have any major disadvantages (besides no political participation), see the wealthy family of the protagonist.

Science seems to flourish

Ehm... sorry for the digression... what were we talking about?

Well, the book by Heinlein certainly wasn't meant to be dystopian, so there are sane elements in it.

But the movie was a bit different - maybe you watched the german version? That was a bit softer - the teacher didn't made jokes about the anhilation of Hiroshima there.

It was a deeply militarized society. Brutal. Top down. But yes, at least the politicians had to be part of that, too. (but in reality ... I think you can be in the military and be far away from any danger, like Bush was a fighter pilot, but not deployed at Vietnam.)

Interesting... i think i have to do a rewatch of the movie (this time in english), yes, i have watched the german version, which was "over-the-top", but not THAT "over-the-top"...

> Well, the book by Heinlein certainly wasn't meant to be dystopian

It literally starts out by re-contexualising the ex-millitary putsch attempts in Weimar Germany as a Good Thing.

Ok, I have to admit I did not read the full book, just the beginning, but do not remember this. But I was told it was not meant to be dystopian. On the other hand, Heinlein did had some extreme views, though, so I am not sure, what the message of the book actually is.

I think 1984 was used more as a manual, than a warning, despite so many people throw the name around, despite never having read it.

And I always kind of assumed, that Bush watched Swordfish (where the bad guys are only bad, so they can fight terrorism, so are the "good guys") and would have gone on a war on terror, even if 911 would not have happened.

By "happen", most of us mean "happen in reality", not "happen in fiction".

Although, it might be a bit relevant. You feel cooler when you tell people what you do if it's fictionally cool, even if in real life it's not all that great.

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