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Comment by bee_rider | Hacker News Reader

I know it is fundamentally much better that we’ve gained a little bit of prudence over time. But the crazy engineering schemes that America hatched in the 60’s (when we could finally build, essentially, anything we wanted and we hadn’t learned how dangerous that is) will always be fascinating.

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There's a lot of issues we're dealing with from that era (maybe a bit before it too) that seemed so smart at the time but we truly didn't consider the true consequences. PFAS, processed foods, plastic for everything, etc are just examples of "we have the technology, let's use it now!" mentality. 50+ years later, we have seen the knock on negative effects and can at least consider some new thing and do some regression type testing.

I don't think that mentality has changed at all. If anything, it's become considerably worse. We'll be experiencing the effects of lots of short-sighted quick-profit decisions being made today for decades. The quantity of discarded electronics because of a "non-replaceable" dead battery comes to mind.

The difference today is that we have 50+ years of experiencing those secondary effects. We know what kinds of things previous items have caused and can take that as a hint at what something similar could do. In theory, we should be able to catch net negative before it is catastrophic. The manufactures can also know ahead of time that something might cost more in the long run. Of course, we'd have to have regulations that had teeth, otherwise, of course corps are going to take the now money

Especially all of those "atoms for peace" projects that had nothing to do with nuclear power.

Widening the Panama Canal with nuclear bombs, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/20/archives/a-new-canaldug-b...

Can't forget Project Orion! Just nuke yourself into space!

I'm honestly bummed we never got to try that one.

Might still happen. https://spacenews.com/nasa-and-darpa-select-lockheed-martin-...

I came across this the other day: Operation Frigate Bird[1], a test of an SLBM, from a sub to a Pacific atoll, with a live nuclear warhead. In some ways it's understandable, in others the risks involved are staggering.

[1] Mediocre link, but it has some info; no wiki article found: https://www.bntva.com/operation-frigate-bird-6-may-1962-a-ve...

... and, a couple of days later, Scott Manley has a video on submarine-launched missiles, including some footage of Operation Frigate Bird!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLIdVigNtIo

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