I keep hearing from my peers, over and over, about their dread at the prospect of nuclear war in the 1980s.

Personally, myself and my family and almost everyone I knew, didn't seem particulary worried about it. I certainly never experienced any fear over it, even when "The Day After" aired.

I feel like I lived in a parallel universe in the '80s or something.

Whenever it was discussed or read about, we sort of just assumed it wasn't likely, and if it did happen, we'd be dead in a instant anyway (given our proximity to a major metropolitan area).

CJSF

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Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

My freshman year in high school (the '91-'92 school year), my history teacher told us exactly how many nuclear weapons were targeting our area, one only a few miles away to JPL. This did not make me notably less scared, actually.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I will say nuclear war was a fear of mine, to the point of occasional sleepless nights as a teenager. Certainly things like "The Day After" and the book "Warday" added to that.

I'm not sure that is quite the same as a fear of 21 December 2012. Nuclear war was a real possibility (still is). We got pretty close a couple of times (Cuban Missile Crisis). The 2012 stuff is completely evidence free.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

So it's normal for 4th graders to feel apocalyptic dread and people like me who were 4th graders in the 90s are just an anomaly?

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

I have little clue as to what is "normal", but I'm fairly sure it is a broad distribution.

I think, as one transitions from childhood to adulthood, and becomes much more aware of the real world, that it is fairly common to start realizing that there are real bad things out there, that we are mortal, and that mom and dad can't fix everything. Depending upon the person, I certainly think this can lead to varying degrees of apprehension and worry.

I'm not saying that worrying about nuclear war was a good thing. But it actually was based on some level of real threat, as opposed to the 2012 stuff, which is based on nonsense.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

And, of course, not every kid had the same level of fear. Few of my own classmates did, for example; to a lot of them, it was pretty far removed. Then again, my mother did watch the news every night. I was significantly more exposed to that evidence.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I was frightened by the Persian Gulf War when I was in 4th grade (or maybe it was 5th grade, I'm not sure). Of course I wasn't in any danger, but children don't always have the best perspective on these things.

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"One does not require alien ruins in order to absorb a profound sense of wonder and mystery from the moon. That our civilization had actually visited it is miracle enough." Jason Roberts

Exactly. Nothing bad happened, although I recall that I went through that day...how to put this...with a highly elevated need for immediate female companionship (know what I mean, say no more, wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Moreso than usual I mean. And Phil said the planetary alignment wouldn't affect us.

I think the first planetary body discovered in 2013 should be officially named "Nibiru" just to rub the salt in...

Hah! Love it. Permission to add to signature, sir?

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

Fine. No problemo.

And everybody knows the black Hole IBEX found isn't due to hit until 2052 anyway

I always thought that people who deride "duck and cover" as an absurdity are, not to put a fine point on it, idiots. Any nuclear explosion has a completely lethal radius, but outside it there is a vast area where blast and radiation dissipated enough to be survivable, but heat radiation will still kill anyone exposed. In that vast area you have good chance of surviving if you QUICKLY place yourself behind some solid barrier, in other words... duck and cover! Whereas anyone who just sits there (or runs around hysterically) because he is convinced he is going to die... will.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

But in quite a lot of places, "duck and cover" is absurd.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

So, half the planet gets turned to slag, but because you hid under your desk, you're alive. Unlike many of your friends and relatives. You've no idea of when you can expect help to show up (or at all), no idea if/when basic services will be restored. This is a good thing?

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

I want to go plasma.

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I agree with you. But even the authorities agreed that the psychological scarring accomplished by the program was doing more damage...ie
'The russians are coming...adnauseum'.
And yes, if I have 15 minutes notice, I should take what cover I can.
Balance and horse sense.

Best regards,
Dan

No, but it beats the alternative. Some people prefer dying to suffering. I firmly belive is surviving if at all possible.

A reported once asked Buzz Aldrin "What would you have done if the engine on Lunar Ascent Module failed to fire?" He expected an answer along the lines "which last words and to whom". Aldrin's answer was "Work like hell to fix it, right up until our air ran out." Never give up, in other words. Which is exactly my sentiments.

Remember the scene in first "Terminator" movie where a ragged band of survivors is huddling in some cave or basement, hiding from hunter-killer robots and eating rats? At that scene a friend of mine asked "If the whole planet is like that, what's the point of surviving?" My response was "It does not look any worse than Soviet gulag, and people had survived that for decades." To me, it's just natural and obvious. I suppose to others it is not.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

What a strange perception you have of the gulags. Besides, it's not as though the people who just managed to avoid death from the heat would exactly live happy, healthy lives thereafter.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

No, but perhaps their children or their children's children could, if they worked hard enough.

Which has been a good enough reason to plug on for lots of people for lots of years.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

It's hard to when you die of radiation poisoning.

Which, you know, makes me wonder what the point of trying to rescue people in the dreadful 2012 is, given how horrible conditions appear to be. After all, don't the Mayans believe the world is going to be destroyed? How do you save people from that?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

" But.... the picture's faded. "
" Of course it is. Your future hasn't been written yet, So.......
make it a good one."
Sage advice from Dr. Emmet Brown, inventor and philosopher extroadinaire.

Don't let anyone tell you that your future is already finished. Those hucksters have been around for years. If they were so smart, they'd be rich.
They have an incredibly large credibility gap.

Best regards,
Dan