Alex WellersteinVerified account

I think one has to take into account the fact that they can't say, "obviously a lot of people would just get killed." That's not really in their vocabulary for a lot of reasons, though they all know this.

With that out of the way, you have to look at ways of limiting the preventable casualties. Being inside is better than being outside by a LONG shot, both for the initial effects (blast, heat, acute radiation), and DEFINITELY for the delayed effects (fallout).

Absolute worst-case scenario in all of these models are people trying to haplessly flee the area, either before or after, and clogging the roads. Cars give no protection from anything, and clogged roads hinder all emergency activity.

I was sort of being facetious. I know the line and the models. I’m just confused why they are referring to a nuclear yield event euphemistically here. And following a yield event, it’ll be utter pandemonium and my instinct is to account for that rather than hope ppl will stay in.

I don't think we have good models for what people will actually do in this situation. (Or, at least, I don't trust any of the assumptions made by the models out there.) But I do think we can think about what we'd like them to do — and work on that behavior modification.

I don’t disagree. But trivializing the magnitude and significance of the event makes behavioral modification difficult

I agree. But trivializing the recommendations doesn't help, either, is what I'm saying! My approach is to do both at the same time. "Get inside, stay inside" is actually good advice. But also emphasize what the reality would look like, simultaneously. Which NNSA *can't* do.

No disagreement. It’s a tough messaging problem because no one will know or wants to explain how horrific it would be

The most important lesson of this video is that the only effective defense against a nuclear attack is prevention. Once the bomb goes off the lives saved by evacuation vs shelter in place will be a rounding error for the # of casualties.

It's more than a rounding error according to their models (hundreds of thousands of preventable casualties, maybe more), but sure, prevention is the only true defense. Agreed.

BUT, that being said, 1. we all know prevention unlikely to be perfect; and 2. there are reasons to believe that getting people to think through this stuff, to talk seriously about personalized consequences, etc., is more engaging than just saying "it's awful and unthinkable."

If #2 is true — if talking about this kind of thing seriously actually does produce a change in the salience of the risk — then it may be a precondition to getting mass action or support for #1. That's part of the thesis of the Reinventing Civil Defense project.

If #1 is the goal then I support #2 but I don't think that is what is motivating the CDC/FEMA video or the lessons that viewers will derive from it. That is one reason I liked @ArmsControlWonk use of real testimony of Hiroshima survivors in the 2020 Commission Report

I'm not suggesting #2 is part of CDC/FEMA/DHS goals — they are *our* (RCD) goals. They may be inadvertent outcomes of gov't work, though. That is something we are trying to test.

It is an open, empirical question as to whether even "sanitized" CD works towards #2. I think "Duck and Cover" drills had more to do with the later anti-nuclear movement, for example, than people realize (and certainly that was not the goal of the FCDA).

The latter is a historical hunch on my part (supported by anecdata, but not testable). But one can test how exposure to these sorts of materials impacts policy attitudes on people today (and we are doing this).