Head for the bunker and harden the electronics

[Svartalf]

That's Ass you me ing that Kim is actually predictable and obedient enough that China exerts that sort of control over NK... a fact I'd like to have real knowledge about.

[macdoc]

i suppose someone has to lead the way….

[laklak]

More worried about a 1 megaton nuke dropping on my head than the tv blowing up (through that would be pretty traumatic too).

Not that there is a lot you can do about either, consumer electronics are meant to fall apart that's why they are so cheap so no one is going to bother hardening them and I would hope the military already do so

There's a bit more to it than losing your laptop and flat screen. Try suddenly being thrown back to 1850, not just you, but your entire society. No power and no chance of any for quite a long time, months if not years. Most cars don't work, though there's a bit of contention on that point as some claim the car itself functions as a Faraday cage. No trains, planes, trucks, no freezers or fridges, no petrol, no food, no running water, no seno banks, no atms, no stock markets, no dole checks, no food stamps, nothing. Barbarism in a fraction of a second.

[MrJonno]

Presumably the military wouldn't be effected to anywhere near the same level, declare marshal law shoot a few rioters , rationing of food
Weather conditions on the whole aren't that extreme in the UK, not going to pleasant but a lot better than being nuked

[Brian Peacock]

I don't need educating about the potential dangers of an EMP burst, nor does such information justify or excuse jingoistic scare mongering IMO.

Why not?

Quite simply, because jingoistic fear mongering is a propaganda tool intended to elicit a common fear or dread of 'the other'. Raising the spectre of an imaginable harm that the other could perpetrate does not in itself legitimise, justify, or render axiomatically rational, reasonable and/or responsible an overtly aggressive foreign (or domestic) policy towards the other.

Given the catastrophic results of a single EMP attack on a technological society anywhere on the planet it seems to me that there's far too little jingoistic scare-mongering going on. I'd say that most of the world has it's head firmly planted in the sand, or up its own ass, and is in denial of the threat.[\quote]
For the purposes of jingositic scare mongering the nature of the imaginable threat is immatereial, it is merely fuel to the fire, offering an effective means of whipping up fear and dread. That some imaginable harm appears more plausible than another only means that it better serves the propaganda objectives of those peddling jingoism.

People were a lot more rational in the 60s when they actually undertook civil defense preparations in anticipation of a nuclear attack. Look at the Soviet Union for example. The entirely of the Moscow subway was built as a primary fallout shelter for the citizenry, including blast doors and supplies storage.

You see any of that in New York or Boston?

Nope.

There are many imaginable, possible harms that any number of States could perpetrate against another. But here the American people are being urged to be particularly fearful of the Koreans potential to perpetrate this particular harm. The Korean people are no doubt similarly urged to be fearful of the US's potential to devastate their country, and considering that the US outstrips its nearest rivals in military capability and spending by an order of magnitude perhaps they have a right to be?

I lived through the Cuba scare and I still remember "duck and cover" drills in my elementary schools...that scared the crap out of me. I still have drawings I made when I was 10 of my proposed bomb shelters.

As formative as that experience may have been for you, at some point one has to put away childish fears and at least try to form a rational, balanced judgement. Fear-based reasoning is a poor substitute.

I don't think being aware of the threat or taking precautions and making preparations should it happen is at all "jingoistic scare mongering."

Then it is good that I didn't object to the tone of the quoted piece on that basis.

I think it's part of rational disaster planning because most of the principles involved apply to every other kind of disaster, natural or man-made, that might strike...like catastrophic 1000-year floods in Colorado. I had an evacuation and sheltering plan where I lived for that threat because I'd lived through two somewhat smaller but still highly disruptive floods as a young man on the ranch. I also had plans for snowstorms which included long-term auxiliary power and other necessities that I made use of several times in my life. In one instance a winter storm took down the power line from the main to my house, and because it only served a single residence it was quite literally the last line to be restored, in no small part because the half-mile lane to my house was drifted more than three feet deep and the trucks couldn't get access. I was without power for three weeks, but didn't have any problems because I had a diesel auxiliary generator with a 2000 gallon fuel oil reserve. And to get out for food (after the iron rations ran out) I just cut the fence and drove across the neighbors snow-free pasture, bypassing the lane.

It's never a waste of time to think about and prepare for disasters. If the people in New Jersey had done so when Superstorm Sandy came along, things would have gone much more smoothly.

Assessing potentialities for harm is one thing, and assessing the potential threat that this or that agent presents is another, and both must be given due consideration. But putting those assessments to the service of engendering a common fear or dread about the other is jingoism.

If we are to make a serious claim to be considering these things rationally then there should be some attempt to draw a clear line between rational forward-planning based on a reasoned appraisal of the facts, and fallaciously justifying some overtly aggressive stance or action based on the potential harms of imaginable threats. If we don't then decisioin-making (and decisions about domestic and foreign policy must surely be among the most important in society?) run the risk of being governed by a bloated fear-response.

An EMP attack is just another threat that needs consideration and planning, which might be as simple as EMP-securing a couple of radio receivers and even walkie-talkies in a sealed, grounded metal box so you have a way to communicate if everything else is fried.

Yep, just another potential, imaginable harm to take into account along with all the others. But the questions about jingoism here concern why the American people should be so afeared of the Koreans' potential to perpetrate this particular imaginable harm that hunkering in the bunker seems like a reasonable and judicious response?

[Seth]

Presumably the military wouldn't be effected to anywhere near the same level, declare marshal law shoot a few rioters , rationing of food
Weather conditions on the whole aren't that extreme in the UK, not going to pleasant but a lot better than being nuked

Actually, it's pretty alarming how little of our military infrastructure is EMP hardened. Particularly the communications infrastructure that is critical to a modern military's ability to function. Imagine your military being reduced to dispatch riders on horseback and Morse code by mirror.

[Seth]

I don't need educating about the potential dangers of an EMP burst, nor does such information justify or excuse jingoistic scare mongering IMO.

Why not?

Quite simply, because jingoistic fear mongering is a propaganda tool intended to elicit a common fear or dread of 'the other'.

Unfortunately, that's often what it takes to get most of the brain-dead proletariat to quit 'bating and watching Rehabilitation long enough to get them to prepare for anything at all.

Raising the spectre of an imaginable harm that the other could perpetrate does not in itself legitimise, justify, or render axiomatically rational, reasonable and/or responsible an overtly aggressive foreign (or domestic) policy towards the other.

It beats the ever-living crap out of underestimating your enemy. Just ask Sun Tsu.

Given the catastrophic results of a single EMP attack on a technological society anywhere on the planet it seems to me that there's far too little jingoistic scare-mongering going on. I'd say that most of the world has it's head firmly planted in the sand, or up its own ass, and is in denial of the threat.[\quote]

For the purposes of jingositic scare mongering the nature of the imaginable threat is immatereial, it is merely fuel to the fire, offering an effective means of whipping up fear and dread. That some imaginable harm appears more plausible than another only means that it better serves the propaganda objectives of those peddling jingoism.

Depends on what the propaganda objectives are I suppose.

People were a lot more rational in the 60s when they actually undertook civil defense preparations in anticipation of a nuclear attack. Look at the Soviet Union for example. The entirely of the Moscow subway was built as a primary fallout shelter for the citizenry, including blast doors and supplies storage.

You see any of that in New York or Boston?

Nope.

There are many imaginable, possible harms that any number of States could perpetrate against another. But here the American people are being urged to be particularly fearful of the Koreans potential to perpetrate this particular harm. The Korean people are no doubt similarly urged to be fearful of the US's potential to devastate their country, and considering that the US outstrips its nearest rivals in military capability and spending by an order of magnitude perhaps they have a right to be?

Of course they have reason to fear the US. That's a good thing. That's what keeps them in check. When they obtain nuclear and/or EMP or other WMDs in sufficient deliverable quantity that they stop fearing us things get really dicey. Telling US citizens and indeed the rest of the world to be wary of an insane regime on the cusp of developing deliverable EMP weapons that can put us back into the 18th century is not jingoistic because it's not "belligerent nationalism: extreme patriotism expressing itself especially in hostility toward other countries." It's rational analysis and call for preparation against a specific, credible, identifiable threat from a nation that spends most of its time being jingoistic towards virtually everybody else on the planet.

I lived through the Cuba scare and I still remember "duck and cover" drills in my elementary schools...that scared the crap out of me. I still have drawings I made when I was 10 of my proposed bomb shelters.

As formative as that experience may have been for you, at some point one has to put away childish fears and at least try to form a rational, balanced judgement. Fear-based reasoning is a poor substitute.

Fear is an evolved emotion that keeps us alive. Fear can be entirely rational and an entirely sound basis upon which to reason. The metric is whether the threat that elicits the fear is credible or irrational. In this case it's a credible and highly rational fear.

I don't think being aware of the threat or taking precautions and making preparations should it happen is at all "jingoistic scare mongering."

Then it is good that I didn't object to the tone of the quoted piece on that basis.

I think it's part of rational disaster planning because most of the principles involved apply to every other kind of disaster, natural or man-made, that might strike...like catastrophic 1000-year floods in Colorado. I had an evacuation and sheltering plan where I lived for that threat because I'd lived through two somewhat smaller but still highly disruptive floods as a young man on the ranch. I also had plans for snowstorms which included long-term auxiliary power and other necessities that I made use of several times in my life. In one instance a winter storm took down the power line from the main to my house, and because it only served a single residence it was quite literally the last line to be restored, in no small part because the half-mile lane to my house was drifted more than three feet deep and the trucks couldn't get access. I was without power for three weeks, but didn't have any problems because I had a diesel auxiliary generator with a 2000 gallon fuel oil reserve. And to get out for food (after the iron rations ran out) I just cut the fence and drove across the neighbors snow-free pasture, bypassing the lane.

It's never a waste of time to think about and prepare for disasters. If the people in New Jersey had done so when Superstorm Sandy came along, things would have gone much more smoothly.

Assessing potentialities for harm is one thing, and assessing the potential threat that this or that agent presents is another, and both must be given due consideration. But putting those assessments to the service of engendering a common fear or dread about the other is jingoism.

I disagree. I don't see attempting to inform the public of a credible threat in order to stir them to action in self-defense as being the least bit jingoistic. I suppose using your metric Paul Revere was a jingoist.

If we are to make a serious claim to be considering these things rationally then there should be some attempt to draw a clear line between rational forward-planning based on a reasoned appraisal of the facts, and fallaciously justifying some overtly aggressive stance or action based on the potential harms of imaginable threats. If we don't then decisioin-making (and decisions about domestic and foreign policy must surely be among the most important in society?) run the risk of being governed by a bloated fear-response.

Well, the point is that we, and by that I mean most advanced nations, have been studiously ignoring the threat of an EMP attack and likewise studiously refusing to do what is necessary to armor our critical infrastructure against a credible threat.

An EMP attack is just another threat that needs consideration and planning, which might be as simple as EMP-securing a couple of radio receivers and even walkie-talkies in a sealed, grounded metal box so you have a way to communicate if everything else is fried.

Yep, just another potential, imaginable harm to take into account along with all the others. But the questions about jingoism here concern why the American people should be so afeared of the Koreans' potential to perpetrate this particular imaginable harm that hunkering in the bunker seems like a reasonable and judicious response?

Here you make the common mistake of assigning an imprudent amount of importance to a headline. Headlines are intended to grab the reader's attention, you see, not convey the totality of the message of the story. Journalism 101.

That being said, if NK manages to deploy an EMP weapon over the eastern seaboard of the United States, or pretty much anywhere in Europe, you're going to wish you had a bunker and hardened electronics.

[Brian Peacock]

I don't need educating about the potential dangers of an EMP burst, nor does such information justify or excuse jingoistic scare mongering IMO.

Why not?

Quite simply, because jingoistic fear mongering is a propaganda tool intended to elicit a common fear or dread of 'the other'.

Unfortunately, that's often what it takes to get most of the brain-dead proletariat to quit 'bating and watching Rehabilitation long enough to get them to prepare for anything at all.

I understand your point, but as eloquent and reasonable your defence of propaganda might appear the fact remains that it is employed by those who seek to wilfully manipulate others in order to bolster their own needs and/or agendas. Harbouring and increasing your fears are the means by which the propagandist hopes to achieve their ends.

[Seth]

I don't need educating about the potential dangers of an EMP burst, nor does such information justify or excuse jingoistic scare mongering IMO.

Why not?

Quite simply, because jingoistic fear mongering is a propaganda tool intended to elicit a common fear or dread of 'the other'.

Unfortunately, that's often what it takes to get most of the brain-dead proletariat to quit 'bating and watching Rehabilitation long enough to get them to prepare for anything at all.

I understand your point, but as eloquent and reasonable your defence of propaganda might appear the fact remains that it is employed by those who seek to wilfully manipulate others in order to bolster their own needs and/or agendas. Harbouring and increasing your fears are the means by which the propagandist hopes to achieve their ends.

It's not propaganda to cite facts, which is what the article does and what I do when discussing the catastrophic consequences of an EMP attack.

It wasn't propaganda when Kennedy spoke to the nation about the threat of nuclear missiles in Cuba.

[pErvinalia]

More worried about a 1 megaton nuke dropping on my head than the tv blowing up (through that would be pretty traumatic too).

(that's about the most effort I can muster to counter this strange post).

[pErvinalia]

Presumably the military wouldn't be effected to anywhere near the same level, declare marshal law shoot a few rioters , rationing of food
Weather conditions on the whole aren't that extreme in the UK, not going to pleasant but a lot better than being nuked

How you going to move food around if the trucks don't work? How you going to move food around if the trucks actually do work but the refineries don't? As is common with most of your comments, Jonno, you haven't thought it through and think that simplistic statements take the place of an actual reasoned argument.

[Audley Strange]

Hey West! You give Ging Gang Goon new pair shoes NOW or North Korea will explode bomb made of black holes and Satan!!!

[Audley Strange]

Hey West! You give Ging Gang Goon new pair shoes NOW or North Korea will explode bomb made of black holes and Satan!!!

[JimC]

You came twice...

[Brian Peacock]

It's not propaganda to cite facts, which is what the article does and what I do when discussing the catastrophic consequences of an EMP attack.

It wasn't propaganda when Kennedy spoke to the nation about the threat of nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Flip-flopping and goal-post shifting much? Shouldn't you really make your mind up: Jingoistic scare mongering is just the kind of propaganda tool we could with more of, but it's not propaganda because it's true?

[...] Jingoistic fear mongering is a propaganda tool intended to elicit a common fear or dread of 'the other'.

Unfortunately, that's often what it takes to get most of the brain-dead proletariat to quit 'bating and watching Rehabilitation long enough to get them to prepare for anything at all.

It seems you are among those who always work to find a way explain their own fearfulness by arguing that it represents the only 'rational' metric by which to assess circumstances and justify action.

Fear is, as you say, an evolved response, but it's also a stress response, and the thing with prolonged stress is that the stressed come to think of it as the normal state of affairs and their reactions as the only normal and reasonable response. It's also much more comforting to maintian the narrative that there really is something waiting for us in the woodshed than just admit to others that our imagination got the better of us and we just hava an irrational fear of the dark. The point here is that just because we have an evolved capacity for fearfulness does not mean that feeling frightened is a rational response to the circumstances or a legitimising justifier for engendering fear and dread in others.

But I guess if that's your state of mind it's probably best that you take to your bunker with the dried rationals, boxes of ammon and a short-wave radio, if only to protect your neighbours from your own self-justifying fearful and aggressive impulses. Don't forget now, your neighbours could be planning to steal your crops and rustle your livestock, gas you in your sleep or poison your water supply, conspire with the banks to rob you of all your worldly goods, or murder your nearest and dearest. These are just the kind of 'facts' you can cite whenever you feel the need to justify your evolved capacity for fright as the most natural, reasonable, rational responses possible. And if that makes life unpleasant and difficult for everyone around you then just remind them that that's a good thing - it's their fear of you that keeps them in check.