Have you ever wondered how the world would end? Well it wasn't that long ago we knew. Nukes.
Have you ever wondered how the world would end? Well it wasn’t that long ago we knew. Nukes. First one side fires ‘em, then the other side fires back, and after that there’s pretty much just running and screaming. Run! Panic! What happened? Has the nuclear threat gone away? I mean, why aren’t we building bunkers? Terrorists could import them into the US, and don’t forget about China and North Korea. Or Pakistan! And there’s India, and Iran, and all of the lost Russian nukes after they destabilized. [Laughs] We are so dead.
We should probably put a disclaimer on this video, or you’ll think that we’re pro-nukes, but most of what you think you know about nuclear bombs just isn’t true. Hollywood wants you to think if one goes off, the entire United States is gonna be swimming in fallout. The total number of nukes we’ve dropped on other people: two. The total number we’ve dropped on ourselves: over a thousand. Yeah, I’m not kidding – over a thousand. I love fallout! I’ve got this funny rash. Hm, glows in the dark, too. Now a lot of those bombs were below ground, but at least 331 weren’t.
The first bomb we ever dropped on ourselves was on July 16th of 1945 at the Trinity site in New Mexico. And after it came a long line of nuclear testing on US soil. Mostly in Nevada. I mean, what else is there to do? So we blew ‘em up, and I’m sure there’s radiation all over the test sites, but life as we know it is still here. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying nukes are harmless, and I don’t want one going off in my backyard. But, it kind of already did. Some of our nuclear testing happened out in the Pacific at Bikini Atoll, but a lot of it took place in Nevada, about a hundred miles northeast of Las Vegas. Search for “nuclear test site” on Google Earth; you can see some of the craters and mounds created by the explosions.
The explosive yield of a nuclear warhead is measured in megatons, but megatons of what? Fallout? No. Plutonium? No. At Trinity, they blew up a hundred tons, or .1 kilotons of TNT. They measured the output of that explosion, and all the bombs we’ve invented since then have been rated accordingly. So megatons is like thousands of tons of TNT equivalent. That’s a lot of TNT… and T, and T, and T, and T, and T, and T, and T. One of the best documentariy movies on nuclear testing is called Trinity and Beyond. If you’re interested in seeing what really happened with the US in nuclear testing, you should check it out. Not so you can laugh off the idea of nuclear weapons, but so you can educate yourself. We have some more links on our site.
But is there an upside to nuclear weapons? Yes, the beautifully-eerie glow. And the cute little mushroom cloud it makes. But seriously, the case can be made that they’ve saved way more lives than they’ve ever taken. Estimated casualties for invading Japan were enormous on both sides, and when you see footage of what the Japanese had in store for the invasion of their homeland, it’s not really hard to believe. They had manned, rideable torpedoes, kinda like an underwater kamikaze, and they were gonna train the citizen population to attack them with sharpened bamboo poles. Not pretty. And if it hadn’t been for nukes and the policy of mutually assured destruction, there almost certainly would have been a superpowers war between the United States and Russia, and maybe even a third World War.
The bottom line is this: nuclear weapons are big, and nasty, and devastating. But one of them can’t blow up the Earth, or the United States, or even the entirety of a major US city. One alone, no. Like a lot of them together, like a MIRV? Yeah, probably, but one – no, couldn’t blow up a whole city. But it could take out a big piece of it. News flash: we’ve dropped hundreds of nukes on ourselves! Just thought you ought to know.
Transcribed by: Justin G.
Nuclear Links:
Trinity and Beyond the Atomic Bomb Movie
Declassified Nuclear Bomb Footage
Nevada Department of Energy Nuclear Statisitics
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16 Comments
Satya Agraha
Does anyone else think that maybe the brothers sometimes log in under false names in order to dispute some of the critizism? I think that would be awesome....Meandering
I like that scorched earth game. Anyone remember that one?steph
another awesome video. in history class when we were talking about the cuban missile crisis in our text book all they talked about was how the fall out would kill us and they totally over exagerated it. its always nice to hear the fact that i didnt think it was ... moreAnotherSqueezedRadish(orTurnip?)
Andrea_cro, All due respect, you may have missed the point Mr Curly Hair (Winn) was trying to make here, which is that, although Nukes are terrible and deadly, there are a lot of misconceptions about them and their effects. Their effects are most definitely terrible, but the media has for years tended to hype up peoples fear of nuclear disaster through reporting that is big on sensation but short on facts, and sensational movies that are even shorter on facts. No surprise there, as sensational programming and movies get good ratings, whereas non-sensational fact based programming and movies tend to ... lots moreBob
Some viewers still don't get it. This is a show about basic principles, targeted at a public that was taught NOT to think by the educational system of its culture. Finally, someone is trying to help us to do the critical thinking we should have been encouraged to do in school, not discouraged to do by brainwashing and indoctrination. Your viewers need to see the movie "Expelled," the DVD "Indoctrinate U," and maybe read "The Shack," which would really shake up the Southern Baptists. Keep up the good work, even if viewers ... lots moreJames
"Colorful metaphors" - can you do a video on that? Whatcha thoughts on the words we use? or our kids use? or our leaders? Are some words just "bad"? Or can we use those colorful words for good? Who the %#$@@ knows... help us with a video on ... moreMike
Agreed: Nukes are big, nasty, horrible things but there is one thing that scares and disturbs me more. The dude in these videos actually believes he is funny. I mean, he makes these clips whilst fantasizing about random chicks asking him to sign their [insert expletive here] on the red ... moreAndrea_cro
I dont like (nor agree) your remark about hiroshima and nagasaki. Do you see what are people prepared to do for the freedom in iraq? They blow themselvs up. How does make them different from japnese? Kamikaze & human-bomb both end up the same. Lets throw a nuclear bomb on ... moreStefan
On the question of fall-out the case is not entirely as simple as it's put here. While an air-burst such as over Hiroshima and Nagasaki (i.e. one where the fireball doesn't touch the ground) doesn't produce much fall-out, a ground burst is a completely different matter, where much of the ... moreIngrid
This kind of reminds me of the series Jericho. Love that serie, I hate CBS for canceling...Lilmissgeek
ok thanks for clearing that up ^.^The Brothers Winn
MIRV: Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle. It is a missle that can house and devliever multiple warheads. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRVLilmissgeek
merv? Never heard of the word before... I looked it up and didn't find a meaning that makes sense in the context of the sentence.Rabble of Redheads
The use of the word "merv" dates the fact that you are guilty of playing "SCORCHED EARTH". We should have a nostalgia show about things that were popular in the eighties and ninties (early ninties).Jamie
Godzilla?John from NIU
Duck and cover!