- cross-posted to:
- photography@fedia.io
- cross-posted to:
- photography@fedia.io
AN/FPS-24 Radar Tower, Mt. Umunhum, Los Gatos, CA, 2024.
Several additional pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/53796724938
#photography
AN/FPS-24 Radar Tower, Mt. Umunhum, Los Gatos, CA, 2024.
Several additional pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/53796724938
#photography
I have mixed feelings about these cold war relics. On the one hand, they’re artifacts of what was perhaps humanity’s most dangerous folly to date, locking the world in a deadly game where the stakes only went up with each round. This doesn’t seem like something to commemorate or celebrate.
On the other hand, these objects, many now destroyed or decayed, serve as visible evidence of just how close to oblivion we are willing to go. And looked at from the right angle, they have stories to tell.
@mattblaze@federate.social They sure have stories to tell.
@mattblaze@federate.social We might approach the nuclear precipice again if we ever returned to a situation of two rival zero-sum systems, one or other of which inevitably had to die. Fortunately Kennan was right that Communism could be contained and eventually outlasted.
@mattblaze@federate.social I lived through that era, telling younger friends about it now there is a disconnect as it is abstract. At least these relics make it real for them, maybe (hopefully) making some of my current paranoia and political “take” seem slightly more, well, justified.
@simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org It now seems hard to believe that for the first 50% of my life I lived with an entirely rational background fear that all of civilization might end at any moment with less than 30 minutes notice, possibly by accident.
I lack the vocabulary to describe it adequately.
@mattblaze@federate.social @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org
I was an Army brat. At 8 years I dreaded the drills, because I already knew they were useless. The only place I ever lived as a child where they weren’t done was “nowhereville” Arizona while my father was in Vietnam. I was (thankfully) too young to understand why Christmas came before he left that year. Just how serious was it my generation Z and millennial coworkers want to know. In 1963, before I was born, my father called my mother while he was stationed in Anchorage and said, “Take the kids and the car and get out of Anchorage now.” She did. My mother was the strongest person I’ve ever known. I feel the dread coming back, but not because of the old reason, but because of the very old reason. If it’s not H5N1 it’ll be something else - maybe even something we thought we’d licked because time has a way of making history repeat. Tempus fugit, momento mori.
@simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org I lived my early years in Santa Clara Valley under the shadow of that radar station. The fear of nuclear annihilation was very real to me. Nevertheless it was remarkable to be able to see the radar dish revolving from miles away on the valley floor, and noteworthy when they decommissioned it.
@mattblaze@federate.social, one of the things I appreciate about your capture is how harmless it looks, and mundane.
@mattblaze@federate.social @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org I grew up inside the DC beltway, so it was pretty palpable for me.
Now I’m 10 miles from the northern Virginia data center wasteland, and feel a similar threat.
@darthnull@infosec.exchange @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org Native NYer here, so yeah, I know the feeling.
But if they want to destroy us, perhaps the most effective thing they could do is leave the data centers running…
@mattblaze@federate.social @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org I’ve been wondering if active shooter drills are the duck and cover for later American generations. A repetitive drill focused on possible imminent death. I can’t imagine that anyone comes out of that unchanged.
@Patricia@vivaldi.net @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org In many ways the active shooter drills seem worse. Duck and cover was about the random threat of total annihilation at the hands of impersonal, out of control global powers. The shooter drills are about the random threat of personal annihilation at the hands of your neighbor.
@mattblaze@federate.social @Patricia@vivaldi.net @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org
Reminder: your neighbour was radicalised and manipulated by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube algorithms pushed by McKenzie consultants and the top brass of tech companies for profit and an ideological agenda (and Fox News, OANN, etc.) and an automatic weapon was put in his hands by Republican legislators, the NRA and the Supreme Court.
The radicalised, racist, bigoted ideology behind the trigger was pushed and riled up by political representatives and their sponsors.
There is responsibility to be assigned, this didn’t spawn in a vacuum.
@mattblaze@federate.social @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org
Nuclear war is still the greatest danger facing the world.
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org Thanks for the information.
@mattblaze@federate.social @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org I was living in Scotland when Sulzberger was still talking about acceptable amounts of Europe to be annhiliated in a “Theatre Europe” exchange.
I was going to a US school and the students were very cavalier about this. It was truly bizarre.
@mattblaze @simplenomad
I remember when I was a child being taught to “Duck and Cover”. And being shown some cartoon about a turtle.
@nyrath @mattblaze @simplenomad “Duck and Cover” may account for much of the generation gap between the WW2 vets and the Baby Boomers. The vets knew from personal experience how hideous war was; but they also saw what happens to people conquered by totalitarians. The Boomers by contrast grew up with an existential fear of annihilation; to them militarism was suicidal insanity.
@60sRefugee @nyrath @simplenomad
I find it rather disturbing that any time one mentions that a globally apocalyptic nuclear arms race is perhaps a bad thing, someone always feels the need to jump in and defend it.
@mattblaze@federate.social @60sRefugee@spacey.space @nyrath@spacey.space @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org I don’t think I can defend the arms race itself. I can, though, point out that developing an alternative means not just one that’s resistant to Putin or Kim Jong Un, but one that’s resistant to Kim Yo Jong (who worries me much more than her brother does).
@mattblaze@federate.social @nyrath@spacey.space @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org The arms race was scary but as it turned out wasn’t apocalyptic. The WW2 vets who ran the world until about 1990 weren’t stupid or insane; they did everything they could to avoid nuclear war OTHER than unilateral surrender. And no, mutual disarmament was never realistic given the irreconcilable differences between the two sides.
@mattblaze@federate.social Yikes, really? I thought it bad enough when they were telling you to CW your monochromatic images. I think it’s terrifying that someone with a very thin skin and no impulse control now sits on the largest pile of nuclear arms in the world. @60sRefugee@spacey.space @nyrath@spacey.space @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org
@CStamp @60sRefugee @nyrath @simplenomad Yes. That’s the gift left to us by those best and brightest WW II vets who ran the world for 30+ years worshipping the likes of Herman Kahn and his ilk. A giant pile of civilization-ending weapons contolled by two opposing sociopaths. Thanks a lot.
@CStamp@mastodon.social @60sRefugee@spacey.space @nyrath@spacey.space @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org The thing about the escalation game is that every individual move is rational, but the game itself is completely insane. And we spend almost all our effort (especially in the 50’s and 60’s) strategizing each next move instead of finding an exit.