[kragen]

Well, in part due to the nuclear weapons programs, the US and Soviet governments told a lot of lies about nuclear energy in the 01940s, 01950s, 01960s, and 01970s. A lot of the science on things like nuclear fuel enrichment isn't actually available publicly, even today, only to people whose families have been interviewed to make sure they will lie if the government orders to.

So the US Secretary of the Navy is in a position to make an informed decision about nuclear reactors—and he's chosen to run a significant part of the US Navy on them—but the voting public is not.

[effie]

I'll bite, what's up with those zero prefixes?

[cpeterso]

Preparation for the Y10K problem. Five-digit years is something the Long Now Foundation started using to encourage people to think longer term:

https://longnow.org/about/

[thelean12]

Holy hell, talk about premature. That's 100 lifetimes away.

Is it still April 1st?

[kragen]

> That's 100 lifetimes away.

Such a pessimist!

[ethbr0]

Fine, 0100 lifetimes away.

[stjohnswarts]

lol that's ridiculous. We'll either have wiped ourselves out by then or be so far beyond problems like Y2K that it's a ridiculous thing to worry about

[kragen]

More fun than worrying about global pandemics or nuclear meltdowns!

[krrrh]

It’s promoted by the Long Now Foundation, as a way of encouraging thinking on 10,000 year time scales.

https://longnow.org/

[why_Mr_Anderson]

That's so -idiotic- short term thinking. 10k years is nothing in the timescale of the universe.

[radicalcentrist]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation