[roenxi]

You lead with a questioning No - but then about half way through your post you came to a certain yes. The threat of governments not protecting us from nuclear radiation is smaller than the actual costs of governments not protecting us from coal.

And the idea that there is a risk we can't detect is silly, we radiation is easy to detect. The issue is we can't detect a threat because there appears not to be one. The risks aren't quantified because the threshold for a paniced response has been set far too low, so there is panic without a problem. And the population doesn't own Geiger counters because they are canny with their money and they don't have a reason to own one. If there was a risk, it'd be easy to make measuring devices generally available. You can buy one for less than $100.

[lazide]

Nope.

My ‘yes’ was for long term, persistent exposure. Not an acute accident.

Panic tends to happen in acute accidents because people don’t have time to prepare or do any of those things you’re talking about.

When the folks who are in charge during a crisis are clearly either incompetent or lying, and it’s one of those acute situations where people don’t have time to get all those things, that’s when it’s perfectly rational to be ‘irrationally worried’.

When there is a history of that kind of thing happening, that’s when it’s perfectly rational to be ‘irrationally worried’ long term.