[somishere]

My wife is currently in the Marshall Islands commemorating an anniversary related to the nuclear testing. The trauma and fallout, cultural and nuclear, persists to this day - over 7 decades (and how many generations?) since the Bravo test.

I've heard and read a lot about the atrocities visited upon the Marshallese in the name of research in the last six months. Including around the potential "intentionality" of the human testing [1]. It is harrowing. And a hard pill to swallow in any context. The Nolan film did the islands little justice.

As an aside: while indirect, the journey to the Marshalls isn't as onorous as the article suggests - yes there's an island hopper, but United also fly direct from Honolulu. Though getting to Bikini is likely another adventure in itself.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_4.1

[chickenbig]

> Including around the potential "intentionality" of the human testing

The wikipedia link mentions allegations, but not what (I feel) counts as evidence. Note that I'm not denying that the US Government engaged in radiation test programmes (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Stevens), nor that these were covered up and are ethically questionable. But can such a rumour be falsified?

[cryptoegorophy]

When it comes to the most powerful weapon in the world special at that time There is little to none consideration for nature and people. Would you rather own the most powerful weapon and be the most powerful state or consider life’s of other people?

[SapporoChris]

"Would you rather own the most powerful weapon and be the most powerful state or consider life’s of other people?" Have you considered developing weapons and power seeking while considering the lives of other people?

[antonvs]

Just the fact that you ask that question as though it makes sense is an indictment.

The implication is that nothing matters more than being “most powerful”. What a sad, sad way to view life.

[rad_gruchalski]

> What a sad, sad way to view life.

It’s sad until one realises that this is what human nature is. It’s “us” or “them” regardless of how much we all wanted that it wasn’t so.

[celticninja]

As it turned out there was still a consideration of other people. For example if Nazi Germany got the bomb first then many more people would have been miserable.

The greater good

[somishere]

The Marshall Islands tests were carried out after the end of WWII.

It's worth considering that the US also used the islands as a dumping ground for waste from previous tests in the US [1] ... At a site which is now under threat of leaking due to the effects of climate change [2]

[1] https://www.latimes.com/projects/marshall-islands-nuclear-te...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runit_Island

[fc417fc802]

You really can't make this up. We have geological formations within our territory that are both incredibly stable as well as located within a dry climate. Yet we choose to use one of the least stable locations in terms of both geology, surrounding environment, and weather available to us.

I think the only way you could top this would be to place a vault at ground level that spanned the San Andreas fault.

[BigGreenJorts]

> We have geological formations within our territory that are both incredibly stable as well as located within a dry climate.

Even more comical is that it's not like we didn't think of that because we literally do use that space for those reasons. We just also decided to fill the atoll with large amounts of nuclear waste... Seemingly for fun. To give the benefit of the doubt, for transportation logistics reasons.

[ks1723]

From the second wiki article:

“… the soil and the lagoon water surrounding the structure now contain a higher level of radioactivity than the debris of the dome itself, so even in the event of a total collapse, the radiation dose delivered to the local resident population or marine environment should not change significantly.”

This is just insane.

[concordDance]

Why would leaking matter? The ocean will dilute the leakage to irrelevance (recall that there's 4 billion tons of Uranium already in the ocean).

[fc417fc802]

It's a reasonable question. I think the linked wiki article addresses it though. There are at least concerns about ground water contamination and about heavy metals.

If dilution is so straightforward then why wasn't the waste mixed with a large volume of sea water and then dumped far out at sea to begin with? That probably would have been cheaper.

[hulitu]

> Why would leaking matter?

Go and see for yourself. /s

[marliechiller]

> The greater good

Arguably the lesser bad in this case!