Offtopic discussion moved from "youtube channel suggestions"

Thank you all for the suggestions, I'll check all of them now!

john555 Wrote:If this woman is voluntarily visiting hot spots like Chernobyl the government of her country should make her pay for her own medical costs.

I'm not expert in the field so I can not say it for sure, but reading various comments on her videos it seems that the risk she takes is not so much dangerous as it might seems. For what I understand (but I may be wrong) there are things much more dangerous like drinking alcohol, smoking, bad diet abits and so on. We can say the same thing for those people too... why they don't pay their own medical costs? But there is to say that those people too pay taxes, their family does and so on... So that statement must count for each one of those people... So maybe it's a matter of a wrong economical system as a whole.

No intent to start a flame xD I'm just saying that if someone feels something is unfair, this feeling of unfairness must be expressed in its totality. I say this because I keep hearing the same thing about deaths by drugs-abuse. "Why must I pay their medical costs with my taxes?". Then you look at their facebook profile and you see they are overweight, smokers, drinkers and maybe they drive while drunk and they do unprotected sex with prostitutes. xD Well, why I must pay for their bad habits? xD

I see many high-level businessmen which are cocaine users. But they are even in the top 100 taxpayers so... xD

john555 Wrote:If this woman is voluntarily visiting hot spots like Chernobyl the government of her country should make her pay for her own medical costs.

Visiting Chernobyl doesn't raise your chance of medical conditions (or, at least, not more than other activities perceived as generally 'safe'). I'm sick of people talking about radiation that clearly have read absolutely nothing about it.

Yes the average smoker would get 100x the radiation dose that she would from doing what she's doing does every single year.

Tzadeck Wrote:

john555 Wrote:If this woman is voluntarily visiting hot spots like Chernobyl the government of her country should make her pay for her own medical costs.

Visiting Chernobyl doesn't raise your chance of medical conditions (or, at least, not more than other activities perceived as generally 'safe'). I'm sick of people talking about radiation that clearly have read absolutely nothing about it.

Yes, eating 10 bananas(>1 μSv) or flying from new york to los angeles(40 μSv) would expose you to more radiation than spending an hour in most areas of chernobyl(~1 μSv/hour). And of course, you are getting about 1 μSv/day of 'radiation' just from living on earth.

yogert909 Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:

john555 Wrote:If this woman is voluntarily visiting hot spots like Chernobyl the government of her country should make her pay for her own medical costs.

Visiting Chernobyl doesn't raise your chance of medical conditions (or, at least, not more than other activities perceived as generally 'safe'). I'm sick of people talking about radiation that clearly have read absolutely nothing about it.

Yes, eating 10 bananas(>1 μSv) or flying from new york to los angeles(40 μSv) would expose you to more radiation than spending an hour in most areas of chernobyl(~1 μSv/hour). And of course, you are getting about 1 μSv/day of 'radiation' just from living on earth.

yogert909 thank you for those details!

I wonder how all of this tanslates to Fukushima... If you look at her channel she did some analysis of algae from Fukushima and she end up saying there are no increased radiation in that sample. Then she asked to send her some car filters to see what there is inside them and to be able to understand the radiation level on the environment. But apart from this she didn't add anything about Fukushima. Maybe some of you which live in Japan could help her xD
I read some paper about fish and algae on Fukushima by the governament, and it seems the situation is not so much alarming. Some says the official data are not impartial but if there is something that governament can not hide, it is radiations. Also I've read some students did their own indipendent researches. I wonder what were their results!

cophnia61 Wrote:

yogert909 Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:Visiting Chernobyl doesn't raise your chance of medical conditions (or, at least, not more than other activities perceived as generally 'safe'). I'm sick of people talking about radiation that clearly have read absolutely nothing about it.

Yes, eating 10 bananas(>1 μSv) or flying from new york to los angeles(40 μSv) would expose you to more radiation than spending an hour in most areas of chernobyl(~1 μSv/hour). And of course, you are getting about 1 μSv/day of 'radiation' just from living on earth.

yogert909 thank you for those details!

I wonder how all of this tanslates to Fukushima... If you look at her channel she did some analysis of algae from Fukushima and she end up saying there are no increased radiation in that sample. Then she asked to send her some car filters to see what there is inside them and to be able to understand the radiation level on the environment. But apart from this she didn't add anything about Fukushima. Maybe some of you which live in Japan could help her xD
I read some paper about fish and algae on Fukushima by the governament, and it seems the situation is not so much alarming. Some says the official data are not impartial but if there is something that governament can not hide, it is radiations. Also I've read some students did their own indipendent researches. I wonder what were their results!

Except for the area immediately surrounding the damaged cooling tanks, there were no areas with significantly affected radiation levels.
There were a lot of conspiracy theorists that were claiming that California was being affected, but it was complete bs, and all their 'data' had nothing to do with radiation (they used some weather map and claimed it was the flow of radioactive water coming off the coast of Japan towards California).
While it's unlikely you heard that exact conspiracy theory, the idea that dangerous levels of radiation were spreading far from the reactor got spread all around. Only workers in the areas directly around the affected reactor were required to take radiation precautions after the damage had been assessed.

... And of course, I don't have any sources, because I never save them. I do remember seeing a video about misused map on Thunderf00t's YouTube channel though, that probably had related sources tacked on it.

Wasn't there zero deaths related to radiation in Fukushima or am I incorrect?

kameden Wrote:Wasn't there zero deaths related to radiation in Fukushima or am I incorrect?

Yeah, they we lucky that there were no deaths from acute radiation sickness. There probably will be deaths due to radiation from Fukushima, but of course it's hard to tell how many. In the long run somewhere in the range of 5-400 deaths from cancer. The World Health Organization only said that health effects from radiation are 'likely to be low.'

If I remember correctly, there's really no way to determine how many deaths will occur due to cancer from nuclear accidents on this scale since the numbers are too low to show up statistically. Some people believe that the numbers are incredibly low, even in the single digits, since the body can repair some damage from low levels of radiation (and because when thyroid cancer does occur it's rarely fatal; leukemia may occur but is rare). Other believe that deaths due to radiation are probably linear (the 'linear no-threshold model'), so even small levels of radiation like at Fukushima are likely to cause deaths in proportion to the amount of radiation released.

However, studies from Chernobyl showed that most health effects were psychological. A lot of people felt as if they would not live long, and therefore engaged in risky behavior (for example, STD rates and drug use were higher amount exposed people), or had anxiety and depression. Or, in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, survivors were mistreated and had trouble marrying and living a normal life because people thought they would have deformed children or were contaminated and dangerous. Which is why it's so important not to say stupid shit about radiation when you don't know anything about it.

Tzadeck Wrote:Yeah, they we lucky that there were no deaths from acute radiation sickness. There probably will be deaths due to radiation from Fukushima, but of course it's hard to tell how many.

Scientists already did tell how many: the number is zero. The best scientific estimate of how many deaths there will be due to radiation from Fukushima is zero. That includes the actual workers at the plant.

In fact, had people without infant children been allowed back into their homes as soon as the reactor was under control (which was a few weeks after the tsunami), the number would've still been zero. The only people who could conceivably face a slightly higher risk of cancer from the radiation levels around Fukushima are infants. No one else. The exclusion zone is an over-reaction that has caused more damage than the actual accident ever could.

Tzadeck Wrote:In the long run somewhere in the range of 5-400 deaths from cancer.

Oh yeah? What kind of cancer? And would you mind specifying the exact levels of radiation exposure necessary to develop that type of cancer, or to be at a higher risk for that cancer (and by how much), as well as how many people have been exposed to those levels of radiation?

Tzadeck Wrote:The World Health Organization only said that health effects from radiation are 'likely to be low.'

The WHO were vague right after the disaster, but since then they got pretty specific. The World Health Organization is one of the many organizations that have clearly and unambiguously stated that they don't anticipate an increase in cancer rates among people living in the area. Only the 167 workers at the plant have slightly higher risk of cancer (but the extra risk is so slight, that most likely none of them will end up dying as a result - hence my estimate of zero deaths).

Anyone is welcome to read their report, on their official website. It's been around for two years now:
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pu...t_2013/en/

Radiation is only dangerous in high doses. The claims of any deaths from mild radiation exposure are junk science at best.

yogert909 Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:

john555 Wrote:If this woman is voluntarily visiting hot spots like Chernobyl the government of her country should make her pay for her own medical costs.

Visiting Chernobyl doesn't raise your chance of medical conditions (or, at least, not more than other activities perceived as generally 'safe'). I'm sick of people talking about radiation that clearly have read absolutely nothing about it.

Yes, eating 10 bananas(>1 μSv) or flying from new york to los angeles(40 μSv) would expose you to more radiation than spending an hour in most areas of chernobyl(~1 μSv/hour). And of course, you are getting about 1 μSv/day of 'radiation' just from living on earth.

I read an article once (I believe it's in a tour guidebook; I'll check which one and report back here) that warned the reader not to be fooled into thinking that just because there are organized tours of Chernobyl that it's safe to go there.

This is from wikipedia:

Chernobyl city after the disaster[edit]

Chernobyl was evacuated soon after the disaster. The base of operations for the administration and monitoring of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was moved from Pripyat to Chernobyl. Chernobyl currently contains offices for the State Agency of Ukraine on the Exclusion Zone Management and accommodation for visitors. Apartment blocks have been re-purposed as accommodation for employees of the State Agency. Because of regulations implemented to limit exposure, workers in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone are limited in the number of days per week or weeks per month they stay in Chernobyl. Many types of animals live there now and the city has become overgrown.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Scientists already did tell how many: the number is zero. The best scientific estimate of how many deaths there will be due to radiation from Fukushima is zero. That includes the actual workers at the plant.

In fact, had people without infant children been allowed back into their homes as soon as the reactor was under control (which was a few weeks after the tsunami), the number would've still been zero. The only people who could conceivably face a slightly higher risk of cancer from the radiation levels around Fukushima are infants. No one else. The exclusion zone is an over-reaction that has caused more damage than the actual accident ever could.

(...)
Oh yeah? What kind of cancer? And would you mind specifying the exact levels of radiation exposure necessary to develop that type of cancer, or to be at a higher risk for that cancer (and by how much), as well as how many people have been exposed to those levels of radiation?

(...)
The WHO were vague right after the disaster, but since then they got pretty specific. The World Health Organization is one of the many organizations that have clearly and unambiguously stated that they don't anticipate an increase in cancer rates among people living in the area. Only the 167 workers at the plant have slightly higher risk of cancer (but the extra risk is so slight, that most likely none of them will end up dying as a result - hence my estimate of zero deaths).

Anyone is welcome to read their report, on their official website. It's been around for two years now:
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pu...t_2013/en/

Radiation is only dangerous in high doses. The claims of any deaths from mild radiation exposure are junk science at best.

You're probably right that I should have given the number as 0-400. I should also mention that most scientists who do think there will be deaths from cancer put the number a lot lower than 400, more like 100-150.

All we know is that the numbers aren't high enough to manifest themselves in a measurable way. I'm not sure why you automatically think that means zero, and that you know better than all the scientists who believe in the linear no-threshold model. Or to be more blunt: you're not a f*cking scientists, so I don't really care about your opinion as much as there's, nor your opinion about what junk science is. If I'm wrong and you have a Ph.D in science, just let me know.

Tzadeck Wrote:All we know is that the numbers aren't high enough to manifest themselves in a measurable way. I'm not sure why you automatically think that means zero, and that you know better than all the scientists who believe in the linear no-threshold model. Or to be more blunt: you're not a f*cking scientist so I don't really care about your opinion as much as there's, nor your opinion about what junk science is.

You shouldn't trust anyone. You should verify. All you'd need is to learn what science is, and then do a little research. A few hours' work at most. It's not the theory of relativity, it's a fairly basic topic.

Spend those few hours, and then you'll learn a couple of facts:

1. the linear no-threshold model is an unverifiable proposition.
2. unverifiable propositions don't belong in science.

Tzadeck Wrote:If I'm wrong and you have a Ph.D in science, just let me know.

That's just sad. You have a brain. Use it. Don't go by what degree the person telling you things has. It's not gonna work out for you.

Stansfield123 Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:All we know is that the numbers aren't high enough to manifest themselves in a measurable way. I'm not sure why you automatically think that means zero, and that you know better than all the scientists who believe in the linear no-threshold model. Or to be more blunt: you're not a f*cking scientist so I don't really care about your opinion as much as there's, nor your opinion about what junk science is.

You shouldn't trust anyone. You should verify. All you'd need is to learn what science is, and then do a little research. A few hours' work at most. It's not the theory of relativity, it's a fairly basic topic.

Spend those few hours, and then you'll learn a couple of facts:

1. the linear no-threshold model is an unverifiable proposition.
2. unverifiable propositions don't belong in science.

Tzadeck Wrote:If I'm wrong and you have a Ph.D in science, just let me know.

That's just sad. You have a brain. Use it. Don't go by what degree the person telling you things has. It's not gonna work out for you.

I really hate talking to you.

Tzadeck Wrote:I really hate talking to you.

Then why are you continuing to do it?

kameden Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:I really hate talking to you.

Then why are you continuing to do it?

I'm not. It would have taken time to respond to his post, or to explain to him why I'm not going to respond. It takes virtually no time to tell him that I don't like talking to him. Problem solved.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Spend those few hours, and then you'll learn a couple of facts:

1. the linear no-threshold model is an unverifiable proposition.
2. unverifiable propositions don't belong in science.

Of course it's verifiable given enough good data. Why do you say it is not verifiable?

[Zgarbas]

Not in the mood to magically become an expert on radiation thanks to google since that would most likely just turn me into a demagogue who thinks they understand more than they actually do.

I can't check my sources right now since I had print versions, sorry (so take this with a grain of salt), but I read a survey in Asahi that stated there were 3 times more kids <7 years old with cancer in the past 5 years in fukushima than there were before. And didn't they withdraw a lot of Japanese tea off the market in March since it had higher radiation levels than international safety regulations allow?

Nothing wrong with using google to get information as long as you are careful of your sources.

As for radiation, I've learned most of what I know because of an interest in civil defence [no survivalist, just an interest]. I got my information from books years before google, and a bit of time before the WWW and even before I got my first internet account [90-91]. Look outside. See that dirt. I am older than the dirt. BRB gotta drive some damn kids from my front lawn, it's what I get for making really good milkshakes I guess.

Anyhow, I'll side with those who say that a lot of the radiation claims are over stated. There seems to be a set of people who are automatically against many things technological [well not anything but still] like cell phones, nuclear power, GMO, vaccinations etc and also have a knee jerk reaction against anything western [Israel, NATO but not Warsaw Pact nukes, etc].

Here is an interesting article from Scientific American.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-...lion-more/

I should admit, I found it via google therefore it must be wrong.

Everyone sees the obvious but miss out on what is not seen. Nuclear power displaces power gains from fossil fuels which pollute.
A variant of the broken window fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of...ken_window
Which must be wrong because I found it via google even though I read Bastiat before google was a thing.

Zgarbas Wrote:Not in the mood to magically become an expert on radiation thanks to google since that would most likely just turn me into a demagogue who thinks they understand more than they actually do.

I can't check my sources right now since I had print versions, sorry (so take this with a grain of salt), but I read a survey in Asahi that stated there were 3 times more kids <7 years old with cancer in the past 5 years in fukushima than there were before. And didn't they withdraw a lot of Japanese tea off the market in March since it had higher radiation levels than international safety regulations allow?

Hmm, I tried to look this up, but found nothing. Generally the cancer associated with nuclear accidents among children is thyroid cancer, and I found a few sources putting the number of 'suspected' thyroid cancers among the normal base level as 16 (a jump from 59 to 75), with only 33 of the 75 total being confirmed as cancer. (This is news from a year ago, though) And that's after starting a program to monitor all the children of Fukushima for thyroid cancer, which would cause a higher rate of diagnosis even if no cases were due to radiation. So, the monitoring program itself, and Fukushima Medical University, both said the increase was not likely due to Fukushima, and I agree with them.

This all makes sense even if Fukushima is worse than we thought, because it usually takes more than three years for cancers from radiation exposure to develop.

The last article I read predicted about 130 or so early deaths due to radiation from Fukushima. That could be optimistic or pessimistic, but the number should be small. The Fukushima reactors were much safer than the Chernobyl designs.

Quote:the linear no-threshold model is an unverifiable proposition.

It's easily verified with enough data in support of it. How could it not be verifiable? It's a simple and measurable phenomenon.

Hi guys, I lived in Fukushima for 4 years, and did my effing homework on radiation. Any increase in cancer rates is very much likely to be negligible. It's total bullsh*t to think you can compare outcomes from Chernobyl and Fukushima. For one, the reactors were totally different. Chernobyl reactors had next to no shielding on them, hence large amounts of radiation were able to spread far and wide. Fukushima's reactors had 3 layers of shielding, therefore the spread amount was orders of magnitude lower. How do I know that? Well the nice people at MIT ran a wonderful blog full of very detailed information on the reactors and what was going on. Wish more "journalists" would have read it.

Also, another thing in Fukushima's favour is the reactor area is surrounded by 3 mountain ranges, making it harder for the wind to spread the radiation very far. The higher levels are almost exclusively contained around the plant.

Oh, and another thing, every school in Fukushima purchased its own geiger counter in the days after the accident. They all measured the radiation levels around their grounds and in their classrooms every day. The data from those measurements accords well with other measurements you can find online from various GOs and NGOs.

Fukushima is a massive prefecture (3rd biggest in Japan), and 90% of it is perfectly safe. In fact, if you live over 4000ft above sea level, why not drop into Fukushima, and experience less radiation than you would at home, eh?

But hey, if you're all too scared, lazy, and stupid to bother doing your homework on radiation from reputable sources, go ahead and stay the f away from Japan and Fukushima, because we certainly don't need you arsewipes around here.

Have a nice day.

Oh, and no, I will not reply any further, I'm sick and tired from the 4.5 years of having to educate people about radiation. If you're too lazy to do it yourself, that's your effing problem.

ktcgx Wrote:It's total bullsh*t to think you can compare outcomes from Chernobyl and Fukushima. For one, the reactors were totally different. Chernobyl reactors had next to no shielding on them, hence large amounts of radiation were able to spread far and wide. Fukushima's reactors had 3 layers of shielding, therefore the spread amount was orders of magnitude lower.

Not to mention chernobyl's reactor had graphite control rods, which caught fire and effectively turned the reactor into a giant dirty bomb. Agreed. Totally different.

kctgx, thanks for chiming in. You probably know more about Fukushima than the rest of us put together.

[Zgarbas]

While I understand that things are personal for you, if you could not be rude and insult people, that would be great.

Anyone (e.g. me, your local social scientist) who learns about radiation after 2 hours of googling really is nothing more a demagogue who has enough information to think they know what they're talking about even if they don't. Sometimes they're right, sometimes wrong, but a full working picture is simply impossible to obtain if you do not already have a background to support it. I wasn't trying to insult anyone, it was a response to Stansfield's comment that omg anyone who did not google the same things that I did is an idiot, you can learn science in 2 hours (you can tell someone is not a scientist when they talk about science so casually). But sure, be flippant, I am sure it will help people perceive your post as an objective share of information.

Somewhat tangentially related: I just remembered this podcast from a while back about an engineer working at Fukushima at the time of the meltdown. It's well worth a listen.

yogert909 Wrote:Of course it's verifiable given enough good data. Why do you say it is not verifiable?

Because that data doesn't exist. Nor will it exist in the future.