Nuclear weapons test at Bikini Atoll (U.S. Army, 1946)
When I look back on it, it was quite quite odd that so many of us, back in the benighted 20
th century, accepted the threat of nuclear war (thousands of nuclear weapons perpetually poised for launch) as normal. Just part of the background noise for daily life. Anyone who expressed concern about living on the knife edge of catastrophe was probably either some sort of political extremist or some sort of unhinged commie sex pervert.
But…even if all-out nuclear war were impossible, nuclear blackmail wasn’t. Some nation, NGO, or highly motivated individual could build bombs and threaten to use them if they didn’t get what they wanted. (Nice planet you have here; shame if anything happened to it…) At one time there was a fair bit of worry that this would happen; then (at least as far I can tell using Google Ngram) people sank into numb acceptance that there was nothing they could do to avoid doom. (Am I wrong here? You oldbi
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On a recent trip to Idaho I listened to the book Alongside Night (and from Audible):
It’s the near future and America is in trouble. Hyperinflation and disorder reign in the towns and cities of the nation.
Alongside Night tells the story of Elliot Vreeland, son of Nobel Prize-winning economist Dr. Martin Vreeland. When his family goes missing and while being shadowed by federal agents, Elliot, with the help of his mysterious companion Lorimer, explore the underground world of the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre to rescue them. It’s a story of romance, intrigue, action, adventure, and exhilarating science fiction thrills.