Talk:Nuclear War Survival Skills

Blatant Advertisement?

I added the Peacock tag to this article. It sounds a lot too enthusiastic about this book; I don't have enough direct knowledge of the subject, but maybe someone that do could write an article that doesn't sound like an endorsement. It is also clear scouring the book it refers to that it holds views that go beyond those of a technical manual. Guizzy (talk) 03:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it is a follow up to the book Death Survival Skills? Pustelnik (talk) 21:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you please describe what you think is "ad-like"? The book is in the public domain and was printed as a cold war defense manual by a US national laboratory. The description is pretty terse. You may disagree with the content or the time period, but it is a straightforward description of the material. Rearden9 (talk) 16:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Article has been since edited to remove the blatant advertisement. I agree with the removal of the Peacock tag. To see what the article was when I put the tag up, see the version as of 23:34, 8 March 2008Guizzy (talk) 06:03, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

New Article?

I think this article should be expanded to elaborate more on actual survival skills as well as perhaps a directory of other survival books. I think Kearny would approve of the spirit of that action. Either that or there should be another page created. Survivor

Very possibly a good idea, and you need to remove the survival tips you added from this article to one like that since they aren't from Nuclear War Survival Skills. Kearny wouldn't approve of some of the items in the tips, since his research found them to be wrong or unneeded, and his book in particular is designed for those who have not prepared but who have a little more time before they must take shelter. Hga (talk) 12:24, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

(Exerpt from a more detailed comment I left on your talk page): I like where you are going with the "First aid" section. A paragraph for each chapter summarizing the chapters/topics in the book (laden with quotes from the book and references to the book) might be a great way to expand the page. Thoughts? Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 15:36, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

As far as the "directory of other survival books"; I think that would be better as a separate article, especially if there are many of them/several with their own articles. Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 15:36, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I was bold. (probably not the direction you were going in, though) Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 21:32, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Given the quality and correctness (at first glance) of what you added there had better not be any simple reverts! I made some touchups and additions, esp. for the 2001 fifth printing addendum and KFM instruction scaling, and added Appendix C on the KFM plans; may add the other appendices later. Thanks for the great work! Hga (talk) 13:27, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the endorsement! By the way, if you cut-and-paste the reference, remember to change the page number and the URL (there's a dedicated URL for each chapter/appendix/etc) (if applicable). I was on the fence about including appendices; maybe merge all of them under one header... Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 13:38, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Questionable Criticism

While I don't doubt someone said "The primary negative criticism (applied to Nuclear War Survival Skills and three similar books reviewed) was the focus on short term survival (of two weeks or so), and resultant lack of information addressing long term issues.", that's not particularly true. Sure, it focuses on the special unique requirements of nuclear war survival, i.e. protection from radiation, which are primarily short term, but without even reviewing my copy I know the food section goes into quite a bit of detail about long term survival on a diet consisting primarily of grains. Specifically it tells you how to sprout them so you minimize your risks of vitamin deficiency diseases. I'd have to check, but it also probably covers the long term radiation hazard, to wit, don't sleep on the unprotected ground for long time (avoids large doses of whole body radiation from the lingering fallout). And of course after a certain point the survival problem transitions into a general TEOTWAWKI one, not all that different from many other scenarios which are covered elsewhere or just by common sense. Hga (talk) 12:28, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

True enough, but it's not what I'm saying, it's what the source says. And the source says "All four books deal with only short-term survival, two weeks or so until the radiation subsides" (NWSS was one of four books reviewed together). I have attempted a slight rewrite; if you can do better, please do. Similarly, if you can find anything better to add to the reception section ((well-sourced, non-synth) criticism, etc), please add it. There are plenty of guys with blogs or on message-boards talking about NWSS, but none I've so far seen pass WP:RS. In fact, I've seen so few reliable reviews and criticisms, I began to worry about notability. Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 13:51, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. However, if we know (granted, through WP:OR, although in this case it's just reading the original) that a source is plain wrong, what compels us to include it in the article? I would also note the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a notoriously and extremely biased source, and 1983 was during a period of particularly strong reaction by that crowd to any suggestions that nuclear war was survivable though any method. E.g. SDI was formally proposed in the spring of that year, the first Pershing II MRBMs were deployed in West Germany in the fall and the European deployed Ground Launched Cruise Missiles reached "initial operating capability" during the year, the self-evidently bogus TTAPS nuclear winter paper was published in Science at the end of that year, etc. In short, Ronald Reagan was the first US President to decide to destroy the "Evil Empire" instead of "contain" it and the reaction was ... spirited.

BTW, I'd have to double check, but as I recall the praise in Life After Doomsday or another of his books is so strong that the author says "read NWSS before you read my book". Hga (talk) 12:39, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I expect that, now that the word "claim" has been added (which I can agree with), it can no longer be considered plain wrong.

Biased? Usually. This is made obvious by reading the reference, which is why a link is provided. That is why I encourage the addition of anything else that can be found (so long as it meets the standard criteria for inclusion). I created the Reception section expecting notable recognition (criticism or acclaim) to be easy to find (as it would be, for any notable book); the fact that it stood empty for so long shows how wrong I was. All I could find that was "reliable" enough for inclusion is what's there. And, in this case, potentially biased reception is better then none (I already pointed out why apparent lack of notable recognition is not good). Simply put, if you can find other reviews of equal or greater encyclopedic worth, I'll gladly minimize the exposure of the one source already there. Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 13:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey, when NNWS was first published in 1979 the conclusion that "the government is virtually incapable of acting intelligently" with regards to nuclear war survival was utterly sound; I mean, abandoning Civil Defense for "crisis relocation" because it was cheaper was "stark raving mad" (and I'm sure was entered into the column by that name in [Petr Beckmann|Access to Energy]). I'd need to check some timelines, but a lot of weird stuff happened or was alleged to have happened, and at one point the library Kerney and his team build at Oak Ridge was saved from deliberate destruction (Clinton era for that???).

More seriously, upon reading it I doubt BAS review establishes notable recognition for NWSS, perhaps defeating that purpose for including it in the article. I base this on the two nothingburger books coverd and the basis of the article, which was more about this heretical phenomena of people thinking they could survive one, with these books as evidence of that, and why all this was not just wrong but evil. Perhaps better than nothing, though, and picking the two very best books at the time (perhaps the best to date) probably means something, and the author did acknowledge their seriousness and thorough organization.

The way I plan to address the cited review being incorrect will also add serious value to the article: NWSS has valuable and unique in my experience coverage of long term survival issues when a society is forced to "down gear", e.g. to a diet of mostly grain. (E.g. from memory, sprout them for vitamins, and still, you might not get enough Vitamin C. Children require some fats to thrive.) Previously Kerney was a heavy duty, deadly serious WWII plus and minus survival expert (see his article and beyond that the very impressive Jungle Snafus ... and Remedies book), so he included all sorts of things he learned, even including a bit of "first do no harm" medical advice. Adding details on that will self-evidently refute the "short term" (literally "two weeks or so until the radiation survives") claim and help anyone looking for advice for any of the many current concerns about long term survival (an EMP attack, the eternal and not ahistorical worries about economic collapse, and dare I mention zombies? :-). Hga (talk) 15:37, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

(Note: the following was composed at the same time you added your above 13:45, 16 October 2012 comment; I will reply to the latter in a while (Real Life calls), you are most certainly right about the need; unfortunately I don't think the BAS review really addresses it.)

There's no substitute for reading the original source (which through Google Books and the rights holders (I assume) is available without restriction):

You know it's bad sign when the 2nd and last sentence in the very first paragraph of the section is just plain wrong, "Yet aside from a brief flare of interest in the 1950s, civil defense for nuclear war has not, until recently, attracted much attention from either the government or private citizens." You see, in 1969 plus or minus a year my mom became a Civil Defense Block Mother (I still have the sign we put on the outside of our house) and she, my sister and I (me in 2nd or 3rd grade, sister a couple of years younger) even participated in a local fallout shelter drill. That's what got me started on nuclear war survival.... It was only later that we really gave up on nuclear war Civil Defense, the creation of FEMA was part of that (and I'm not going to try to defense that ill-begotten organization, I mean, the whole change to "crisis relocation" was driven by the simple fact that it was cheap). (And if you know your pre-WWII and WWII history there's nothing new to the whole argument, "the bomber will always get through" and all that.)

OK, moving on to page 29, the review of books: at least they have the right (latest edition) of Life After Doomsday and include NWSS, they didn't do a strawman by picking entirely inconsequential books (I've never heard of the other 2 and I can see why). The first paragraph gives away the bias of the article; after reading that I see no reason we should cite it. And shortly after that is the flatly wrong claim, refuted by the previous discussion of material from the other 2 books (!!!), that "All four books deal only with short-term survival, two weeks or so until the radiation subsides."

Before reading this I was hoping some compromise could be made between "short" and "long" term survival, since Life After Doomsday and NWSS really only deal with short and "medium" term survival, and they most certainly go into great detail on the latter (NWSS at least on food, Life After Doomsday as you might gather from the title is equally or more concerned with medium term survival). At best the author didn't more than glance at the latter book, at worse, she is grossly misrepresenting them, and the tone of the review suggests how to weigh that question.

Read the last paragraph, the author believes the very concept is not merely wrong but evil. It begins with "Is the behavior advocated by these books dangerous? Yes. It is behavior bereft of any sense of the meaning of life. There are no values. No morality...." and ends with "[...] the only indisputable scientific fact is that no one will die from nuclear war if there is no nuclear war", a curious statement from a historian and a rather crabbed viewpoint of whole situation. E.g. the continued prosecution of the Cold War was hardly cheap in human lives: this issue of the BAS has a long and detailed cover article on the ongoing war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the Left had just gotten around to accepting the Cambodian genocide, the Gulag and similar systems outside of the Soviet Union were still in operation, etc. (Note that one of the inputs to quickly finishing WWII in the Pacific was that Imperial Japan was killing residents of the reminder of their Great East Asian Co-Prosperity sphere at 6 figures/month (they killed an estimated quarter million Chinese in their hunt for one Doolittle bomber crew).)

Anyway, I see no reason to include material that starts from the viewpoint that the concept of the book being reviewed is evil and that is self-contradictory on the main point cited in this article. And while I'm no Wikilawyer surely there must be some policy pertaining to a review like this that doesn't accept the premise of the reviewed item in the first place. At the very least, if we must keep this citation in the article, we should mention that the author also thinks the very premise is evil. And I can within a year or two dig up other reviews (most of my books are current packed). Hga (talk) 14:05, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

You don't need to convince me that BAS is biased. But, it's still considered a reliable source, and I believe the summary derived from it is sufficiently WP:NPOV.

The closest thing to a "policy pertaining to a review like this" that I know of is: WP:RS#Statements_of_opinion. As a reception section of a book would be expected to be mostly statements of opinion (such as reviews), this seems the best to go by. It seems that contentious opinion can most definitely be cited, but should be denoted with an "inline qualifier". In the current (15:08, 16 October 2012 (UTC)) reception section, all opinions seem to contain the necessary inline qualifiers (ex. "claimed that" "assumed to be") which mitigate any bias.

My position remains: I cannot support getting rid of what's there until something better can be presented. (And I truly am sorry to hear your library was blown across the Midwest, but at least a few of those publications must be available online; list some titles). Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 15:08, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with your 2nd paragraph, and I'm reasonably satisfied after I added the qualifier and with the self-evident "refutations" I plan to add. And I reluctantly agree with keeping the citation, at least for now (I evolved to that viewpoint as I researched and wrote my contributions to this talk page today, sorry if that wasn't clear). As for the Joplin tornado, I lucked out, my apartment was trashed but not breached. Lost about 10% of my books due to my ceiling becoming the new roof and all the rain that followed (a lot of luck, some plastic and my policy of keeping most off the floor due to the building having sprinklers mitigated that) and replaced almost all of those I lost that I cared about. I bring all this up because here within spitting distance of Tornado Alley---this is the third major tornado in my lifetime, although by far the worse in every way---we're deadly serious to this day about Civil Defense, which is no doubt why we had an active Federally associated nuclear war etc. Civil Defense program as late as 1970. Hga (talk) 15:51, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I gather you're planning to add this information ('self-evident "refutations"') to somewhere other than the reception section. If so, good idea! (if not, it would probably violate WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, etc). Just be sure to mind WP:SYNTH, and remember, this article is about the book, not nuclear war survival in general (although Nuclear warfare#Survival is still badly in need of expansion). Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 16:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Exactly; e.g. the section on the food chapter is two scant sentences; I want to extend that with an overview of what the book tells you to do and indicate the detail in which it tells you how to do those things (e.g. all the way down to how to construct an improvised grain grinder out of three pieces of pipe so you can then cook grain mush, it doesn't assume infrastructure for baking bread; hmmm, that very simple example would work). Some of this will be self-evidently for the long term (sprouting for vitamins, fats for kids), which thereby implicitly refutes the "short term" claim of the review. And perhaps later do the same for other sections that have generally applicable survival advice. Hga (talk) 17:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The primary reason for the shortness is to avoid drifting into WP:SYNTH (that's also why much of the content is direct quotes from the book). That said, some degree of expansion probably couldn't hurt (it will still be more verifiable then the plot summaries in the articles of many works of fiction). On the other hand, the standard rule of length for a "synopsis" is "should not exceed 900 words", and we're already at a thousand. Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 17:57, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Good point about the length (I hadn't known that, and I can generally agree with it), but it wouldn't be hard to argue with a straight face that this book falls under the exception of "unless there is a specific reason such as being complicated". Although the book may not be complicated in that sense; it would be a lot better to expand on how the material in the book was field tested, unlike e.g. the typical draw up inside the Beltway CD shelter illustrations we saw way back when that would kill their inhabitants due to the heat build up from inadequate ventilation. I'll think about this some more. Hga (talk) 19:00, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

More food for thought: WP:PLOTSUMMARIZE recommends even shorter synopses; "how the material in the book was field tested" could be worth a separate section; that would solve the length issue. Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 19:20, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Again, I think a lot of the information gathered for this may be useful (or even better) @ Nuclear warfare#Survival. In fact, if enough references can be found, maybe we can split into a new Nuclear war survival article to "elaborate more on actual survival skills" and serve as "a directory of other survival books" as Survivor so vehemently desired above. Admittedly, the primary reason I think this would be notable as a separate article is the controversy, eg: "Is nuclear war survivable?", "Should we even prepare?", "Does preparation lead to provocation?" etc; but there's no reason it couldn't do two things. Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 18:32, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Wish I could justify the time to do much to help that, but I'm of an age and condition where I depend on modern medicine, so my long term isn't that long and my plate is insanely full for the foreseeable future (one reason those books are still packed up). But I'm game to help a little; I certainly can provide a bibliography (when I open that box of books, which is marked!). Hga (talk) 19:00, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I've already cobbled together a rough template, I might be able to work up enough substance for a live article within a week or two, if I can find enough references. Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 19:12, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Cold War Science

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 6 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Banquent1873, Clementine1434 (article contribs).