VANITY question: Are the Japanese preparing their population for nuclear fallout?

10/08/2006 | etcetera

[etcetera]

Are the Japanese preparing for nuclear fallout from North Korea?

[etcetera]

Anybody know if the Japanese are preparing for nuclear fallout like how Israeli houses are built with sealed rooms to protect against chemical and biological weapons? The Japanese do plan for tsunamis, monitor earthquakes, and hold drills regularly. Have they added the North Korean nuclear threat to that list of preparations?

[dr_who]

Below ground test. Done in an old mineshaft. Shouldn't be any fallout. Probably bad news for the North Korean population though, not that the regime cares a tinker's damn about them.

[SevenofNine]

OH TIGER or American do Japanese have plans???

[DTogo]

No, the Japanese do not have enough space in their homes for fallout shelters, nor are their public shelters for such an event (aside from the subway, which is geared solely for being a subway). Japan is absolutely defenseless (S.O.L.) from a fallout shelter perspective.

[AmericanInTokyo]

The Japanese National Police Agency has set up liasion with foreign ministry and intelligence functions of the Prime Minister's emergency organization. This was announced 30 minutes ago or so.

That tells you something.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Yep. It would be one big cluster****.

[DTogo]

Yep, they'd likely take the tradional "shikata ga nai" (it can't be helped) approach, suffer the losses, and then rebuild. As they did in the 1923 Great Kanto Eathquake and after WWII.

Of course, that's after they join the U.S. in wiping NK off the map.

[Zhang Fei]

Today, Hiroshima and Nagasaki have triple and double their pre-atomic bomb populations respectively. Whatever phobias the Japanese might have about fallout, the actual problems encountered are likely to be one big fizzle.

[AmericanInTokyo]

You certainly know by now. Japanese can hold a lot in, control their temper, take all kinds of crap and harrasment.

And then BAM!!

Something explodes inside and they themselves go ballistic, with little to know advance warning.

They bottled up their resentment of American moves to stop them throughout Asia all through 1939, 40 and 41. And then one December morning.

BAM!

The phrase: Beware the wrath of a patient man.

[Irishguy]

well at the rate their population is shrinking, they wont be there in 50 years anyways....

[sushiman]

Heck ...a lot of Japanese homes don't even have enough space for themselves , never mind a fallout shelter . 99.99% of homes don't even have a basement !

I was just thinking the other day that I am , in a surrealistic modernistic wacko way , re-living the cold war bomb fallout scare of the 50's and early 60's , in Japan in 2006 !

[Dr.Zoidberg]

well at the rate their population is shrinking, they wont be there in 50 years anyways....

Not wanting to redirect the thread, but I have to wonder whether the Japanese people would resist cloning for population support.

I have no clue as to their religious/cultural POV concerning cloning.

That would be one way to maintain their strict limits on immigration while maintaining a working population.

Benefit, Japan stays Japanese and avoids the mohammedan mistakes made in the west.

[Thud]

Only if we use multiple ground bursts taking out the Norks.

[Centurion2000]

No fallout from this one, but I'm sure Japan is about to become a nuclear power in about a week because of this.

[Gradient Vector]

Do you know how many tests have happened inside the United States, above ground? Texas never got sprinkled with fallout, I don't think Japan has to worry.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

No fallout from this one, but I'm sure Japan is about to become a nuclear power in about a week because of this.

I expect they will essentially take the dust covers off and insert the fissile material and bring their arsenal to life.

[Gradient Vector]

What would cloning do? They'd still have to raise the children. They might as well have them the old fashioned way because the sex part is the fun part of making the baby, the raising it is the PITA!

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Well, I suspect that if it happened, there would be large creches raising the cloned children until they were old enough to be on their own and take their place in society.

Think large orphanages.

It's just a thought.

[Gradient Vector]

"Well, I suspect that if it happened, there would be large creches raising the cloned children until they were old enough to be on their own and take their place in society.

Think large orphanages.

It's just a thought."

They wouldn't be normal by any stretch of the imagination. They'd be the crime capital of the world. One of the old soviet satellite nations had a program were to boost their population they banned all contraception, and encouraged women to have as many children as possible, and if they didn't want the children the state would raise them in group homes. Well those children turned out terribly. The video they had of them all lined up in cribs, maybe 100 cribs in a row, all rocking themselves, because they had no one to rock them into calm. It was the worst thing you could imagine.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

I've seen the videos of those poor children, it was purest madness.

But you have to give the Japanese a little credit, they ain't the Ruskies.

There's always a way to shoot holes in any offhand suggestion, but considering the consequences of total population collapse, unexpected and offbeat ideas sometimes have merit.

I'm not a cloning advocate, but it is coming regardless of what governments do. All forms of prohibition fail eventually. It's going to have to be dealt with in a clear and rational way.