
The vision of nuclear holocaust in Threads (1984) remains visceral and urgent - lermontov
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/04/10/worst-case-scenario/
======
s_kilk
For fans of Threads, (or for anyone who just doesn't want to sleep tonight), I
found a wonderful piece of Nuclear Fiction last week: A fake BBC news report
tracking an escalating conflict between NATO and Russian forces.

"Nuclear Attack Emergency Broadcast - Live Breaking News from London
(fiction)" \-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA)

It's the only piece of fiction that has made me feel deathly ill in quite the
same way Threads did.

[EDIT] also, those familiar with The Day After should watch out for a little
easter-egg toward the end.

[DOUBLE-EDIT] I'm just re-watching the end now and even with full knowledge
that it is fiction, the Attack Warning Red sound is still absolutely
horrifying.

~~~
hutzlibu
Anybody really worried ... should probably know, that russia actually
decreased their military budget lately. And that US Military budget alone is
allmost 10x higher than russias ...

~~~
BrandonMarc
Russia decreased their budget ... leaving them fewer options to choose from if
things get dicey ... making nukes a choice they would be +x% more likely to
make.

Even for tiny values of "x" I still can't call this a decided improvement on
the nuclear risk.

~~~
hutzlibu
Thats true, but they would not attack then in the first place, like they did
in the video. And given that allmost no one from the mainstream media wrote
about the budget cut and that they rather make fictive attack dokus, makes me
allmost count this piece as propaganda.

------
throwaway12201
People don't seem to understand how close to the edge of disaster we still
are. The message in movies like Threads and The Day After are quite relevant
today, despite how impossible they may seem. While an intentional war may be
less likely today, the danger of an accidental one is just as real.

~~~
anovikov
The scale of potential disaster is much lower now than then. We have many
times fewer nukes, and counterforce is supposed to work a lot better for the
attacking side leaving even less to be thrown on cities.

~~~
vkou
It will only kill high tens of millions of people now, instead of hundreds!

It's an improvement, but not much of one.

Also, consider the aftermath of nuclear war. Consider how many people live in
cities. Consider that cities are not at all equipped to survive without
massive, and consistent shipments of food, water, and electricity.

~~~
pmoriarty
We'd be lucky if billions, not millions, of people didn't die in an all-out
nuclear war between the US and Russia. It's still debatable whether any humans
anywhere in the world would survive.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _It 's still debatable whether any humans anywhere in the world would
> survive_

Is it?

~~~
thatcherc
Long term, yeah. The ensuing nuclear winter would effect the entire planet
much more than was thought in the early Cold War [1], which would absolutely
affect food production. Add in the fallout, and your long-term forecast looks
pretty bad.

[1] -
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1505.00246.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1505.00246.pdf)

------
njharman
I was born in 1970. I grew up (~12 to 17-19) expecting to not live into
adulthood. It wasn't always on my mind, but I thought there was pretty high
likelihood of nuclear war. It was pervasive meme in the art(movies/books/etc)
and news of the time. And nobody expected to survive, era of "duck and cover"
were long over.

~~~
Diederich
I'm the same age as you, and I grew up in Southern California.

Most of my peers didn't expect to survive to be adults, as you said.

We weren't generally freaked out about it. We laughed grimly when we had
earthquake and nuclear drills in school, both of which consisted of the same
thing: getting under our wooden desks. We were completely surrounded by
primary nuclear targets. A major oil refinery was a couple of miles away.

I believe it's safe to argue that the most dangerous time in the cold war was
in the first half of the 1980s. The Cuban Missile crisis in 1962 was a _very_
close call, but we were really on and off the edge for most of 10 years in the
late 70s and early 80s.

Yet most everyone feels far less safe today than we felt then.

How we _feel_ about safety is rarely connected to how safe we actually are.

I believe that unlimited information and communications is making us insane.
How many tens of thousands were killed by gas attacks in the late 70s and
early 80s in the middle east? We knew it was happening, but we didn't see it,
as we do today.

I won't go into this theory more now, I've posted it a number of times in
greater length, so it's available in my post history.

~~~
secfirstmd
Absolutely, saver rattling Les to the Able Archer fears.

And then you had the false nuclear alert incident in 1983.

Thank hell we have a man like Stanislav Petrov. This guy is a hero, he may
literally have saved the world from a nuclear war.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov)

------
loudmax
I've read enough about Threads to know that I absolutely do not want to see
it. Just reading the story in the article makes me queasy. The article calls
The Day After "reassuring and sanitized," but from what I remember, that was
something of a nightmare.

The movie Testament also came out around this time and it's often brought up
in the same context as The Day After and Threads. Watching Testament felt like
a gut punch.

I wouldn't tell anyone else not to watch Threads. (How could I? I've never
seen it.) But if you are going to watch it, you should brace yourself
emotionally. If your idea of a post nuclear apocalypse is driving around in
cool cars like Mad Max in the Road Warrior, you probably should watch Threads.

~~~
jghn
As a kid Threads terrified me in a way which still resonates. I never
understood what the big deal about Te Day After. When I watch it now I
actually find it somewhat amusing. Threads, not so much

Considering the relative difference in our reaction to TDA I'd concur you
shouldn't watch Threads. It's _that_ much more intense.

------
marchenko
Just being reminded that this film exists has put me in a bleak mood. It makes
"The Road" look like "The Wizard of Oz".

~~~
tptacek
The Road is considerably worse than Threads.

~~~
marchenko
I think what gives Threads extra psychological heft is the fact that it opens
with a very long sequence of everyday life pre-bomb, which grounds the film in
reality. Because the cause of the disaster is unknown, it is easier to shrug
off "The Road" as an alternate universe. The events in "The Road" are more
awful, but less immediate. Now that I think about it, that grounding also
enhances the "Wizard of Oz", in a different way.

------
bouvin
Another British nuclear war favourite would be When the Wind Blows, which is
probably one of the saddest things, I have ever watched.

~~~
RantyDave
The original was a book ([https://www.amazon.com/When-Wind-Blows-Raymond-
Briggs/dp/014...](https://www.amazon.com/When-Wind-Blows-Raymond-
Briggs/dp/0140094199/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492037172&sr=1-3&keywords=when+the+wind+blows)).
It works better when preceded by "Gentleman Jim"
([https://www.amazon.com/Gentleman-Jim-Raymond-
Briggs/dp/18972...](https://www.amazon.com/Gentleman-Jim-Raymond-
Briggs/dp/1897299362))

It was an interesting time to grow up in.

------
TheOtherHobbes
Even after decades, this is still the single most terrifying thing I have ever
watched.

~~~
mcbuilder
_Threads_ changed my perception of what to hope for in the event of nuclear
war. After watching _The Day after Tomorrow_ as a kid, I'd think of survival
strategies about where to go to wait out the destruction. _Threads_ makes the
point, all too clear, that there is no society left after WWIII, and what's
left of our race will be horribly mutated and deformed. I'm almost happier now
with the feeling that I might be caught in the initial blast due to my
proximity working near a military base. If we are stupid enough to use these
weapons at scale, it would be game over for humanity at this point.

~~~
pmoriarty
I've read an article that argued Threads was actually a very optimistic view
of what would have happened to the UK in case of a nuclear war. They said
after the Cold War, the former head of the Soviet nuclear strike force who was
in charge of attacking the UK assured his British counterpart that the entire
UK was a complete overkill zone. There would have been no survivors.

------
arbitrage
"Unrelenting bleakness" is a pretty apt description of this production. The
end is chilling. The whole thing is just crushing to watch.

~~~
noir_lord
I live ~60 miles from the town it's set in and grew up in the 80's, I
simultaneously admire and detest that film.

------
icc97
The second to last sentence seems poignant:

> And we recognize, acutely and uncomfortably, the fear and hatred with which
> she’s treated as a refugee.

Escpecially with the impact of immigration in the Brexit vote, it's worth
pointing out just how few refugees that the UK has accepted.

The UK had 9,000 applicants (and 5,000 accepted) [0] vs Germany's 600,000 and
Sweden's 110,000.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_W...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War)

~~~
alva
The approach of the UK government has been to provide aid and safety to the
refugees near to their country of origin. The main justification is that by
allowing the people to find temporary safety and assistance there, they will
hopefully soon be able to return and help rebuild their country. Many of those
fleeing to Western Europe will not return to contribute to the their country
which will desperately need skills.

This approach, which was widely and heavily chastised by the other dominant
European countries, is now being adopted by its primary critics, Germany and
Sweden. They have quietly changed their mind and decided it is a better
approach in the long term, especially considering some of the problems they
have been facing.

The United Kingdom is also the second most generous donor of foreign aid
behind the US.

~~~
corford
The UK's refugee approach is one of the few policies I think they've got right
recently (notwithstanding the government's shameless treatment of child
refugees already in Europe, which is/was indefensible). Another idea behind it
is it limits the horrendous impact people smugglers have on refugees trying to
cross over to Europe.

------
excalibur
Streaming here:

[https://vimeo.com/18781528](https://vimeo.com/18781528)

Maybe it would be beneficial to flood both Donald and Ivanka Trump's Twitter
feeds with links to the film?

~~~
simplicio
Supposedly the similar "The Day After" convinced the previously hawkish Reagan
to advance arms control talks with the USSR, so that isn't the worst idea.

Though Reagan loved movies, while I haven't heard that Trump is a movie buff,
so we'll need something equivalent with more appeal to its target. Has anyone
tried filming a post-nuclear holocaust reality show?

~~~
roywiggins
Hello, good evening, and remain indoors. This is the Quiz Broadcast!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN0ixdOsrY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN0ixdOsrY0)

------
BenMarking
Hi all - I'm the author (backed by a very capable team) of the YouTube nuclear
attack video. I appreciate the commentary and the dialogue about Threads, The
Day After, The war Game, Fail Safe and other such movies, all of which
inspired us in making our own modest production. Ben Marking.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
I've been thinking recently that we need a similar movie today to give us a
stark picture of the reality of a world facing severe climate change.

------
Apocryphon
I wonder if societal expectations of the end of the world will affect how it
does play out, should the unthinkable happen. Threads is a horrific, profound
work- but it's also very rooted in the anxieties of densely urban England. In
the U.S. there's much more open land, unclaimed wilderness, and so the concept
of post-apocalyptic plenty abounds, whether in survivalists building compounds
in forests and fields, or the looting of abandoned malls in zombie films. The
prepper subculture has been around long before current geopolitical realities.
In the face of nuclear apocalypse, those who can't flee to New Zealand will
just preemptively take to those compounds[0].

It'd be interesting to see a work of art that includes our culture's awareness
of prior works of art.

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13462865](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13462865)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482107](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482107)

~~~
smacktoward
If you want a sour vision of post-apocalyptic America that puts the lie to the
prepper dream, I recommend the 1984 novel _Warday_
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warday](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warday)).

 _Warday_ is set five years after a "limited" nuclear war between the US and
USSR, in which only one salvo of nukes was fired by each side before their
governments collapsed. In the US only two cities (Washington and San Antonio)
are hit directly, with one more (NYC) taking a "near miss" when its missiles
go off course and explode offshore. Beyond those urban areas, only the
sparsely populated areas around the US' western missile silos are hit. So in
that respect, it's very much an optimistic scenario, much more so than the one
laid out in _Threads_.

But the book's argument is that even an optimistic scenario like that would be
devastating in real life. _Warday_ 's America has been thoroughly hobbled, not
so much by the bombs themselves as by knock-on effects the bombs caused.
Fallout from the strikes on the missile fields has irradiated the nation's
farm fields, leading to persistent famine and turning the Midwest into a
radioactive Dust Bowl. Malnutrition means reduced resistance to disease,
leading to a range of exciting new ways to die that include a horrific strain
of flu that kills three times as many people as the bombs did. Even five years
after the war medical care is still being triaged, the price of food is
subject to wild fluctuations, and with the federal government mostly dissolved
the states are starting to pull apart into their own regional fiefdoms; Texas
is gearing up to go to war with Mexico, and relatively unscathed California is
gradually descending into a police state in order to keep from having to share
what they still have with refugees from the rest of America.

It's a great, grim story, one that's stuck with me decades now after I first
read it as a kid in Cold War America.

~~~
Apocryphon
Haven't read it, but I have read _Alas, Babylon_. Sounds similar but
definitely worth checking out.

One book I was thinking of in my post is _The Postman_ by David Brin. In it,
the post-apocalypse was triggered by a cascading series of disasters,
including (non-nuclear) warfare and disease... but the final societal collapse
was caused by domestic militants following a hyper-survivalist, regressive
philosophy. In other words, the preppers themselves were behind the fall of
America.

~~~
protomyth
I don't think the prepper mentality would go that way. I think preppers would
be a lot closer to isolationists with the true horror of lack of social
connection to other survivors. I can see the roving marauders since that's par
for the course when society breaks down. I expect emptied prisons to do the
trick.

~~~
Apocryphon
True, in _The Postman_ the Holnists weren't just hyper-preppers, but followers
of an extreme ideology that sought to reestablish a Social Darwinian, Luddite,
feudal world and who actively fought the forces of order following the
Doomwar. That's a different strain of thought in the real world but hey maybe
some among that number might become preppers.

------
secfirstmd
Never forgot the first time i watched Threads. I was a teenager up late and
flicking through TV, probably hasn't had a nightmare since i was 4 years old
but I dam well did that night. Brilliant piece of work by the BBC.

------
interfixus
There was this great surge of nuclear scare in the early eighties. Threads,
The Day After, and on lighter note WarGames are among the movies which came
out of that scare.

I lived through those years. _I_ was scared. I went and saw The Day After on
what I believe was its first European showing, in Copenhagen a few days after
the American TV airing had made a big splash in the news. It didn't tell me
anything I didn't know, but I was seriously shaky all the same, going home
that night. I'm still sort of incredulous to find us all alive in the 21st
century. And at times I wonder - were we all just in silly hysterics back
then? But then I read up a bit on things like Operation Able Archer, autumn
1983, and realize how clear and present the danger really was.

------
jacquesm
Let's hope it remains a vision and not reality. The way Trump and Kim are
rattling sabers does nothing to make me sleep better. Neither of them appears
particularly stable to me and both could do with a bit of a diversion from
their other foreign and domestic issues.

Wag the Dog squared.

------
gdubs
Carl Sagan, for me, was always the clearest voice on the threat of Nuclear
disaster. Here he is in 1986:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB7BKhWs8dQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB7BKhWs8dQ)

------
pmoriarty
Both Radiolab and Hardcore History recently released programs on the threat of
nuclear war.[1][2]

[1] -
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/nukes/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/nukes/)

[2] - [http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-59-the-
destroyer-o...](http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-59-the-destroyer-of-
worlds/)

------
SAI_Peregrinus
Threads is undoubtedly the greatest horror film ever made. Monsters can't come
close to the reality of what humans can do to each other.

------
everyone
A lot of superlatives about this. Just in the comments here for example. Whats
interesting is that this is achieved through realism. Its a pretty well
researched show, they tried to depict the facts as clearly as possible.

~~~
maxxxxx
This movie is really bleak but when you read descriptions from people who were
in Hiroshima you realize that reality is even worse.

------
angry_octet
When I read this headline my first thought was 'pthreads are bad but calling
them a nuclear holocaust seems a bit harsh'.

And then I remembered that POTUS needs an external threat to make him look
precedential.

------
branchless
"pretty much everyone dies eventually, while rats, maggots, and the class
system endure"

Well written. Love that the author groups these three. The class system and
rats are the last to leave the UK.

------
pizza
It isn't great that Trump said relations with Russia are at an "all-time low"
earlier today..

------
camperman
One of the reasons Threads worked because it felt like a documentary about
ordinary people. That bloody voiceover with its calm measured tones describing
the absolute horror that was unfolding...brrr.

~~~
arethuza
It was narrated by Paul Vaughan who used to also narrate the _Horizon_ BBC
science documentaries (which I loved as a kid) - that added a whole other
level of credibility for me when I watched it as a teenager.

~~~
camperman
Aha - yes, I can imagine how it would.

------
gue5t
This article is about a film called Threads, not about hazards in concurrency
or parallel computation.

~~~
iak8god
Yes, but I don't understand this comment. Were you mislead by the title into
thinking it was a visceral urgent article about concurrency that included a
vision of nuclear holocaust?

~~~
x220
"10 reasons not to use C for multithreading"

