I grew up in a nuclear community (Richland WA, the town where it seems like half of everyone works at Hanford). My first job (after lawn mowing) was working at Exxon Nuclear (which got bought by Siemens then sold to Framatome and then morphed into Areva). I learned to code there. My first tools were tools that helped engineers optimize nuclear fuel assembly design for efficiency.
I see these articles. I barely read them. I’m a supporter already. I get all the various details and arguments.
I left that industry though. For two reasons.
1. Regulation makes it so that what seems cool and high tech is mostly 60’s tech.
2. I got discouraged working in an industry that I knew could help the world but was so reviled and feared at large.
These days I work in ag automation. Feed the world. Robots and the cloud. That sort of thing. And yet… yesterday, some of the assembly techs were spooked by the supposed ability to have a small magnet stick to the injection site of a Moderna vaccine. I watched grown men spend multiple hours coming to the conclusion that “the magnets didn’t stick after all but something weird was going on.”
I’ve concluded that Darwin was wrong. Humanity has the ability to out wit natural selection any more.
That leads me to believe that nuclear technology (sufficiently advanced to be indiscernible from magic) has as much likelihood of mankind applying it to their benefit as they do of burning witches to save the planet.
I see these articles. I barely read them. I’m a supporter already. I get all the various details and arguments.
I left that industry though. For two reasons.
1. Regulation makes it so that what seems cool and high tech is mostly 60’s tech.
2. I got discouraged working in an industry that I knew could help the world but was so reviled and feared at large.
These days I work in ag automation. Feed the world. Robots and the cloud. That sort of thing. And yet… yesterday, some of the assembly techs were spooked by the supposed ability to have a small magnet stick to the injection site of a Moderna vaccine. I watched grown men spend multiple hours coming to the conclusion that “the magnets didn’t stick after all but something weird was going on.”
I’ve concluded that Darwin was wrong. Humanity has the ability to out wit natural selection any more.
That leads me to believe that nuclear technology (sufficiently advanced to be indiscernible from magic) has as much likelihood of mankind applying it to their benefit as they do of burning witches to save the planet.