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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

Unless you have a negative discount rate, a few (hypothetical) deaths in the distant future is less bad than a few deaths now.

People currently live in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, 24 years later:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,412954,00.html

There was significant radiation exposure in Japan a while back. This is what it looks like today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HiroshimaNight.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nagasaki_C1414.jpg

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couldn't it be a lot of hypothetical deaths? I also fail to see how dumping our waste on generations to come for our own selfish desires is less bad. I think it's less responsible to expect someone else to bear the risks in the future for a reward I want now. Maybe I'm not looking at this like a banker ;)

My default position isn't anti-nuclear, but I find a lot of the arguments and reasoning on the pro-nuclear side to be less than convincing, and in some cases disingenuous. Nuclear seems safer than coal, but the knee jerk reaction on this site from pro-nuclear people isn't helping that cause. Go read the comments on the posts the day after the earthquake, most of them said "everything is fine, nothing bad can possibly happen". Turns out that wasn't true.

> I also fail to see how dumping our waste on generations to come for our own selfish desires is less bad.

You're assuming that just because we consider it waste, they will too. Personally, I'm expecting that at some point some use will be found for the 'waste' -- maybe highly efficient reprocessing or materials for low-radiation (think 'easily traced') medical nanobots -- at which point future generations will thank us profusely for generating such convenient stockpiles of the stuff.

I'll begin dumping all of my garbage on your lawn. I expect at some point you will find a use for this "waste". At some point you will thank me profusely.

The reason you have the discount rate is uncertainty about the future. There are many things that could happen - we might be super wealthy and be able to easily dispose of waste. We might be dirt poor, and death of cancer at 65 rather than at 40 due to ulcers is the least of our issues. We might, as dstorrs speculates or as France demonstrates, consider nuclear waste to be a valuable resource to be harnessed.

I.e., there are many scenarios in which the deaths we hypothesize never actually materialize. Hence, discount rates.

but you're gambling with other peoples health, not your own. When you say "we" you really mean other people not including you.

You're doing the same thing. The only difference is that you are gambling with people who currently exist while I'm gambling with people who might exist in the future.

with whose health am I gambling?

The people at risk of "death from these other [non-nuclear] sources" (see 6 posts upthread).

You're either confusing me with someone else, or putting words in my mouth. I've never said that we shouldn't use nuclear, that nuclear is worse than x, or anything like that. Part of the reason I have a problem with the tone in the aftermath of this disaster is that you guys are seeing a boogie man behind every question. The only thing I did was question the logic and assumptions of a couple of arguments for nuclear power. I'm trying to figure this stuff out for myself, so I'm questioning things.

edit: in fact, if you read my early comment I said this, "Nuclear seems safer than coal, but the knee jerk reaction on this site from pro-nuclear people isn't helping that cause.". That doesn't seem to stop you from seeing a boogie man though.

My bad, I assumed you were saying more than you were.

Nevertheless, the meat of my comment remains the same. Choosing a power generation source with a front-loaded death risk is gambling with other people's lives today. Choosing something with a back-loaded death risk is gambling with other people's lives tomorrow. I see no compelling reason to believe one is better than the other.

there is also a third alternative, use less energy.

That's not a real third alternative, because even if you make less power, you still have to pick your power generation source.

if you burn less coal you put less shit into the air, right?

Is fallout from an atom bomb worse than fallout from a reactor meltdown?

Fallout from the WWII bombings was much greater than the fallout expected from the Daiichi plant. We'll have to wait until data come in to say how much.

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