Feb. 4, 2023

S5 E6: 90 Seconds to Midnight and We Need to Talk

S5 E6: 90 Seconds to Midnight and We Need to Talk

It’s 90 seconds to midnight, my friends and we need to talk. Contact me at the website: http://www.causeofdeath100secs.net Check it out, leave a review, leave me a voicemail or an email. Look at the blog posts. Join my mailing list. There are so many...

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It’s 90 seconds to midnight, my friends and we need to talk. Contact me at the website: www.causeofdeath100secs.net Check it out, leave a review, leave me a voicemail or an email. Look at the blog posts. Join my mailing list. There are so many ways to interact with me on that site that there’s no excuse not to! I also have a dedicated email for Cause of Death, you can reach me at jackie@causeofdeath100secs.net. Link Tree: https://www.linktr.ee.com/CauseofDeathpod 90 Seconds to Midnight Show Notes: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/#post-heading https://www.icanw.org/hiroshima_and_nagasaki_bombings https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/med/med_chp3.html https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/mp03.asp https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-bomber-drops-atomic-bomb-on-hiroshima https://thebulletin.org/2021/11/the-untold-story-of-the-worlds-biggest-nuclear-bomb/ https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/disruptive-technology.asp https://www.sydle.com/blog/disruptive-technologies-61aa52868621853d1165bf07/ https://www.floridatechonline.com/blog/information-technology/disruptive-technology-definition-and-examples/ https://hbr.org/2015/12/what-is-disruptive-innovation https://thebulletin.org/disruptive-technologies/ https://thebulletin.org/disruptive-technologies/ https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517441113 https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/05/09/how-misinformation-spreads-on-social-media-and-what-to-do-about-it/
WEBVTT

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This is Jackie Moranti, host of
Cause of Death on the Darkcast Network.

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00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:09.919
On my show, we usually discuss
war, death, destruction, and disease,

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00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:14.359
and as you can imagine, my
tastes are a bit on the dark

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side, So when I shop for
unique novelties and gifts, I always keep

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an eye out for something a little
out of the ordinary. That's why I

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shop at bat Wings and Butterflies.
Bat Wings and Butterflies is an independent,

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creator owned and operated boutique of handmade
knit creations that run the gamut from the

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wild side to the dark side.
Here you'll find knit toys and stuffy like

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baby bafflements and giant tarantulas, household
knits like blankets, doilies, and water

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pipe cozies. Every item is an
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by a talented artis order you're one
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and Butterflies at bat Wings and Butterflies
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at bat Wings and Butterflies. My
favorite product is the giant tarantula, the

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perfect thing for cold nights in the
New Mexico Desert. After all, eight

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arms are much better than just two. It's the perfect snuggle while listening to

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Cause of Death, available wherever you
listen to podcasts and on the Darkcast Network.

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00:01:42.799 --> 00:01:48.719
Do you like listening to stories about
serial killers, unsolved mysteries? How

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about a culture too? And what
about those lesser known serial killers? Or

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how about the legend of a crypto
that will surely keep you up at night?

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00:01:57.599 --> 00:02:01.159
And I know you'll love a good
conspiracy theory because who doesn't join me

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00:02:01.439 --> 00:02:05.920
Kayla as my co host Lexie and
I tell you stories that will keep you

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coming back for more on our show, A Little Wicked. You can find

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a Little Wicked on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you can find podcasts.

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Check out our website, A Little
Wicked podcast dot webindoor dot com,

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and our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
all under you guessed it, a Little

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Wicked. We can't wait to tell
you our stories Darkcast Network. Come on

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over to the dark Side. We're
really nice people once you get past the

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00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:40.120
true crime and scary science. Welcome
to Cause of Death one hundred seconds to

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midnight. I'm your host, Jackie
Moranti. I'm a lab rat and I've

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been a lab rat for sixteen years
now. I study infectious disease, chemical

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warfare and the effects that these things
have on communities. I have a Bachelor's

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of Science degree from Colorado State University
in microbiology, immunology, and virology.

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I do this show to bring science
to everyone through the lens of history and

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my personal experience in the lab.
You really do need to know. The

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time on the doomsday clock held steady
from twenty twenty to twenty twenty two.

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For two years, the time was
one hundred seconds to midnight. On January

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twenty fourth, twenty twenty three,
the hands of the clock moved again,

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closer to doomsday than they had ever
been. Now it's ninety seconds to midnight

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for the very first time. The
announcement was made in Ukrainian and Russia.

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If you'd like to hear the announcement, I put it in the show notes.

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No, I'm not going to change
the name of the show. I've

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got too much money invested in merch
and marketing to change the name. Now.

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Several events over the last few years
were cited as the harbingers of impending

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doom, but first and foremost on
the minds of the Science and Security Board

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was Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the
increased risk of nuclear escalation, climate change,

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the breakdown of norms and institutions needed
to address biological threats, misinformation campaigns,

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and disruptive AI technology were all called
out as other reasons that the clock

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moved closer to doomsday. Twenty twenty
three marked the seventy sixth years since the

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introduction of the doomsday clock in nineteen
forty seven. The clock is a reminder

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of the man made perils that make
the world a dangerous place. When it

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was introduced, the biggest threat to
humanity was nuclear warfare, but since its

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inception, the threats have changed and
grown to include disruptive technology, missing information

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campaigns, biological threats, and climate
change. A lot has happened in seventy

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six years. I talk about all
of it in an earlier episode on the

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history of the Doomsday Clock. I
encourage you all to go back and listen

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to that. For now, let's
talk about the current events that drove the

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change. Vladimir Putin has been threatening
to nuke anyone and everyone who gets in

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the way while he's trying to decimate
Ukraine. The Science and Security Board had

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been keeping an eye on Russia since
twenty twenty one. There were signs that

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Russia may invade Ukraine, and the
Board was watching the progress. In their

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twenty twenty one announcement, the Board
spoke of the threat from Russia to Ukraine.

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Less than a year later, it
happened. Putin's grumbled threats in discontent

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with Ukraine's idea to become part of
NATO, had driven him to command military

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exercises at the Ukraine border. Putin
had become increasingly unpredictable over the last several

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years. The Boards saw this and
they were expecting something to happen in Ukraine.

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Over the past year, Putin has
put the idea for several times that

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nuclear war is imminent. He's not
afraid to push the button and end at

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all. He somehow thinks that he's
going to survive and the world will go

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on after he makes that fatal final
decision. He's birth the turtle dumdud.

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There was a turtle name, and
the turtle was very old. I'm dangerous,

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cover and cover. He did what
we all mun learned. Let's talk

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about this for a minute or two. The Cold War began after the United

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States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August
of nineteen forty five, one hundred and

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forty thousand people died in Hiroshima.
Seventy four thousand died in Nagasaki. Many

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were literally vaporized. The bomb that
exploded over Nagasaki caused ground temperatures to rise

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to four thousand degrees celsius and radioactive
rain poured from the sky. Many who

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survived would suffer leukemia and cancer for
years after surviving the initial attack. The

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blast in both cities wrought total destruction
for one point three kilometers from the point

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of impact. Thirty percent of immediate
fatalities were people who had received lethal doses

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of direct radiation. These people died
in the firestorm before their injuries became apparent.

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I'm going to read a story about
the bombing of Hiroshima directly from the

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Manhattan Project website. If you'd like
to read more on the development of atomic

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weapons, the link is in the
show notes. In the early morning hours

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of August sixth, nineteen forty five, a B twenty nine bomber named Enola

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Gay took off from the island of
Tinian and headed north by northwest towards Japan.

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The bomber's primary target was the city
of Hiroshima located on the deltas of

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southwestern Honshu Island facing the Inland Sea. Hiroshima had a civilian population of about

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three hundred thousand and was an important
military center containing about forty three thousand soldiers.

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The bomber, piloted by the commander
of the five hundred and ninth Composite

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Group, Colonel Paul Tibbots, flew
at low altitude on automatic pilot before climbing

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to thirty one thousand feet as it
neared the target area. At approximately eight

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fifteen a m. Hiroshima time,
the Enola Gay released Little Boy, it's

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ninety seven hundred pound uranium gun type
bomb over the city. Tibbots immediately dove

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away to avoid the anticipated shockwave.
Forty three seconds later, a huge explosion

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lit the morning sky as Little Boy
detonated nineteen hundred feet above the city,

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directly over a parade field where soldiers
of the Japanese Second Army were doing calisthenics.

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Though already eleven and a half miles
away, the Enola Gay was rocked

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by the blast. At first,
Tibbots thought he was taking plaque. After

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a second shockwave reflected from the ground
hit the plane. The crew looked back

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at Hiroshima quote the city was hidden
by that awful cloud, boiling up mushrooming

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terrible and incredibly tall end tibbets recalled. The yield of the explosion was later

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estimated at fifteen kilotons, the equivalent
of fifteen thousand tons of TNT on the

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ground. Moments before the blast,
it was a calm and sunny Monday morning.

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An air aid alert from earlier that
morning had been called off after only

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a solitary aircraft was seen. It
was a weather plane, and by eight

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fifteen the city was alive with activity. Soldiers doing their morning calisthenics, commuters

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on foot or on bicycles, groups
of women and children working outside to clear

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firebreaks. Those closest to the explosion
died instantly, their bodies turned to black

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charms. Nearby birds burst into flames
in mid air, and dry combustible materials

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such as paper instantly ignited as far
away as sixty four hundred feet from ground

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zero. The white light acted as
a giant flashbol burning the dark patterns of

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clothing onto the skin and the shadows
of bodies into the walls. Survivors outdoors

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close to the blast generally describe a
literally blinding light combined with a sudden and

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overwhelming wave of heat. The effects
of radiation were usually not immediately apparent.

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The blast wave followed almost instantly for
those close in, often knocking them off

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their feet. Those that were indoors
were usually spared from the flashburns, but

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flying glass from broken windows filled most
rooms, and all but the very strongest

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structures collapsed. One boy was blown
through the windows of his house and across

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the street as the house collaps behind
him. Within minutes, nine out of

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ten people half a mile or less
from ground zero were dead. People farther

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from the point of detonation experienced first
the flash and heat, followed seconds later

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by a deafening boom and the blast
wave. Nearly every structure within one mile

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of ground zero was destroyed, and
almost every building within three miles was damaged.

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Less than ten percent of the buildings
in the city survived without any damage,

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and the blast wave shattered glass and
suburbs twelve miles away. The most

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common reaction of those that were indoors, even miles away from ground zero was

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that their building had just suffered a
direct hit by a bomb. Small ad

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hoc rescue parties soon began to operate, but roughly half of the city's population

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was dead or injured. In those
areas most seriously affected, Virtually no one

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escaped serious The numerous small fires that
erupted simultaneously all around the city soon merged

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into one large firestorm, creating extremely
strong winds that blew towards the center of

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the fire. The firestorm eventually engulfed
four point four square miles of the city,

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killing anyone who had not escaped in
the first minutes after the attack.

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One post war study of the victims
of Hiroshima found that less than four point

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five percent of survivors suffered leg fractures. Such injuries were not uncommon, it

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was just that most who could not
walk were engulfed by the firestorm. Even

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after the flames subsided, relief from
the outside was slow in coming. For

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hours after the attack, the Japanese
government did not even know for sure what

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had happened. Radio and telegraph communications
with Hiroshima had suddenly ended at eight sixteen

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am, and vague reports some sort
of large explosion had begun to filter in,

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but the Japanese high command knew that
no large scale air raid had taken

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place over the city, and that
there were no large stores of explosives there.

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Eventually, a Japanese staff officer was
dispatched by plane to survey the city

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from overhead, and while he was
still nearly one hundred miles away from the

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city, he began to report on
a huge cloud of smoke that hung over

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it. The first confirmation of exactly
what had happened came to the city sixteen

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hours later, with the announcement of
the bombing by the United States. Relief

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workers from outside the city eventually began
to arrive, and the situation stabilized somewhat.

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Power in undamaged areas of the city
was even restored on August seventh,

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with limited rail services resuming the following
day. Several days after the blast,

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however, medical staff began to recognize
the first symptoms of radiation sickness among the

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survivors. Soon the death rate actually
began to climb again, as patients who

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had appeared to be recovery began suffering
from this strange new illness. Deaths from

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radiation sickness did not peak until three
to four weeks after the attacks and did

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not appear to taper off until seven
to eight weeks after the attack. Long

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range health dangers associated with radiation exposures, such as an increased danger of cancer,

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would linger for the rest of the
victim's lives, as would the psychological

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effects of the attack. No one
will ever know for certain how many died

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as a result of the attack on
Hiroshima. Some seventy thousand people probably died

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as a result of initial blast,
heat, and radiation effects. This included

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about twenty American airmen being held prisoners
in the city. By the end of

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nineteen forty five, because of the
lingering effects of radioactive fallout and other after

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effects, the Hiroshima death toll was
probably over one hundred thousand. The five

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00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:15.720
year death total may have reached or
even exceeded two hundred thousand as cancer and

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other long term effects took hold.
At eleven a m August sixth, Washington

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DC time radio stations began playing a
prepared statement from President Truman informing the American

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public that the United States had dropped
an entirely new type of bomb on the

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Japanese city of Hiroshima, an atomic
bomb. Truman warned that if Japan still

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refused to surrender, unconditionally. As
demanded by the Potsdam Declaration of July twenty

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sixth, the United States would attack
additional targets with equally devastating results. Two

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days later, on August eighth,
the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and

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attacked Japan these forces in Manchuria,
ending the American hopes that the war would

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end before Russian entry into the Pacific
theater. By August ninth, American aircraft

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were showering leaflets all over Japan informing
the people that, quote, we are

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in possession of the most destructive explosive
ever devised by man. A single one

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00:17:23.519 --> 00:17:30.119
of our newly developed atomic bombs is
actually the equivalent in explosive power to what

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00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:36.079
two thousand of our giant B twenty
ninths can carry on a single mission.

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This awful fact is one for you
to ponder, and we solemnly assure you

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00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:47.839
it is grimly accurate. We have
just begun to use this weapon against your

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homeland. If you still have any
doubt, make inquiry as to what happened

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00:17:52.880 --> 00:18:00.839
to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb
fell on that city end quote. Meanwhile,

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00:18:00.920 --> 00:18:03.960
Tibet's bomber group was simply waiting for
the weather to clear in order to

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00:18:04.039 --> 00:18:10.960
drop its next bomb, the plutonium
implosion weapon nicknamed Fat Man, that was

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destined for the city of Nagasaki.
The weapon known as Fat Man was forty

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percent more powerful than the weapon called
Little Boy that was dropped on Hiroshima.

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That bomb would reak just as much
destruction. The landscape around Nagasaki contained the

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blast and kept the destruction from spreading
farther from the city. After the bombs

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fell and the annihilation was processed,
the world began to realize what they had

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on their hands. It was the
worst kind of warfare, but it was

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the most efficient for doing what wars
do, killing people on a mass scale.

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The horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought
awareness to scientists, researchers, and

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governments that these weapons should never be
used again, and this idea rise to

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the Cold War. Maybe they shouldn't
be used, but they still had to

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be built, armed, and pointed
at one another, so that the thread

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of nuclear war would always be there. As more and more countries developed the

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technology and the bombs got bigger and
bigger, the war got colder and colder,

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and more targets were exed out on
the map. For those of us

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who were children during the Cold War, we remember bomb drills. We were

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told to get under the desks and
hunker down with our arms over our heads,

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or we were led to hallways where
we lined up against lockers with our

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heads and our laps, holding our
books over our heads. People built bomb

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shelters in their backyards or basements.
They stockpiled food, water, and other

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supplies, much like the preppers of
today. It seems there's a competition to

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see who can survive the longest before
coming up for air. These are all

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sizes and futility. People do them
to make themselves feel better, but no

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one is going to survive a ground
zero nuclear attack, not from the long

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haul. It's estimated that if a
weapon roughly the same tonnage as Little Boy

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were dropped today, the effects maybe
felt twenty five miles away down wind.

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The radiation would stand the air for
up to five weeks, and the backlash

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would last for years in the form
of cancer, birth defects, and other

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radiation associated diseases. Now, thirty
years after treaties were signed and everyone celebrated

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the end of the nuclear threat,
here we are back at ground zero.

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With a man who's not known for
mental stability with his finger on the trigger,

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who recently began encouraging countries that are
a part of the EU to stockpile

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medicines that could cure radiation sickness in
the way of a nuclear event that is

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not super encouraging. Closely behind the
concerns of disaster were disruptive technologies. This

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could play a huge part in whether
or not nuclear war is imminent. Disruptive

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technology is defined as quote an innovation
that significantly alters the way that consumers,

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industries, or businesses operate. A
disruptive technology sweeps away the systems or habits

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it replaces because it has attributes that
are recognizably superior. End Historically, cars,

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electricity, and television were considered disruptive
technologies. More recently, rideshare apps,

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e commerce, online news, and
GPS systems joined the ranks. Now,

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none of this sounds bad, right, We all binge Netflix, we

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use Airbnb, we Google map our
way somewhere, Right, I'm guilty,

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But are these technologies really harmless?
I'll talk about it in depth in a

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future episode, but let's think about
this for now. Many of our missiles

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are triggered by artificial intelligence. No
one really has to push a button,

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they just have to give the order. And if the order is given accidentally,

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say through a code word or phrase, the AI technology could trigger the

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weapon. Accidents happen, and that
could be a fatal one. It's also

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a very real concern when we think
about war. If we look back at

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past wars, how many were one
or lost by happenstance. Take a deep

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dive into the American Revolution or World
War One and you'll see that things could

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have turned on a dime if someone
hadn't made a mistake on the losing side.

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Misinformation campaigns are also of a grave
concern. Currently, we're acting like

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children on a playground. We get
our news from unreliable sources, and we

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don't bother to think about what we're
consuming. We don't ask the important questions,

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and most of us don't ask questions
at all. Disruptive technology is all

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over social media and the news media. They can tell people whatever they want

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to hear, and the moral majority
will believe it. We need to start

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poking holes in the things we hear
on the news. The stuff we get

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on social media is a sieve.
We don't even need to poke holes in

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that the holes are already there.
Misinformation is dangerous, especially in the world

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we live in now. Misinformation causes
panic, fear, violence, and division.

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Misuse of AI causes all sorts of
crazy. Then come to my specialty,

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biothreats. We are surrounded by microbes. Some of them are benign,

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but others are terrifying. If you
listen to this podcast long enough, you'll

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hear about diseases that are common,
and you'll know how to avoid them.

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But what about novelle diseases. COVID
nineteen came out of nowhere and it became

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a real threat in less than a
year. It changed the way we live.

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There are other diseases out there that
we haven't even seen yet, and

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they could be introduced at any time. With the rise in population spreading to

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places that had once been wild,
there are things out there that we haven't

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00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:48.079
even heard of yet, and there
are things we have heard of. There's

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been a rise in diseases that the
general public thought had been eradicated, and

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just a heads up, the only
disease that's been truly eradicated in nature is

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small. There are others that could
become extinct in the next few years,

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but the only one right now is
smallpox. Jolio recently reared its ugly head

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00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:15.400
in New York. It was found
in the water supply, and then monkey

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00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:18.359
pocks showed up. Globally, there
are outbreaks of measles, mums, and

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robella in places where people don't vaccinate, and these are concerns for everyone.

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Vaccination doesn't just protect you, it
protects those around you. Then there is

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always the thread of biological or chemical
warfare sarin, mustard, gas, anthrax,

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rift, valley fever. Biological warfare
is harder to employ, but it

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can be done. Water supplies,
food supplies, even the air we breathe

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can become a weapon of mass destruction. These things don't just affect our health.

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They affect our economy and our food
supply. The Avian flu outbreak has

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caused the price of eggs and chicken
to almost triple. The war in Ukraine

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has caused fuel prices to rise.
Each one of these subjects will have an

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episode on the podcast, but for
now, I'm talking about why we stand

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00:26:17.160 --> 00:26:22.519
at ninety seconds to midnight. Why
the Board of Atomic Scientists chose to move

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the clock closer the doomsday clock isn't
meant as something that brings us down or

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00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:33.759
predicts our last moments on Earth.
It's meant as a precursor to discourse.

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It's meant to make us think about
the world around us and the ways we

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00:26:38.440 --> 00:26:45.160
can get involved to make it a
better place, a safer place for everyone.

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00:26:45.559 --> 00:26:51.920
Everyone can do something. Reduce food
waste, compost, Encourage your local

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00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:57.519
leaders to promote work at home programs. Encourage world leaders to stop misinformation campaigns.

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00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:07.119
Encourage researchers to promote AI technology that's
actually helpful and not hurtful. Now

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00:27:07.279 --> 00:27:11.720
is definitely the time to encourage world
leaders to end the arms race. Humanitarians

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00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:18.480
and the military know that war kills
civilians as well as soldiers. We need

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00:27:18.559 --> 00:27:23.160
to encourage world leaders to stop and
think and to slow down and consider.

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00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:30.400
I really don't know if we can
stop the clock from ticking down, but

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00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:34.359
I know we can try. We
can all raise our voices and make small

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00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:40.400
changes in our own lives to turn
the clock back. It's come down to

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00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:44.920
the average person, you and me
to start the ball rolling and turn the

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00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:48.720
tie. We can do this if
we all work together, but we have

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00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:56.519
to start now. Get involved with
local politics. Start that discussion with your

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00:27:56.559 --> 00:28:03.599
neighbor, write your congressman, look
around your community and encourage change. Do

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00:28:03.880 --> 00:28:08.559
all these things. Bindfully, think
before you talk, and be respectful of

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00:28:08.559 --> 00:28:15.799
one another. Listen to the arguments
of the opposition and know that they deserve

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00:28:15.880 --> 00:28:21.119
to be heard. It doesn't matter
whether you think they're right. People respond

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00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:27.200
in more positive ways when they feel
that their opinions are valued. We'll talk

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00:28:27.240 --> 00:28:33.960
more about the Board of Atomic Scientists, misinformation campaigns, disruptive technology, and

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00:28:33.079 --> 00:28:38.240
bioterrorism as times thoughts. We don't
have much time, but we do have

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00:28:38.599 --> 00:28:45.400
time. It's ninety seconds to midnight, and the global effort to move the

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00:28:45.400 --> 00:28:52.119
clock backward begins with you and me. Thank you for listening to Cause of

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00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:56.400
Death one hundred seconds to midnight.
Please take a look at the show notes

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00:28:56.440 --> 00:29:02.960
for more information on atomic weapon,
bioterrorism, misinformation campaign and the Board of

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00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:07.599
the Atomic Scientists. If you'd like
to contact me, I can be reached

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00:29:07.599 --> 00:29:14.960
through my website at www dot cause
of Death one hundred secs dot net or

301
00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:21.359
by email at Jackie at cause of
Death one hundred secs dot net. My

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00:29:21.480 --> 00:29:25.079
website is a great way to interact. You can leave a message, leave

303
00:29:25.079 --> 00:29:29.519
a voicemail, joy my mailing list, and comment on my blog. You

304
00:29:29.559 --> 00:29:33.160
can also reach me on Twitter,
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, where

305
00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:38.200
you can comment on my posts and
hear what's coming up next. I've got

306
00:29:38.359 --> 00:29:42.440
several cute little critters who are the
faces of Cause of Death on TikTok,

307
00:29:42.599 --> 00:29:48.079
including my co producer Sweetpea. Go
take a look at what's coming up and

308
00:29:48.440 --> 00:29:53.000
start or join a conversation. There
are links in the show notes for ways

309
00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:56.960
you can support the show. My
Patreon link is there, and you can

310
00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:03.160
also subscribe on Apple subscrip option.
I'm going to be putting up some bonus

311
00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:08.200
content on the chemical compounds in alcohol
during prohibition and doing a little comparison to

312
00:30:08.319 --> 00:30:14.799
some of the legal drugs that were
sold a few years ago. I'll see

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00:30:14.799 --> 00:30:18.880
you in two weeks, but I'll
talk about the third disease in season five

314
00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:26.480
Restaurant Roads, and that will be
on salmonella. Until then, be safe

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00:30:26.079 --> 00:31:55.599
and join some positive discourse. M
m M m m m