From: whitlock@dcss.mcmaster.ca (Jeremy Whitlock)
Subject: Re: Radioactivity and Superstition (and the *Real* Problems)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, McMaster University
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 13:30:36 GMT

In article <JYM.92Sep1181648@remarque.mica.berkeley.edu> jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer) writes:
>
>>> General luddism.  Nuclear applications are new.
>
>=\= Pro-nuke advocates are always bringing this up, but I must
>say that I've never met even one anti-nuke advocate who was
>actually motivated by Luddism.  Not a single one.

Come on now.  Of course if you walked into an anti-nuke demonstration and 
asked around if anyone was a Luddite, or if anyone had a fear of technology, 
you'd find no-one.  If you asked the anti-automobile crowd at the turn of the
century you'd also find no-one.  If you asked the anti-vaccination,      
anti-airplane, anti-immunization, anti-genetic engineering, anti-steam power,
anti-electric light bulb, anti-pasteurization, anti-space travel,     
anti-blood transfusion, anti-X-ray, or any anti-<new technology> crowd over
the last century of so, you'd likewise find few who outright expressed a
fear of technology.  Unless, of course, you looked deeper.

>
>=\= The anti-nuclear movement has consistently and visibly
>advocated "appropriate technology:"  this is not a fear of nor
>an aversion to new technologies, as appropriate technology can
>be old or new, "low" or "high."

Let's take a look at what the anti-nuclear movement pushes as "appropriate
technology".  According to Amory Lovins, "appropriate" means simple,
decentralized, easy-to-understand and control, small-scale, and suited to 
a particular end-use.  Many who follow this doctrine do so because (and I
know this because they've told me) they like the idea of, for example, 
being able to climb up onto their own roof and install a sheet of 
photovoltaics -- as opposed to getting power from some unseen and 
mysterious power plant down the road, whose operation requires hundreds of
people, without a single one able to run the plant all by themselves.

Doesn't sound to me like a whole lot of reckoning goes on behind that 
kind of decision between "high" and "low" technology.  Wouldn't
you even say there was evidence of fear (okay, trepidation) of the higher
technology? 

>
>=\= I've been in anti-nuclear groups since the days of the
>Clamshell Alliance, and I can't think of anyone who's used the
>issue to get money and power. 

Anyone who works for an anti-nuclear group -- especially those hired 
full-time -- is reaping the benefits of public fear over nuclear power.
I could name quite a few individuals who draw salaries by travelling the 
country impugning nuclear power.  Sincere or not, they are gaining both
money and power from fanning the flames.

As for sincerity -- when you hear some of the most disgusting lies and
half-truths about the availability of waste disposal technology, the 
toxicity of Plutonium, the abilities of plant operators, the integrity
of pool storage, the effects of TMI, and even the facts of documented
historical events which any child could look up, coming from the mouths
of supposed scientists, you start to wonder about that too.

>    <_Jym_>

-- 
Jeremy Whitlock                 "My thoughts are mine, not Mac's"
Dept. Engineering Physics
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada