rwhaas@ihuxp.UUCP (11/22/83)
As I expected, the movie was somewhat boring, simply because it was mostly predictable. Most of the scenes of actual nuclear destruction was from old government films of old nuclear tests which some of us old folks (>30) have seen quite a few times. If anything, the film was probably toned down a lot, both in the actual physical and physiological consequences as well as in the aspects of anarchy and martial actions which followed. I doubt that this film will cause much in the way of nightmares. Another fairly predictable event was that Carl Sagan would figure out a way to use one of his favorite expressions: at least he didn't say "billions and billions" but he came fairly close. I tend to agree with Edward Teller's remarks heard on the CBS early morning news. My interpretation of his remarks are straightforward. It is quite easy to perform a gedanken experiment based on elementary physics and biology and meteorology for example. I'm willing to bet, however, that in order to realistically assess things like "nuclear winters", one probably needs a more sohpisticated model than the metaphor of "a million Hiroshimas". I don't like trying to scare people to death because that is not conducive to acting rationally and logically. At any rate, if the movie encourages serious, non-flaming debate about the global problem which exists because of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, it will have been successful. I suspect, however, that the flaming in this newsgroup will outlast the public flaming by a couple of kilotons. :-) Roy Haas ihnp4!ihuxp!rwhaas