{"id":899,"date":"2009-11-04T14:21:28","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T13:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/?p=899"},"modified":"2013-03-01T00:46:15","modified_gmt":"2013-02-28T22:46:15","slug":"nuclear-power-is-unsafe-because-its-so-safe-wait-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/2009\/11\/04\/nuclear-power-is-unsafe-because-its-so-safe-wait-what\/","title":{"rendered":"“Nuclear power is unsafe because it’s so safe”. Wait… what?!"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Michael Karnerfors, 2009-11-04<\/em><\/h5>\n
\"This<\/a>
This is a very unsafe stairway, because it is physically impossible for you to fall over the side and hurt yourself. Uhm... what?!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Image source<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n

Every now and then I come across<\/a>\u00a0(link in Swedish)\u00a0the following argument against nuclear power:<\/p>\n

“All the safety devices, procedures, regulation and supervision prove that nuclear power is unsafe.”<\/em><\/p>\n

And it baffles me every time, because what that boils down to is someone saying something that means: “It’s unsafe because it’s so safe!”.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0(lack of)\u00a0logic reasoning applied to something else, say a staircase, is exemplified thus:<\/p>\n

– This staircase is unsafe, because it has a railing!<\/p>\n

– How do you mean?<\/p>\n

– Because if the railing wasn’t there, I could fall over the side and hurt myself.<\/p>\n

– Yes but the railing is there to stop you from falling over the side and hurting yourself.<\/p>\n

– Exactly, so the staircase is unsafe, because it needs the railing.<\/p>\n

– But the railing is an integral part of the staircase now. Are you suggesting you can run right\u00a0through a two inch thick stainless steel railing?<\/p>\n

– Well if I could I’d fall over the side and hurt myself.<\/p>\n

– So… can you make your way through stainless steel railing or not?<\/p>\n

– That’s not the point! The point is that it needs the railing so it’s unsafe!<\/p>\n

– Look, not only does it have the railing, but the railing is in turn stuck to a concrete wall that goes all the way up to the ceiling.<\/p>\n

– Oh my!! Then it’s really<\/strong> unsafe if it has that much safety! Now I won’t got near that damned thing because I just know<\/strong> I’ll fall over the side and hurt myself!<\/p>\n

…and so on.<\/p>\n

Kafka<\/a> would have a field-day with this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Karnerfors, 2009-11-04 (Image source) Every now and then I come across\u00a0(link in Swedish)\u00a0the following argument against nuclear power: “All the safety devices, procedures,…<\/p>\n

Continue reading“Nuclear power is unsafe because it’s so safe”. Wait… what?!<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,15,57],"tags":[106],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7282,"href":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions\/7282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuclearpoweryesplease.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}