New Hardcore History

Alkaid13

Just saw that new episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History was released, thought I'd just make a general thread to remind people of new releases and also a place to discuss them now and continuing in the future

Alkaid13

Episode 59 - Destroyer of Worlds (Blitz edition). Time to find 6 hours of free time to listen to this.

FlashGordon

http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-59-the-destroyer-of-worlds/

I've just nailed it and it's brilliant. 

It covers the narrative from the Manhattan Project to the  Cuban missile crisis

It uses more recordings/media like Oppnheimer's quote for the title,  because it's available and as usual shines a light on a patch of history I don't know nearly enough about.

Nuclear war seems to be on par with Alexander the Great in terms of passion projects for DC, it comes through on this and is on the same level of quality as a Blueprint episode.

Travis

I'm somewhere around 1/4 of the way through and it's totally great. Insightful and thorough as always. Carlin is the best. Now let's turn out a Common Sense, man. I know there's like nothing at all to discuss, but I could use a dose all the same.

A_Ron_Hubbard

I'm an hour in and it's terrifying. If I let my son listen to this he wouldn't sleep for weeks.

Alkaid13

Yeah kinda disturbing give recent political events. Interesting to learn how disagreeable military leaders were with most presidents during the early atomic age.

Alkaid13

Nikita Kruschev seems very interesting as well, positively meteoric rise to power from farm boy to leader to the USSR.

calebthrower

I had no idea how much of a dick Turman was to Openheimer's reaction to the bomb droppings. I mean the man created a weapon capable of destroying cities and Turman basically called him out for being weak and upset over the results. A prick move to be sure.

ghm3

@calebthrower Eh he's right though. The real prick is the one that creates humanity's most destructive weapon with the full knowledge of what he's creating and why, and then suddenly backpedals once it suddenly becomes 'real.' I have no sympathy for that bullshit, it's a perfect example of the Ian Malcolm line in Jurassic Park about scientists doing something simply because they can with no or insufficient consideration of whether they should. If he really felt that way he never should have taken part in it, the reality is his ego wanted to ensure he was cemented into the history books, and then suddenly wanted to play the morality card after opening Pandora's box, fuck that.

Alkaid13

An interesting what if brought up during the podcast. What happens if the US decided to preemptively take out the USSR before anyone else developed nuclear weapons?

Freddy

@Alkaid13 We become what the USSR wanted to ultimately be. The definitive world superpower with no opposition or equal. At least, that seems like the outcome.

I can promise you this: if the USSR had developed the nuke first, they would have taken us out before we had a chance to develop one.

Freddy

A_Ron_Hubbard said:

I'm an hour in and it's terrifying. If I let my son listen to this he wouldn't sleep for weeks.

Made me think of all the times I threw the "things are greater than ever. just think about it, you go back a few hundred years and grown men had a 1 in 10 chance of dying by the hands of another grown man" rhetoric around in response to people saying the world is getting worse all the time. Realistically, they should have bounced back with "yeah, well at any given time we can all be blown the fuck up with the push of a button. what does that do for your stats?"

Alkaid13

@Freddy
Yeah I get the feeling if Stalin didn't die when he did there might have been nuclear war, Kruschev really backed down a lot of the extreme soviet policies.

Freddy

@Alkaid13 Krushchev really was a little bitch, wasn't he? God bless him for it, I suppose. But I know one thing, if I was a card carrying commie scumbag from that era I'd be mighty embarrassed for not having the "brought about the end of civilization as we know it" badge on my sash.

Alkaid13

Sometimes after hearing how genuinely angry various US military leaders get with certain presidents and how different their world views are, I'm sometimes surprised there hasn't been a legitimate military coup attempt considering almost every other world power in history has had those quite frequently. I mean we've only had one civil war compared to the dozens that places like Russia or China or Italy have had. Optimism says that's proof the system works and everyone would rather change politics and ideologies via voting instead of armed insurrection, but maybe the US just hasn't been around long enough for this to really start to fall apart.

Freddy

I don't know if America will fall apart like other empires throughout history. Our bureaucratic institutions (military and civilian) are so convoluted, yet refined, that even the thought of someone attempting to organize a coup seems far fetched. If anything, I see the whole world going down and America just being part of that. That or us being hit by nukes. Which will just change the starting point of the "whole world destroying itself" domino rally.

Freddy

On a side note: anyone who is interested in the concept of nuclear annihilation should check out "Countdown to Zero"

The documentary essentially approaches the idea of a nuke going off from the perspective of Murphy's law, and provides evidence of how easy it is for it to occur. Good stuff. You know, especially if Dan Carlin didn't quite scare all of the shit out of you.

A_Ron_Hubbard

It is amazing in retrospect that Krushchev was willing to lose so much face, but I think it's made clear in the program that one of the two men would have blinked before pushing the button.  It was just a matter of who said the right combination of things first.  Kennedy and Krushchev were both men of conscience that fully understood the weight of 100's of millions of lives in the balance.

Also, if you want to see something truly awesome, in the Old Testament sense of the word, check out the videos of the Castle Bravo and Tsar Bomba tests mentioned in the podcast.  15 MT and 50 MT respectively.  It's what I imagine hell would look like.  Rarely can a phenomena be described as evil, but you know. Shoe fits.  

Vasilnate1

see how much destruction different bombs do here http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

fidoz

I think the only proper way to follow up listening to the latest Hardcore History is to watch Dr. Strangelove.

elgat0

During the podcast, Dan referenced John von Neumann as possibly the smartest man of his time and one of the  originators of game theory.  Out of curiousity, I read his Wikipedia page.  It was a humbling experience.  At age 6 he could divide 8 digit numbers in his head.  The Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe speculated: "I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man".

TheEconomist

I'm really glad we stopped testing these damn things on the surface or atmosphere before we really did create Godzilla or some Hills Have Eyes people. If they did that today I can only imagine how many electronics would get fried in the EMP.

Hatorian

A great documentary to watch if you enjoyed this podcast is "The Fog of War" US secretary of Defence Robert McNarmara gives amazing insight into just how close we came to nuclear war.

Garthgou81

Hey all, a new podcast just dropped titled, "The Celtic Holocaust." Just thought I'd throw that on everyone's radar. 

FlashGordon

@Garthgou81 ;muchos gracias

CretanBull

Looking forward to it...the last episode was great but it scared the crap out of me!

Alkaid13

Ancient Roman history is right in my wheel house so I'm all in on this episode.

Alkaid13

I feel like these keep getting longer but I kind of don't mind. Although maybe they'd be released more regularly if they weren't all 6 hours so who knows.

[Deleted User]

Of course Baldmove members would like Dan Carlin's Hardcore History! It's such a great podcast!
So glad there's a thread here

My favorite series of his is Blueprint for Armageddon.
It is about World War 1, the ffirst 5 minutes of the first Episode Armageddon 1 are the so eloquent and fascinating. He draws a picture of a series of events, that lead to WW 1 and how Germany's loss set the stage for Adolf Hitler.

Do me a favor and listen to the first five minutes and come back here and tell me what you think.
I think many of you will agree it some of Carlin's best work!

Or not....

Just saying it's super awesome:)

[Deleted User]

Oops, actually listen to the first 10 minutes of Bluprint for Armageddon 1, 5 minutes in is just where it starts to unfold, so keep listening for another 5 or so.

[Deleted User]

Oooooops, you have to listen more than 10 minutes, I forgot he takes a while to set it up, just keep listening
For maybe 20 minutes, its worth it really

Again it's hardcore history Blueprint for Armageddon 1