#192 – Annie Jacobsen on what would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon at the US

#192 – Annie Jacobsen on what would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon at the US

"Ring one: total annihilation; no cellular life remains. Ring two, another three-mile diameter out: everything is ablaze. Ring three, another three or five miles out on every side: third-degree burns among almost everyone. You are talking about people who may have gone down into the secret tunnels beneath Washington, DC, escaped from the Capitol and such: people are now broiling to death; people are dying from carbon monoxide poisoning; people who followed instructions and went into their basement are dying of suffocation. Everywhere there is death, everywhere there is fire.

"That iconic mushroom stem and cap that represents a nuclear blast — when a nuclear weapon has been exploded on a city — that stem and cap is made up of people. What is left over of people and of human civilisation." —Annie Jacobsen

In today’s episode, host Luisa Rodriguez speaks to Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen about her latest book, Nuclear War: A Scenario.

Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.

They cover:

  • The most harrowing findings from Annie’s hundreds of hours of interviews with nuclear experts.
  • What happens during the window that the US president would have to decide about nuclear retaliation after hearing news of a possible nuclear attack.
  • The horrific humanitarian impacts on millions of innocent civilians from nuclear strikes.
  • The overlooked dangers of a nuclear-triggered electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack crippling critical infrastructure within seconds.
  • How we’re on the razor’s edge between the logic of nuclear deterrence and catastrophe, and urgently need reforms to move away from hair-trigger alert nuclear postures.
  • And plenty more.

Chapters:

  • Cold open (00:00:00)
  • Luisa’s intro (00:01:03)
  • The interview begins (00:02:28)
  • The first 24 minutes (00:02:59)
  • The Black Book and presidential advisors (00:13:35)
  • False alarms (00:40:43)
  • Russian misperception of US counterattack (00:44:50)
  • A narcissistic madman with a nuclear arsenal (01:00:13)
  • Is escalation inevitable? (01:02:53)
  • Firestorms and rings of annihilation (01:12:56)
  • Nuclear electromagnetic pulses (01:27:34)
  • Continuity of government (01:36:35)
  • Rays of hope (01:41:07)
  • Where we’re headed (01:43:52)
  • Avoiding politics (01:50:34)
  • Luisa’s outro (01:52:29)

Producer and editor: Keiran Harris
Audio engineering team: Ben Cordell, Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong
Additional content editing: Katy Moore and Luisa Rodriguez
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

Avsnitt(333)

The 80,000 Hours Career Guide (2023)

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#162 – Mustafa Suleyman on getting Washington and Silicon Valley to tame AI

#162 – Mustafa Suleyman on getting Washington and Silicon Valley to tame AI

Mustafa Suleyman was part of the trio that founded DeepMind, and his new AI project is building one of the world's largest supercomputers to train a large language model on 10–100x the compute used to...

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#161 – Michael Webb on whether AI will soon cause job loss, lower incomes, and higher inequality — or the opposite

#161 – Michael Webb on whether AI will soon cause job loss, lower incomes, and higher inequality — or the opposite

"Do you remember seeing these photographs of generally women sitting in front of these huge panels and connecting calls, plugging different calls between different numbers? The automated version of th...

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#160 – Hannah Ritchie on why it makes sense to be optimistic about the environment

#160 – Hannah Ritchie on why it makes sense to be optimistic about the environment

"There's no money to invest in education elsewhere, so they almost get trapped in the cycle where they don't get a lot from crop production, but everyone in the family has to work there to just stay a...

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#159 – Jan Leike on OpenAI's massive push to make superintelligence safe in 4 years or less

#159 – Jan Leike on OpenAI's massive push to make superintelligence safe in 4 years or less

In July, OpenAI announced a new team and project: Superalignment. The goal is to figure out how to make superintelligent AI systems aligned and safe to use within four years, and the lab is putting a ...

7 Aug 20232h 51min

We now offer shorter 'interview highlights' episodes

We now offer shorter 'interview highlights' episodes

Over on our other feed, 80k After Hours, you can now find 20-30 minute highlights episodes of our 80,000 Hours Podcast interviews. These aren’t necessarily the most important parts of the interview, a...

5 Aug 20236min

#158 – Holden Karnofsky on how AIs might take over even if they're no smarter than humans, and his 4-part playbook for AI risk

#158 – Holden Karnofsky on how AIs might take over even if they're no smarter than humans, and his 4-part playbook for AI risk

Back in 2007, Holden Karnofsky cofounded GiveWell, where he sought out the charities that most cost-effectively helped save lives. He then cofounded Open Philanthropy, where he oversaw a team making b...

31 Juli 20233h 13min

#157 – Ezra Klein on existential risk from AI and what DC could do about it

#157 – Ezra Klein on existential risk from AI and what DC could do about it

In Oppenheimer, scientists detonate a nuclear weapon despite thinking there's some 'near zero' chance it would ignite the atmosphere, putting an end to life on Earth. Today, scientists working on AI t...

24 Juli 20231h 18min

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