I fear that nuclear war could be happening soon…
Global tensions seem to be rising, and superpowers are allowed to be more and more reckless. It feels like the third world war is imminent, a nuclear war which would end everything.
I am so scared… I am so paralyzed to do anything now. Am I overreacting? Also, what should I be doing?
The best way to cope with the news is to ignore it. There is no reason to read about and obsess over things you have no power to change. Focus on your own life and the people around you, learn mindfulness and deeply ponder the structure of trees, the intricate shapes of the clouds, whatever nature is around you, and breathe.
yeh I’ve been doing just this a lot as of late… and Lemmy tell ya, there’s a lot of natural beauty in his world, from clouds to the fractal shapes of plant life (ferns esp). best not to worry about impending doom and things you cannot change.
I actually think the threat of nuclear war is pretty low compared to other points in history.
Now the entire world turning into a Nazi state on the other hand
Yeah, the heightened potential for nuclear annihilation is terrifying but there’s frankly nothing you can do to survive it. Even if you somehow lived though the bombings, there’s no corner of the globe where starvation nor irradiation would not reach. The Earth would be uninhabitable and death would be certain for most land animals.
It’s a tragic way to die and for the human race to cease to be. But it’s only death and that’s certain to happen one way or another. There are countless other ways you could die that are either within or beyond your control. Many are far more likely to happen than nuclear war. Do you fret about being killed in an accident every time you step into a car?
I know it’s a lot easier said than done but try to live in the now rather than the future. Plan for tomorrow but recognize that, unlike the present, the future is not guaranteed. Don’t take the present for granted, go do things that bring you fulfillment now because ultimately that is the only time that you have control over.
I disagree. Someone who really prepares by storing food, having a place underground to survive for a period, and takes sufficient precautions could live. It would be expensive and difficult to prepare, and even then may not work, but I don’t think it’s true that people can’t try to prepare at all.
It’s certainly plausible to survive the initial bombings by taking adequate shelter, you may even be able to stock up enough provisions to survive for several months. The problem is what follows.
Nuclear winter is hypothesized to change the climate to the point where growing food is impossible, potentially for several years. Any animals you can hunt before they eventually succumb to starvation will have been poisoned by the fallout, their meat contaminated.
The fallout will spread across the globe, making the air you breathe toxic, either by radiation poisoning or by any number of harmful construction materials such as asbestos which is now particleized and floating freely.
If by some miracle you do still cling to life by this point, you will either be completely alone or surrounded by people just as desperate to survive as you are. Only in fiction do either of those situations end well.
So in that situation you need beans and rice and water purification (filters) that last 3 years. It’s expensive, but not impossible. There are people who already have that stored, and most of those people are very smart and well-prepared.
The danger of nuclear war wouldn’t be the radiation but poisoned water, food, air, due to the vaporized stuff thrown high into the athmosphere.
Hope that helps.
That definitely helps putting my mind off of the fear of radiation. Thanks.
The billionaires don’t want all-out nuclear war, what they want is world domination by a few, over a literal slave class mix of humans and robots.
However, in case of imminent attack in an outbreak of a nuclear WWIII, the best plan is to drive toward the biggest city in your region, or stay put if you currently live in a big city.
I’ll take instant vaporization over whatever the survivors are going to need to deal with in the aftermath.
You can die any number of ways at any time for any reason. Why fixate on one? Probably more likely to die in an automobile accident or some mundane bullshit than nuclear war.
if you find you have constant anxiety or are having intrusive thoughts or are obsessed with something and are unable to control it then please please please see a doctor or therapist if you can
there are lots of approaches and therapies you can use to train your brain to cope with anything better and have more agency and feel a happier life
Just to be a devil’s advocate: fear is an evolutionary response and is there for a reason and is sometimes highly rational. Talking yourself out of fear to conform to society’s expectations is not always smart.
I got you read https://goodgoodgood.co/ 2 articles on Hope:
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New study finds hope key to a meaningful life
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Hopeful people live better lives (14 year study)
Hope that tomorrow will be better than today and to do today with action solo and with others via collaboration, coordination, logistics, and short-term & long-term thinking to get to that tomorrow.
Read up on the many many benefits for Hope and same for benefits of gratitude, chosen family, friends, & community. All 5 have massively helped my mental health. Overtime as you keep building them up it will help you too. Try to do the same for others when you are able to in near future once you have yourself setup for all those
Read books, videos, etc about each of those things and with each one pause whenever you feel like it and do whatever it says to make it part of your life. Dont chase any of it embrace all of it as now. You are hopeful and grateful right now. You have others no matter what from those and up to internationally with real allies of the people
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Give away everything you own. Get 3 part time minimum wage jobs. You will then be excited for your pain to end.
People will probably not agree with me, but I think:
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You are not overreacting, although AI sometimes tells me that risks of nuclear disaster aren’t that high and I’m over-estimating.
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You can control things somewhat by preparing as much as you can to survive such a situation
But… preparing to try to survive nuclear war will require radical action possibly, especially if you live in a risky area that is more likely to be impacted.
What is preparation? It means getting the Potassium Iodine tablets, it means having food stored, it means having solar backups, ideally it means having a place where you can survive underground, and it means not living anywhere near a likely target. It requires major changes, expenses, and enduring hardship if you are wrong or right, but also feeling exasperated you spent money and wasted time if nothing happens.
I feel like there are two competing ways to look at this situation. 1) The elite control society, and they would not want to make society unlivable for them and their children, therefore nuclear war is an idea primarily to scare us and control us. The other option is 2) no one is steering the ship, the elite are greedy psychopaths and who knows what the hell will happen, and eventually conflict likely is going to happen and it will be ugly.
In World War 2, before Hitler came into power, some Jews in Europe were like “I’m worried about this situation, the political situation here is generally iffy, I’m getting the fuck out of here” and left and went to America… and then didn’t die as a result. Fear sometimes is what saves people, even if it seems crazy. I realize immigration to a new place is much harder in today’s world (especially to the USA, but in a global conflict, the USA probably wouldn’t be a great place to be).
Some advice about moving away from a major city may not be enough. Don’t be near a major city, military base, critical infrastructure… and then, that actually will only save you in a limited strike situation. In a worst case situation, everyone near the strikes is dead, and only people far far away survive (not near the countries in conflict), and even those people would struggle with food shortages, radioactive fallout spreading across the globe. Just being in rural America not near bases or cities may not be enough.
You either use that fear to prepare, or you accept that there is a possibility death could happen from a lack of preparation, as can death happen at any time, and take up Buddhism or meditation or religion or ways to carry on and accept that death is sometimes a part of life.
There is a YouTube personality, who also shills products and is sort of an alarmist, called Canadian Prepper. He’s worth checking out, but I would shop around and not just buy from him. Many of his videos are informative but also alarmist, but could also one day prove prescient.
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Ask the folks that we’re alive during the cold war. They got the good tips.
They told us to get under our desks. I’m not sure that will work…
Well, I had the realisation that the human race is a cancer to the planet, nukes might just be the chemotherapy the planet needs to survive. I was getting really distraught about the environmental crisis and concluded that nuking everything might be a way out. It gave me an odd sense of peace
The only thing you can do is move away from a major city. and after that you can’t do shit. So don’t worry about it. it’s fine
check out that movie Dead Man’s letters. it’s really good.
I was born in 1975, and during the eighties a nuclear war was always just about to happen. I can’t tell you what you should be doing, for the most we just lived with it. What helped was there was no 24/7 news cycle back then, so maybe try to block out the news to maintain a healthy consumption level?
From what I understand, global nuclear war was an ongoing concern by the mid-50’s, when the nuclear arms race got in to full swing. Along the timeline of the ensuing Cold War, there have evidently been a shocking number of close calls, with global war being averted by a single individual in some cases.
Let that sink in, if you will-- a SINGLE … fecking … person choosing to do the adult and humane thing, for the good of all us other humans, and most life on Earth.
Holy shit, does that person(s) deserve one hell of a victory parade, y’know?!
Now one note of interest might be that the USSR’s cache of nuclear arms may not have been well-maintained over the years, so modern Russia might be sitting on a far more limited amount of live weapons than exists on paper. FWIW… which of course probably isn’t much, in the end.
Most of the problems and anxiety of the USA in 2025 comes down to the FACT that POTUS has more singular power than any king of any nation. No one is even hinting at changing that for the future.
What does an 80 year old man with dementia and one foot in the grave care about launching nukes? No one in a nation of pussies will stop him.
No one is even hinting at changing that for the future.
That’s not really true, though. AOC, Sanders and others have been ceaselessly vocal about these matters, directly influencing change. And unless there’s systemic, nationwide fraud at the voting booths in November (I mean, much more than the usual), then the so-called “GOP” currently in charge is going to be in deep trouble from that point on. At least going by precedent and current rules, which of course might be somehow subverted by the Orangies, such as a declaration of martial law, etc.
No one in a nation of pussies will stop him.
The people manning the actual equipment are still military lifers, far as I know. From what I understand, it’s those types of folks who’ve historically prevented global nuclear war every time there was a chance of it happening.
Get involved and build resilience in your local community. It’s super beneficial for your mental health, social health and you can do something tangible that does make a difference. This resilience will help build and maintain and more importantly sustain the structural and social support for things like general strikes. It’s quite literally grounding in practice and people always need to eat. It’s a place to meet people that also care.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240105073255/https://effectiveactivist.com/zine/
It is only in the oppressor’s benefit to do otherwise. Remember these are the same people causing both issues.
Edit: Also check out !zines@slrpnk.net for inspiration. :)
More in the same vein:
Their linked guide is a great summary. The archive.org link above is partially a workbook to help people figure out where to start with these things too with considering personal abilities and needs… There are so many options!! !citizenscience@mander.xyz too, is a form of praxis through the building of public knowledge, skills and to help inform policy. No matter what happens, there’s always something to do.
