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Worldly

Duck and cover

Worldly

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.41.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Zack, Jenn, and Alex address one of the world’s biggest threats: nuclear war. There’s a small but still very real chance that nuclear weapons will be used in our lifetimes; the gang discusses how that could happen — and what it would look like if the bomb actually went off. For Elsewhere, they end the episode on a “high” note: discussing the impact of Canada’s recent legalization of marijuana. Zack comes up with a new nuclear Pokémon, Jenn complains about “dirty hippies,” and Alex finds a way to talk about the World Cup. Throughout the episode, we drew on Alex Ward’s story about how a nuclear war kills you. As we mentioned, Worldly’s dug deep in to the possibility of nuclear war between India and Pakistan before. And here’s Yochi Dreazen’s piece on what a war between the US and North Korea would look like. We’re still at war with North Korea formally, for real. Jeffrey Lewis’s book, The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel There’s a Tumblr of Kim Jong Un looking at things, and it makes Jenn and the Worldly crew laugh every time The Trump administration’s new nuclear strategy calls for more little nukes -- how cute. For more on the treaty we just pulled out of, check out yesterday’s episode of Today, Explained Here’s the nuclear bomb simulator Alex mentioned Here are the basic facts of Canada’s weed legalization. Zack mentioned a Brookings Institution report on how Uruguay is doing just fine after legalizing pot. Zack also talked about “norm cascades,” a term coined by scholars Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink Check out the Future Perfect podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to Wordley, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Zach Beecham.

0:14.0

Here's always with Jen Williams and Alex Ward.

0:15.0

Hi.

0:16.0

Hello.

0:17.0

Today we're going to talk about something that all three of us are obsessed with.

0:20.0

It's one of the greatest threats to the world today,

0:22.0

and we don't talk about it nearly enough.

0:24.8

That's nuclear war.

0:26.8

This may seem in our post-Cold War era like the stuff of movies.

0:31.2

Well boys, I reckon this is it. Nuclear combat toe-to-to-to-to-to-the-o with the Ruskies.

0:38.0

The Ruskies. We love Dr Strange love as much as anyone, but the risk of two countries with nuclear weapons going to war and using the bomb isn't just a feature of the past.

0:49.0

It's still a very, very scary risk.

0:52.0

Alex, you wrote a big piece on nuclear issues this week for our

0:54.9

new section Future Perfect which also has its own podcast which you should all

0:58.1

check out. Start us off with the basics. Who has nukes in the first place?

1:02.1

Sure so it's nine countries, the US, Russia, UK, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, China, and Israel.

1:10.0

Wow, take a breath there.

1:12.0

Ah, all nine.

1:14.0

One kind of quick and easy way to remember at least five of those that I always do is the five permanent

1:18.8

members of the UN Security Council, so the US, UK, France, China, and Russia.

1:22.2

And then you just have to add four more,

1:23.2

and then you've got all nine.

...

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