Dr. Ivana Hughes

We spoke about a year and a half ago about the existential threat of nuclear war.

And when we spoke the first time, I had mentioned to you that I came into the conversation fairly naive.

And after our conversation, I had a fundamentally different perspective on how truly existential the threat is and how of all times to live in history, this is the moment that I'm brought into.

And we've eradicated diseases, childhood mortality is down in many parts of the world, but yet there is this technology that looms almost as a cloud hanging over every single person on this earth that is in the control of a small number of people that could effectively wipe out humanity.

So today we're gonna rehash some of the things from our previous conversation that haven't changed, like the threat of nuclear war.

And we're also going to kind of discuss the current, you know, status of where things are, kind of the state of the world.

And if that nuclear, you know, doomsday clock is kind of ticking closer to midnight and what that really means.

And ultimately, ideally, we come away from this conversation with...

some idea of how big this is and what we can do, you and I, you know, as just regular people and where that kind of leaves us.

So I guess maybe the first place to start is just kind of painting a vivid picture of what nuclear threat is and what exactly a nuclear attack on the United States would look like.

Because I think for many people, it feels like a really far away problem.

So if you could paint the picture, what would the, you know, minute by minute kind of scenario be?

Which, just to put it in context, that is a time when there's only three nuclear warheads that exist.

And that resulted in fundamentally changing the polarity of the world.

It affected the global power structure and resulted in the casualties of 200,000 people.

Not even including the chain of proxy alliances that these nations have.

Logistics, supply chains, global banking.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, again, I just I'm in exercise and kind of like prepping for speaking with you, I put myself in the shoes of trying to like, really feel what it would be like to be in a city where a nuclear bomb went off, you know, 10 miles away, I was, you know, 20 miles away from the blast zone.

And