The Needs of the Many...

Hi Everybody,

As the first radioactive Iodine and Cesium have been picked up today (Friday) in California (at extremely low levels), here's the latest from Japan:

TEPCO is allowing the workers a Fukushima to take higher doses (up to 200 miliSieverts) of radiation while while conscripting a growing army of workers to arrest the quadruple meltdown scenario:


http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/18/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?iref=NS1

This is probably because the radiation levels are so high, that if they
stick to the usual safety guidelines, workers wouldn't be able to get
anything done.  This Harvard physician computes that the workers at
Fukushima are being exposed to the maximum allowable ANNUAL dose (per the US NRC) in just 7.5 minutes:


http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/radiation-risk-in-japan-an-update-201103182003

CNN reports "Abnormally high levels of radiation" are appearing in food in Japan.  A very candid analysis by Dr. Michio Kaku strongly recommends the Chernobyl Sarcophagus option (that link is now dead)

The first link above contains a quote from the ICRP:
"the benefit to others clearly outweighs the rescuer's risk."

That, with my mindset, inevitably suggests Spock's last words, before sacrificing his life to a radiation poisoning to ensure the survival of everybody else:  "The Needs of the Many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVIt0DYKssI

It just now occurred to me that Spock's death scene may well have been inspired by the "biorobots" of Chernobyl.  "Biorobot" is a sardonic Russian term for humans who were asked to do what only robots should do.



-Chris