Randaly comments on What did governments get right? Gotta list them all! - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 18 September 2013 12:59PM

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Comment author: Randaly 20 September 2013 03:01:12AM 2 points [-]

NSA stuff is classified because its release would alert others to the US's capabilities; the fact of an accident would not
One would expect the USSR to be equally eager to classify their mistakes, and to have greater success; they are believed to have failed utterly
Any argument in favor of classifying nuclear accidents would apply equally to the Thresher, Scorpion, Guitarro, San Francisco, and Miami, for which no serious attempt was made at classification
Nuclear accidents, judging by the USSR's experience, almost always involve the loss of an entire ship, and many fatalities. It is not possibly for the Navy to just "lose" a ship or a dozen sailors. (No submarine certified under the navy's safety plan, SUBSAFE, has ever been lost, for any reason.) It is even less possible for them to evacuate an aircraft carrier and then rely on tugs to move it to a dock for repair..