I'd also say a majority of people also don't know the term in relation to nuclear weapons either. The average person is extremely uneducated about anything nuclear. They don't know what differences between the original bombs the US dropped and modern nuclear weapons weapons might be. Even post-Oppenheimer film.

Differentiating between Nuclear and Thermonuclear weapons is something pedants in online forums do, not normies in the real world.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I completely disagree with you. A hydrogen bomb has meant nuclear weapons for 50ish years to anyone with a passing familiarity - and a whole shitton of people learned during the cold war that there were nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, they built fucking shelters in their back yards lol.

so no, disagree with you.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world -2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well, for anecdotal proof of the average person... Since that's all we have here... both of my boomer parents that lived through the cold war, and were those children sheltering under fucking desks as of that would make a damned difference, didn't think it was related to a nuclear weapon at all.

It's a Yahoo Autos article for fucks sake, because it isn't a nuke, no one would mistake it for a nuke. Only dipshits online trying to argue because they're incapable of admitting their initial assumption of a headline didn't actually make sense in context.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

both of my boomer parents that lived through the cold war, and were those children sheltering under fucking desks as of that would make a damned difference, didn’t think it was related to a nuclear weapon at all.

In the 80s we still did the air raid drills. Lived near a bunch of SAC bases - we basically knew that in the age of thermonuclear weapons and adjacent targets (whiteman, offut, carswell etc), we were fucked.

The reason I dislike the terminology being muddled is that I don't want Russians to have it as a talking point if they escalate. And since Ukraine is taking Kursk at an astounding rate, never underestimate the bullshit RU will spout to justify their panicked responses.

the terminology predates you but it's not esoteric knowledge at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon