Entire cities have been destroyed by nuclear bombs, the effects of nuclear weapons testing falout are measurable in everything around us. The risks are not even qualitatively comparable.
Not really, no. Also they were perfectly aware of the destructive potential of really big bombs. This risk of increasingly big weapons that can destroy civilization were completely obvious, regardless of their mechanism of operation.
Your analogy doesn't hold up because weapons were real, mass mobilization conflict between industrial societies was real. Plus you've now switched it around - first it was people who warned against the risks of nuclear war (effectively everyone), now it's people who didn't believe nuclear weapons were possible in 1940 (effectively nobody), etc. There has to be more to an argument than a mention of turkeys and rhetorical swerves.
People being afraid of a nuclear war are stupid in a way only extremely intelligent people can be? Was that just something that sounded witty in your mind?
