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Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

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Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#51

Post by randmeerkat »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #30
codekilla wrote: post #11

What is the point of writing a post like this? I feel like there is an impetus in the 'rational' tech press to want to downplay threats like nuclear war, and emphasize dubious threats like AGI. I really don't care if nuclear war doesn't kill every single human instantly . So what? Full scale nuclear war means instant civilization collapse.... full stop . Should we forget about disarmament?....guess not every single p…

> What is the point of writing a post like this? Counter hyperbole. Climate change has also been billed by some as a near-term extinction event. That isn’t true. When the public catches on they throw out the baby with the bathwater. To get the risk back in perspective, it’s necessary to first disabuse ourselves of the hyperbolic harm.

The collapse of civilization and the destructive power of nuclear weapons is hyperbole now..?

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#52

Post by saiya-jin »

ghostcluster wrote: post #25
newfeatureok wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you really comparing COVID to a hypothetical nuclear war? COVID barely disrupted the supply chain because people who actually work those mission critical jobs had to continue working on site. This wouldn’t be the case if nukes were dropping

In my mind, the most likely candidate for a nuclear war right now comes in a chaotic escalation of the conflict between Pakistan and India. I think this scenario would be horrible, but its damage to the rest of the world's supply chains? Probably less than COVID? The other conflict that worries me is a major provocation by China towards Taiwan. This is the foreign policy scenario that frightens me most, and feels lik…

you talk about localized conflicts far off US mainland, and what most here talk about is more on scale of global all out nuclear war

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#53

Post by 627467 »

randmeerkat wrote: post #51
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the point of writing a post like this? Counter hyperbole. Climate change has also been billed by some as a near-term extinction event. That isn’t true. When the public catches on they throw out the baby with the bathwater. To get the risk back in perspective, it’s necessary to first disabuse ourselves of the hyperbolic harm.

The collapse of civilization and the destructive power of nuclear weapons is hyperbole now..?

The collapse of civilization can't be a hyperbole. What people especulate that maybe bring it about can be.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#54

Post by randmeerkat »

627467 wrote: post #53
randmeerkat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collapse of civilization and the destructive power of nuclear weapons is hyperbole now..?

The collapse of civilization can't be a hyperbole. What people especulate that maybe bring it about can be.

Yeah, I phrased that poorly. I meant to say that the the destructive power of nuclear weapons and the likelihood of full out nuclear war causing the total collapse of civilization is considered hyperbole now..?

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#55

Post by 627467 »

throwhypothetic wrote: post #50
codekilla wrote: post #11

What is the point of writing a post like this? I feel like there is an impetus in the 'rational' tech press to want to downplay threats like nuclear war, and emphasize dubious threats like AGI. I really don't care if nuclear war doesn't kill every single human instantly . So what? Full scale nuclear war means instant civilization collapse.... full stop . Should we forget about disarmament?....guess not every single p…

In the context of civilization collapse, I think the author is overestimating how likely it is that people will be able to figure out subsistence farming using only locally available materials before they starve. Does anyone on Earth still do that, i.e. with no reliance on materials shipped in from elsewhere?

Does a surviving civilization need/want to rely on the same processes that (may) have led to their outcome?

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#56

Post by benlivengood »

What a lot of people seem to gloss over is that the southern hemisphere is, for the most part, blissfully uninvolved in nuclear politics and unlikely to be targeted. Global wind patterns would dump most of the fallout in the northern hemisphere. Google and Facebook would be gone because there are too many primary data centers in the northern hemisphere but Wikipedia might not even go down. Humanity on the historical level would notice a strange blip.

Not discounting the terrible loss of life (I'd be dead along with everyone I know and love) but lesswrong is generally concerned with existential risk, not whether global GDP will be X in 100 years.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#57

Post by 627467 »

randmeerkat wrote: post #54
627467 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collapse of civilization can't be a hyperbole. What people especulate that maybe bring it about can be.

Yeah, I phrased that poorly. I meant to say that the the destructive power of nuclear weapons and the likelihood of full out nuclear war causing the total collapse of civilization is considered hyperbole now..?

According to the post, yes. To state that such event may lead to total collapse wouldn't be a new idea at all. It's the mainstream hypothesis since the cold war.

To challenge those ideas by articulating the opposite (that it may not lead to total collapse) it's new (to me at least) and good food for thought.

Can't cite anything, but I'm pretty sure that the nimble investment in nuclear energy that society has made as a whole in the past decades were fueled by fear of total collapse as if it's impossible for humans to play with fire without completely obliterating ourselves. And considering the new(ish) challenges we have (climate and others) I find it helpful to think that past demons/fears can be managed in a constructive way.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#58

Post by jcranmer »

throwhypothetic wrote: post #50
codekilla wrote: post #11

What is the point of writing a post like this? I feel like there is an impetus in the 'rational' tech press to want to downplay threats like nuclear war, and emphasize dubious threats like AGI. I really don't care if nuclear war doesn't kill every single human instantly . So what? Full scale nuclear war means instant civilization collapse.... full stop . Should we forget about disarmament?....guess not every single p…

In the context of civilization collapse, I think the author is overestimating how likely it is that people will be able to figure out subsistence farming using only locally available materials before they starve. Does anyone on Earth still do that, i.e. with no reliance on materials shipped in from elsewhere?

There are about 100 uncontacted tribes thought to remain.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#59

Post by ghostcluster »

saiya-jin wrote: post #52
ghostcluster wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind, the most likely candidate for a nuclear war right now comes in a chaotic escalation of the conflict between Pakistan and India. I think this scenario would be horrible, but its damage to the rest of the world's supply chains? Probably less than COVID? The other conflict that worries me is a major provocation by China towards Taiwan. This is the foreign policy scenario that frightens me most, and feels lik…

you talk about localized conflicts far off US mainland, and what most here talk about is more on scale of global all out nuclear war

Nuclear Winter was the scenario most widely used to justify a hypothetical total worldwide collapse, but we now know that this particular scenario is unlikely, even in the case of the most violent possible global exchange.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#60

Post by elihu »

> The nuclear winter model at its simplest: Nuclear detonations → Fires in cities → Firestorms in cities → Lofted black carbon into the upper atmosphere → black carbon persists in upper atmosphere, reflecting sunlight and causes massive cooling > > Each step is required in order for the effect to occur.

Why cities in particular? Are cities more flammable or more likely to produce the wrong kind of smoke than, say, a forest fire? (I'm assuming there exist at least some military targets in heavily forested areas.)

Also, is the nuclear blast itself a key component in the effect? For instance, does the mushroom cloud create an updraft larger than what you'd have with a regular forest fire?

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