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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?

#131

Post by lopmotr »

mynegation wrote: post #75
landfish wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote this post, and the point is to improve discussion of societal risks. As others have pointed out, nuclear war doesn't have to kill everyone to be extremely bad and worth avoiding. I spend a lot of my time thinking about risks from nuclear and biological weapons, and downplaying these risks is not my purpose. One problem with assuming nuclear war kills everyone is that this discourages anyone from preparing for…

The post discusses only first order effects. In case of nuclear war most people will die not from kinetic shock or radiation, but from famine and deceases caused by collapse of supply chain and medical infrastructures, and from unavoidable violence during the fight for scarce remaining resources.

Those effects won't cause extinction though because they'll diminish as the population shrinks so it'll reach some equilibrium. This is about extinction, not just lots of people dying. Nuclear winter wouldn't get less harmful the fewer people are around.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#132

Post by lopmotr »

grawprog wrote: post #130
PeterisP wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not humans end up totally extinct is irrelevant to the questions like whether nuclear war is bad and whether we should work to prevent it. However, the question whether or not humans end up totally extinct is relevant when comparing nuclear war with other very horrible risks, some of which do threaten total extinction. To discuss, prioritize and act on very serious (though, hopefully, unlikely to materiali…

What other risks are there that are directly intentionally human driven that could cause such an extreme amount of destruction, death and societal collapse over the span of a few hours?

Meteorite strike or supervolcano eruption that we could have protected ourselves against but didn't because of resources spent on nuclear war prevention.

Not sure why you added the "within a few hours" qualifier or "intentionally human driven". Have you already thought of something that takes longer, is done by humans accidentally, or is natural? Is it climate change? Does that already answer your question?

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#133

Post by ivalm »

grawprog wrote: post #130
PeterisP wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not humans end up totally extinct is irrelevant to the questions like whether nuclear war is bad and whether we should work to prevent it. However, the question whether or not humans end up totally extinct is relevant when comparing nuclear war with other very horrible risks, some of which do threaten total extinction. To discuss, prioritize and act on very serious (though, hopefully, unlikely to materiali…

What other risks are there that are directly intentionally human driven that could cause such an extreme amount of destruction, death and societal collapse over the span of a few hours?

In near-ish future I guess deorbiting sufficiently large asteroids? In maybe further future AI and aliens.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#134

Post by solveit »

randmeerkat wrote: post #84
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The collapse of civilization and the destructive power of nuclear weapons is hyperbole now..? No, extinction as a consequence is. Modern civilisation as we know it will collapse. This was spun, by some people, into nuclear war will end humanity. That’s hyperbole.

Hmm, it still seems advisable to do everything humanly possible to avoid nuclear conflict. _If_ I survived such a conflict, I’d probably wish I hadn’t.

> everything humanly possible

Does this include, say, accelerating climate change? This isn't an idle hypothetical, nuclear reactor technology is similar enough to nuclear weapons technology that any country with a reactor can produce crude nuclear weapons in a matter of months.

Hard decisions exist and must be made. At some point we must quantify risks.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#135

Post by taneq »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #125
throw0101a wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why a defensive missile shield technology is not a good investment if you want more peace. That depends on whether you go for a 'weak' shield or a 'strong' shield. A weak shield may defend a dozen or two warheads: something that North Korea would launch. Japan has a 'weak' shield AFAICT: * https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1374.html A strong one would protect against hundreds: another major power…

AFAIK anti-missile shields aren't a realistic option. Modern ICBM designs have multiple independently targetable warheads. There are also submarines with nuclear missiles. You can also launch decoys (eg: aluminium foil or flares). And uh. Recently, I was reading a book called Skunk Works. The author explains that, basically, the US was able to keep the existence of stealth fighters a secret from the public (and Russi…

I don't understand why you would keep such a thing secret. As Dr. Strangelove rightly pointed out, a doomsday device is pointless if nobody knows about it.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#136

Post by solveit »

Imnimo wrote: post #100

Does there exist any scholarship that argues that nuclear war could cause human extinction, or is this just a refutation of a sort of folk knowledge that "obviously" nuclear war could lead to extinction? The author engages a bit with the scholarship surrounding the idea of nuclear winter, which is nice, but reference to an argument in favor of the possibility of extinction, it's tough for me as lay person to judge wh…

Straw man. Anyone who actually studies this for a living is well aware that nuclear war is very unlikely to lead to full extinction. But the popular impression is that nuclear war could lead to everybody dying. Partly this is because if you are Joe Average, the difference between everyone dying and you and all your friends and family dying is not very important.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#137

Post by EthanHeilman »

devy wrote: post #117
mynegation wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post discusses only first order effects. In case of nuclear war most people will die not from kinetic shock or radiation, but from famine and deceases caused by collapse of supply chain and medical infrastructures, and from unavoidable violence during the fight for scarce remaining resources.

Exactly! The intangible disruptions of a human society will indirectly cause eventual death due to the nuclear war. Think about it, just the COVID-19 lockdown of a few weeks can cause economy collapsed, people out of jobs, can't paid rent, utilities. A nuclear war will immediate cut off or contaminate essential human necessities, like food, water, shelters, electricity etc., so even without getting harmed by kinetic…

I always found that more frightening than total extinction. I can't imagine all humans blinking out in a few hours. I can imagine having no food or money, trying to work dangerous odd jobs here and there and starving to death along with 30% of my town during a winter famine a few years later.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#138

Post by scollet »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #70
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…

Full scale nuclear war means big cities will be bombed and millions of people die. What civilizational collapse are you talking about? The lack of Hollywood movies and absence of the NYSE?

Talking about total supply chain collapse.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#139

Post by jay_kyburz »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #124
eloff wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few things could actually make humans extinct at this point. It would take an impact like the one that produced the moon to finish us off. We're so adaptable that some of us will survive and rebuild. If we can ever get back to technological civilization without easily accessible fossil fuels is debatable, but I think we'd find a way - it would just be a lot harder and take longer. What worries me is not extincti…

Realistically, if there was a full-scale nuclear war, famine and violence would kill 90-95% of people. It would also destroy a lot of our technological capabilities. There are only a handful of silicon fabs in the world, and they have complex supply chains. It could bring us back to some kind of a technological middle age, except we'd have guns, electricity and radios.

The ammo and electricity would not last long in most parts of the world. I think a lot of communities would have real trouble even feeding themselves and a few hard winters could wipe them out.
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