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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?

#171

Post by tlb »

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 our everyday ethics, an accident that kills 2 people is about twice as bad as an accident that kills 1 person. So we can use linear assumptions for evaluating safety measures like seatbelts and vaccines.

In the study of existential risk, killing all the people is much, much worse than killing half the people. Because if you integrate over all the people that will ever live, our descendants potentially spreading around the galaxy, killing all of them zeros out all future happiness. Killing half will only reduce population for a century or two.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#172

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

onion2k wrote: post #167
lopmotr wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Very few people would choose to have children and raise them in a post-nuclear war environment, even if the radiation didn't make viable babies impossible. It's possible that the population would die out simply because it wouldn't be replaced quickly enough.

Some people don't "choose to have children." They feel like fucking so they do, and children happen afterwards.

I wouldn't expect that to change after a nuclear war, especially in a world without contraceptives.

That aside, there really needs to be more understanding of the difference between species extinction and cultural extinction.

Humans could survive for hundreds of millennia in a devolved state. They wouldn't be particularly human by our standards, but they'd have the same DNA.

But our culture would be gone. All the accumulated knowledge would be wiped out, and it's very possible nothing like it would ever return.

DNA is fairly robust. Culture, knowledge, and rationality are extremely fragile. We're not doing an outstandingly job of preserving them even without a nuclear war, and I can't imagine a nuclear war would make the situation any better.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#173

Post by Supermancho »

greedo wrote: post #73
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think you're underestimating the number of target between just the US and Russia. Each has approximately 1600 warheads deployed. Even with using 3 warheads per target, that means over 500 cities/targets in each country destroyed. Of course neither side would use all their active warheads on the opposing country; they would save some for other nations. Then you have to factor in British and French warheads. Israel,…

> Of course neither side would use all their active warheads on the opposing country; they would save some for other nations

Nor would all of those warheads will detonate, land on target (some will hit and target the ocean) or launch successfully.

> But full scale nuclear war would eliminate North America,

I doubt it. Maybe you're being hyperbolic here, to whit.

If you eliminate the top 20 US ports, the aircraft carriers and a couple military bases (including Washington DC), you have destroyed modern USA but you do have to wait out the sub launches and miscellaneous hidden missile silos. There's little point to sending nukes to Montana, Kansas, etc. Nothing more (probably a lot less). Show me something that asserts anything more is necessary.

You don't eliminate land and population you dont have to, to win a war. Mad-max wastelands are hyperbolic fantasy that ignore basic human agency, imo. Country X isn't scared of refugees or natives of Louisiana forming an invasion force to retaliate so there's no reason to wipe out the land. Again, misfires happen and nuclear fallout is bad for everyone, but that's not the same thing as "eliminating" NA.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#174

Post by jacobush »

lmm wrote: post #169
trhway wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is my point - the necessary material science in many respects is just a knowledge. If you have copper it is relatively easy to make copper wire, at least some crude one, if you know what it is for. It took 2000 years to build the knowledge, yet having that knowledge one can rebuild a lot of stuff in orders of magnitude shorter timeframe. Btw, that reminded about that book that i liked a lot back then as a child…

It's not though - it's a whole interlinked ecosystem of industry and even if you have the knowledge that doesn't mean you'd be able to bootstrap. A simple example is that most wind turbines today are likely built from steel that was made in an electric arc furnace, which themselves require massive amounts of electricity to run. (And that's just the basic material, to say nothing of the tools and processes you need to…

It’s one thing to build highly optimised things and another to build things that work just well enough.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#175

Post by KineticLensman »

lmm wrote: post #159
KineticLensman wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, installation, bases and navies are very close to or embedded in cities. PJHQ is Northwest London. The Royal Navy is based near large cities on the South Coast and Scotland. Thermonuclear attacks on these bases would affect millions of people.

Yes, because the UK is densely populated. Not every country is like that.

My more general point is that it may be harder than the GP suggests to distinguish between a military versus an extermination attack.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#176

Post by taneq »

baybal2 wrote: post #155
taneq wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having just any weapon is worth keeping a secret. From the moment you have a weapon, and an enemy, the later will try to disarm you.

Not 'worth keeping a secret' - worth controlling the information revealed about it. In the case of nuclear weapons, you want to keep its weaknesses and fallibilities secret while trumpeting its existence from the rooftops. The more parties know you have a mega-weapon, the lower the chance you'll have to use it.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#177

Post by blackrock »

I don’t think anyone ever thought human extinction would happen from a nuclear war.

But what will likely happen is a societal collapse.

Governments just cannot handle the scale of a thermonuclear detonation on multiple population centers.

The people in the epicenter of the detonation will be vaporized, God bless their souls, since they are the lucky ones. But the people on the fringe of the detonation will suffer from radioactive fallout, and will eventually succumb to diseases and leukemia.

And with MIRV ICBMs, a single missile can easily target multiple distant locations, population centers, and food production centers, to ensure that the enemy is thoroughly eliminated with extreme prejudice. Thus, the society and country, as you know it, will crumble apart.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#178

Post by uCantCauseUCant »

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…

not really AGI is currently pitching us left vs right against one anothers throat through political advisory mindhacks - thanks Palantir.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#179

Post by goatlover »

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.

What if the Southern Hemisphere isn't targeted? Fallout will mostly effect the northern hemisphere, and if there isn't a nuclear winter (or a milder one than projected), then the damage will be largely economic to those nations. But their infrastructure and ability to grow food would remain intact.

I suppose refugees and the political vacuum created would be significant problems.

Re: Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?

#180

Post by lmm »

jacobush wrote: post #174
lmm wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not though - it's a whole interlinked ecosystem of industry and even if you have the knowledge that doesn't mean you'd be able to bootstrap. A simple example is that most wind turbines today are likely built from steel that was made in an electric arc furnace, which themselves require massive amounts of electricity to run. (And that's just the basic material, to say nothing of the tools and processes you need to…

It’s one thing to build highly optimised things and another to build things that work just well enough.

"Just well enough" may not be enough to rebuild society with. The Greeks didn't lack the knowledge of how to make a steam engine - they had novelty steam engines - but they lacked the industrial base that could actually make them productive.
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