You can definitely survive a nuclear war -- but you might up envying the dead.
How destructive are nuclear weapons really?
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Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?
#12This essay is leaning very hard on the fact that there are 5% the number of warheads today as there were at the peak of the cold war. Nuclear weapons are exactly as destructive as we think; the sum total of the nuclear arsenal is far smaller than when many of us formed our impressions.
Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?
#13The analysis is interesting and makes sense that populations wouldn’t largely be targeted, but it seems that’s assuming some kind of logical strategy to the war where the objective is to disable the forces of your opponent. That’s nice and tidy to then say populated areas won’t largely be targeted, but what if the objective in using them just becomes to create as much human suffering as possible?
Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?
#14How can we be sure of even a conservative estimate of current warheads. Why wouldn’t US/Russia have significantly more nuclear war heads than they are a) allowed and b) saying they have? Surely it’s in their interest to have more than the other.
The US frequently inspects Russian nuclear facilities and vice versa per the New START Treaty.
Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?
#15As a wannabe libertarian, I believe in freedom of speech and information. But if I had to choose a single topic of all that has to banned, it would be this. Due to several cognitive biases human perception tends to lean towards black & white depiction of the world. In nuclear war topic black is "we all are gonna die so there is no point to use the nukes" and white is "well, it's not that bad after all, maybe we could…
If you want to force people to lie or remain silent about what you consider a dangerous truth despite it being discernibly false in order to maintain a convenient fiction soviet style you probably aren't actually a libertarian.
Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?
#16As a wannabe libertarian, I believe in freedom of speech and information. But if I had to choose a single topic of all that has to banned, it would be this. Due to several cognitive biases human perception tends to lean towards black & white depiction of the world. In nuclear war topic black is "we all are gonna die so there is no point to use the nukes" and white is "well, it's not that bad after all, maybe we could…
Interesting that your comment exemplifies the black & white depiction of the world that you describe. A grey depiction is exactly as the article describes - nuclear war would be bad but here are its realistic effects, and here are ways that you can protect yourself from the worst of these effects.
There's a communalist vs. individualist divide here. It may be better for everyone if everyone believes that nuclear war is unspeakably bad and so is off the table as an option. However, it's better for an individual, given that they can't influence world events, if they're armed with a realistic portrayal of nuclear war and steps they can take to protect themselves.
Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?
#17>not an existential threat to humanity ... [but] it would be a humanitarian catastrophe unprecedented in human history, as the global economy breaks down and regions are pushed back on their own resources. This could easily kill more people than the war itself, particularly in densely-populated areas, but I would expect things to stabilize at a technology level of maybe the late 19th/early 20th century and start back…
You should try this https://www.radzone.org/nukemap.php. Move the map on your location and see the impact radius.
Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?
#18Nukes don't need to wipe out every square inch as the author implies. They only need to cause covid-like, ukraine-like interference to our infrastructure to reduce our planet to the iron age and only capable of supporting a fraction of its current population.
Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?
#19It depends: Real-world nukes, or Hollywood nukes. If real-world nukes, play with Nukemap to get an idea. https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
The article mentions nukemap
and says it targets the center of each city, whereas in real life infrastructure (of military significance) would be targeted. As far as I can tell that's the assumption on which the entire article rests.
Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?
#20"Known" nuclear weapons. Good part of the motivation of that arms race was to discourage the enemy to start a war, even if they had everything to win it. In that line, there had been rumours of doomsday devices (like Dead Hand from URSS in the Cold War) that could put in danger most life on Earth, that could be triggered if some side loses or other defined conditions. It is a level up from mutual assured destruction.
And that example is from 50+ years ago. I don't know if something more advanced was developed more recently by either side. Technology and science had advanced a lot and both sides had a pretty big budget all this time. I prefer to not discard the possibility.