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How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

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Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#171

Post by goatlover »

chakalakasp wrote: post #77
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encounter a lot of people with the "species-ending nuclear winter" false belief, and their attitudes are usually something like, "Oh, what can you do? Just have a drink and enjoy the fireworks." I get the sense the author is working against this line of thinking, because there is in fact a lot you can do (both in terms of preparing and in terms of responding).

How do you prepare for the complete breakdown of society and 200 million survivors competing for resources that will support maybe 15 million people in a blasted, utterly destroyed landscape with no infrastructure or production.

I thought the author argued there wasn’t enough nuclear weapons to utterly destroy all the infrastructure, even in major cities. No doubt it would be really bad with tens of millions dying in the aftermath. But there would still be intact smaller cities, roads, trains, smaller airports and some industry that wasn’t targeted. Plus a shot ton of farmland and ranches.

Setting the Western world back a century is probably correct. The balance of power would shift to the global South.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#172

Post by paulryanrogers »

oneoff786 wrote: post #166
happytoexplain wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically what I hoped the parent might be alluding to. However, while I believe you about what you're describing, my personal experience of people wanting more tangible military action has not been "I think we could win a nuclear war", but rather, "I don't think it will come to nuclear war" (not sure if that's a better or worse attitude). Related: I usually find these conversations kind of gliding around wha…

Yes, obviously this. I support stronger military action. I don’t want nuclear war. Again, obviously. All that blob of text is pointless. NATO need merely declare it has no offensive ambitions. Which it doesn’t. Then there’s no existential threat. Whether Russia chooses to use nukes, likely against kyiv, is really independent of that distinction. Whether the west responds with nukes is all but assuredly “no”.

It's like everyone is afraid of stopping the bully beating up on a weak kid because the bully also threatens to respond to intervention with a gun.

Yet the bully also knows if they actually use the gun they'll be put down like a feral dog before they have time to reload.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#173

Post by oneoff786 »

kortex wrote: post #161
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John deer tractors digitally brick themselves if you replace a part without authorisation. Most modern Ag machinery will be gone. Modern farms don't plant seed from their last harvest, specialised farms cultivate seeds, and 'normal' farms buy them and plants them - that system will be gone. Most agrochemicals will be gone. Is your plan to give a random joe a field and a hoe? They will get maybe 30% of the yield a pro…

Hackers will suddenly become some of the most valuable people in society. Those tractors will be jailbroken inside of a month. The average human wants to survive. If that survival is predicating on knowing about sustainable potato agriculture, you better believe that folks will learn.

Tractors run on gas. No more gas, no more tractors.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#174

Post by oneoff786 »

miav wrote: post #143

I’m surprised by the bad response this article received. All media I’m aware of speak of nuclear war in very vague terms and suggest an outcome similar to that which we see in entertainment science fiction. Long before the war in Ukraine I have been occasionally trying to dig a little deeper into the actual possible outcome of a nuclear war, but found only vague or outdated information and I’m very grateful to the au…

The AI shown in terminator does not exist. That’s a gross false equivalence.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#175

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

chakalakasp wrote: post #77
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encounter a lot of people with the "species-ending nuclear winter" false belief, and their attitudes are usually something like, "Oh, what can you do? Just have a drink and enjoy the fireworks." I get the sense the author is working against this line of thinking, because there is in fact a lot you can do (both in terms of preparing and in terms of responding).

How do you prepare for the complete breakdown of society and 200 million survivors competing for resources that will support maybe 15 million people in a blasted, utterly destroyed landscape with no infrastructure or production.

I'm no expert, but here are my thoughts:

1) Don't die in the initial strike. Take a working vacation to the countryside when things look tense if you live near obvious targets.

2) Have a few months' worth of food and water on hand

3) Skill with guns, ammo, and guns, in that order

4) Friends. Have friends who also have a modicum of preparedness and useful skills, or be good at making them

5) Healthcare and sanitation. Know the basics, have the basics.

That's a start from some rando on the internet

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#176

Post by chipsa »

chakalakasp wrote: post #152
chipsa wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides "be somewhere else", make it harder for other people to turn your country into a blasted landscape. Support ballistic missile defense.

ABM is hard. Evading ABM is much easier. Russia has some amazing tech for space based ABM interception evasion. ABM stuff works okayish against very small numbers of incoming warheads. ABM is completely ineffective against large numbers of inbound warheads.

Russia also claims that Moskva wasn't hit by Ukrainian missiles.

Evading ABM isn't easy. You need to generate delta-V to move out of the way, and then be able to get back into target, all the while not knowing if an interceptor is actually going to be coming or when.

ABM is harder than it used to be, but that's because we decided we didn't want to use nukes on interceptors. And that's because we don't want to have to get the president to release nukes to be able do the intercept. Which means we can launch when we think there's an incoming missile without much of an issue, and our reaction time is decreased.

There's nothing in the way our interceptors work that make 1000 harder than 10, aside from the fact that we don't have 1000. On the flipside, the 40 or so we do have, that are likely to kill about 10 incoming warheads. But the Russians don't know which 10. So every target they decide they have to kill needs 11 warheads, not 1. Which man's they can hit 10% of the targets they used to be able to. Or accept that some of the targets they think they should kill won't be dead.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#177

Post by baobabKoodaa »

pmoriarty wrote: post #103

I strongly encourage anyone who wants a taste of what nuclear war would look like to watch Threads [1]. Despite being the most terrifying depiction of nuclear war that I've ever seen, and it is probably overoptimistic. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a general in charge of UK's nuclear strategic defense met with his Soviet counterpart and asked the latter what he thought of Threads and the latter laughed and said…

Your link opens as "video is not available".

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#178

Post by paulryanrogers »

ben_w wrote: post #133
trhway wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and start back up it willn't be back up to and not even in the direction where we are today. The surviving population will be afflicted with a lot of decease, even several generations later. The minority capable of at least some level of being productive wouldn't be able to provide for and care for all the disabled/ill in their communities. Thus communities successfully surviving in say 100 years will have very diff…

Why do you expect that? Nagasaki and Hiroshima were both rebuilt, cancer levels in those cities in people conceived after the bombs is indistinguishable from places that weren’t nuked: https://k1project.columbia.edu/news/hiroshima-and-nagasaki

Much dirtier and more powerful bombs have been developed since 1945.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#179

Post by oneoff786 »

genericone wrote: post #39

Just one of many pro-nuke propaganda pieces prepping our minds for the next stage of war, actual nuclear war. The more we discuss the merits, the more "acceptable" the outcomes seem to become in the popular zeitgeist.

You think this is a government backed article?

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#180

Post by oneoff786 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #172
oneoff786 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, obviously this. I support stronger military action. I don’t want nuclear war. Again, obviously. All that blob of text is pointless. NATO need merely declare it has no offensive ambitions. Which it doesn’t. Then there’s no existential threat. Whether Russia chooses to use nukes, likely against kyiv, is really independent of that distinction. Whether the west responds with nukes is all but assuredly “no”.

It's like everyone is afraid of stopping the bully beating up on a weak kid because the bully also threatens to respond to intervention with a gun. Yet the bully also knows if they actually use the gun they'll be put down like a feral dog before they have time to reload.

No that’s not quite right. Nobody is going to do anything if the bully shoots the weak kid.
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