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I assume a worldwide nuclear war would be an extinction level event. Perhaps roaches will inherit the earth, but I doubt humans will.

arethuza 10y ago
I don't think that was ever really the case - there was a vast amount of over targeting where the same location would be hit tens or even hundreds of times (notably Moscow - apparently due for ~400 warheads in the worst days of the Cold War).
dbg31415 10y ago
I have to imagine the only way to really get nukes dropped on you, is to have nukes aimed at someone else... or have a large standing army. Or basically be a threat in some way. It's not like someone says, "I want to kill all the humans..." they presumably just want to destroy their enemies and threats to their safety. With that in mind, these nations are probably fucked... but that's only a fraction of nations. * List of states with nuclear weapons - Wikipedia || https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_we... Russia has, generously, an 8k nuclear arsenal (but only about 2k of those are considered active). If they sent everything they had ever built at Texas, they'd still barely be able to drop one bomb per every 30 square miles... Assuming they were all Tsar Bombs... that might take out one state. * NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein || http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ I think there are a lot of rural places in the US that would be mostly safe from being directly targeted and potentially far enough away to also avoid fallout. And also... like all of Canada. Who's going to waste nukes on Canada? * US States: Area and Ranking - EnchantedLearning.com || http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.shtml http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.shtml And let's not forget these are all government contracts to build the nukes were awarded to constituents as kickbacks or were built by the lower bidder -- and many are very old at this point. I have to think the failure rate is more than 0; so unless they're doubling up likely there will still be places targeted and still left unscathed due to delivery or ordinance malfunction... or just human malfunction, "Golly Gee, Sarge, I meant to target New York, but I typed in New Braunfels instead because of the auto-complete." Just for fun: * Tom Lehrer - Who's Next - with intro - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw
yarper 10y ago
It's actually very hard to imagine a true extinction level event now. Despite the comments in this thread, it's unlikely to be nuclear (there's just not enough power there - the Earth is really big). If the Earth's population is around 8 billion, even if a series of events killed 99.99% of us - there'd still be 800,000 people left. More than enough to repopulate in time.

arethuza 10y ago

I don't think that was ever really the case - there was a vast amount of over targeting where the same location would be hit tens or even hundreds of times (notably Moscow - apparently due for ~400 warheads in the worst days of the Cold War).

dbg31415 10y ago

I have to imagine the only way to really get nukes dropped on you, is to have nukes aimed at someone else... or have a large standing army. Or basically be a threat in some way. It's not like someone says, "I want to kill all the humans..." they presumably just want to destroy their enemies and threats to their safety. With that in mind, these nations are probably fucked... but that's only a fraction of nations. * List of states with nuclear weapons - Wikipedia || https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_we... Russia has, generously, an 8k nuclear arsenal (but only about 2k of those are considered active). If they sent everything they had ever built at Texas, they'd still barely be able to drop one bomb per every 30 square miles... Assuming they were all Tsar Bombs... that might take out one state. * NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein || http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ I think there are a lot of rural places in the US that would be mostly safe from being directly targeted and potentially far enough away to also avoid fallout. And also... like all of Canada. Who's going to waste nukes on Canada? * US States: Area and Ranking - EnchantedLearning.com || http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.shtml http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.shtml And let's not forget these are all government contracts to build the nukes were awarded to constituents as kickbacks or were built by the lower bidder -- and many are very old at this point. I have to think the failure rate is more than 0; so unless they're doubling up likely there will still be places targeted and still left unscathed due to delivery or ordinance malfunction... or just human malfunction, "Golly Gee, Sarge, I meant to target New York, but I typed in New Braunfels instead because of the auto-complete." Just for fun: * Tom Lehrer - Who's Next - with intro - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw

yarper 10y ago

It's actually very hard to imagine a true extinction level event now. Despite the comments in this thread, it's unlikely to be nuclear (there's just not enough power there - the Earth is really big). If the Earth's population is around 8 billion, even if a series of events killed 99.99% of us - there'd still be 800,000 people left. More than enough to repopulate in time.