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In locations of significant fall out the Sv./hr could be high enough to induce radiation poisoning. Inhalation of fallout allows alpha particles to bypass your

In locations of significant fall out the Sv./hr could be high enough to induce radiation poisoning. Inhalation of fallout allows alpha particles to bypass your skin and cause cancers faster (or again, radiation poisoning). A better example than those bombings is chernobyl which despite it's relatively small sized (compared to actual nuclear weapons) induced significant levels of radiation sickness and long term cancers due to the fallout. Certainly fallout is less dangerous than starvation. However, it also isn't something to just hand wave as not a big deal. It hinders your travel, can cause various degrees of sickness, etc. I dont think it's a far stretch to say that the total effect of a large scale nuclear war will primarily be felt in the fallout which will cause deaths in places completely uneffected by the war.

xyzzyz 4y ago
> In locations of significant fall out the Sv./hr could be high enough to induce radiation poisoning. Yes, but those won’t be the vast red marked areas on the map you posted, it will be much more localized. > A better example than those bombings is chernobyl which despite it's relatively small sized (compared to actual nuclear weapons) induced significant levels of radiation sickness and long term cancers due to the fallout. To the contrary, Chernobyl again provides arguments against your theory. First, the number of people who got radiation sickness is rather low (between 100 and 200), and it only affected people who actually worked directly on the site of the disaster. Second, there is in fact very little evidence of increased cancer due to Chernobyl disaster among people other than the few hundred people on site on the day of disaster. One exception is good evidence for few thousand extra thyroid cancers, These are very easily treatable (90%+ success rates) in normal circumstances, so the might cause some problems in the nuclear war scenario, but an easy way to avoid it is to not eat fresh grown food for a few weeks right after the disaster (you can store it and it eat later). > However, it also isn't something to just hand wave as not a big deal. It hinders your travel, can cause various degrees of sickness, etc. Of course, but observe how you are backpedaling from your original “everyone is dead” claim. Look, if you think I am arguing that nuclear war is no biggie, you are much mistaken, and you need to read more carefully. All I’m saying is that it is very much false that everyone will die, either directly from bombs or later from fallout. Plenty of people will die, but given the realities of scale, plenty will survive too.

xyzzyz 4y ago

> In locations of significant fall out the Sv./hr could be high enough to induce radiation poisoning. Yes, but those won’t be the vast red marked areas on the map you posted, it will be much more localized. > A better example than those bombings is chernobyl which despite it's relatively small sized (compared to actual nuclear weapons) induced significant levels of radiation sickness and long term cancers due to the fallout. To the contrary, Chernobyl again provides arguments against your theory. First, the number of people who got radiation sickness is rather low (between 100 and 200), and it only affected people who actually worked directly on the site of the disaster. Second, there is in fact very little evidence of increased cancer due to Chernobyl disaster among people other than the few hundred people on site on the day of disaster. One exception is good evidence for few thousand extra thyroid cancers, These are very easily treatable (90%+ success rates) in normal circumstances, so the might cause some problems in the nuclear war scenario, but an easy way to avoid it is to not eat fresh grown food for a few weeks right after the disaster (you can store it and it eat later). > However, it also isn't something to just hand wave as not a big deal. It hinders your travel, can cause various degrees of sickness, etc. Of course, but observe how you are backpedaling from your original “everyone is dead” claim. Look, if you think I am arguing that nuclear war is no biggie, you are much mistaken, and you need to read more carefully. All I’m saying is that it is very much false that everyone will die, either directly from bombs or later from fallout. Plenty of people will die, but given the realities of scale, plenty will survive too.