Yes, in a worst case scenario like the article uses, it really is game over. You may wish you had died early. I'm not sure that's the most likely scenario, how

Yes, in a worst case scenario like the article uses, it really is game over. You may wish you had died early. I'm not sure that's the most likely scenario, however or at least the only one worth considering. There are some scenarios in which nuclear weapons would be deployed without triggering a wider deployment. In those cases, survival will not only be possible, but likely. What the world looks like after such an event is another question. Think about how the pandemic played out. Ask most people what that would look like prior to 2020 and you'd get some version of Outbreak or Contagion. Reality was not just different but far messier. Now that we're in it (on the other side of it?) those models look almost quaint. It could be the same way with a nuclear exchange. The arsenals are very old, for one thing. Misfires and other unexpected events could derail responses. Then there's disbelief. There have been incidents in which those in the chain of command said "no". So a partial exchange isn't exactly impossible. Then there's the motivation for detonating a nuke. Why do it? To terrify your opponent. To bring them to the negotiating table. To end whatever conflict has erupted quickly. You only do something like that if you're sure there will be no strike launched at you. There are places in the world in which this might be a possibility. Tactical nuclear weapons are sometimes cited as a trigger, and there's bee a lot of talk about that in Ukraine. But the size of the weapon you need to deploy, and the proximity of that deployment to the side launching the strike makes little military sense. It's escalation with not much payoff. It could work as a weapon of terror, but only if the other side plays along. There's also timing to consider. There's a tendency to think of a nuclear exchange as climactic event with the launch of thousands of missiles over the course of a day or two. The track record on predicting the duration of wars is quite bad. Young men were falling over themselves to enlist for WWI because they were afraid it would be over so quickly they wouldn't have time to see action. Afghanistan was supposed to be an in-and-out thing. Victory in Iraq was famously proclaimed by the US president years before the US finally withdrew in shame. A nuclear war can last decades, centuries maybe. The first country to break the taboo makes it that much more likely that another will follow suit. Does this always mean escalation to the the point of launching thousands of weapons? Did the world's current nuclear war start in 1945?