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For the survivors, the internet will be critical for rebuilding. As long as there's electricity and as more of the internet moves into outer space, it'll work.

dreen 4y ago
I hope I don't survive the nuclear war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film)
- arethuza 4y ago
  On a cheery note for a Monday morning, worth noting that Threads was based on a fairly optimistic scenario for the Soviets attacking the UK - a real attack would probably have been far worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg I appreciate that anyone who has seen Threads might find that difficult to believe.
  - redbar0n 4y ago
    That source confusingly indicates both that the scenario was underestimated: >It was assumed that 131 nuclear weapons would fall on Britain with a total yield of 205 megatons (69 ground burst; 62 air burst)[1] with yields of 500 KT to 3 MT[2] That was felt to be a reasonably realistic scenario, but the report stated that a total strike in excess of 1,000 megatons would be likely. But also that the scenario was overestimated: >Square Leg was criticised for a number of reasons: the weapons used were exclusively in the high-yield megaton range, with an average of 1.5 megatons per bomb, but a realistic attack based on known Soviet capabilities would have seen mixed weapons yields, including many missile-based warheads in the low-hundred-kiloton range.
    - arethuza 4y ago
      I interpreted that to mean that very large numbers of smaller weapons would have been used - probably with large amount of redundant targetting which seems to be consistent with Western targetting approaches.
    - somenameforme 4y ago
      The latter statement may have been written/edited by somebody who did not understand what he was reading, because it's all consistent if you know one esoteric bit of knowledge: the destructive power of a nuke is proportional to the cubic root of its yield. This makes sense if you think about it because the volume grows in proportion to the radius cubed, so doubling the yield will do nowhere near double the damage. In other words, more small bombs does way more destruction than one big bomb if we assume the same total yield. To give a specific example, imagine dropping one 1500 kiloton bomb vs five 300 kiloton bombs. In the first scenario the destructive power would be about 11.5 units of damage. In the second example it would be 5 * 6.7 = 33.5 units - assuming no overlap. In other other words, the report assuming a small number of high yield weapons (instead of larger number of lower yield weapons - but an otherwise comparable total yield) was understating the impact of nuclear war, potentially dramatically. In other other other words - the report was being criticized for understating the impact of nuclear war in both cases.
      - redbar0n 4y ago
        Thanks for a good and insightful clarification!
- baybal2 4y ago
- flexie 4y ago
  I hope you would, and unless you happen to live near a major political center or a military installation, I think your chances would be very good. A nuclear war would be terrible, but it's not a doomsday scenario. In the last months, we've seen how the Red army performs in conventional war. They were supposed to have 10,000 - 14,000 tanks, including modern ones, but we now see that they barely had any modern tanks and that after losing 2,500 tanks from the 60s, 70s and 80s, they started begging Belarus for their old tanks. They also claimed to have a modern air force, but until now, they have been unable to establish air dominance against a country that barely had any air force. And they were supposed to have a navy, but also that was an exaggeration. They claimed to have precision-guided missiles, and even supersonic missiles. They ran out of those long time ago, and they weren't that precise or fast. What they had was a lot of empty posture. Why do we believe that they are any better at nuclear war than they are at waging conventional war? Whatever is true for a simple conventional war, is even more true for a nuclear war: Their missiles and warheads are old and unmaintained, and far fewer in numbers than they pretend. The effects of corruption runs so deep in their society. Just like you can't buy any complex Russian products in your local stores, and just like you never wanted a Russian car, Russian military is completely incapable of successfully waging war against the West. Can Russia launch a nuclear attack against NATO? Probably, yes. But it would be much smaller than the official numbers suggest, and layered Western missile shields would intercept a percentage of those missiles. Some missiles would miss their target and some would not detonate. Different studies give different estimates ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions dead in the immediate aftermath of a strike, but studies assume that Russia is actually capable of carrying out a strike and penetrate our defenses with a large number weapons that work. Estimates of dead afterwards, are usually from starvation, not from radiation. It's been 40-50 years since Russia actually had strength comparable to NATO. Even back then, humanity would have survived a nuclear war. Nowadays, both Russia and the free world has fewer weapons, and we now know that Russian military capabilities are routinely exaggerated. A nuclear war with Russia would be terrible, but it would be over quickly, it would end in Russian defeat, and most of us would live on afterwards.
  - Luc 4y ago
    I agree with you, but it seems to be a minority opinion among the general population here in Western Europe. I meet a lot of people who think their life will be short and nasty if Russia drops a nuclear weapon over Ukraine (which, at a distance of 2000km, would affect us not at all).
defrost 4y ago
A lot of indigenous people well outside the primary secondary and tertiary target areas will be survivors, many are getting by without the internet to this day and won't require access to rebuild. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30500591 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30500591 It'll likely be the end of civilisation as you know it though.
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  In the US, Europe, and Russia, sure, it’d be the end of civilization. However most of South America, for example, would continue relatively unscathed, especially countries like Argentina that are agriculturally self sufficient and of no strategic importance to Russia or the USA. Same for New Zealand, parts of Australia, much of Asia, and so on. Nuclear also wouldn’t affect undersea fiber optic cables so chances are something resembling the Internet would still be around. Personally I would give civilization pretty good odds.
Thlom 4y ago
Is there any plans to move Internet infrastructure to space?
- tom-thistime 4y ago
  It wouldn't be much like today's internet. Bandwidth on fiber is enormous compared to bandwidth using dish antennas.
dividedbyzero 4y ago
Yeah no, Starlink wouldn't even connect since the AWS Lambda that checks whether your subscription is still valid has gone offline forever. Which isn't that big of an issue really because all the datacenters are gone and all the uplinks as well, so Starlink is now an intranet. I mean, perhaps they do have solid and tested contingency plans for events like that, or the military has some sort of access they could use to rig it into something useful, but I don't really believe it.
- bpodgursky 4y ago
  If that exists, that user validation is all happening on the BE for Starlink, and while it may go down, there's no reason Starlink (assuming the actual engineering team survived in some fashion) wouldn't be able to cut it out of the loop or replace it. I also have no particular reason to think that Russia would use their very limited ICBM stockpile to target data centers rather than military facilities.
  - dividedbyzero 4y ago
    To the best of my knowledge Russia retains hundreds of ICBMs and about a thousand warheads ready to fire at a moment's notice. Unless I've missed a crucial bit of news, I'd expect a majority of these to function as intended, as everything I read on that part of their military suggests they're operating a lot better than their army. In that case, an all-out nuclear war would mean hundreds of warheads raining down on the US with on average larger yields than the US ones to make up for less reliable targeting, and even optimistic projections for that and the effects of US retaliation assume three-digit million deaths right away and at least one growing season lost to nuclear winter. All infrastructure close to major population centers, military installations, ... would be gone, as would be anything susceptible to EMP from high-altitude detonations. I don't see Starlink software engineering and the infrastructure they require to remain operational in such a scenario.
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    I have a reason to think such! The "obvious" target would be things like our nuclear resources, to try to create a win condition. But in most cases this would just be wasting weapons. Those facilities, as well as ones such as where our politicians will go hide while society dies for their decisions, are designed to withstand direct nuclear impacts. The goal of nuclear war, absent any chance for a realistic "win" conditions it to ensure that absolute destruction of the opposing country - beyond the ability to ever rebuild to a comparable relative strength. Our nuke targets from during the Cold War have been declassified [1], and it's likely that the Soviet Union's were similarly themed: population, industry, economic, medical. There's an extremely strong overlap between those areas and data centers. In any case this is also all slightly tangential. One of the first things that will happen during WW3 is the widescale mutual destruction of satellites in the sky, for both offensive and defensive measures. [1] - https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear-Target-List-Declassified-First-Ever/ https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear...

dreen 4y ago

I hope I don't survive the nuclear war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film)

arethuza 4y ago
On a cheery note for a Monday morning, worth noting that Threads was based on a fairly optimistic scenario for the Soviets attacking the UK - a real attack would probably have been far worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg I appreciate that anyone who has seen Threads might find that difficult to believe.
- redbar0n 4y ago
  That source confusingly indicates both that the scenario was underestimated: >It was assumed that 131 nuclear weapons would fall on Britain with a total yield of 205 megatons (69 ground burst; 62 air burst)[1] with yields of 500 KT to 3 MT[2] That was felt to be a reasonably realistic scenario, but the report stated that a total strike in excess of 1,000 megatons would be likely. But also that the scenario was overestimated: >Square Leg was criticised for a number of reasons: the weapons used were exclusively in the high-yield megaton range, with an average of 1.5 megatons per bomb, but a realistic attack based on known Soviet capabilities would have seen mixed weapons yields, including many missile-based warheads in the low-hundred-kiloton range.
  - arethuza 4y ago
    I interpreted that to mean that very large numbers of smaller weapons would have been used - probably with large amount of redundant targetting which seems to be consistent with Western targetting approaches.
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    The latter statement may have been written/edited by somebody who did not understand what he was reading, because it's all consistent if you know one esoteric bit of knowledge: the destructive power of a nuke is proportional to the cubic root of its yield. This makes sense if you think about it because the volume grows in proportion to the radius cubed, so doubling the yield will do nowhere near double the damage. In other words, more small bombs does way more destruction than one big bomb if we assume the same total yield. To give a specific example, imagine dropping one 1500 kiloton bomb vs five 300 kiloton bombs. In the first scenario the destructive power would be about 11.5 units of damage. In the second example it would be 5 * 6.7 = 33.5 units - assuming no overlap. In other other words, the report assuming a small number of high yield weapons (instead of larger number of lower yield weapons - but an otherwise comparable total yield) was understating the impact of nuclear war, potentially dramatically. In other other other words - the report was being criticized for understating the impact of nuclear war in both cases.
    - redbar0n 4y ago
      Thanks for a good and insightful clarification!
baybal2 4y ago
flexie 4y ago
I hope you would, and unless you happen to live near a major political center or a military installation, I think your chances would be very good. A nuclear war would be terrible, but it's not a doomsday scenario. In the last months, we've seen how the Red army performs in conventional war. They were supposed to have 10,000 - 14,000 tanks, including modern ones, but we now see that they barely had any modern tanks and that after losing 2,500 tanks from the 60s, 70s and 80s, they started begging Belarus for their old tanks. They also claimed to have a modern air force, but until now, they have been unable to establish air dominance against a country that barely had any air force. And they were supposed to have a navy, but also that was an exaggeration. They claimed to have precision-guided missiles, and even supersonic missiles. They ran out of those long time ago, and they weren't that precise or fast. What they had was a lot of empty posture. Why do we believe that they are any better at nuclear war than they are at waging conventional war? Whatever is true for a simple conventional war, is even more true for a nuclear war: Their missiles and warheads are old and unmaintained, and far fewer in numbers than they pretend. The effects of corruption runs so deep in their society. Just like you can't buy any complex Russian products in your local stores, and just like you never wanted a Russian car, Russian military is completely incapable of successfully waging war against the West. Can Russia launch a nuclear attack against NATO? Probably, yes. But it would be much smaller than the official numbers suggest, and layered Western missile shields would intercept a percentage of those missiles. Some missiles would miss their target and some would not detonate. Different studies give different estimates ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions dead in the immediate aftermath of a strike, but studies assume that Russia is actually capable of carrying out a strike and penetrate our defenses with a large number weapons that work. Estimates of dead afterwards, are usually from starvation, not from radiation. It's been 40-50 years since Russia actually had strength comparable to NATO. Even back then, humanity would have survived a nuclear war. Nowadays, both Russia and the free world has fewer weapons, and we now know that Russian military capabilities are routinely exaggerated. A nuclear war with Russia would be terrible, but it would be over quickly, it would end in Russian defeat, and most of us would live on afterwards.
- Luc 4y ago
  I agree with you, but it seems to be a minority opinion among the general population here in Western Europe. I meet a lot of people who think their life will be short and nasty if Russia drops a nuclear weapon over Ukraine (which, at a distance of 2000km, would affect us not at all).

defrost 4y ago

A lot of indigenous people well outside the primary secondary and tertiary target areas will be survivors, many are getting by without the internet to this day and won't require access to rebuild. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30500591 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30500591 It'll likely be the end of civilisation as you know it though.

oceanplexian 4y ago
In the US, Europe, and Russia, sure, it’d be the end of civilization. However most of South America, for example, would continue relatively unscathed, especially countries like Argentina that are agriculturally self sufficient and of no strategic importance to Russia or the USA. Same for New Zealand, parts of Australia, much of Asia, and so on. Nuclear also wouldn’t affect undersea fiber optic cables so chances are something resembling the Internet would still be around. Personally I would give civilization pretty good odds.

Thlom 4y ago

Is there any plans to move Internet infrastructure to space?

tom-thistime 4y ago
It wouldn't be much like today's internet. Bandwidth on fiber is enormous compared to bandwidth using dish antennas.

dividedbyzero 4y ago

Yeah no, Starlink wouldn't even connect since the AWS Lambda that checks whether your subscription is still valid has gone offline forever. Which isn't that big of an issue really because all the datacenters are gone and all the uplinks as well, so Starlink is now an intranet. I mean, perhaps they do have solid and tested contingency plans for events like that, or the military has some sort of access they could use to rig it into something useful, but I don't really believe it.

bpodgursky 4y ago
If that exists, that user validation is all happening on the BE for Starlink, and while it may go down, there's no reason Starlink (assuming the actual engineering team survived in some fashion) wouldn't be able to cut it out of the loop or replace it. I also have no particular reason to think that Russia would use their very limited ICBM stockpile to target data centers rather than military facilities.
- dividedbyzero 4y ago
  To the best of my knowledge Russia retains hundreds of ICBMs and about a thousand warheads ready to fire at a moment's notice. Unless I've missed a crucial bit of news, I'd expect a majority of these to function as intended, as everything I read on that part of their military suggests they're operating a lot better than their army. In that case, an all-out nuclear war would mean hundreds of warheads raining down on the US with on average larger yields than the US ones to make up for less reliable targeting, and even optimistic projections for that and the effects of US retaliation assume three-digit million deaths right away and at least one growing season lost to nuclear winter. All infrastructure close to major population centers, military installations, ... would be gone, as would be anything susceptible to EMP from high-altitude detonations. I don't see Starlink software engineering and the infrastructure they require to remain operational in such a scenario.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  I have a reason to think such! The "obvious" target would be things like our nuclear resources, to try to create a win condition. But in most cases this would just be wasting weapons. Those facilities, as well as ones such as where our politicians will go hide while society dies for their decisions, are designed to withstand direct nuclear impacts. The goal of nuclear war, absent any chance for a realistic "win" conditions it to ensure that absolute destruction of the opposing country - beyond the ability to ever rebuild to a comparable relative strength. Our nuke targets from during the Cold War have been declassified [1], and it's likely that the Soviet Union's were similarly themed: population, industry, economic, medical. There's an extremely strong overlap between those areas and data centers. In any case this is also all slightly tangential. One of the first things that will happen during WW3 is the widescale mutual destruction of satellites in the sky, for both offensive and defensive measures. [1] - https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear-Target-List-Declassified-First-Ever/ https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear...