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Where does this pervasive notion that once the bombs drop humanity is completely wiped out come from? Any official literature on the topic, even the most pessim

Where does this pervasive notion that once the bombs drop humanity is completely wiped out come from? Any official literature on the topic, even the most pessimistic takes, don't come anywhere close to proposing this. There's absolutely no study produced by any country that says that only people in the most extreme situations (like huddled in the bottom of a deepest mine) would survive. The outside radiation levels from a full-scale nuclear exchange would return to 99% of normal levels within something like only 3 weeks. Yes there would be nuclear winter to contend with, although different sources conflict with each other about how significant the nuclear winter would be, and yes, lots of people would surely die and develop cancer in the aftermath, I'm not denying that, but humans would have absolutely no issue going on and surviving. There's no chance that full nuclear exchange ends humanity. Civilization as we know it, yes. Humanity, no.

defrost 2y ago
> Where does this pervasive notion that once the bombs drop humanity is completely wiped out come from? Multiple sides of the Cold War narrative. MAD == Mutual destruction and there's not much of a deterrent to "if the switch trips everybody dies" if that case in't made. On the RAND Corp side (playing game theory and advanced game theory) there were think tanks pushing "the only way to win is to not wage war" as broadly across the world as possible, and bolstering nuclear winter when it arose even if there were real doubts about that being the case. On the Peacenik side (Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell et al) the story of minor accidents and misunderstandings leading to global destruction was a valuable part of selling disarmament .. it's dangewrous and must be rolled back. The only solid voice at the time against nuclear winter etc. were the supporters (East and West) of tactical nuclear weapons who believed in the use of small "battlefield nukes". During the height of the Cold War the main rhetoric was that atomic weapons would end everything (and therefore should not be used). The actual geophysical study of nuclear winter was filled with papers that came from one camp or another which made getting to any "actual well modelled projections" difficult. With hindsight, the case for nuclear winter seems extremely over stated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter has varied a bit over the decades, I've not read it recently, it sketches out the evolution of the idea and support | counter arguments. > Civilization as we know it, yes. Humanity, no. As the northern hemisphere knows it, very likely.

defrost 2y ago

> Where does this pervasive notion that once the bombs drop humanity is completely wiped out come from? Multiple sides of the Cold War narrative. MAD == Mutual destruction and there's not much of a deterrent to "if the switch trips everybody dies" if that case in't made. On the RAND Corp side (playing game theory and advanced game theory) there were think tanks pushing "the only way to win is to not wage war" as broadly across the world as possible, and bolstering nuclear winter when it arose even if there were real doubts about that being the case. On the Peacenik side (Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell et al) the story of minor accidents and misunderstandings leading to global destruction was a valuable part of selling disarmament .. it's dangewrous and must be rolled back. The only solid voice at the time against nuclear winter etc. were the supporters (East and West) of tactical nuclear weapons who believed in the use of small "battlefield nukes". During the height of the Cold War the main rhetoric was that atomic weapons would end everything (and therefore should not be used). The actual geophysical study of nuclear winter was filled with papers that came from one camp or another which made getting to any "actual well modelled projections" difficult. With hindsight, the case for nuclear winter seems extremely over stated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter has varied a bit over the decades, I've not read it recently, it sketches out the evolution of the idea and support | counter arguments. > Civilization as we know it, yes. Humanity, no. As the northern hemisphere knows it, very likely.