[Serious] Nuclear war survival guide.

[Jehanne]

I saw The Day After when it premiered on national television while at home; I broke down and openly wept. The next day my chemistry teacher was giddy, describing how "cool" the graphics were, presumably, of human beings being vaporized. I have not seen the movie since.

Just remember that the movie that made you openly weep is the bowdlerised version of what nuclear exchange looks like. That’s the version that was considered safe for American TV to show in 1983. If I say that’s why I say the best thing is to die before everyone else, that is 100% why. It’s not me being edgy or melodramatic or pessimistic and it isn’t my depression or antinatalism talking. This is a situation where the living will almost certainly envy the dead before long. The only reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended up coming back is because the bombs that hit them are a Hell of a lot smaller than the ones that came after.

Your reasons are completely reasonable and rational; I respect that.

Hopefully, all of this is unnecessary chatter. I've stopped talking about this at home. I'm really doubtful that we, as a family, could pull any type of escape off anyways. Things would probably be too chaotic.

[The Grand Nudger]

It would be a bad idea, and it's not just you or your family. A flight for life in a radiation sink is a bad idea for anyone.

[Anomalocaris]

Just to put some perspective on the extinctions and not wanting to live past a nuclear war,  While it may be hard to believe, your chances for surviving a nuclear war is far higher today than during the Cold War, and the post war world would be far more likely yo be livable, particularly if you don’t live in the US or European Russia because:

1. the entire world’s nuclear stockpile is ~13000 warheads, in 1983, it was ~80,000 warheads.

2. Right now an nuclear exchange is likely to involve primarily 2 nations, not two global spanning coalitions bristling with arms and tied into rehearsed operational plans,  so if you live outside the US or Russia, your chances of not having any nukes exploding within a thousand miles of you is much higher than it was during the Cold War.

3.  outside the nuclear arena the world is not locked into massive hair trigger conventional confrontation as between the forces NATO and Warsaw Pact forces,  so the often neglected threat of globe spanning conventional forces deploying chemical and biological weapons on a massive scale in field and urban battles across the Eurasian comtinent that existed during the Cold War isn’t here today

4.   A far higher percentage of the world’s industrial and technological infrastructure today is outside of US and Russia, or European where the old core grounds of nuclear confrontation was.    So a nuclear exchange today involving the US and Russia will leave a lot more of the modern world intact and ready to affect a postwar restoration

5.  Still sucks to live in America or European Russia if a nuclear war happens, but hey, you are looking at  maybe 5000 warheads scheduled to ruin your day rather than say 30,000, that’s still something, right?

[Jackalope]

I’ve looked into the facts of nuclear war. The one thing that’s become obvious: try to die before everyone else. To do otherwise will only increase your suffering.

Not surviving isn't in my DNA, and frankly, I'm so far from any strategic targets that dying quickly isn't in the cards.

[brewer]

There's a bigger chance that people will die in the radiation/fallout zone than blast zone. Just sayin.

https://remm.hhs.gov/zones_nucleardetonation.htm

The nukes described in that article are *tiny* compared to strategic weapons.

^^^ size queen. I don't think the physics changes.

[R00tKiT]

What's the point of dropping a nuclear bomb anyway, besides senseless destruction and chaos..? There is no target nuclear bombs can destroy that conventional weapons cannot.

[Silver]

We, as outsiders, can think reasonably regarding the situation. Those in the midst, however, hopefully prefer reason over the war lust.

[Fireball]

What's the point of dropping a nuclear bomb anyway, besides senseless destruction and chaos..? There is no target nuclear bombs can destroy that conventional weapons cannot.

Simply takes more vests.

[Anomalocaris]

What's the point of dropping a nuclear bomb anyway, besides senseless destruction and chaos..? There is no target nuclear bombs can destroy that conventional weapons cannot.

nuclear bomb allows you to take out targets that takes more conventional bomb than you can deliver to destroy

examples include super hardened under ground facilities, area targets like cities or depots, massive targets like hydroelectric dams.    hardened and well defended military target like tank columns defended by effective antiaircraft cover may also best be destroyed by nuclear weapons

[The Grand Nudger]

The point?

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you...and hear the lamentation of their women.