this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
694 points (97.0% liked)

Comic Strips

12981 readers
1863 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

Web of links

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

shelter in a basement for a week (and emerge to a troubled but liveable world.)

give this a read sometime. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/748264/nuclear-war-by-annie-jacobsen/

I don't think anyone's going to hold up for a week then find the world very livable. even the areas not eradicated by direct strikes will suffer terribly from the food shortages and collapsing societies.

[–] Sergio@slrpnk.net 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm familiar with the extinction event scenarios, and agree that in some cases one may not find the world worth living in. I recommend Krepinevich's "7 Deadly Scenarios", a couple of those involve nuclear attacks. The sitations are comparable to the recent Covid pandemic: millions of people die, the world is subsequently scarred, but life goes on for most people. A bit of planning can make things less horrible and a lot of it overlaps with natural disaster.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

I think you may misunderstand. <edit or I'm misreading your replies>

Jacob's book covers an all in exchange. everyone goes max. very little in the northern hemisphere would survive. a bit of planning, all the planning in the world - neither will save you when each side is maximizing the amount of fallout with ground strikes with megaton weapons.

the 'lucky' folk in the southern hemisphere will just have to wait until the after effects catch up to them.

Jacob's scenario is megadeaths to gigadeaths - literally a billion dead directly (flash/blast/etc) and multiple billions dead shortly after. Krepinevich's scenario is a few terrorists with tactical weapons.

these are wildly different things.

<edit I don't think you're meaning to downplay the seriousness of any kind of major nuclear exchange, but just underestimating how seriously civilization ending it is>

[–] Sergio@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah, I suspect we basically agree on things. I grew up with Threads and The Day After, and later I read up on nuclear winter and EMPs so I realize that human extinction is a very real possibility.

But apart from that, the question is: how to prepare for the "less than extinction" scenarios, the sort of thing that Krepinevich and ready.gov discuss.