Take a look at the movie "Threads" about the effects of a nuclear war. It's from back in the cold war, but a lot of it remains relevant:
this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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False. Nuclear war kills most of the population on the planet, whether from a direct hit, fallout, food and water being contaminated, or the breakdown of society that comes after.
Those who get killed by the direct hit will be considered lucky by the people unlucky enough to survive it.
All-out nuclear war would kill every human on the planet.
I think that’s an exaggeration, but the population would drop dramatically and only small self sustaining nations far from the conflict would survive. But it’s 2024 and most of the world is interdependent on each other for trade of essential goods…
Nuclear war would be absolutely apocalyptic. Lookup the US policy on “Launch on Warning” and “Hair-trigger alert”. Russia has the same thing and China by this point probably does, too. If the US were targeted those doctrines would come into effect and we’d go into “escalate to de-escalate” mode. And that’d make it worse.
There would be multiple thousands of warheads launched around the globe. EMPs would be detonated in the atmosphere, continent-wide power grids would fail. A single Ohio-class nuclear submarine has more destructive power than every bomb, including the two nukes, dropped in WWII — and they’d light the place up. And then you have all the various contamination in the air, soil, and water that would be cycled through the ecosystem for hundreds and thousands of years.
Pockets of people would live, certainly, but it’d be awful. Like Khrushchev said, “the survivors will envy the dead.”
Yeah, once one nuke starts flying they’re all going to start flying. Maybe some small island communities in the South Pacific would survive but they’ll probably wish they didn’t…
You brought up US China and Russia, but don’t forget how many others have nukes. India and Pakistan would go at it too… France has nukes as well right? I can’t remember if the UK, Germany and Norway do…
It would be an absolute shit show. It’s downright frightening that some members of society think that “only the democrat cities will get hit!” In the shower no less… are the trump voters being primed to accept a nuclear war because they don’t think they will suffer? Scary shit.
Not even close.
Yup, even killing 99% of the population leaves 8,00,000 people, and many of them won't develop cancer fast enough to keep the population from continuing.
Unless they decided to nuke all the arable land instead, lower upfront deaths, but the long term famine will get everyone.
Realistically, nuclear war is the end of everyone, its called MAD for a reason.
Nah the rural areas would die longer and more painful deaths.
So, the Handmaiden's Tale?
Where I live will never be a bomb target. So, I'll still be here. But you're right. I'm VERY outnumbered.