How are we all fucked?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > How are we all fucked?

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Hexagonal posted:

I didn't mean that everything would be normal, I meant that I would do a bunch of stuff I normally wouldn't or couldn't do in a civilised society.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2015 23:14

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 16:22

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Hexagonal posted:

If this were real life, I would ask you how you managed to say that with a straight face.

There are bits in our genetic code that suggest we've been reduced to 2,000 people total in the distant past, and we've rebounded from that.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2015 23:24

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Hexagonal posted:

But that is different. Once we have WMDs in the world, our days are numbered.

Unless we trigger a nuclear winter or some much less likely catastrophic event, it's hard to imagine NBC weapons actually killing humanity below minimum viability given how such weapons have been intended to be used. Even the sort of full-scale nuclear exchange necessary to trigger nuclear winter is very unlikely to happen in the recent future.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2015 23:33

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Hexagonal posted:

Even accidents like Chernobyl had a serious threat to us. Chernobyl was so close to loving up a huge part of the world.
So it doesn't have to be intentional.

No, they're not, and no, Chernobyl did not have the potential to annihilate most of Eastern Europe. Even a hypothetical second explosion wouldn't have done that. The humanitarian cost would have been gigantic, but there's a big difference between that and annihilation. There is no realistic situation in which a nuclear winter happens by accident outside of lovely thrillers.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2015 23:55

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Woolie Wool posted:

Former Defense Department employee and nuclear planner Stuart Slade (who is a horrible right-wing rear end in a top hat but a bona fide expert at this since it was his literal job to plan the nuclear apocalypse bomb by bomb) seemed to think that nuclear war would "only" wreck the urbanized superstructure of society. A huge, huge number of people would die (including basically every goon, sorry) but civilization would continue, just knocked back a couple hundred years.

The real problem is that we've used all the easy sources of carbon so if we blow up all our industrial base and go back to a world of lovely agrarian mini-states, re-industrialization may be impossible. If you survive, hope you like subsistence farming, because it's going to be your job for the rest of your life.

My prediction: capitalism spinning out of control like an ungoverned steam engine plus ecological disaster cause global economic collapse and the rise of fascism worldwide, with massive warfare that continues until the resources no longer exist for anyone to project power or the war goes nuclear (see above). If we're lucky and industry can recover, then people restart capitalism and hopefully we can keep it under control better next time (we probably won't).

Another prediction: Whatever is left of the United States of America will be dirt loving poor in 2100.

Haha, that guy's a naval architect with delusions of grandeur and psychopathy. If he was ever a nuclear planner, it was after it hasn't mattered.

And no, I don't think that's what's going to happen.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2015 14:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > How are we all fucked?