The Mess

[SuburbanFarmer]

Come on Grumps, you must understand the concept of MAD. It's no good one side disarming, that is going to make a conflict between super powers much more likely. If we could unilaterally disarm in secret it might work but that's never going to happen. That's the kind of talk that ensured old labour in the 80's never got a sniff of power.

I concede that it will never happen in reality. But it's the only way out of this situation.

We already have the most powerful military on Earth by far. There's really nothing to fear. But it won't happen, sadly.

[Montegriffo]

A slow reduction by both sides is the only way forward so I agree with you that talk of starting a new arms race and even weaponising space which someone brought up is clearly madness, so I half agree with you.

[Smitty-48]

Ca'mon now, don't be so pessimistic, the neutron bomb, is the most ingenious weapon of war, ever devised by man, kills all the people in a relatively humane manner, leaves all the infrastructure intact, and produces no significant radioactive fallout... that's what I call progress.

What you really need to do, is remove all the high yield mass destruction warheads from use, and replace them with many more lower yield neutron enhanced radiation warheads, that way, when the nuclear war does finally come, you're not going to destroy the biosphere therein.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Ca'mon now, don't be so pessimistic, the neutron bomb, is the most ingenious weapon of war, ever devised by man, kills all the people in a relatively humane manner, leaves all the infrastructure intact, and produces no significant radioactive fallout... that's what I call progress.

That would actually be preferable... There's a very good chance that some portion of humanity survives.
I don't believe you, but it does sound nice.

[Smitty-48]

Ca'mon now, don't be so pessimistic, the neutron bomb, is the most ingenious weapon of war, ever devised by man, kills all the people in a relatively humane manner, leaves all the infrastructure intact, and produces no significant radioactive fallout... that's what I call progress.

That would actually be preferable... There's a very good chance that some portion of humanity survives.
I don't believe you, but it does sound nice.

Well it's not nice, we're talking about a war here, ain't nothing nice about a war, but the nuetron bomb gets the job done, without prolonged effects to the biosphere, and would also allow for a much faster recovery after the war, wars are gonna come, people gonna die, but the difference with a high yeild thermoclear weapon is that the condition is permanent, you've essentially destroyed all the infratructure and the biosphere, which will persist for generations after, whereas with a larger number of more accurately delivered lower yield yet high lethality enhanced radiation warheads, for those who do survive, the sun comes up the next day, and it's not up over a radioactive wasteland when it does.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Ca'mon now, don't be so pessimistic, the neutron bomb, is the most ingenious weapon of war, ever devised by man, kills all the people in a relatively humane manner, leaves all the infrastructure intact, and produces no significant radioactive fallout... that's what I call progress.

That would actually be preferable... There's a very good chance that some portion of humanity survives.
I don't believe you, but it does sound nice.

Well it's not nice, we're talking about a war here, ain't nothing nice about a war, but the nuetron bomb gets the job done, without prolonged effects to the biosphere, and would also allow for a much faster recovery after the war, wars are gonna come, people gonna die, but the difference with a high yeild thermoclear weapon is that the condition is permanent, you've essentially destroyed all the infratructure and the biosphere, which will persist for generations after, whereas with a larger number of more accurately delivered lower yield yet high lethality enhanced radiation warheads, for those who do survive, the sun comes up the next day, and it's not up over a radioactive wasteland when it does.

There are no generations after you destroy the biosphere. Unless you meant subterranean bacteria.

[Smitty-48]

Well, destroy for the purposes of fruitful civilization in the effected areas then. Contrary to popular myth, a nuclear war is not going to be an extinction event.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Well, destroy for the purposes of fruitful civilization in the effected areas then. Contrary to popular myth, a nuclear war is not going to be an extinction event.

If that war consists of just a few detonations, sure. But that's not what you like to talk about. If everybody went full Strangelove and launched 1/4 of their arsenals, there would be nothing left within a few years to ponder it.

[Smitty-48]

Well, destroy for the purposes of fruitful civilization in the effected areas then. Contrary to popular myth, a nuclear war is not going to be an extinction event.

If that war consists of just a few detonations, sure. But that's not what you like to talk about. If everybody went full Strangelove and launched 1/4 of their arsenals, there would be nothing left within a few years to ponder it.

4000 hydrogen bombs in the northern hemisphere? Nah, that's not even close to an extinction event, that wouldn't even be the end of civilzation, the southern hemisphere would be largely untouched, radiatioactive fallout levels would drop off very quickly outside of the directly effected areas, the whole myth of extinction by nuclear war, is based on propaganda disseminated by the anti-nuclear movement through the liberal media.

Not saying people wouldn't die, could be close to a billion all told, but there'd still be six billion people running around after.

[SuburbanFarmer]

You're unaware of the concept of nuclear winter? That's surprising... You may also have deduced that fallout travels by wind. That it's probably not great for plants. Which you eat.

But sure. I'll bet those six billion are all really good at underground farming and have stocks of iodine standing by.