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[i2amroy]

Forecast was for 8-12" of snow, only got about 2". For once, the local government actually got the roads taken care of timely and properly. Was going to wait until tomorrow to do laundry, but I heard it's going to be worse tomorrow. Taking the time to download some stuff to enjoy on my day off.

Do you not get snow much in your area? As a person who lives in a place that gets snow pretty regularly (Flagstaff AZ) the city has a thing where they guarantee that they will do their absolute best to have all main streets and most secondary streets cleared within 18 hours, even if it's up to a foot. Most of the time the main streets are all cleared within an hour or two (though if you need to drive in that hour things can get kinda sketchy, since they tend to do a two pass thing, one to take off all the loose snow, and another to get the harder ice at the bottom ).

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Umm I think those people are going to run short lives, there is quite a bit of radiation if they don't avoid the pockets, and I they're living where the above mold grows they will die in minutes

[Descan]

It's really cool seeing how picturesque and lush the areas around Chernobyl are, whilst being inhospitable to human life.
I mean, plants and grass and important stuff can grow or thrive, just none of those pesky humans.

Nah, see, we COULD grow and thrive there, but we prefer not to be mutated cancerous abominations. OR at least, we prefer not to risk it. So the plants and animals there are probably mutating at the same rate humans would, they just don't care/don't know enough to know to care.

[KingofstarrySkies]

oh hey it's 3:00 PM and i just woke up

Blagh. Hooray for weekends.

[Itnetlolor]

It's really cool seeing how picturesque and lush the areas around Chernobyl are, whilst being inhospitable to human life.
I mean, plants and grass and important stuff can grow or thrive, just none of those pesky humans.

Nah, see, we COULD grow and thrive there, but we prefer not to be mutated cancerous abominations. OR at least, we prefer not to risk it. So the plants and animals there are probably mutating at the same rate humans would, they just don't care/don't know enough to know to care.

Once anomalies and the like start forming there, we might think differently. Be on the lookout for bloodsuckers.

[i2amroy]

-snip-

A few things.
1) The majority of the weapons that are "retired" are only so in the sense that they aren't actually mounted on anything, and most can be brought up to operational readiness in a few weeks. Doing that lets our government appease cries for nuclear reduction without actually reducing their nuclear firepower by much, so it happens a lot. If we assume Russia is doing the same, that brings our total up to 15,075 nuclear weapons.
2) The "lethal in 8 hours" radius of a 475 kt nuclear weapon fallout is ~3263.4km² under an average wind.
3) Humans inhabit only about 43% of the earth's land surface.

While we certainly couldn't cover the whole surface in craters, even at the height of the cold war, what we could do is make all of the inhabited land lethal to be in.

15,075 * 3263.4 = 49195755 km² = ~33% of the earth's land surface lethal in 8 hours
15,075 * (8857.7 - 3263.4) = an additional 56.5% of the earth's land surface lethal in 3 days

Assuming we detonated everywhere at once, and disregarding the fact that if planned well multiple strikes can cause greater destruction over a large area than a single strike (and we are detonating 15k nukes at once), you'd be able to hit some 90% of the Earth's land (over double what we consider "inhabited") with enough radiation that any human living there would be dead within 3 days. While you might not be able to destroy the Earth itself, you could certainly destroy humanity in the course of a few days if given a month's notice.

[RedWarrior0]

On a related note, I was linked this thing some time ago. Can't remember where, but I found it quite interesting.

[Jopax]

That thing is pretty cool in a rather scary way. I read it atleast once a year for some reason, probably to remind myself how lucky I am that some idiots didn't lose their cool all those years ago.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[i2amroy]

Definitely an interesting read. I liked the part about how mad people dealing with nuclear weapons generally become very sane very quickly.

[scrdest]

There is one major drawback to biological weapons. Yes, they spread autonomously, but the problem is, you've got to balance two things you want that are inversely related - infectivity and lethality.

The 'best', as far as weaponry is concerned, bioweapons are the least effective ones in terms of range once used - because carriers die before they can infect too many others. The most dangerous disease has long-ass latency, so it would lay low and infect a bit before killing, but even then, killing the host is just not evolutionarily beneficial to any biowarfare agent in the long run.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Didn't Russia USSR have enough bioweapons at one point to kill the human population over several times, or were those different non-nuclear weapons?

[Radio Controlled]

There is one major drawback to biological weapons. Yes, they spread autonomously, but the problem is, you've got to balance two things you want that are inversely related - infectivity and lethality.

The 'best', as far as weaponry is concerned, bioweapons are the least effective ones in terms of range once used - because carriers die before they can infect too many others. The most dangerous disease has long-ass latency, so it would lay low and infect a bit before killing, but even then, killing the host is just not evolutionarily beneficial to any biowarfare agent in the long run.

Alternatively, don't kill the host but make her (also him, but less important) infertile. Would take a long while to work (bioweapons in general kinda have this problem) though, and doesn't prevent infected from, say, working toward a vaccine. But if it has good infectivity and isn't extremely obvious, you might make a good dent in the target's population down the line.

[Rolan7]

Technically, with a decent infectiousness, a *vaccine* wouldn't matter.
Also, isn't this the happy thread?

[Radio Controlled]

Technically, with a decent infectiousness, a *vaccine* wouldn't matter.
Also, isn't this the happy thread?

Unless it had utterly ridiculous infectivity, it kinda would, I suspect. But yes, if it can infect fast enough and spread, then a vaccine would be much less effective.

Also, inventing new ways to violate the Geneva conventions makes me happy.