Nuclear Holocaust

Discussion in 'World Events' started by Awoken, Jun 22, 2012.

  1. Awoken Registered Member

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    WARNING: out of respect for the worries that some have, or so I've read, I'm going to be addressing something which some people may find disturbing, even on these forums.

    "If odds exist that an event can happen, the odds eventually play out"

    Lately I've come to realise, and accept, that so long as humans have weapons armed with nuclear fire aimed at one another they will eventually be used. It may not happen today, next year or in another 67 years.

    I wanna open this topic up with this question.

    If there is a nuclear holocaust, we'll have no time to figure out where man went wrong (nuclear winter). While we're here, we have time to figure out 'where HAVE we gone wrong?'
     
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  3. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    Since nothing has happened as yet, I think that there's nothing wrong, so your question is moot.
     
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  5. Awoken Registered Member

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    Buddha12, I think you're line of reasoning is very common, I respect you're position, but I'm looking for others who don't see this question as moot.
     
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  7. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    It is like asking what went wrong with your car when there's nothing wrong with it.

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    Better to ask if there's anything happening today that could lead to a all out nuke war but that question =has already been aked if you look at the posts.
     
  8. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Yes, but if the odds are 1 million to one in any given year, for example, then you'll have to wait (on average) for 1 million years for the odds to "play out".
     
  9. zargod Registered Member

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    1- Not using free unlimited clean energy for all.
    2- Destroying our whole Fish Bowl Planet Earth
    3- Overpopulation

    1= Cause for 2 and 3
    2= effect of 1 and 3
    3= cause of 1 and 2
    1= effect of 3

    ok here is the Cause for 2: Resource Wars, where nukes are top of the food chain in wiping your enemy off the map, unfortunately, will be used more than likely.

    Ok lets start a real thread debate.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2012
  10. Awoken Registered Member

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    Hey listen, if no one's interested in taking this one seriously then I'll back off. But it's just something that has come to mind lately. Nobody I know reaaally thinks nuclear war is likely, almost taboo. To even entertain the idea seems silly because most people lose all hope in the senario. But the idea behind the question has more to do with discussing human flaws, like almost flaws in the way we think, or act, or feel. Somethings wrong, one day we will destroy ourselves (so long as nuclear weapons exist, 1 in a million?, we all hope), so what's wrong?
     
  11. zargod Registered Member

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    I just did take it seriously, though no one else.
     
  12. Fairy Registered Senior Member

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    scary thought hope it dont happen in my lifetime
     
  13. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    the above quote implies a statistical chance greater than 50%
    i have never read of anyone applying any kind of chance or odds to a nuclear holocaust.
    why?
    what leads you to believe such a thing?
    the entire world made it through the the cold war of the 60s.
    very few realize how close we were to nuking the place, if we were going to do it we would have done it then.
    this is one of the primary reasons JFK is regarded as a hero, he sat both countries down a different track towards the moon instead of each others throats.

    in my opinion the biggest threat in regards to nuclear weapons is rogue nations and terrorists.

    you also must remember nuclear material is not readily available and not easily stockpiled
     
  14. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    5,160
    I don't believe that a nuclear holocaust will happen anywhere near the scale that was possible during the cold war. At that time, two superpowers had all the weapons needed to make a holocaust possible on a world wide scale. It was called mutual destruction. Nowadays, the worse case is a couple of devices in a limited area.

    What young people fail to realize is during about first 20 years of the cold war, the nations of the world, combined, conducted about 500 atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons. These nations also conducted even more tests than that under water, in space and underground. Even with over a thousands devices exploded, this didn't alter the world nor did all that fallout create any of the dooms day scenarios of today, assuming only one device.

    In other words, if all these 500 atmospheric tests had been an actual war millions of people would have been killed and hundreds of cities destroyed, but the earth would be fine, like today, even after thousands of test booms.
     
  15. elte Valued Senior Member

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    Mention of that testing that went on makes me wonder about the ill effects that the radiation has caused over the years.
     
  16. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    After such an event occurs would not be the proper time to discuss this. How about we create a anti-neuclear human task force? ANHTF. We can rid the world of nuclear missies down to one, until all nuclear material is gathered and guarded, safely.
     
  17. Awoken Registered Member

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    I don't really want to get into justifying my position on this, I'll do it this once, hopefully for my own sake, but really, either you believe it to be an inevitability or you don't.

    That being said, here goes nothing

    On the first underlined part, maybe you can tell me why it implies odds greater than 50%

    In regards to the second underlined portion of your statement, it is true, very few people realise how close we came to nuclear war, and even today, very few people realise how close we've come to nuclear war after the fall of the berlin wall. I know of one case between the US and Russia in 1995.

    In regards to the third point, I wish this were true, but it is not. There is a fantastic book that won the Pulitzer Prize for 2010 called "The Dead Hand" Written by David Hoffman. He chronicles the research, development and production of weapons of mass destruction by both sides. The book pays particular attention to the legacy left behind by the collapse of the USSR. The USSR did stock pile enormous amounts of nuclear material, stored the material all over the former states of the USSR and some of those former states did not adequetly protect those former instillations. The book goes into great detail about what the Americans witnessed as they tried to secure the materials.

    In response to the first underlined portion, there are 4400 operational nuclear warheads today.

    In response to the second point, research nuclear winter. 50 simultaneous Hiroshima sized bombs would produce noticeable global climate change.
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2012
  18. Awoken Registered Member

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    Anyways, I was thinking it may have something to do with our facination with technology. We as a people love the stuff, love the discoveries, inventions, innovations, cures and all the rest. We also really love the fast warplanes, cool explosions, and the destruction, albet when done on our own terms.
     
  19. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    because you said "odds are", which implies for, which in turn implies 50% or greater.
    i didn't say it couldn't be "stockpiled", i said "not easily".
    you just can't pile this stuff up in a corner somewhere.
    this is why i said "not easily", it HAD to be stored all over the USSR.
     
  20. Awoken Registered Member

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    #1, if you've been taught somewhere the concept behind what you wrote, I'm going to need more, I still don't understand what you're saying. "you say 'odds are', which implies for, which in turn implies 50% or greater." ? ting bu dong

    #2, that's exactly what they did. American officials were given intelligence on where the Soviet Union had stock piled weapons grade uranium in Kazakhstan. They arrived at one of the locations, a large warehouse with a perimeter chain-link fence. The gate had a rusted lock on it. They smashed the lock with ease and found nobody looking after the place, abandoned since the fall of the Soviet Union. They entered the warehouse to find aisles of exposed wooden shelves. On those shelves were metal buckets; in those buckets were billets of weapons grade uranium. The warehouse was filled with the stuff. The Americans inquired as to who was previously in charge. The Americans were escorted to the man's place where they were quick to ask one question. Where did the Soviets keep records on their inventory? The former man in charge was quick to reply... 'Records? we never kept any records on our inventory.' The Americans just looked at each other in bewilderment.
    -- The Dead Hand ~ David Hoffman
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2012
  21. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    17,455
    i apparently misinterpreted the quote.
    implies to me that it has a 50% chance of happening, either it can or it can't.
    when odds favor an event then those odds must be greater than 50%

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    huh, what?
     
  22. brokenpower Registered Senior Member

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    Well, there are some unaccounted for nuclear weapons. If they work or not is really the question.

    I imagine there is someone out there somewhere they may have the means and morality to detonate it, but we would never know when it's coming or where.

    I think your fears are reasonable. But with the internet, 24/hr news and social networking i highly doubt any "known" entity would ever start a nuclear war.:shrug:
     
  23. Awoken Registered Member

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    huh, I've never heard that before. Where does that concept come from? I've always just thought of odds being like probability. if something has a 1% probability of happening, given enough repeated circumstances, that 1% probability will play out. Ron Suskind wrote a book about it, it's called the 1% doctrine. Dick Cheney, so I'm told, was a follower of the 1% doctrine.

    ting bu dong is mandarin for "I hear but do not understand"
     

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