Could the human race survive a global, full scale thermonuclear war?

[Albert_Pike]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_i1D...eature=related

Would a full scale thermonuclear war where Thousands of thermonuclear warheads are exchanged world-wide, result in the extinction of the human species?

Or would only about Three or Four Billion out of Seven Billion people in the world be annihilated in a single day?

The nuclear stockpiles today aren't even a tiny fraction of what they used to be during the peak years of the cold war. So a nuclear war in today's world wouldn't result in half of the losses in a massive nuclear exchange between the West and the old USSR.

Would human civilization rebuild itself and start over? Only to eventually become just as cruel, heartless, greedy, and corrupt as it is today, and repeat that process indefinitely?

I'm sure there would be many places on Earth completely unaffected by the hypothetical global nuclear holocaust where many people would survive. Like small islands in the middle of the ocean, neutral countries like iceland and greenland, etc... I'm not sure about how the global nuclear fallout would effect the world and the survivors of the nuclear fire (birth defects and genetic mutations to the entire human gene pool caused by radioactive fallout) for Centuries or even Millenia after such cataclysm.

At the end of the movie "Terminator 3" there was an all-out nuclear war called "judgment day" triggered by a rogue artificial intelligence called "Skynet" which was given control of the missile defense systems in the North America. In the film, the protagonist named "John Connor" says that Three Billion (about half) of the entire human race was annihilated in a single day. It was a fictitious movie, but do those numbers sound accurate?

It's unlikely that we'll see anything like this happen in our lifetime, the time for this sort of thing came and went with the cold war. The political relations between all of the nuclear superpowers (US, Russia, China, UK, France) appear to be very stable, with the exception of North Korea. But there is still that small possibility all of that could change some day.

[Freeski]

Linky no workie... what's it called?

[Albert_Pike]

Linky no workie... what's it called?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_i1DNv161U

[Freeski]

Thanks. It's quite insane to think of what they are capable of. You have to wonder if there's a threshold where the amount of radiation released gets to a point where the entire planet becomes toxic and uninhibitable, but I'm no expert in that area. Even though they've supposedly reduced stockpiles down to a couple of thousand, each, you're still talking about 4,000 city-killers at minimum. Imagine just two per U.S. State and you'd still have 3,900 to go -- and that doesn't even factor in China, France, Britain, India, Pakistan, North Korea and God knows who else. Also, nukes are terrifying on their own but they have much, much more up their technological sleeve. And we fund it!

[Albert_Pike]

Thanks. It's quite insane to think of what they are capable of. You have to wonder if there's a threshold where the amount of radiation released gets to a point where the entire planet becomes toxic and uninhibitable, but I'm no expert in that area. Even though they've supposedly reduced stockpiles down to a couple of thousand, each, you're still talking about 4,000 city-killers at minimum. Imagine just two per U.S. State and you'd still have 3,900 to go -- and that doesn't even factor in China, France, Britain, India, Pakistan, North Korea and God knows who else. Also, nukes are terrifying on their own but they have much, much more up their technological sleeve. And we fund it!

I'm guessing 4,500,000,000 global casualties, maybe Five Billion.

[dre4dwolf]

only the ones who know how to dig really fast.
Theres no reason to use nuclear weapons, why would you blow up what you are trying to conquer.

No matter what you do, your gona have to invade with ground forces to win, why irradiate the land your going to invade?

I doubt they would ever unleash enough weapons to irradiate on mass a large portion of the earth (atleast not all at once) , that would just be stupidity on their part.

The ambient radiation level has actually increased due to the testing they did over the past 60 years.
Imagine what it will jump to if a full scale war was launched.

There would be no where on the planet that you wouldn't be exposed to radiation, its just a dumb idea.

Even the elite would get cancer, they are stupid.... no point in owning the entire world if you can't step outside.

[Albert_Pike]

only the ones who know how to dig really fast.
Theres no reason to use nuclear weapons, why would you blow up what you are trying to conquer.

No matter what you do, your gona have to invade with ground forces to win, why irradiate the land your going to invade?

I doubt they would ever unleash enough weapons to irradiate on mass a large portion of the earth (atleast not all at once) , that would just be stupidity on their part.

The ambient radiation level has actually increased due to the testing they did over the past 60 years.
Imagine what it will jump to if a full scale war was launched.

There would be no where on the planet that you wouldn't be exposed to radiation, its just a dumb idea.

Even the elite would get cancer, they are stupid.... no point in owning the entire world if you can't step outside.

I thought the elite have been made artificially immune to most/all diseases through experimental gene therapies.

[dre4dwolf]

I thought the elite have been made artificially immune to most/all diseases through experimental gene therapies.

I haven't heard, are they also immune to bullets and blunt trauma?

[citizenx]

TPTB don't want nuclear war.  It's not in the cards, unless as you say there is some radical change in international relations.

Least of my fears right now.

Used to be a big one -- even after the "end of the cold war".