Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
A reliable and relatively painless method of suicide for yourself and those you care about. A gun (of sufficiently high caliber that if you fire at the wrong angle you won’t spend your final hours in agony) or high dosages of certain medications, such as opioids or insulin. I do not recommend paracetamol or sleeping tablets.
Life for those unlucky few to survive full-on nuclear holocaust (as opposed to a limited exchange, which our current logistical systems would probably survive) and subsequent total societal collapse would be horrific. If it gets bad enough, a quick way out is much better than starving to death, dying of thirst, succumbing to radiation sickness, or most other violent and ignoble ends, which you can’t all prepare for.
Not to mention the psychological toll of watching your world literally go up in flames. Maybe better not to survive it at all than to scrape by an existence in the ashes.
No. I mean to live.
Kant's categorical imperative says that we should do those things that we would have all do. If all shirk in such a time, there will be no more humanity, and all we have accomplished will come to naught: the ultimate tragedy. Bentham said we should act to ensure the greatest happiness for the greatest number - which means we need to maintain that number if ever there is to be happiness again.
For all history, mankind has taken the world with all its faults and worked to make it better for the next generation. I will not abandon that proud tradition. If destiny says I'll live in hard times, I want to endure them, so that there may again be good times for me, for the children I hope to have, and for humanity.
I believe in something greater than myself, greater than some momentary pain. I want a better tomorrow, and I can't help build it if I'm dead. Dying for a cause can be worthwhile, if the death achieves enough. But dying for nothing? No, thank you.
It is a good thing to believe in a purposeful existence, whether through religion or philosophy. It sustains the mind when the body has reached its limit. Even among the burning charnel pits of the apocalypse, hope will die last. Good. Better for the man of the future to believe in and affirm life.
But if you want a realistic “nuclear-prep” shopping list, it would be delusional not to include a (self-?) euthanasia agent, even if it’s not the primary purpose of the item. Keep some fentanyl in your medicine cabinet as an anasthetic, and when a family member is writhing in pain and begging for its end, you can let them pass with some kind of dignity rather than beating their head in with a shovel because you refused to prepare for the scenario. And maybe, who knows, you won’t always hold the same beliefs you do now, and you’ll be glad to have that way out.
Anyway this is all hypothetical. I know it’s fashionable in some parts of the internet to fantasize about society collapsing and having to build it back, being revealed as a Nietzschean superman in the process or whatever. I guess the aesthetic vision doesn’t appeal to me. Personally? I’m not preparing for Armageddon. The bombs won’t fall. And if they do, I’m happy to be amidst the slaughtered.
It's definitely not locked in, which is why I'm not following extreme advice like "manufacture a ghost gun" which would have substantial downside risk. But come on, basic gambler's logic. A 1% chance of avoiding death is worth spending $500 iff my life is worth more than $50,000 to me, which it obviously is since I can't exactly spend my money if I'm dead and I don't have any children yet; a probability of <1% for nuclear war in the next ten years seems pretty risible to me (from base rates: nukes have been used in anger in one conflict in the 79 years they've existed, so 10 years = 1/8 = 12.5%; from Reliable Sources: the Doomsday Clock is set closer to midnight than it's literally ever been; from my own actual Inside View: the West is reeling from the culture war, the PRC shows little interest in playing by the rules, there are intersecting red lines on Taiwan, and the spooks are spooked which has me spooked).
And, um... you do realise how offensive it is to implicitly accuse me of a) adopting beliefs because of fashion and/or hope rather than logic, and b) hoping for a billion people to die, yes? I am not Hitler and I'm not a sheep.
Does China have enough nukes that you need to be worried about "Taiwan goes nuclear" in country Australia? (Wikipedia claims they have 438 usable nukes, but it looks like they only have the ICBMs to hit a low 2-figure number of targets outside the region) The only scenario where I see Australia getting more than one bomb for Sydney and one for Melbourne (and the area downwind of those cities where the fallout is likely to land is water) is if Russia and the US go full MAD.
Prep for the chaos following a US-China nuclear war in which Sydney and Melbourne are glassed is generic SHTF prep, not nuclear prep. Obviously all bets are off if you are using "country Australia" as a euphemism for commuterland.
Military targets are:
Obvious civilian targets are, yeah, the five state capitals Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide/Perth, especially Syd/Melb.
And, obviously, it only takes one high-altitude nuke to EMP much of the continent, so why wouldn't you?
Agreed that they might not have the nukes to hit all of those.
Adelaide is usually upwind of me (as is Perth, though it's far enough away to be less of a problem), and frankly Victoria's weather is weird enough that I'm not entirely confident in being upwind of Melbourne (I'm in Bendigo). And, well, EMP is still a thing. But yes, fallout is much less of a danger than in the 'States.
WRT number of ICBMs, remember that they have MIRVs (i.e. in some cases "one ICBM" can drop nukes on 12 different cities as long as they're close enough to each other). Australia is also closer to China than the USA, so some of their missiles that can't hit the USA can hit us.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link