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.
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Notes -
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.
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