Metal Reviews

So, the day finally comes, all bets are off the missiles are in the air and the sirens begin the Death Chant.

Full-scale, everybody in go for broke nuclear war.

What's the world look like in the aftermath? Days, weeks and years gone by, do we somehow pick up the pieces and start over, or is that the end of the animal Man. Or does a new breed of mutated beings emerge over time, via birth defects and such... Chernobyl, Iraq (DU, anybody) is riven with this phenomena...
life adapts, after all.

I had this discussion with a co-worker the other day and it's really a fascinating topic with a lot of speculative literature and data out there.

Serious discussion, no bullshit.

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Albert Einstein

WW3 would end up destroying society all over. Most of the global population would either be dead or dying from radioactive fallout.

Those who will survive would be the smart ones in the bomb shelters with enough provisions to survive until the fallout dissipates.

Than the survivors would have the biggest test of trying to reform society. It will be anarchy for generations until a peaceful accord can be drummed up.

Than it would be a slow rebuild for centuries.

I imagine it kinda like this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCWsR-Qk8v4

That didn't take long.

Massive death toll of man, survivors gradually die off due to complications from nuclear radiation, looting, killing, dividing into factions basic human nature from the result of a conflagration. Hopefully, it would kill us all.

The people that died instantly would probably be the lucky ones, agreed.

Anybody read/seen Cormac McCarthy's The Road?

That.

in the aftermath of full scale nuclear warfare you would see large scale deaths as a result of radiation poisoning, scientific reports suggest the possibility of "nuclear winter" wherein for a period of time the sun is blocked out resulting in dramatic decreases in global temperatures making it impossible to farm crops or tend livestock, provisions would hold out only so long then you would probably see people resorting to cannibalism in order to survive until a truly sustainable food source could be located, I expect that about ninety percent of the Earth's population would die leaving just ten percent to rebuild, that ten percent would probably break into sects so the process would repeat over and over again

Or it could be like Star Trek and we'll end up making starships and having sex with holograms in cool holodecks.

but in order for that outcome to be possible man would need to be capable of setting aside conflict and as evidenced throughout history we have an almost insatiable need to conquer and destroy that which is different to ourselves

the warring city-states in ancient Greece, the Persian invasion of Greece, the Roman Empire, Dark Age/Middle Age Europe, the American Revolution, Civil War and World Wars I and II are just a small portion of the macabre painting that is human history and I see no evidence which would support a shift in mans propensity for violence even after a near extinction event triggered by man's on blood-stained hands

http://hnn.us/articles/129966.html


Another (more) interesting article deals with the global health and climated effects.

http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/82cab/

It's a bit long but not too long and is pretty interesting stuff.

I believe man would rebuild, but really it's impossible to say for sure. Perhaps the atmosphere and soil would so poisoned (and frozen) that it would just wither and die, us along with it.
Still, there is a kind of morbid beauty in the planet being cleansed, sterile for however many millenia it would take for a new lifeform to take hold.

I always thought about this when reading about Nietzche's concept of "Man being a bridge to the Superman" (I know that is not what he meant).

Oh I agree with you. What I said was more of a silly comment and wishful thinking than anything.

Still though that man can come back from something like nuclear annihilation to space exploriation has something of a passionate hopefullness to it.

They would more likely have to in order for humanity to prosper and evolve again.

Love that thought.

There will never be a nuclear war. There's more sophisticated methods to wreak even bigger havoc that are untraceable and absolutely unknown to the public. Besides that, there's certain parameters in place making nukes a game a political intrigue and nothing more.

that being the case how can it be the UN estimates there to be fifteen thousand (can't find the link to this article however this figure seems to feature regularly on programmes discussing the possible "endgame" of nuclear warfare) nuclear warheads that are unaccounted for, we know the US have nukes as do North Korea, Iran and Russia so those are warheads not included in this count, is it so far fetched that a terrorist cell would be prepared to start global nuclear war? more importantly if there are methods we, the public do not know about how could you possibly know that? logic mandates that your claim must be unsubstantiated and purely speculative

we know of biological and chemical warfare but compared to the devestation of a nuclear weapon the astronomical death tolls such weapons could inflict are child's play

Like death rays...

with tensions in the middle east higher then ever and North Korea poised to invade south Korea within three years full-scale nuclear warfare is a scary possibility

I agree with Steve on this one the lucky ones will be killed instantly

the survivors would envy the dead