Those projections were based on the assumption that it really was Warsaw vs. NATO, and that the most important targets would be redundantly hit be several nukes. If you spread the nukes out a little bit instead of just concentrating an redundant annhilation of the United States and Russia and certain closely allied states, you get much more damage.
So, yes, we do have the capability to destry the world, but no, it wouldn't happen from a straight-forward nuke exchange between Cold Ware Warsaw and NATO, because their objectives would be to redundantly destroy each other rather than to destroy the world.
That aside, official projections do not adequately take into account long-term affects of fallout and resulting climate changes. That makes the projections pretty worthless in my opinion.
Tell that to the Martians living in the underground tunnels who are technologicly a thousand years ahead of us and deliberately let their planet's suraface die in order to camoflauge it from interstellar invaders. For millenia they have viewed Earth as a tactical decoy, and when we decided to ironicly invade them and mess-up their plans, we will have outlived our usefulness to the martians and they will simply have to nuke us then re-terraform earth to again function as a proper decoy. Then maybe you will understand the appropriateness of the 'sleeping giant' analogy. Isn't ignorance bliss?
Truth was a bad name because it brought certain connotations that just obscure the real issue, i.e. that we don't really know anything except what we obbserve. The sexual connotations of top and bottom were much preferred.
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Those projections were based on the assumption that it really was Warsaw vs. NATO, and that the most important targets would be redundantly hit be several nukes. If you spread the nukes out a little bit instead of just concentrating an redundant annhilation of the United States and Russia and certain closely allied states, you get much more damage. So, yes, we do have the capability to destry the world, but no, it wouldn't happen from a straight-forward nuke exchange between Cold Ware Warsaw and NATO, because their objectives would be to redundantly destroy each other rather than to destroy the world. That aside, official projections do not adequately take into account long-term affects of fallout and resulting climate changes. That makes the projections pretty worthless in my opinion.
Tell that to the Martians living in the underground tunnels who are technologicly a thousand years ahead of us and deliberately let their planet's suraface die in order to camoflauge it from interstellar invaders. For millenia they have viewed Earth as a tactical decoy, and when we decided to ironicly invade them and mess-up their plans, we will have outlived our usefulness to the martians and they will simply have to nuke us then re-terraform earth to again function as a proper decoy. Then maybe you will understand the appropriateness of the 'sleeping giant' analogy. Isn't ignorance bliss?
The regulations are still somewhat dynamic, and are being ironed out between the government regulating agencies and the private entrepeneurs.
Truth was a bad name because it brought certain connotations that just obscure the real issue, i.e. that we don't really know anything except what we obbserve. The sexual connotations of top and bottom were much preferred.