>> we've stockpiled the means to utterly erase our existence.

Here's a thought. Remember the deepwater horizon oil spill? Imagine the consequences if they had been unable to cap that well. Imagine it still flooding the Atlantic ocean (via the gulf stream) with oil today. Now imagine that all those capped wells all over the place eventually crack and start spewing oil in 100 years due to some unforeseen failure mechanism in the concrete. Where would we end up? Weapons aren't the only tech that can go wildly wrong.

You're absolutely right, but they're the only thing designed to be. If they work the way they're intended, they kill everything.

While it doesn't take much away from the argument, it's worth noting that nuclear weapons, when they don't work the way they're intended, don't kill everything. Nuclear weapons are fail-safe[0], and it's very hard to make them detonate. A slight problem, and you have a very expensive dud.

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[0] - for "irradiated half the city, but at least it's still standing" values of safe.

Yes, that's one strong benefit they have over chemical weapons, which are basically always going to leak given time, or biological agents, which can be smuggled in a human incubator. The downside of nukes almost exclusively has to do with when they work as intended... otherwise they really are impressive products of engineering.

Does the nuclear material still react even if it doesn't explode? Like a nuclear reactor melting down.

One of the scariest things about nukes is the secondary effects. After the cities burn and civilization falls apart. Imagine all the industries that deal with dangerous materials. Imagine what will happen after they are all simultaneously damaged and/or abandoned by the war. You would have tens of thousands of major industrial accidents occurring all at once.

Vats containing chemicals more dangerous than in Bhopal would leak. Nuclear reactors all over the world would melt down with no one to contain them. Oil wells would rust and burst.

That's just the zombie apocalypse regardless of what brings down modern society.

You could use nukes to seal the wells. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iB9QYaSVEo

I once commented that a tactical nuke might be a solution to the Fukushima disaster. Just place it correctly and blow the entire mess into the ocean and let it sink. I'm not sure if spent fuel is better sitting on the bottom of the ocean than where it is, but at least it would be kept cool ;-)

I think I once read that part of India's rationale for developing nukes were to utilize them for peaceful purposes, like blasting dams.

Presumably in Pakistan. /s

I had considered that possibility as I was writing my comment. The irony is rather amusing.

Also when I searched for the Russian clip, most results where about using a nuke to end the Deepwater Horizon desaster, for example here. [1] Although it was obviously, at least I hope so, never seriously considered.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/us/03nuke.html

I totally get that. It's bizarre how we developed them while still stuck on one planet, with no backup.

On the other hand, my inner 12 year old still finds them very keen. But thankfully, he's pretty constrained ;)

Chemical weapons are world-killers, absolutely. You could gas out every human city and end civilization as we know it.

Biological weapons can probably do this 10x faster and via weaponized viruses meaning no ICBM's needed, just a good enough virus to be carried by human and animal hosts that infect the world. Or infect common crops and watch the world burn as everyone starves.

A total war between the US/NATO and USSR sans nuclear weapons would also probably have ended western civilization and probably drawn in everyone else too. World-killer? Maybe, maybe not, but the world left over would have been one no one wold want to live in. The same way a post-nuclear world would be.

If anything nukes kept US/NATO and the USSR from going hot. That conflict could very much been a world-ender and was itching to happen for decades.

Chemical weapons are shit, sorry. They're expensive to produce, dangerous to store, and their mortal enemy is... weather. Biological weapons could, if they were properly designed and released, didn't mutate, etc... etc...

Nukes just... work. You twist a couple of keys, flip a switch and 45 minutes later human civilization ends.

I think this is the key difference. Conventional wars, regardless of the weapons, are awful, but they take time, and resources, and constant decision making. Things can change, one side withdraws or surrenders and the killing stops.

A weaponised virus doesn't have these constraints, and could destroy humanity, but at least it takes some time, and can probably be somewhat mitigated.

In nuclear war, a split second decision could annihilate every living human, erase all evidence of our existence, and maybe cause a big enough climate shift to permanently end life on this planet.

> In nuclear war, a split second decision could annihilate every living human, erase all evidence of our existence, and maybe cause a big enough climate shift to permanently end life on this planet.

Not to take too much from the argument, but that line is way overblown. I think it's hard to believe a nuclear war would kill all humans (it would certainly destroy civilization, but killing everybody is way harder) but nobody can be sure of that. Anyway, the Earth has survived meteor strikes larger than humanity's entire arsenal and life is still here.

You've taken nothing at all from the argument. If human civilization fails, then it's just a matter of time before the species does as well. More importantly, what value would there be in a handful of devastated humans scratching out a "bang the rocks together" life until the next extinction event finished the job?

This reminds me of a moment from the book "Against All Enemies," where Colin Powell, when asked behind closed doors about the dangers from chemical agents if the Iraqis had them, rolled his eyes a bit, and said that they were "goofy." He elaborated along the lines of: chemical weapons are completely at the mercy of the wind and dispersal patterns, and while they might be nasty in isolation, they simply weren't an operational concern.

Exactly. Chemical weapons are mostly good at terrifying and murdering civilians and the otherwise unequipped and untrained. Nuclear weapons just.. kill.

Technology has improved chemical weapons quite a bit from the stuff used in World War One though (and chemical weapons were pretty effective then.) Modern weapons can kill in terrifyingly small doses. I mean, sure, they aren't as dangerous as nuclear weapons. But that isn't saying a lot...