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Re:The Effect of Atmospheric Nuclear Testing on American Mor... by marcosdumay on Sunday December 24, 2017 @12:54PM (#16000468)
Whatever are the odds, I can't imagine nukes helping us in either situation.

A digital superinteligence (should I expect it to be organic?) will be either very concentrated or backed-up everywhere. On the first case traditional explosives will give us better bang for our bucks, and lead to less collateral losses. On the second case, nuclear weapons would destroy us much sooner than the AI.

On the case of aliens, the entire problem is how to reach them. If we can get some weapon into them, yes, a nuke would probably be marginally more effective than a lump of lead, but not by a large difference.

Re:The Effect of Atmospheric Nuclear Testing on American Mor... by YeGoblynQueenne on Monday December 25, 2017 @11:36AM (#16004682)
Oh, no, I didn't mean we'd try to nuke the aliens. I mean we'd threaten to nuke ourselves: irradiate the planet until it's incapable of supporting life (including the aliens' life), if they tried to exterminate us.

"Attack and the planet gets it", see?

Of course we get it along with the planet, but I'm assuming that if the aliens are invading they're planning to exterminate us anyway.