Recovery time from 1983 World War Three

How much would 1983 WWIII set back technology?

  • 5 years

    Votes: 3 1.2%
  • 10 years

    Votes: 5 2.1%
  • 20 years

    Votes: 35 14.4%
  • 50 years

    Votes: 44 18.1%
  • 100 years

    Votes: 47 19.3%
  • 200 years

    Votes: 25 10.3%
  • 500 years

    Votes: 8 3.3%
  • 1000 years

    Votes: 7 2.9%
  • 2000 years

    Votes: 4 1.6%
  • Infinity

    Votes: 4 1.6%
  • Unable to guess

    Votes: 26 10.7%
  • Technology would proceed in completely different direction

    Votes: 20 8.2%
  • Meaningless

    Votes: 15 6.2%

  • Total voters
    243

Hunter W.

Banned
European and Western nations could, most likely, descend into tribal violence and small centralized dictatorships would develop much like China before they were united under the banner of ideologies, Australia and New Zealand would be like the final frontier of European majority nations, I just can't see us just sitting around lamenting about what has just occurred.
 
Couple of Problems that seem hard to quantify are
a) what the amount of dust thrown into the atmosphere would do if extensive ground bursts occurred. Volcanic eruptions in the past have caused global harvest failures ( Krakatoa's effects were for at least 5 years ). Would a full on exchange tip enough material into the atmosphere to cause weather patterns to shift ?
b) What the psychological impact would be, in disasters extra outside help is often needed as the affected people are overwhelmed mentally. Would a total exchange cause nihilism and cults to form as well as a marked increase in xenophobia ( basically would people devolve socially as a coping mechanism and so slow recovery)?
 
Couple of Problems that seem hard to quantify are
a) what the amount of dust thrown into the atmosphere would do if extensive ground bursts occurred. Volcanic eruptions in the past have caused global harvest failures ( Krakatoa's effects were for at least 5 years ). Would a full on exchange tip enough material into the atmosphere to cause weather patterns to shift ?
b) What the psychological impact would be, in disasters extra outside help is often needed as the affected people are overwhelmed mentally. Would a total exchange cause nihilism and cults to form as well as a marked increase in xenophobia ( basically would people devolve socially as a coping mechanism and so slow recovery)?
No! Blowing up the bridges on I5 near the Siskyou summit is merely to prevent being overrun by pesky Californians. They might carry the zombie virus.:p
 
some are still classified by both sides, but they did develop sprays and missiles capable of delivery

Cruise missiles, specifically. Ballistic missiles they investigated but the problems of re-entry heat killing the bio-agents proved... difficult to overcome.
 
Other than spray agents or the "weteye" bomb, warheads for biologic agents are a problem. Dispersal is required but bursting charges can kill a lot of the agents. Also, depending on the agent, they can be quite sensitive to environmental conditions.
 
Dear God, I've checked the wikipedia entry on Soviet bioweapon programs... sickening and frightening at the same time.
Biologically engineered rabies is not something I thought was done, then reading they made tons of it for decades, metric tons, is one of the more frightening things I have read.
 
Biologically engineered rabies is not something I thought was done, then reading they made tons of it for decades, metric tons, is one of the more frightening things I have read.
What's so bad about rabies as compared to engineered smallpox or anthrax?
 
Rabies is not something you would weaponize, simply because it is not readily transmissable. Human to human rabies by folks biting people doesn't happen.
 
Folks allude to the Soviet bio-weapon programme, how bad was the stuff they were making? Was it 'just' stuff like smallpox or was it some modified versions of very nasty diseases?
 
Smallpox IS a very nasty disease. In those not vaccinated/never been vaccinated it has a 30%+ mortality rate and up to 5% severe morbidity rate (you survive but significant permanent damage like blindness, lung scarring, etc). It also is highly contagious with one victim resulting in 5-10 more infected among immunologically naive, and the virus is relatively hardy with scab crusts and so forth being infective for quite some time, and the virus spreads via the airborne route no need for intermediates like fleas or sexual contact or body fluid exchange.
 
What's so bad about rabies as compared to engineered smallpox or anthrax?
Fear, it is a pure terror weapon, essentially see any zombie movie and that is it, but they are faster and meaner. Plus we do not know how modified it was, they could have made it airborne. The thinking is to make sure the Americans are never going to be a threat again. Or any island peoples for that matter. Rabies makes one hydrophobic, afraid of water.
 
How likely is a situation where the communications systems are so fragmented that there is no one left to ceasefire? I realize that eventually all land based weapons will be launched/destroyed, but what is the likelihood of a situations where there's a destructive game of nuclear cat and mouse around the globe long after civilization has collapsed? I can't imagine a less stable society of random military warlords would just hold on to the leftover weapons and systems. Not large scale stuff, but won't there still be hundreds of strategic weapons leftover and ready to launch in local skirmishes?
 
Folks allude to the Soviet bio-weapon programme, how bad was the stuff they were making? Was it 'just' stuff like smallpox or was it some modified versions of very nasty diseases?
governments seldom own up to the Frankenstein crap they create. but even if you weaponized the normal stuff that's bad enough. I would be fairly certain in saying that they were trying to weaponized any microbe they could that could do something very nasty. so you top that with other bio/chemical weapons plus the nuclear barrage .. it gets ugly fast in the aftermath as civilization breaks down, supply stocks run out and modern medicine goes back to the 1800's

all in all a very acceptable time to begin drinking
 
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