Nukes are definitely distinct from conventional bombs. That doesn’t mean conventional bombs are a-ok (you can be barbaric with them too by bombing civilians with them). It just means nukes are in a league of their own. The fallout alone I would say makes it closer to chemical warfare with how horrifying and long-lasting the effects of that can be.
Look, I have a mean futsal kick, but not close to a professional player. There are levels to it.
That said, and I might be misremembering, but I think the US army killed a lot more people with their incendiary bombings than with the two nuclear bombs.
it’s possible but the nuclear bombs at the time were nothing compared to today’s arsenal. They still destroyed an entire city and (most everyone) in it. Here’s more modern bombs though:
That’s also the thing with nuclear bombs, you can’t run away or hide from them. You barely have time to see one before it hits, because they detonate far above the ground. your survival hinges entirely on luck and being kilometers away from the blast radius. 70,000 died from just one “tiny” bomb by today’s standard. What if the US launched 3 Tridents? Or 5, or 10?
According to the map simulator the nuclear fallout only seems to happen at surface detonation with modern bombs. I couldn’t tell you if it’s accurate and what the science behind it is, but a bomb would most likely be detonated in the air to maximize casualties, it’s just that much stronger.
The issue is you can conventionally bomb places with a very low civilian death rate, or go wild and kill many civilians. But with a nuke, you’ll only ever do the latter.
I don’t think that nuclear bombings are significantly different from conventional bombings. Trying to separate them is useless.
Nukes are definitely distinct from conventional bombs. That doesn’t mean conventional bombs are a-ok (you can be barbaric with them too by bombing civilians with them). It just means nukes are in a league of their own. The fallout alone I would say makes it closer to chemical warfare with how horrifying and long-lasting the effects of that can be.
Even when you factor in the fallout from a nuclear bombing?
Conventional bombing leaves behind a ton of toxic chemicals, so it is not as different.
Look, I have a mean futsal kick, but not close to a professional player. There are levels to it.
That said, and I might be misremembering, but I think the US army killed a lot more people with their incendiary bombings than with the two nuclear bombs.
it’s possible but the nuclear bombs at the time were nothing compared to today’s arsenal. They still destroyed an entire city and (most everyone) in it. Here’s more modern bombs though:
That’s also the thing with nuclear bombs, you can’t run away or hide from them. You barely have time to see one before it hits, because they detonate far above the ground. your survival hinges entirely on luck and being kilometers away from the blast radius. 70,000 died from just one “tiny” bomb by today’s standard. What if the US launched 3 Tridents? Or 5, or 10?
You can also visualize a detonation on this tool: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
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I wonder how far away and how many people would be affected by fall-out, today?
According to the map simulator the nuclear fallout only seems to happen at surface detonation with modern bombs. I couldn’t tell you if it’s accurate and what the science behind it is, but a bomb would most likely be detonated in the air to maximize casualties, it’s just that much stronger.
The increased power of modern bombs actually causes less fallout because more of the fissile material is detonated by more efficient modern weapons.
I still don’t think they’re ok.
I can’t begin to imagine, especially with weather variables, wind, rain, etc.
Fallout from a nuclear bomb decays away very, very quickly. In 48 hours, it drops to 1% of the original radioactivity.[1]
That’s why Hiroshima and Nagasaki are perfectly normal cities today.
In a nuclear war scenario, assuming you aren’t in the glassing zone, just stay indoors for 2 days and you’ll be fine.
https://remm.hhs.gov/nuclearfallout.htm ↩︎
The issue is you can conventionally bomb places with a very low civilian death rate, or go wild and kill many civilians. But with a nuke, you’ll only ever do the latter.