If nuclear war broke out, could humans escape extinction?

There are 7.3 billion people on Earth. If the world's major powers erupted in nuclear war, billions would die over the course of a few hours. The remaining fallout would cause radiation poisoning and cancer over the short and long terms, and starvation and dehydration would also take a heavy toll. Would a small group of survivors manage to find food and drinkable water, survive the radiation, and build a new society over time? Are humans really just as difficult to get rid of as rats or roaches?

An episode of Family Guy answered this didn't it?

For sure

Hey , if we managed to beat the dinos , i think we have a chance.

You cannot escape nuclear winter.

Getting ready for Fallout 4?

If the nuclear winter was caused by something extraterrestial, I think everyone would die.

But, the whole nuclear arsenal of the world pale in comparison. Plus, how much of the world's nuclear arsenal have been destroyed since the Cold War days?

Then there's atmospheric circulation patterns to consider. Nuclear waste material will be spread by these circulation patterns and they're not just going to wrap around the Earth like a blanket.

What superpowers?

humans are surprisingly resilient. I would imagine some of humanity could survive almost anything.

Warhammer 40K, anyone?

Who needs Virtual Reality? Fallout 4 in real life :D

Yeah, there are those islands that are not involved in anything politically.

Not that many people will die from the actual bombs themselves, more people would die from the after effects and I'm not even talking fallout or radiation, they'd die of starvation. In hindsight as people lay there dying they probably wished it was a quicker death. The governments of the world, the economic system, it'll all go to shit. But, someone will survive.

Someone would survive in the end, would they rebuild? Unlikely. Human civilization would have peaked, our dreams of spreading among the stars is gone. Our depletion of natural resources that was supposed to be our stepping stone to a better tomorrow are gone. The planet might recover, in the span of billions of years it took to get here life will continue here with or without us until another few billion years when our star dies and takes us with it.

Maybe as civilization goes to shit as well as our collective knowledge will regress to nothing more than smarter monkeys, looking at the remnants of an ancient civilization like it was built by Gods, or ancient aliens, or fucking Atlantians.

Gotta start collecting bottle caps then...

No, I don't have a PC or present gen console. Although, admittedly, Fallout 3 came in my mind. :P

Yes. Only the strong will survive.

Considering urban centers and military hotspots would be targeted, the death toll would likely number in the billions considering over half the world population lives in cities now.

I said major powers. The US is the only remaining superpower, although other countries are certainly major on a global economic and political standpoint and have nuclear weapons.

LMFAO

+100 Internets

Probably because we humans really like to half-ass things when it comes to our own species. Some rare bird or flower we'll wipe out in a day but even with nukes we'll phone it in.

I don't think you can tell irradiated water just by looking at it so unless you have a geiger counter up your butt you're not going to live long.

Just what I think and yes, the radiation would just mess human beings up.

I don't think you can tell irradiated water just by looking at it so unless you have a geiger counter up your butt you're not going to live long.

Just what I think and yes, the radiation would just mess human beings up.

We have a lot of survivalists in our state. So, geiger counters are pretty common. They're now handheld and are priced around $200-$300.

And who would the war be between that caused every major city across the globe to get nuked?

Contextually more of what I was saying is more would die from famine than the direct effects of the bombs or illness from the radiation.

Of course. It may take a while for the human race to restore itself as a dominant and prevalent species, but it won't go extinct. An all-out nuclear war will do unimaginable damage, but it won't extend to cover every inch on the face of the earth where a human dwells or can dwell. All it takes for our survival is a fraction of the current population to be scattered all over the world.

The statistical chances of the extinction of the human race through a nuclear war are just infinitesimal. Besides, we can always rely on chance of another fish crawling out of the sea to restart history.

Depends on the scale of the conflict. If it's an all out exchange with modern nuclear arsenals, there's no way any humans can survive that.

You call yourself gamerguru when you can't even play next-gen games? Pfff... :P

On topic, I think one way or another humanity would manage to survive. We are an intelligent and stubborn species and although the nuclear would take its toll on our population and infrastructure, in the end somehow we would come up with a plan to create viable conditions again.

Back in the Cold War, the Russians believed a nuclear war is survivable and I concur.

If I have to take my chances of surviving a nuclear attack, I rather be at the Southern Hemisphere. Most of the targets are in the Northern Hemisphere.

No one has ever made an accurate model of the Earth's circulation patterns and then superimposed the effects of radioactive fallout from man-made nuclear explosions. Most models I've seen totally ignore the atmosphere altogether.

Could we survive? Sure. It just depends where the nukes land and what yields they are. Most ICBMs aren't that powerful, so if they only bombed military targets most of the U.S. would be unscathed. If they started shooting missiles at major metropolitan centers then that's a whole different story.

It's pretty much inevitable now that gay marriage exists.

Some might survive.