thaluikhain said:
Well, depends what you mean by "doomed". If large chunks of the population were to be lifted off the Earth, that'd cause quite an upset...but, IIRC, the amount of people who will get into heaven from all across the world is less than a good sized disaster would kill in a local area anyways.
This too.
If anything, losing all the people who are 'saved' would greatly help our current population problem (that is, we're almost at the limit of what the earth can support comfortably), and likely cause less wars because if it DID happen, it would be pretty bloody obvious what religion is the correct one.
thaluikhain said:
We can also destroy a planet without as much difficulty as you'd expect and hope, do you know how much damage a, say, 250 megaton nuclear weapon would do if it was placed roughly 1km below the surface?
Firstly, there aren't any 250 megaton devices, the largest ever constructed was a mere 100 megatons (though, the yield was reduced during testing for safety reasons). But, assuming you got hold of such a device, it's still only about half the power of the earthquake to have hit Japan earlier this year.
madster11 said:
Now imagine 8x 300 megaton (roughly 1/2 the nuclear arsenal of Earth) of them placed 3km below the surface of, say, Pluto (**** you it's a planet).
Which would be somewhat less than the earthquake in 1960. Admittedly, you'd set them off in different places, rather than inefficiently lumping them all together in one spot. Also, Pluto happens to be composed of things that are gases at room temperature, the effects of heat would be much more impressive (though this begs the question of how you land there in the first place...rockets used to slow your descent will bore through the plant and leave you surrounded by very cold gases, rather than nicely insulating vacuum).
madster11 said:
We currently have the technology to do that, and it would damage the planet so badly it could be called 'destroyed'.
Well...if you are playing fast and loose with the word "destroyed", yeah.
thethingthatlurks said:
You're right, there's a good chance some humans would survive an all-out nuclear war, but civilization would still be in ruins. The infrastructure, and all major cities would be destroyed, hence few places would be left hospitable for human life.
Well...all the most important cities would be devastated (not destroyed, mind, and more of a long term danger due to plague then radiation, as I understand it), but those are fairly few and far between.
Your right, though, it's the loss of infrastructure that's the real killer, but there are plenty of undeveloped regions in the world that would be almost totally unaffected, and even in the nations that contains all the primary targets there will be survivors. Give it a few centuries, and it'll be like the war never happened.
Ulvai said:
Did anyone read "Salvation War" ? It has basically this premise. People left behind decided to fight Legions Of Hell, and won. Then, they looked up...
Well, ish. It also takes things as being as they were written in the bronze age as being true, not what we think is impressive today.