loomer wrote:I see you haven't cited a source, Iosef. I DEMAND IT OR I DEMAND BLOOD, COCKSUCKER! Prove Stuart's study was overblown with a properly sourced essay or article, or retract your statement!
Just to clarify a point; the study in question was conducted by the Australian Defense Forces. The bit I quoted was from the public-accessible summary (as far as I can determine, it's not on the web but it is available as a defense white paper). I agree with its contents (otherwise I'd not have quoted them) but I didn't generate the report.
Iosef Cross wrote: There will be electronic engineers alive in the post nuclear world. They will be able to supply the necessary components to prevent breakdowns in basic electronics.
You're missing the point completely. W here do they get raw materials? Spare parts for existing equipment? Technology design art? Construction facilities? Machine tools to equip same? There's a whole world more to this that just having a few electronic engineers and some component assembly plants. At best, you can keep some key equipment running until the spares run out.
These countries have comparative advantage in producing this equipment. That doesn't mean that it is impossible for other countries to produce it, only that it is cheaper to import it. Yes, without such equipment we would have to regress in technology several decades back in many items.
No, it means that you don't have the facilities to produce the equipment and without them you're screwed. What is more, you can't build them because the source of the equipment to build them has gone. Brazil has a disastrous history of trying to build industry internally; most of the efforts have been miserable failures. Need I mention what your nuclear program looks like after 40 years of investment?
They manufactured computers here in the 80's, because there were barriers to import computers, with the idea of creating a domestic computer industry. These computers were inferior to the world average and had several times the price. In 1990, the barriers to import computers were lifted and the domestic manufacturers went bankrupt. In the scenario were the outside world collapsed this market would be "protected" again.
Didn't "manufacture" computers; they assembled computers. The key bits were imported and the program was still a failure only supported by import restrictions. Protect the industry again post-laydown and you have a protected market for an abacus
The area physically destroyed by atomic bombs would be small. Se:
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Resources/ ... sions.html, a radius of widespread destruction of only 2.7 kilometers. Basic industrial equipment is easy to produce. Anyway, they wouldn't probably lose much industrial equipment, since the 50 k atomic bombs wouldn't destroy much more than the financial centers of their 3 biggest cities. Probable total fatalities would be 300 k, or 1.5% of the population of Australia.
You would be well advised not to talk about things you know nothing about. You've already made yourself look a complete idiot by talking of "thousands of Chinese nuclear weapons". You're making yourself look a fool again.
For your information, the DHS made the following estimates of damage from terrorist attacks on the USA.
A nuclear explosion in a major urban center using a 12.5 kiloton device
• 52,000 immediate deaths from heat and blast.
• 238,000 people exposed to direct radiation, of which 10,000 would die and 44,000 would suffer acute radiation sickness.
• 1.5 million people would be exposed to radioactive fallout in the following few days – in the absence of effective evacuation or sheltering this could kill an additional 200,000 people and cause hundreds of thousands to suffer acute radiation sickness.
The US Dept of Homeland Security estimated in 2005 that a 10 kt nuclear explosion in Washington DC would kill 15,000 and injure 31,000 from blast; kill 190,000 and injure 264,000 from short-term radiation exposure; and cause 49,000 cancer cases, 25,000 of them fatal, from long-term radiation exposure downwind.
(Source: US Dept of Homeland Security, National Planning Scenarios, Scenario 1, 2005)
That's with the rest of the country intact and able to rush aid to the point of attack. Australia has a major internal program in shifting resources around. Effectively each city would be on its own.
Iosef Cross wrote: However, it is absurd to say that South America would regress to medieval levels of development without the northern hemisphere.
Strawman argument. Nobody said medieval. The estimate we're arguing over is 19th century to 17th/18th century. An industry based on coal and iron resources is 19th century. Effectively it is a steam economy. Such an economy without significant internal trade is a 17th/18th century economy. The great difficulty isn't knowledge, it's applying it. That is, ina way, what distinguises a 17th century economy from an earlier one - the knowledge is there but there is no means of applying it. As I've said, we can debate at length over whether the regression would be to 19th century levels or 18th century levels and to some extent that's a non-argument because the two could easily co-exist with which category is where depending on circumstances. Nobody mentioned medieval era.
What does he think, Australia has places to hide the populace in? Or there'll be a US of A to funnel industrial equipment after Australia's gone?
