Both stories sent back with an accusation of using ChatGPT?!

[Bamagan]

There are nowhere near enough nuclear weapons on earth to destroy humanity. There are more than enough to entirely destroy our civilization - that's a different thing. Humans are remarkably tough to kill, all things considered - we're a particularly stubborn virus.

Modern civilization, though, is incredibly fragile. We exist on the systems and processes developed and dependent on long years of piecemeal advancement. A small peturbation in, say, ammonia supply for the Haber-Bosch process could have catastrophic and far-reaching consequences everywhere.

It wouldn't take much to fuck things up. Nukes would just make it (almost certainly) unrecoverable on timescales of less than a century or two. Probably a 99.99% population die-off to boot, at least, with a catastrophic loss of all knowledge and the depletion of all easily-reachable natural resources (iron, coal, petroleum etc) to permit a reboot.

That said, if the missiles were to fly, I'd be tanking up on whisky and ketamine.

I mean, I agree that our civilization is a lot more fragile than our species and would certainly die first, but I have doubts that our species would survive a 99.99% die-off, whatever the cause, and the secondary effects of a nuclear war large enough to cause such a reduction would likely doom those who survived the initial conflict to a lingering decline afterwards. Most terrestrial life above a certain mass would probably go down with us. We might be able to hold out it places far from the priority targets for nuclear strikes, but it's dubious that we could ever industrialize again, at least not on a global scale. I certainly hope no one decides to resolve our hypothetical arguments though.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Society is nine missed meals from collapse.

Probably one nation wide power outage of more than a few days would bring the USA to its collective knees. People in general don't know how to do shit without electricity anymore.

 

[MetaBob]

Probably one nation wide power outage of more than a few days would bring the USA to its collective knees. People in general don't know how to do shit without electricity anymore.

That's two distinct things. Both are science fiction memes:
1. Probably one nation wide power outage of more than a few days would bring the USA to its collective knees.
The science fiction meme is that within 2-3 (not nine) missed meals (ie one single day), civilization will collapse.
2. People in general don't know how to do shit without electricity anymore.
Yes they do.

Speaking as a prepper, which I'm not, but sometimes in my writing I pretend to be:
a. Get yourself a week's (or a month's, it doesn't take up much space; think tuna and pasta/ramen and extra water with a way to boil it) worth of food that can be prepared without power
b. Now, where you gonna go when TSHTF?

Psych. It's all BS.

But seriously, what would you do? A little prep could ward off a lot of s**t for you and yours.

 

[alohadave]

a. Get yourself a week's (or a month's, it doesn't take up much space; think tuna and pasta/ramen and extra water with a way to boil it) worth of food that can be prepared without power

In case people don't know, everything in cans is already cooked and can be eaten cold. You may not like the texture, and cold gloopy stuff may not be appetizing, but you can eat it.

So maybe stock cans of stuff you can stand to eat cold.

 

[MillieDynamite]

My parents and Jo, and I can survive off the grid.

In case people don't know, everything in cans is already cooked and can be eaten cold. You may not like the texture, and cold gloopy stuff may not be appetizing, but you can eat it.

So maybe stock cans of stuff you can stand to eat cold.

 

[Lovecraft_Lore]

Did the story in the OP ever get posted ?

 

[ElectricBlue]

but it's dubious that we could ever industrialize again, at least not on a global scale. I certainly hope no one decides to resolve our hypothetical arguments though.

Why would you think that? Once something has been done once, it's going to be done again. Humanity is a stubborn yet inventive species, and someone is always going to wonder, "How did they do that?" Especially when there's a whole bunch of stuff left over, proving it was done.

You should go read Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, where humanity gets down to a group of five at one point; and The Purple Cloud by M.P.Shiel, where the last remaining man in all of Europe goes on a rampage in 1901 (and then finds the girl). Then there's A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, where ancient blueprints are treated like sacred writings. Classic post-apocalypse novels.

That's the thing about history, it tends to repeat itself, learning as it goes.

 

[Bamagan]

Why would you think that? Once something has been done once, it's going to be done again. Humanity is a stubborn yet inventive species, and someone is always going to wonder, "How did they do that?" Especially when there's a whole bunch of stuff left over, proving it was done.

You should go read Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, where humanity gets down to a group of five at one point; and The Purple Cloud by M.P.Shiel, where the last remaining man in all of Europe goes on a rampage in 1901 (and then finds the girl). Then there's A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, where ancient blueprints are treated like sacred writings. Classic post-apocalypse novels.

That's the thing about history, it tends to repeat itself, learning as it goes.

Regarding industrialization: the first time around, it was a result of readily available, high-energy density fossil fuels. We have resorted to fracking and deep-water and arctic drilling because we've used up most of the easier to find and easier to process materials. Ergo, any future attempts at a post-apocalyptic return to a technological society might be thwarted by the scarcity of those or suitable substitutes to power industries. We could presumably get back to steamships and locomotives with wood as the principal fuel, but airplanes would be iffy. Large-scale electrical grids would also be unlikely, as the amount of fuel needed would be prohibitive, at least on a scale anything close to our current civilization.

It's possible some kind of work-around could be achieved, like going straight from steampunk to hydrogen or something, I just don't consider it likely, unless perhaps we unlock that technology before the collapse at the basis of the hypothetical discussion. Even knowing how people accomplished something in the past is not necessarily any help in replicating it in the future. I bet there are a lot of recipes for passenger pigeons floating around, but the best we can do now is approximate them with alternative ingredients. Building computers requires a whole host of intermediate manufacturing, so there would be a lot of ancient blueprints and schematics required, not to mention a lot of carefully machined refined minerals, before our post-apocalyptic descendants could work their way back to Pong.

It's just speculation. It doesn't really matter how close to or far from the mark any of us are.

 

[Np81la]

Most sites claiming to catch AI-written text fail spectacularly​

https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/16/most-sites-claiming-to-catch-ai-written-text-fail-spectacularly/

I use bard to translate from Portuguese to inglish, and sometimes thing a translated on my own get flagged while the AI stuff is not.

 

[OldKenDoll]

Did the story in the OP ever get posted ?

Yes, one of them I reposted with an explanation and it’s up.
The other was posted somewhere else, where they didn’t accuse me of being a bot