re: Do you like the fact that nuclear weapons exist?

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A nuke is just a really big bomb. Nothing more.

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Not sure if serious.

Yield is measured in kilo/megatons of TNT for a reason.

Its a big bomb.

Its a bomb so big that it could destroy humanity.

But at its essence it is a massive bomb. Its not some magical supernatural thing.

And the radiation and fallout? That's just normal stuff?

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Set this to the largest bomb the USSR ever designed in the middle of New York City, Tokyo or Mexico City, estimate casualties and radiation fallout and tell me if it's just a really big bomb and nothing more.

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The Czar bomb is not likely to detonate in New York City, be reasonable and set the bombs to HEU or Day Crockets, and the Topol if you are currently in a Russia Phobia mode.

I meant a conventional total war.

Nuke tech used for good is incredible. Nuke tech used for bad is a very terrible thing.

No. Nuclear weapons are as terrifying to humanity's future as they were from 1945 to 1990 IMO. The scariest part to me is that the technology to create nukes is not going to be relegated to just a handful of the most powerful state actors, but will become accessible to much smaller and less stable states and political actors. This likely increases the likelihood of nuclear weapons usage through means other than full on state to state nuclear exchange.

It's something that is typically on the backburner of people's minds regarding international relations matters but consider the possibility of nutjob groups like ISIS, who by all means will continue to exist in some form or another into perpetuity, gaining access to even one nuclear weapon. It's terrifying and there's no MAD policy that can deter that kind of attack.

I've never read anything that puts my mind at ease regarding any way to solve this problem in the future either.

Nuclear weapons may have, by our good fortunes that the numerous incidents we had in the Cold War didn't result in exchange, spared us from what otherwise would have been inevitable conventional war of a scale comparable to WWII between 1945-1990, but the future of humanity may still fall victim to them.

I can't claim a position on that question because I don't know the probability of a nuclear weapon being stolen and used by a rogue actor.

As a deterrent to open warfare, nuclear weapons have at least succeeded in preventing open warfare between major world powers. While we still fought the Soviet Union in proxy wars for decades after their invention, those missions were largely isolated to third-party theaters instead of occurring on American or Russian soil, and didn't result in government seizing control of large aspects of the economy in a total war effort. These are huge benefits to having nuclear weapons. In lives and money saved, nuclear weapons have been very profitable.

But the existence of insane, apocalyptic death cults like ISIS creates in me a gut feeling that it would be a better world if nuclear weapons didn't exist. Just one such maniacal organization getting the opportunity to use those weapons would change everything. Forget the savings I mentioned before, that's all a fanciful academic musing compared to the nightmarish reality that a post-apocalyptic world would bring about.

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No.

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Agree

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It's not even sporting when you can just push a button and destroy the world

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I know you're being sarcastic but war is all about annihilating the enemy with the shortest amount of energy & in the shortest amount of time

No. Scares the shite out of most rational people.

Mutually assured destruction is a damn powerful deterrent, though, so I'm not worried about sovereign nations utilizing them.

It's radicals like ISIS and their ilk who legitimately DGAF about their own lives or the planet who I'd worry about getting their hands on a couple. Not likely, of course, but not something you can completely rule out.