Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?
When I think about nuclear war leading to human extinction, the first thing that comes to mind isn&#x27;t any of those 3 mechanisms, but rather economic damage. Not economic damage as in &quot;I lost my retirement investment,&quot; but as in &quot;we can&#x27;t produce enough food.&quot; I&#x27;d be worried about even much smaller and less deadly nuclear wars leading to massive civil unrest and breakdowns in large-scale social institutions and economies. Mass starvation would be the biggest killer. But I suppose that still wouldn&#x27;t likely lead to absolute human extinction, but it could certainly lead to a future civilization that is largely unrecognizable to us humans accustomed to industrial or even agricultural societies.