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Comment by earthtolazlo | Hacker News Reader

For what it's worth, the Midwest would be a prime target during a nuclear war due to its ICBM silos. There aren't many places far away from both population centers and military targets that could be considered safe. Maybe New Zealand.

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I live in Berlin. Used to be targeted by dozens if not over a hundred nukes. Bonus: from both sides.

So over quickly, rather than wasting away from fallout, nuclear winter and the complete and total collapse of civilization.

Exactly.

Would I like to be nuked? No.

Would I like to live out The Road or Mad Max (depending on your preference of atmosphere)? Doubly no.

The cynical truth, though, is that faced with that decision you'd still choose the second option.

Nope, I really wouldn't. I am highly pain-averse. And the point of being targeted by 50+ nukes is that I wouldn't even have to make that choice :-)

Weird, I've found a situation where my insane pain tolerance could help me. (From migraines)

With two kids, "the road" sounds tragically awesome. Okay awesome is the wrong word. But something. Blinking out of existence: ick.

I'm sure that can change your outlook. My first child is scheduled for a fall release, might change my answer.

Doesn't change right away, takes time. But somehow over the last 4.5 years it has. (Ask me before then, yeah absolutely blinking out is the way to go.) Then again, as always, ymmv. Congratulations.

Interesting article at DefenseOne about the Midwest as "nuclear sponge."

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/02/welcome-americas-nuc...

Patagonia is more realistic.

Not even... Falklands are just right there..

Inevitably any large population centre is going to have nearby military defences, so any large population centre is a target, right?

With that many nuclear weapons existing... Who cares?

(People wondering if they have a hope of survival by fleeing somewhere preëmptively, though I don't know if that's noble…)

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