"If a nuclear war happened, would you want you or your kids to live in the aftermath?"

When the alternative is having them live in slavery, and their children and grandchildren after them? Not that easy a question to answer.

Shall I make the question easier for you, Tom? Try this:

Would you want you or your kids to live?

No need to gloss it with "slavery", or expand the saga with "their children and grandchildren after them" . It's a simple Y/N question. Remember the human trump card. Hope for freedom and life remains, even in slavery, even in disease -- even in dying.

Personally, I'm not one to ever easily give up, and I would certainly wish the same outlook for my kids -- and their kids, and their kids' kids.

And about the dino-thing, raised earlier by R.L.:

I was under the impression that the killer was Chicxulub. If so, I recall a report some years ago that stated the incoming was generally from the north, and that the size/velocity of that particular planet-killer were enough to engulf the Earth in a low ring of burning debris that crossed both poles, bringing general destruction to "all" hemispheres in a matter of days.

Not quite a calculated strike, and not really a true planet killer -- but definitely a final blow for the more complex land dwellers. The nuke-winter that was supposed to follow was global, and thought to have been nearly immediate.

I think a controlled exchange of fire would be better survived, and the winter would generally be confined to the northern hemisphere -- for a while. Eventually, though, the heat reflected to space in the north would begin to cool the southern hemisphere as well, but probably not nearly as bad. By then, the planet would be on the road to recovery.

Dan