- If the rest of the world engaged in non-nuclear attack against the US, then what happens - who would win, and why?

 

- If you had to choose one... would you rather know when you would die, or would you prefer to know how? - does it matter?

 

- If all creatures had human intellect, then who would rein supreme in the animal kingdom?

- The US dies

- I'd rather know how. Yes it matters because if you knew the time, you'd be anticipating it all the time.

- Humans and monkeys would rein supreme because of their abilities to use their hands.

-The US would be overwhelmed and would either be nice and be taken over, or would nuke everything and everyone would lose due to fallout nearly wiping out the human race.

 

-I'd choose when. Better to dread a date than to fear doing something. And if it's soon I'd know to get a move on experiencing more.

 

-Likely still primates, although if insects had human level intelligence (how would that work?) they might just overrun everything with sheer numbers. Although if you mean from the start, then it'd probably not be primates as our intellectual advantage was literally all we had over, say, bears for a large part of history. Wooden spears wouldn't do much against an organized bear army.

-Likely still primates, although if insects had human level intelligence (how would that work?) they might just overrun everything with sheer numbers. Although if you mean from the start, then it'd probably not be primates as our intellectual advantage was literally all we had over, say, bears for a large part of history. Wooden spears wouldn't do much against an organized bear army.

 

True about the insects.... However, a bear can't pull the trigger of a gun or solder the components onto a circuit board.

^It all depends when this started. If it just came into effect today bears would be obliterated.

 

But if it applied to all creatures throughout history (assuming mankind even came into existence as this would massively change the course of evolution) then mankind wouldn't have lasted very long.

 

Stone age tech < Sentient bears.

 

And does "creatures" include microscopic ones? Sentient amoebas sound scary as all [bleep] when you consider the damage they could potentially do.

- If the rest of the world engaged in non-nuclear attack against the US, then what happens - who would win, and why?

Why would the rest of the world pick on the US? They'd replace one superpower with another superpower that none of us get along with particularly well: China. Strategic suicide. The rest of the world would anyway; the EU alone is bigger in terms of GDP than the whole of the US, and the strongest war economy almost always wins the war. Plus all the other non-American non-European G20 countries, and also how much of America's economic might depends on exporting its goods and spreading its corporations to the world, which would obviously end immediately, causing economic ruin... it's not even a contest.

 

- If you had to choose one... would you rather know when you would die, or would you prefer to know how? - does it matter?

I suppose how so I can be lazy and not give a [bleep] about it for the rest of my life.

 

- If all creatures had human intellect, then who would rein supreme in the animal kingdom?

Humans and primates. Everything else still lacks thumbs.

- If the rest of the world engaged in non-nuclear attack against the US, then what happens - who would win, and why?

 

Assuming they all invaded the US? Simultaneously? USA would be leveled within weeks. The south would put up a good fight, and all those zombie shelters would make great barracks/bunkers. Russia's sheer numbers would eventually overwhelm us though. Red Dawn comes to mind, but with even more military advancement. Sure we have the "largest" army, but if we had no warning...I mean...look how Pearl Harbor ended up. And that's an attack we knew about! If the US got shock&awe'd into a war against the world, it'd be a short and horrendously bloody war.

 

- If you had to choose one... would you rather know when you would die, or would you prefer to know how? - does it matter?

 

When, because then I wouldn't live in fear of whatever it is that kills me. I prefer that to be a surprise (although in real life it's like a 50/50 definite for either my lungs giving out or liver cancer before I'm 70). Heavy alcoholism and birth defects are fun.

 

- If all creatures had human intellect, then who would rein supreme in the animal kingdom?

 

Mother [bleep]ing spiders. They can melt anything into being edible, they out number just about everything, and they are kings at hiding.

I'd put my money on America, simply because of their superior navy and air force. Canada and Mexico would be steamrolled, and any other invasions would have to come by sea or air.

^Our navy and airforce are superior to single countries. To the combined forces of the world? Forget it. Canada would just have to stall long enough for China and Europe to catch us from both sides at once. And then Mexico would rebel/get backup from South America and the US would be boned so hard Americans wouldn't even have time to blame Congress.

I'd rather know when I'd die. Not only would that guarantee that I'd be alive for the whole of my life up until that date, I can schedule my life and prepare for death much easier. I could make better decisions about life insurance and retirement funds. That kind of information would give me a pretty big advantage money-wise, especially if it turns out I'm going to die earlier than average. I could even take out big bets on my lifespan if it turns out to be long enough.

 

Also, knowing when I'll die gives me a bit of power to influence how I'll die, because that isn't fixed. There's no way I'll get in a car during the last week or so, or get on a plane on the last day. I'll just lie in bed and hope that I just have a heart attack or a brain aneurysm. Only disadvantage I could see would be if it work like Torchwood: Miracle Day, where I can't die no matter how much damage I take, but I reckon I would take that chance.

 

If I chose to know how I'd die, and it turns out to be something like a car crash, I'd end up avoiding roads like the plague, but it wouldn't make a difference in the long run. I couldn't really use the information because it's already inevitable. Similar deal with most things that aren't natural causes. If it is natural causes, that doesn't give me free reign to do dangerous things, I could still be seriously injured, and my injuries could just cause a heart attack later on. That kind of information just isn't as useful.

^That's a good point. If you can't die until the specified date does that mean you could just go pick a gunfight with a small country and be guaranteed to survive it? Because I would abuse the hell out of that.

^That's a good point. If you can't die until the specified date does that mean you could just go pick a gunfight with a small country and be guaranteed to survive it? Because I would abuse the hell out of that.

Alternatively, if you knew you would die from a sky-diving accident, you could do anything dangerous except sky-diving.

Given what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan any country that the US were to invade would know exactly what to do. Imagine guerrilla warfare similar to the middle east, except coming from a country with an actual organized military....the US wouldn't stand a chance in a typical invasion.

^That's a good point. If you can't die until the specified date does that mean you could just go pick a gunfight with a small country and be guaranteed to survive it? Because I would abuse the hell out of that.

^That's a good point. If you can't die until the specified date does that mean you could just go pick a gunfight with a small country and be guaranteed to survive it? Because I would abuse the hell out of that.

Alternatively, if you knew you would die from a sky-diving accident, you could do anything dangerous except sky-diving.

 

@ TTanT

Just because you can't die from a particular event doesn't mean that you won't get severely injured and eventually die 20 years later while your in a coma.

 

@Mere

You could live forever... unless you go skydiving in your dreams and the trauma is so bad that you die in your sleep.

"Sky diving accident" as in a sky diver accidentally falls on you and breaks your back. Loopholes, man.

 

Still, knowing your day was not yet due would make heroic acts ("sacrificing" yourself to save someone, etc) a lot more appealing.

Exactly what I was thinking TT.

 

Open warfare doesn't make particular sense. The United states is a physically large country, which makes bombing or invading it a tremendous pain, especially when you have to ship that invasion to it by sea. More likely would be economic warfare which isn't hard if you could convince say, Canada, who supplies 25% of your oil to not do that (good luck) would cripple the economy leading to massive civil unrest. A fortification of the Mexican and Canadian borders and the country would tear itself to pieces.

 

Open war would lead, if not to nuclear strikes, then probably chemical and biological weapons usage which is potentially just as bad. If the Americans found the disease that took out 96% of North America way back, much worse.

 

 

As for other species having our intelect. Under the assumption they arent very happy with humanity, and it's occupation of so much of the world, you don't need thumbs to compete with us. We are where we are on the food chain because we are tool users, and have no organized, unified opponent. Assuming we can protect our food and water, which we can't, we are particularly vulnerable to small creatures, especially if they fly, in the sense that most of our weapons that would work on them also work on us (chemical). Africanized Honey Bees are an easy one, since they are already above us on the food chain if we open the door without a flame thrower. Japan has some Giant Hornets which are also known to kill humans. For a ground base assult, the soldier ant would be absolutely devastating (you may remember them from Indian Jones and the Crystal Skull, which was much less exaggeration that you'd like to believe), though at least they can be bombed. Oh, and all the bees have to do is stop polinating our crops and we all die, so that's bad.

 

Then you have your rodents and birds, which have already invaded our cities. Then everything that carries disease and so on. If nature wanted us gone, and got organized and used tactics, everyone who doesn't live in the arctic circle on a munitions depot would be dead inside a month.