I'd choose the Yellowstone caldera to go KAPOWY over nuclear war.

The caldera is located in the northern Rocky Mountains just west of the Great Plains. The area is relatively sparsely populated. Some major cities would be lost, but the total population in the area is most likely less than any individual pair of major cities elsewhere in the world that might be bombed. Seoul, S. K. has 20 million. All of the nearby states, and states in the Northern Plains add up to about 25 million. That's almost as many as Seoul, South Korea has. Add southwestern Canada and there is probably another 5 million-10 million.

In terms of total death, atomic war would be much worse.

However, the Yellowstone Caldera would cause a lot of damage, no doubt. I don't know how fertile the dust from the explosion would be. A lot of it would land on the northern plains which are important for world agriculture.

The volcanic eruption would be less destructive overall.

But it doesn't seem a likely choice for a super-advanced civilization to offer. I'm not one of those who believe that an advanced civilization, or superintelligent robots, would act maliciously. I'd expect that an arrival of either would be a beneficial thing.

As I mentioned elsewhere, a visit or message from aliens would be very unlikely, because there's very unlikely to be anyone else in the galaxy. based on the dearth of visits and messages so far.

Michael Ossipoff

I'd tell those space devils that I'm not going to be complicit in their schemes, but instead will give a rousing speech that explains why humans are so awesome, and make them turn about face and want to impress us now.

It's a trick question. Just because they'll allow us to enter nuclear war doesn't mean that we need to do so. Those sly alien devils! >:)

there's very unlikely to be anyone else in the galaxy. based on the dearth of visits and messages so far. — Michael Ossipoff

Or, it's an indication that there are many civilizations which don't last long enough (once they get past a certain point of development) to come visit.

Or, it's an indication that there are many civilizations which don't last long enough (once they get past a certain point of development) to come visit. — Bitter Crank

Yes, maybe they never last long enough to become advanced. because the un-advanced grunt-animal stage that our species is in is so full of self-destruction opportunities..

Maybe, but I don't like that, because I wouldn't like to believe that everyone has to start out like our pitifully,, bizarrely, pathological Land of the Lost society.

If there are advanced societies in the galaxy, maybe they just aren't interested in interstellar travel or communication.

Or maybe they just don't care about helping us--But I don't like that one either, because it seems to me that compassion would come with advancement.

So--Either they don't exist, or they aren't interested in interstellar travel or communication.

I once suggested that we're alone in the universe, and that's because of a high-tech form of quarrantine. Instead of just posting signs to stay away from us, maybe someone placed us in a universe that will always contain no one but us.

Of course, if the universe is infinite, then it would be very unlikely for us to remain alone in the universe--unless it's somehow engineered that way, something that can't be ruled out..

Around 2003 or so, there was an article in Scientific American, which said that evidence is starting to pile up in support of the universe being infinite. I haven't heard anything about the matter since then.

If the universe is infinite, then I suggest that, most likely, the nearest other society is so distant that it might as well not exist.

Michael Ossipoff

But I don't like the quarantine theory either, because it would be uncompassionate.

Surely an advanced society could spare a few robots to come and babysit us so that we can't harm eachother.

So that seems to just leave: They don't exist, or else they aren't interested in interstellar travel or communication.

That they don't exist feels more plausible.

Chemists and biologists have said that the beginning of life on a planet seems vanishingly unlikely. So it might not be unlikely for us to be alone, even in a natural (un-engineered) universe.

Michael Ossipoff

Or maybe they just don't care about helping us--But I don't like that one either, because it seems to me that compassion would come with advancement. — Michael Ossipoff

I'm fairly certain there are other worlds occupied by sentient beings. It just "seems likely" because of the very large number of stars that would host 1 or 2 planets that were suitable for life to flourish. So why don't they send us the message that help is on the way?

1. The galaxy, let alone the universe, is vary, very large and the distances between stars are literally astronomical.

2. Even IF a technologically sophisticated society on a distant planet noticed an attenuated and meaningless signal from us, it would take a signal a long time to come back to us.

3. Not compassionate? How would they know we needed help? In fact, we don't need help. We are perfectly capable of solving our problems. They don't know that, of course, but they also don't know what kind of problems we face. THE PROBLEM we face is our collective unwillingness to do what needs to be done. The best thing a ship full of aliens could do for us is give us a good swift kick to get us moving toward self-salvation.

4. It would take a very, very, very long time for a distant civilization to travel to earth, which of course means they had noticed us in the first place.

5. Maybe advanced civilizations have learned to leave well enough alone. When we humans have come across other human civilizations we didn't know about, we generally rubbed them out--accidentally or deliberately. Maybe distant societies have had similar experiences. Maybe they've learned that showing up is the beginning of the end for the civilizations they visit.

6. Maybe they know about us and just don't care. "Oh yeah, another civilization. That's 6 new ones this year, on top of the 2358 we have already discovered. Same old, same old."

7. Maybe God said, "Oh, you discovered Earth. Isn't that great! Just for your information, Earth happens to be Hell. If you don't straighten out, you'll be going there a lot faster than warp drive, and you won't be coming back anytime soon. Consider yourselves warned."

I'm fairly certain there are other worlds occupied by sentient beings. It just "seems likely" because of the very large number of stars that would host 1 or 2 planets that were suitable for life to flourish. — Bitter Crank

But that depends on how vanishingly unlikely it is for life to start, even on a favorable planet. The fact that we're here doesn't say anything about that. We're here because it's possible, not because it's likely. But, in a physical universe, the presence or absence of other, additional, life is related to the probability of it.

I admit that no one can really say how unlikely it is, though some biologists have said that they regard it as astoundingly unlikely. I'm just expressing the "Then where are they??" argument.

You continued:

So why don't they send us the message that help is on the way?

1. The galaxy, let alone the universe, is vary, very large and the distances between stars are literally astronomical.

Yes, but, in this galaxy, there have been stars with the necessary elements, for a very long time. If life were at all abundant, then there's been plenty of time for an advanced civilization to have thoroughly explored, cataloged and recorded all the stars in the galaxy, even with today's slow rockets.

...by means of robots, which would surely be possessed by a super-advanced civilization interested in space-exploration.

2. Even IF a technologically sophisticated society on a distant planet noticed an attenuated and meaningless signal from us, it would take a signal a long time to come back to us.

Yes, even if they had a sensitive enough receiver to detect our 1952 tv, it's only been 65 years, and so we couldn't have a return-signal from a place farther away than 32 or 33 lightyears. So yes, messages resulting from our broadcasts or communication-efforts aren't a promising reason to expect to hear from anyone.

So how would they know about us in time to be visiting now, or to have sent signals that we'd receive now?

Well, as they explored the galaxy, cataloging all the stars, our planet would be recorded as one on which life had begun (or maybe just one to look at again later, because life might begin there).

So, as one early radio-astronomer (Bracewell?) suggested, they could leave a robot-operated observation-satellite in orbit around the planet. ...to be removed to a greater distance at such time as the planet's inhabitants acquire the ability to detect it.

Anyway, who says that a super-advanced civilization couldn't observe undetected if they chose to? Arthur Clarke pointed out that a sufficiently-advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

So we could be known-about as soon as we came into being.

3. Not compassionate? How would they know we needed help?

By observation. The desirability of protecting us from eachother would be obvious, even from early satellite observation. As of now, it's been grossly, blatantly obvious for a very long time.

I rescue drowning insects. To the extent that I can prevent it, I don't allow spiders' gruesome manner of killing insects in my house.

In fact, we don't need help. We are perfectly capable of solving our problems.

Dream on. We've been hearing that ever since 1848. ...and where are we now? What evidence is there that we, as a species, can be capable of managing our own affairs? No, we obviously are in great need of babysitting.

They don't know that, of course

With observation it would be known.

, but they also don't know what kind of problems we face.

A carnage problem?

THE PROBLEM we face is our collective unwillingness to do what needs to be done.

Problem: Different humans have drastically different, opposite, versions of what should be done. A certain well-known leader, whom i won't name, is even now doing his version of what needs to be done.

4. It would take a very, very, very long time for a distant civilization to travel to earth, which of course means they had noticed us in the first place.

If life has been abundant in the galaxy, they'd have had plenty of time to explore, catalog and record descriptions of all the stars and their planets, long before now. Having discovered Earth as an early-life-bearing planet, or even a planet more likely than most to eventually have life, an observation-satellite could have been left here, with the capability of building as many self-replicating super-intelligent robots as necessary.

So,in short, when needed, they'd already be here.

5. Maybe advanced civilizations have learned to leave well enough alone. When we humans have come across other human civilizations we didn't know about, we generally rubbed them out--accidentally or deliberately.

It isn't a good analogy, because we acted to seize other people's land, resources or gold, or exploit them for free labor. Yes, our missionaries supposedly had good intentions, but a super-advanced civilization wouldn't have reason to expect to be like them.

6. Maybe they know about us and just don't care. "Oh yeah, another civilization. That's 6 new ones this year, on top of the 2358 we have already discovered. Same old, same old."

Possibly, especially if civilizations are numerous. But numerous disastrous civilizations wouldn't make help unfeasible, for a super-advanced civilization, maybe consisting of a network of planets across the galaxy, and, in any case, having the ability to build unlimited numbers of rockets and self-replicating super-intelligent robots from materials available in asteroids &/or uninhabitable planets and moons.

But yes, it could be said that we don't really need help so badly, because this world is just one of infinitely-many possibility-worlds, and, for each person the adversity and good in lives average out. If there isn't reincarnation, then some people's loss of life seems more regrettable, unbalanced, uncompensated, but it's still just a temporary story that will be forgotten when it ends.

Michael Ossipoff

What evidence is there that we, as a species, can be capable of managing our own affairs? — Michael Ossipoff

Because we have been managing our own affairs, solving many difficult problems. We've been a successful species for somewhere between 150,000 to 100,000 years. Granted, that is giving a very positive spin to our history. The kinds of problems we do least well with are those that involve very basic economic conflict. Solving global warming involves a realignment of economic investment. Obviously, the loser-industries (that is, the people who own them) are not happy, and will resist. Much of the intensity of war is driven by the chance of being an economic winner or an economic loser.

There has been tremendous scientific and technical progress over the last 200 years.

Like economic conflict, many of our problems are more political than technical. Politics are driven by conflicting interests (and/or the perception of conflicting interests). Wise men have, on a number of occasions, provided ways of seeing common interests, rather than conflicting interests. Every now and then their advice is taken. Maybe we would listen to wise aliens, but maybe not.

It would be nice if the aliens in Arthur C. Clark's Childhood's End showed up. Their approach was to lean rather heavily on resistance (putting resisting cities under a polarized shadow, for example, until they caved in. Their time travel devices helped reveal the true origins of religions, which pretty much left the temples, churches, and mosques abandoned by the formerly faithful. Before too long, we all became much more 'adult' in our views and behavior.

But that was fiction, not history.

If there isn't reincarnation — Michael Ossipoff

I, for one, hope there is no reincarnation. Once has been more than enough.

super-advanced civilization — Michael Ossipoff

Well let me ask you:

Are we on track to being a super-advanced civilization? Suppose we solve our current problems, find loads of minerals on the moon, Mars, and the asteroids, and figure out fusion. Suppose we figure out how to buzz around our end of a galactic arm, and become competent space travelers. Suppose we also find a drug that keeps our brains from sizzling with neurotic obsessions and vicious hatreds (so we become nicer creatures), will we then be a super advanced civilization?

I’d said:
.

What evidence is there that we, as a species, can be capable of managing our own affairs? — Michael Ossipoff

.
You replied:
.

Because we have been managing our own affairs, solving many difficult problems.

.
Yes. In 1964 or 1965, I stopped at a local business to get a banana-split. The proprietor was quite drunk, and, when he realized how sloppily he was slopping the ingredients onto the dish, he just swore, and gave it to me for free. I dropped it in the garbage.
.
So yes, we’ve been managing our own affairs, just like that guy was managing his business.
.

Maybe we would listen to wise aliens, but maybe not.

.
The babysitter protects the baby whether he listens to her or not.
.

It would be nice if the aliens in Arthur C. Clark's Childhood's End showed up.

.
No disagreement there.
.
Their approach was to lean rather heavily on resistance (putting resisting cities under a polarized shadow, for example, until they caved in. Their time travel devices helped reveal the true origins of religions, which pretty much left the temples, churches, and mosques abandoned by the formerly faithful. Before too long, we all became much more 'adult' in our views and behavior.
[/quote]

.
A large robotic peacekeeping force, and a large robotic police-force, complete with many flying drones, would help.

.

But that was fiction, not history.

.
Of course. It will never happen.
.
Michael Ossipoff

I would want to know why the aliens are so crazy.

I’d said:

.

If there isn't reincarnation — Michael Ossipoff

.
You replied:
.

I, for one, hope there is no reincarnation. Once has been more than enough.

.
I’ve heard that sentiment from some others too.
.
Well, it just seems to me that there probably is reincarnation, but of course I can’t prove it.
.
It's said that, even if there is reincarnation, some people would be life-completed, dispassionate and uninvolved enough to not experience it.
.
I’d said:
.

super-advanced civilization — Michael Ossipoff

.
You replied:
.

Well let me ask you:

Are we on track to being a super-advanced civilization?

Hell no.
.
You wrote:
.

Suppose we solve our current problems,

.
Ain’t gonna happen. Humanity is its own problem.
.
You continued:
.

[…] Suppose we also find a drug that keeps our brains from sizzling with neurotic obsessions and vicious hatreds (so we become nicer creatures), will we then be a super advanced civilization?

.
I doubt it. But it hasn’t any chance of happening anyway. Childhood’s End is much more likely.
.
Michael Ossipoff

.
BC Are we on track to being a super-advanced civilization?
.
MO Hell no.
.
BC Suppose we solve our current problems,
.
MO Ain’t gonna happen. Humanity is its own problem — Michael Ossipoff

Let me return to something that comes up in these discussions:

It is possible that sentient beings don't make it to "super-advanced civilizations" or even stay at "civilization" for long. Why? Because becoming technologically sophisticated (a piece of civilization) tends to use up resources at a fairly fast clip. It also solves serious problems with highly disadvantageous consequences. Being able to feed many more members of the species usually means more members of that species survive and reproduce. Before long, they press up against the food supply. More technology is applied, and so on. But not ad infinitum. Eventually there is a crash of resources and population.

Technology can get civilizations only so far before then run out of 'steam', so to speak.

If sentient beings were to avoid the exhaustion problem, they would have to become extremely wise and sophisticated before they started developing any technology. How likely is that? That when they invented the wheel, they would ask "In which beneficial and harmful ways will this affect the development of our civilization?"

It might also be the case (armchair exobiologists have speculated--and aren't they all armchair professionals?) that complex civilizations end up in turmoil before they can figure out how to deal with it.

The civilization we would really want to have at hand are the Organians (or something like that) from the original Star Trek. Our intrepid travelers whizzing beyond all sorts of places no man had gone before (naturally, because they were the first), land on Organia to stop a war that has been going on for a long time. Kirk and company quickly end up being arrested and thrown into jail.

Eventually they get a hearing where they are informed that no body has died on Organia for thousands of years because they are incorporeal creatures--energy beings that can't be harmed by physical means (or other means, either, apparently.) But they are not powerless: in response to a threat from the Enterprise, all of their weapon and weapon controls become too hot to touch (Organean mind over earthly matter).

Unfortunately, the Organeans are not interested in earth's achievements, adventures, or problems. Kirk and company are sent on their merry way.

It might also be the case (armchair exobiologists have speculated--and aren't they all armchair professionals?) that complex civilizations end up in turmoil before they can figure out how to deal with it. — Bitter Crank

But might that not depend on the character and quality of the species?

If the KT collision hadn't happened, then maybe Velociraptors, instead of monkeys, would have become the Earth's technological species. Maybe it would have turned out a lot better.

Michael Ossipoff

Velociraptors, instead of monkeys, would have become the Earth's technological species. Maybe it would have turned out a lot better. — Michael Ossipoff

Possibly. Certainly, there's no reason why a sentient species has to be 98.6º, vertical, symmetric, bipedal, 5 fingered, and two handed. For sentience, it's the brain that matters. For technology, however, there have to be appendages or organs that can manipulate matter. One of the problems of some imagined aliens is that they are soft and squishy without any clear means of manipulating much of anything. Velociraptors would have been a candidate species. Nicer than us? Maybe not.

Even if different ancestry had made this world better, I guess it wouldn't have done me any good anyway. I think we were born into a world like this because it matched our attributes, attitudes inclinations,. etc.

...as was discussed in the anti-natalism topic.

Michael Ossipoff

For the OPs original question I would need to have some information about size and magnitude. Was world war II a nuclear war since two atomic bombs were used? Would it be a nuclear war if two countries sent like 3 nuclear weapons at eachother? Or is it just nuclear war if all countries would nuclear capabilites send like all their nuclear arsenals?

So to answer the question preliminary I should say I'm going by the more deaths/the closer to human extinction the worse.
I do think the question is harder to answer than it appears. While the deaths of the direct explosions of course would favor an explosion in Yellowstone over nuclear war, the more longterm issues makes it harder.
The big problem with both an Yellowstone explosion and nuclear war is the risk that the atmosphere would fill with dust/materials from the explosions/burnings which would wreac havoc with the global climate and cause vulcanic/nuclear winter. Depending on size of said explosions (and in the case of nuclear war how much infrastructure would be set on fire and cover the atmosphere with dust) we could be looking at a decade of sharp drop in temperature leading to drastically reduced harvests and causing mass starvation world wide and collapsing infrastructures and societies.
And here we may have an argument for preferring nuclear war. If we say both scenarios lead to mass global starvation on an equal scale I do believe it would it would be better if nuclear weapons were gone since the possibility they would be used in a situation of global scarcity seem to quite high. If the the were used it would of course exacerbate the problem and the risk of human extinction would be much higher.

(Whether or not there is (intelligent) life on other planets (and then how many) is very interesting, but I think deserves a thread by itself, so I won't get into that discussion here.)

From an analytical perspective, we need to think of the reason why we had to choose? How come we were put in that position to make that choice? There isn't a rational background to why we must make the option, therefore before making a philosophical decision we must gain more insight and knowledge about the matter first.

@Jeff

How come we were put in that psoition to make that choice?

irrelevant and nothing to do with an "analytical perspective"
The circumstance should be divorced from reason if we are to make a decision that is truly rational.
I dont think you know what your talking about

it has everything to do with an analytical perspective. Using an AP, it is how you take apart the intital statement which I found to be incorrect in it's indefinite nature.

@Jeff

Just so that we are on the same page what are you interpeting analytical perspective to mean? No point throwing around big words if you dont know what they mean.

I'd choose both. If death is on the plate why not go out in a spectacular way.