[arethuza]

"just how contingent the world is"

I must admit I have a morbid fascination with alternate histories of the Cold War and all the terrible things that almost happened in that period but for the good judgement of people on both sides of that conflict. We were so close on so many occasions to utter oblivion...

[NB I'm in the UK - which would, like most of Europe, come out rather badly had the nukes started flying].

[Apocryphon]

You might appreciate the seminal amateur work on that subject, 1983: Doomsday

https://althistory.fandom.com/wiki/1983:_Doomsday

It's one of the most massive collaborative world-building projects of its kind.

[arethuza]

If by "appreciate" you mean "work out how quickly I die in that scenario" then yes :-)

[26th September 1983 was not long after my 18th birthday and a few days before I started a course at a university in the centre of Edinburgh].