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Nothing horrible about dying instantaneously. I just wish we had had more to drop.
Say back in 1944 President Roosevelt picked you as his vice president. You're 40 years old.
Roosevelt dies, making you president.
WWII is raging. Germany surrenders. The Russians had to sack Berlin to get them to surrender.
The war with Japan is still on. Over a million American troops are about to invade.
They tell you there will be 50,000 to 100,000 casualties during the first few days. Up to 5 million Japanese will die during the conquest. A lot of them will die due to famine.
Your advisors tell you that they have been working on a new weapon, the atomic bomb. It was so secret that they didn't even tell you, the vice president.
Do you authorize the military to drop the bomb?
Reasons to do so:
1. Save the lives of American troops
2. Get the Japanese to surrender immediately
3. Save Japanese lives
4. Scare the Russians
5. Test the atomic bomb
Reasons not to:
1. Killing that many people, in an instant is a horrible thing.
Most of the people that died did not die instantly, they died horrible slow deaths from radiation poisoning over a period of 2 to 4 months.
The OP is the one who stated that dying in an instant is a "horrible thing". It isn't. It is preferable to die that way. Anyway, like I said, I wish we had had more. The world would have been spared the tragedy that is Anime.
Say back in 1944 President Roosevelt picked you as his vice president. You're 40 years old.
Roosevelt dies, making you president.
WWII is raging. Germany surrenders. The Russians had to sack Berlin to get them to surrender.
The war with Japan is still on. Over a million American troops are about to invade.
They tell you there will be 50,000 to 100,000 casualties during the first few days. Up to 5 million Japanese will die during the conquest. A lot of them will die due to famine.
Your advisors tell you that they have been working on a new weapon, the atomic bomb. It was so secret that they didn't even tell you, the vice president.
Do you authorize the military to drop the bomb?
Reasons to do so:
1. Save the lives of American troops
2. Get the Japanese to surrender immediately
3. Save Japanese lives
4. Scare the Russians
5. Test the atomic bomb
Reasons not to:
1. Killing that many people, in an instant is a horrible thing.
Say back in 1944 President Roosevelt picked you as his vice president. You're 40 years old.
Roosevelt dies, making you president.
WWII is raging. Germany surrenders. The Russians had to sack Berlin to get them to surrender.
The war with Japan is still on. Over a million American troops are about to invade.
They tell you there will be 50,000 to 100,000 casualties during the first few days. Up to 5 million Japanese will die during the conquest. A lot of them will die due to famine.
Your advisors tell you that they have been working on a new weapon, the atomic bomb. It was so secret that they didn't even tell you, the vice president.
Do you authorize the military to drop the bomb?
Reasons to do so:
1. Save the lives of American troops
2. Get the Japanese to surrender immediately
3. Save Japanese lives
4. Scare the Russians
5. Test the atomic bomb
Reasons not to:
1. Killing that many people, in an instant is a horrible thing.
Say back in 1944 President Roosevelt picked you as his vice president. You're 40 years old.
Roosevelt dies, making you president.
WWII is raging. Germany surrenders. The Russians had to sack Berlin to get them to surrender.
The war with Japan is still on. Over a million American troops are about to invade.
They tell you there will be 50,000 to 100,000 casualties during the first few days. Up to 5 million Japanese will die during the conquest. A lot of them will die due to famine.
Your advisors tell you that they have been working on a new weapon, the atomic bomb. It was so secret that they didn't even tell you, the vice president.
Do you authorize the military to drop the bomb?
Reasons to do so:
1. Save the lives of American troops
2. Get the Japanese to surrender immediately
3. Save Japanese lives
4. Scare the Russians
5. Test the atomic bomb
Reasons not to:
1. Killing that many people, in an instant is a horrible thing.
Say back in 1944 President Roosevelt picked you as his vice president. You're 40 years old.
Roosevelt dies, making you president.
WWII is raging. Germany surrenders. The Russians had to sack Berlin to get them to surrender.
The war with Japan is still on. Over a million American troops are about to invade.
They tell you there will be 50,000 to 100,000 casualties during the first few days. Up to 5 million Japanese will die during the conquest. A lot of them will die due to famine.
Your advisors tell you that they have been working on a new weapon, the atomic bomb. It was so secret that they didn't even tell you, the vice president.
Do you authorize the military to drop the bomb?
Reasons to do so:
1. Save the lives of American troops
2. Get the Japanese to surrender immediately
3. Save Japanese lives
4. Scare the Russians
5. Test the atomic bomb
Reasons not to:
1. Killing that many people, in an instant is a horrible thing.
Say back in 1944 President Roosevelt picked you as his vice president. You're 40 years old.
Roosevelt dies, making you president.
WWII is raging. Germany surrenders. The Russians had to sack Berlin to get them to surrender.
The war with Japan is still on. Over a million American troops are about to invade.
They tell you there will be 50,000 to 100,000 casualties during the first few days. Up to 5 million Japanese will die during the conquest. A lot of them will die due to famine.
Your advisors tell you that they have been working on a new weapon, the atomic bomb. It was so secret that they didn't even tell you, the vice president.
Do you authorize the military to drop the bomb?
Reasons to do so:
1. Save the lives of American troops
2. Get the Japanese to surrender immediately
3. Save Japanese lives
4. Scare the Russians
5. Test the atomic bomb
Reasons not to:
1. Killing that many people, in an instant is a horrible thing.
Nothing horrible about dying instantaneously. I just wish we had had more to drop.
Say back in 1944 President Roosevelt picked you as his vice president. You're 40 years old.
Roosevelt dies, making you president.
WWII is raging. Germany surrenders. The Russians had to sack Berlin to get them to surrender.
The war with Japan is still on. Over a million American troops are about to invade.
They tell you there will be 50,000 to 100,000 casualties during the first few days. Up to 5 million Japanese will die during the conquest. A lot of them will die due to famine.
Your advisors tell you that they have been working on a new weapon, the atomic bomb. It was so secret that they didn't even tell you, the vice president.
Do you authorize the military to drop the bomb?
Reasons to do so:
1. Save the lives of American troops
2. Get the Japanese to surrender immediately
3. Save Japanese lives
4. Scare the Russians
5. Test the atomic bomb
Reasons not to:
1. Killing that many people, in an instant is a horrible thing.
How about telling Japanese: 'Hey, we got the bomb - we'll drop it over here in the ocean tomorrow for you to see. If you don't surrender within 24 hours after, next one goes on you.'
There's are parallel realities in which America did not drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In nearly all these parallel realities, human civilization is wiped out by global nuclear war. How do I arrive at this extraordinary conclusion? Simple.
In the first and only example of nuclear war, two minuscule atomic bombs are used on civilian populations. The outcome is so perfectly horrifying and revolting that in spite of amassing thousands of nuclear weapons... not once (knock on wood) are they used again, not even on military targets.
I think it's extremely likely that without the first relatively small examples, full-on thermonuclear weapons would have been used, and in far greater numbers.
It's a pretty ****ing dark analysis, but I believe the sacrifice Japanese civilians paid in 1945 ultimately saved the world afterwards.
This is science fiction
Sort of, but I think of it more like game theory. Assuming the inevitability of the development of nuclear weapons, and assuming no bombs had been dropped on civilian populations in Japan, what prevents the use of much more destructive and more numerous nuclear weapons later? What evokes the emotional horror at their use?
...
The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment*... It was a mistake to ever drop it*... [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it.*
— Fleet Admiral*William Halsey Jr., 1946,*[100]
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