It is my opinion that Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Albert Einstein and all of the other scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project and developed atomic weapons are worse than Adolf Hitler, and if there is a hell, they are burning at least a few hundred degrees hotter than the Nazis. Why? Even if America was able to defeat the Japanese with the atom bomb (and whether or not they even needed it is in dispute - some claim that we did it more as a warning to the Russians,) the nuclear bomb catapulted humanity into an era where we’re constantly on the brink of destroying ourselves and our entire planet. Every nation and its people is now teetering on the edge of a huge cliff, and one diplomatic fuck-up or one rogue terrorist act could trigger a colossal nuclear war that would wipe out everyone. And it is the fault of those scientists. I’m sure they were convinced they were doing the right thing, and I’m sure that most of America backed them one hundred percent, but in the end, their research has created a nuclear nightmare with the potential to wipe out humankind. What Hitler did was a drop in the bucket compared to what would happen if there was a nuclear war.
Science-worship will ensure that these men will be venerated throughout history instead of put on the same page as mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin, but at least one person sees the truth here.
As a science-worshipper, I always forget: to whom am I supposed to pray? It’s either Newton, or Darwin… I can never remember!
As to the substance of the OP: you’re actually comparing people who designed a weapon (albeit, a very scary weapon) with a person directly responsible for commanding the executions of millions of people?
Do you make this comparison for the creators of all weapons (a la Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson)? What about the people who manufacture them?
Einstein did urge the creation of the Manhattan project, if memory serves, so you could say he was peripherally involved, and as I recall later in life he was either deeply regretful or at least very conflicted about this.
The OP’s conclusion is way off because if these people hadn’t worked on the atomic bomb, somebody else would have developed it instead. That’s the case with just about every scientific discovery and it was certainly the case with the atomic bomb. In this instance, “seombody else” would have been Nazi Germany, and I think we can say conclusively that a nuclear Nazi Germany would have been worse than what actually happened, since it would have propped up that regime for some time longer and probably allowed them to keep murdering people either with nuclear weapons or through detente. The Manhattan Project scientists were not the only people who knew whow to do what they did. German scientists, based on what I’ve read, were not far behind.
Usually I’m willing to separate the work of scientists from how that work is used. This is an exception because these scientists developed a weapon; they knew what was going to happen when their work was done. I’ve never come to a firm conclusion on the “did bombing Japan saves lives?” question. It’s too painful to think much about in my opinion, and there’s no real answer.
Would the world be a better place if the Manhattan Project scientists had said no - and the German and Russian scientists and all the others had said the same? Almost definitely. But that’s the old “What if they had a war and nobody came?” argument. Much as I wish it was different, that’s not how history went and it’s not how humanity has operated to date.
Realistically, this argument doesn’t even come close to watching. I think about 150,000 people were killed in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is much less after all that the firebombings of Tokyo and other places. If you somehow totalled up those deaths and all the fear or nuclear war that persisted for the next five decades, it doesn’t come close to the crimes of Nazi Germany, which included 12 million people murdered in camps and scores of millions omore killed in combat and from conditions related to that combat? No way. On top of that, Hitler has to share some of the blame for the development of the atomic bomb in the first place, as well as the Cold War conditions that followed.
Well, if it weren’t them, then whoever did invent it would have been just as bad.
No, it’s not the same as Smith and Wesson. A handgun can be used to murder someone but it can also be used to defend yourself, as can any firearm. The only purpose of a nuclear bomb is to kill massive amounts of people including civilians. There is no comparison whatsoever.
The threat of being wiped off the face of the earth under atomic bombings is probably the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from deciding that Europe would be better as part of the Workers Paradise.
Every person in Europe probably owes their freedom from Communist rule to the Nuclear Bomb.
But then again, it seems you’d be ok with Soviet death camps, re-eduction facilities and gulags, instead of the occasional brinksmanship a nuclear deterent brings…
The thing about science, IMO, is that it can be used for “good” or “evil” purposes. Nobel patented dynamite, for instance. Obviously this can be used to excavate almost instantaneously sites that would take forever for men with pickaxes. Or it could be used to blow up people.
The erroneous publication in 1888 of a premature obituary of Nobel by a French newspaper, condemning his invention of dynamite, is said to have made him decide to leave a better legacy to the world after his death. The obituary stated Le marchand de la mort est mort (“The merchant of death is dead”) and went on to say, “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”
You can pit the atom bomb if you like, but without the pure science that went into it, there goes nuclear medicine, nuclear reactors, etc. Like everything else they’re a mixed blessing, but you can’t have it both ways.
As for the Japanese, I think the conclusion is debatable. A teacher in my jr. high walked with a permanent limp…it turned out that he was among those who had to go, cave by cave, to oust them from their caves in the south Pacific and he took a bullet in the leg for it. If I did believe that the conflict could have been resolved without the a-bomb, I’d still think that hindsight is 20/20.
Besides, they’ve found the Titanic in modern times, discovered penicillin, and put a man on the moon. I.e. if that generation of scientists hadn’t done it, future (but now past) generations would have. It would still come down to the people who decide what to do with the technology that is available to them.
And yet we haven’t destroyed the planet in over five decades of having them.
No, you’re quite right, Argent Towers, if it wasn’t for those nasty old nuclear weapons getting in the way, The Cold War would have been settled in an amiable manner right after Stalin and Eisenhower just got to spend a nice weekend at Camp David doing a low-key little heart-to-heart. There’s no way it would have become some atrocious god-forsaken drawn out imbroglio destroying the population and economic power of both the United States and Soviet Union as well as half the rest of the world that managed to become entangled within that conflict.
Why let a small tidbit of knowledge interfere with a tsunami of ignorance?
As for the proliferation of nuclear weapons, I must agree that it is regrettable, but also inevitable, an opinion shared by many physicists involved in the development of the atomic bomb and the ‘Super’ (thermonuclear weapons), albeit not so much in their inherent destructiveness, but in that they placed so much power in the hands of politicians who too often understood little of the ultimate consequences of use. One should also note that the analytical tools and experimental techniques used to develop ‘the Bomb’ were later applied to radiological medicine and other peaceful applications of nuclear physics; Los Alamos National Labs and Lawrence Livermore National Labs, both tasked primarily with the development and sustainment of the nuclear arsenal, have also been fertile ground for many practical non-weapon uses of nuclear applications.
Oh, and the whole “worse than Hitler” thing? A very tired cliche. Why not try some alternatives like: “Worse than Nobunaga,” “more destructive than the Vandals,” or “bloodier than Genghis Khan.” You now, just for a bit of variety.
It is my opinion that you have never read a book on the Manhattan Project, the war in the Pacific, the invasion of Okinawa, a general history of World War II, the Nazi atomic bomb projects, biographies of any of the men you mention, or that you even particularly believe what you said.
Anyway, you seem to have found yourself an interesting double standard. The manufacturers of firearms have a clear conscience, despite the untold millions of lives claimed by guns just in the last 100 years, because guns can be used for self defence. But the fathers of nuclear theory (and, by some strange alchemy, the principles of the scientific method itself) are damned because something they invented might be used by someone else to kill millions more. And the fact that the nuclear era just happened to herald an age of unheard-of peace for Europe, (historically one of the most war-torn regions on Earth) and that no nuclear power has ever been engaged in a major war (barring WWII, which of course started before the nuclear era) does not at all impress you with the deterrent power of nuclear weapons.
The Germans had their own atomic bomb program, and the US knew about it, and it scared the shit out of them. The only sensible thing to do, given this knowledge, was to try to develop the bomb before the Germans did.
Of all the things I never thought I would ever see on this very left-leaning board, apologetics for nuclear bombs has got to be at the top of the list. I mean, Jesus Christ, the bombs that we dropped on Japan are nothing compared to the bombs that we have now. It used to be measured in kilotons - now it’s megatons. What’s next, gigatons?
How can this possibly be a good thing?
I always knew that all the first-world countries are armed with nuclear bombs and just accepted that as a fact, without ever stopping to think for a second, “hey - this is fucked up.” Now that I’m realizing it, everyone else is going to pat me on the shoulder and tell me that it’s okay?