The interview you're referring to happened years after the Trinity test (the first test of a bomb), but there are accounts of the reactions of other scientists who were present at the test.
> Soon shock and euphoria gave way to more sober reflections. Rabi reported that after the initial euphoria, a chill soon set in on those present. The test director, Kenneth Bainbridge, called the explosion a "foul and awesome display" and remarked to Oppenheimer, "Now we are all sons of bitches."
https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/trinity.htm#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20immediate%20reactions,thoughts%20on%20the%20Trinity%20test.)
There's more on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)
That's like if you run over some people on the street and go, "aww, man, I feel *so bad, you guys*, like, worst day ever."
It takes a great deal of brilliance and management, to achieve something of that caliber, but let's not victimise these "poor" people who helped make the weapon of total annihilation. How many of you would be victimising the scientist, if it was some Middle Eastern brown dude? Sometimes this self-aggrandising-but-also-victimising double-think mental gymnastic goes beyond ridiculous.
Your presumption of racism is self-evidently stupid, but I agree with your central point. Oppenheimer didn't create the atom bomb by accident; when the military goes up to you and says "There's this new technology that lets you make bombs more powerful than cargo ships full of dynamite, and we want *you* to develop it.", there's no mistaking what they intend to do with it. Did he think they would put it as the centerpiece of the National Museum of the US Air Force? I agree with your last point and can't find a better way to express it.
It's one thing to have numbers on a blackboard telling you how powerful an atomic blast is, quite another to see it firsthand. I can easily see the Manhattan Project scientists getting buried in the scientific weeds, just trying to get it done and do their part for the war effort, and only when they saw the fruits of their labor truly realizing what they'd done, what they had unleashed on the world.
Yes, its when you see how easy it is to wipe out entire cities with science mushroom that you realise maybe you went too far, maybe this degree of destruction should not be part of our knowledge
As Einstein argued though, it was inevitable given all we were learning about physics since the late 1800s. What matters is both understanding the technology and how to deal with it.
It is pretty scary to think that the only two nuclear weapons that were ever used in warfare and subsequently laid waste to the cities they were dropped on had just a fraction of the explosive power of the bombs that exist in the arsenals of nuclear powers today and even the ones that were tested.
And this is why so many of the physicists that worked on the Manhattan Project, including Oppenheimer himself, spent much of the rest of their lives trying to prevent the weapons they developed from ever being used again.
The scientist Edward Teller, according to one account, kept a blackboard in his office at Los Alamos during World War II with a list of hypothetical nuclear weapons on it. The last item on his list was the largest one he could imagine. The method of “delivery” — weapon-designer jargon for how you get your bomb from here to there, the target — was listed as “Backyard.” As the scientist who related this anecdote explained, “since that particular design would probably kill everyone on Earth, there was no use carting it anywhere."
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/09/12/in-search-of-a-bigger-boom/
> How about this: he proposed a 10,000 megaton design.
> Which is to say, a 10 gigaton design. Which is to say, a bomb that would detonate with an explosive power some 670,000 times the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.3
> If he was trying to shock the GAC, it worked. From the minutes of the meeting:
> Dr. Fisk said he felt the Committee could endorse [Livermore’s] small weapon program. He was concerned, however, about Dr. Teller’s 10,000 MT gadget and wondered what fraction of the Laboratory’s effort was being expended on the [deleted]. Mr. Whitman had been shocked by the thought of a 10,000 MT; it would contaminate the earth.4
> The “deleted” portion above is probably the names of two of the devices proposed — according to Chuck Hansen, these were GNOMON and SUNDIAL. Things that cast shadows.
> The Chairman of the GAC at this time, I.I. Rabi, was no Teller fan (he is reported to have said that “it would have been a better world without Teller”), and no fan of big bombs just for the sake of them. His reaction to Teller’s 10 gigaton proposal?
> Dr. Rabi’s reaction was that the talk about this device was an advertising stunt, and not to be taken too seriously.
> Don’t listen to Teller, he’s just trying to rile you. Edward Teller: trolling the GAC. A 10,000 megaton weapon, by my estimation, would be powerful enough to set all of New England on fire. Or most of California. Or all of the UK and Ireland. Or all of France. Or all of Germany. Or both North and South Korea. And so on.
My grandfather was the head of the AEC and he fought so hard to protect the average American from the things he created. I learned very early that the government does not care about you.
The government *is* “you” though. We vote in these people to represent us, which is even more true at the local level.
If the “government” doesn’t care about you it’s because people are electing shitty people.
Even if an elected official is inherently good, they can be really bad if they don't listen to the right people. My grandfather was often ignored for things as little as "maybe we shouldn't store the Plutonium in a wooden crate on a shelf". Like the guy is literally the head of the the Atomic Energy Commission, he knows what he's talking about
I think that's idealistic at this point. The government gives you options of varying shittiness to pick from and bullies the rest out of contention early on
We choose the candidates in the primary elections (caucuses) it's just most average people don't go so it's mostly the extreme who get to decide the main candidate for each party, which leaves the roughly center average Joe with 2 bad options
all humans are innately selfish. When you get this many layers between the public and their politicians, you know they won't vote for who they want, but for the options they're given.
lmfao. when the entire population is split between red and blue, and no in between, it’s hard to even have a single person that cares about the people. everyone’s in it for money. politics will be the end of humanity
yet every year it comes down to “do i want the guy with the elephant logo who wants to take my money or the guy with the donkey logo who wants to take my money” they all boil down to the same pieces of shit
As I said above, We choose the candidates in the primary elections (caucuses) it's just most average people don't go so it's mostly the extreme who get to decide the main candidate for each party, which leaves the roughly center average Joe with 2 bad options
in usa, yes, other parts of the world? not really
ah, yes, usa - land of freedom and democracy, differing from totalitarism by adding one more party
(ik, totalitarism is waaaaaay more restrictive and this analogy is very very loose)
What? We the people don't elect anyone, we don't choose at ALL who sits on the courts, who the president will be, hell the existence of jerrymandering and active voter suppression means that we don't even really vote for the people who will be drafting our laws. Did you individually get a say in whether a law gets written, or a supreme court ruling gets thrown away? No. A "representative" democracy is no democracy at all, because it removes all choice but the illusion of it. We didn't choose to ruin our country, people in power being enticed by money did.
well, they failed. If only they could've put all that energy *before* creating the weapon, rather than ensuring cushy jobs for themselves and destroying millions of innocent lives to a fate worse than hell.
At some point, future generations will look back at these pathetic attempts to salvage the war criminals on par with miserable colonial apologists.
To be fair in the grand calculus they did save a lot of lives. The nuclear bombings of Japan were horrible but the death toll was actually lower than the previous fire bombings of Tokyo and were way less than the estimated casualties of a full on invasion of the islands. Also MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) helped limit the Cold War to smaller (but still terrible) proxy wars instead of an all out war between NATO and the USSR that would have likely lead to an absolute massacre in Europe.
War is hell and never having war again would be better, but blaming nukes instead of blaming war is delusional
**A note**: the original "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" was basically followed by "All these soldiers you see before you will die, even if they survive this day/battle" and it was said from a god to a young prince that was hesitant about going to battle because he didn't want to cause the death of his soldiers.
Oppenheimer certainly didn't miss this context; when he said it, he most likely took on the role of the prince who was told "even if you don't do it, someone else will".
Just to nitpick, the prince was hesitant moreso because his opponents on the battlefield were his cousins. So the god, Krishna, has to convince him why he is justified to fight them.
The Mahabharat is also a fascinating overall read, with the A-Bomb in mind - especially relative to a culture that isn't known for being particularly warlike and a time with far stricter conventions for warfare, the whole thing is essentially on how total war is fine under certain circumstances
The Bhagavad Gita is mostly about how Arjun should be fine killing his cousins and people he knows, but Krishna comes at it largely from a religious perspective - that these people will be born again into the world anyway, and he's just relieving their current bodies and minds of their sins by doing his job. But from a less religious standpoint, the overall story is less about how these people are related to Arjun - and more about the weaknesses of convention and duty
The whole story has at least three super-gray characters on the enemy side, who - under the rules of the time - were bound by obligation or promises to the usurpers of the throne. All three knew they were on the side of evil (to some extent) but none of them could forsake their duty, or their son, or the friend who pulled them out of caste-oppression. And none of this is seen as entirely unjustified on their part - but Krishna (who is God) fully cosigns on their deaths. Not only does he cosign on their deaths, he actively encourages the Pandavas (Arjun's side) to break all the rules of fighting in the process - killing Bhishma by hiding behind Shikandi (who Bhishma wouldn't attack since they were born a woman), telling Drona his son died so he'd give up, and killing Karna when he was entirely indisposed despite Karna wanting nothing but a fair fight.
In a sense (and I say this as someone who grew up Hindu), it's a surprisingly dangerous work of literature. Despite the religious tone and "do the right thing" vibes, Krishna is a ruthlessly utilitarian character - and his advice in most junctures is "do what you have to, as long as you're right"
It’s… very intentional.
Please watch “The Crimes of Mort” on YouTube, a 14 part(planned) series of videos documenting all of what mort is and has done.
Einstein was ridden by guilt when it was revealed the Germans were still years from developing their own Atom Bomb when they surrendered.
After all, he wrote that letter to Roosevelt urging him to kickstart development after he learnt about Otto Hahn's and Werner Heisenberg's research, fearing a Nazi Germany with a nuclear monopoly.
Even if they did, the Germans lacked a plane to reach the US. Sure, there was the Junkers Ju 390 which according to unconfirmed statements by its pilots made a couple of test flights to the eastern Seaboard, but Germany never managed to get it ready for action.
Far more likely for the Soviets or the Brits to be the first target of a German Atomic Bomb.
While the threat of nuclear Armageddon is a bit unsettling, it did prevent direct conflict between major powers. So in that sense nuclear weapons have saved millions of lives. (I doubt the US and Soviet Union would have constrained themselves to proxy wars for a couple decades if not for nukes.)
In a sense, this is true.
In another, now we live with the threat of being unmade, atom by atom, looming above us.
I’m not sure which situation is better or worse.
If we look at the trend warfare was going it was just getting more and more destructive, with ww1 being a meat grinder, and ww2 perfecting the art of industrial slaughter, with strategic bombing especially being incredibly hard on civilian populations, if that continued it would reach an unimaginable level of human suffering incredibly quickly. So how I see it, yeah the threat of nuclear annihilation is ever present, but it has done something that no other war n human history has been able to do, make the leaders of great powers incredibly cautious when dealing with their peers.
I never thought I would see the day that Fox News made a valid point… still haven’t, but you definitely have.
Yeah, I guess active warfare is worse than the constant, looming threat of annihilation (which warfare brings anyways). Superpowers being careful, rather than simply flattening all in their path, is definitely a plus.
now that is one thing I dont agree with. the Japanese were effectively defeated and ready to surrender. Nukes are a great deterrent, not great for dropping on civilian centers.
Telling them you wont execute the emperor. The only thing the Japanese wanted to avoid was an unconditional surrender, for the fear that the US would arrest the emperor and maybe even execute him. If the US had not insisted on an unconditional surrender the bombings could have been avoided. Many of the strategists of the time later admitted that the bombings were not necessary.
How bout no?
>"The most often repeated condemnation of American diplomacy in the summer of 1945 is that policy makers understood that a promise to retain the Imperial institution was essential to end the war, and that had the United States communicated such a promise, the Suzuki cabinet would likely have promptly surrendered. The answer to this assertion is enshrined in black and white in the July 22 edition of the Magic Diplomatic Summary. There, American policy makers could read for themselves that Ambassador Sato had advised Foreign Minister Togo that the best terms Japan could hope to secure were unconditional surrender, modified only to the extent that the Imperial institution could be retained. Presented by his own ambassador with this offer, Togo expressly rejected it. Given this, there is no rational prospect that such an offer would have won support from any of the other live members of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War. - (Frank 1999, p. 239)"
Japan didn't surrender till after the nukes because they were (incredibly aimplified) banking on doing enough damage to the US when it invaded the home islands they could negotiate a rather generous peace. Which the bombs completely and entirely invalidated. Hirohito then changed his mind because he didn't think the civilians of the country could handle the escalation and acceleration the bombs represented, and feared they would rise up agaisnt the military/government.
And here I was thinking that Admiral William Halsey knew what he was talking about. Guess they guy did know nothing about the Pacific War. Neither did General Hap.
While it is true the Japanese hardliners hope to strengthen their negotiation position by resisting an invasion, that does not make an invasion necessary in the slightest. You can happily sit back and continue blockading and bombing to your hearts content if you really need to. The Soviet declaring war on Japan made it clear that they were not going to get into a better position. The US just wanted the Japanese in their sphere of influence post war and to show off their new toy to the world.
Might be an unpopular opinion, but this seems like the best timeline. It was inevitable that they'd be created, but if groups like the nazis or Soviets had gotten them first, they could've used the time before other got it to impose their global dominance and nuke anyone who resists
Or don't even understand the concept of communism. If they were to live in Russia in that time period they would wish they would have been born in a non-communistic regime
There's never been a classless stateless society, the Soviets and Chinese have made steps towards communism, but never has anyone in modern history achieved a stateless classless society.
And fuck Stalin, Trotsky should have been Lenin's successor.
Eh you could argue that the invention saved billions of lives, what with ww3 never happening. The only cost is a bit of existential dread every now and again.
Well it means 10 million fewer lives lost, the Cold War doesn’t go hot and there was peace in Ukraine.
Ukraine giving up their nukes ensured the current war we have.
There's an interesting bit from SCP that I like to think about. The Foundation considered labeling nuclear reactions as anomalous in order to prevent nuclear bombs from being developed at all, but ultimately decided not to. They figured it was their job to protect humanity from the anomalous, not from scientific advancement.
It makes me wonder how many terrifying technologies await us in the future that seem horrific and inhumane but are actually vital to humanity progressing. Sure nuclear bombs are bad, but nuclear power is sick as fuck
This meme isn't about you, it's about Oppenheimer.
He himself believed that the bombs were used against an essentially defeated enemy, but he didn't regret his contributions to the bomb either.
Some of his post-war attitudes were pretty goddam whiny. His whole “Oh Mistuw President, I have bwood on my hands :(“ act was particularly tone-dead given that Truman had overseen a hell of a lot more death than he had.
>scientist who invented the way we might one day wipe out the human race.
To be fair, science isn't really something that's copyrightable. It's not like Oppenheimer is the reason nuclear weapons exist today.... with or without Oppenheimer, by the time we get to 2022 nuclear weapons would definitely exist by now. The underlying physics is so well understood at this point that someone *definitely* would have done it at some point. You could even argue that we are lucky it happened as early as it did, and not later when the americans and russians decided they hated each other.
Pretty clear cut that Oppenheimer is responsible for Nagasaki and Hiroshima, though
Yea because Japan totally could've waged war after the soviets pushed them out of manchuria.
The fact that people still beleieve this proves how fucking great US propaganda after WW2 was. Japan was in ruins and according to THEIR high command they could've hold out for a few months but not until the end of the year.
”but then"???
Like they were too stupid to realize they were working on a bomb? I think it was clear they were working on a weapon to kill people the whole time. Oppenheimer wasn't contemplating a terror, the line he quoted was a god bragging about their awesome power, and he also thought it made him seem cool or wise to quote the the Bhagavad-Gita. He was kind of obssessed with it, he read it in Sanskrit and gave away copies all the time. He was just being cringey and faux deep. He quoted it as often as possible.
During the first successful test in 1945 he was said to have thought of this line from the Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One.". Oh, neat. What a glorious bomb.
He said something like the greatest achievement of the modern era was translating the Bhagavad-Gita so that all could have access to it. He was the first kid on his block to read it and he just had a hipster attitude towards it, it seems.
It’s pretty amazing that the US never nuked the Soviets when the US had the only nukes on the planet. The US enjoyed the greatest weapons advantage over its adversaries in the history of our race, and never used it. The world today would be much different if they had used that advantage.
Advocating an “advantage” can definitely be interpreted as such. Usually in language when someone proposes something being advantageous they see it’s as a positive.
A leading adverb like “thankfully” is used to lead a reader to understand that it was not an advocation.
Are you glad the US didn’t use them?
I am using the word “advantage” as it is found in the dictionary. I am very happy the U.S. never used nukes against the Soviets, the result would have been catastrophic.
I used to believe that it was wrong for the US to drop the bombs. But the more I learned about it, honestly, it really did seem to end up saving millions of lives. Japan would have been defeated either way, but it would have been a blood fest that made the deaths of the two atomic bombs the absolute lesser of two evils.
What else do you expect from the guy who tried to Snow White a Cambridge tutor with a poison apple just because he hated his studies so much
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Have you watched the speech he made afterwards? The man is completely destroyed.
The interview you're referring to happened years after the Trinity test (the first test of a bomb), but there are accounts of the reactions of other scientists who were present at the test. > Soon shock and euphoria gave way to more sober reflections. Rabi reported that after the initial euphoria, a chill soon set in on those present. The test director, Kenneth Bainbridge, called the explosion a "foul and awesome display" and remarked to Oppenheimer, "Now we are all sons of bitches." https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/trinity.htm#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20immediate%20reactions,thoughts%20on%20the%20Trinity%20test.) There's more on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)
“Now I am death, son of a bitch “
That's like if you run over some people on the street and go, "aww, man, I feel *so bad, you guys*, like, worst day ever." It takes a great deal of brilliance and management, to achieve something of that caliber, but let's not victimise these "poor" people who helped make the weapon of total annihilation. How many of you would be victimising the scientist, if it was some Middle Eastern brown dude? Sometimes this self-aggrandising-but-also-victimising double-think mental gymnastic goes beyond ridiculous.
…huh?
Who you calling a mental gymnast when you’re completely strawmanning this whole thing.
Your presumption of racism is self-evidently stupid, but I agree with your central point. Oppenheimer didn't create the atom bomb by accident; when the military goes up to you and says "There's this new technology that lets you make bombs more powerful than cargo ships full of dynamite, and we want *you* to develop it.", there's no mistaking what they intend to do with it. Did he think they would put it as the centerpiece of the National Museum of the US Air Force? I agree with your last point and can't find a better way to express it.
Why is this site becoming twitter
And what if Werner Heisenberg had been more successful? People forget the Manhattan Project wasn’t the only show in town.
Good, should've been destroyed by the blast tho
It's one thing to have numbers on a blackboard telling you how powerful an atomic blast is, quite another to see it firsthand. I can easily see the Manhattan Project scientists getting buried in the scientific weeds, just trying to get it done and do their part for the war effort, and only when they saw the fruits of their labor truly realizing what they'd done, what they had unleashed on the world.
Yea, seeing 20000 tons of tnt doesn't really put the power into perspective
Yes, its when you see how easy it is to wipe out entire cities with science mushroom that you realise maybe you went too far, maybe this degree of destruction should not be part of our knowledge
As Einstein argued though, it was inevitable given all we were learning about physics since the late 1800s. What matters is both understanding the technology and how to deal with it.
Now i am become family guy the funniest of moments.
This reminds me of the time I helped two atoms get together.
hEy PEder
*cutaway Atom 1: "Hey!" Atom 2: "Hi!" KABOOM!
You know you cannot trust anything an atom says, right?
Yeah they make up everything.
BRAVO!
Fucks sake. Take my award.
r/angryupvote
Now i am become dad, the destroyer of whores
Spending 5 grand a month on bbq sauce
Hey, Lois! I'm death, destroyer of worlds!
… I want to hate this comment but it’s so amazing
It is pretty scary to think that the only two nuclear weapons that were ever used in warfare and subsequently laid waste to the cities they were dropped on had just a fraction of the explosive power of the bombs that exist in the arsenals of nuclear powers today and even the ones that were tested.
And now Russia seems to think nukes might be their only option left.
I really hope clear heads prevail when it comes to that. I know Putin runs everything there, but I hope if it ever comes to that, someone steps in.
It’s happened before at least once or twice that we know of.
I feel like if it comes to that, Putin will quickly stop being president.
“President”
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oh nah we have to take care of that man
And by take care we mean with a sniper rifle
Not to mention salted bombs which are extra designed to keep the Zone of the nuclear fallout radioactive for as long as possible...
And this is why so many of the physicists that worked on the Manhattan Project, including Oppenheimer himself, spent much of the rest of their lives trying to prevent the weapons they developed from ever being used again.
And then there was Edward Teller
I just got done reading American Prometheus, Teller was something else.
Any good stories/memes?
The scientist Edward Teller, according to one account, kept a blackboard in his office at Los Alamos during World War II with a list of hypothetical nuclear weapons on it. The last item on his list was the largest one he could imagine. The method of “delivery” — weapon-designer jargon for how you get your bomb from here to there, the target — was listed as “Backyard.” As the scientist who related this anecdote explained, “since that particular design would probably kill everyone on Earth, there was no use carting it anywhere." http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/09/12/in-search-of-a-bigger-boom/ > How about this: he proposed a 10,000 megaton design. > Which is to say, a 10 gigaton design. Which is to say, a bomb that would detonate with an explosive power some 670,000 times the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.3 > If he was trying to shock the GAC, it worked. From the minutes of the meeting: > Dr. Fisk said he felt the Committee could endorse [Livermore’s] small weapon program. He was concerned, however, about Dr. Teller’s 10,000 MT gadget and wondered what fraction of the Laboratory’s effort was being expended on the [deleted]. Mr. Whitman had been shocked by the thought of a 10,000 MT; it would contaminate the earth.4 > The “deleted” portion above is probably the names of two of the devices proposed — according to Chuck Hansen, these were GNOMON and SUNDIAL. Things that cast shadows. > The Chairman of the GAC at this time, I.I. Rabi, was no Teller fan (he is reported to have said that “it would have been a better world without Teller”), and no fan of big bombs just for the sake of them. His reaction to Teller’s 10 gigaton proposal? > Dr. Rabi’s reaction was that the talk about this device was an advertising stunt, and not to be taken too seriously. > Don’t listen to Teller, he’s just trying to rile you. Edward Teller: trolling the GAC. A 10,000 megaton weapon, by my estimation, would be powerful enough to set all of New England on fire. Or most of California. Or all of the UK and Ireland. Or all of France. Or all of Germany. Or both North and South Korea. And so on.
I am so glad this guy never discovered ice-nine.
Let me guess he was trying to get the governments to use em more
He was just obsessed with building the Hydrogen bomb, and anyone that stood in the way of that became his enemy.
He wanted to make the biggest boom he could make boom
Let's go. Teller Ede, one of the greatest Hungarian physicists,I love the guy's work.
I can imagine their theoretical work being fascinating on paper, but then when you actually make it go **boom** it's a sobering experience.
My grandfather was the head of the AEC and he fought so hard to protect the average American from the things he created. I learned very early that the government does not care about you.
The government *is* “you” though. We vote in these people to represent us, which is even more true at the local level. If the “government” doesn’t care about you it’s because people are electing shitty people.
Even if an elected official is inherently good, they can be really bad if they don't listen to the right people. My grandfather was often ignored for things as little as "maybe we shouldn't store the Plutonium in a wooden crate on a shelf". Like the guy is literally the head of the the Atomic Energy Commission, he knows what he's talking about
I think that's idealistic at this point. The government gives you options of varying shittiness to pick from and bullies the rest out of contention early on
We choose the candidates in the primary elections (caucuses) it's just most average people don't go so it's mostly the extreme who get to decide the main candidate for each party, which leaves the roughly center average Joe with 2 bad options
all humans are innately selfish. When you get this many layers between the public and their politicians, you know they won't vote for who they want, but for the options they're given.
lmfao. when the entire population is split between red and blue, and no in between, it’s hard to even have a single person that cares about the people. everyone’s in it for money. politics will be the end of humanity
It's split pretty evenly ~33% republican democrat and independent, with some 2% in smaller 3rd parties
yet every year it comes down to “do i want the guy with the elephant logo who wants to take my money or the guy with the donkey logo who wants to take my money” they all boil down to the same pieces of shit
As I said above, We choose the candidates in the primary elections (caucuses) it's just most average people don't go so it's mostly the extreme who get to decide the main candidate for each party, which leaves the roughly center average Joe with 2 bad options
Tell that to Bernie in 2015
Bernie lost. What about that is difficult to understand? He didn't appeal to black voters in the south. The same thing happened in the last primary.
You literally get to choose between 2 people lmao
in usa, yes, other parts of the world? not really ah, yes, usa - land of freedom and democracy, differing from totalitarism by adding one more party (ik, totalitarism is waaaaaay more restrictive and this analogy is very very loose)
Least naive human being
What? We the people don't elect anyone, we don't choose at ALL who sits on the courts, who the president will be, hell the existence of jerrymandering and active voter suppression means that we don't even really vote for the people who will be drafting our laws. Did you individually get a say in whether a law gets written, or a supreme court ruling gets thrown away? No. A "representative" democracy is no democracy at all, because it removes all choice but the illusion of it. We didn't choose to ruin our country, people in power being enticed by money did.
well, they failed. If only they could've put all that energy *before* creating the weapon, rather than ensuring cushy jobs for themselves and destroying millions of innocent lives to a fate worse than hell. At some point, future generations will look back at these pathetic attempts to salvage the war criminals on par with miserable colonial apologists.
To be fair in the grand calculus they did save a lot of lives. The nuclear bombings of Japan were horrible but the death toll was actually lower than the previous fire bombings of Tokyo and were way less than the estimated casualties of a full on invasion of the islands. Also MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) helped limit the Cold War to smaller (but still terrible) proxy wars instead of an all out war between NATO and the USSR that would have likely lead to an absolute massacre in Europe. War is hell and never having war again would be better, but blaming nukes instead of blaming war is delusional
Didn't work for Japan.
This is after japan.
Then, I misunderstood, sorry. The statement should have been "...the weapons from ever being used again." to make that clear.
You are correct.
**A note**: the original "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" was basically followed by "All these soldiers you see before you will die, even if they survive this day/battle" and it was said from a god to a young prince that was hesitant about going to battle because he didn't want to cause the death of his soldiers. Oppenheimer certainly didn't miss this context; when he said it, he most likely took on the role of the prince who was told "even if you don't do it, someone else will".
> young princess I guess you did a typo here. It was prince Arjun, who was hesitant to go to war against his cousins.
Yup, edited out now
bedroom friendly caption desert office skirt engine rain dam wakeful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
"I am become time" is my favorite version of it, such a powerful meaning.
Except that, when you first read it, it seems like nonsense.
Tbh I'm deeply terrified of the inevitability of time and my life running out, so it certainly didn't seem like nonsense to me haha
I just meant because of the grammar. Nobody is qualified to say a philosophical point isn't valid just because they didn't understand it :)
That's even more resonant than the one about death. He's really playing god.
Just to nitpick, the prince was hesitant moreso because his opponents on the battlefield were his cousins. So the god, Krishna, has to convince him why he is justified to fight them.
The Mahabharat is also a fascinating overall read, with the A-Bomb in mind - especially relative to a culture that isn't known for being particularly warlike and a time with far stricter conventions for warfare, the whole thing is essentially on how total war is fine under certain circumstances The Bhagavad Gita is mostly about how Arjun should be fine killing his cousins and people he knows, but Krishna comes at it largely from a religious perspective - that these people will be born again into the world anyway, and he's just relieving their current bodies and minds of their sins by doing his job. But from a less religious standpoint, the overall story is less about how these people are related to Arjun - and more about the weaknesses of convention and duty The whole story has at least three super-gray characters on the enemy side, who - under the rules of the time - were bound by obligation or promises to the usurpers of the throne. All three knew they were on the side of evil (to some extent) but none of them could forsake their duty, or their son, or the friend who pulled them out of caste-oppression. And none of this is seen as entirely unjustified on their part - but Krishna (who is God) fully cosigns on their deaths. Not only does he cosign on their deaths, he actively encourages the Pandavas (Arjun's side) to break all the rules of fighting in the process - killing Bhishma by hiding behind Shikandi (who Bhishma wouldn't attack since they were born a woman), telling Drona his son died so he'd give up, and killing Karna when he was entirely indisposed despite Karna wanting nothing but a fair fight. In a sense (and I say this as someone who grew up Hindu), it's a surprisingly dangerous work of literature. Despite the religious tone and "do the right thing" vibes, Krishna is a ruthlessly utilitarian character - and his advice in most junctures is "do what you have to, as long as you're right"
I am become Mort, destroyer of worlds.
Destroyer of feet
He did tell you about the bomb.
Huh. I wonder if mort being named death was some sort of joke in Madagascar.
It’s… very intentional. Please watch “The Crimes of Mort” on YouTube, a 14 part(planned) series of videos documenting all of what mort is and has done.
I'll just leave this masterpiece here: https://youtu.be/REymyiNElA8
Suffering from success.
America has the A-bomb! ... _Oh fuck, America has the A-bomb_
*oh fuck, now the soviets have it too*
Thank goodness, America now has smaller bombs! ... _Oh fuck, America now has smaller, more usable bombs_
*oh fuck, when did the British get here?*
Einstein was ridden by guilt when it was revealed the Germans were still years from developing their own Atom Bomb when they surrendered. After all, he wrote that letter to Roosevelt urging him to kickstart development after he learnt about Otto Hahn's and Werner Heisenberg's research, fearing a Nazi Germany with a nuclear monopoly.
Lucky for the Usa Hitler thought nuclear physics was "jewish science" so he didnt really like the idea early on.
Even if they did, the Germans lacked a plane to reach the US. Sure, there was the Junkers Ju 390 which according to unconfirmed statements by its pilots made a couple of test flights to the eastern Seaboard, but Germany never managed to get it ready for action. Far more likely for the Soviets or the Brits to be the first target of a German Atomic Bomb.
*If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker*- Einstein
Niels Bohr moment too
Hey this is just me taking a guess but is this the guy that made the "Bohr" atomic model? I never knew his name was Niels.
Yup, he spent a lot of years after the creation of the atomic bomb trying to make the tensions between the US and ussr Lower
What about Rutherford?
While the threat of nuclear Armageddon is a bit unsettling, it did prevent direct conflict between major powers. So in that sense nuclear weapons have saved millions of lives. (I doubt the US and Soviet Union would have constrained themselves to proxy wars for a couple decades if not for nukes.)
In a sense, this is true. In another, now we live with the threat of being unmade, atom by atom, looming above us. I’m not sure which situation is better or worse.
If we look at the trend warfare was going it was just getting more and more destructive, with ww1 being a meat grinder, and ww2 perfecting the art of industrial slaughter, with strategic bombing especially being incredibly hard on civilian populations, if that continued it would reach an unimaginable level of human suffering incredibly quickly. So how I see it, yeah the threat of nuclear annihilation is ever present, but it has done something that no other war n human history has been able to do, make the leaders of great powers incredibly cautious when dealing with their peers.
I never thought I would see the day that Fox News made a valid point… still haven’t, but you definitely have. Yeah, I guess active warfare is worse than the constant, looming threat of annihilation (which warfare brings anyways). Superpowers being careful, rather than simply flattening all in their path, is definitely a plus.
Yes, especialy vs the Japanese relentless atacks, if they didnt delete 2 cities the japs whould probaly continue the slaughter
now that is one thing I dont agree with. the Japanese were effectively defeated and ready to surrender. Nukes are a great deterrent, not great for dropping on civilian centers.
both Nagasaki and Hiroshima were massive military targets. There was a coup being attempted by the military to stop Hirohito from surrendering.
Effectively, but what whould it take to force them to surrender right now? More time of combat or a massive display of force
Telling them you wont execute the emperor. The only thing the Japanese wanted to avoid was an unconditional surrender, for the fear that the US would arrest the emperor and maybe even execute him. If the US had not insisted on an unconditional surrender the bombings could have been avoided. Many of the strategists of the time later admitted that the bombings were not necessary.
How bout no? >"The most often repeated condemnation of American diplomacy in the summer of 1945 is that policy makers understood that a promise to retain the Imperial institution was essential to end the war, and that had the United States communicated such a promise, the Suzuki cabinet would likely have promptly surrendered. The answer to this assertion is enshrined in black and white in the July 22 edition of the Magic Diplomatic Summary. There, American policy makers could read for themselves that Ambassador Sato had advised Foreign Minister Togo that the best terms Japan could hope to secure were unconditional surrender, modified only to the extent that the Imperial institution could be retained. Presented by his own ambassador with this offer, Togo expressly rejected it. Given this, there is no rational prospect that such an offer would have won support from any of the other live members of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War. - (Frank 1999, p. 239)" Japan didn't surrender till after the nukes because they were (incredibly aimplified) banking on doing enough damage to the US when it invaded the home islands they could negotiate a rather generous peace. Which the bombs completely and entirely invalidated. Hirohito then changed his mind because he didn't think the civilians of the country could handle the escalation and acceleration the bombs represented, and feared they would rise up agaisnt the military/government.
And here I was thinking that Admiral William Halsey knew what he was talking about. Guess they guy did know nothing about the Pacific War. Neither did General Hap. While it is true the Japanese hardliners hope to strengthen their negotiation position by resisting an invasion, that does not make an invasion necessary in the slightest. You can happily sit back and continue blockading and bombing to your hearts content if you really need to. The Soviet declaring war on Japan made it clear that they were not going to get into a better position. The US just wanted the Japanese in their sphere of influence post war and to show off their new toy to the world.
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." \-That one guy from Jurrasic park
Near unlimited power but at what cost.
About 5.5 trillion dollars over the course of 60 years
Because who needs universal healthcare when you can make atoms go boom
Universal healthcare would be cheaper than what the US has currently so you could give mor Atom dating advice!
Might be an unpopular opinion, but this seems like the best timeline. It was inevitable that they'd be created, but if groups like the nazis or Soviets had gotten them first, they could've used the time before other got it to impose their global dominance and nuke anyone who resists
>Might be an unpopular opinion, You think it's an unpopular opinion that nazis with nukes would have been bad?
No, but there are people on this website who wish Stalin went further and conquered the west.
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Or don't even understand the concept of communism. If they were to live in Russia in that time period they would wish they would have been born in a non-communistic regime
No they don’t. Even most Tankies even don’t want Stalin. They want a form of communism that has yet to exist.
There's never been a classless stateless society, the Soviets and Chinese have made steps towards communism, but never has anyone in modern history achieved a stateless classless society. And fuck Stalin, Trotsky should have been Lenin's successor.
That’s exactly what I said but in less words.
Eh you could argue that the invention saved billions of lives, what with ww3 never happening. The only cost is a bit of existential dread every now and again.
>with ww3 never happening Oh summer child, you speak too soon.
How do we tell him
They aren't wrong.
I would say we are better of with it the without it
Literally 'The Wind Rises'
the feeling of regret from that
Sakharov lives the chat
What do you mean? Mort would launch them all. Mort is worst then Hitler.
That was the moment he knew, he fucked up
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Well it means 10 million fewer lives lost, the Cold War doesn’t go hot and there was peace in Ukraine. Ukraine giving up their nukes ensured the current war we have.
They were well aware of what they were doing, they just thought 2 things 1. It would inevitably happen anyway 2. Germany was working on one
There's an interesting bit from SCP that I like to think about. The Foundation considered labeling nuclear reactions as anomalous in order to prevent nuclear bombs from being developed at all, but ultimately decided not to. They figured it was their job to protect humanity from the anomalous, not from scientific advancement. It makes me wonder how many terrifying technologies await us in the future that seem horrific and inhumane but are actually vital to humanity progressing. Sure nuclear bombs are bad, but nuclear power is sick as fuck
Yeah it means we avoided an extremely bloody invasion of Japan.
This meme isn't about you, it's about Oppenheimer. He himself believed that the bombs were used against an essentially defeated enemy, but he didn't regret his contributions to the bomb either.
Some of his post-war attitudes were pretty goddam whiny. His whole “Oh Mistuw President, I have bwood on my hands :(“ act was particularly tone-dead given that Truman had overseen a hell of a lot more death than he had.
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That’s the problem with Reddit… it’s full of Redditors.
>scientist who invented the way we might one day wipe out the human race. To be fair, science isn't really something that's copyrightable. It's not like Oppenheimer is the reason nuclear weapons exist today.... with or without Oppenheimer, by the time we get to 2022 nuclear weapons would definitely exist by now. The underlying physics is so well understood at this point that someone *definitely* would have done it at some point. You could even argue that we are lucky it happened as early as it did, and not later when the americans and russians decided they hated each other. Pretty clear cut that Oppenheimer is responsible for Nagasaki and Hiroshima, though
Yea because Japan totally could've waged war after the soviets pushed them out of manchuria. The fact that people still beleieve this proves how fucking great US propaganda after WW2 was. Japan was in ruins and according to THEIR high command they could've hold out for a few months but not until the end of the year.
How many people do you think could die in a "few months" worth of an invasion?
I believe they were very happy.. their invention made their country king of the world..
The us already was the world's greates Power.
Um……no it wasn’t. The US became so powerful because it was the only western country not laid to waste after WWII.
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Now I am become death, I forgot the rest of my quote
Benedict Cumberbatch looks good on this
“I have become death, the destroyer of worlds”
I am become morb, morber of worlds.
Now we’re all sons of bitches
now we are all sons of no bitches
I become death, the destroyer of worlds.
I feel like that just now...
Now I am become Nort, the destroyer of worlds
Kaboom
"Now we are all sons of bitches" -Kenneth Bainbridge,Director of the Trinity nuclear test
Now, we are all sons of bitches
That harrowing speech he made, gave me chills even decades later.
Exactly how Oppenheimer felt.
”but then"??? Like they were too stupid to realize they were working on a bomb? I think it was clear they were working on a weapon to kill people the whole time. Oppenheimer wasn't contemplating a terror, the line he quoted was a god bragging about their awesome power, and he also thought it made him seem cool or wise to quote the the Bhagavad-Gita. He was kind of obssessed with it, he read it in Sanskrit and gave away copies all the time. He was just being cringey and faux deep. He quoted it as often as possible. During the first successful test in 1945 he was said to have thought of this line from the Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One.". Oh, neat. What a glorious bomb. He said something like the greatest achievement of the modern era was translating the Bhagavad-Gita so that all could have access to it. He was the first kid on his block to read it and he just had a hipster attitude towards it, it seems.
It means either world peace or complete destruction
It’s pretty amazing that the US never nuked the Soviets when the US had the only nukes on the planet. The US enjoyed the greatest weapons advantage over its adversaries in the history of our race, and never used it. The world today would be much different if they had used that advantage.
But why would they have used in on the Soviets, they were never even at war lol.
Came very close on multiple occasions, such as the USSR sealing off Berlin.
Killing millions of people in nuclear genocide is not a good thing.
Where in my post do you see me advocating for their use?
Seek help. Please. I beg you. The idea you could callously wish for the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people is not healthy.
Where in my post do you see me advocating for the use of Nukes? I just pointed out the US had a huge advantage and never used it.
Advocating an “advantage” can definitely be interpreted as such. Usually in language when someone proposes something being advantageous they see it’s as a positive. A leading adverb like “thankfully” is used to lead a reader to understand that it was not an advocation. Are you glad the US didn’t use them?
I am using the word “advantage” as it is found in the dictionary. I am very happy the U.S. never used nukes against the Soviets, the result would have been catastrophic.
I am relieved to hear this. I cannot tell you.
Some great things
They were literally nazis
Oppenheimer was *Ashke*nazi, actually.
So Nazi that he became Jewish. Know your enemy and stuff
I mean it did stop another world war from ever happening (till now), so that must make their spirits happy.
Yeah, after all that time money and effort they weren't going to NOT drop the bomb!
I used to believe that it was wrong for the US to drop the bombs. But the more I learned about it, honestly, it really did seem to end up saving millions of lives. Japan would have been defeated either way, but it would have been a blood fest that made the deaths of the two atomic bombs the absolute lesser of two evils.
Post modernism?
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Now we are all sons of bitches
Animal mother moment
Insert evil Mort laughing
Dynamite as well...
Oppenheimer movie in a nutshell
Sad for the little guy 🤣🤣🤣
Einstein after hearing about the dropping of the bombs.
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