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Those people were designing devices to kill large numbers of (innocent) civilians. Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave 'eth

Those people were designing devices to kill large numbers of (innocent) civilians. Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave 'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ? Of course that was a 'blatant disregard for human life', since that was the very essence of the technology being developed.

kbenson 9y ago
> Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave 'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ? Possibly, yes. An argument can be made that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan caused less overall loss of life than an invasion or prolonged conflict (even if heavily weighted to one side). Wars are far more costly in human lives and suffering if neither side can get enough advantage to win and they become protracted. There's also the question of how many large conflicts were prevented since the time the creation of atomic weapons because it was seen as too costly, or one side was vastly superior because of them. This is a very complex topic, and regardless of what you think of it, those developing the weapons might have thought differently. When assessing the motivations and considerations of those people, using only your own assessment and moral calculus is insufficient.
- hisham_hm 9y ago
  > Possibly, yes. What is your "yes" referring to? That was not a yes-no answer. > An argument can be made that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan caused less overall loss of life than an invasion or prolonged conflict (even if heavily weighted to one side). Not only completely weighted to one side, but consisting in its vast majority of civilians. > There's also the question of how many large conflicts were prevented since the time the creation of atomic weapons because it was seen as too costly, or one side was vastly superior because of them. There has been no "war to end all wars", in spite of hopeful predictions. We haven't had WW3, but "one side being vastly superior" has not prevented the US from being engaged near constantly in various wars since after WW2. It is indeed a very complex topic, but questioning the ethics of those involved in the development of atomic weapons, especially given all we know about the way it was done, is a completely reasonable stance.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    From 100 Decisive Battles: "When Okinawa was finally declared secure, the cost had been horrific. Some 150,000 Okinawans died, approximately one-third the island's population. An additional 10,000 Koreans, used by the Japanese military as slave labor, died as well. Of the 119,000 or so Japanese soldiers, as many as 112,000 were killed in the battle or forever sealed inside a collapsed cave or bunker. Aside from the human cost, most of the physical aspects of Okinawan culture were razed. Few buildings survived the 3 months fighting. Collectively, the defenders lost more dead than the Japanese suffered in the two atomic bombings combined. The United States lost 13,000 dead: almost 8,000 on the island and the remainder at sea; another 32,000 were wounded. The loss of life on both sides, particularly among the Japanese civilians, caused immense worry in Washington. New President Harry Truman was looking at the plans for a proposed assault on the Japanese main islands, and the casualty projections were unacceptable. Projections numbered the potential casualties from 100,000 in the first 30 days to as many as 1 million attackers, and the death count for the Japanese civilians would be impossible to calculate. If they resisted as strongly as did the citizens of Okinawa -- and the inhabitants of the home islands would be even more dedicated to defending their homeland -- Japan would become a wasteland. It was already looking like one in many areas. The U.S. bombing campaign, in place since the previous September, was burning out huge areas of Japanese cities. How much longer the Japanese could have held out in the face of the fire bombing is a matter of much dispute; some project that, had the incendiary raids continued until November, the Japanese would have been thrown back to an almost Stone Age existence. The problem was this: no one in the west knew exactly what was happening in Japan. The devastation could be estimated, but the resistance could not. Thus, with the casualties of the Okinawa battle fresh in his mind, when Truman learned of the successful testing of an atomic bomb, he ordered its use. This is a decision debated since 6 August 1945, the date of the bombing of Hiroshima, and even before. Just what was known of Japanese decision-making processes before that date is also argued to this day. Was the Japanese government in the process of formulating a peace offer, in spite of the demand for unconditional surrender the Allies had decided upon in February 1943? If they were doing so, did anyone in the west know about it? Who knew what, when they knew it, and what effect that knowledge had or may have had on Truman's decision making is a matter of much dispute. Whatever the political ramifications of the atomic bomb on the immediate and postwar world, Truman's decision was certainly based in no small part on the nature of the fighting on Okinawa. Truman wrote just after his decision, "We'll end the war sooner now. And think of the kids who wont be killed." Note that a persuasive counter-argument was posted by Floegipoky (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11751090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11751090) "The invasion of Okinawa is not at all comparable to a potential invasion of Japan. I won't address your main point. I'm posting to correct a grave misunderstanding about the relationship between Okinawa and Japan during this period. Okinawa is a distinct cultural entity, and the island was viewed by Japan as occupied territory. Japanese forces slaughtered Okinawans, going so far as to use them as human shields. Some Okinawans were ordered to kill themselves and their families to avoid the horrific fate that the Japanese promised at the hands of American troops. Others, including schoolchildren, were pressed into front-line service or sent on suicide missions. Others were simply murdered, whether for their food or supplies, out of paranoia to root out "spies" (those who made the grave mistake of speaking in Okinawan within earshot), or for entertainment. I'm not saying Americans didn't kill Okinawans too. What I'm saying is that the Japanese could not have cared less about the survival of Okinawa: the land, culture, or people. While the Japanese were certainly willing to use civilians for tactical or strategic gain, one cannot assume that their military forces would have raped and pillaged their own populace in the same manner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Civilian_losses.2C_suicides_and_atrocities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Civilian_los... " Nonetheless, you can see how a reasonable person could take the stance that developing the bomb was ethical. Being compared to mass murderers and such is just breathless posturing.
- delegate 9y ago
  It doesn't have to be a complex topic. People braid ideas and emotions together to arrive at unsolvable hairballs like the one you're describing (which my rational self totally understands) - while the genie (monster) is out of the bottle, in the closet, getting bored.. When outside 'truth' is incomprehensible, the answer lies 'inside'.. And then it becomes much simpler (not necessarily easier) - the problem is not how to fix the outside world, but a binary 'good' or 'bad' on a fundamental, basic level: is it out of love or fear and which side do I stand on ? Start building from that and then all that 'strategic' narrative presents itself as stories told by generations of people scared shitless of other similarly scared people on the other side of the planet. I guess I'm just one of those naive enough to think that wars cannot happen without soldiers and weapons...
  - kbenson 9y ago
    The main reason for my response was because of my interpretation of "Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave 'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ?" which I took as implying anyone that developed if must have been ethically bankrupt. I don't think we can know for sure the goals of the individual people involved in most cases, and we may be somewhat off often about the goals of the organization the worked for as well. I for one fully believe many of the people involved thought they were doing the right thing. They performed some ethical calculus that let them believe that the development of the weapon they worked on would end up being a net positive. If not by nature of its existence, then by assuming that it would exist and they thought they were better stewards for it than others. People's ethical decisions are not absolute, they are based on the beliefs and information of the people at the time the decisions were made. Portraying them as different than us in that they do not have the same ethical standards is very dangerous in my eyes. It's tempting to say there is no way we would make the same decisions in the same situation with the same information, but I'm not sure sure. It's the same reason I think it's very dangerous to put the Nazis on a pedestal as absolute evil. That abstracts away the possibility that it could happen again and that we need to be vigilant for it. By making them "other" than us we assume we could not do the same thing. If we assume the past can't happen again just because we are different than they were, we've learned nothing, because we are no different.
banku_brougham 9y ago
Can't tell that you think it is 'not okay', I'm sure only because this would be tangential to your point.
nandemo 9y ago
> Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave 'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ? Because the bomb was meant to be used (in "production") on foreigner civilians. And that was (and still largely is [0]) acceptable to Americans for a variety of reasons: "the Japanese were barbaric war criminals", "they did Pearl Harbor", "mass murder by atom bomb was compassionate given that the only other alternative was mass murder by conventional bombing/invasion", etc. In contrast, the testing affected the health of law-abiding Americans. That's very un-American. [0] http://www.gallup.com/poll/17677/majority-supports-use-atomic-bomb-japan-wwii.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/17677/majority-supports-use-atomi...

kbenson 9y ago

> Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave 'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ? Possibly, yes. An argument can be made that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan caused less overall loss of life than an invasion or prolonged conflict (even if heavily weighted to one side). Wars are far more costly in human lives and suffering if neither side can get enough advantage to win and they become protracted. There's also the question of how many large conflicts were prevented since the time the creation of atomic weapons because it was seen as too costly, or one side was vastly superior because of them. This is a very complex topic, and regardless of what you think of it, those developing the weapons might have thought differently. When assessing the motivations and considerations of those people, using only your own assessment and moral calculus is insufficient.

hisham_hm 9y ago
> Possibly, yes. What is your "yes" referring to? That was not a yes-no answer. > An argument can be made that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan caused less overall loss of life than an invasion or prolonged conflict (even if heavily weighted to one side). Not only completely weighted to one side, but consisting in its vast majority of civilians. > There's also the question of how many large conflicts were prevented since the time the creation of atomic weapons because it was seen as too costly, or one side was vastly superior because of them. There has been no "war to end all wars", in spite of hopeful predictions. We haven't had WW3, but "one side being vastly superior" has not prevented the US from being engaged near constantly in various wars since after WW2. It is indeed a very complex topic, but questioning the ethics of those involved in the development of atomic weapons, especially given all we know about the way it was done, is a completely reasonable stance.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  From 100 Decisive Battles: "When Okinawa was finally declared secure, the cost had been horrific. Some 150,000 Okinawans died, approximately one-third the island's population. An additional 10,000 Koreans, used by the Japanese military as slave labor, died as well. Of the 119,000 or so Japanese soldiers, as many as 112,000 were killed in the battle or forever sealed inside a collapsed cave or bunker. Aside from the human cost, most of the physical aspects of Okinawan culture were razed. Few buildings survived the 3 months fighting. Collectively, the defenders lost more dead than the Japanese suffered in the two atomic bombings combined. The United States lost 13,000 dead: almost 8,000 on the island and the remainder at sea; another 32,000 were wounded. The loss of life on both sides, particularly among the Japanese civilians, caused immense worry in Washington. New President Harry Truman was looking at the plans for a proposed assault on the Japanese main islands, and the casualty projections were unacceptable. Projections numbered the potential casualties from 100,000 in the first 30 days to as many as 1 million attackers, and the death count for the Japanese civilians would be impossible to calculate. If they resisted as strongly as did the citizens of Okinawa -- and the inhabitants of the home islands would be even more dedicated to defending their homeland -- Japan would become a wasteland. It was already looking like one in many areas. The U.S. bombing campaign, in place since the previous September, was burning out huge areas of Japanese cities. How much longer the Japanese could have held out in the face of the fire bombing is a matter of much dispute; some project that, had the incendiary raids continued until November, the Japanese would have been thrown back to an almost Stone Age existence. The problem was this: no one in the west knew exactly what was happening in Japan. The devastation could be estimated, but the resistance could not. Thus, with the casualties of the Okinawa battle fresh in his mind, when Truman learned of the successful testing of an atomic bomb, he ordered its use. This is a decision debated since 6 August 1945, the date of the bombing of Hiroshima, and even before. Just what was known of Japanese decision-making processes before that date is also argued to this day. Was the Japanese government in the process of formulating a peace offer, in spite of the demand for unconditional surrender the Allies had decided upon in February 1943? If they were doing so, did anyone in the west know about it? Who knew what, when they knew it, and what effect that knowledge had or may have had on Truman's decision making is a matter of much dispute. Whatever the political ramifications of the atomic bomb on the immediate and postwar world, Truman's decision was certainly based in no small part on the nature of the fighting on Okinawa. Truman wrote just after his decision, "We'll end the war sooner now. And think of the kids who wont be killed." Note that a persuasive counter-argument was posted by Floegipoky (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11751090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11751090) "The invasion of Okinawa is not at all comparable to a potential invasion of Japan. I won't address your main point. I'm posting to correct a grave misunderstanding about the relationship between Okinawa and Japan during this period. Okinawa is a distinct cultural entity, and the island was viewed by Japan as occupied territory. Japanese forces slaughtered Okinawans, going so far as to use them as human shields. Some Okinawans were ordered to kill themselves and their families to avoid the horrific fate that the Japanese promised at the hands of American troops. Others, including schoolchildren, were pressed into front-line service or sent on suicide missions. Others were simply murdered, whether for their food or supplies, out of paranoia to root out "spies" (those who made the grave mistake of speaking in Okinawan within earshot), or for entertainment. I'm not saying Americans didn't kill Okinawans too. What I'm saying is that the Japanese could not have cared less about the survival of Okinawa: the land, culture, or people. While the Japanese were certainly willing to use civilians for tactical or strategic gain, one cannot assume that their military forces would have raped and pillaged their own populace in the same manner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Civilian_losses.2C_suicides_and_atrocities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Civilian_los... " Nonetheless, you can see how a reasonable person could take the stance that developing the bomb was ethical. Being compared to mass murderers and such is just breathless posturing.
delegate 9y ago
It doesn't have to be a complex topic. People braid ideas and emotions together to arrive at unsolvable hairballs like the one you're describing (which my rational self totally understands) - while the genie (monster) is out of the bottle, in the closet, getting bored.. When outside 'truth' is incomprehensible, the answer lies 'inside'.. And then it becomes much simpler (not necessarily easier) - the problem is not how to fix the outside world, but a binary 'good' or 'bad' on a fundamental, basic level: is it out of love or fear and which side do I stand on ? Start building from that and then all that 'strategic' narrative presents itself as stories told by generations of people scared shitless of other similarly scared people on the other side of the planet. I guess I'm just one of those naive enough to think that wars cannot happen without soldiers and weapons...
- kbenson 9y ago
  The main reason for my response was because of my interpretation of "Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave 'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ?" which I took as implying anyone that developed if must have been ethically bankrupt. I don't think we can know for sure the goals of the individual people involved in most cases, and we may be somewhat off often about the goals of the organization the worked for as well. I for one fully believe many of the people involved thought they were doing the right thing. They performed some ethical calculus that let them believe that the development of the weapon they worked on would end up being a net positive. If not by nature of its existence, then by assuming that it would exist and they thought they were better stewards for it than others. People's ethical decisions are not absolute, they are based on the beliefs and information of the people at the time the decisions were made. Portraying them as different than us in that they do not have the same ethical standards is very dangerous in my eyes. It's tempting to say there is no way we would make the same decisions in the same situation with the same information, but I'm not sure sure. It's the same reason I think it's very dangerous to put the Nazis on a pedestal as absolute evil. That abstracts away the possibility that it could happen again and that we need to be vigilant for it. By making them "other" than us we assume we could not do the same thing. If we assume the past can't happen again just because we are different than they were, we've learned nothing, because we are no different.

banku_brougham 9y ago

Can't tell that you think it is 'not okay', I'm sure only because this would be tangential to your point.

nandemo 9y ago

> Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave 'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ? Because the bomb was meant to be used (in "production") on foreigner civilians. And that was (and still largely is [0]) acceptable to Americans for a variety of reasons: "the Japanese were barbaric war criminals", "they did Pearl Harbor", "mass murder by atom bomb was compassionate given that the only other alternative was mass murder by conventional bombing/invasion", etc. In contrast, the testing affected the health of law-abiding Americans. That's very un-American. [0] http://www.gallup.com/poll/17677/majority-supports-use-atomic-bomb-japan-wwii.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/17677/majority-supports-use-atomi...