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They may have prevented a 'Planetary Catastrophe', but I find it rather likely that they were also the cause of the situation. History is full of stories where

by jopsen 7y ago

They may have prevented a 'Planetary Catastrophe', but I find it rather likely that they were also the cause of the situation. History is full of stories where Russian subs are close to causing catastrophes because of rushed production, poor maintenance, training, etc. Reality is that they didn't have to sail around in a nuclear sub in the first place.

llamaz 7y ago
The Russians never did Hiroshima/Nagasaki, which I consider to be a underappreciated moral crime, just like the Bengali famine at the hands of Churchill. I know this is a form of 'whataboutism,' but I don't think laying the blame on the Russians is the right way to go. Neither side should have developed nuclear weapons in the first place.
- celticninja 7y ago
  You can't un-ring a bell but you can avoid using the bell to cause a planetary catastrophe.
  - pinkfoot 7y ago
    Feel free to find out when the existing nuclear powers intend to disarm under their commitments in the NNTP.
    - celticninja 7y ago
      I'm not sure of the relevance. You cannot uninvent the technology.
- mikorym 7y ago
  I think there is a different argument being made. The Russian nuclear program has suffered a lot of potential and actual nuclear catastrophes due to questionable safety standards and protocol. I think that nuclear weapons is a different topic. But the safety of ongoing nuclear use worldwide, including by the US, is perhaps the topic here.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
  A nuclear reactor is not a weapon, it's a power source. An incredibly useful one at that.
- killjoywashere 7y ago
  Do you know who motivated the US to take on the Manhattan Project? Albert Einstein. Life-long pacifist and, I've heard, reasonably intelligent human who knew something about quantum physics and relativity. Are you certain that you would have made a different decision?
  - rawTruthHurts 7y ago
    >Do you know who motivated the US to take on the Manhattan Project? Perhaps it was more like an austrian boi looking for mehr lebensraum, but who am I to say.
    - killjoywashere 7y ago
      No, quite specifically, Einstein's letter to FDR is what motivated the Manhattan Project. Hitler (parent's "austrian boi") may well have had a tremendous weapons program in the works, but Einstein's fear was motivated as much by what he knew of his colleagues in Berlin and the German zeitgeist(1) as anything to do with Hitler specifically. What Hitler wanted would have been trivia if it were not for the capabilities of the scientists who elected to stay in Germany during the rise of Nazism. (1) what an awful yet accurate application of such a nice word, but I digress.
      - rawTruthHurts 7y ago
        Well, agreed, in last instance, the letter was responsible, but it wouldn't have been written if the authors were not concerned about the autrian boi misdemeanors.
  - heavenlyblue 7y ago
    >> Life-long pacifist and, I've heard, reasonably intelligent human He was also a misogynist and a xenophobe. I am not trying to whitewash his accomplishments in terms of physics, but frankly he's a questionable character in terms of morals or ethics. I wouldn't trust that guy writing the laws for me, for example.
- Causality1 7y ago
  A far smaller moral crime than a land invasion of the home islands would've been. There's a reason five hundred thousand Purple Hearts were manufactured in anticipation of it.
  - gshubert17 7y ago
    D. M. Giangreco agrees with this assessment. His book "Hell to Pay" examines many complex issues involved in the strategic and tactical planning of both the U.S. and Japan using documents from both sides, including postwar reports that the Japanese wrote for General MacArthur. The U.S. planned to use as many as nine A-bombs as tactical weapons in the invasion of Kyushu. He feels such an invasion would have been worse for both Americans and Japanese.
  - mrguyorama 7y ago
    There was no plan to deal with japan that wouldn't have involved hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides of the conflict losing their lives. The trade instead was 250k Japanese civilians.
    - Causality1 7y ago
      The planning for Operation Downfall expected a minimum of 5 million Japanese civilian deaths. The Japanese plan for defending the home islands, ketsugō sakusen, involved conscripting the entire population into a militia. The propaganda term was literally "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million." If you don't think that would've killed more than 250 thousand civilians you're a fool. The target choices, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are a good topic for debate. There's ample argument to be made that there were better, more militarized targets that would have shaved significant fractions off the ultimate civilian death toll. There is no sane argument, however, that the bombings themselves didn't kill an order of magnitude fewer people than any other method of defeating the Japanese Empire.
- kolinko 7y ago
  Er, what? Japan was the aggressor, their allies started the war. If Americans wouldn't drop the bombs, even more civilians would lose their lives. From the utilitarian perspective, the bombs and quick end of the war actually saved lives, so it was the right thing to do. If you want to argue against the morality from the deontological perspective, I wonder about your argument. Japan initiated the fight, and unless Americans planned to surrender, they would end up killing even more people. Are you arguing that it matters that they did it all at once, compared to doing it bit by bit? Also, to shine some perspective - Japan's losses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 250k. Their allies killed 400k Jews in Warsaw Ghetto alone.
  - close04 7y ago
    > Japan's losses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 250k. Their allies killed 400k Jews in Warsaw Ghetto alone Judging them based what their allies did makes it a bit of an unfair comparison, especially when those allies were half a world away with little actual input [0]. I'm sure the Japanese were responsible for their own share of carnage caused without "consolidating" numbers. Russia was on the Allied side and received active support even after committing massacres, mass arrests, executions, and deportations [1]. So consider that if you want to tally "by team". Also killing 250.000 civilians "because they also did it" kind of puts them all in the same bucket. There's no moral high ground to claim in this situation unless you're always willing to justify anything as long as it fits your personal views. Would it be justified or moral for you to kill some random Russians as payback for Katyn? [0] You wouldn't be judged based on what your grandparents did, and there might be a stronger connection between you. Or for what your fellow countrymen do. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#World_War_II
    - briffle 7y ago
      Then we can look at the Japanese occupation of China and the killing of 10-25 Million civilians.. The west does not learn much about that part of WW2.
      - 7y ago
- tlear 7y ago
  Russians did enough Is the Churchill the new thing to divert from Holodomor they promote in Petrograd? Been seeing it mentioned by Russian trolls/bots/“patriots” a lot recently
  - rusk 7y ago
    No you're right. The UK was also an evil empire.
- bouncycastle 7y ago
  Thought experiment: if the Russians, Germans or Japanese had the nukes first, would they use them in the same way? I'd probably say Stalin and Hitler were more bloodthirsty than Roosevelt. Given the circumstances at the time, it was the best possible outcome.
  - Shivetya 7y ago
    that is always the line of thought avoided at all costs by those seeking to vilify the United States using the bombs. The simple fact is, all three nations you mentioned had demonstrated a complete lack for respect of life and rights of others. Considering just how Germany and Japan treated captured civilians and military members should be more than enough to know what they would have done.
  - gdy 7y ago
    Firstly, it was Truman, not Roosevelt. Secondly, Truman was quite bloodthirsty: "If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible. . . ." [0]. Thirdly, Churchill was even more bloodthirsty and advocated for nuking Moscow in the years following WW2 [1]. [0] http://movies2.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0508.html http://movies2.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0... [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2826980/Winston-Churchill-s-bid-nuke-Russia-win-Cold-War-uncovered-secret-FBI-files.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2826980/Winston-Chu...
    - bouncycastle 7y ago
      Of course, should have included both Truman and Roosevelt. But the point still stands. We were up against leaders who were much more bloodthirsty and had trumendous disrespect for human life. The entire world decended in to madness - the morals basically went out the window. It was kill or be killed.
      - gdy 7y ago
        You were up against Russians in WW2, really?
- 420codebro 7y ago
  They also fucked up real bad with Chernobyl. And that was spewing out a Hiroshima’s worth of shit hourly. Pot. Kettle. Black.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
  To be honest it didn't seem like the people who made the decision to drop the bombs really knew they were dealing with something transformative
- fit2rule 7y ago
  Is it really 'whataboutism' if its very clear that there is just a bigoted prejudice against Russia? The post you replied to has not facts, no real information, no true data - just prejudice, really. And worse, its prejudice that is currently propagated and encouraged by an insidious collective groupthink currently infecting us all at mass scale. We may as well just assume that the Russians discovered an alien base and the real incident involved them fighting an alien intruder. This is just as valid a perspective as "Russia sucks at submarines, lol." Both perspectives are fictional. Russia is very good at submarines. Also, there are no alien bases.

by jopsen 7y ago

llamaz 7y ago

The Russians never did Hiroshima/Nagasaki, which I consider to be a underappreciated moral crime, just like the Bengali famine at the hands of Churchill. I know this is a form of 'whataboutism,' but I don't think laying the blame on the Russians is the right way to go. Neither side should have developed nuclear weapons in the first place.

celticninja 7y ago
You can't un-ring a bell but you can avoid using the bell to cause a planetary catastrophe.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  Feel free to find out when the existing nuclear powers intend to disarm under their commitments in the NNTP.
  - celticninja 7y ago
    I'm not sure of the relevance. You cannot uninvent the technology.
mikorym 7y ago
I think there is a different argument being made. The Russian nuclear program has suffered a lot of potential and actual nuclear catastrophes due to questionable safety standards and protocol. I think that nuclear weapons is a different topic. But the safety of ongoing nuclear use worldwide, including by the US, is perhaps the topic here.
SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
A nuclear reactor is not a weapon, it's a power source. An incredibly useful one at that.
killjoywashere 7y ago
Do you know who motivated the US to take on the Manhattan Project? Albert Einstein. Life-long pacifist and, I've heard, reasonably intelligent human who knew something about quantum physics and relativity. Are you certain that you would have made a different decision?
- rawTruthHurts 7y ago
  >Do you know who motivated the US to take on the Manhattan Project? Perhaps it was more like an austrian boi looking for mehr lebensraum, but who am I to say.
  - killjoywashere 7y ago
    No, quite specifically, Einstein's letter to FDR is what motivated the Manhattan Project. Hitler (parent's "austrian boi") may well have had a tremendous weapons program in the works, but Einstein's fear was motivated as much by what he knew of his colleagues in Berlin and the German zeitgeist(1) as anything to do with Hitler specifically. What Hitler wanted would have been trivia if it were not for the capabilities of the scientists who elected to stay in Germany during the rise of Nazism. (1) what an awful yet accurate application of such a nice word, but I digress.
    - rawTruthHurts 7y ago
      Well, agreed, in last instance, the letter was responsible, but it wouldn't have been written if the authors were not concerned about the autrian boi misdemeanors.
- heavenlyblue 7y ago
  >> Life-long pacifist and, I've heard, reasonably intelligent human He was also a misogynist and a xenophobe. I am not trying to whitewash his accomplishments in terms of physics, but frankly he's a questionable character in terms of morals or ethics. I wouldn't trust that guy writing the laws for me, for example.
Causality1 7y ago
A far smaller moral crime than a land invasion of the home islands would've been. There's a reason five hundred thousand Purple Hearts were manufactured in anticipation of it.
- gshubert17 7y ago
  D. M. Giangreco agrees with this assessment. His book "Hell to Pay" examines many complex issues involved in the strategic and tactical planning of both the U.S. and Japan using documents from both sides, including postwar reports that the Japanese wrote for General MacArthur. The U.S. planned to use as many as nine A-bombs as tactical weapons in the invasion of Kyushu. He feels such an invasion would have been worse for both Americans and Japanese.
- mrguyorama 7y ago
  There was no plan to deal with japan that wouldn't have involved hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides of the conflict losing their lives. The trade instead was 250k Japanese civilians.
  - Causality1 7y ago
    The planning for Operation Downfall expected a minimum of 5 million Japanese civilian deaths. The Japanese plan for defending the home islands, ketsugō sakusen, involved conscripting the entire population into a militia. The propaganda term was literally "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million." If you don't think that would've killed more than 250 thousand civilians you're a fool. The target choices, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are a good topic for debate. There's ample argument to be made that there were better, more militarized targets that would have shaved significant fractions off the ultimate civilian death toll. There is no sane argument, however, that the bombings themselves didn't kill an order of magnitude fewer people than any other method of defeating the Japanese Empire.
kolinko 7y ago
Er, what? Japan was the aggressor, their allies started the war. If Americans wouldn't drop the bombs, even more civilians would lose their lives. From the utilitarian perspective, the bombs and quick end of the war actually saved lives, so it was the right thing to do. If you want to argue against the morality from the deontological perspective, I wonder about your argument. Japan initiated the fight, and unless Americans planned to surrender, they would end up killing even more people. Are you arguing that it matters that they did it all at once, compared to doing it bit by bit? Also, to shine some perspective - Japan's losses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 250k. Their allies killed 400k Jews in Warsaw Ghetto alone.
- close04 7y ago
  > Japan's losses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 250k. Their allies killed 400k Jews in Warsaw Ghetto alone Judging them based what their allies did makes it a bit of an unfair comparison, especially when those allies were half a world away with little actual input [0]. I'm sure the Japanese were responsible for their own share of carnage caused without "consolidating" numbers. Russia was on the Allied side and received active support even after committing massacres, mass arrests, executions, and deportations [1]. So consider that if you want to tally "by team". Also killing 250.000 civilians "because they also did it" kind of puts them all in the same bucket. There's no moral high ground to claim in this situation unless you're always willing to justify anything as long as it fits your personal views. Would it be justified or moral for you to kill some random Russians as payback for Katyn? [0] You wouldn't be judged based on what your grandparents did, and there might be a stronger connection between you. Or for what your fellow countrymen do. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#World_War_II
  - briffle 7y ago
    Then we can look at the Japanese occupation of China and the killing of 10-25 Million civilians.. The west does not learn much about that part of WW2.
    - 7y ago
tlear 7y ago
Russians did enough Is the Churchill the new thing to divert from Holodomor they promote in Petrograd? Been seeing it mentioned by Russian trolls/bots/“patriots” a lot recently
- rusk 7y ago
  No you're right. The UK was also an evil empire.
bouncycastle 7y ago
Thought experiment: if the Russians, Germans or Japanese had the nukes first, would they use them in the same way? I'd probably say Stalin and Hitler were more bloodthirsty than Roosevelt. Given the circumstances at the time, it was the best possible outcome.
- Shivetya 7y ago
  that is always the line of thought avoided at all costs by those seeking to vilify the United States using the bombs. The simple fact is, all three nations you mentioned had demonstrated a complete lack for respect of life and rights of others. Considering just how Germany and Japan treated captured civilians and military members should be more than enough to know what they would have done.
- gdy 7y ago
  Firstly, it was Truman, not Roosevelt. Secondly, Truman was quite bloodthirsty: "If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible. . . ." [0]. Thirdly, Churchill was even more bloodthirsty and advocated for nuking Moscow in the years following WW2 [1]. [0] http://movies2.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0508.html http://movies2.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0... [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2826980/Winston-Churchill-s-bid-nuke-Russia-win-Cold-War-uncovered-secret-FBI-files.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2826980/Winston-Chu...
  - bouncycastle 7y ago
    Of course, should have included both Truman and Roosevelt. But the point still stands. We were up against leaders who were much more bloodthirsty and had trumendous disrespect for human life. The entire world decended in to madness - the morals basically went out the window. It was kill or be killed.
    - gdy 7y ago
      You were up against Russians in WW2, really?
420codebro 7y ago
They also fucked up real bad with Chernobyl. And that was spewing out a Hiroshima’s worth of shit hourly. Pot. Kettle. Black.
X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
To be honest it didn't seem like the people who made the decision to drop the bombs really knew they were dealing with something transformative
fit2rule 7y ago
Is it really 'whataboutism' if its very clear that there is just a bigoted prejudice against Russia? The post you replied to has not facts, no real information, no true data - just prejudice, really. And worse, its prejudice that is currently propagated and encouraged by an insidious collective groupthink currently infecting us all at mass scale. We may as well just assume that the Russians discovered an alien base and the real incident involved them fighting an alien intruder. This is just as valid a perspective as "Russia sucks at submarines, lol." Both perspectives are fictional. Russia is very good at submarines. Also, there are no alien bases.