7 ms·

To be fair to Von Neumann, you’re displaying hindsight bias. It is possible that with the knowledge they had at the time, a preventative or pre-emptive attack w

by nickff 5y ago

To be fair to Von Neumann, you’re displaying hindsight bias. It is possible that with the knowledge they had at the time, a preventative or pre-emptive attack would have been rational, maybe even with the best ‘expected outcome’.

GDC7 5y ago
How is that possible? Even if the US bombed the USSR and prevented a counterstrike the US would have been worse off. You don't get to subtract 100M people out of 2.7B , the 2nd country in GDP and expect things to remain as they were before. Also the entire world would have reacted, anticipating that they too were going to be nuked as soon as they did something which would have even remotely alerted paranoid Uncle Sam.
- qersist3nce 5y ago
  > Also the entire world would have reacted Hard no. No one "reacted" after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were glassed.
  - GDC7 5y ago
    In fact they reacted before. With spies inside Project Manhattan. Both the UK and USSR reacted with what they could, meaning their intelligence and espionage. It's kind of a selection bias considering that the only country capable of building the Atomic Bomb was the US.
    - radicalbyte 5y ago
      The UK provided key expertise to the Manhattan Project, so to say that they were "spying" is not fair. The UK bomb project had been going on for longer, and making it a joint US/UK project sped up development.
      - aerostable_slug 5y ago
        Members of the UK delegation were spies for the Soviets, and other members looked as hard as they could to find advantage for their own country. I certainly do not look askance upon the latter, and would have done the same. I don't think anyone doubts the contributions our British friends made to the success of the project.
- nickff 5y ago
  >"Even if the US bombed the USSR and prevented a counterstrike the US would have been worse off." Von Neumann may have been advocating for a strike before the Soviets had operational nuclear capabilities. >"You don't get to subtract 100M people out of 2.7B , the 2nd country in GDP and expect things to remain as they were before." It is unlikely that an American nuclear strike would have wiped out the entire population of the Soviet Union; one would expect a targeted strike on critical government and army facilities, or something like what happened against the Japanese. >"Also the entire world would have reacted, anticipating that they too were going to be nuked as soon as they did something which would have even remotely alerted paranoid Uncle Sam. " The rest of the world didn't conquer and subjugate all of Eastern Europe, then steal from them and kidnap people in large numbers.
  - WitCanStain 5y ago
    It's interesting to appeal to the plight of Eastern Europeans given that they were also on the list of targets. The Soviets are harming Eastern Europeans, we must nuke the Eastern Europeans!
  - GDC7 5y ago
    > It is unlikely that an American nuclear strike would have wiped out the entire population of the Soviet Union; one would expect a targeted strike on critical government and army facilities, or something like what happened against the Japanese. USSR lion share of the population is/was in Moscow and St. Petersburg. A decapitation strike would have killed many in those 2 cities for sure. Add the fires, the confusion, the famine and the fact that you must followup with an invasion because nukes radiations dissipate fast and other countries around would see it as a huge opportunity to expand. It's easy to imagine the countries of the Marshall plan abandon said plan and saying "screw it! We'll get the eastward land instead" 100M is not far fetched. > The rest of the world didn't conquer and subjugate all of Eastern Europe, then steal from them and kidnap people in large numbers. The US is magnanimous . Meaning like some guy who got out of the hood and lets it slide when somebody dents his Ferrari. Had that person missed on a lucky break and still be in the hood, his reaction would be very different and much more violent , and it doesn't even need to be a Ferrari, just a light fender bender on a Civic will cause trouble. The US is magnanimous because of its standards of living , not the other way around.
- tashoecraft 5y ago
  You have to understand where Von Nuemann came from to see why he wanted to initiate a first strike prior to the USSR developing nuclear weapons. He lost lots of family and friends due to the nazis. He saw his people get slaughtered due to a nation with crazy ideology being technically superior. He never wanted to be put in that situation again and worked on the Manhattan project because he believed in the USA. He viewed the USSR as another threat just like the nazis. For many it seemed like a guarantee that war would happen. Many also claimed that early attack could save lives. I’m not here to claim what he felt was right, but given the environment and conditions he lived through, I don’t pretend that I wouldn’t hold similar views given the circumstances.
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    We do not in fact have to entertain the idle thoughts of people advocating a holocaust bigger than hitler's (whom the ussr defeated).
    - corndoge 5y ago
      Who are you replying to? Or are you just choosing to take the most inhospitable interpretation of the parent, rather than the one that makes sense?
      - tehjoker 5y ago
        In what world do we need to consider whether killing 100M people is okay? There is no such world.
        tashoecraft 5y ago
        That would be if the US bombed every single inch of Russia. There was not that capability for a while. Not saying killing any people is okay, let alone millions or hundred million. But I don't believe the intention of a strategic first strike on the USSR was to kill every person. Knocking out 1/2 cities would have accomplished their goals, resulting in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in their mind saving more millions from the believed inevitable global nuclear WW3. Again, not saying it's justified, you're just viewing this from the future where you can see the outcome.
trhway 5y ago
that is the difference between theory and practice. Von Neuman is a genius of theory, and the idea of atomic bombing of USSR into oblivion has significant theoretical appeal even with hindsight of today. Eisenhower was battle experienced military general, not far from [if not the] pinnacle of practice. Eisenhower saw USSR soldiers, and the history of the guerilla war on Nazi occupied territory was well known. As long as few Soviet soldiers or even just some general population survive the atomic bombing ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Dead_Men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Dead_Men: "Over twelve battalions of the 11th Landwehr Division, making up more than 7000 men, advanced after the bombardment expecting little resistance. They were met at the first defense line by a counter-charge made up of the surviving soldiers of the 13th Company of the 226th Infantry Regiment. The Germans became panicked by the appearance of the Russians, who were coughing up blood and bits of their own lungs, as the hydrochloric acid formed by the mix of the chlorine gas and the moisture in their lungs had begun to dissolve their flesh. The Germans retreated, running so fast they were caught up in their own c-wire traps.[1]"
- Koshkin 5y ago
  However impressive, this would only work in the case of occupation following the bombing. (I am not sure if there were such plans.)
  - trhway 5y ago
    that would open the game for China who was quickly coming online - until of course China is bombed too. Though no occupation could cover the territories beyond Ural Mountains, so China would become the main player either way, and much larger than it is today. Basically USSR would be like US in the "Man in the High Castle" - the part close to Europe occupied by US/NATO, large unoccupied wild middle and the huge East by China. Such configuration had already happened centuries ago - Crusading European Knights on West and Mongols on the East https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kyivan_Rus%27_1220-1240.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kyivan_Rus%27_1220-1240.p...
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    As long as there are survivors, there are enemies. With hindsight it's clear it would have been a poor choice.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
waffle_ss 5y ago
Bertrand Russell, famous logician, made essentially that argument at the time.
wonnage 5y ago
You can justify any decision with "with the knowledge at the time", it's the same as "just following orders".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
toyg 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove#Dr._Strangelove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove#Dr._Strangelov... If a film director, albeit a very gifted one, could already see in 1964 how absurd that line of reasoning really was, no hindsight was really necessary.
- canjobear 5y ago
  Intellectuals of the time loved to make fun of and satirize MAD. But the fact is it worked.
  - mannykannot 5y ago
    A preemptive strike is not MAD. MAD is what we got because cooler heads prevailed.
  - conz 5y ago
    Intellectuals of the time loved to make fun of and satirize MAD. But the fact is it worked. Intellectuals were more terrified than merely 'making fun' of Mutually Assured Destruction. Their satirising efforts where aimed at stemming the nuclear arms race and nuclear weapon proliferation. 'It worked' only in the sense that cooler heads prevailed to prevent accidental holocaust[0] and that humanity was incredibly lucky[1]. That this occurred is more than a minor miracle. [0] https://www.wjperryproject.org/books https://www.wjperryproject.org/books [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096340215611107 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00963402156111...
    - toyg 5y ago
      Even more worrying, there is no guarantee that it will ever work again in the future. MAD is not effective against people who actually want to bring about armageddon/rapture/whatever. Humanity was lucky all contenders acted in a fundamentally similar cultural framework where survival was paramount.
    - canjobear 5y ago
      The accidents and near misses show that MAD worked. People were reluctant to pull the final trigger because they knew the outcome would be catastrophic. Despite decades of serious diplomatic incidents, misunderstandings, and mishaps, there was no nuclear holocaust: this was exactly the outcome that MAD promised, and delivered.
CamperBob2 5y ago
Same with MacArthur's obsession with using nuclear weapons in North Korea. If he had been given a free hand in 1951, it's very possible that the country would be in better shape today, with less net suffering. (Well, OK, maybe don't let him create a DMZ at the Chinese border and poison it permanently with radioactive cobalt, as some accounts say he wanted to do.)
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  This is an interesting point I like to bring up. The incredible integrated suffering of the NK people at some point will surpass a single (theoretical) turning point event that MacArthur envisioned. Of course, the ends don’t justify the means, lest one uses this reasoning to destroy everyone you feel is about to do great harm, we are only gifted with hindsight.
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    I actually think that particular end would have justified the means, at least at the time. However, the larger effect of normalizing the use of nuclear attacks as instruments of policy would almost certainly have been worse for everyone in the long run. My guess is that the same reasoning that led von Neumann to advocate a decisive blow against the pre-H bomb Soviet Union would have led him to oppose MacArthur's ambition towards Manchuria. His position on the Korean conflict may be on record somewhere, but I haven't run across it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
blast 5y ago
It may have been rational to pre-emptively murder millions of people by dropping nuclear bombs on them? That's quite a claim. We should be eternally thankful that the political leaders of the time had the good sense not to listen to certain geniuses.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  It's the ultimate trolley problem. Is murdering a million OK if it saves 50 million? Stopping the Soviets early on, in the pre-MAD era, might actually have been worth the cost. We'll never know... and that's probably a good thing because we'd unquestionably be the bad guys in that timeline. People arguing on the Internet would accuse each other of being von Neumann instead of Hitler.

by nickff 5y ago

GDC7 5y ago

How is that possible? Even if the US bombed the USSR and prevented a counterstrike the US would have been worse off. You don't get to subtract 100M people out of 2.7B , the 2nd country in GDP and expect things to remain as they were before. Also the entire world would have reacted, anticipating that they too were going to be nuked as soon as they did something which would have even remotely alerted paranoid Uncle Sam.

qersist3nce 5y ago
> Also the entire world would have reacted Hard no. No one "reacted" after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were glassed.
- GDC7 5y ago
  In fact they reacted before. With spies inside Project Manhattan. Both the UK and USSR reacted with what they could, meaning their intelligence and espionage. It's kind of a selection bias considering that the only country capable of building the Atomic Bomb was the US.
  - radicalbyte 5y ago
    The UK provided key expertise to the Manhattan Project, so to say that they were "spying" is not fair. The UK bomb project had been going on for longer, and making it a joint US/UK project sped up development.
    - aerostable_slug 5y ago
      Members of the UK delegation were spies for the Soviets, and other members looked as hard as they could to find advantage for their own country. I certainly do not look askance upon the latter, and would have done the same. I don't think anyone doubts the contributions our British friends made to the success of the project.
nickff 5y ago
>"Even if the US bombed the USSR and prevented a counterstrike the US would have been worse off." Von Neumann may have been advocating for a strike before the Soviets had operational nuclear capabilities. >"You don't get to subtract 100M people out of 2.7B , the 2nd country in GDP and expect things to remain as they were before." It is unlikely that an American nuclear strike would have wiped out the entire population of the Soviet Union; one would expect a targeted strike on critical government and army facilities, or something like what happened against the Japanese. >"Also the entire world would have reacted, anticipating that they too were going to be nuked as soon as they did something which would have even remotely alerted paranoid Uncle Sam. " The rest of the world didn't conquer and subjugate all of Eastern Europe, then steal from them and kidnap people in large numbers.
- WitCanStain 5y ago
  It's interesting to appeal to the plight of Eastern Europeans given that they were also on the list of targets. The Soviets are harming Eastern Europeans, we must nuke the Eastern Europeans!
- GDC7 5y ago
  > It is unlikely that an American nuclear strike would have wiped out the entire population of the Soviet Union; one would expect a targeted strike on critical government and army facilities, or something like what happened against the Japanese. USSR lion share of the population is/was in Moscow and St. Petersburg. A decapitation strike would have killed many in those 2 cities for sure. Add the fires, the confusion, the famine and the fact that you must followup with an invasion because nukes radiations dissipate fast and other countries around would see it as a huge opportunity to expand. It's easy to imagine the countries of the Marshall plan abandon said plan and saying "screw it! We'll get the eastward land instead" 100M is not far fetched. > The rest of the world didn't conquer and subjugate all of Eastern Europe, then steal from them and kidnap people in large numbers. The US is magnanimous . Meaning like some guy who got out of the hood and lets it slide when somebody dents his Ferrari. Had that person missed on a lucky break and still be in the hood, his reaction would be very different and much more violent , and it doesn't even need to be a Ferrari, just a light fender bender on a Civic will cause trouble. The US is magnanimous because of its standards of living , not the other way around.
tashoecraft 5y ago
You have to understand where Von Nuemann came from to see why he wanted to initiate a first strike prior to the USSR developing nuclear weapons. He lost lots of family and friends due to the nazis. He saw his people get slaughtered due to a nation with crazy ideology being technically superior. He never wanted to be put in that situation again and worked on the Manhattan project because he believed in the USA. He viewed the USSR as another threat just like the nazis. For many it seemed like a guarantee that war would happen. Many also claimed that early attack could save lives. I’m not here to claim what he felt was right, but given the environment and conditions he lived through, I don’t pretend that I wouldn’t hold similar views given the circumstances.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  We do not in fact have to entertain the idle thoughts of people advocating a holocaust bigger than hitler's (whom the ussr defeated).
  - corndoge 5y ago
    Who are you replying to? Or are you just choosing to take the most inhospitable interpretation of the parent, rather than the one that makes sense?
    - tehjoker 5y ago
      In what world do we need to consider whether killing 100M people is okay? There is no such world.
      - tashoecraft 5y ago
        That would be if the US bombed every single inch of Russia. There was not that capability for a while. Not saying killing any people is okay, let alone millions or hundred million. But I don't believe the intention of a strategic first strike on the USSR was to kill every person. Knocking out 1/2 cities would have accomplished their goals, resulting in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in their mind saving more millions from the believed inevitable global nuclear WW3. Again, not saying it's justified, you're just viewing this from the future where you can see the outcome.

trhway 5y ago

that is the difference between theory and practice. Von Neuman is a genius of theory, and the idea of atomic bombing of USSR into oblivion has significant theoretical appeal even with hindsight of today. Eisenhower was battle experienced military general, not far from [if not the] pinnacle of practice. Eisenhower saw USSR soldiers, and the history of the guerilla war on Nazi occupied territory was well known. As long as few Soviet soldiers or even just some general population survive the atomic bombing ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Dead_Men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Dead_Men: "Over twelve battalions of the 11th Landwehr Division, making up more than 7000 men, advanced after the bombardment expecting little resistance. They were met at the first defense line by a counter-charge made up of the surviving soldiers of the 13th Company of the 226th Infantry Regiment. The Germans became panicked by the appearance of the Russians, who were coughing up blood and bits of their own lungs, as the hydrochloric acid formed by the mix of the chlorine gas and the moisture in their lungs had begun to dissolve their flesh. The Germans retreated, running so fast they were caught up in their own c-wire traps.[1]"

Koshkin 5y ago
However impressive, this would only work in the case of occupation following the bombing. (I am not sure if there were such plans.)
- trhway 5y ago
  that would open the game for China who was quickly coming online - until of course China is bombed too. Though no occupation could cover the territories beyond Ural Mountains, so China would become the main player either way, and much larger than it is today. Basically USSR would be like US in the "Man in the High Castle" - the part close to Europe occupied by US/NATO, large unoccupied wild middle and the huge East by China. Such configuration had already happened centuries ago - Crusading European Knights on West and Mongols on the East https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kyivan_Rus%27_1220-1240.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kyivan_Rus%27_1220-1240.p...
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  As long as there are survivors, there are enemies. With hindsight it's clear it would have been a poor choice.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

waffle_ss 5y ago

Bertrand Russell, famous logician, made essentially that argument at the time.

wonnage 5y ago

You can justify any decision with "with the knowledge at the time", it's the same as "just following orders".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

toyg 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove#Dr._Strangelove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove#Dr._Strangelov... If a film director, albeit a very gifted one, could already see in 1964 how absurd that line of reasoning really was, no hindsight was really necessary.

canjobear 5y ago
Intellectuals of the time loved to make fun of and satirize MAD. But the fact is it worked.
- mannykannot 5y ago
  A preemptive strike is not MAD. MAD is what we got because cooler heads prevailed.
- conz 5y ago
  Intellectuals of the time loved to make fun of and satirize MAD. But the fact is it worked. Intellectuals were more terrified than merely 'making fun' of Mutually Assured Destruction. Their satirising efforts where aimed at stemming the nuclear arms race and nuclear weapon proliferation. 'It worked' only in the sense that cooler heads prevailed to prevent accidental holocaust[0] and that humanity was incredibly lucky[1]. That this occurred is more than a minor miracle. [0] https://www.wjperryproject.org/books https://www.wjperryproject.org/books [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096340215611107 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00963402156111...
  - toyg 5y ago
    Even more worrying, there is no guarantee that it will ever work again in the future. MAD is not effective against people who actually want to bring about armageddon/rapture/whatever. Humanity was lucky all contenders acted in a fundamentally similar cultural framework where survival was paramount.
  - canjobear 5y ago
    The accidents and near misses show that MAD worked. People were reluctant to pull the final trigger because they knew the outcome would be catastrophic. Despite decades of serious diplomatic incidents, misunderstandings, and mishaps, there was no nuclear holocaust: this was exactly the outcome that MAD promised, and delivered.

CamperBob2 5y ago

Same with MacArthur's obsession with using nuclear weapons in North Korea. If he had been given a free hand in 1951, it's very possible that the country would be in better shape today, with less net suffering. (Well, OK, maybe don't let him create a DMZ at the Chinese border and poison it permanently with radioactive cobalt, as some accounts say he wanted to do.)

mensetmanusman 5y ago
This is an interesting point I like to bring up. The incredible integrated suffering of the NK people at some point will surpass a single (theoretical) turning point event that MacArthur envisioned. Of course, the ends don’t justify the means, lest one uses this reasoning to destroy everyone you feel is about to do great harm, we are only gifted with hindsight.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  I actually think that particular end would have justified the means, at least at the time. However, the larger effect of normalizing the use of nuclear attacks as instruments of policy would almost certainly have been worse for everyone in the long run. My guess is that the same reasoning that led von Neumann to advocate a decisive blow against the pre-H bomb Soviet Union would have led him to oppose MacArthur's ambition towards Manchuria. His position on the Korean conflict may be on record somewhere, but I haven't run across it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

blast 5y ago

It may have been rational to pre-emptively murder millions of people by dropping nuclear bombs on them? That's quite a claim. We should be eternally thankful that the political leaders of the time had the good sense not to listen to certain geniuses.

CamperBob2 5y ago
It's the ultimate trolley problem. Is murdering a million OK if it saves 50 million? Stopping the Soviets early on, in the pre-MAD era, might actually have been worth the cost. We'll never know... and that's probably a good thing because we'd unquestionably be the bad guys in that timeline. People arguing on the Internet would accuse each other of being von Neumann instead of Hitler.