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> If the Nazis won WWII, don’t you think it would be worth at least considering using nuclear weapons in a war to destroy their regime before they developed a c
by sillysaurusx 5y ago
> If the Nazis won WWII, don’t you think it would be worth at least considering using nuclear weapons in a war to destroy their regime before they developed a competitive nuclear arsenal of their own? Or would you have argued for coexistence with them?
That's a fascinating question. I'm not sure what to say.
EDIT: Ah, my response is "That's an unfair comparison." The context was that Von Neumann was advocating the extermination of the Russian population, not their regime. I agree that it would be worth considering the strategic options at the time, but that the strategic options should not include the extermination of the entire German population.
- erosenbe0 5y agoVon Neumann was ethnically Jewish and his relatives or friends literally went from respected citizens to extermination in unfathomably short order; so one would not be surprised if his calculus pertaining to collateral damage in decimating the Nazis would be rather unforgiving.
- sudosysgen 5y agoThat's an explanation, but it's still wrong. It's a very dangerous thing to justify ethnic revanchism.
- erosenbe0 5y agoDefinitely does not make for justification but I am helping us understand why [hopefully hyperbolic] comments of a political nature by Von Neumann [or other Jewish contemporaries] are often rather objectionable by universal or nominal moral standards.
- philwelch 5y ago> The context was that Von Neumann was advocating the extermination of the Russian population, not their regime. I don't think that's accurate. 1950 was before hydrogen bombs.