Why did we build nuclear weapons? Even knowing that they could potentially annihilate humanity - indeed, that was the point. Because if we didn't, Nazi German

Why did we build nuclear weapons? Even knowing that they could potentially annihilate humanity - indeed, that was the point. Because if we didn't, Nazi Germany would've, and then we would've been the ones annihilated. History has a shape, and that shape is largely dictated by science, technology, and game theory. Whenever a technology gets discovered that gives its controllers a significant advantage over others, and its discovery is obvious enough that it could likely have been discovered elsewhere, you have to adopt it. Otherwise, others will, and gain enough of an advantage over you to threaten your existence. There's a reason that the permanent members of the UN Security Council are the U.S, Russia, China, Britain, and France, and that Germany and Japan are not on it. Similar dynamics are why we still have arms races; climate change; lying & exaggeration; corruption; profiteering; and privatization. For more thoughts on this, you might want to check out this SlateStarCodex blogpost: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ It's tempting to look at a situation as a whole and say "This is bad for everyone. Why are we doing it?" without looking at the incentives and levers of control for each of the individual actors. Sometimes, these people even resolve to not engage in the bad behavior themselves, not realizing that not engaging in the bad behavior is marginalizing themselves out of the discourse, and that's why bad behavior persists.