5 ms·

Better they keep a cadre of smart people who can do this stuff than lose the institutional knowledge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank https://en.m.wiki

Better they keep a cadre of smart people who can do this stuff than lose the institutional knowledge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank

rtpg 4y ago
Or one could choose to not do any further nuclear weapons research. I understand that is not the marching orders of the US government but it could be, and it could also be a choice made by individuals on the ground.
- golergka 4y ago
  And make the world a much less safer place? Why would anyone in their right mind do such a thing?
  - rtpg 4y ago
    With existing nuclear weapons the US could easily wreck large population centers very easily. They also completely destroy a nations infrastructure. Blowing up population centers of course would be a case of indiscriminate bombing and kill tens of thousands of civilians. In WW2, even before dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US committed to a large bombing campaign that completely destroyed the country. The damage was so vast and total that the Japanese government did not even register Hiroshima to be unusual! Around that time other cities were also being razed to the ground, it just took more bombs to do so. During that war, in Europe and in Japan there were large bombing campaigns that indiscriminately killed many civilians. I find it hard to justify this (no, "they were doing the same" does not actually feel like a legitimate reason, especially when the narrative nowadays is that it was a battle between good and evil) Low-yield tactical nukes seem to be playing with the idea of being able to have this option to massacre people more easily and play around with the idea of using nukes with no consequence. Higher-yield nukes seem to serve the purpose of more effectively wiping chunks of a city from a map. What magical weapon are we looking for that will make the world safer, and that accomplishes strategic objectives that are not already covered by both the existing nuclear arsenal and the conventional weapons of the US? Remember, normal bombs actually do things too! Meanwhile, actual, legitimate No First Use policies would be much more effective at making the world a safer place. Stronger treaties to reduce nuclear arsenals, giving militaries less space to just push other countries around.
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      > I find it hard to justify this What would you have done instead to reduce their civilian casualties, under the constraints that the Allies still win the war and that Allied casualties don't increase?
      - rtpg 4y ago
        [0] is a critique of Gladwell's book about those bombing campaigns. I do not believe it will have all the answers for you, but there is one component of truth: The US was looking for an unconditional surrender for Japan. That was a choice. Unconditional surrender in Japan lead to the US occupational government for 9 years (along with over 20 years occupation of Okinawa, which had to be pried out of the hands of the US military, who wanted to indefinitely keep it as a colony). Now, I'm not going to cry over Nazis or the Japanese military not being able to get a conditional surrender. But Japan is especially stark: except for a handful of high profile executions, not only did most decision makers not face punishment, many of them ended up back in the government and as heads of state. All of this more or less at the behest of the US. What is my point? The US chose to reach for an unconditional surrender, for some pretty realpolitik objectives, prolonging the suffering of the civilians on the ground. There is decent documentation that part of this is so that the US could determine surrender conditions rather than the USSR. There is an alternate universe of a negotiated surrender that shortened the Pacific front. What does that universe look like? I do not know. It probably would not have lead to the US having military bases all over the country. But conditional surrenders are the norm in wars. Air campaigns allow for militaries to just decide "no, we will just continue to attack forever, as we suffer few casualties anyway". [0]: https://thebaffler.com/latest/narrative-napalm-kulwin https://thebaffler.com/latest/narrative-napalm-kulwin
        panick21_ 4y ago
        The US basically did what no losing power ever think would happen. They do unconditionally surrender but then the US enforced pretty damn easy terms on them. Given that they let the emperor continue, they might as well have just allowed surrender with the promise the emperor would remain. But of course that choice was not made at that point. An what I think people need to consider is that all of WW2 basically happened because the allies did not force unconditional surrender on Germany in WW1. A mistake that many wanted to avoid. Of course famously Wilson debated this question with Henry Cabot Lodge and that disagreement is a huge part in the US rejecting Versailles. Wilson justified himself by basically formulating the two Germans theory, ie there is the evil militaristic Prussian Germany and the good German people. Henry Cabot Lodge didn't buy that. Sean McMeekin in his new book makes the point that FDR announced the unconditional surrender doctrine basically to placate Stalin and did it basically without fully coordinating that with the British. Attempting to offer the German military some sort of deal that would have made them remove the Nazis prevent Eastern Europe falling to Communism would have been a better policy. That is of course very controversial. And if I have learned one thing, its that unconditional surrender is always a incredibly hot issue with people passionately arguing both sides.
- mlindner 4y ago
  That'd require the likes of China to also want to do that. And there's no hope of that.
  - rtpg 4y ago
    China has an explicit No First Use policy. It also has a nuclear arsenal that is more than 10x smaller than the US. You might say that China has a secret huge arsenal. The US might have comparable things! And even among the assumed amount of 350 warheads, a lot of damage can be done. The US can do a lot of this as well! There is a nuclear triad on both sides. Perhaps the No First Use policy is a lie. It is not a law of physics. But it is something. It is a posture that makes it harder for a nation to navigate in some liminal space that makes defensive and offensive posturing look exactly the same. But the main point of course is that the current state of affairs is already amazingly powerful. What more do people want from their nukes? In what universe is 1500 deployed warheads (out of a stockpile of 5000) not enough to accomplish any sort of strategic objective? There have been many conflicts where 0 has been enough
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      The point is that we need to maintain that stockpile and knowledge. If the US abandons its nuclear capability, there is nothing to hold others to their no first strike policy.
      - rtpg 4y ago
        Definitely. I was likely being too glib in my response here, and wasn't trying to say to throw all the nukes into the trash. I think that it is possible to maintain an existing set of weapons without trying to continue pushing the envelope towards even more destructive weapons, and that 5000 is a lot/enough.
        RhodesianHunter 4y ago
        We stopped trying to get more destructive a long time ago. Modern weapons are smaller than they were at their peak. If anything I'd image modern research is more interested in things like precision, collateral damage reduction, etc.
- benreesman 4y ago
  I mean, all that game theory that the RAND corporation (and whatever their Soviet counterparts were called) seems to have worked out so far. I think you’d need some pretty well-qualified people to crunch the numbers before just, winging it with something different. Given the stakes and all.
  - sneak 4y ago
    It worked out only because Stanislav Petrov decided to ignore it all and violate orders.
    - RhodesianHunter 4y ago
      Which is kind of the point. Everyone involved in the process from the leader at the top making the call, to the individuals manning the silos, has to make a conscious decision to end the world.
      - sneak 4y ago
        No, the point of mutually assured destruction is to ensure that retaliation is credible and even perhaps automated. You seem to have it backwards. The only reason we are alive is because the designed system that was built failed following a computer error. The point was to respond.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      It's observer selection bias. We're preferentially in a universe where global nuclear war didn't happen.
- noobermin 4y ago
  Regarding chalking things down to "personal choice," the pool of scientists is large enough and the pool of permanent staff positions small enough that there will always be scientists willing to make the "personal choice" to do weapons research. That's the thing about "personal choices," someone somewhere, under the right conditions will make the "personal choice" to do something. If you want people to stop making bad "personal choices," change the underlying situation or the politics. Societies and the world do not run on personal choices. Sometimes personal choices matter and can have reverberations throughout society, but assuming society can function on an accumulation of personal choices is a child's way of viewing the world. If you want to change something you find disagreeable, influence policy makers or somehow figure out how to change the academic landscape in America (which probably means you again need to influence policy makers). Otherwise, you'll keep finding more scientists making the "personal choice" to develop weapons for uncle sam.
  - rtpg 4y ago
    I fail to see how the fact that other people might be willing to do this research changes the ethical propositions at play. You are responsible for your research! Especially when you know what it is going to be used for. Refusing to do the research yourself might not stop it, but you refusing loudly, and convincing a couple people around you to not do so, adds up over time! You are of course correct that the best thing is to institutionally change things. But the institutional changes are usually pushed for due to actual public pressure.
    - dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
      >but you refusing loudly, and convincing a couple people around you to not do so, adds up over time! No, it doesn't. But the time you convince someone (if you do), there are 5 more people that you now have to convince who weren't on the scene before.

Better they keep a cadre of smart people who can do this stuff than lose the institutional knowledge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank

rtpg 4y ago

Or one could choose to not do any further nuclear weapons research. I understand that is not the marching orders of the US government but it could be, and it could also be a choice made by individuals on the ground.

golergka 4y ago
And make the world a much less safer place? Why would anyone in their right mind do such a thing?
- rtpg 4y ago
  With existing nuclear weapons the US could easily wreck large population centers very easily. They also completely destroy a nations infrastructure. Blowing up population centers of course would be a case of indiscriminate bombing and kill tens of thousands of civilians. In WW2, even before dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US committed to a large bombing campaign that completely destroyed the country. The damage was so vast and total that the Japanese government did not even register Hiroshima to be unusual! Around that time other cities were also being razed to the ground, it just took more bombs to do so. During that war, in Europe and in Japan there were large bombing campaigns that indiscriminately killed many civilians. I find it hard to justify this (no, "they were doing the same" does not actually feel like a legitimate reason, especially when the narrative nowadays is that it was a battle between good and evil) Low-yield tactical nukes seem to be playing with the idea of being able to have this option to massacre people more easily and play around with the idea of using nukes with no consequence. Higher-yield nukes seem to serve the purpose of more effectively wiping chunks of a city from a map. What magical weapon are we looking for that will make the world safer, and that accomplishes strategic objectives that are not already covered by both the existing nuclear arsenal and the conventional weapons of the US? Remember, normal bombs actually do things too! Meanwhile, actual, legitimate No First Use policies would be much more effective at making the world a safer place. Stronger treaties to reduce nuclear arsenals, giving militaries less space to just push other countries around.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    > I find it hard to justify this What would you have done instead to reduce their civilian casualties, under the constraints that the Allies still win the war and that Allied casualties don't increase?
    - rtpg 4y ago
      [0] is a critique of Gladwell's book about those bombing campaigns. I do not believe it will have all the answers for you, but there is one component of truth: The US was looking for an unconditional surrender for Japan. That was a choice. Unconditional surrender in Japan lead to the US occupational government for 9 years (along with over 20 years occupation of Okinawa, which had to be pried out of the hands of the US military, who wanted to indefinitely keep it as a colony). Now, I'm not going to cry over Nazis or the Japanese military not being able to get a conditional surrender. But Japan is especially stark: except for a handful of high profile executions, not only did most decision makers not face punishment, many of them ended up back in the government and as heads of state. All of this more or less at the behest of the US. What is my point? The US chose to reach for an unconditional surrender, for some pretty realpolitik objectives, prolonging the suffering of the civilians on the ground. There is decent documentation that part of this is so that the US could determine surrender conditions rather than the USSR. There is an alternate universe of a negotiated surrender that shortened the Pacific front. What does that universe look like? I do not know. It probably would not have lead to the US having military bases all over the country. But conditional surrenders are the norm in wars. Air campaigns allow for militaries to just decide "no, we will just continue to attack forever, as we suffer few casualties anyway". [0]: https://thebaffler.com/latest/narrative-napalm-kulwin https://thebaffler.com/latest/narrative-napalm-kulwin
      - panick21_ 4y ago
        The US basically did what no losing power ever think would happen. They do unconditionally surrender but then the US enforced pretty damn easy terms on them. Given that they let the emperor continue, they might as well have just allowed surrender with the promise the emperor would remain. But of course that choice was not made at that point. An what I think people need to consider is that all of WW2 basically happened because the allies did not force unconditional surrender on Germany in WW1. A mistake that many wanted to avoid. Of course famously Wilson debated this question with Henry Cabot Lodge and that disagreement is a huge part in the US rejecting Versailles. Wilson justified himself by basically formulating the two Germans theory, ie there is the evil militaristic Prussian Germany and the good German people. Henry Cabot Lodge didn't buy that. Sean McMeekin in his new book makes the point that FDR announced the unconditional surrender doctrine basically to placate Stalin and did it basically without fully coordinating that with the British. Attempting to offer the German military some sort of deal that would have made them remove the Nazis prevent Eastern Europe falling to Communism would have been a better policy. That is of course very controversial. And if I have learned one thing, its that unconditional surrender is always a incredibly hot issue with people passionately arguing both sides.
mlindner 4y ago
That'd require the likes of China to also want to do that. And there's no hope of that.
- rtpg 4y ago
  China has an explicit No First Use policy. It also has a nuclear arsenal that is more than 10x smaller than the US. You might say that China has a secret huge arsenal. The US might have comparable things! And even among the assumed amount of 350 warheads, a lot of damage can be done. The US can do a lot of this as well! There is a nuclear triad on both sides. Perhaps the No First Use policy is a lie. It is not a law of physics. But it is something. It is a posture that makes it harder for a nation to navigate in some liminal space that makes defensive and offensive posturing look exactly the same. But the main point of course is that the current state of affairs is already amazingly powerful. What more do people want from their nukes? In what universe is 1500 deployed warheads (out of a stockpile of 5000) not enough to accomplish any sort of strategic objective? There have been many conflicts where 0 has been enough
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    The point is that we need to maintain that stockpile and knowledge. If the US abandons its nuclear capability, there is nothing to hold others to their no first strike policy.
    - rtpg 4y ago
      Definitely. I was likely being too glib in my response here, and wasn't trying to say to throw all the nukes into the trash. I think that it is possible to maintain an existing set of weapons without trying to continue pushing the envelope towards even more destructive weapons, and that 5000 is a lot/enough.
      - RhodesianHunter 4y ago
        We stopped trying to get more destructive a long time ago. Modern weapons are smaller than they were at their peak. If anything I'd image modern research is more interested in things like precision, collateral damage reduction, etc.
benreesman 4y ago
I mean, all that game theory that the RAND corporation (and whatever their Soviet counterparts were called) seems to have worked out so far. I think you’d need some pretty well-qualified people to crunch the numbers before just, winging it with something different. Given the stakes and all.
- sneak 4y ago
  It worked out only because Stanislav Petrov decided to ignore it all and violate orders.
  - RhodesianHunter 4y ago
    Which is kind of the point. Everyone involved in the process from the leader at the top making the call, to the individuals manning the silos, has to make a conscious decision to end the world.
    - sneak 4y ago
      No, the point of mutually assured destruction is to ensure that retaliation is credible and even perhaps automated. You seem to have it backwards. The only reason we are alive is because the designed system that was built failed following a computer error. The point was to respond.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    It's observer selection bias. We're preferentially in a universe where global nuclear war didn't happen.
noobermin 4y ago
Regarding chalking things down to "personal choice," the pool of scientists is large enough and the pool of permanent staff positions small enough that there will always be scientists willing to make the "personal choice" to do weapons research. That's the thing about "personal choices," someone somewhere, under the right conditions will make the "personal choice" to do something. If you want people to stop making bad "personal choices," change the underlying situation or the politics. Societies and the world do not run on personal choices. Sometimes personal choices matter and can have reverberations throughout society, but assuming society can function on an accumulation of personal choices is a child's way of viewing the world. If you want to change something you find disagreeable, influence policy makers or somehow figure out how to change the academic landscape in America (which probably means you again need to influence policy makers). Otherwise, you'll keep finding more scientists making the "personal choice" to develop weapons for uncle sam.
- rtpg 4y ago
  I fail to see how the fact that other people might be willing to do this research changes the ethical propositions at play. You are responsible for your research! Especially when you know what it is going to be used for. Refusing to do the research yourself might not stop it, but you refusing loudly, and convincing a couple people around you to not do so, adds up over time! You are of course correct that the best thing is to institutionally change things. But the institutional changes are usually pushed for due to actual public pressure.
  - dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
    >but you refusing loudly, and convincing a couple people around you to not do so, adds up over time! No, it doesn't. But the time you convince someone (if you do), there are 5 more people that you now have to convince who weren't on the scene before.