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von Neumann also advocated for an immediate, surprise U.S. nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union: “If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today

by reddog 2y ago

von Neumann also advocated for an immediate, surprise U.S. nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union: “If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o’clock, I say why not one o’clock?”. According to game theory you see, it was only rational. The genius's genius.

viciousvoxel 2y ago
It's a bit funny to imagine him as so sophomoric that he really thought this was the optimal game-theoretic strategy, which is true only in the most simplistic scenario.
- jandrese 2y ago
  Reading that passage I’m not sure if he wasn’t just pointing out a danger of game theory simplifications leading people to absurd conclusions.
  - skrebbel 2y ago
    It’s well established that von Neumann wanted to kill millions of people (in the USSR), and would’ve done so had he been given the chance. That quote is not an isolated case. He was a genius with no respect for human life, he was so blindly opposed to totalitarianism of all kinds that he thought no amount of collateral damage would be too much.
    - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
      By the time of him writing this, totalitarianism killed 50 million people. After he wrote this, totalitarianism killed tens of millions more. Right now totalitarianism kills hundreds of thousands and is very likely on path to kill millions. So looks like he was on point with his math, again.
      - matthewdgreen 2y ago
        I don't know when von Neumann gave this advice (he died in 1957), but estimates of the death toll from a nuclear war in the late 1950s ranged into the hundreds of millions, and that's only from the war itself and not the lives (and opportunities) lost in the aftermath. https://thebulletin.org/2023/01/cold-war-estimates-of-deaths-in-nuclear-conflict/ https://thebulletin.org/2023/01/cold-war-estimates-of-deaths...
keiferski 2y ago
Yes, the genius hero worship can be tiring. The man was intelligent, no doubt – but that doesn’t seem to have translated into any real world ethical understanding. A good example of why “meritocratic” systems based on raw intelligence probably don’t lead to wise outcomes.
- latency-guy2 2y ago
  > but that doesn’t seem to have translated into any real world ethical understanding. Why? Ethics gets muddy, inconsistent, and nonsensical quite quickly and I am not so certain you have figured it all out compared to anyone else, so you'll find it hard for me to believe this position. von Neumann may have had a certain game theory understanding of the world at the time, and you might as well in the opposite direction today, which one is correct is still up in the air and you won't know, and maybe in fact, you will never know. von Neumann's fear was that nuclear war was inevitable and that the entire world would die from it should the communist parties of the world, especially the one that ran in the Soviet Union were maintained. I don't think he was far off given a few years after his death the Cuban missle crisis. Then the decades after with the US and Soviet Union clashing in various capacities and interfering respectively reducing each other's influence, or failing to do so. And today with the Soviet Union's successor.
  - keiferski 2y ago
    I didn’t claim to be have more ethical understanding than he did, but frankly, if his reported positions on nuclear strikes were actually what he thought, then yes, I think I do. You may think ethics is muddy and nonsensical, but guess what? So is reality. That’s the point. Reality is nuanced and more complex than a single human mind can comprehend. Extremely intelligent people (particularly at math and other abstract fields) often seem to not understand this, preferring to believe that their variation of game theory is accurate. All I can say is that I’m extremely glad that Von Neumann was in no position to launch weapons. Analysis has its limits.
    - latency-guy2 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
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batushka3 2y ago
Living in once soviet ocupied country, I would rather taken nukes. The Great chance to erase the malignance missed.

by reddog 2y ago

viciousvoxel 2y ago

It's a bit funny to imagine him as so sophomoric that he really thought this was the optimal game-theoretic strategy, which is true only in the most simplistic scenario.

jandrese 2y ago
Reading that passage I’m not sure if he wasn’t just pointing out a danger of game theory simplifications leading people to absurd conclusions.
- skrebbel 2y ago
  It’s well established that von Neumann wanted to kill millions of people (in the USSR), and would’ve done so had he been given the chance. That quote is not an isolated case. He was a genius with no respect for human life, he was so blindly opposed to totalitarianism of all kinds that he thought no amount of collateral damage would be too much.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
    By the time of him writing this, totalitarianism killed 50 million people. After he wrote this, totalitarianism killed tens of millions more. Right now totalitarianism kills hundreds of thousands and is very likely on path to kill millions. So looks like he was on point with his math, again.
    - matthewdgreen 2y ago
      I don't know when von Neumann gave this advice (he died in 1957), but estimates of the death toll from a nuclear war in the late 1950s ranged into the hundreds of millions, and that's only from the war itself and not the lives (and opportunities) lost in the aftermath. https://thebulletin.org/2023/01/cold-war-estimates-of-deaths-in-nuclear-conflict/ https://thebulletin.org/2023/01/cold-war-estimates-of-deaths...

keiferski 2y ago

Yes, the genius hero worship can be tiring. The man was intelligent, no doubt – but that doesn’t seem to have translated into any real world ethical understanding. A good example of why “meritocratic” systems based on raw intelligence probably don’t lead to wise outcomes.

latency-guy2 2y ago
> but that doesn’t seem to have translated into any real world ethical understanding. Why? Ethics gets muddy, inconsistent, and nonsensical quite quickly and I am not so certain you have figured it all out compared to anyone else, so you'll find it hard for me to believe this position. von Neumann may have had a certain game theory understanding of the world at the time, and you might as well in the opposite direction today, which one is correct is still up in the air and you won't know, and maybe in fact, you will never know. von Neumann's fear was that nuclear war was inevitable and that the entire world would die from it should the communist parties of the world, especially the one that ran in the Soviet Union were maintained. I don't think he was far off given a few years after his death the Cuban missle crisis. Then the decades after with the US and Soviet Union clashing in various capacities and interfering respectively reducing each other's influence, or failing to do so. And today with the Soviet Union's successor.
- keiferski 2y ago
  I didn’t claim to be have more ethical understanding than he did, but frankly, if his reported positions on nuclear strikes were actually what he thought, then yes, I think I do. You may think ethics is muddy and nonsensical, but guess what? So is reality. That’s the point. Reality is nuanced and more complex than a single human mind can comprehend. Extremely intelligent people (particularly at math and other abstract fields) often seem to not understand this, preferring to believe that their variation of game theory is accurate. All I can say is that I’m extremely glad that Von Neumann was in no position to launch weapons. Analysis has its limits.
  - latency-guy2 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

batushka3 2y ago

Living in once soviet ocupied country, I would rather taken nukes. The Great chance to erase the malignance missed.