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The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat,

The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat, under any circumstances.

OgsyedIE 1y ago
I totally disagree about the difficulty of describing horror, since the linked article is one of many to have received critical acclaim for providing quality descriptions of WW2 experiences (my recommendation is 1952's The Naked Island). Agree about the necessity of the never again stuff though, even though we've been failing at that continuously.
- jwilber 1y ago
  Well, op may be making the point that even the best description of horror is little compared to experiencing it. Watching a video of the horror itself (e.g. combat footage, a beheading, open-heart surgery) pales in comparison to experiencing it firsthand.
prmph 1y ago
Man, the whole war was horrific. The Japanese did things that were arguably even more horrific than the bomb; read up on unit 731 and the rape of Nanjing. I'm sure those who experienced those things would have far preferred dying in a flash. The German did the holocaust, Babi Yar, etc. The Allies did various fire-bombings. The current singular taboo around nuclear weapons kind of misses how destructive and horrific the whole war was. This was total war on a scale that is hard to imagine today. To be fair modern nuclear weapons pack a punch that far exceed those atoms bombs.
ricksunny 1y ago
Any global consensus on avoiding repeating this low point in human history needs to acknowledge the prime movers behind birthing the bomb into existence in the first place. Much ink has been spilt debating morality, but on the raw mechanics the historians are in alignment with each other - doesn't matter if you ask Richard Rhodes, Robert S Norris, or Alex Wellerstein: Vannevar Bush, more than any single individual, scientist or non-scientist, stands at the center of the bureaucratic decision to feasibility-test the fission chain reaction. https://www.jstor.org/stable/233904 https://www.jstor.org/stable/233904 (compsci & s/w engineers can love VB all they want for As We May Think, but the man had some serious and arguably unnecessary blood in the short term, and decades of existential fear in the long term, on his hands. The silence of his legacy has been far too effective at ducking popular criticism of his role in history) If humanity ever chooses to avoid creating yet-to-be-developed doomsday devices in humanity's future, while _still_ harvesting benefits of new R&D (viz. nuclear power plant energy), it needs to 'debug' the social epistemology around the Advisory Committee on Uranium / Uranium Committee (leading to S-1 under the NDRC). edit: added 'in the short term, and decades of existential fear in the long term'
- InTheArena 1y ago
  In any moral framework that does not include perfect knowledge of the future, the nuclear bomb is morally defensible at worst, and morally required at best. Sheer number of lives saved? The Nuclear Bomb ended the war. Number of Japanese lives saved? Nuclear bomb wins. The "non-violent" option of a blockade? It would have resulted in millions dead. The Japanese farming system completely collapsed in 1944. Many still starved even after the surrender, as the allies rushed to get food and aid to Japan. What about a pure Soviet entry into the war? You have to look at what happened to Poland and Eastern Europe when the Soviet army invaded. Once again, by any metric, this was the best possible outcome at the time. But it was unquestionably a local maximum - the best solution at the time, with horrific consequences afterward.
  - ricksunny 1y ago
    That's the pitfall these discussions invariably fall into - debating the morality of deploying rather than the wisdom of developing a capacity in the first place. The primary justification for secretly studying the feasibility of the fission chain reaction was the fear that Germany (not Japan) might be developing an atomic bomb of their own (an early form of the subsequent Cold War's 'can't prove a negative' about what weapons the Soviets might be developing).
- baud147258 1y ago
  > unnecessary blood on his hands While the debate on the bomb is not and never will be settled, I'm not sure I'd call the bloodshed caused by Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be unnecessary: it ended up a war that had caused so far millions of death. And what social epistemology, actually?
  - ricksunny 1y ago
    >I'm not sure I'd call ... Indeed it would have been better for me to focus on the decades of existential fear rather than the immediate bloodshed because, as demonstrated, the debate descended straight to the usual about the morality of dropping the bomb in WWII. >And what social epistemology, actually? Karl Compton and Leo Szilard whispering in Vannevar Bush's ear about the threat that the prospective threat that a German atomic bomb would pose. Vannevar would later make the case that the physicists would have done these feasibility tests anyways with or without his support, but this is a (somewhat biased) counterfactual and therefore incapable of being evaluated. The whole episode demonstrates that it is by responding affirmatively to the 'choice to learn' - in this case whether a unique embodiment of already known physical properties is _really_ feasible - which finds us crossing the technological Rubicon of runaway doomsday device development. Vannevar would go on to defend his actions in saying that it was good that such a horrific capacity was demonstrated in such a 'spectacular' way. His words in his autobiography, "Pieces of the Action" strive to cement the legacy of his gift to the world: "The advent of the A-bomb is generally regarded as a catastrophe for civilization. I am not convinced that it was. With the pace of science in this present century it was inevitable that means of mass destruction should appear. Since the concept of one world under law is far in the future, it was also inevitable that great states should face one another thus armed. If there were no A-bombs the confrontation would still have occurred, and the means might well have been to spread among a a people a disease for a chemical that would kill or render impotent the whole population. History may well conclude, if history is written a century from now, that it was well that the inevitable confrontation came in a spectacular way that all could recognize, rather than in a subtle form which might tempt aggression through ignorance. At least we all know, we and the rest of the world, that there are A-bombs and what they can do."
socalgal2 1y ago
Why is this special? The Japanese killed ~7 million Chinese, 0.5 to 1 million Filipinos, 500k in Korea, you can keep adding them up. Then Japan loses 0.2% of all their atrocities and it's the worst thing ever? No, it's not the worst thing ever, not even close. Sure, we'd all like it to never happen again. But if I had to pick one thing not happening again I'd pick saving all others that died in WW2 over this one incident. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU There's also the argument that it saved more lives than the deaths it caused. The same can not be said for Japan's atrocities.
- Deanoumean 1y ago
  The reason this is special is because no one else used a nuclear bomb, before this event or after. That's basically the definition of "special" and the number of Chinese that the Japanese killed has nothing to do with it. Picking anything other than the nuclear bomb to never happen again is moronic because the planet can survive the other things, but if nukes were to start flying again, it would most likely not end with just two. Other countries have those weapons now too and such a war has the potential to be last one ever fought.
- sidcool 1y ago
  Now do Iraq numbers and self reflect.
  - socalgal2 1y ago
    what does this have to do with anything? All such deaths are bad. My point is A-Bomb deaths are not worse than non A-Bomb deaths.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
throw0101d 1y ago
> The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat, under any circumstances. Lower than the Holodomor? Lower than Dresden or Tokyo fire bombings? Lower than the Holocaust? Lower than Unit 731?
- emmelaich 1y ago
  Indeed! I can add "lower than the butchery and sadism of the Japanese forces in SE Asia?"
- Synaesthesia 1y ago
  It's the single worst moment in human history. Yes, those crimes were larger, but in terms of the worst instant of time, this has to take the cake.
  - throw0101d 1y ago
    > It's the single worst moment in human history. Yes, those crimes were larger, but in terms of the worst instant of time, this has to take the cake. The 9/10 March 1945 caused more death and damage as an individual event, even more than each of the atomic bombings: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194...
bongodongobob 1y ago
Yeah I'm pretty sure Stalingrad was far, far worse.
yes_really 1y ago
The fault of this event lies on Japan, not the US. Japan was the aggressor who started the war. Japan was "fighting to the end" and gave no indications it would surrender. It is estimated that the war would go on to 1947 had the bombs not been dropped. That would have caused the deaths of millions or tens oof million more people. It is a tragedy that people died, but the blame lies in Japan's actions, not the US'.
- JohnKemeny 1y ago
  "Look what you made me do!" By the way: that same argument is used by Netanyahu and Putin today!
  - yes_really 1y ago
    I guess technically Japan didn't "make" the US drop the bombs, they just started a war against the US and brought them into a situation where they had to choose between continuing to send millions of its soldiers to die in the the deadliest war of all time, or defending itself against the aggressor by dropping the bombs. Are you happy with that? Likewise, I guess technically Hamas didn't "make" Israel defend itself. They just fired thousands of rockets indiscriminately against Israeli civilians and launched the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, where 1200 Israelis were murdered, tortured, raped, and/or kidnapped for being Jewish, and brought Israel into a situation where it had to choose between continuing to allow for its population to be a victim of massacres threatened by a total war of annihilation, or defend itself by destroying Hamas.
    - yes_really 1y ago
      BTW: it doesn't make sene to compare to Russia. Japan obviously attacked the US. Hamas obviously attacked Israel. Ukraine did not attack Russia.

The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat, under any circumstances.

OgsyedIE 1y ago

I totally disagree about the difficulty of describing horror, since the linked article is one of many to have received critical acclaim for providing quality descriptions of WW2 experiences (my recommendation is 1952's The Naked Island). Agree about the necessity of the never again stuff though, even though we've been failing at that continuously.

jwilber 1y ago
Well, op may be making the point that even the best description of horror is little compared to experiencing it. Watching a video of the horror itself (e.g. combat footage, a beheading, open-heart surgery) pales in comparison to experiencing it firsthand.

prmph 1y ago

Man, the whole war was horrific. The Japanese did things that were arguably even more horrific than the bomb; read up on unit 731 and the rape of Nanjing. I'm sure those who experienced those things would have far preferred dying in a flash. The German did the holocaust, Babi Yar, etc. The Allies did various fire-bombings. The current singular taboo around nuclear weapons kind of misses how destructive and horrific the whole war was. This was total war on a scale that is hard to imagine today. To be fair modern nuclear weapons pack a punch that far exceed those atoms bombs.

ricksunny 1y ago

Any global consensus on avoiding repeating this low point in human history needs to acknowledge the prime movers behind birthing the bomb into existence in the first place. Much ink has been spilt debating morality, but on the raw mechanics the historians are in alignment with each other - doesn't matter if you ask Richard Rhodes, Robert S Norris, or Alex Wellerstein: Vannevar Bush, more than any single individual, scientist or non-scientist, stands at the center of the bureaucratic decision to feasibility-test the fission chain reaction. https://www.jstor.org/stable/233904 https://www.jstor.org/stable/233904 (compsci & s/w engineers can love VB all they want for As We May Think, but the man had some serious and arguably unnecessary blood in the short term, and decades of existential fear in the long term, on his hands. The silence of his legacy has been far too effective at ducking popular criticism of his role in history) If humanity ever chooses to avoid creating yet-to-be-developed doomsday devices in humanity's future, while _still_ harvesting benefits of new R&D (viz. nuclear power plant energy), it needs to 'debug' the social epistemology around the Advisory Committee on Uranium / Uranium Committee (leading to S-1 under the NDRC). edit: added 'in the short term, and decades of existential fear in the long term'

InTheArena 1y ago
In any moral framework that does not include perfect knowledge of the future, the nuclear bomb is morally defensible at worst, and morally required at best. Sheer number of lives saved? The Nuclear Bomb ended the war. Number of Japanese lives saved? Nuclear bomb wins. The "non-violent" option of a blockade? It would have resulted in millions dead. The Japanese farming system completely collapsed in 1944. Many still starved even after the surrender, as the allies rushed to get food and aid to Japan. What about a pure Soviet entry into the war? You have to look at what happened to Poland and Eastern Europe when the Soviet army invaded. Once again, by any metric, this was the best possible outcome at the time. But it was unquestionably a local maximum - the best solution at the time, with horrific consequences afterward.
- ricksunny 1y ago
  That's the pitfall these discussions invariably fall into - debating the morality of deploying rather than the wisdom of developing a capacity in the first place. The primary justification for secretly studying the feasibility of the fission chain reaction was the fear that Germany (not Japan) might be developing an atomic bomb of their own (an early form of the subsequent Cold War's 'can't prove a negative' about what weapons the Soviets might be developing).
baud147258 1y ago
> unnecessary blood on his hands While the debate on the bomb is not and never will be settled, I'm not sure I'd call the bloodshed caused by Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be unnecessary: it ended up a war that had caused so far millions of death. And what social epistemology, actually?
- ricksunny 1y ago
  >I'm not sure I'd call ... Indeed it would have been better for me to focus on the decades of existential fear rather than the immediate bloodshed because, as demonstrated, the debate descended straight to the usual about the morality of dropping the bomb in WWII. >And what social epistemology, actually? Karl Compton and Leo Szilard whispering in Vannevar Bush's ear about the threat that the prospective threat that a German atomic bomb would pose. Vannevar would later make the case that the physicists would have done these feasibility tests anyways with or without his support, but this is a (somewhat biased) counterfactual and therefore incapable of being evaluated. The whole episode demonstrates that it is by responding affirmatively to the 'choice to learn' - in this case whether a unique embodiment of already known physical properties is _really_ feasible - which finds us crossing the technological Rubicon of runaway doomsday device development. Vannevar would go on to defend his actions in saying that it was good that such a horrific capacity was demonstrated in such a 'spectacular' way. His words in his autobiography, "Pieces of the Action" strive to cement the legacy of his gift to the world: "The advent of the A-bomb is generally regarded as a catastrophe for civilization. I am not convinced that it was. With the pace of science in this present century it was inevitable that means of mass destruction should appear. Since the concept of one world under law is far in the future, it was also inevitable that great states should face one another thus armed. If there were no A-bombs the confrontation would still have occurred, and the means might well have been to spread among a a people a disease for a chemical that would kill or render impotent the whole population. History may well conclude, if history is written a century from now, that it was well that the inevitable confrontation came in a spectacular way that all could recognize, rather than in a subtle form which might tempt aggression through ignorance. At least we all know, we and the rest of the world, that there are A-bombs and what they can do."

socalgal2 1y ago

Why is this special? The Japanese killed ~7 million Chinese, 0.5 to 1 million Filipinos, 500k in Korea, you can keep adding them up. Then Japan loses 0.2% of all their atrocities and it's the worst thing ever? No, it's not the worst thing ever, not even close. Sure, we'd all like it to never happen again. But if I had to pick one thing not happening again I'd pick saving all others that died in WW2 over this one incident. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU There's also the argument that it saved more lives than the deaths it caused. The same can not be said for Japan's atrocities.

Deanoumean 1y ago
The reason this is special is because no one else used a nuclear bomb, before this event or after. That's basically the definition of "special" and the number of Chinese that the Japanese killed has nothing to do with it. Picking anything other than the nuclear bomb to never happen again is moronic because the planet can survive the other things, but if nukes were to start flying again, it would most likely not end with just two. Other countries have those weapons now too and such a war has the potential to be last one ever fought.
sidcool 1y ago
Now do Iraq numbers and self reflect.
- socalgal2 1y ago
  what does this have to do with anything? All such deaths are bad. My point is A-Bomb deaths are not worse than non A-Bomb deaths.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

throw0101d 1y ago

> The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat, under any circumstances. Lower than the Holodomor? Lower than Dresden or Tokyo fire bombings? Lower than the Holocaust? Lower than Unit 731?

emmelaich 1y ago
Indeed! I can add "lower than the butchery and sadism of the Japanese forces in SE Asia?"
Synaesthesia 1y ago
It's the single worst moment in human history. Yes, those crimes were larger, but in terms of the worst instant of time, this has to take the cake.
- throw0101d 1y ago
  > It's the single worst moment in human history. Yes, those crimes were larger, but in terms of the worst instant of time, this has to take the cake. The 9/10 March 1945 caused more death and damage as an individual event, even more than each of the atomic bombings: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194...

bongodongobob 1y ago

Yeah I'm pretty sure Stalingrad was far, far worse.

yes_really 1y ago

The fault of this event lies on Japan, not the US. Japan was the aggressor who started the war. Japan was "fighting to the end" and gave no indications it would surrender. It is estimated that the war would go on to 1947 had the bombs not been dropped. That would have caused the deaths of millions or tens oof million more people. It is a tragedy that people died, but the blame lies in Japan's actions, not the US'.

JohnKemeny 1y ago
"Look what you made me do!" By the way: that same argument is used by Netanyahu and Putin today!
- yes_really 1y ago
  I guess technically Japan didn't "make" the US drop the bombs, they just started a war against the US and brought them into a situation where they had to choose between continuing to send millions of its soldiers to die in the the deadliest war of all time, or defending itself against the aggressor by dropping the bombs. Are you happy with that? Likewise, I guess technically Hamas didn't "make" Israel defend itself. They just fired thousands of rockets indiscriminately against Israeli civilians and launched the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, where 1200 Israelis were murdered, tortured, raped, and/or kidnapped for being Jewish, and brought Israel into a situation where it had to choose between continuing to allow for its population to be a victim of massacres threatened by a total war of annihilation, or defend itself by destroying Hamas.
  - yes_really 1y ago
    BTW: it doesn't make sene to compare to Russia. Japan obviously attacked the US. Hamas obviously attacked Israel. Ukraine did not attack Russia.