4 ms·

Science also creates atom bombs...

• gravitycop 18y ago
  Are atom bombs of negative value? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosions Peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) are nuclear explosions conducted for non-military purposes, such as activities related to economic development including the creation of canals. During the 1960s and 1970s, both the United States and the Soviet Union conducted a number of PNEs.
  • omarish 18y ago
    Maybe? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima
    • gravitycop 18y ago
      You didn't answer the question. There are other types of explosives and incendiaries. Like atomic explosives, none of them are intrinsically military. Hiroshima was especially vulnerable, being essentially a medieval shantytown of wooden huts. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=458599 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=458599 http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aglasstone.blogspot.com+hiroshima http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aglasstone.blogspot.com... Hiroshima: it was not 'vaporised by 6000 °C within an instant': all the wood-frame buildings burned down in a firestorm that developed 30 minutes later
      • omarish 18y ago
        I'm not sure it's possible to determine whether something is of negative value or not. You don't have to look far to read Kranzberg's Laws of Technology, one of which says "Technology is not good, nor bad, nor neutral." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kranzberg's_laws_of_technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kranzberg's_laws_of_technology I'm not denying that explosives and incendiaries cannot be used for good purposes. Like religion, science and technology have good and bad sides. But to assume only one is not looking at the whole picture.
        • gravitycop 18y ago
          Is military strength and/or its application of negative value? If military strength is of positive value, then better weapons are of positive value. Usually, nuclear weapons are better than conventional weapons. If one fails to adequately defend himself from good weapons, it is not entirely someone else's fault.
• quoderat 18y ago
  Reminds me of this Kurt Vonnegut quote: “I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a color photograph of God Almighty — and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine. Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.” —Kurt Vonnegut, Bennington College address, 1970
  • gravitycop 18y ago
    Is Vonnegut there trying to imply that the non-atomic firebombing of Dresden (and Hamburg and Tokyo) never happened? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five
    • quoderat 18y ago
      I don't see anywhere in that quote where he references those events at all. Not mentioning something (time is finite, emphasis is important) is not the same as claiming it never happened. Strange interpretation. BTW, I've read Slaughterhouse Five about a dozen times or so.
      • gravitycop 18y ago
        It's odd that he would pick Hiroshima as his example, out of a war in which: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II Over 70 million people, the majority of them civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.
        • quoderat 18y ago
          The suddenness and completeness of nuclear annihilation is what makes people fearful -- even though, yes, fire-bombing can do the same thing. There's a reason "nuclear" is a fear-word and "fire-bombing" just isn't. He picked it as a point of data that everyone understands, that has deep resonance, and that everyone is familiar with. Communication generally works better that way.