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The difference being that it cost a lot more to destroy those two Japanese cities alone than it did in total to destroy 72 other Japanese cities to the same deg
by defrost 2mo ago
The difference being that it cost a lot more to destroy those two Japanese cities alone than it did in total to destroy 72 other Japanese cities to the same degree.
Later on, that type of weapon became cheaper and several thousands were created and became the basis for a long window of relative peace.
- stavros 2mo agoStrictly speaking, the first city cost a whole lot of money, the second was basically free, through the magic of not amortizing the cost of R&D to win an online argument.
- defrost 2mo agowin? Moreover, what's the argument here as you see it?
- stavros 2mo agoThe argument is that nuclear bombs made destroying entire cities dirt cheap, and it's one of the big atrocities of history that they were used on a civilian population. "Terrorists have hidden a nuclear bomb somewhere in Manhattan" is one of the unthinkable nightmare scenarios routinely portrayed in US films, and yet that's exactly what the US did to Hiroshima.
- defrost 2mo agoI'm looking back several hours here and not seeing where this is laid out. I'm also curious as to why what the US did to Hiroshima is an unthinkable nightmare scenarios whereas what the US did to Tokyo is not (and nor is what the US did to 71 other cities in Japan also not that).
- stavros 2mo agoDo you see a difference in razing a city with one bomb in an instant or with thousands of bombs over months?
- account42 2mo agoThe human suffering in both cases is the same but one ended the war while the other did not.
- stavros 2mo agoIf your goal is to end a war, there are much easier ways. If your goal is to win the war, well...
- defrost 2mo agoThe specific goal at the time was to test two prototype weapons of differing design.
- wredcoll 2mo agoWow yes the USA and friends could have just surrendered. Brilliant insight. Very clever. I'm sure everyone being tortured to death by the various Japanese military units would super appreciate that.
- wredcoll 2mo ago> The argument is that nuclear bombs made destroying entire cities dirt cheap, and it's one of the big atrocities of history that they were used on a civilian population The cost of causing death isn't the atrocity. The atrocity is the death happening. If "terrorists" somehow managed to create 1000+ b52s and drop 10,000 tons of "regular bombs" on manhattan, it would be just as atrocious as a nuclear weapon going off. Obviously the single nuke is a slightly more realistic threat, but that's not the point. If you want to argue that anybody dying ever is an atrocity, that is one thing. If you want to argue any civilian dying during a war is an atrocity, that is a different thing and, among other things, would require you to define civilian in a useful way.
- account42 2mo agoIt's my understanding that the two bombs used were not the same technology so you can't just amortize the whole research costs from one to the other.