4 ms·

This is a very sensible and well-reasoned, if ridiculously windy[1], essay which has its basis in one completely erroneous assumption, which is that it's possib

by aaronem 13y ago

This is a very sensible and well-reasoned, if ridiculously windy[1], essay which has its basis in one completely erroneous assumption, which is that it's possible to answer, save after the fact, a question like "[A]re we morally developed enough as a species to be entrusted with nuclear weapons?" That's a very simple question to answer, but you can only do so in hindsight. Did we exterminate ourselves with nuclear weapons? If we did, then we weren't morally developed enough to be entrusted with them; if we didn't, then we were. And even in that, there's another bogus assumption, which is hidden behind the word "entrusted". No one entrusted the human species with nuclear weapons; there was no event in which God, or angels, or sufficiently advanced aliens, descended from on high, amidst clouds of incense or rocket exhaust, and bequeathed unto us the knowledge of what happens when you squeeze a ball of uranium very tightly. It may seem absurd to point this out, but only until you consider that "entrusted", in implying a higher power which did the entrusting, implies also a higher power which could reverse that decision; there being no such power, it is impossible to reason accurately about the morality of any technological development when such reasoning involves the implicit assumption that there is such a power. [1] Those familiar with my comments on HN may be astonished to see me calling anything "windy", much less ridiculously so. In my defense I can only say that I reserve the use of that adjective and its adverb for cases of extreme provocation, the nature of which should be obvious to anyone attempting to wade through the text I've so described.

6d0debc071 13y ago
> And even in that, there's another bogus assumption, which is hidden behind the word "entrusted". No one entrusted the human species with nuclear weapons; there was no event in which God, or angels, or sufficiently advanced aliens, descended from on high, amidst clouds of incense or rocket exhaust, and bequeathed unto us the knowledge of what happens when you squeeze a ball of uranium very tightly. --------------------- From the perspective of the vast majority, scientists entrusted us with the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons. They could have kept quiet on that score.
- aaronem 13y ago
  The perspective of the vast majority has no slightest bearing on what is or is not true. You imply either that scientists are angels, or that every particle physicist is a member of a world-girdling conspiracy, which exists as a sort of caucus which decides, presumably by some highly precise and objective method, what every member shall or shall not do. Neither is even remotely plausible. Try again, please.
  - 6d0debc071 13y ago
    I simply imply that people are responsible for their actions. People were given the knowledge to make nuclear weapons by those smarter than them. The fact that others may very well have eventually given them the same is neither here nor there, and your weird obsession with requiring it be angels and aliens does nothing to alter that. If you assume many groups of aliens, each species of which might have given out nukes, then you're in the exact same position as our theoretical physicists - 'of course humans weren't entrusted with nuclear weapons, after all, aliens aren't all part of a great alien conspiracy....' The two scenarios are functionally analogous but for the fact that ALIENS is posted into the second. You're just dancing with semantics.
    - aaronem 13y ago
      And you aren't? The point of involving angels and aliens is to make clear the absurdity of assuming some superhuman agency which handed down the knowledge from on high. Scientists are human beings, too, with all the fallibility and lack of prescience that is our common heritage, and the fact that "others may very well have eventually given them the same" is the very crux of the matter at hand. From our perspective, with the benefit of hindsight, it is trivially obvious that the Third Reich made no significant process toward the attainment of nuclear weapons, and that such weapons were not necessary to guarantee the Allies a victory in Europe. Do you think that was trivially obvious in 1942? It was nothing of the sort, and for all those who worked on the Manhattan Project could know, their efforts were absolutely vital to their nation's successful prosecution of the war. In such circumstances, what you would no doubt consider a principled refusal to participate in the project would, in fact, constitute moral cowardice of the highest order, on the part of anyone who found Allied victory in any sense preferable to Axis. They could not have known, after all, that the Third Reich had no realistic hope of developing an atom bomb, given the time and resources available to them, and judging them on the basis of what we know now, seventy years after the Third Reich's abject defeat and dissolution, is purely foolish. All of this goes to demonstrate your basic error, which is to consider "scientists" a single, unified category which can, or can be expected to, act as a whole in whatever it believes, again as a whole, to be the best interests of mankind. This produces a sort of "us and them" mentality, which implicitly elevates your "scientists" category to the level of the superhuman actors whose existence my "angels or aliens" formulation makes explicit. It is this mentality which permits you to expect knowledge and behavior of scientists which you do not expect of humans, and it is precisely this mistake the original author makes.

by aaronem 13y ago

6d0debc071 13y ago

> And even in that, there's another bogus assumption, which is hidden behind the word "entrusted". No one entrusted the human species with nuclear weapons; there was no event in which God, or angels, or sufficiently advanced aliens, descended from on high, amidst clouds of incense or rocket exhaust, and bequeathed unto us the knowledge of what happens when you squeeze a ball of uranium very tightly. --------------------- From the perspective of the vast majority, scientists entrusted us with the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons. They could have kept quiet on that score.

aaronem 13y ago
The perspective of the vast majority has no slightest bearing on what is or is not true. You imply either that scientists are angels, or that every particle physicist is a member of a world-girdling conspiracy, which exists as a sort of caucus which decides, presumably by some highly precise and objective method, what every member shall or shall not do. Neither is even remotely plausible. Try again, please.
- 6d0debc071 13y ago
  I simply imply that people are responsible for their actions. People were given the knowledge to make nuclear weapons by those smarter than them. The fact that others may very well have eventually given them the same is neither here nor there, and your weird obsession with requiring it be angels and aliens does nothing to alter that. If you assume many groups of aliens, each species of which might have given out nukes, then you're in the exact same position as our theoretical physicists - 'of course humans weren't entrusted with nuclear weapons, after all, aliens aren't all part of a great alien conspiracy....' The two scenarios are functionally analogous but for the fact that ALIENS is posted into the second. You're just dancing with semantics.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    And you aren't? The point of involving angels and aliens is to make clear the absurdity of assuming some superhuman agency which handed down the knowledge from on high. Scientists are human beings, too, with all the fallibility and lack of prescience that is our common heritage, and the fact that "others may very well have eventually given them the same" is the very crux of the matter at hand. From our perspective, with the benefit of hindsight, it is trivially obvious that the Third Reich made no significant process toward the attainment of nuclear weapons, and that such weapons were not necessary to guarantee the Allies a victory in Europe. Do you think that was trivially obvious in 1942? It was nothing of the sort, and for all those who worked on the Manhattan Project could know, their efforts were absolutely vital to their nation's successful prosecution of the war. In such circumstances, what you would no doubt consider a principled refusal to participate in the project would, in fact, constitute moral cowardice of the highest order, on the part of anyone who found Allied victory in any sense preferable to Axis. They could not have known, after all, that the Third Reich had no realistic hope of developing an atom bomb, given the time and resources available to them, and judging them on the basis of what we know now, seventy years after the Third Reich's abject defeat and dissolution, is purely foolish. All of this goes to demonstrate your basic error, which is to consider "scientists" a single, unified category which can, or can be expected to, act as a whole in whatever it believes, again as a whole, to be the best interests of mankind. This produces a sort of "us and them" mentality, which implicitly elevates your "scientists" category to the level of the superhuman actors whose existence my "angels or aliens" formulation makes explicit. It is this mentality which permits you to expect knowledge and behavior of scientists which you do not expect of humans, and it is precisely this mistake the original author makes.