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It is difficult to get an intuition about the consequence of radiation. Half life times are too long, radiation is invisible and the effects on organisms subtle

It is difficult to get an intuition about the consequence of radiation. Half life times are too long, radiation is invisible and the effects on organisms subtle. So in conjunction with speculation about aliens, maybe you are taking this issue a bit too lightly? Worth noting that the concept of building nuclear weapons is stupid to begin with, sacrificing large regions to radiation, possibly for a looong time is clearly unreasonable and weather something has a "civilization dooming effect" is not a valid criterium in any decision.

learc83 12y ago
>Worth noting that the concept of building nuclear weapons is stupid to begin with, sacrificing large regions to radiation, possibly for a looong time is clearly unreasonable It's not unreasonable in context. If the US had decided not to build nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union would have eventually. Also sacrificing large parts of your enemy's land to radiation in many circumstances could be a perfectly rational decision. You could argue that it's an immoral decision but not necessarily an unreasonable one.
- UweSchmidt 12y ago
  That whole cold war thing is of course also a textbook case of human boneheadedness. That conflict was unneccessarily escalated by both sides and way too many wars and crimes from that era are summarily excused as neccessary and inevitable. Regarding your last paragraph - I heard that kind of pseudorational many times before. "The Russians are invading, Commander, what do we do? Start Nuclear War? Awaiting orders now." While military was of course a factor, in the end the Cold War ended through something outside of this narrow minded view. The USSR could have gone on forever, North Korea style, but Gorbachev let go. Was that rational within your framework?
  - learc83 12y ago
    Sure you can use that kind of rationale to justify immoral and stupid actions, but in this specific context it was a completely rational action. Someone else was going to build a nuclear bomb eventually (at the time time the Manhattan project began, the US was worried Germany would). Unless the US wanted someone else to have a massive advantage over them, the only rational choice was to build nuclear weapons. Do you believe that no other country would have developed nuclear weapons if the US didn't? Let's say Russia had nuclear capabilities and the US didn't? Would Russia have used them as leverage against the US? Of course they would have. >but Gorbachev let go. Was that rational within your framework? First, this isn't really relevant. Gorbachev kept his nuclear arsenal and military mostly intact, and thus was protected against potential foreign aggression. Second, that's a very simplistic view of what happened. Gorbachev didn't want to completely dissolve the USSR, he just realized that in it's current form it wasn't working. He wanted to modernize communism, but he completely lost control of his reform. His eventual plan was to form a new union, but the Ukrainian Referendum made that unlikely, and then Yeltsin forced him out of power. It's also very unlikely the USSR could have evolved into anything like North Korea--mainly because Russia was much more developed than North Korea, much larger, and had a much larger population.
- wintersFright 12y ago
  it was actually the nazis they were scared of. they thought Germany might make an atomic bomb and win WWII. There was discussion about giving the Russian's the secrets to prevent an arms race. Churchhill vetoed it though.

learc83 12y ago

>Worth noting that the concept of building nuclear weapons is stupid to begin with, sacrificing large regions to radiation, possibly for a looong time is clearly unreasonable It's not unreasonable in context. If the US had decided not to build nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union would have eventually. Also sacrificing large parts of your enemy's land to radiation in many circumstances could be a perfectly rational decision. You could argue that it's an immoral decision but not necessarily an unreasonable one.

UweSchmidt 12y ago
That whole cold war thing is of course also a textbook case of human boneheadedness. That conflict was unneccessarily escalated by both sides and way too many wars and crimes from that era are summarily excused as neccessary and inevitable. Regarding your last paragraph - I heard that kind of pseudorational many times before. "The Russians are invading, Commander, what do we do? Start Nuclear War? Awaiting orders now." While military was of course a factor, in the end the Cold War ended through something outside of this narrow minded view. The USSR could have gone on forever, North Korea style, but Gorbachev let go. Was that rational within your framework?
- learc83 12y ago
  Sure you can use that kind of rationale to justify immoral and stupid actions, but in this specific context it was a completely rational action. Someone else was going to build a nuclear bomb eventually (at the time time the Manhattan project began, the US was worried Germany would). Unless the US wanted someone else to have a massive advantage over them, the only rational choice was to build nuclear weapons. Do you believe that no other country would have developed nuclear weapons if the US didn't? Let's say Russia had nuclear capabilities and the US didn't? Would Russia have used them as leverage against the US? Of course they would have. >but Gorbachev let go. Was that rational within your framework? First, this isn't really relevant. Gorbachev kept his nuclear arsenal and military mostly intact, and thus was protected against potential foreign aggression. Second, that's a very simplistic view of what happened. Gorbachev didn't want to completely dissolve the USSR, he just realized that in it's current form it wasn't working. He wanted to modernize communism, but he completely lost control of his reform. His eventual plan was to form a new union, but the Ukrainian Referendum made that unlikely, and then Yeltsin forced him out of power. It's also very unlikely the USSR could have evolved into anything like North Korea--mainly because Russia was much more developed than North Korea, much larger, and had a much larger population.
wintersFright 12y ago
it was actually the nazis they were scared of. they thought Germany might make an atomic bomb and win WWII. There was discussion about giving the Russian's the secrets to prevent an arms race. Churchhill vetoed it though.