Why use the atomic bomb on Japan?

[MigL]

On 4/19/2024 at 11:51 PM, MSC said:

Morality in my opinion is all about point of view because we all have a different perspective on the context of our existence.

Most people recognize the difference between an unprovoked action, and a re-action to it.
If you walk up to me and punch me in the face, no one will fault me for breaking your arm in response.
( not implying you would; you seem a nice enough person 🙂 )

It's brutal, but it's reality; if you don't want the consequences, don't do any harm to others.

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

Most people recognize the difference between an unprovoked action, and a re-action to it.
If you walk up to me and punch me in the face, no one will fault me for breaking your arm in response.
( not implying you would; you seem a nice enough person 🙂 )

It's brutal, but it's reality; if you don't want the consequences, don't do any harm to others.

There is the aspect of proportionality, however. If someone punched you and you eat their liver in response, it may raise eyebrows.

[iNow]

5 hours ago, CharonY said:

If someone punched you and you eat their liver in response, it may raise eyebrows.

Especially if you do so with some fava beans and a nice chianti 

Tell me, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming? 
 

/ot

[MSC]

8 hours ago, MigL said:

Most people recognize the difference between an unprovoked action, and a re-action to it.
If you walk up to me and punch me in the face, no one will fault me for breaking your arm in response.
( not implying you would; you seem a nice enough person 🙂 )

It's brutal, but it's reality; if you don't want the consequences, don't do any harm to others.

That's a fair point to make, so long as the response is proportional. 

That said; even in the exact same proportions I feel there are limits. If someone tortured my child, should I torture theirs? If someone murders my child should I also murder their child?

Absolutely there needs to be consequences for morally abhorrent acts, but what seperates the reactor from the instigator is, which consequences/reactions are appropriate and what you want the consequences to achieve. 

I do lay some of the blame for what happened on Japanese military culture at the time definitely and I do see the arguments to be made where you can point to Japans complete 180 into turning into a far more peaceful society than they were before the end of the war. What will it take for the world to do that 180? Does it really have to be losing a whole country or continents worth of people? I know neither of us want that, but it does scare me a touch to think that based on what we have seen from history, that might be the catalyst. I just hope we can learn some other way before that ever happens.

Also you are correct, I'd never just randomly punch you and I respect you a lot more than you know. Any differences we've had or will have would always be resolved with words.

Edited April 21 by MSC

[MigL]

9 hours ago, MSC said:

That's a fair point to make, so long as the response is proportional. 

Proportional response is highly over-rated.

Deterrence of any particular action depends on the realization that the consequences could far outweigh any benefit.
If I steal $100, and my only punishment is a $100 fine, I'm no worse off than I initially was, so I may as well attempt it.

[MSC]

32 minutes ago, MigL said:

Proportional response is highly over-rated.

Deterrence of any particular action depends on the realization that the consequences could far outweigh any benefit.
If I steal $100, and my only punishment is a $100 fine, I'm no worse off than I initially was, so I may as well attempt it.

True, but there is a point I think where there is a deterrent and there is going overboard. Is the nuclear bomb drop equivalent to being fined $1000 for stealing $100 or being fined $1billion for stealing $100? 

I do actually feel a little conflicted, mostly because there is no way for us now to know whether or not Japan would become hostile again in the future after the war, if the bombs hadn't been dropped and their surrender was secured by lesser means. 

One thing we can probably both agree on; is that today, there is the deterrent of mutually assured destruction to deter even using WMDs because more than one country now has them. America didn't have to worry about that when it bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For example we could never get Russia to do a Japan like 180 and cease hostilities in Ukraine by dropping some nukes on them, because they'll just use theirs too. 

I personally still don't agree with the use of the A-Bombs on Japan, but it happened, can't change that and it has definitely deterred Japan from engaging in the behaviours and atrocities it committed during WWII. No doubt about that. From there I think we can agree to disagree on whether or not it should have been done. 

[swansont]

4 minutes ago, MSC said:

I personally still don't agree with the use of the A-Bombs on Japan

This brings us back to the issue of why using the bomb is considered bad, but using conventional weapons is acceptable. It can’t be the number killed, when it was pointed out that ~100k were killed firebombing Tokyo, which is comparable to the numbers killed at Hiroshima and at Nagasaki.

[MSC]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

This brings us back to the issue of why using the bomb is considered bad, but using conventional weapons is acceptable. It can’t be the number killed, when it was pointed out that ~100k were killed firebombing Tokyo, which is comparable to the numbers killed at Hiroshima and at Nagasaki.

My response would be to first state that my ideal is no war, no nuclear weapons or conventional warfare of any kind, is always preferable. But that my ideal is an impossible goal based on what I know of human nature and the lack of control or say that the majority people have in determining how militaries choose to fight those wars.

It's not that I find conventional weapons acceptable, just less bad. For a simple reason, the firebombing of Tokyo didn't release radioactive material 50 miles up into the atmosphere and had way less long-term effects on the environment nor longterm genetic damage and radiation poisoning that caused cancer, fetal abnormalities etc.

While I understand the residual radiation of those bombs had a relatively short half-life, today we have a number of different types of nuclear and radioactive weapons to be concerned about. Neutron bombs have a much higher radiactive yield, some nuclear weapons have a vastly higher explosive yield, strategically placed dirty bombs in the right (or wrong depending on how you look at it) weather conditions could give radiation poisoning to many more than the intended target and setting off numerous nuclear bombs could bring on a nuclear winter, send radiactive material all over the globe and cause massive amounts of harm to humans, animals and plant life for generations to come.  

If the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima had a similar radioactive yield as the Chernobyl disaster, they'd have likely remained uninhabitable for much much longer than they did. 

Genuinely, if I was forced to choose between being burned alive or being given a lethal dose of radiation, I'd pick being burned alive. It's quicker. I wouldn't wish death by radiation poisoning on my worst enemy and I cried like a baby watching Dr Daniel Jackson dying of radiation poisoning in Stargate and was highly disturbed just listening to him describe what he knew was going to happen to him. I was 7 years old when I watched that for the first of many times, and it's one of my strongest memories.

I'm going to end by sharing Albert Schweitzers Declaration of Conscience.

@MigL I would really appreciate it if you especially would read this. You don't have to agree with it but it did win the Nobel peace prize in 1957 and I believe it is an extremely powerful argument against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

I'd also like to add that if a nuclear or radiological weapon was used where any of you are and if we lost any of you to that, I'd mourn you deeply and weep for humanity far more than I already do. I mean I'd mourn your deaths by any means but that way would leave me the most choked. I hope you all die old and peacefully with loved ones by your side and a feeling of serenity looking back at a life well lived.

Edited April 22 by MSC
Spelling error

[TheVat]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

Proportional response is highly over-rated.

Deterrence of any particular action depends on the realization that the consequences could far outweigh any benefit.
If I steal $100, and my only punishment is a $100 fine, I'm no worse off than I initially was, so I may as well attempt it.

I have wondered if the moral equation, when nukes enter into a seemingly practical cost/benefit analysis, changes in a way that is unique as equations go.  When conventional weapons are used, it doesn't open a special door through which a vision of apocalypse is visible.  To use a nuke is not merely to conduct warfare, but to decide to use a principle of deterrence which, if widely applied, would end us. (there's kind of a Kantian categorical imperative aspect to this)  So, ethically, using a nuke seems to require a kind of myopic view of reality: sure, you showed those [insert adversary name here] bastards not to mess with us anymore, but you also crossed a line where the unthinkable is now an instrument of foreign policy.  Maybe we were able to step back over the line after Hiroshima, but there's little chance that could happen now.

 

[swansont]

29 minutes ago, MSC said:

My response would be to first state that my ideal is no war, no nuclear weapons or conventional warfare of any kind, is always preferable. But that my ideal is an impossible goal based on what I know of human nature and the lack of control or say that the majority people have in determining how militaries choose to fight those wars.

But the situation was that there was a war; bombing was already in play.

 

29 minutes ago, MSC said:

It's not that I find conventional weapons acceptable, just less bad. For a simple reason, the firebombing of Tokyo didn't release radioactive material 50 miles up into the atmosphere and had way less long-term effects on the environment nor longterm genetic damage and radiation poisoning that caused cancer, fetal abnormalities etc.

I would not be surprised to find that other weapons have carcinogenic effects. (it’s contended that it’s the cause of higher cancer rates at the bombing range at Vieques, Puerto Rico). Heavy metals are used and can be toxic. Is depleted uranium a conventional weapon?

[MSC]

4 minutes ago, swansont said:

would not be surprised to find that other weapons have carcinogenic effects. (it’s contended that it’s the cause of higher cancer rates at the bombing range at Vieques, Puerto Rico). Heavy metals are used and can be toxic. Is depleted uranium a conventional weapon?

Neither would I, although admittedly at a smaller scale. I would be interested in seeing the research on that.

5 minutes ago, swansont said:

But the situation was that there was a war; bombing was already in play.

The OP asked why the use of nuclear weapons was necessary to end the war, the war may have been going on but we've already covered that so too were peace talks, negotiations for surrender and an internal desire to surrender in Japan which knew it was being badly beaten and was about to have a new front opened onto it via the Russians. 

As for your question about depleted uranium; Does making bullets or firebombs produce nuclear waste? Which if not handled or stored properly does its own damage to ecosystems without any requirement for a weapon to be fired or detonated at all. Enriching plutonium and uranium does. Reprocessing nuclear weapons does. Making bullets, grenades, napalm and other conventional weapons does not (unless the manufacturing facilities are powered by nuclear energy of course).

51 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I have wondered if the moral equation, when nukes enter into a seemingly practical cost/benefit analysis, changes in a way that is unique as equations go.  When conventional weapons are used, it doesn't open a special door through which a vision of apocalypse is visible.  To use a nuke is not merely to conduct warfare, but to decide to use a principle of deterrence which, if widely applied, would end us. (there's kind of a Kantian categorical imperative aspect to this)  So, ethically, using a nuke seems to require a kind of myopic view of reality: sure, you showed those [insert adversary name here] bastards not to mess with us anymore, but you also crossed a line where the unthinkable is now an instrument of foreign policy.  Maybe we were able to step back over the line after Hiroshima, but there's little chance that could happen now.

 

+1!

Quote

Kant’s first formulation of the CI states that you are to “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” (G 4:421). O’Neill (1975, 1989) and Rawls (1980, 1989), among others, take this formulation in effect to summarize a decision procedure for moral reasoning, and we will follow their basic outline: First, formulate a maxim that enshrines your proposed plan of action. Second, recast that maxim as a universal law of nature governing all rational agents, and so as holding that all must, by natural law, act as you yourself propose to act in these circumstances. Third, consider whether your maxim is even conceivable in a world governed by this new law of nature. If it is, then, fourth, ask yourself whether you would, or could, rationally will to act on your maxim in such a world. If you could, then your action is morally permissible.

If your maxim fails the third step, you have a “perfect” duty admitting “of no exception in favor of inclination” to refrain from acting on that maxim (G 4:421). If your maxim fails the fourth step, you have an “imperfect” duty requiring you to pursue a policy that can admit of such exceptions. If your maxim passes all four steps, only then is acting on it morally permissible.

- Stanford encylopedia of philosophy

Put this here so people understand what is meant by categorical imperative.

Putting this here so we can all evaluate the man who made the decision to drop the bombs in the first place. We really need to talk about Truman more. I mean look at this shit; 

Quote

Truman signed the National Security Act in 1947, which created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Over the next 50 years, the CIA would go on to interfere in the internal politics of numerous foreign nations, organizing coups, assassinations, and installing dictatorships and regimes of torture (as long as they were favorable to US interests).

 

For example, Operation Ajax was a 1953 CIA coup that removed the elected Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, from power. In his place, the US installed a ruthless dictator whose oppressive rule led to the Iranian revolution 26 years later and the current animosity between the US and Iran.

At least 30 countries from 5 different continents were denied their democratic right to choose their own leaders. The CIA systematically destroyed democracy around the world, subjecting populations to oppressive dictatorships that were loyal to the US government.

@swansont and @MigL time for a serious question. It's the summer of 1945. Truman isn't president, you are. Will you drop the A-Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Let's move on from whether or not dropping the bombs was right or wrong; Was Truman specifically qualified to decide that it was the right thing to do? Is anyone qualified to make that decision?

[swansont]

10 hours ago, MSC said:

As for your question about depleted uranium; Does making bullets or firebombs produce nuclear waste? Which if not handled or stored properly does its own damage to ecosystems without any requirement for a weapon to be fired or detonated at all. Enriching plutonium and uranium does. Reprocessing nuclear weapons does. Making bullets, grenades, napalm and other conventional weapons does not (unless the manufacturing facilities are powered by nuclear energy of course).

My point is why the focus on nuclear waste? It’s similar with energy generation - the phobia about radiation when burning coal causes lots of disease and death, but somehow we’re sorta OK with it; the pushback on coal is minuscule when compared to nuclear. 

Unused conventional weapons are eventually discarded, and this does cause issues. Many countries banned the practice of dumping them in the ocean because of the problems, like the toxicity of TNT and RDX.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014111362030862X

The existence of nuclear power means there will be nuclear waste, so getting rid of the weapons doesn’t eliminate the problem

[dimreepr]

10 hours ago, MSC said:

The OP asked why the use of nuclear weapons was necessary to end the war, the war may have been going on but we've already covered that so too were peace talks, negotiations for surrender and an internal desire to surrender in Japan which knew it was being badly beaten and was about to have a new front opened onto it via the Russians. 

Indeed, the answer is a bigger stick is difficult to define if enough of you continue to wield it...

[TheVat]

49 minutes ago, swansont said:

My point is why the focus on nuclear waste? It’s similar with energy generation - the phobia about radiation when burning coal causes lots of disease and death, but somehow we’re sorta OK with it; the pushback on coal is minuscule when compared to nuclear. 

Unused conventional weapons are eventually discarded, and this does cause issues. Many countries banned the practice of dumping them in the ocean because of the problems, like the toxicity of TNT and RDX.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014111362030862X

The existence of nuclear power means there will be nuclear waste, so getting rid of the weapons doesn’t eliminate the problem

I don't know if concerns about radionuclide residues and their longevity (iodine 131 is brief, 8 day HL, cesium 137 is a 30 year HL)   are still the main locus of concern about nuclear weapons.  At least not since the  TTAPS paper (and Sagan's popularized version which appeared in Parade Magazine) drew wide public attention to sweeping ecological and climatic changes from even a quite limited  nuclear exchange.  IIRC that paper, detailing the nuclear winter scenario (prolonged dust and smoke, a precipitous drop in Earth's temperatures and widespread failure of crops, leading to massive famine, etc) was what gave momentum to the Nuclear Freeze movement in the eighties.  The concerns raised seemed to rise well above the level of phobia (granted, some concerns about peacetime nuclear power do verge on phobic).  

Again, we have been incredibly lucky.  And it might take only one rogue general somewhere to fire up the apocalypse.  

Happy Earth Day, y'all.

[MSC]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

but somehow we’re sorta OK with it; the pushback on coal is minuscule when compared to nuclear. 

Is it? I hear about much more concern these days over fossil fuel use than nuclear waste, but again the concern is largely ignored by governments. Will respond better later, working. This is a good conversation though! Thanks for having it with me. 

50 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Indeed, the answer is a bigger stick is difficult to define if enough of you continue to wield it...

Not to mention this stick is just as likely to burn the hand that wields it as it is to burn the person being hit with it. 

[swansont]

42 minutes ago, MSC said:

Is it? I hear about much more concern these days over fossil fuel use than nuclear waste, but again the concern is largely ignored by governments. Will respond better later, working. This is a good conversation though! Thanks for having it with me. 

There hasn’t been much nuclear plant construction in the US in the last 30 years, at least in part because of public opinion, so not much to actively protest on that front.

[MSC]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

My point is why the focus on nuclear waste?

Because you asked what makes depleted uranium (and by extension nuclear and radiological weapons) different from conventional weapons. Yes both have waste products, but I feel like you're comparing apples to oranges a bit. Radioactive materials are far more hazardous than the materials used to make conventional weapons in most cases (I'd agree where biological and chemical weapons are concerned to be fair) and if you are going to claim that they are similarly hazardous, you'll need to provide evidence to back up the claim. 

 

18 minutes ago, swansont said:

There hasn’t been much nuclear plant construction in the US in the last 30 years, at least in part because of public opinion, so not much to actively protest on that front.

I think the difference is that governments are more likely to listen and address public concerns where nuclear energy is concerned than they are where fossil fuels are concerned. 

[MigL]

15 hours ago, MSC said:

@MigL I would really appreciate it if you especially would read this.

There is a vast difference between what I have the stomach to do, and what should be done.
Were I suddenly transported into President Truman's body, I may not have dropped nuclear weapons; but if I had lived his life, and experienced the horrors of that war, being responsible for all the people lost in the Pacific theater ( and those yet to come ), I certainly may have.

 

1 hour ago, MSC said:

if you are going to claim that they are similarly hazardous, you'll need to provide evidence to back up the claim. 

I'll give you an ounce of T-Nitro-Toluene and an ounce of radioactive Cesium, and task you with transporting both, in your car, to the next city.
With a little knowledge, you can provide shielding for the radiation; that's always been the biggest fear most people have, they can't see it and they don't understand it.
Most people understand TNT perfectly well yet they don't know enough to be more afraid of it.
Which do you think you should be more afraid of ?

The danger is in how it is used.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

if you are going to claim that they are similarly hazardous, you'll need to provide evidence to back up the claim. 

 

Given the numbers of each, conventional weapons don’t have to be as hazardous from a chemical standpoint to have a greater cumulative effect. 

TNT and RDX are toxic and possibly carcinogenic 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDX

21 minutes ago, MigL said:

I'll give you an ounce of T-Nitro-Toluene and an ounce of radioactive Cesium

And this should be scaled to the amounts created for weapons

[CharonY]

18 hours ago, MigL said:

Proportional response is highly over-rated.

Deterrence of any particular action depends on the realization that the consequences could far outweigh any benefit.
If I steal $100, and my only punishment is a $100 fine, I'm no worse off than I initially was, so I may as well attempt it.

There is a difference in equivalent response and punitive proportionality. Also I don't think that it makes a lot of sense to trying to translate criminal justice to diplomatic relationships.

Even worse, the literature on deterrence (going back a long time) shows not simple relationship between punishment and deterrence. But where the largest agreement is that punishment works best as deterrent on minor crime, whereas the effect in violent crime has almost no relationship to the severity of punishment (up and including death sentences). Likely because many of these acts are not part of rational decision-making.  

[MigL]

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

Likely because many of these acts are not part of rational decision-making. 

Exactly.
Even nuclear deterrence doesn't work with madmen dictators.
Deterrence only works when both sides have something of value to lose.

V Putin is arguably the richest man in the world; do you think he is 'mad' enough to lose that?
Even KJU lives in the lap of luxury in N Korea; do you think he'd want to give that up ?

The only ones I fear are the religious delusional nutbars running Iran, if they get nukes. They will use them, and Israel will respond; not proportionately either

 

[J.C.MacSwell]

On 4/21/2024 at 7:42 PM, MigL said:

Proportional response is highly over-rated.

Deterrence of any particular action depends on the realization that the consequences could far outweigh any benefit.
If I steal $100, and my only punishment is a $100 fine, I'm no worse off than I initially was, so I may as well attempt it.

True. But if you destroy $100 worth of my fence, and I destroy $100 worth of yours, you have to make a judgement as to whether you got $100 worth of entertainment, if you are rationalizing it in economic terms when deciding to do it again.

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

The only ones I fear are the religious delusional nutbars running Iran, if they get nukes. They will use them, and Israel will respond; not proportionately either

Interesting that you mentioned Iran, the recent exchange between Israel and Iran really looks like muted saber rattling, where either side is not that willing to escalate (in Netanyahu's case it appeared because of US intervention).

 

[MSC]

10 hours ago, swansont said:

The existence of nuclear power means there will be nuclear waste, so getting rid of the weapons doesn’t eliminate the problem

Nuclear medicine too. In the context of this post I'm against nuclear weapons explicitly. Nuclear power, medicine, propulsion etc I'm fine with when due caution and safety measures are used.

6 hours ago, swansont said:

Given the numbers of each, conventional weapons don’t have to be as hazardous from a chemical standpoint to have a greater cumulative effect. 

Good point. 

You however, didn't answer my "what if you were in Truman's shoes." Question. I've also made many more points than you are choosing to address (which I get because you're busy with your moderation duties and real life but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that there isn't enough time in the day to discuss it all.

6 hours ago, MigL said:

There is a vast difference between what I have the stomach to do, and what should be done.

Why wouldn't you have the stomach for it, if it's the right thing to do? Hume would have potentially argued that the sentiment in your statement should perhaps tell you something about your true moral inclinations on the matter. (Don't misconstrue that as an insult, as I'm suggesting you're actually much more ethical than you think you are by making such a statement.) Is it that you wouldn't have the stomach for it or deep down you feel you shouldn't have the stomach for it? Why did Truman have the stomach to do it? Again, we haven't spoken about Truman nearly enough and I feel talking about him is much more on topic than getting into dicussions over which types of weapon are worse than others.

6 hours ago, MigL said:

Which do you think you should be more afraid of ?

I'm afraid of both and to not be afraid of both would likely lead to carelessness in the transportation of such. I honestly couldn't tell you what I would be more afraid of without actually performing the task. Would be fearful and worried either way, why quantify it?

A thought occurs to me, say Netanyahu dropped a Nuke on Raffah tomorrow, and used the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as justification for why it's okay to wipe a city of mostly non-combatants from the face of the earth. How would people feel about that? Apples and oranges I know but what if?

21 hours ago, MSC said:

For example, Operation Ajax was a 1953 CIA coup that removed the elected Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, from power. In his place, the US installed a ruthless dictator whose oppressive rule led to the Iranian revolution 26 years later and the current animosity between the US and Iran.

- from the link I posted earlier. 

@MigLyou did mention Iran, so what do you think about the above excerpt? Kind of seems like the current state of affairs in Iran was a problem of America's own making to me.

[J.C.MacSwell]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

Why wouldn't you have the stomach for it, if it's the right thing to do?

Choosing the lesser of two evils doesn't always lend itself to a good night's sleep.