SunlitZelkova

Do you believe Japan will one day create nuclear weapons just because it has nuclear reactors? Development of a reactor or the discovery of fission does not mean bombs become an automatic continuation. But we were discussing why a scientist would want to propose nuclear weapons if there was no fear an expansionist regime building them. You said "to maintain peace", but nuclear weapons do not maintain peace and often enable war. People thought the same about a peaceful ending to the Cold War, and yet here we are. Nuclear weapons played little to no role in this. I recommend you read The Nuclear Taboo by Nina Tannenwald for a better idea of why the US didn't use nuclear weapons during the Cold War. What do you mean by "fewer of us"? Populations don't start wars, leaders do. Humans did not adopt peace because they chose not to. But they had the choice to. While the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons exists because of their use, treaties that simply limited development of nuclear weapons were mainly created out of a concern for strategic stability, and would have existed with or without their use so long as nukes were built in the thousands. Actual attempts at preventing nuclear war lie in documents like the Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War and other political agreements- weapons don't make war magically go away. What are you insinuating in mentioning the use of chemical weapons since the ban of that warfare? Nuclear arsenals are a non-attempt at trying to prevent war. It says "prevention of death only applies to me, not to you". That "random nonsense" is the rational that produces nuclear weapons. The rational comes first, then the actual thing. We wanted to cross distances fast, then we built the steam train, not "I'll make this thing because it's physically possible even if I don't need it". But if there is peace, there is no rational for nuclear weapons and they don't get built. Peace is always possible. I don't understand your fixation on a past era of peace being necessary for a present one. Humans are innovating like crazy today, yet it took hundreds of years before- there was no prior age of innovation measured in years or decades necessary for our current time to be possible. But the point is, why would scientists want to build them in the absence of international tensions? Nuclear weapons don't create peace, both the USSR and US fought wars throughout the Cold War. To say that they would have anyway without nuclear weapons is to give them a free pass at murder in our present reality. War is wrong. Period. I do not believe the scientists of the Manhattan Project were Herman Kahn-like in their projections of what constituted peace, or "no war". Proposing nuclear weapons in the 1930s and 1940s of my counterfactual would only be for reasons of warmongering. I'd like to think these brilliant physicists were not warmongers, but if they were and wished to see their country triumphant in the world no matter what- even if peace was at hand- then yes, the development of nuclear weapons was inevitable. Groups of humans have little difference except in name. If a small number of groups of humans can cease conflict, so can a big number (or all) of the groups. If nations can't help themselves and conflict is "inevitable", by that logic it should scale down to smaller groups of humans too, yet there are numerous places in the world that have not seen conflict for at least a hundred years and have no sign of doing so again. Therefore it is also feasible to end war on a global scale too. This is Kahnist thinking. All battle deaths are wrong, not just the high numbers of them. Nuclear weapons have enabled the remaining battle deaths to take place (or at least, a large number of them, specifically in conflicts that involved nuclear powers) and thus don't bring peace. To connect this back to the subject of the conversation, I believe this situation is quite obvious if you are trying to think of reasons to build a nuclear weapon in the absence of a threat from a militaristic regime, and therefore nuclear weapons will not be built on the grounds of keeping the peace. Without any other plausible reason for building nuclear weapons having been presented, I therefore believe the development of nuclear weapons is not inevitable. As I said, even if the idea is developed that does not necessarily mean it will be pursued. Which have people inside. EDIT- I think we might have exhausted our argumentative possibilities and have hit the wall of simply differing political and societal views. It might be time to agree to disagree and call it for this convo.

Human behavior cannot be reduced to statistics. But wars did... if the goal is to prevent war among great powers, that works, but nuclear weapons won't prevent conflict around the globe. Uh, no, I'm sure if I spent time on it I could find other scenarios where war is generally eliminated. And as you say, while it might have been worse, it also might have been better. I never said the development of nuclear weapons or the continuation of war was impossible, just that it was not inevitable. Because those regimes were militaristic and expansionist. The British started due to indications Germany might be making a nuclear weapon too. I was referring to the US. But the real reason they did was because of the possibility of war. Remove that and even if the idea is developed, it is not pursued. There could have been a treaty preventing the use of new technologies for weapons in my counterfactual. If that's the case why don't we aim some of our nuclear weapons at Britain and France? People always start wars as you say, no need to take into account logicality or the reality of the situation. I'll bet their plan involves developing their own nuclear weapons and then attacking anyways. Even in our world the Soviet General Staff argued throughout the 1970s for a full scale nuclear first strike in the event of a conflagration with NATO. If their military was not deterred, it's safe to say the much more aggressive Japanese military would not be either. The Soviets had civilian politicians firmly in control of their military, Japan? Not so much. Humanity is love, acceptance, and cooperation. Mistrust, greed, and other flaws are the antithesis of humanity. Crimes against humanity tend to be ones against the peaceful people after all lol. Why would world peace be present in the past and go away? I'm suggesting world peace is the final stage in the evolution of humanity, but that it could have come "earlier" (now, if it was the year 1918). Humans in 1918 were just as capable of making good decisions as you and I are in 2023. Any enemy- from the common murderer to the genocidal politician- tends to be characterized as "evil". But you could use the word stupid to describe them too, I suppose. So... shipment of supplies unmolested is "peace"? Even with 40,000 civilians dead? We were talking about peace, right? Not "limiting escalation", which albeit is something nuclear weapons do do. Limiting escalation is a pretty odd goal for scientists to want to achieve though, especially when it involves risking the fate of humanity. My point is that the South only existed because the Western powers demanded it to be. The Viet Minh held control of all of Vietnam prior to that, IIRC. Nuclear weapons literally have no other utility than killing lots of people. There is no war though. These are issues that will be resolved through reform, not disintegration of the state, just as what happened with blacks in the US. Even at the height of Jim Crow, blacks considered themselves Americans and wished to partake in a better version of the country. Note that even in Russia, a state composed of conquered regions much more ethnically and culturally different than Chinese and their minorities are, there is no wish to break up the state*, and the minorities wish to solve the issues within their country without independence. War was eliminated in Japan in 1603 when the Tokugawa shogunate seized control of the entire country. By tater's logic it should have broken up again, and yet it survived the Bakumatsu intact because the people did not desire to be separated- they felt a sense of unity and wanted to live together, despite clan differences. The Meiji Restoration was a political revolution within Japan, not a war between two sects inside Japan- at least no more than the US considered the South to have been a legitimate country during the Civil War. The Republic of Ezo, an attempt to turn Hokkaido into its own country by the remnants of the Tokugawa, did not have popular support and failed. Internal strife =/= war. The goal is peace in this conversation. Even during the Civil Rights Movement, peace prevailed throughout the nation, despite temptation to give in to violence. Yet more evidence people can solve their issues without turning to war.

What’s up with N.A. Kozyrev’s theories of time? It seems they are rejected in the west but study continues at various Russian institutions.

And a personal goal is so “on a whim” that it is equally likely that nuclear weapons may never be built by the private industry, when compared with the idea you posit. No, we were talking about peace in general. Or at least that was my interpretation when you said “keeping the peace”. Neighbors was metaphorical. The US invaded North Korea as part of the intervention in the Korean War, and that too represented a crisis where nuclear weapons made offensive strikes against Chinese bases very attractive to American generals. It was only Truman and Eisenhower’s desire to contain the conflict and prevent war that stopped them- but for humanitarian reasons, not “the other guy has nukes too”. So nuclear weapons do not help maintain peace among the world powers. Why? Why is that so implausible? From the point of view of a world without the world wars, ours is equally preposterous (by your standards) To get our reality we need- 1. A President to decide not to run again on a whim 2. A driver to take a wrong turn 3. A foreign minister to send a telegram 4. A provisional government to make stupid decisions that result in a more radical revolution 5. German soldiers who fought loyally for years to suddenly rise up against the Kaiser 6. A wannabe artist veteran gets angry at this 7. A President makes dumb decisions and appoints a dictator to power 8. A guy wobbles on a chair while trying to assassinate a president-elect and misses 9. Military officials concoct a James Bond like evil plan to start a war in Manchuria, despite obeying the government for the last 60 years 10. A soldier goes missing and that somehow starts a full scale invasion of China 11. An Emperor decides to end a war on whim despite having condoned it for 8 years 12. Allies turn against each other despite having worked together during the war 13. A President happens to be horrified by his decision to level two cities with two bombs despite leveling tens of other cities with hundreds of bombs 14. A leader stays up too late every night and dies at 70, and somehow a fat dude who wants to liberalize comes to power despite the totalitarian system being to his total benefit as a dictator 15. A guy gets just a few thousand votes and wins an election 16. Missiles somehow wind up in Cuba despite intelligence constantly monitoring the island 17. A dude decides not to launch a nuclear torpedo despite being under heavy psychological pressure to do so And it could go on… Except that it wasn’t an irrational fear, it was supported by intelligence. If there is no intelligence, that fear is not enough to start a program. Physics says a country could put nuclear weapons on satellites and wreak havoc on low Earth orbit… and yet we don’t fear it because it isn’t supported by intelligence. Technology is only developed if it has a use. Nuclear weapons were used. H-bombs were intended to be used if necessary, not built for no reason. If there is no use for nuclear weapons because of a better international situation, they won’t be built. Do you think nuclear weapons will be placed on the Moon one day because “it’s possible”? The combined might of the Allies crushed much more resource rich Germany… and Germany failed to crush Allied morale… and yet somehow they thought they could win in 1941 after years of economic expansion (despite the Great Depression) and advancement in technology. Japan had also conducted studies detailing how disastrously large the economic gap between the two countries was. Deciding to attack the United States was just as implausible as an attack on the collapsing USSR and yet it happened anyway. Incorrect, military purposes exist because mistrust and greed exist. China and Japan were once not unified states, and war was prominent throughout the land. Yet today, these formerly separated peoples are united and do not “knock their neighbors over the head”. In the modern era, superstition must be supported by intelligence to be acted on. Believing politicians have evil schemes with no evidence would be just as bad as believing they tell the truth. Nothing as costly as developing a nuclear weapon has been undertaken on hearsay alone. South Vietnam literally only existed because of foreign intervention. Even if it wasn’t invaded, North Vietnam suffered heavy air attacks. Nuclear weapons did not protect it.

I don't believe it would come to fruition if "city on Mars" did not come with "lower launch costs and fly more times thus make more money". In fact now that I am thinking about it, in any case, Starship is not being built for fun, it is being built to build a city on Mars and save humanity by making life multiplanetary (TM). Nukes don't come with such an appeal. For the countries that have them. And as I said, they enable wars too. But nuclear countries invade non-nuclear neighbors. I presented a counterfactual as requested... People were entirely capable of making better decisions. It is just as plausible as people making the bad decisions they historically did. But nuclear weapons weren't built "because physics". They were built for specific reasons unique to the situation of the time. Military takes control of the technology and it is classified. No private version is ever developed. It took the very miraculous KAL 007 incident to get GPS declassified. There is unlikely to ever be such an incident that would make the internet seem necessary for public use. Possibility =/= inevitability. By that logic, nuclear war is inevitable. It's a miracle it worked. If LeMay had convinced Kennedy... or maybe, let's say an alternate Nixon presidency, given how close that election was... it could have easily escalated into war. When Angels Wept is a very interesting counterfactual history where the Cuban Missile Crisis went hot. It is written in the style of a history book from that world. The author concludes by stating he doesn't have enough faith in humanity to believe an alternate world where the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved peacefully is plausible. The ideology dated to there, but the decision did not. The Japanese government was clearly capable of not going to war if it wanted to, because when presented with the opportunity to attack a weakened Soviet Union in 1941, they chose not to, despite army studies indicating an invasion would be feasible. There is a similar debate over America's military misadventures. Did the decision to make a full scale deployment in Vietnam come from the Johnson administration? Or Wilson's ideology of interventionism? What I'm saying is that it was for military purposes. Not just "let's set stuff on fire". If those military purposes didn't exist, there would be no flamethrowers too. Beyond my belief that people are capable of making better decisions, however, I don't have enough knowledge of that era to posit any sort of detailed counterfactual over how that might happen. It was added after the mission. These B-29s continued in service for awhile after the war. https://www.historynet.com/from-risque-pinups-to-bombers-named-after-mothers-wwii-nose-art-became-an-expression-unto-itself/boeing-b-29-bockscar-2/ By fission I was referring to the use of it in bombs.

UFOs have been reported worldwide. For example, there was a huge number of sightings in France in 1954. The average ufologist just doesn't have the brain power necessary to perform a coherent investigation and search outside of his own country.

I mainly use this term because of the possibility some might interpret 1991-2001~ as "world peace" and then use that as an example of how war can return. 1991-2001 was not actual world peace and therefore wouldn't count. Western civilization is literally built on a system composed of ambition, envy, and greed, and yet Western Europe is peaceful and cooperative. There is no reason why this can't be expanded to the world. I'm talking about the internet, not modern computers per se. Falcon 9 and Starship were built to generate profit from satellite launches. If you don't have a great power you want to burn down, what advantage is there to nuclear weapons worth billions of dollars? Ok, I'll admit nuclear weapons keep peace for the country that has them, but... ...that's only if another country has them. Nuclear weapons cannot guarantee peace if you don't know if the other side is going to build them or not. Unless there is some sort of science cabal that is going to plot to develop nuclear weapons in both the US and Russia or Japan, no logical scientist will propose nuclear weapons on the basis of keeping the peace. The idea that people just went "welp! The Great War wasn't that bad, let's do it again!" is a meme. WWII occurred for very specific reasons that could have been prevented, as I have explained. Humans are not machines. They don't run in patterns or on programs. They have choices to make. As I said earlier, I am not saying nuclear weapons coming into existence without WWII is impossible, just that it is not inevitable. They could just as easily not come into existence. I'm talking about the internet, not modern computers. And I am not suggesting it doesn't come into existence, just that it remains under military control. Uh, I'm not sure where we had a communication breakdown, but I did not say we would somehow have brought about world peace by fighting WWIII in 1962. I just mentioned a war in 1962 as a possible example of a situation in which the internet, and thus social media, does not come into existence. Whether that is a positive or negative is up to the individual. I personally don't see social media as nearly as world threatening as nuclear weapons. Rational concerns require rational responses. Having a rational concern =/= your response is automatically rational too. In response to Tsar Bomba, some people proposed a 1,000 megaton nuclear device. SAC regularly advocated nuking the entire Communist Bloc in the event of the slightest provocation. These people were not normal. Apologies, I meant the whole of China. No, I am not suggesting that the First Sino-Japanese War needs to be eliminated for my counterfactual. There were 37 years between the First Sino-Japanese War and the Mukden Incident. Do you think the Soviets were plotting to invade Afghanistan... in 1942? Japan's expansionism of the 1930s was a very different beast from the days of the Meiji Era, and was not inevitable either. Oh ye of little faith. That's not how flamethrowers came into existence. There was a rational need to overcome fortifications or masses of enemy troops in war, which led to the use of fire as a weapon. And yet Project Orion remains paper...

How hard is it to keep a scientific discovery secret? I am writing a story where Imperial Germany survives WWI, and a second European war had erupted by the time fission is discovered in 1938. Would the Germans be able to keep it secret or would it get leaked to other countries? I'm currently assuming they could keep it secret, but scientists working on the project leak it to other nations purposely in an attempt to preserve the balance of power.

I'm unaware of any billion dollar projects being undertaken solely for fun. The point is the peace was not kept. If anything, nuclear weapons enabled further wars. Only once enough nations had them (and only among the great powers at that). You can't propose nuclear weapons to keep the peace if you have no idea if your enemies are going to do the same thing. Once something in society is eliminated, it tends to stay that way. Do you believe witch trials are going to come back some day? Once true world peace is achieved, it is unlikely to go away, barring a major change in the environment. If climate change doesn't get addressed in our alternate world and resources begin to become scarce, I will give you that- nuclear weapons will definitely be built some day. But again, I don't think ignorance toward it is inevitable, and it could be changed too. Nuclear bombs don't get built by one or two people. It takes an entire nation. Not only were nuclear weapons built due to the world condition of the time, they were built because of a general consensus that it was necessary. Even if Crazy Oppy wants to make a big boom boom, in a peaceful world he won't have the backing of the state to do so- nuclear weapons, with no enemies to use them on, would be akin to Project Orion in terms of necessity, and we know how that turned out. WWI ends because America enters faster and provides the tipping of the balance necessary to bring things in the Allies favor. Thus would end it faster. The original revolution (February I think?) predated Lenin by only a few months. If the Germans are being beat back thanks to American power by 1916, 1917 does not see the dire situation that brought about the revolution. Lenin might still try, but he won't have public support necessary to win. But the point is execution. The Americans thought it would work and thus poured billions into it- billions that perhaps could have gone towards logistics or faster force modernization. The Japanese (government) didn't think it would work, or at least did not believe to the extent the Americans did. They chose to spend their money on conventional weapons instead, and thus got no results from their nuclear program. I'm talking about a point of divergence in the 1950s or 1960s. Not someone suddenly cutting off internet access in the late 80s or 90s. I'm just skeptical any money would go towards technology when the real need is stabilizing the food supply and building housing, along with a general repair of the economy. Computers would not have an obvious role to play in that, or certainly not one worth the cost of development. FYI, the Soviets had around 20~ functioning ICBMs, but the main killer would be in Europe, where the Soviets did indeed have hundreds of MRBMs and IRBMs. Note that just because I say it is not inevitable, I am not saying it is impossible. The northern hemisphere could be ravaged in 1962 and maybe we would still end up with basic computers for research purposes by the 1990s. But it could easily go the other way too. Germany in WWII and the USSR ostensibly needed the support of their people (heck, it was in Soviet ideology on paper that it was required) and yet were hardly efficient. The... most sociopathic of scientists during the Cold War that I have heard of tended to only be enabled that way because they had the fear of communism to ride off of. Without that, these people will remain loons. This particular revolution was mainly brought about by the losses in 1917 and continued war. If 1916 and 1917 see victories, conditions will be better and the war may not occur. Or, if a revolution does occur, it won't have public support. I won't discount the February Revolution succeeding. But the October Revolution would definitely fail. Japan did not have a desire to march south until the late 1930s. Russia was humbled in 1905 and did not pose a threat in the same way the resurgent USSR was. Japan desired to build a sphere of influence in Asia and thus fought there. But China was never in the sights of the Japanese government. Hot headed army officers were responsible for that. If the world is more peaceful, Japan doesn't need to invade other places because it is still doing trade with the other nations. I think you underestimate what leveling 10-20 cities does to a nation's economy. And R-12/14 were in the hundreds at the time. My scenario mainly applied to Europe.

Do you have any sources to back this up. Everything I have read indicates the fear of fascism (many of the emigre scientists having experienced it first hand prior to moving to the US) and belief Germany was working on their own bomb drove development. World War III was fought, just not between the great powers. I’m skeptical atomic bombs could come into existence on the justification of keeping peace. The scientists weren’t idiots, and I’m sure they were aware of what happened with the machine gun- another weapon built to “end war”. What I’m saying is the history of nuclear weapons do not line up with the idea that they are “inevitable”. Nuclear weapons were built for three reasons- a) militaristic regimes desiring bigger weapons b) a fear of militaristic regimes that might end up with bigger weapons c) a realization everyone was working on bigger weapons (USSR) These were not inevitable things. Fission didn’t just come into existence out of nowhere. Taft succumbs to stress and does not run for President in 1912. Teddy Roosevelt wins the election, enters the war in 1915. It comes to an end in 1917 with a direct occupation of Germany. Any attempt at revolution in Russia ends in failure due to a lack of public support. Roosevelt’s uninvolvement in the peace negotiations leads to a fairer outcome for Germany. No threat of communism means Mussolini doesn’t come to power, or if he tries his coup he lacks public support and fails. The League of Nations is never formed. Roosevelt had more respect for Japan’s desire to build a sphere of influence in Asia. Without a fear of communism, the Kanto Army may not be driven to invade Manchuria. If it does, Japanese politicians have a spine and reign them in. The US had the highly convince Albert Einstein. Japan did not have this. Hotter Cold War means internet stays military. Vasilt Arkhipov decides to launch the nuclear torpedo and Western civilization is heavily damaged in the ensuing war, with modern computers never being developed.

Why didn’t the US develop a 100 megaton bomb after the Tsar Bomba test? They chose not to out of military-political circumstances, despite the effectiveness (both tactical and political) such a weapon would have on paper. In a more peaceful world, countries are not going to waste billions of dollars on a single weapon when conventional arms provide for defence already. Or are you saying scientists proposed nuclear weapons because they were madmen and warmongers who wished to see millions die? They are not going to propose bombs if there is no political situation that requires them. Superdeterminism has not been proven as an aspect of quantum mechanics. People always have a choice. Basic human principle has existed throughout the entire Common Era. These people are not preprogrammed robots. They could have made different decisions. History does not exist. It is just the former present and future. If history is inevitable, then so is the future, and nothing anyone does matters. I prefer not to believe in such a bleak worldview. Re: Japan, my position is that Japan could have invested more in a nuclear program if they so desired. A plant producing heavy water as a byproduct existed in Korea, and obviously uranium deposits were somewhere on the peninsula given the modern DPRK’s endeavors. They chose not to, and I believe this was due to a lack of faith in the concept. Economic concerns did play a role in the decision not to- BUT, only because of a lack of faith in the weapons. If Japan had truly believed they would work and believed in the concept as the US did, they would have had a full fledged program and maybe produced a weapon prior to the end of the war (which they were going to lose). Think about it. If we didn’t have evidence nuclear weapons worked, do you think North Korea, a country perhaps in a similar economic state as wartime Japan, would be investing in nuclear weapons when they could build numerous, tried and true conventional weapons? There is evidence and North Korea has succeeded in building weapons. If Japan had evidence- a desire- they too could have succeeded, despite the economic circumstances.

I think these phenomena deserve to be properly studied. Discounting them as fake is just as bad as declaring them to be extraterrestrial. Although I will say this though- the extraterrestrial advocates are way worse. To say they are fake is just healthy skepticism, to declare them to be alien is to be duped by the Cosmic Joker. At the same time I don’t believe they can be studied. I agree with Jacques Vallee in that these phenomena seem to be designed to be nothing more than the over active imagination and blurs in a photo.

The atomic bomb was developed out of military-political considerations. Not “we can do this so let’s do it for no reason”. Take away the military-political circumstances and there would be no nuclear weapons. The circumstances of the 1930s and 1940s were not inevitable. Thus neither were nuclear weapons. There was no Soviet interest in nuclear weapons until it became clear the Germans and British were working on one. I’ll admit my statement was partially wrong- the Soviets did not start their program only after the Americans had a bomb, but, they did only start their program after receiving intelligence reports indicated other countries were working on one. Anyhow, this only applies to the Soviets. My original argument still has holes in it because the Germans and Japanese started programs on their own. I’m not talking about expecting the literal same level of funding, I’m talking about a serious level of funding. I.e. It doesn’t matter what the exact number is. To use a different example, whether it be 1 billion dollars or 500 million dollars, there is a clear indicator of a serious level of funding of a rocket program… and then there is not (that is, an indicator of a lack of seriousness is there). Germany did not have combat on its own territory until 1944, although you could count Allied air raids and take it back to 1942. But Japan didn’t even experience meaningful air raids until 1944. Combat within “the empire” was akin to combat “within the US” that historically took place- I.e. what happened in Guadalcanal did not affect the Japanese home front anymore than Wake Island affected the US*. Japan had a pretty good opportunity from 1940-1942 to conduct a serious nuclear weapons program but chose not to. *Japan obviously lost but this wasn’t because of its home front being damaged in the same way Germany was by Allied air raids, the US had economic superiority and the Japanese didn’t. I’d argue superior Allied quality and quantity meant even without B-29 air raids, the outcome on the battlefield would have been the same (until we get to the question of needing the atomic bombs to end the war, of course). In other words, the Japanese home front was largely protected for the majority of the war. On the other hand, the American submarine campaign had a major impact on the availability of raw materials, but I don’t think this would have impacted a potential nuclear program- assuming the Japanese completely trust the science and go all in on it.

I don’t think so. A report came out the other day that the balloon wasn’t even collecting data during its flight over the US. It very clearly blew off course and the fight was accidental. There is no way the US is switching from planes and satellites to balloons. The balloon incident itself makes it very clear balloons suck at intelligence gathering. I think it is a repeat of early Cold War paranoia. If relations were better among the world powers, this would not be garnering so much attention from the government.

What I’m saying is that the OP is incorrect in that technological advancement is inevitable. It could have gone very differently. I’m checking my sources now and I was partially incorrect. It did indeed begin in 1942. But, it was a tiny program and did not receive much attention until after the war. And again, it was developed because of intelligence the West was working on one- not indigenous Soviet interest. I think they would have invested more in it if they were truly convinced of its military utility. The failure to fund on the scale of the US is a clear indicator of skepticism on the part of their leaders.

Is there any historical precedent for someone lying to Congress just to get famous? In the meantime, I recommend reading The Invisible College by Jacques Vallee. The gist of the book is that these aren’t from space, and if they do actually exist, we are never going to get hard evidence because these things are designed to be unbelievable to those who don’t witness them first hand.

PM me on this if you like. I disagree and do not believe this is supported by facts. It’s a debate as old as the New Deal itself though, so discussion may be fruitless. I’m talking about the entire wars not the atomic bombs. I understand your reaction though lol. I’ve read Hell to Pay by D.M. Giangreco and claims that an invasion of Japan would have been easy annoy me too. I don’t believe this is supported by facts. The initiation of the Manhattan Project was largely due to fears that Germany was working on its own weapon. Better decision making in World War I means no tense 1930s or WWII, or at the very least no pedant Germany driving the fears of emigre scientists, and thus no imperative to build a bomb. If nuclear weapons were so inevitable, how come the Soviets weren’t interested until they knew the Americans had one? How come Germany and Japan didn’t invest more in it? The Soviets were uninterested in the concept and the Germans and Japanese didn’t even believe it would work.

I heavily disagree. The atomic bomb was brought about by the hubris and catastrophic decision making of the early 20th century. Without that, we could have very easily avoided the deaths of millions and ended up with nuclear reactors for power generation only. It should also be noted that the reason other countries built nuclear weapons was because the US had them. The Soviets had no interest in such a weapon until the Americans had one. So what happens if Giuseppe Zangara doesn’t wobble on his chair and that lady doesn’t swing her purse, and Roosevelt dies in 1933? No recovery from the Great Depression and no money for a nuclear program. Nuclear bombs themselves get buried as “Jewish physics” in Germany. And then everything rests on Japan. Nuclear reactors will definitely be built in both countries after an Axis victory, but nuclear weapons may not come to fruition. History could have gone many different ways, and continues to be unpredictable. For all we know a Kuiper Belt object is hurtling toward Earth, and human history is about to end (or be reduced in technologicality heavily).

Today is mine Sorry to NASA though, I’m getting Lego Indiana Jones stuff rather than the Space Shuttle Discovery and Perseverance rover.

I’m surprised I didn’t post in this thread when I first saw it. Mine is a 1960s Soviet artwork. It depicts a spacecraft, perhaps TMK, approaching Mars. I believe the title is Вперёд на Марс or something like that.

They didn’t know this suspect existed at that time.

As the article says, “items that "tend to show evidence of motive and/or identity of the perpetrator such as photographs and undeveloped film, insurance policies, and letters, address and telephone records, diaries, and other documents, whether such items are written, typed or stored on computer discs".” Here in Oregon we had a 1970s murder solved the other day. It’s not that odd for them to investigate such an old case.

I’m not saying new things can’t be good, I’m just saying being new doesn’t automatically make it good, and new things can be bad.

It is probably intended to sink lower in the water when cruising, as are cargo ships. It just looks this way because it is in port.

Nuclear weapons are new and yet they are not fine.