What The Movie Oppenheimer Taught Me About Technology Development...

[kerbiloid]

Btw, just have read a comment on another forum.

It's said that Nagasaki was a backup aim instead of Kokura.

Spoiler

Why is the painted route "Salt Lake- Nagasaki"?

 

[magnemoe]

On 7/28/2023 at 8:40 PM, farmerben said:

Can't find a graphic of it right now, but there is something called single point detonation.  Using shaped charge technology it works sort of like an implosion bomb, but you only require one high explosive, not a bunch set off simultaneously.

This is probably true, but its hard and would require lots of explosives I think. As I understand many modern nuclear bombs uses only two one in each end, this let you build an design like an american football who turn the explosive front into two half spheres at the end. One benefit is that both detonators need to trigger at the exact same time or you get an dirty bomb not an nuke. 
Both require that you mix fast and slow explosives to shape the front, assume an other fast layer think the skin of the football, then the none spherical end has slower explosives so the parts farthest away catches up, followed by an fast explosives in an inner sphere who implodes. 

On 7/29/2023 at 5:46 PM, tater said:

I remember an old George Carlin bit about flamethrowers.

The gist is that he points out that at some point, some guy had to think, "gee, I'd sure like to set fire to those people over there!" then invented it.

That's humanity in a nutshell.

I assume the old Greece fire throwers just used pumps. Something like an super soaker is intuitive and easy to build. I assume next idea is to mix air and liquid instead of pressurizing the tank for higher velocity and more range. 

 

[magnemoe]

On 7/28/2023 at 10:49 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Fission would be invented anyway, then someone would come up with the idea of an nuclear reactor for power, this is tempting for countries with little coal or oil. 
You would also realize you could probably make an very powerful bomb out of this, but it sounds expensive and it was so you make this part secret, this is serious fail source. 
But you also realize you can make smaller reactors with more enriched uranium. They will be faster to build and might be used to power moving stuff like ships or perhaps locomotives or even planes if evolved enough. 

Then you get an arms race, probably with planes. Before WW 1 it was an arms race building battleships mostly between UK and Germany but most other build them. 
This repeat in the 1930's and you got the naval arms treaties as this was very expensive and the battleship arms race might be one of the triggers for WW 1. 
Well most cheated in various creative and / or obvious ways.  Submarines with battleship guns for the French,  Below 10.000 ton fleet carriers who was an bad idea and destroyers who was small cruisers with lots of 5" guns who probably was smart for the Japanese. UK made ships with very weird and spotty armor layout who floated very high in the water, store the bolt on armor close. 
It broke down. 

[SunlitZelkova]

On 7/29/2023 at 2:27 PM, tater said:

You can argue that Falcon 9 was designed to have a self-sustaining rocket company since Musk started with substantially less money, but Starship is 100% not for making money.

The total available launch market is something like 4-8 billion. In current dollars, the Manhattan Project cost ~$30B. As a reality check, Musk has ~$114B in cyber truck reservations alone. Launch is chump change.

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.

On 7/29/2023 at 2:27 PM, tater said:

They have kept the peace vs global total warfare since WW2. Neither atomic bomb killed as many people as a single conventional attack on Tokyo did. The total loss of life in WW2 was so large that the 2 atomic bombs were noise level additions—all those other deaths were "conventional." A conventional WW3 would have killed many 10s or even 100s of millions.

For the countries that have them.

And as I said, they enable wars too.

On 7/29/2023 at 2:27 PM, tater said:

No. Say a nation that will not start a war itself gets a nuke, and no one else has them. They now have deterrence vs conventional war, as well. A nonnuclear country does not invade its nuclear neighbor.

But nuclear countries invade non-nuclear neighbors.

On 7/29/2023 at 2:27 PM, tater said:

Could have been prevented... with magic. WW2 was WW1, part 2. It might be possible to imagine some alternate history, but it requires changed many, many unrelated things that actually happened. So many it's not terribly plausible, IMO.

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.

On 7/29/2023 at 2:27 PM, tater said:

I'm saying it's inevitable, because physics. That doesn't mean they get used, but making fission bombs is easy, and the physics cannot be made to disappear. The very same arguments you make could be made against explosives of any kind—except chemistry.

But nuclear weapons weren't built "because physics". They were built for specific reasons unique to the situation of the time.

On 7/29/2023 at 2:27 PM, tater said:

So we trade the internet for a military dictatorship? Or is there some way that the military now controls the phones? There was nothing about the net that required the military, ever, they just happened to do it first.

On 7/29/2023 at 2:27 PM, tater said:

Nor do I, the point is that everyone could agree that social media is bad—but since the technology was possible, it was inevitable. It was an analogy is all.

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.

On 7/29/2023 at 2:27 PM, tater said:

The SAC model... demonstrably worked. It prevented a first strike. It's important to note that the US held "first strike" capability for a couple decades at least. We chose not to use it, since that sort of thing was not in our nature as a society.

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.

On 7/29/2023 at 2:27 PM, tater said:

The 30-40s was the direct result of the Meiji Restoration, IMO. Entirely connected. The pathological interservice issues between the IJA and IJN are interesting as well. The IJA absolutely wanted to grab as much of China as possible. The lack of bunker oil for the IJN was a proximal cause of starting the Pacific War (to grab the NEI oil fields). But I digress.

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?

On 7/29/2023 at 2:27 PM, tater said:

The initial German Flammenwerfer was designed in 1901, with a few more within some years, and the first units accepted by the German Army in 1911. They were not used in combat until 1915 I think, but they predated WW1.

Someone decided it would be useful to throw fire at people (long before that there was "Greek fire" after all), and since it was possible to throw fire at people, it got built.

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.

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Btw, just have read a comment on another forum.

It's said that Nagasaki was a backup aim instead of Kokura.

  Reveal hidden contents

Why is the painted route "Salt Lake- Nagasaki"?

 

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/

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Fission would be invented anyway, then someone would come up with the idea of an nuclear reactor for power, this is tempting for countries with little coal or oil. 
You would also realize you could probably make an very powerful bomb out of this, but it sounds expensive and it was so you make this part secret, this is serious fail source. 
But you also realize you can make smaller reactors with more enriched uranium. They will be faster to build and might be used to power moving stuff like ships or perhaps locomotives or even planes if evolved enough.

By fission I was referring to the use of it in bombs.

[tater]

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Still, it's not about business, it's about a personal goal. So an individual with a different personal goal, and a small amount of money (in tech bro terms) could make a bomb if they felt like it. Manhattan Project cost ~$30B in current money.

BTW, I saw someone say they had read that in his time, Rockefeller's worth was ~2% of US GDP, nearly half a trillion in current dollars.

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

For the countries that have them.

And as I said, they enable wars too.

We were talking about WW3. WW3 means global total war.

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

But nuclear countries invade non-nuclear neighbors.

Yeah, true. During the Cold War the only example was Afghanistan. Least by a superpower.

Still, not WW3.

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

I know, my point is it requires literally everyone to make completely different decisions at every turn. Not very plausible, IMHO. One person making a different choice, then we follow the consequences is way more plausible than requiring literally everyone on earth becoming deeply concerned about peace when 5 minutes earlier they were arming for war.

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

But nuclear weapons weren't built "because physics". They were built for specific reasons unique to the situation of the time.

In that particular instance they were built out of fear someone else might build them. The existence of the physics means that fear never goes away. Say no one has that worry in the early 1940s. In the early 1950s, all someone anywhere has to think is, "maybe those guys over there are working on a nuclear weapon—they are smart, and have the industrial infrastructure... we better work the issue just in case. That fear always exists—"because physics."
 

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Possibility =/= inevitability. By that logic, nuclear war is inevitable.

Entirely different. Use != existence. Starlink could just as well be GPS. Once the price is right, GPS gets invented anyway. The point is tech development is inevitable, even if never used. H-bombs were never used, but were developed.

Also, time scale matters. My time scale is "the entire future of humanity." If the tech is possible, and discovered, it will get worked on by someone, someday.

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

I'd argue that had Nixon won, there's no Cuban Missile Crisis at all. The meeting between Kennedy and Khrushchev resulting in the latter thinking the President was clueless, so he went forward with his basing plan. 

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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?

They had their clock cleaned by Zhukov, the IJA was not sanguine about attacking the CCCP (the IJA never had decent artillery or tanks, the Russian stuff too crappy to use vs Germany would have wrecked the IJA).

 

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Military purposes exist because humans exist. At what point have human societies not knocked their neighbors over the head and taken their stuff?

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

By fission I was referring to the use of it in bombs.

Yes, but reactors means you can enrich fuel. Hence bombs are even easier. The knowledge about safety requirements for nuclear power means everyone (like political leaders, generals, etc) then knows what any physics undergrad would know once fission was discovered—that bombs are possible. Since THEY now know, they know their counterparts in every other country know the same... what if they are working on bombs? Maybe we need a program, just to be safe. Heck, all those places might be working on some little program not likely to move fast because they assume the big powers are, even if the big powers are not, or claim to not be.

The obvious counterfactual is one where politicians never lie. Maybe the no ww1, kumbaya one is looking more plausible in comparison.

Edited July 31, 2023 by tater

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Because to that date, the USSR obviously was not being able to attack Japan if it attacks the USA, but the USA was at a low start to attack Japan if it gets busy with USSR.
At the same time, the Germany attack had stuck, so any Japan war would be one vs one.

Afair, the Japan government was chosing 1 from 3 (USSR, USA, British forces in SE Asia) for several months.

As Japan had only one attempt, due to the fuel embargo, it attacked the dangerous opponent.

In 1941 Kwantung Army was staying prepared, and iirc in June 1942 it was planned to attack the Soviet Far East, as most of Soviet forces were moved to the German front.
But the growing war activity in Pacific made to take away its aviation, then troops, so by 1943 it became mostly a territorial army to oppose then-future Soviet attack, and control the captured Chinese territory.

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

They had the choice either to attack somebody immediately, or not fight at all, because gasoline is not storable well, but is expendable even in peace time.
Several years later no Zero would be able to takeoff from the carriers.

So, they chose the USA for the reasons above.

Also, in 1918, during the Civil War, the nearly-Soviet Russia was being paralyzed by the revolt of the Czechoslovak legion, Japan did the best she could at the Russian Far East (Vladivostok, Baikal, etc.).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_intervention
But again the American "expedition forces" were acting mostly to supress the Japan expansion (to prevent the Japan military bases from Manchuria to Beringia), than against the Soviets (as it was stated , "the Bolshevik government is not our enemies, as they represent one of the biggest parties in Russia").

Once the Whites at Far East had been defeated, all alien forces were withdrawn.
Later, in 1920s-1930s, there were several more Soviet-Japan incidents and conflicts in Manchuria, on the Soviet-China and Soviet-Mongolian border, 

Also, this again demonstrates the tricky US-GB relations in WWI epoch.
GB had no objections against the Japan annexion of the Soviet Far East, but US was not glad at all, because it's right in front of them.
At the same time, the US provided the way to escape from Russia for the Czechoslovakian legion, who was actively supported by the GB to help the Whites.

Actually, the Soviet Russia was the American wall against Japan coastal expansion in Pacific, and a ram to weaken the UK at the West and South,
Sometimes Germany was interfering, but that's temporary circumstances. The future of the global British Empire was more important.

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

But nuclear countries invade non-nuclear neighbors.

Unless the non-nuclears ones are treated as allies of the nuclears or belong to their sphere of interest, which is usually so.
Who isn't, rarely makes an interest to invade.

In Vietnam War even three opposing to each other nuclear countries were involved (SU, US, and PRC), but the war itself had deep historical and ethnic roots, not caused by somebody's intervention.

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

If those military purposes didn't exist, there would be no flamethrowers too.

Every time I see a spider, I dream of one.

In other places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_flamethrowers_in_the_United_States

And the "pioneer's (scout's?) flamethrower" (aerosol can + lighter) is eternal classics forever.

6 hours ago, tater said:

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

But nuclear countries invade non-nuclear neighbors.

Yeah, true. During the Cold War the only example was Afghanistan. Least by a superpower.

Afghanistan twice, Iraq twice, Vietnam, and so on,

The president of Panama is still sitting in the US prison if still alive.

***

Back to the inevitability.

The fission is inevitable to discover, because they discover it by irradiating a piece of natural uranium with weak Po-Be neutrons, like they did with alpha, beta, etc.
It couldn't be prohibited, as nobody knows of the fission.

When the fission was discovered, it was discovered in natural uranium.
The idea of critical mass had appeared immediately, and thus the theoretical possibilty of an explosion was realized at once. But the pre-WWII critical mass estimation was made for natural uranium, and resulted in numbers of tens of tonnes or more, even with ideal reflector. So, the nuclear bomb was first invented not as a viable design, but as a physical possibility. Something like LHC killing the Earth with strangelets.

At the same time this valueof the mass was clearly illustrating the possibility of a primitive nuclear reactor.
To build the reactor, they needed slightly enriched uranium. So, they began the study with bomb is mind, but just as "let's first build a reactor, then if possible build a huge bomb", as the optimists were estimating the critical mass as several tonnes, or maybe even less.

Once they had run the primitive reactor, they got:

1. A multispectral neutron source, which clarified the tricky picture of "cross-section = function(neutron energy)" for 238 and 235 isotopes separately.
This gave the optimistic 48 kg critical mass of pure 235.

2. Plutonium, which had even smaller critical mass (10.5 kg in alpha-phase, ~16 in delta).

3. Tritium, instead of their fruitless and desperate attempts to find its natural source.

Exactly same studies with exactly same results they would have even without any intention to build a bomb.

After the fission had been discovered, the reactor-grade enrichment and the experimental reactor was inevitable.

After they realized the picture and got in practical amounts the U-235, Pu, and T, the pure 235 exraction (read - weapon-grade enrichment) was inevitable just to clarify the picture.

On having the weapon-grade 235, Pu, and tritium, a practical experiment to check the theory in a far part of desert was just needed to confirm the physical theory.

Once the test had succeeded, the clear understanding, that others will be irradiating natural uranium with Po-Be neutron source and discover the fission, would make necessary to analyze the practical aspects of others' nukclear weapons.

Once you have invented the others' nuclear weapons which can be aimed at you, you already have your own design of it.

As the nukes don't need magic crystals and mostly need fine electrics and fine chemistry, you are inevitably developing everything required for.

Once you have an ability to produce every part of your own nukes, you start thinking of double-purpose technologies, usable in nukes, to peacefully avoid making them.

Thus, you even don't notice when all components of the nukes are ready and stored, and all you need is to shape the pieces of proper isotopes.
And the only question is: can you do it without being preventively nuked, or will your patron let you do that without sending friendly troopers to your capital and to your plants.

Edited July 31, 2023 by kerbiloid

[tater]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

Afghanistan twice, Iraq twice, Vietnam, and so on,

He said neighbors.

 

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, tater said:

He said neighbors.

 

You call "neighbors" people at another side of the Wall..

[tater]

27 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

You call "neighbors" people at another side of the Wall..

No wall, just a few km has a wall 

Least with the neighbors.

[SunlitZelkova]

23 hours ago, tater said:

Still, it's not about business, it's about a personal goal. So an individual with a different personal goal, and a small amount of money (in tech bro terms) could make a bomb if they felt like it. Manhattan Project cost ~$30B in current money.

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

We were talking about WW3. WW3 means global total war.

23 hours ago, tater said:

Yeah, true. During the Cold War the only example was Afghanistan. Least by a superpower.

Still, not WW3.

16 hours ago, tater said:

He said neighbors.

 

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

I know, my point is it requires literally everyone to make completely different decisions at every turn. Not very plausible, IMHO. One person making a different choice, then we follow the consequences is way more plausible than requiring literally everyone on earth becoming deeply concerned about peace when 5 minutes earlier they were arming for war.

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…

23 hours ago, tater said:

In that particular instance they were built out of fear someone else might build them. The existence of the physics means that fear never goes away. Say no one has that worry in the early 1940s. In the early 1950s, all someone anywhere has to think is, "maybe those guys over there are working on a nuclear weapon—they are smart, and have the industrial infrastructure... we better work the issue just in case. That fear always exists—"because physics."

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

Entirely different. Use != existence. Starlink could just as well be GPS. Once the price is right, GPS gets invented anyway. The point is tech development is inevitable, even if never used. H-bombs were never used, but were developed.

Also, time scale matters. My time scale is "the entire future of humanity." If the tech is possible, and discovered, it will get worked on by someone, someday.

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”?

On 7/30/2023 at 3:40 PM, tater said:

They had their clock cleaned by Zhukov, the IJA was not sanguine about attacking the CCCP (the IJA never had decent artillery or tanks, the Russian stuff too crappy to use vs Germany would have wrecked the IJA).

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.

On 7/30/2023 at 3:40 PM, tater said:

Military purposes exist because humans exist. At what point have human societies not knocked their neighbors over the head and taken their stuff?

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”.

On 7/30/2023 at 3:40 PM, tater said:

The obvious counterfactual is one where politicians never lie. Maybe the no ww1, kumbaya one is looking more plausible in comparison.

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.

17 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

In Vietnam War even three opposing to each other nuclear countries were involved (SU, US, and PRC), but the war itself had deep historical and ethnic roots, not caused by somebody's intervention.

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.

[tater]

22 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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, there is some small % chance per person or state with the means per year, summed over all those people/states, and each year. It adds up to 1 given sufficient time.

24 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Except WW3 didn't happen.

25 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

And it could go on…

You're making my point. To get to a certain point (reality, right now), there's a vast chain of things that happened "just so." Had any happened differently, a better outcome is not certain at all—might have been worse, not better. "World peace" is a unitary solution given human history, a special case, literally every other outcome is "not world peace."

28 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

No, it wasn't. The Japanese had no intelligence. The Germans started their program because it was possible, not because of others. Unsure why the UK started. It would be sensible to assume some other powers must be working on a self-evident weapon technology that literally everyone on Earth knows about.

No need to place a bomb in orbit when you could launch one, then detonate it just as easily without it reentering unexpectedly, and possibly being recovered.

Also, there's a treaty about that—likely because people were talking about it at the time.

32 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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”?

That is not at all the same as developing a strategic weapon system. If there was some geopolitical reason that warranted violating the treaty, then we would (or a non-signer would). The reason for building them is that people have always started wars, and always will, and they deter war. They exist to not be used.

 

35 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Yep, as I said, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters themselves assessed the outcome of the Pacific war as "a 90% chance of national death."  They did it anyway. Knowing that that's how humans can apparently think—and with the lives of 10s of millions in the balance—is a powerful reason to make sure they are deterred from even considering it. Would they have started the war had they assessed their chances as "A 100% chance of national death?" Or how about "Every Japanese person burned to ashes or living a stone age life in caves going forward."? My guess is they come up with another plan.

39 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Incorrect, military purposes exist because mistrust and greed exist.

That's called "humanity." You might add, ideology, dogma, or any other failings. During what period on Earth have humans NOT fought each other? Surely if "world peace" is a possible outcome with a few counterfactual changes this must have happened before when there were even fewer people to have to wrangle into passivity. When was this golden age of peace—and why did it end?

42 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Evil schemes? Why attribute it all to motives when stupidity will often do?

 

43 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Even if it wasn’t invaded, North Vietnam suffered heavy air attacks. Nuclear weapons did not protect it.

Indeed, the rules of the Cold War had to be followed closely. Conventional attack within clients possible, not vs a power, and not all clients. CCCP/clients can't attack NATO, and US/NATO can't attack CCCP/Warsaw Pact. The US bombed the North, but did not interdict the supplies shipped in—which would require attacking the other power directly. If North Vietnam itself had had nukes—they would not have been bombed at all.

[kerbiloid]

10 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

It's first of all very difficult physically

A GSO platform needs less delta-V to deorbit in any direction, but is hard to support.
The LEO platform needs hypersonic gliders for crosswind maneuver.
Both are very difficult to implement, especially in 1960s.

10 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

H-bombs were intended to be used if necessary, not built for no reason.

They would be developed in any case, to test the fusion theory. Just in tiny amounts, but anyway ready to manufacture.
Actually, it was intended long before the fission bomb. They just didn't know, how to ignite.

10 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Do you think nuclear weapons will be placed on the Moon one day because “it’s possible”?

Or for resource mining purposes. 
Or against asteroids.
Or as a part of Orion propulsion.

10 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

South Vietnam literally only existed because of foreign intervention.

Briefly, the North is historically populated by Viets (close to China, more developed), the South -by Khmers.
The Viets were tending to dominate in the region, the Khmers had their own view.
Temporarily, the conflicts were supressed by the French, who... weren't demonstrating high selectivity.
In 1950s the North became free first, while the South was staying French.
Once the South became independent, too, the North wanted to restore the political domination on South, but this was rejected.
But the South was ruled by a dictator, not the best man, so a Civil war was running.
The rebels asked North for help, the North joined with pleasure.
The South was asking USA for help, as the North was supported by Communists.
The USA just unstuck from the Cuban story, had a muddy mood, and was not inspired to join a war again, but after several years of asking, and the rather strange Tonkin incident, it joined.
While the South was falling into the political and military bankrupcy, the more Vietnam people were willingly-unwillingly taking the side of the North.
Finally, it began looking like the USA is the only one, who is  fighting there, for unclear reasons.
So, finally they have run the campaign of pacifism and quit the war, because "people are asking for".

10 hours ago, tater said:

Unsure why the UK started.

Because everyone started with Rutherford.

10 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

military purposes exist because mistrust and greed exist.

The most part of murders is done with a kitchen knife.

It doesn't mean that it's made for murder.

Edited August 1, 2023 by kerbiloid

[Terwin]

17 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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”.

China has several minority populations that they are still repressing and trying to eliminate.  Anyone who is not Han is a second-class citizen.

 Japan is much smaller and is already more or less 100% ethnically the same.  I think the last Japanese internal war was an attempted revolution(the 'Meji restoration') in 1868, when the often-warring shogunate was eliminated.

Generally speaking, anyone with multiple cultures or ethnicities has internal strife, Japan removed their competing culture, and China is repressing theirs(with an eye to eliminating them over time).

17 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

In the modern era, superstition must be supported by intelligence to be acted on.

I would like some evidence of that, as I can think of many many counter-examples on both an individual and national levels, but most or all of them would count as political and thus not suitable for this forum.

(I think Germany shutting down their nuclear reactors only to start buying nuclear power from France might not be too political?)

17 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Nuclear weapons were developed because 1) it was shown to be possible, 2) hear-say that someone else might be working on it too.

Some countries did it only with reason 1, but no one had more than hear-say or logical assumptions that others were working on them.

[SunlitZelkova]

23 hours ago, tater said:

No, there is some small % chance per person or state with the means per year, summed over all those people/states, and each year. It adds up to 1 given sufficient time.

Human behavior cannot be reduced to statistics.

23 hours ago, tater said:

Except WW3 didn't happen.

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

You're making my point. To get to a certain point (reality, right now), there's a vast chain of things that happened "just so." Had any happened differently, a better outcome is not certain at all—might have been worse, not better. "World peace" is a unitary solution given human history, a special case, literally every other outcome is "not world peace."

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

No, it wasn't. The Japanese had no intelligence. The Germans started their program because it was possible, not because of others. Unsure why the UK started. It would be sensible to assume some other powers must be working on a self-evident weapon technology that literally everyone on Earth knows about.

No need to place a bomb in orbit when you could launch one, then detonate it just as easily without it reentering unexpectedly, and possibly being recovered.

Also, there's a treaty about that—likely because people were talking about it at the time.

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

That is not at all the same as developing a strategic weapon system. If there was some geopolitical reason that warranted violating the treaty, then we would (or a non-signer would). The reason for building them is that people have always started wars, and always will, and they deter war. They exist to not be used.

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.

On 7/31/2023 at 4:42 PM, tater said:

Yep, as I said, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters themselves assessed the outcome of the Pacific war as "a 90% chance of national death."  They did it anyway. Knowing that that's how humans can apparently think—and with the lives of 10s of millions in the balance—is a powerful reason to make sure they are deterred from even considering it. Would they have started the war had they assessed their chances as "A 100% chance of national death?" Or how about "Every Japanese person burned to ashes or living a stone age life in caves going forward."? My guess is they come up with another plan.

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.

On 7/31/2023 at 4:42 PM, tater said:

That's called "humanity." You might add, ideology, dogma, or any other failings. During what period on Earth have humans NOT fought each other? Surely if "world peace" is a possible outcome with a few counterfactual changes this must have happened before when there were even fewer people to have to wrangle into passivity. When was this golden age of peace—and why did it end?

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.

On 7/31/2023 at 4:42 PM, tater said:

Evil schemes? Why attribute it all to motives when stupidity will often do?

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.

On 7/31/2023 at 4:42 PM, tater said:

Indeed, the rules of the Cold War had to be followed closely. Conventional attack within clients possible, not vs a power, and not all clients. CCCP/clients can't attack NATO, and US/NATO can't attack CCCP/Warsaw Pact. The US bombed the North, but did not interdict the supplies shipped in—which would require attacking the other power directly. If North Vietnam itself had had nukes—they would not have been bombed at all.

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.

19 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Briefly, the North is historically populated by Viets (close to China, more developed), the South -by Khmers.
The Viets were tending to dominate in the region, the Khmers had their own view.
Temporarily, the conflicts were supressed by the French, who... weren't demonstrating high selectivity.
In 1950s the North became free first, while the South was staying French.
Once the South became independent, too, the North wanted to restore the political domination on South, but this was rejected.
But the South was ruled by a dictator, not the best man, so a Civil war was running.
The rebels asked North for help, the North joined with pleasure.
The South was asking USA for help, as the North was supported by Communists.
The USA just unstuck from the Cuban story, had a muddy mood, and was not inspired to join a war again, but after several years of asking, and the rather strange Tonkin incident, it joined.
While the South was falling into the political and military bankrupcy, the more Vietnam people were willingly-unwillingly taking the side of the North.
Finally, it began looking like the USA is the only one, who is  fighting there, for unclear reasons.
So, finally they have run the campaign of pacifism and quit the war, because "people are asking for".

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.

19 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The most part of murders is done with a kitchen knife.

It doesn't mean that it's made for murder.

Nuclear weapons literally have no other utility than killing lots of people.

7 hours ago, Terwin said:

China has several minority populations that they are still repressing and trying to eliminate.  Anyone who is not Han is a second-class citizen.

 Japan is much smaller and is already more or less 100% ethnically the same.  I think the last Japanese internal war was an attempted revolution(the 'Meji restoration') in 1868, when the often-warring shogunate was eliminated.

Generally speaking, anyone with multiple cultures or ethnicities has internal strife, Japan removed their competing culture, and China is repressing theirs(with an eye to eliminating them over time).

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.

[Vanamonde]

This discussion of the movie and its era is creeping into modern politics, about which discussions never remain polite which is why we've had to ban the subject here. Please stick to history. 

[tater]

8 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Human behavior cannot be reduced to statistics.

In this case it can. A useful tech that has military utility that is trivial to create, particularly if the peaceful application exists will eventually be created by someone. In this case it's just when.

Note that the reality check is that any country that didn't lose WW2 that had a program in place around the time of the war made a bomb. Then a few after that.

21 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Never said it prevented all wars, I said they prevented WW3. They did.

22 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

I can't imagine a plausible scenario where it is not inevitable, humans gonna human.

You'd have to eliminate all bad/totalitarian ideologies and dogmas, plus geopolitics.

26 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

War has always been bad, so why did humans not become "non-warlike" earlier, when there were fewer of us to have to convince?

I'd argue that treaties around nukes exist precisely because they were used, just as the ban on chemical warfare came about because of WW1—note that that "ban" has also been violated anyway a few times. Because humans.

29 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Nothing about us (humanity) has changed at all. Humanity=humans at large. Violence is human.

From Star Trek:

“We’re human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it! We can admit that we’re killers, but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes… knowing that we’re not going to kill today.”

So yeah, we can fight it, but convincing everyone to stop is rather harder.

33 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Because we need to add random nonsense. Yes, every nation state is irrational now, and we don't have alliances, etc.

Again, what time period in human history had no wars? How long was that, and why did that golden age stop?

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

That's the reality of that conflict. Stopping incoming war materiel would have won the war rather quickly—likely with fewer deaths on all sides.

War deaths were lower after WW2, and the trend continued to decrease per capita post war, vs increasing as it had been before WW2.

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Nuclear weapons literally have no other utility than killing lots of people.

Apparently they also stop global conventional total war as well—not that anyone knew this before they were first used. They would ALSO have the utility of winning a war when you're the only one who has them, and you might only have to use one, then everyone else decides to surrender. Imagine an expansionist, totalitarian state with nukes, and no one else has them. Guess they win this game of Risk.

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

By what logic? Be specific. I'm not interested in counterfactuals about Japan 400 years ago. Humans are warlike. This does not mean that every group of humans attacks every other group of humans at the scale of nation states. It just means that conflict is a reality.

Note that in the case of chimpanzees this is true as well. When singletons from different troops meet, they gesticulate and yell, and even small groups that are roughly equal. A sort of ritual combat for dominance. If 3+ male chimps come across a singleton from an outgroup, they apparently invariably try to murder him.

Something happened in the mid 40s that just stopped battle deaths cold:

 

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

No high-tech weapon = big crowd wins.

Yes high-tech weapon = big weapon wins.

Urban high-tech = low fertility, smaller crowd.

Nukes are just a kind of high-tech,

The aim is to survive. Including the fear of taking the winner together with you in case of defeat,

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Uh, no, I'm sure if I spent time on it I could find other scenarios where war is generally eliminated.

Big world, few people, developed industry.

The problem is, who's the few.

If there is only one well in the desert, then only one of the families of good people can drink.

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Rutherford was laughing at those, who were talking about the military nuke possibility. He said that the nuclear physics is a toy for scientists, nothing more.

As we can see, the idea of a nuclear weapon had appeared when the nuclear physics was a toy for scientists, nothing more.

Also, we should remember the ingenious fiction writer of all times and peoples, H.G.Wells.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Set_Free

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_in_the_Air

Just chems, rather than nukes.

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

There could have been a treaty preventing the use of new technologies for weapons in my counterfactual.

When the nanites have made the nukes useless. Not sure, what's worse.

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

If that's the case why don't we aim some of our nuclear weapons at Britain and France?

We do it for you.

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Nuclear weapons literally have no other utility than killing lots of people.

Very early ones. More late and accurate ones are first of all to destroy hard objects, and tend to have lower yield.

3 hours ago, tater said:

So yeah, we can fight it, but convincing everyone to stop is rather harder.

Spoiler

"It's a time already for all good people to gather and kill all bad people".

 

3 hours ago, tater said:

male chimps come across a singleton from an outgroup, they apparently invariably try to murder him.

Because they don't have money to take.

Edited August 2, 2023 by kerbiloid

[kerbiloid]

Just met on another webpage.

https://ru-wikisource-org.translate.goog/wiki/Распоряжение_ГКО_№_2352сс_от_28.09.42?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Quote

STATE DEFENSE COMMITTEE

 

DISPOSITION dated September 28, 1942 No. GKO-2352ss

 

ON THE ORGANIZATION OF WORK ON URANIUM

 

Moscow Kremlin

Oblige the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Academician Ioffe) to resume work on the study of the feasibility of using atomic energy by fissioning the uranium nucleus and submit to the State Defense Committee by April 1, 1943 a report on the possibility of creating a uranium bomb or uranium fuel.

[SunlitZelkova]

23 hours ago, tater said:

In this case it can. A useful tech that has military utility that is trivial to create, particularly if the peaceful application exists will eventually be created by someone. In this case it's just when.

Note that the reality check is that any country that didn't lose WW2 that had a program in place around the time of the war made a bomb. Then a few after that.

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

Never said it prevented all wars, I said they prevented WW3. They did.

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

I can't imagine a plausible scenario where it is not inevitable, humans gonna human.

You'd have to eliminate all bad/totalitarian ideologies and dogmas, plus geopolitics.

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

War has always been bad, so why did humans not become "non-warlike" earlier, when there were fewer of us to have to convince?

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

I'd argue that treaties around nukes exist precisely because they were used, just as the ban on chemical warfare came about because of WW1—note that that "ban" has also been violated anyway a few times. Because humans.

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?

23 hours ago, tater said:

Nothing about us (humanity) has changed at all. Humanity=humans at large. Violence is human.

From Star Trek:

“We’re human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it! We can admit that we’re killers, but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes… knowing that we’re not going to kill today.”

So yeah, we can fight it, but convincing everyone to stop is rather harder.

Nuclear arsenals are a non-attempt at trying to prevent war. It says "prevention of death only applies to me, not to you".

23 hours ago, tater said:

Because we need to add random nonsense. Yes, every nation state is irrational now, and we don't have alliances, etc.

Again, what time period in human history had no wars? How long was that, and why did that golden age stop?

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

That's the reality of that conflict. Stopping incoming war materiel would have won the war rather quickly—likely with fewer deaths on all sides.

War deaths were lower after WW2, and the trend continued to decrease per capita post war, vs increasing as it had been before WW2.

23 hours ago, tater said:

Apparently they also stop global conventional total war as well—not that anyone knew this before they were first used. They would ALSO have the utility of winning a war when you're the only one who has them, and you might only have to use one, then everyone else decides to surrender. Imagine an expansionist, totalitarian state with nukes, and no one else has them. Guess they win this game of Risk.

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

By what logic? Be specific. I'm not interested in counterfactuals about Japan 400 years ago. Humans are warlike. This does not mean that every group of humans attacks every other group of humans at the scale of nation states. It just means that conflict is a reality.

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.

23 hours ago, tater said:

Something happened in the mid 40s that just stopped battle deaths cold:

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.

20 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Rutherford was laughing at those, who were talking about the military nuke possibility. He said that the nuclear physics is a toy for scientists, nothing more.

As we can see, the idea of a nuclear weapon had appeared when the nuclear physics was a toy for scientists, nothing more.

Also, we should remember the ingenious fiction writer of all times and peoples, H.G.Wells.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Set_Free

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_in_the_Air

Just chems, rather than nukes.

As I said, even if the idea is developed that does not necessarily mean it will be pursued.

20 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Very early ones. More late and accurate ones are first of all to destroy hard objects, and tend to have lower yield.

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.

Edited August 3, 2023 by SunlitZelkova

[tater]

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Not any specific country alone. In the sum total of countries, if the tech exists, it's gonna happen. The reason that reactors mean bombs over time plus sufficient countries is that it makes it easier.

In the case of Japan they don't need nukes if they are under our umbrella, but they have good reason to want them right now given local geopolitics.

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

They have not enabled WW3, they prevented WW3—that's all I argued, not that they had prevented all wars. See chart. Battle deaths are low. No "expansionist regimes" ever existing again is fantasy. One would expect them at the same rate they always had throughout history.

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Populations are violent. People are violent. Some neighborhoods are violent, some peaceful.

When, when did people "adopt peace?" I have asked this several times, no answer (unless it's below, going point by point, sorry). When was this golden age when people were not warlike? PEOPLE.

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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?

That we all know chemical weapons have been used after WW1 on multiple occasions, it's well documented. Since we're talking WW2, The Japanese used them in China. Iraq used them in their war with Iran. So a rule against use doesn't mean anything—and to use them, they had to first have a program and make them. So I am "insinuating" that rules don't matter. There are rules against murder everywhere, doesn't stop murder.

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Nuclear arsenals are a non-attempt at trying to prevent war. It says "prevention of death only applies to me, not to you".

Mutually assured destruction is the prevention WRT large powers, assuming both have them. But yes, it only applies to the one with the weapons if no one else has them. That is a very powerful incentive for any state with expansionist goals to be the first, as they could then do as they wish with no concerns (assuming they have a delivery system as well).

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

The most peaceful time in history (battle deaths, and democide) is NOW. With nuclear weapons. It's not impossible that it's because of nuclear weapons. Minus nukes there would be no reason for great powers not to fight as they often do.

 

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

But the point is, why would scientists want to build them in the absence of international tensions?

"Scientists." All it takes is a few who want to if paid by a state that want to pay them.

Also, again, when was this magical period that had no international tensions?

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Nuclear weapons don't create peace, both the USSR and US fought wars throughout the Cold War.

Look at the chart. Battle deaths decreased. We fought small conflicts, not global total war.

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

What's this "free pass" business? Killing people is wrong—people still kill each other. What's your point? I get it, you'd prefer a utopia where people don't kill each other, ever. Sounds nice. Won't ever happen. The present day reality I live in is just "reality."

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

I don't think it's feasible at all. If everyone were to become peaceful except for a small handful of warlike people, the warlike people take over in whatever region, and are now a larger group of people who are warlike—even if forced to be against their will (at first). You'd  have to end all warlike people somehow, which will literally never happen.

Does that mean that aiming for more peaceful resolutions is bad? Of course not. But once technology exists that can make an expansionist state potentially all powerful if they alone hold that tech, there will always be an arms race. AI is a great current example. If you believe that AGI is a very powerful tech (a force multiplier on other tech as well), and that AGI leads to ASI, then being so concerned about "safety" WRT AI that you cease dev needs to be tempered by the fact that bad states will NOT cease dev—you are guaranteeing that "the bad guys" get it first.

Note that the x-risk is still there (if that is a real concern), but with bad actors, you have x-risk that all attempts share (like nukes have), plus the risk that the bad actors can use the tech against you. Same as nukes. They carry existential risk to everyone, but they carry existential risk just to YOU if only the other guy has them.

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Humans fight battles. We have for as long as we've had civilization. Claiming nukes have enabled the current amazingly low battle deaths is only demonstrated by considering the counterfactual of no nukes. I would argue we would have instead followed the trend from WW1 to WW2, with WW3 likely killing even more—with conventional arms alone. Given the spacing of WW1/2, a WW3 leaves room for World Wars 4 and 5. (WW3 would have been WW1 part 3, after all. Assuming 1 superpower is not completely eliminated, WW4+ follows.

So in the real world—where nations had fought wars within the lifetimes of their current leadership when fission was discovered—threats of war were real literally everywhere on Earth. As a result, any sane leader would assume that some other state must be working on this obvious technology.

Any counterfactual has to IMHO result in total world peace at least a generation before the leadership in place when fission is discovered. No one living in power who has ever known war. Even if we stipulate 1938 as fission year (seems like minus wars science might have progressed faster, course maybe science got more $$$ because of warlike states flexing for power), then we need to imagine no wars at all after maybe the mid-1800s. Seems... unlikely.

This is not a great chart because it is not done as a rate.

In 1200, world pop is estimated at 360M-500M people. So the Mongol Conquests killed ~10% of world population. WW1 (w/Sino/Japan) killed ~50M out of ~1.8B—~2.7% of world pop. WW2 killed ~70B out of 2.3B, ~3%. An Lushan was ~10% of the world pop dead.The three kingdoms war killed around 20% of the people on Earth.

As a reality check the Vietnam War seems to have killed ~0.06% of world population.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by tater

[tater]

So we've gone from large scale human conflict (ignoring murders, duels, and other individual human violence which has also declined) killing 20% of world pop in 1 war to 10%, to the worst modern war killing ~3%, then Korean war killed ~0.19%, Vietnam killed ~0.06%. Nice trend line.

(corrected 2% to 3%)

Edited August 3, 2023 by tater

[Terwin]

On 8/1/2023 at 7:18 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Humanity is love, acceptance, and cooperation. Mistrust, greed, and other flaws are the antithesis of humanity.

Citation needed.

Outside of the family unit, which has a biological drive to care for one's offspring, I do not see it.  Possibly because of of the biological drive to compete for resources to perpetuate your genes.

On 8/1/2023 at 7:18 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

If humans have been capable of choosing peace for > 4000 years and they never have(or at least any group that has, has been so thourghly destroyed as to leave little trace), then I do not see that changing.  

On 8/1/2023 at 7:18 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Internal strife =/= war. The goal is peace in this conversation.

Oh, so that is how you intend to define world peace.

Sure, we have never had Interplanetary conflict, so we have always had world peace.

Brother killing brother and nation killing nation is just internal conflict after all.

On 8/1/2023 at 7:18 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Lynchings, riots, armed voter suppression, and repeated deployment of the national guard notwithstanding.

 

14 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

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.

Innovation builds on innovation.  If you look closely, there is an exponential curve starting with the development of agriculture.  Sure there are bumps(wars) and dips(fall of roman empire, dark ages, etc) but the curve is there.

I see no issue with a trend that has been in place for thousands of years continuing apace, but I also do not see something that has not had any prelude in thousands of years coming about.

(Even rockets at least have an astronaut (myth?) from 4000 years ago, search on Chinese rocket chair)

[tater]

A version of the above chart with the population standardized to ~current time:

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, tater said:

So we've gone from large scale human conflict (ignoring murders, duels, and other individual human violence which has also declined) killing 20% of world pop in 1 war to 10%, to the worst modern war killing 2%, then Korean war killed ~0.19%, Vietnam killed ~0.06%. Nice trend line.

One thing who has changed is that wars tended to create famines, who was the real killers, also diseases killing soldiers and refugees. The Spanish conquest of south and central America was extremely brutal but they would not be able to physically kill 25 million people, almost all died of new diseases for them as they evolved after the ice age who an trade network would also bring but this was an special case. This is not true in most modern wars but might be why the Congo war is the only modern one on the chart. Even 3rd world countries and savage fights like Syria people did not starve to death outside of sieges.
Also war has moved from killing people to killing weapon systems. This is not new naval combat has always been around this at least since boarding was not practical. 
Same with air warfare, yes this give the defender an clear benefit as if an UK pilot bailed out of landed in UK he would be back in the fight while an German would be an prisoner of war. 

 

[tater]

2 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

One thing who has changed is that wars tended to create famines, who was the real killers, also diseases killing soldiers and refugees. The Spanish conquest of south and central America was extremely brutal but they would not be able to physically kill 25 million people, almost all died of new diseases for them as they evolved after the ice age who an trade network would also bring but this was an special case. This is not true in most modern wars but might be why the Congo war is the only modern one on the chart. Even 3rd world countries and savage fights like Syria people did not starve to death outside of sieges.
Also war has moved from killing people to killing weapon systems. This is not new naval combat has always been around this at least since boarding was not practical. 
Same with air warfare, yes this give the defender an clear benefit as if an UK pilot bailed out of landed in UK he would be back in the fight while an German would be an prisoner of war.

Those death figures are deaths from all causes during war years, not combat deaths (also includes genocide/democide).

I messed up and forgot WW2, and subbed WW1 by mistake. WW1 (+Sino/Japam) was ~2.7%, WW2 was ~3%). Corrected it.