Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Why did the US use nuclear weapons in WWII?

roachboy · 10-03-2010, 06:35 PM

i've been wracking my brain trying to remember the title of a book i read about this a while ago that was really quite good on the cognitive issues---call them---that the atomib bomb generated for the people who were in on the manhattan project and the military & political types who knew about the project. by that i mean the question of what atomic weapons were, whether they were just really big conventional weapons or something else. the problem of novelty seemingly, the new gets assimilated back into extant categories.

the story goes that hiroshima, the first bomb, was done dropped for alot of reasons, probably all of them everyone has said above, but also as an experiment. to see what'd happen. to see if it was a really big conventional weapon or something else.

and they say that the fat boy that was dropped a few days later on nagasaki was dropped for fewer reasons, not least of which was that it was thursday and the weather was nice. and they wanted to see if the other bomb design worked. and because it was planned.

so i think there are two different questions, two different situations one that involves hiroshima and political, military and ethical questions that admit of lots of perspectives and there are arguments to be made that depending on the skill of the person making them go any number of directions. it's complicated. personally, i think the ethical problems of using nuclear weapons weren't really clear until after hiroshima, the difference between it and conventional weapons weren't clear (if they are...in my mind they are, but that could be circular and driven, in the end, by revulsion)...

but nagasaki...i see that as wrong. unnecessary and wrong. it was clear but not necessarily Obvious before hiroshima that surrender was coming---but it was Obvious before nagasaki.

remembered the book:

Sherwin, Martin J. (2003). A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-3957-9.

there's alot of them, but this one reproduces alot of primary material and asks interesting questions of it.

10-03-2010, 06:35 PM	#7 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i've been wracking my brain trying to remember the title of a book i read about this a while ago that was really quite good on the cognitive issues---call them---that the atomib bomb generated for the people who were in on the manhattan project and the military & political types who knew about the project. by that i mean the question of what atomic weapons were, whether they were just really big conventional weapons or something else. the problem of novelty seemingly, the new gets assimilated back into extant categories. the story goes that hiroshima, the first bomb, was done dropped for alot of reasons, probably all of them everyone has said above, but also as an experiment. to see what'd happen. to see if it was a really big conventional weapon or something else. and they say that the fat boy that was dropped a few days later on nagasaki was dropped for fewer reasons, not least of which was that it was thursday and the weather was nice. and they wanted to see if the other bomb design worked. and because it was planned. so i think there are two different questions, two different situations one that involves hiroshima and political, military and ethical questions that admit of lots of perspectives and there are arguments to be made that depending on the skill of the person making them go any number of directions. it's complicated. personally, i think the ethical problems of using nuclear weapons weren't really clear until after hiroshima, the difference between it and conventional weapons weren't clear (if they are...in my mind they are, but that could be circular and driven, in the end, by revulsion)... but nagasaki...i see that as wrong. unnecessary and wrong. it was clear but not necessarily Obvious before hiroshima that surrender was coming---but it was Obvious before nagasaki. remembered the book: Sherwin, Martin J. (2003). A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-3957-9. there's alot of them, but this one reproduces alot of primary material and asks interesting questions of it. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 10-04-2010 at 05:41 AM..