"Oppenheimer"

[RiverDog]

It's been over 3 years, since before the pandemic, that the wife and I have gone to see a movie. That's quite a change from 30 years ago as I used to go to movies at least once a month. This one is about a subject and person whom I have an interest in and have quite a bit of background knowledge of.

The movie is based on the book "American Prometeus", which I just started reading yesterday. We also re-watched (for me) "Fat Man and Little Boy", a movie released in 1989 with J. Robert Oppenheimer as one of the two central figures, the other being Gen. Leslie Groves, played by Paul Newman. Excellent movie. My wife isn't as familiar with the background on Oppie as I am, so watching it gave her an opportunity to get a little idea of what to expect tomorrow.

There was a local radio station website that was critical of the movie because there was no mention of Hanford's role in the Manhattan Project, which I thought was a little unfair as the movie is more of a biography of one person than it is about the project to build the bomb. "Did they think that the material to build it appeared out of thin air?", the website asked. However, I've since seen comments about the movie that say that they do mention Hanford a couple of times.

I like non fiction, both in movies and in books. If I do watch or read a fiction, it has to be believable. I once went and saw the movie "The Martian", which was so farfetched that it was laughable. Cutting a space suit open so the escaping oxygen would boost his orbit and rendezvous with his rescue ship? I also don't like movies based on a historical event that are blatantly wrong or revisionist, like Oliver Stone's "JFK", which was pure garbage.

I'm curious if any of you have seen "Oppenheimer" and what your comments are, or if you plan on seeing it.

[Aseahawkfan]

I do not plan to see it. I despise the invention of the nuclear bomb. One of the most evil and short-sighted inventions in human history. A human mobile incinerator with no positive use for its creation. It was created purely to do harm. It is an invention that shows man's most evil nature in that they are willing to burn the world and all in it to have their way.

I only hope man can better use A.I. than they used the nuclear bomb. My goodness, what a worthless and vile invention.

[RiverDog]

I do not plan to see it. I despise the invention of the nuclear bomb. One of the most evil and short-sighted inventions in human history. A human mobile incinerator with no positive use for its creation. It was created purely to do harm. It is an invention that shows man's most evil nature in that they are willing to burn the world and all in it to have their way.

I only hope man can better use A.I. than they used the nuclear bomb. My goodness, what a worthless and vile invention.

Well, then the movie "Oppenheimer" would be right up your alley. My wife and I just got through watching it.

[RiverDog]

We went to see the movie yesterday, and my wife agreed that watching "Fat Man and Little Boy" first helped give her some background. But it was a difficult movie to follow as things went so fast, and they kept bouncing between the 1940's and Oppenheimer's hearing in 1954 that resulted in the revocation of his security clearance. But it was still very well done, with the guy who played Oppie, Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves, and the actress who played Kitty Oppenheimer turning in some very good acting performances. As far as I could tell, the movie stuck to the facts and if there were any fictional scenes, it didn't alter the basic facts ala Oliver Stone.

They did mention Hanford a couple of times, but very briefly, and rightfully so as it was a biography of one man and not about the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer was a complicated individual, taking a hard-liner stance for using the bomb against Japan yet opposing the development of the H-bomb. I've bought the book the movie was based on, "American Prometheus" and just started reading it. The movie was one of those where it would have helped to have read the book first before seeing the movie. Once I get done reading the book, I'm going to re-watch the movie.

I'll have to say that they've made huge improvements at movie theatres, with overstuffed power recliners, beer/wine/Mike's Hard available for purchase, advance online reservations, etc.

[RiverDog]

I do not plan to see it. I despise the invention of the nuclear bomb. One of the most evil and short-sighted inventions in human history. A human mobile incinerator with no positive use for its creation. It was created purely to do harm. It is an invention that shows man's most evil nature in that they are willing to burn the world and all in it to have their way.

I only hope man can better use A.I. than they used the nuclear bomb. My goodness, what a worthless and vile invention.

Atomic weapons aren't the only worthless and vile inventions. What about poison gas? Or napalm? Or undetectable fragmentation bombs? Ever heard of a fuel to air device?

We cannot judge a decision based on contemporary conditions. We have to put ourselves back in 1945 and consider the constraints and options present at the time the decision was made.

First of all, a negotiated peace that would have left the Japanese regime in place was out of the question. The Japanese were brutal. In WW2, they exterminated more Chinese than the Germans did Jews, and did so by every bit as cruel and barbaric means as the Germans. They used human targets for bayonet practice. The decapitated prisoners. They buried humans alive. They conducted medical experiments on live, human subjects. Ever hear of the Rape of Nanking or the Battan Death March? If you haven’t, you need to read up on it. You cannot negotiate with a regime like that anymore than we could have left the Nazis in charge in Germany. To do so would have invited another war.

Secondly, the Japanese were not going to surrender. Their citizens were fanatical, had been thoroughly brainwashed by propaganda. For example, they were told that in order for an American boy to become a Marine, he had to kill his parents to prove his courage. In our campaigns on Okinawa and Iwo Jima, there are documented incidents of hundreds if not thousands of women, their babies in their arms, jumping off cliffs to avoid capture. Documents recovered after the war support this conclusion.

Even had Truman tried to negotiate a truce or peace, the American public would never have accepted it. They had been told for nearly 4 years that the only option was unconditional surrender. The Senate must approve any treaty, and with 10-12% of the American public not wanting to even stop at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and just bomb until there was nothing left, no elected body would endorse anything less. We were a bloodthirsty lot.

Given those conditions, Truman was presented with 4 options in the summer of 1945. Option 1: Continue conventional bombing as we had been for the previous 3 years. This clearly was not working. In one single bombing raid over Tokyo in March of 1945, over 80,000 people were killed and an estimated one million left homeless. That’s as many killed as there were at Hiroshima. It didn’t even move the needle. Option 2: A land invasion from bases in Okinawa. This would have added at least another two years, a million US casualties, and many times more Japanese killed or injured. In addition, the Soviet Union had just entered the war and would have invaded from the north. In all likelihood, we would have ended up just as we did in Germany, with a North Japan controlled by the Soviets and a South Japan controlled by the Americans. How would that have played out during the ensuing Cold War?

Option 3 was a demonstration. Drop the bomb over an uninhabited area over the Pacific. This, too, had multiple problems. Who are you going to get from Japan that had the authority to surrender to witness this demonstration? Who was in charge, the emperor or the military? Who in the military, the Army or Navy? And what if it were a dud? Would it motivate the Japanese to resist even more? What would have happened if the demonstration exploded but the Japanese still didn’t surrender? We would have wasted a very limited, extremely valuable military resource and tipped our hand. A single B-29 would no longer be assumed to be a reconnaissance plane.

Option 4 was to drop it over a populated area and hope to hell that the shock of a single bomb being so destructive would compel the Japanese to surrender, and it worked. In Emperor Hirohito’s surrender speech, the first time he had ever addressed the Japanese public, he specifically mentioned the A-bomb as the reason for their change of attitude:

Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

And even that nearly wasn’t enough to pull off a surrender. Just before Hirohito’s speech, a military coup was attempted, and if it had been successful, Hirohito would have been placed under house arrest, the speech would have never happened, and the Japanese would not have surrendered.

We can argue about this decision, but we can’t argue with the results: The Japanese did surrender, they have never been a threat to world peace since, and their country and society is truly a marvel.

[Aseahawkfan]

Atomic weapons aren't the only worthless and vile inventions. What about poison gas? Or napalm? Or undetectable fragmentation bombs? Ever heard of a fuel to air device?

We cannot judge a decision based on contemporary conditions. We have to put ourselves back in 1945 and consider the constraints and options present at the time the decision was made.

First of all, a negotiated peace that would have left the Japanese regime in place was out of the question. The Japanese were brutal. In WW2, they exterminated more Chinese than the Germans did Jews, and did so by every bit as cruel and barbaric means as the Germans. They used human targets for bayonet practice. The decapitated prisoners. They buried humans alive. They conducted medical experiments on live, human subjects. Ever hear of the Rape of Nanking or the Battan Death March? If you haven’t, you need to read up on it. You cannot negotiate with a regime like that anymore than we could have left the Nazis in charge in Germany. To do so would have invited another war.

Secondly, the Japanese were not going to surrender. Their citizens were fanatical, had been thoroughly brainwashed by propaganda. For example, they were told that in order for an American boy to become a Marine, he had to kill his parents to prove his courage. In our campaigns on Okinawa and Iwo Jima, there are documented incidents of hundreds if not thousands of women, their babies in their arms, jumping off cliffs to avoid capture. Documents recovered after the war support this conclusion.

Even had Truman tried to negotiate a truce or peace, the American public would never have accepted it. They had been told for nearly 4 years that the only option was unconditional surrender. The Senate must approve any treaty, and with 10-12% of the American public not wanting to even stop at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and just bomb until there was nothing left, no elected body would endorse anything less. We were a bloodthirsty lot.

Given those conditions, Truman was presented with 4 options in the summer of 1945. Option 1: Continue conventional bombing as we had been for the previous 3 years. This clearly was not working. In one single bombing raid over Tokyo in March of 1945, over 80,000 people were killed and an estimated one million left homeless. That’s as many killed as there were at Hiroshima. It didn’t even move the needle. Option 2: A land invasion from bases in Okinawa. This would have added at least another two years, a million US casualties, and many times more Japanese killed or injured. In addition, the Soviet Union had just entered the war and would have invaded from the north. In all likelihood, we would have ended up just as we did in Germany, with a North Japan controlled by the Soviets and a South Japan controlled by the Americans. How would that have played out during the ensuing Cold War?

Option 3 was a demonstration. Drop the bomb over an uninhabited area over the Pacific. This, too, had multiple problems. Who are you going to get from Japan that had the authority to surrender to witness this demonstration? Who was in charge, the emperor or the military? Who in the military, the Army or Navy? And what if it were a dud? Would it motivate the Japanese to resist even more? What would have happened if the demonstration exploded but the Japanese still didn’t surrender? We would have wasted a very limited, extremely valuable military resource and tipped our hand. A single B-29 would no longer be assumed to be a reconnaissance plane.

Option 4 was to drop it over a populated area and hope to hell that the shock of a single bomb being so destructive would compel the Japanese to surrender, and it worked. In Emperor Hirohito’s surrender speech, the first time he had ever addressed the Japanese public, he specifically mentioned the A-bomb as the reason for their change of attitude:

Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

And even that nearly wasn’t enough to pull off a surrender. Just before Hirohito’s speech, a military coup was attempted, and if it had been successful, Hirohito would have been placed under house arrest, the speech would have never happened, and the Japanese would not have surrendered.

We can argue about this decision, but we can’t argue with the results: The Japanese did surrender, they have never been a threat to world peace since, and their country and society is truly a marvel.

There is no judging of a decision based on modern ideas.

It is based on morality of man from time immemorial. I already told you I don't like poison gas, biological weapons, fuel air bombs, incendiary weapons, and all the advanced weapons tech that was created as nothing more than a manifestation of human evil meant to dominate human groups by threatening them with mass death.

It's exactly why you hopelessly think that a revolutionary force armed with weapons provided by the 2nd Amendment would soundly lose to the U.S. Military because the government using its vast resources has created such powerful weapons of mass destruction that they would institute tyranny without the ability of humans to resist. They could in essence exterminate us at will with any of the weapons you listed.

These weapons are a manifestation of a handful of humans, usually men, who want to control everything regardless of the cost to do so and have created the means to exert this control with threat of death should you refused to comply.

These types of weapons in the best of conditions are competitively necessary to defend against even more tyrannical regimes that would use them to control the United States or exterminate its population. You have seen the use of poison gas during World War 2 on the Jewish people. It is another weapon like the nuclear bomb with no good purpose other than to mass exterminate human beings indiscriminately.

They are bad creations. A manifestation of the worst impulses of humanity.

Stop trying to make excuses after the fact like humans are prone to do to explain or excuse terrible behavior. I have no interest in listening to the adult form of explaining wrong behavior or making excuses for having to live with mass murder. That is all the excuse for using the nuclear bomb is: the adult version of what children do when they do something bad and don't want to get in trouble with mommy. They try to make it seem like a morally sound decision and then concoct a line of reasoning they sell to the public to make excuses for their vile behavior.

If there were really a God like the Christian or Muslim God, these people who invested and used this weapon knowingly would all be all be burning in Hell for mass murder of innocents. But since there is not likely a god of any kind, no one will answer for this garbage and it will all come down to who is the strongest with the best weapons most willing to use them effecitvely to achieve victory. With the comin of A.I. and robotics, we plebe humans will have to hope again these things are not turned on us in a way that won't lead to a great deal of misery.

You want to know what saves us a lot of the time? Capitalism.

A lot of people don't realize that the consumer-producer relationship that drives capitalism literally saves this world from extreme warfare. Not socialism or communism which operate just fine with the mass extermination and control of human beings with violence. It's capitalism. Capitalism requires an ever larger consumer base of workers that must earn an income to spend on goods and services and drives wealth creation in a way that requires more humans. Socialism and Communism operate better with less humans making them easier to manage as you don't have a method of wealth generation and communism and socialism don't require a consumer to maintain them and larger numbers of humans actually bankrupt communist and socialist societies. But capitalism forces the necessity of new markets with an educated, productive workforce of humans able to purchase goods and services freely able to transact, create, and operate businesses of whatever kind the market is able to financially support.

So what saved this world from a descent into warfare and extreme tyranny is capitalism and the necessary drives of a successful capitalist society. Capitalism encourages peace worldwide through trade and sees productive income producing humans as a valuable and necessary asset towards a prosperous and healthy society.

Nuclear bomb, weapons of mass destruction, and the like a terrible invention.

Capitalism regulated with a moral government (as moral as we can get) literally the driving force of world cooperation and peace. And the far left sees Capitalism as bad because they don't bother to study what drives capitalism and what makes for a successful and healthy capitalist economy. Destroying capitalism would throw this world into a bad, bad place.

Was Oppenheimer good? Did you like it?

[RiverDog]

Was Oppenheimer good? Did you like it?

Yes, and so did my wife. Judging by your attitude, I think that you'd like it, too. Oppie is a man with whom you can identify, at least some aspects of him. He was a very complicated individual, a strong advocate for building the bomb during the war yet turned into a huge pacifist after the war. He wanted to return Los Alamos to the Indians, opposed the next step in atomic research, i.e. the H-bomb, was guilt ridden by his role in creating the bomb. Very flawed individual, a womanizer, a chain smoker, union organizer, suspected communist. He went from national hero to humiliating disgrace. It's not so much a historical account of the Manhattan Project although there's plenty in there about it. It's a biography about one man.

I do recommend reading the book the movie was based on before seeing the movie. It went too damn fast even for someone like me who has decent background knowledge on it. The events and various scientists were hard to keep up with. But from my knowledge, it was historically very accurate, unlike a POS Oliver Stone movie. I don't mind them putting fictional scenes into historically based movies...like they did with "Titanic" and "Saving Private Ryan", but they have to be believable and can't change factual accounts of the event in order for me to be sold on it.

Here's the book I'm recommending:

https://www.amazon.com/American-Prometh ... 207&sr=8-2

[RiverDog]

There is no judging of a decision based on modern ideas.

It is based on morality of man from time immemorial. I already told you I don't like poison gas, biological weapons, fuel air bombs, incendiary weapons, and all the advanced weapons tech that was created as nothing more than a manifestation of human evil meant to dominate human groups by threatening them with mass death.

It's exactly why you hopelessly think that a revolutionary force armed with weapons provided by the 2nd Amendment would soundly lose to the U.S. Military because the government using its vast resources has created such powerful weapons of mass destruction that they would institute tyranny without the ability of humans to resist. They could in essence exterminate us at will with any of the weapons you listed.

These weapons are a manifestation of a handful of humans, usually men, who want to control everything regardless of the cost to do so and have created the means to exert this control with threat of death should you refused to comply.

These types of weapons in the best of conditions are competitively necessary to defend against even more tyrannical regimes that would use them to control the United States or exterminate its population. You have seen the use of poison gas during World War 2 on the Jewish people. It is another weapon like the nuclear bomb with no good purpose other than to mass exterminate human beings indiscriminately.

They are bad creations. A manifestation of the worst impulses of humanity.

Stop trying to make excuses after the fact like humans are prone to do to explain or excuse terrible behavior. I have no interest in listening to the adult form of explaining wrong behavior or making excuses for having to live with mass murder. That is all the excuse for using the nuclear bomb is: the adult version of what children do when they do something bad and don't want to get in trouble with mommy. They try to make it seem like a morally sound decision and then concoct a line of reasoning they sell to the public to make excuses for their vile behavior.

If there were really a God like the Christian or Muslim God, these people who invested and used this weapon knowingly would all be all be burning in Hell for mass murder of innocents. But since there is not likely a god of any kind, no one will answer for this garbage and it will all come down to who is the strongest with the best weapons most willing to use them effecitvely to achieve victory. With the comin of A.I. and robotics, we plebe humans will have to hope again these things are not turned on us in a way that won't lead to a great deal of misery.

You want to know what saves us a lot of the time? Capitalism.

A lot of people don't realize that the consumer-producer relationship that drives capitalism literally saves this world from extreme warfare. Not socialism or communism which operate just fine with the mass extermination and control of human beings with violence. It's capitalism. Capitalism requires an ever larger consumer base of workers that must earn an income to spend on goods and services and drives wealth creation in a way that requires more humans. Socialism and Communism operate better with less humans making them easier to manage as you don't have a method of wealth generation and communism and socialism don't require a consumer to maintain them and larger numbers of humans actually bankrupt communist and socialist societies. But capitalism forces the necessity of new markets with an educated, productive workforce of humans able to purchase goods and services freely able to transact, create, and operate businesses of whatever kind the market is able to financially support.

So what saved this world from a descent into warfare and extreme tyranny is capitalism and the necessary drives of a successful capitalist society. Capitalism encourages peace worldwide through trade and sees productive income producing humans as a valuable and necessary asset towards a prosperous and healthy society.

Nuclear bomb, weapons of mass destruction, and the like a terrible invention.

Capitalism regulated with a moral government (as moral as we can get) literally the driving force of world cooperation and peace. And the far left sees Capitalism as bad because they don't bother to study what drives capitalism and what makes for a successful and healthy capitalist economy. Destroying capitalism would throw this world into a bad, bad place.

You didn't respond to a single point I raised and instead went off on a tangent, ranting about the morality of nuclear weapons, so I'll ask you again: Given the conditions in August of 1945, which option would you have chosen if not to drop it on a populated area? What, specifically, would you have done differently? Abandon the program? That seems to be what you are advocating.

Suppose the Germans were successful in their attempt to build a bomb and were able to acquire it before we were able to march into Berlin. They had a V-2 rocket and could easily use it to deliver the bomb on cities and military targets in England, perhaps even the east coast of the US. If you watch the movie, you'll see that the fear of Hitler acquiring this awful weapon was the major, almost singular motivation they had for building the bomb as there was a very real and genuine fear that the Germans would get it first (after Germany surrendered, there was a debate as to whether or not the program should continue, which was accurately depicted in the movie). And even if the Germans didn't discover the secrets and get it, it was inevitable that someone else would have, like the Soviets, who also had an active program, and indeed, acquired it less than 4 years after we did. Would you have rather seen Joseph Stalin have a monopoly on atomic bombs?

You talk about the awfulness of nuclear weapons. You are, indeed, applying the knowledge you have gained in the late 20th and 21st centuries to decisions that were made in 1945. They didn't know what we know now. Neither Oppenheimer, Truman, or anyone else knew anything about the long-term effects of nuclear weapons, either on human beings or the environment. You have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight. You need to forget about what we've learned since and put yourself back in 1945.

Indeed, the man that decided to drop the bombs on Japan, Harry Truman, used the knowledge he gained and decided NOT to use it in Korea even though he had military advisors, Douglas McArthur in particular, begging him to do so. One can argue that the reason we have not had a major war in the past 78 years is BECAUSE of nuclear weapons.

You cannot argue with the results: The two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war. Japan has been transformed into a viable, decent society with a vibrant economy and has never been a threat to world peace since their surrender in September of 1945. And we have not had a major war since.

[Aseahawkfan]

Yes, and so did my wife. Judging by your attitude, I think that you'd like it, too. Oppie is a man with whom you can identify, at least some aspects of him. He was a very complicated individual, a strong advocate for building the bomb during the war yet turned into a huge pacifist after the war. He wanted to return Los Alamos to the Indians, opposed the next step in atomic research, i.e. the H-bomb, was guilt ridden by his role in creating the bomb. Very flawed individual, a womanizer, a chain smoker, union organizer, suspected communist. He went from national hero to humiliating disgrace. It's not so much a historical account of the Manhattan Project although there's plenty in there about it. It's a biography about one man.

I do recommend reading the book the movie was based on before seeing the movie. It went too damn fast even for someone like me who has decent background knowledge on it. The events and various scientists were hard to keep up with. But from my knowledge, it was historically very accurate, unlike a POS Oliver Stone movie. I don't mind them putting fictional scenes into historically based movies...like they did with "Titanic" and "Saving Private Ryan", but they have to be believable and can't change factual accounts of the event in order for me to be sold on it.

Here's the book I'm recommending:

https://www.amazon.com/American-Prometh ... 207&sr=8-2

I can't imagine many moral or rational people not seeing the evil of the nuclear bomb after watching its effects when dropped. You can't be a decent person and think that was an ok use of a weapon. I've looked at those pictures and read on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the nuclear bomb was one of the most vile human creations of man.

I do not advocate for the murder of children. I do not support it in anyway. If I had my way, men would still line up with swords and go at each other so they could keep warfare clean if they want to pay the cost in life. Bombs and other weapons of mass destruction make innocents pay the cost for the evil of their power groups decision making process. All those who have read history know of the empire building that was going on once men formed tribes and nation states building power to harm and rob other competing human groups who couldn't protect themselves. This drive once started spread and made it so any competitive human group would have to do something similar to maintain parity. This drove empire building so one could ensure you had the resources and power to defend your sovereign position.

Fortunately, trade has made accumulating resources through warfare inefficient and overly costly. Just as industrial capitalism made slavery obsolete by making a slave a low value asset incapable of producing an income and participating in markets.

Gotta hope business saves us again and again since A.I. and robots don't earn income and can't participate as a consumer in a market environment.

Maybe I'll check the book out. I think of Oppenheimer as a tool of more powerful people. He gets credit, but if Oppenheimer hadn't done it someone else would have because competition between humans drove the creation of the nuclear bomb. Power mongering humans that were willing to burn the world to make their opponent bow.

[Aseahawkfan]

You didn't respond to a single point I raised and instead went off on a tangent, ranting about the morality of nuclear weapons, so I'll ask you again: Given the conditions in August of 1945, which option would you have chosen if not to drop it on a populated area? What, specifically, would you have done differently? Abandon the program? That seems to be what you are advocating.

Suppose the Germans were successful in their attempt to build a bomb and were able to acquire it before we were able to march into Berlin. They had a V-2 rocket and could easily use it to deliver the bomb on cities and military targets in England, perhaps even the east coast of the US. If you watch the movie, you'll see that the fear of Hitler acquiring this awful weapon was the major, almost singular motivation they had for building the bomb as there was a very real and genuine fear that the Germans would get it first (after Germany surrendered, there was a debate as to whether or not the program should continue, which was accurately depicted in the movie). And even if the Germans didn't discover the secrets and get it, it was inevitable that someone else would have, like the Soviets, who also had an active program, and indeed, acquired it less than 4 years after we did. Would you have rather seen Joseph Stalin have a monopoly on atomic bombs?

You talk about the awfulness of nuclear weapons. You are, indeed, applying the knowledge you have gained in the late 20th and 21st centuries to decisions that were made in 1945. They didn't know what we know now. Neither Oppenheimer, Truman, or anyone else knew anything about the long-term effects of nuclear weapons, either on human beings or the environment. You have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight. You need to forget about what we've learned since and put yourself back in 1945.

Indeed, the man that decided to drop the bombs on Japan, Harry Truman, used the knowledge he gained and decided NOT to use it in Korea even though he had military advisors, Douglas McArthur in particular, begging him to do so. One can argue that the reason we have not had a major war in the past 78 years is BECAUSE of nuclear weapons.

You cannot argue with the results: The two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war. Japan has been transformed into a viable, decent society with a vibrant economy and has never been a threat to world peace since their surrender in September of 1945. And we have not had a major war since.

We discussed this extensively prior. I told you exactly what I would have done with Japan. You never bothered to read my answer. I will reiterate it again:

Japan was a broken nation. They did not have the natural resources to sustain a war. They didn't have the oil. The means of weapon production. Not enough food production. They had clearly lost. If we had waited them out maintaining a siege why pressuring their civilian government, they would have given up and the same result would have been obtained.

We dropped the nuclear weapons because we had them and wanted to see what they did. We had invested a huge amount of resources into these bombs and wanted to see how they worked in real warfare. We do this nearly every war we have. I know it doesn't get told to the American people, but if you study our wars we test new weapons in nearly every war.

You answered none of the questions I put towards you prior. You want to push the American narrative as fact, when it is not fact at all.

I can very much argue that the results had nothing to do with the dropping of the nuclear bomb. You are making the false claim that the nuclear bomb is the primary reason Japan is in the state it is in without even knowing the history of Japan or the state was in prior to World War 2.

You are wrong, have been wrong, and will continue to be wrong. I find it hard to believe you would make a statement about a MAJOR War with a straight face. We have had plenty of MAJOR wars all over since the invention of the nuclear bomb. I don't know why you claim we did not when American history clearly shows you are wrong. World history shows you are wrong. I find it really hard to believe you made that statement.

Korean War? Vietnam War? Afghanistan War? Iraq War? Russia in Afghanistan? Expansion of the Soviet Union through military force? What the hell are you even talking about? The only war you consider major is a World War? Vietnam lasted ten years. Korean War lasted 3 years. Iran and Iraq were at war for years with a million casualties estimated. What are you even talking about?

If the line of moral reasoning to justify nuking Japan is justified as you claim, why did we not use the same line of moral reasoning in Korea or Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan? The same line of moral reasoning would have been justified. We would have saved lives and broken the opposing nation completely. Why don't we continue to use the same moral reasoning we used for Japan for all our wars? Which have been many since we dropped the original bomb.

If you're going to make arguments, at least don't make ones so easily debunked. The world has had plenty of MAJOR wars since the dropping of the nuclear bomb. No one has used it again because everyone is absolutely horrified by what they do, even many tyrannical nations like Russia, which is why you don't see them using it on Ukraine right now which is practically a proxy war between the United States and Russia.

C'mon, man. Don't oversell your argument with falsehoods you know are wrong given you literally lived through the Vietnam War which was a proxy war between China and the United States.

[RiverDog]

Japan was a broken nation. They did not have the natural resources to sustain a war. They didn't have the oil. The means of weapon production. Not enough food production. They had clearly lost. If we had waited them out maintaining a siege why pressuring their civilian government, they would have given up and the same result would have been obtained.

Pure speculation. There is no evidence to support your assertation, yet you state it as fact. The fact is that we don't know if or when they would have surrendered had we not dropped the two A-bombs. But we do know that every day the war went on, more American POW's were being killed. More Japanese citizens and more American soldiers, sailors, and airmen were being killed in conventional attacks. It could have been months or years before they surrendered. How many more people would you have been willing to sacrifice by your just "waiting them out" plan? Plus, there's the possibility that they would have never surrendered. Not only that, but you would have been inviting the Soviets to get a piece of the action as they had just entered the war when we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. So, you're essentially telling me that you would have preferred a North Japan controlled by the Soviets to a 100% American occupation.

And BTW, weren't you the one that said that sanctions wouldn't work against Russia in their war against Ukraine? Isn't that exactly what you're advocating by "waiting them out"? And just who would we have negotiated a surrender with? The Japanese didn't have a civilian government. The military was in charge, with a possible trump card being held by the emperor. But at the time, no one was sure who was in charge.

Are you aware of the firebombing that was done over Tokyo in March of 1945, 5 months before we dropped the A-bomb? One single raid on one night over one city:

On the night of 9/10 March 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan.[1] Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in human history. The Japanese air and civil defenses proved largely inadequate; 14 American aircraft and 96 airmen were lost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_o ... March_1945)

Did you read that 2nd to last sentence? It was the largest single air attack in human history, worse than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. And they still didn't surrender. Conventional bombing didn't work in Germany. We (and the Soviets) had to march into Berlin. It didn't work in Korea, either. And despite dropping over three times the tons of conventional bombs we dropped in all of WW2, it didn't work in Vietnam, either. Maintaining a siege would have taken many more months, likely years, to achieve our goal of unconditional surrender.

[Aseahawkfan]

Pure speculation. There is no evidence to support your assertation, yet you state it as fact. The fact is that we don't know if or when they would have surrendered had we not dropped the two A-bombs. But we do know that every day the war went on, more American POW's were being killed. More Japanese citizens and more American soldiers, sailors, and airmen were being killed in conventional attacks. It could have been months or years before they surrendered. How many more people would you have been willing to sacrifice by your just "waiting them out" plan? Plus, there's the possibility that they would have never surrendered. Not only that, but you would have been inviting the Soviets to get a piece of the action as they had just entered the war when we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. So, you're essentially telling me that you would have preferred a North Japan controlled by the Soviets to a 100% American occupation.

And BTW, weren't you the one that said that sanctions wouldn't work against Russia in their war against Ukraine? Isn't that exactly what you're advocating by "waiting them out"? And just who would we have negotiated a surrender with? The Japanese didn't have a civilian government. The military was in charge, with a possible trump card being held by the emperor. But at the time, no one was sure who was in charge.

Are you aware of the firebombing that was done over Tokyo in March of 1945, 5 months before we dropped the A-bomb? One single raid on one night over one city:

On the night of 9/10 March 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan.[1] Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in human history. The Japanese air and civil defenses proved largely inadequate; 14 American aircraft and 96 airmen were lost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_o ... March_1945)

Did you read that 2nd to last sentence? It was the largest single air attack in human history, worse than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. And they still didn't surrender. Conventional bombing didn't work in Germany. We (and the Soviets) had to march into Berlin. It didn't work in Korea, either. And despite dropping over three times the tons of conventional bombs we dropped in all of WW2, it didn't work in Vietnam, either. Maintaining a siege would have taken many more months, likely years, to achieve our goal of unconditional surrender.

You are so bad at this debate thing. You don't even put any effort to make this entertaining.

First, Russia is a food and energy self-sufficient nation. That is why the sanctions would not work. This is why I knew this from the moment they were implemented. Japan is not.

I answered your question about the fire bombing. Did you miss the answer or just avoid it on purpose because it did not fit your desired answer?

You speculating that an experimental bomb was necessary to drop to force surrender when we had nations surrender including Germany without dropping a bomb is the very meaning of the word speculation. You are the one believing in a speculative theory requiring an experimental, never before used bomb to force surrender when Germany surrendered without using this bomb. We had plenty of enemies surrender prior to the use of the bomb.

I was not speculating at all on Japan's surrender. Their food supply was cut off. This was a fact. Their fuel supply was cut off. This is a fact. They are an island nation without sufficient resources to maintain a war effort. The entire reason Pearl Harbor occurred is because the Japanese considered it an act of war when we embargoed their oil because they are not an energy self-sufficient nation.

Responding to Japanese occupation of key airfields in Indochina (July 24) after an agreement between Japan and Vichy France, the U.S. froze Japanese assets on July 26, 1941, and on August 1, it established an embargo on oil and gasoline exports to Japan.[15][16][17] The oil embargo was an especially strong response because oil was Japan's most crucial import, and more than 80% of Japan's oil came from the United States.[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#:~:text=Responding%20to%20Japanese%20occupation%20of,and%20gasoline%20exports%20to%20Japan.

If the excuse that saving lives was a reason to drop the nuclear weapons, I ask once again as you completely ignore this question to push your narrative:

1. Why did we not use nuclear weapons in Korea?

Number of Korean deaths in Korean war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
It was in the millions for Koreans and 36,000 American servicemen.

2. Why did we not use nuclear weapons in Vietnam? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#:~:text=The%20war%20exacted%20an%20enormous,also%20died%20in%20the%20conflict. Millions dead.
U.S. Casualties: 58,220

We could have saved lives with the, "Nuclear weapons save lives theory used in Japan" you believe in.

There is no convincing evidence that the nuclear bombs were necessary to defeat Japan. It is a narrative thought up after the experimental nuclear weapons were used. It is a speculative theory bought into by folks like yourself without the capacity to see when something is a grievous moral wrong because you are not personally affected by it.

But it is now, was then, and always morally wrong and evil to mass murder innocents not involved in the decision making of a country's war machine. It will never be morally right or justified. It never was morally right or justified.

It's just something that happens. If you win, you get to write the story for it and make up that you did it for the right reasons even if the base moral reasoning is always founded in evil. Mass murdering innocents, especially children is always evil and wrong.

Since you completely ignore answers already given, I'll leave it there. It's not fun to debate someone that can't keep track of answered questions or refuses to answer questions that undermine his arguments because he doesn't want to admit an failed debate answer.

It is irrelevant at this point given it is history. And the use of nuclear weapons would likely lead to war crime violations under current international law. People know using nuclear weapons is a morally evil act due to their indiscriminate destructive power and only vile people would employ them against a human population knowing what we know now.

Damn, you don't make debating very fun. You gotta bring more to the table, my man. You need to make this more fun.

[RiverDog]

Japan was not going to surrender, sanctions or no sanctions. They were controlled by the military and by the emperor, which up until the atomic bombings, had shown no indication whatsoever to do anything but fight to the death. It had been drilled into their citizens that surrender was dishonorable, and that death was the preferred alternative.

As a matter of fact, even after two atomic bombs had been dropped, they nearly didn't surrender as an unsuccessful coup attempt was staged just before Emperor Hirohito was to address the Japanese public announcing the surrender that, had it been successful, would have placed the emperor under house arrest and preventing Japan from surrendering. It was called the Kyūjō incident:

The Kyūjō incident (宮城事件, Kyūjō Jiken) was an attempted military coup d'état in the Empire of Japan at the end of the Second World War. It happened on the night of 14–15 August 1945, just before the announcement of Japan's surrender to the Allies. The coup was attempted by the Staff Office of the Ministry of War of Japan and many from the Imperial Guard to stop the move to surrender.

The officers murdered Lieutenant General Takeshi Mori of the First Imperial Guards Division and attempted to counterfeit an order to the effect of permitting their occupation of the Tokyo Imperial Palace (Kyūjō). They attempted to place Emperor Hirohito under house arrest, using the 2nd Brigade Imperial Guard Infantry. They failed to persuade the Eastern District Army and the high command of the Imperial Japanese Army to move forward with the action. Due to their failure to convince the remaining army to oust the Imperial House of Japan, they performed ritual suicide. As a result, the communiqué of the intent for a Japanese surrender continued as planned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj ... e%20Allies.

If they nearly didn't surrender even after the dropping of two atomic bombs and the gruesome killing of hundreds of thousands including women and children, not to mention the conventional bombing that had been going on for many months prior, do you truly think that sanctions would have worked? They would have starved to death before they would have surrendered.

And here's a direct quote from Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech given to the Japanese public which specifically mentions the atomic bombing as being the primary reason for surrendering:

Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

Such being the case, how are we to save the millions of our subjects, or to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors? This is the reason why we have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the joint declaration of the powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito_ ... st#Content

[RiverDog]

Back to the OP.

The movie is as much an indictment of the red scare of the early 50's, how it destroyed the lives and careers of innocent people over nothing but random suspicions as it was a biography or statement about the deployment of the bomb. Oppenheimer was sympathetic to the communist party, but communism had a much different connotation before WW2 than it did after once the USSR and China became threats. Ironically, nothing Oppy did post WW2 regarding communism was cited in his AEC hearing over his security clearance. All of it was from activities prior to the war, activities that were known to the US prior to his being appointed to run the Manhattan Project.

There was a controversial scene in which Oppenheimer had poisoned an apple in an apparent attempt to murder a professor then had second thoughts and snatched it from him just before he ate it. Oppy's grandson protested this scene being included in the movie, and from what I've read and seen in documentaries, it would have been out of character for Oppenheimer to have even considered such action even as a passing thought. He was an intellectual and not at all a violent person.

[NorthHawk]

Japan was not going to surrender, sanctions or no sanctions. They were controlled by the military and by the emperor, which up until the atomic bombings, had shown no indication whatsoever to do anything but fight to the death. It had been drilled into their citizens that surrender was dishonorable, and that death was the preferred alternative.

As a matter of fact, even after two atomic bombs had been dropped, they nearly didn't surrender as an unsuccessful coup attempt was staged just before Emperor Hirohito was to address the Japanese public announcing the surrender that, had it been successful, would have placed the emperor under house arrest and preventing Japan from surrendering. It was called the Kyūjō incident:

The Kyūjō incident (宮城事件, Kyūjō Jiken) was an attempted military coup d'état in the Empire of Japan at the end of the Second World War. It happened on the night of 14–15 August 1945, just before the announcement of Japan's surrender to the Allies. The coup was attempted by the Staff Office of the Ministry of War of Japan and many from the Imperial Guard to stop the move to surrender.

The officers murdered Lieutenant General Takeshi Mori of the First Imperial Guards Division and attempted to counterfeit an order to the effect of permitting their occupation of the Tokyo Imperial Palace (Kyūjō). They attempted to place Emperor Hirohito under house arrest, using the 2nd Brigade Imperial Guard Infantry. They failed to persuade the Eastern District Army and the high command of the Imperial Japanese Army to move forward with the action. Due to their failure to convince the remaining army to oust the Imperial House of Japan, they performed ritual suicide. As a result, the communiqué of the intent for a Japanese surrender continued as planned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj ... e%20Allies.

If they nearly didn't surrender even after the dropping of two atomic bombs and the gruesome killing of hundreds of thousands including women and children, not to mention the conventional bombing that had been going on for many months prior, do you truly think that sanctions would have worked? They would have starved to death before they would have surrendered.

And here's a direct quote from Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech given to the Japanese public which specifically mentions the atomic bombing as being the primary reason for surrendering:

Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

Such being the case, how are we to save the millions of our subjects, or to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors? This is the reason why we have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the joint declaration of the powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito_ ... st#Content

Anyone who thinks Japan was willing to unconditionally surrender is simply spreading revisionist history.
Unconditional surrender was required because of the danger they posed in the region and the world. Had that been accepted, they would have eventually developed the bomb and history would have been quite different.
The choice for Truman was simple: Sacrifice millions of your own people and millions of Japanese civilians or sacrifice a few hundred thousand of the enemy.
A lousy choice from a humanitarian perspective, but fairly easy when in the midst of a total war. To put it bluntly, you don't make decisions that kill your own people unnecessarily.

[RiverDog]

Anyone who thinks Japan was willing to unconditionally surrender is simply spreading revisionist history.
Unconditional surrender was required because of the danger they posed in the region and the world. Had that been accepted, they would have eventually developed the bomb and history would have been quite different.

The choice for Truman was simple: Sacrifice millions of your own people and millions of Japanese civilians or sacrifice a few hundred thousand of the enemy.

A lousy choice from a humanitarian perspective, but fairly easy when in the midst of a total war. To put it bluntly, you don't make decisions that kill your own people unnecessarily.

Agreed.

The other point here is that there could have not been a conditional surrender, although we did grant one condition, that the Japanese be allowed to keep their emperor. They were just as brutal and barbaric of a regime as the Nazis, killing more Chinese than the Germans did Jews, and in just as unspeakable ways, like live human medical experiments, using live humans for bayonet practice, and so on. A regime like that cannot be negotiated with, and it only serves to highlight the fact that they had such a disrespect for human life that they would have never surrendered no matter how starved their populace was. We're damn lucky that Hirohito finally saw the light and decided to surrender.

I spent two weeks in Japan earlier this spring, and that country is as good and decent of a society as I've ever seen. My friend from high school, a Japanese native who was an exchange student with us for 2 years, and I were walking down a sidewalk in downtown Yokohama when a guy walking his dog approached us. The dog raised his leg and peed on a concrete bollard. The dog's owner reached into his pocket, pulled out a plastic bag with a paper towel, wiped up the dog's urine, and returned the paper towel to the bag. Much of the population is still wearing masks, outdoors. Despite there not being any public waste cans (something to do with the sarin gas attacks years ago), you do not see any litter. People pack it in and pack it out. Amazing country.