Ah yes, what a better world we would be living in if the Nazis had created the bomb first.
Wasn’t ever going to happen. The Germans were never even close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_weapons_program
Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
11–20 of 63 posts
Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
#12Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this argument is interesting. There are good moral rebuttals. Someone on HN said recently, “your actions remain immoral even if others are ready to be just as immoral as you are.” I haven’t heard a good practical rebuttal though :/ W.r.t. nukes, for example, there is a good chance that mutually assured destruction prevented war despite how terrifying the policy is.
It's also worth considering if the act of inventing something horrifying is actually immoral, or if using it for immoral purposes is. For instance, dynamite. We would not have the society we do now without dynamite. The fact that it can also be used to destroy property and kill people makes it a deadly invention, but was it immoral to invent? Of course dynamite is nothing compared to the Atomic Bomb. Or maybe inventi…
>Or maybe inventing it for the purposes of killing people makes it immoral regardless of other possible applications.
this is the key. the atom bomb was made to kill people.
i also felt a mandate driven ie arm twisting people until they vaccinated themselves against covid was also immoral.
Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this argument is interesting. There are good moral rebuttals. Someone on HN said recently, “your actions remain immoral even if others are ready to be just as immoral as you are.” I haven’t heard a good practical rebuttal though :/ W.r.t. nukes, for example, there is a good chance that mutually assured destruction prevented war despite how terrifying the policy is.
It's also worth considering if the act of inventing something horrifying is actually immoral, or if using it for immoral purposes is. For instance, dynamite. We would not have the society we do now without dynamite. The fact that it can also be used to destroy property and kill people makes it a deadly invention, but was it immoral to invent? Of course dynamite is nothing compared to the Atomic Bomb. Or maybe inventi…
(1) if one day a nuke was used to deflect an asteroid and save the entire planet, would that then outweigh any deaths caused by nukes and ottenheimer would be a hero rather than a villain? That's a tricky road to go down.
(2) as is trying to focus on intent. Do you want to risk absolving Hitler or Pol Pot because they thought they were making the world a better place?
Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
#15Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also worth considering if the act of inventing something horrifying is actually immoral, or if using it for immoral purposes is. For instance, dynamite. We would not have the society we do now without dynamite. The fact that it can also be used to destroy property and kill people makes it a deadly invention, but was it immoral to invent? Of course dynamite is nothing compared to the Atomic Bomb. Or maybe inventi…
(1) if one day a nuke was used to deflect an asteroid and save the entire planet, would that then outweigh any deaths caused by nukes and ottenheimer would be a hero rather than a villain? That's a tricky road to go down. (2) as is trying to focus on intent. Do you want to risk absolving Hitler or Pol Pot because they thought they were making the world a better place?
Oppenheimer is a villain? First I'm hearing about it.
Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
#17Much like Black Mirror and 1984, media like this will not be a deterrent but rather a guide on how to execute the future.
I think Black Mirror is neither a deterrent nor a guide, and 1984 is more on the "deterrent" side. A ton of policy debates tend to get shut down almost immediately whenever someone says "this is 1984". Our level of surveillance is way, way, way below what our technology allows (yet still above what is desirable in a free society), and I suspect 1984's existence is a major reason for that fact.
Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
#18Much like Black Mirror and 1984, media like this will not be a deterrent but rather a guide on how to execute the future.
I think Black Mirror is neither a deterrent nor a guide, and 1984 is more on the "deterrent" side. A ton of policy debates tend to get shut down almost immediately whenever someone says "this is 1984". Our level of surveillance is way, way, way below what our technology allows (yet still above what is desirable in a free society), and I suspect 1984's existence is a major reason for that fact.
It depends on your country of residence. In certain authoritarian countries, 1984 was definitely used as a guide on what to implement in terms of facial recognition, scanning of device data, always on recording in public, etc.
Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
#19I think the problem is that you need to find a very good counter-argument to the rationalization of "If I don't invent it, someone else will"
As Joseph Weizenbaum pointed out, it's like saying there are a lot of rapes in Berlin, so why not be a rapist.
Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
(1) if one day a nuke was used to deflect an asteroid and save the entire planet, would that then outweigh any deaths caused by nukes and ottenheimer would be a hero rather than a villain? That's a tricky road to go down. (2) as is trying to focus on intent. Do you want to risk absolving Hitler or Pol Pot because they thought they were making the world a better place?
Oppenheimer is a villain? First I'm hearing about it.
Probably not popular in Japan.