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Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley

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Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley

#51

Post by lern_too_spel »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #43
cheeseomlit wrote: post #42

Had the atom bomb never been built we'd be on WW5 by now, not much of a 'cautionary' tale. I for one have learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, I'll take the current situation over rotting in a foxhole any day

It turns out you have to abstract put the gun to the head of humanity form them to realize that pulling the trigger is a bad idea. It's sad, but its very true. I also stopped worrying and love the bomb, and I'm willing to justify the US nuclear bomb usages on many grounds, namely that even after they were dropped, Japan almost did a military coup against their own emperor to keep the war going. https://en.wikipedia.o…

Japan surrendered to the US to not be invaded by the Soviets, who had just called off their truce, swept the Kwantung army in Manchuria, and were on the verge of doing the same through Japan's undefended north. Stalin would have treated the emperor far differently from MacArthur, and the best case scenario for Japan had it not surrendered to the US prior to that invasion would have us talking about the possibility of reunification of North Japan and South Japan today.

Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley

#53

Post by zardo »

tyleo wrote: post #4
andsoitis wrote: post #2

I 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"

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.

> W.r.t. nukes, for example, there is a good chance that mutually assured destruction prevented war despite how terrifying the policy is.

But Oppenheimer didn't spy for the Soviet Union. He worked to make the US the sole nuclear power, not to create a nuclear stand-off between opposing powers.

Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley

#54

Post by solumunus »

zardo wrote: post #53
tyleo wrote: post #4

Earlier 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.

> W.r.t. nukes, for example, there is a good chance that mutually assured destruction prevented war despite how terrifying the policy is. But Oppenheimer didn't spy for the Soviet Union. He worked to make the US the sole nuclear power, not to create a nuclear stand-off between opposing powers.

I’m certainly no expert on this, but even then surely this was seen as an inevitability? The US scientists knew Russians and Germans were approaching this, did they think their opponents would stop developing the capability just because they got there first? Seems unlikely that they would think that.

Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley

#55

Post by jcparkyn »

johnnyworker wrote: post #19
andsoitis wrote: post #2

I 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.

Not really, because becoming a rapist won't reduce the number of rapes committed by others. On the other hand, inventions can really only be invented once, and successfully inventing or commercialising something _will_ usually reduce the profitability for other companies entering the space (because they'll have to compete, or they don't have the patents, etc).

Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley

#57

Post by uwagar »

uwagar wrote: post #13
bluefirebrand wrote: post #8

Earlier 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…

>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.

talk about covid vaccine and get downvoted. doesnt matter what.

Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley

#58

Post by zardo »

solumunus wrote: post #54
zardo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> W.r.t. nukes, for example, there is a good chance that mutually assured destruction prevented war despite how terrifying the policy is. But Oppenheimer didn't spy for the Soviet Union. He worked to make the US the sole nuclear power, not to create a nuclear stand-off between opposing powers.

I’m certainly no expert on this, but even then surely this was seen as an inevitability? The US scientists knew Russians and Germans were approaching this, did they think their opponents would stop developing the capability just because they got there first? Seems unlikely that they would think that.

> I’m certainly no expert on this, but even then surely this was seen as an inevitability?

There was one sure way to prevent the stand off, shoot before they draw.

Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley

#59

Post by mimd »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #51
Der_Einzige wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out you have to abstract put the gun to the head of humanity form them to realize that pulling the trigger is a bad idea. It's sad, but its very true. I also stopped worrying and love the bomb, and I'm willing to justify the US nuclear bomb usages on many grounds, namely that even after they were dropped, Japan almost did a military coup against their own emperor to keep the war going. https://en.wikipedia.o…

Japan surrendered to the US to not be invaded by the Soviets, who had just called off their truce, swept the Kwantung army in Manchuria, and were on the verge of doing the same through Japan's undefended north. Stalin would have treated the emperor far differently from MacArthur, and the best case scenario for Japan had it not surrendered to the US prior to that invasion would have us talking about the possibility of…

It's both actions, the dropping of the atomic bombs and the the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. The Soviets, like the US, would have needed to prepare for a land invasion of Japan, probably about 9 months to 1 year of so of prep, which would be behind a US invasion, but it helped close in the walls. The Soviets had agreed to the war with Japan, but another view is to look at it as a quick spoils at the end of the war and to help mao. See the yalta negotiations. Still it was brought up in their surrender discussions.

You can crawl through the memories/literature to see what weighed on their minds more, but it's the bombings. Japan knew what nukes were as they were developing themselves. And as pointed out by the poster, the coup attempt happened after both the Soviet involvement and Hiroshima, August 12th, so the point still stands, that their was a willingness to fight to annihilation, which would include a Soviet invasion. But your right to point out that Japan considered the better offer that stood at that pivot moment, rather than the triple scenario of more bombings, a US land invasion, and even later Soviet invasion.

Be aware, overtly strong emphasis of the Soviet invasion and de-emphasis of the role in the bombings is often a tactic to dismiss the usage of the atomic bomb, that's not borne out by what we know of the internal dialogue of Japan's surrender. And on the outside and without hindsight, to both the US and soviets, it looked very much that Japan could/would fight to the death, and this reflects in the decision making of those few weeks. Still, perhaps the Soviet invasion would have been enough, but we will never know. And it would have not worked if the coup had worked.

Re: Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley

#60

Post by lern_too_spel »

mimd wrote: post #59
lern_too_spel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan surrendered to the US to not be invaded by the Soviets, who had just called off their truce, swept the Kwantung army in Manchuria, and were on the verge of doing the same through Japan's undefended north. Stalin would have treated the emperor far differently from MacArthur, and the best case scenario for Japan had it not surrendered to the US prior to that invasion would have us talking about the possibility of…

It's both actions, the dropping of the atomic bombs and the the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. The Soviets, like the US, would have needed to prepare for a land invasion of Japan, probably about 9 months to 1 year of so of prep, which would be behind a US invasion, but it helped close in the walls. The Soviets had agreed to the war with Japan, but another view is to look at it as a quick spoils at the end of the war a…

> And on the outside and without hindsight, to both the US and soviets, it looked very much that Japan could/would fight to the death

To the US, yes, but not to the Soviets, whom Japan had begun to ask to broker a surrender a few weeks prior. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945Berlin...

Even Japan's surrender didn't stop the Soviet invasion, with the Soviets taking the Kuril islands and Sakhalin after the Japanese had surrendered. A planned invasion of Hokkaido on August 24 had to be scrapped after the Japanese surrender only because of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.

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