• ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Nobel created his prize because everyone knew him for creating bombs and he wanted to be remembered for doing something good. Awarding someone a Nobel prize for creating a giant bomb would be pretty ironic.

    • Audbol@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      To be fair, had he lived longer then he would have received a Nobel prize for his work in astro physics in relation to gravitational collapse. This work would later become far more important than his other work as his contributions would lead to the discovery of black holes

    • animelivesmatter@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Fun fact: Alfred Nobel was the inventor of dynamite, and prior to establishing the Nobel Prize, it’s what he was primarily known for. It was an explosive that became infamous for its use in war at the time, there was even a French paper that wrote “the merchant of death is dead” to announce the death of his brother whom they had mistaken for him. Though noone knows exactly why he created the prize, some people think he did it because he didn’t want to remember as “that guy who invented the bomb”. If that’s true, then he succeeded, because nowadays most people know him as “the Nobel Prize guy”

      So it would actually be extremely fitting if Oppenheimer won the prize for the atomic bomb. And if Nobel did in fact start the prize in order to rewrite his legacy, then it would still be pretty ironic, just for a different reason.

      • SpookyOperative@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        That’s a lie that the US government has desperately been trying to push for decades. The creation and detonation of nukes was an entirely avoidale atrocity.

        • Peruvian_Skies@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          The truth is we can’t know for sure. There’s no way to look into an alternative timeline to see what the Cold War would have been like without nukes as deterrents.

          @Zirconium said “probably” and you flat out called it a lie, so you’re more wrong than they are.

          • AlexisLuna@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Japan was already seeking surrender even before the first bomb. They were ready for almost unconditional surrender, with their only condition being immunity for the emperor. The USA wanted full unconditional surrender and also to keep USSR from the negotiations, so they dropped the bomb. Then they dropped the second bomb, even though Japan tried to surrender again after the first one. I would say this counts as a lie when people say Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in any way necessary to bomb. The war was won at that point.

            • Peruvian_Skies@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              The claim was that “the bomb probably saved more lives than it killed”. Not that it was necessary to make the Japanese surrender. Mutually assured destruction via nuclear warheads is what kept the Cold War cold. Who knows how many people would have died all over the world if the USSR and the USA went into direct armed conflict?

              Maybe it’d have been less than the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, though I doubt it. My point is that there’s no way of knowing.

              • Juno@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                This is what propaganda does to s person. U go on forget about the innocent people who were killed needlessly. ONLY imagine how much worse it could be

                • Peruvian_Skies@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  You’re arguing in bad faith. My entire argument is about the proportion between the people who did die and the people who could have died, so how can anyone make that argument while forgetting one of the two groups and focusing only on the other? A proportion implies both groups.

        • parlaptie@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Shaun made an excellent video on the topic, although you’re going to have to invest a lot of time into watching it. It’s got a good selection of sources, too, for those of you who love to hold on to the common narrative that dropping the bomb was necessary.

        • AlexisLuna@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I think creation of nukes is a more complicated topic, but both their detonations were only done to force Japan to surrender 1)unconditionally and 2)to USA. IIRC even US command admitted it.

          • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de
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            1 year ago

            Their detonation was to prove US superiority and nothing else. It was an unnecessary flex, and the US has been riding on the threat of a repeat ever since.