touch foxglove NOW 
Alright, no more discussion of the limits of free trade. Let's talk about technology. I saw a lively debate on here between @TheTroubleWithPibbles,
@August,
@Geralt_of_Uganda, etc, about whether it is ethical to develop technologies...
Scenario
This, of course, actually happened
J. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant scientist.
being so brilliant, he was able to conceive of, and help build, the greatest weapon known to mankind - the atomic bomb.
Oppenheimer, of course, didn't know the long term consequences of developing such a weapon - but he understood the sheer destructive potential of such a device.
Your question is: Was Oppenheimer acting ethically by assisting to develop the atomic bomb?
NOTE: In this hypothetical, history is at a crossroads. You don't know what will happen in the future - whether the device you created will be used to end life on earth or to usher in a new golden age.
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If Oppenheimer hadn't done this, the U.S. might have lost World War 2. So whether it was good or bad depends entirely on whether you think the Axis Powers or Allied Powers should have won. Personally, I'm glad the Allied Powers won so I think what Oppenheimer did was good. He was a bit of a neurodivergent r-slur though for somehow failing to foresee that the giant bomb he built might be used to bomb people. Who could ever have seen that coming?!?
"How could this happen?!?"
-J Robert Oppenheimer
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I'm surprised this talking point has lasted so many decades. Almost the entire Pacific war was fought in Japanese territory. Japanese cities were being bombed, American cities were not. The Japanese threat to the United States effectively ended after Pearl Harbor. By the war's end, America had all the leverage, and, the only question was just how total its victory would be. How could any plausible series of events after a nuke-less 1945 lead to a Japanese "victory?" Or are we simply defining an enemy victory as any time the US doesn't get to topple, occupy, and humiliate the country it's at war with?
In my eyes, simply containing Japan would have been preferable to either a long, bloody, invasion, or to mass bombing campaigns against cities, and I can't see a real reason not to opt for this other than nationalist fervor.
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The "total victory" part is what is important here. The US wanted to end the war with Japan before the USSR could get involved and have part of Japan like they did in Germany. In the eyes of everyone important, the war was already over and it was just about keeping the Soviets out.
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You don't think winning quickly and decisively through the use of a terror weapon has strategic value?
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I'm saying the purpose of getting to unconditional surrender was ambiguous at best. "It was either nuke them or invade them" raises the question of why would you need to do either.
If you don't buy the need for unconditional surrender, then much of the money and lives spent for that end were wasted. The goal should have been securing American assets, territories, and military freedom of movement in the Pacific, and that was accomplished well before the endgame of the war.
Regardless of my peacemongering perspective, a lot of the initial postmortems of the war argued that Japan was already done, and they would have reached a total surrender in short order without either the nukes or an invasion.
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Oh, OK, I see what you're saying. Although I do disagree with you.
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Oppenheimer was heavily involved in the Target Committee, which chose where the bombs would be dropped. He was actively involved with choosing to drop it on people.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/6.pdf
These are the minutes from one of their meetings and there is some wild shit in here.
Don't bomb those other cities. They aren't smart enough to appreciate their city evaporating.
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Wow, I learned something new today. Really makes his pearl-clutching seem more hypocritical, doesn't it?
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