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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~80 years after their development nuclear bombs have saved millions, possibly billions more lives than they ever took. Unless we actually get a nuclear war scenario thereβs nothing but positives towards its development
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Lol except you cannot prove something did not happen because of your intervention, you can only say what did happen. And what did happen post 1945 is not much to be proud of, instead many agree there is much to be ashamed and disgusted over. Maybe nuclear bombs saved us from a worse fate, but the
has to be understood as complete cope, since the ideas and original plan of the Americans for the bomb failed.
If things worked out the way originally envisioned it could be different, instead proliferation happened too much. You can see Americaβs fear and paranoia over this in world events, the constant balancing and vigilance is exhausting
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The horrors of total war were completely erased, all war now occurs between non-nuclear powers or through small proxy battles and economic pressure, with nuclear weapons never being used in anger since their creation. R-slurs all over the globe are free to debate the ethics of the event with each other over a worldwide cooperative communications network.
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π€π€π€
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Only brainlets require proof beyond all reasonable debate. It'll get you nowhere because the same can be applied to your position.
Good luck in undergrad.
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My comment has more upmarseys than yours, this is proof beyond reasonable debate that Iβm smarter than you are, and understand the nature of the problem perfectly
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That's the thread that this whole assumption of it 'saving lives' hangs on. If you truly believe that from 1945 all the way into the far future, up until the extinction of our species nuclear weapons will not be used in a mass scale war, then you are gullible as frick but so be it, I can see the rationale. If however you accept that such a conflict is bound or likely to happen at some point in the future, then you have to weigh this unmeasurable quantity of 'hypothetical lives saved' against lives actually taken.
I am not a huge fan of the 'MAD saves lives' argument, but I can see merit to it, I agree that for instance lives of many US infantrymen were saved by bombing Japan instead of orchestrating an invasion. To me however the real risk of sending humanity back to stone age far outweighs it. We have other methods of keeping world peace that we did not have during the previous world wars and unlike MAD we can actually see them used in practice. I do not believe that we would be here killing each other right now had this one piece of technology not been invented
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What if the chinx built one first ?
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Korea, Japan and Vietnam will be radioactive wastelands.
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