ssjarchon (October 7, 2008 at 7:46 pm)

And yet, I can build one in my backyard out of cobalt steels, smoke detectors, and beryllium paint.There exist technologies that can remove the radioactive dust, and clean the environment, they are just expensive. Land mines do the same thing, and can kill decades after the war.My point is that nuclear weapons have a place in the modern world, namely, in silos sitting there, reminding corrupt politicians whats on the line and why they need to work together.

HolyMotherofGrid (October 7, 2008 at 7:14 pm)

was exposed to - and this same radiactive material is blown about on the wind and causes cancers and diseases wherever it travels - this is NOT in any way shape or form like a bullet or bomb, which does its dirty work once and then it is over. That is why they are classified as "weopons of mass destruction", and all civilized countries have sworn to not permit anyone else to acquire or manufacture them, and why their use is so strictly controlled by multi-national treaties.

HolyMotherofGrid (October 7, 2008 at 7:10 pm)

Bullets only kill once, and leave no marks on future gernerations. Nukes not only kill and maim VAST numbers of people instantly - far more than "conventional" killing inventions - but they keep on killing and causing harm for many years after they are used, in a completely uncontrolled manner. The great-grandson of someone who survived a nuclear bomb may have horribly disfiguring mutations or life-altering medical condition because of the radioactive fallout and waste material his grandfather

ssjarchon (October 7, 2008 at 5:24 pm)

I sincerely doubt we would be as advanced today in rocketry. There are still highly classified rocketry devices and methods, like plasma cones, that would never have been developed, yet that knowledge has greatly helped fusion research, materials technology, eletromagnetic theory, and on and on. An ICBM is very different from a Saturn V.

ssjarchon (October 7, 2008 at 5:21 pm)

And even a bullet can miss and kill innocents, yet we still use those. If your enemies will use them, and you don't, then your enemy has the advantage.How is it immoral to use nuclear weapons if it will save more lives than using conventional weapons? That was the entire argument for there use on Japan in WWII, and frankly, I agree

HolyMotherofGrid (October 7, 2008 at 3:22 pm)

What most people never realized is that it would be totally and absolutely immoral to EVER use nukes, even in retaliation: they are not only indiscriminate killers that attack everyone over a wide area, but they keep on killing and causing misery for a long time afterwards - he ultimate evil in terms of a weaponry! Even if a country were attacked with nukes, they would have no morally valid reason to retaliate similarly: fighting evil with equal or greater evil has always been completely wrong.

PlanckLimit (October 7, 2008 at 9:04 am)

The need to boost nukes into the upper atmosphere for delivery on the other side of the world wasn't the only reason rocketry was studied after World War II. There was a lot of research on global communications beginning at that point with the advancement of early computers as well. Even without nukes, one side would have figured out eventually that the safest place to spy from was in orbit, further necessitating the need for rocketry and early computer guidance systems.

PlanckLimit (October 7, 2008 at 8:58 am)

Aside from nuclear fission for energy, there hasn't been many major technological benefits introduced by nuclear weapons themselves. They're more a by-product of 40 years worth of atomic research. The Cold War was begun over a difference in ideologies and at that point both the US and USSR had plenty of ex-Nazi engineers and scientists, as well as decades worth of international study on rocketry. Russia launches Sputnik; US realizes they're lagging behind and rebuilds the NACA into NASA.

ssjarchon (October 7, 2008 at 5:02 am)

The threat of nuclear counter attack is a form of protection, and so I think the term Nuclear Shield is valid.Also, nuclear weapons caused research in missle and rocketry, as well as advanced space navigation and propulsion. We would most likely have never had NASA, and we would have polluted the world to a greater extent with more fossil fuels.

ssjarchon (October 7, 2008 at 4:52 am)

The weapon is far more noble than the shield. The ability to punish, yet still be punished, is far greater a machine that marches one to responsibility than the ability to be nonpunishable, which grants its user the ability to do as it pleases. Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD, is a most effective deterrent in a symmetric war of rational minds. However, nuclear and thermonuclear devices are not practical in asymmetric war, and so sit idle in modern times.