What I don't understand about this situation, is the fact that if he read the Bhagavad Vita, and caused the death of in Hiroshima, as estimates range from 90,000 to 166,000 deaths, while in Nagasaki, estimates range from 60,000 to 80,000, then did this weigh heavy on his conscience about the negative karma he earned by his statement about Shiva? Was he aware that such negative karma results in a very long life of struggle and torment by your reincarnation cycle? Whatever the case may be, I am just wondering about a guy also causing potentially rockets with atomic bombs, which were actually created also potentially assuring the death of many other people. — Shawn

He wasn't Hindu, so I doubt he thought of karma in this way. He also wasn't responsible for how nukes were to be used, as demonstrated by the scene with Truman. I think the film shows the balanced perspective of him being focused on the science while also struggling with how to navigate a world he knows less about. He's naive in all cases regarding politics and war and this naivety later became his strength as he argued against the use of nukes in a way that politically was viewed as naive.

I think Oppenheimer is someone who demonstrates perfectly what hindsight bias is about. That while living in the moment of something, people generally have no clue how to process anything. And it's only in hindsight that people ask "why'd you do it?" "Why did you think like that?"

It's one of the behaviors of people that I dislike the most as it's a projection of false intellectualism and introspection. Like when everyone says they would not have been a Nazi in 1930s Germany, when in all likelihood they would have been, statistically speaking. In the same way that people today struggle with knowing where to stand in current ongoing issues of the world, but will eventually end up in hindsight bias whenever reality reveals itself to them (often by the true intellectuals).

May I ask, what are your views on the matter of causing death through something destructive, and how according to any ethically bounded theory, what this actually results in? — Shawn

In ethics, I don't think any such level of destruction works. Neither Kantian or utilitarian works. Maybe utilitarianism works if we view the deaths of 100 000 as a mean to save the entire species, but it's still problematic.

But then again, we can think of wild fires. Such a destructive event has been somewhat hard coded into biology to rid an ecosystem that has become broken. Many forests thrive after a wild fire because of the eradication of built up bacteria, fungus and many invasive species. Life didn't end with the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

These highly destructive events throughout earth's history have over the course of longer time spans been beneficial to nature. They reset and in the long run help restore. It's both beneficial for evolution to continue improving biology to stand against the extremes of nature, while making sure no entity wipes out nature as a whole. We might not have had earth so filled with organic life if it weren't for all destruction that helped shape it. Scientists speculate that one of the reasons life began at all was through the fact of repeating large scale events that changed a static environment over and over.

Life forming out of, and finding stability, in finding an equilibrium with the ever changing environment.

So, destruction, just like Shiva's role, is both an end and a beginning. Shiva both destroys and creates.

Is there an ethical thought through this? Could a man-made destructive event also be beneficial, even ethical?

If a war is on-going, without any change, with soldiers that keeps dying and if continued will keep dying in numbers that far exceeds that of a one time destructive event. Would it be ethical to do it? Like a wild fire that cleanse an area from sickness and a slowly dying ecosystem, it cleanses the psychological lock that forms out of the hate that fuels the ongoing conflict.

How many highly destructive events in history ended up forming a long lasting peaceful society afterwards?

I think the shock of destruction is what fixes it. It may be that the destructive event is a wild fire of the mind. When an ongoing unstable condition exist in society, it's primarily due to cognitive bias between two groups who cannot get out of that condition. The day to day atrocities, pain and suffering caused by a psychological condition in which neither part can get out of it. And that a highly destructive event might shake people to the core so much that a better world forms out of it, destroying the never ending conflict once and for all.

That the end to something bad in the world isn't necessarily due to a "successful" highly destructive act, but that this act wrecks havoc on the minds of people involved in this conflict, forcing them out of their biases.

Like how WWII was so traumatic for the world that most of the peace we had since then is a direct result of people being shaken to the core so much they abandoned their previously held ideas to shape new ones for a better world.

And it's why people now fear that when the last of the witnesses of that event in history dies, we will see a rise in new atrocities and conflicts because people's minds again start to build up an unhealthy ecosystem of thought.

That people need to be shaken to the core in order to find ethical footing again. Just like works of art asks moral questions, humans need to test their moral grounds intellectually and emotionally in order to become truly moral. That we cannot just form a theory and act morally, it needs an emotional grounding in the real world... and when we stumble as a society, we actually need something massively destructive to shake us back into self-reflection and true understanding of morals once again.

May I ask, what are your views on the matter of causing death through something destructive, and how according to any ethically bounded theory, what this actually results in? — Shawn

In my view, there are no results or consequences other than the deaths (and suffering) you facilitated. Of course, there is the possibility that you might receive some kind of prize.

He also wasn't responsible for how nukes were to be used, as demonstrated by the scene with Truman. — Christoffer

Quite so. Truman's decision is not standing up well to the scrutiny of history. But he was balancing the destruction of dropping the bomb (and no-one really knew what would happen) with the destruction of fighting through to Japan the hard way. (Just as you describe.) No doubt he had a bias in favour of saving American lives. I don't say he was right. But I'm not at all sure he was wrong. It's all much easier from an arm-chair and with hindsight.

So, destruction, just like Shiva's role, is both an end and a beginning. Shiva both destroys and creates. — Christoffer

That's true. But can we ever calculate that the creation balances the destuction, morally speaking? If only there were a way of ensuring that no-one will use that thought to justify some total horror in the future. I wouldn't trust any human being with that decision. If it has to happen, let it happen without, or in spite of, human agency.

And it's why people now fear that when the last of the witnesses of that event in history dies, we will see a rise in new atrocities and conflicts because people's minds again start to build up an unhealthy ecosystem of thought. — Christoffer

The fear of atomic warfare has never prevented small wars in the years since then. But it seems that people are beginning to think that it is OK to threaten it. I suspect that complacency is a factor, but miscalculation is all too easy, so I'm not at all secure about it.

The fear of atomic warfare has never prevented small wars in the years since then. — Ludwig V

One might argue that firearm laws don't prevent firearm deaths entirely. Of course not. No more than requiring a license exam to ensure a person can safely operate a motor vehicle hasn't prevented unsafe operations of motor vehicles from licensees. No more than the fact that people wearing life jackets have in fact drowned. But how can one really say they have no purpose as far as that function goes. Just a shot in the dark, no?

I don't say he was right. But I'm not at all sure he was wrong. It's all much easier from an arm-chair and with hindsight. — Ludwig V

Exactly. What if he didn't drop the bomb and Japan surrendered after a year more of fighting? And would that have ended the imperial ideals? Both Germany and Japan basically became more peaceful than any other nation involved in WWII.

The moral issue here is that I'm not, and I don't think anyone is, arguing for massive destruction as a solution to anything. But I'm observing what happens to the collective psychology of society when something does happen.

That people tend to be shaken out of past thinking and advocate for better morality for real, with actual applied philosophy to the new ethics.

It's like the world tries to operate on moral discussion, theories and philosophy on an intellectual level, but it's only when something dramatic happens that the world actually progress forward.

Maybe because the ones opposing better morals, conservatives in moral thinking and politics become so unpopular that the debate, over night, shifts in favor of the progressive morals that it essentially becomes law.

However, in some cases no one knows what the morals of a new paradigm is. No one really understood the morality that came out of the the nuclear bomb. It was a totally new way of thinking about morality in world politics.

I would argue that we're in the same kind of state right now. With the extreme rightwing populism and demagogs eroding democracies I think we need to see something like Trump trying to install an actual dictatorship in the US in order for western democracies to install new frameworks for how to block such people from ever gaining power through democratic means.

Or how climate change will need a massive event of mass deaths before the world start to wake up for real to change society in order to mitigate the problems.

Climate change is really the most obvious one here. I also think that a massive destructive event in climate change would not only change how we mitigate climate change, but also the morality of how we deal with global industry. That we might even start to force nations to stop certain destructive energy politics out of moral reasons in ways previously considered unthinkable. That industry and politicians won't be able to argue for "the economy" or such things when speaking of destructive industries.

We would essentially need a massive catastrophe due to climate change before we can build a world that is ecologically sound and rational. The world seems to not be able to do this on its own.

That's true. But can we ever calculate that the creation balances the destuction, morally speaking? If only there were a way of ensuring that no-one will use that thought to justify some total horror in the future. I wouldn't trust any human being with that decision. If it has to happen, let it happen without, or in spite of, human agency. — Ludwig V

No, it's not moral to make it an intentional act. It's not an act that can be forced upon the world because that would obscure the moral lessons that come out of such an event.

If you intentionally do something with the intention of "teaching a lesson", you become the center of the immorality. The destructive event needs to be something that rises up from the thinking of all people so that all people start to question the status quo.

Like:
- The allowance to let climate change continue until a catastrophic event.
- The perpetual increase in firepower during a world war (nuclear bomb)
- The lack of scientific scrutiny in areas like eugenics, popularizing thinking that leads to the holocaust.

These three all show a society stuck in a perpetual thinking, debating, discussing something that is unable to move out of bad morals into actual moral understanding. Only the events that rised up or will rise up from this will teach an actual lesson about the topic.

- If the world sees a climate catastrophe that kills millions, we will start to change the world into better ecological balance immediately, silencing those who try to oppose it.
- If the constant increase in the military power reach a bomb that is so powerful it could destroy the world, we understand the concept of MAD and start to work against war in ways not seen before (like the UN).
- If the lack of scrutiny in science leads to the holocaust, we will start changing the ethics of science to not allow such nonsense as eugenics to dividing people.

If, however, someone tries to do something as an act of teaching morality through massive violence, that will only end up with the same effect as terrorism. Did 9/11 make the world think morally about the conditions of people in the middle east and help them to a better life? No, it enraged the world like a stupid mob to start slaughter them instead, forming new factions of terrorists in IS.

You cannot intentionally create a catastrophe, because then you become the center of the destruction, not the thinking of all.

The fear of atomic warfare has never prevented small wars in the years since then. But it seems that people are beginning to think that it is OK to threaten it. I suspect that complacency is a factor, but miscalculation is all too easy, so I'm not at all secure about it. — Ludwig V

But without the thinking about the bomb after WWII, we would probably have had a WWIII between Russia and the US. The cold war relied on the morality that MAD created. It became such an existential threat that even the most stupid politicians weren't stupid enough.

However, the lessons learned will erode further and further as memories of history fade away... when new generations that don't actually understand the horror of the nuke start to form world politics, we might see them used again...

...but that will probably form a new paradigm of MAD morality, and the cycle continues. Just like wild fires.

What if he didn't drop the bomb and Japan surrendered after a year more of fighting? — Christoffer

That indeed is the alternative - except that it might have been more than a year, more than two - nobody knows.
I have to admit, though, that I would not have been surprised if there had been some bias on Truman's part in thinking it more important to save American lives that Japanese. It is more or less unthinkable that he would even contemplate no bomb and a higher American than Japanese body count, just in order to keep the overall numbers down.
Remember also the shock and fury at Pearl Harbour. Revenge is a disreputable motivation, but real, nonetheless.

We would essentially need a massive catastrophe due to climate change before we can build a world that is ecologically sound and rational. The world seems to not be able to do this on its own. — Christoffer

I think we need more than that. I think we need everyone, everywhere, to fear the effects of climate change on themselves and/or their families. Altruism won't carry normal people through the enormous adjustments (many of them reductions) in living standards that will be necessary. At the moment, there's an illusion that life can carry on as normal with a few technical adjustments to energy policy. People will do it for themselves, but not for people who are thousands of miles away.
Sounder and more rational is possible. Sound and rational, for me, is pie in the sky.

To put things in perspective, it’s estimated at 50 million people were killed in World War II. Just prior to the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the allies bombed Tokyo using conventional explosives. It is estimated that 100,000 people died there. During the rape of Nanking in 1938, it is estimated that 200,000 civilians were killed.

I don’t think Nagasaki and Hiroshima are anything out of the ordinary during what is called total war. I think the atomic bomb had much bigger implications for the future. I don’t think it makes any sense to wring our hands about one incident like this. It’s not the morality of Hiroshima that matters. It’s the morality of war.

Everybody dies, but what's the rush?

In my view, there are no results or consequences other than the deaths (and suffering) you facilitated. Of course, there is the possibility that you might receive some kind of prize. — Tom Storm

Pretty much my view on the matter also. I don't know if some nirvana or whatever the prize may have been awarded for creating such a weapon of mass destruction.