Do you think the world would have been a better place, if the USA never invented the atom bomb?

30 comments

1. No.

2. Us, specifically or humanity in general? Because we were not the only ones working on it and there are worse options.

   You want to reimagine the cold war era if the USSR had them and we didn’t?

3. The bomb would have been invented regardless.

4. The only thing worse than the U.S. inventing it, would have been the U.S. not inventing it

5. No, we’d all be speaking German.

6. No

7. You’d have to clarify whether you mean just that the US didn’t invent it, or if no one invented it. Because if the US hadn’t invented it first, it probably would have been Nazi Germany and I don’t see how that makes the world a better place.

   I think there’s a compelling argument to be made that if nuclear weapons simply never existed, there would have been direct, conventional warfare between the US and Soviet Union instead of a Cold War.

8. No, because that likely means Russia (or someone else) would have gotten there first

9. Of the world powers up to 1945, or if you want post-WW2, which one would you have preferred to have completed the atom bomb? If you can’t think of one then the answer to your question is clearly no.

10. Russia would have done it first…imagine a world where Stalin has the only nuclear bombs in existence….

11. Because WW1 and 2 were amazing experiences. Yeah I wish we had more of that. /s

12. I have no reason to believe so. How could one even speculate on such a thing – how the war would have played out, the post-war situation, and who would have been the first to develop an atomic bomb if not the US.

    Nuclear fission wasn’t some surprise that the US announced to the world at Hiroshima; the Hungarian Leo Szilard conceived the idea in 1933 and I think even patented it (in the UK?) a few years after.

    The Germans were aware of the theoretical possibility of making an atomic weapon, IIRC this was evident as part of Operation Epsilon and listening in on conversations of captured German scientists. I think the surprise was that the US had actually managed to make it a reality on the timeline that we did.

    So the question to ask yourself is this: Atomic weapons were inevitable, so if the US wasn’t the first to bring them into reality, who would have, and would *that* have been “better” for the world?

13. If we hadn’t invented it, the German Reich would have. If they hadn’t, the Soviet Union would have. Those are not good eventualities. If no one had invented it, millions would have died in pointless and horribly destructive world wars between the great powers. Also not a good eventuality compared to our timeline, given that around 200,000 people have died from nuclear bombs.

14. Lmao

15. No, because the US was only the _first_ to invent the atom bomb. Lots of people, some of which with an ever greater predilection for genocide, were working on it at the same time.

16. The bomb likely gets invented by someone else anyway, and the atom bomb is a big reason why there hasn’t been a World War 3.

17. Other nations were also on the brink of discovering it. I think our discovery of it before the Soviet Union and the Nazis was likely a best case outcome for the world. Either way the Atomic Age was going to come to the world.

18. >Do you think the world would have been a better place, if only the Soviets had nukes

    Call me a pessimist, but probably not

19. no because the USSR would have achieved it whether or not the US did

20. No. I think we would still be living under the shadow of WWII which probably wouldn’t have ended for at least another decade if not longer. Maybe would have had WWIII already or be in the middle of it.

21. I would love to live in a world that didn’t have it or never thought of needing it, but it’s better for us to have it than to not, given that it’s a way of maintaining our leverage over tyrannical regimes that also have nuclear weapons. It’s the only way to counteract it.

    Despite the fact that I myself am 100% against the use of atom bombs or nukes, and I am 100% against the use of the atom bombs on Japan, the reality here is that the presence of the bombs accomplish a lot in terms of deterring aggressive, violent regimes (Russia, China, Turkey, etc) from threatening us.

    I am a moral absolutist in terms of intentionally causing mass civilian death (I am prepared to be at odds with this entire sub on that) but I believe that having these weapons doesn’t necessarily mean we have to use them – their presence alone brings people to the negotiating table.

    Again, I wish there was a way we could all destroy them.

22. No. Hundreds of thousands of American, British, and ANZAC soldiers would die, along with millions of Japanese civilians due to the invasion and starvation of the Japanese mainland. Global conflict would most likely come again during the Cold War, as there is nothing deterring the US & USSR from it.

23. I’m going to answer this questions as if you meant the bomb was never invented at all.

    No, I think without the bombs we’d have had way more conventional wars by now. Ukraine is the first land war in Europe since the bomb was invented. Do you really think that would be the case if it hadn’t been? Or do you think the US and NATO would have come to blows with the Soviets/Russians at least a few times by now?

24. Ah yes, the classic question based on a complete misunderstanding of the pacific theater.

    WWII would have been a lot more bloody for both side had operation downfall gone ahead.

    There is also no doubt nuclear weapons have saved lives over the last 75 years.

25. No. Someone else would have invented it. It is man’s natural instinct to destroy. That is our challenge to overcome.

26. If the US didn’t do it someone would have anyways. Physicists at the time knew it was possible to trigger a chain reaction.

27. No. The stakes are so high now that it actually deters war. WW3 is gonna be lit though.

28. No. WWII would have lasted longer and many hundreds of thousands if not millions more would have died than did, and then someone else would have invented and most likely used it anyway.

29. It would have been invented regardless, but so far I think it’s a better place over all because it was invented (although the jury is still out if we have a nuclear apocalypse).

    The invention of something with such profound devistation has by proxy gave leaders and generals pause when considering to commit lives to war. Nuclear weapons has likely prevented a WW3 and maybe even 4 by now. Instead of throwing young men into a meat grinder, they risk throwing their entire civilization into the incinerator, themselves included.

    I do think it’s better that the US had created it too. Despite the scale of instantaneous death and destruction it did still bring the entire war to an end and prevented further pain. It’s a often cited fact that all Purple Hearts still being handed out were created in 1944 in anticipation of casualties from the invasion of the Japanese mainland. Wild.

    US overall interest in stability, freedom, and global trade makes it a good custodian of this power.

30. Lol, you don’t think the Nazis weren’t already on it? There’s a reason Einstein lobbied FDR to get on it and quick lol