

Atomic Pioneers Gather Again to Recall Manhattan Project (2006) - bootload
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/us/06project.html

======
Intermernet
“I wish I could tell young people today how naïve they are,” Mr. Gates said.
“We were like that, too, young and naïve. We truly believed that by building
that bomb there’d never be another war.”

All of you out there who think that _any_ hostile action can resolve _any
other_ hostile action would be well served by ruminating on that statement for
the rest of your lives. (preferably to the extent that you don't get around to
participating in any hostile actions).

Hostility, almost by definition, is only successfully defeated by tolerance.
This will involve sacrifice, and a huge measure of "being the better human".

Just remember that "being the better human" only puts you into comparison with
the _leaders_ of any conflict. The _general population_ of conflict ridden
areas should, like all humans, be treated as innocent until proven guilty.

I know these sound like trite, overly simplistic conclusions, but that's only
because we're somewhat "programmed" by evolution to be hostile, and non-
hostile solutions have only been consciously recognized as a viable option
fairly recently in human history.

~~~
hga
We should admit that since then there's not been another war by major powers,
this list is instructive:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll)

Worst of that sort since then has been the great power proxy Korean and
Vietnam Wars, which were very bad, but no on the scale of WWII, WWI, the
Napoleonic Wars and the Thirty Years' War.

The flip side is of course our reasonable expectation that eventually there
will be one or more massively deadly nuclear wars.

~~~
Intermernet
Thanks, unfortunately your expectation of a low chance of another WWII scale
war, and the eventual occurrence of "one or more massively deadly nuclear
wars" is in complete alignment with my own.

I don't know whether to cheer or cry.

