His disclosures were before the war. If the public had a chance to chip in, along with a public debate that would inevitably lead to our current MAD theory, then it’s reasonable to imagine that the current “let’s not go to war with each other anymore because MAD” might, even before WW2, have been “let’s not go to war with each other anymore, or develop these expensive yet terrifying weapons, because MAD”.
The key point is that without the public’s input, politicians acting rationally, decided to direct their engineers & scientists (also acting rationally) to develop these weapons in secret, with everyone involved knowing that nukes were “extremely powerful” and “terrifying” and “war-ending” but not fully appreciating the whole MAD aspect that happens when your enemies play development catch up.
Tons of technologies today, while not as much of an instant threat to our civilization as nukes, are loaded with ethical concerns that current politicians and the public at large are just not aware of. Just reference the deep fakes saga for one recent example. There’s currently no laws outlawing the use of deep fake techniques to produce revenge porn but there’s every reason to believe that these techniques will be outlawed for such use in forthcoming legislation now that the public and politicians are aware of the risk. Extrapolate that to any number of innovations. With informed debate we can keep laws ahead of the game and prevent new techniques and technologies from being legally used for unethical purposes.
The key point is that without the public’s input, politicians acting rationally, decided to direct their engineers & scientists (also acting rationally) to develop these weapons in secret, with everyone involved knowing that nukes were “extremely powerful” and “terrifying” and “war-ending” but not fully appreciating the whole MAD aspect that happens when your enemies play development catch up.
Tons of technologies today, while not as much of an instant threat to our civilization as nukes, are loaded with ethical concerns that current politicians and the public at large are just not aware of. Just reference the deep fakes saga for one recent example. There’s currently no laws outlawing the use of deep fake techniques to produce revenge porn but there’s every reason to believe that these techniques will be outlawed for such use in forthcoming legislation now that the public and politicians are aware of the risk. Extrapolate that to any number of innovations. With informed debate we can keep laws ahead of the game and prevent new techniques and technologies from being legally used for unethical purposes.