I subscribe to the "Dont shit where you eat" philosophy on life. Nuclear weapons violate pretty much every aspect of this philosophy with or without ethical considerations. Therefore i'd say no. Dont ever use nuclear weapons.

Heres a not so original idea.

Instead of trying to decide how to best deploy nuclear weaponry why dont we take that money we spend on building and maintaining them and use it to feed and clothe the children of the people who most hate and threaten us. I'd be willingly to bet my freedom that if we did that we wouldn't need nuclear weaponry to protect ourselves from our fellow man anymore and therefore we'd not even need to debate the issue raised by your article in the first place.

Instead of trying to decide how to best deploy nuclear weaponry why dont we take that money we spend on building and maintaining them and use it to feed and clothe the children of the people who most hate and threaten us.

You think it's particularly smart to humiliate those who hate us AND give them the opportunity to spend less time on trying to survive and more time on building weapons?



I find your idea completely illogical. Why not give the same money to hungry children in Africa? THEY actually need help.


But to not spend money on weapons and give it to the enemy instead (while other people need help and are not hostile) strikes me as _very_ odd.

"Not so original" is not the term to describe that idea.

So, would you condone the use of a laser triggered nuclear weapon in certain cases, or do you believe that weapons of mass destruction of any kind are ethically wrong, even in the context of war?

WMDs are best used as deterrent. Using them is as ethically right or wrong as is killing people in war using any other (acceptable) method. The moral difference between WMDs and conventional weapons is one of quantity, not quality. (That is different from the qualitative difference from the point of view of the defender.)

But if a WMD can end a war more quickly for everyone AND win the war for us AND doesn't bring about any long-term problems from fallout or what not, then I'm all for it.

we wouldn't need nuclear weaponry to protect ourselves from our fellow man anymore

If you are ever in a position where you are Jewish, or an Iraqi Shi'ite, or a Kurd, or a Christian in Sudan, or any minority in an environment like Germany in the 1930s or Arabia today, please remember to tell those who hate you that you would give food to their children. If they then stop trying to slaughter you and your people, I will admit that you are right.

But to be honest, I don't wish such a situation on you or anybody. And I am glad that there are military powers like the US and Britain that protect one half of the world from such scenarios.

Many people bet their freedom and their lives on the idea that one can appease evil. I recommend playing the lottery instead.

(Will you tell the children in Africa that we would rather give aid to those who hate us than to them, or will you?)

I think Andrew said it all.

Hey, I was bored!

I really don't like the idea of innocents being subject to the same fate of the military but you really have to look at this as a pissing contest. Mutually assured destruction is the only thing that kept the US and Russia from hitting the button.

Be it laser activated or fission activated, the only difference is whether the land is inhabitable 5 years or 30 years from now.

A cleaner nuclear weapon? Yes, I am all for what might protect me from the winds pushing a radioactive cloud into my back yard. That doesn't change the fact that I don't think we should use them.

A cleaner nuclear weapon?

I think the issue here, or at least what I perceive as one of them, is if we make nuclear weapons cleaner, will that mean we are more likely to use them?

if we make nuclear weapons cleaner, will that mean we are more likely to use them?

To do what? The US and UK can already quite cleanly carpet-bomb whole countries. Will they be more likely to kill millions just because it gets easier? I don't think so.

Traditionally it was western moral values that stopped the two western powers from killing as many as they could. Increasing or decreasing the number of the many won't change a thing.

And for the other side; if they are prepared to destroy, say, Jerusalem, they certainly won't mind the fallout. The Iranians know very well that when all the Jews are dead it would be the Arabs who would take over, so why would the Iranians care?

(Of course the Arabs are stupid enough to actually support those who would destroy the holy sites. They apparently hate the Jews more than they respect the place where they believe Mohammed left the earth.)