Asklemmy

43942 readers

522 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

What other actions were scientists so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 months ago by lemuria@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 42 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Alfred Nobel, the originator of the Nobel prize, invented dynamite believing mutually assured destruction would end war.

[–] napoleonsdumbcousin@feddit.de 38 points 4 months ago

Your comment is only technically correct, so I am gonna add to that:

Alfred Nobel did invent dynamite and was also a believer in mutually assured destruction, BUT: those two facts are not directly connected.

Dynamite in itself was not intended for warfare, but for mining. It was still relatively unstable so not really suited for warfare. (TNT, which came around 1900, solved that problem.)

Nobel did invent smokeless powder for warfare and he transformed Bofors into an arms manufacturing company though.

https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-thoughts-about-war-and-peace/

[–] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 33 points 4 months ago (2 children)

To be fair, mutually assured destruction likely will end war but maybe not in the way we hope.

[–] milkisklim@lemm.ee 12 points 4 months ago

To be fair, it has been holding off nuclear war since 1949.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 4 months ago

That assumes that you believe that the world would be a safer place if only one nation had nuclear weapons. I would imagine that would be the least safe of all possible scenarios.

If everyone has nuclear weapons at least there is the possibility they will never be used. If they are used it basically ensures the end of the world so, swings and roundabouts.