daily reminder that john von neumann, smarter than me, you or anyone else here, recommended a first strike on the soviet union as the obvious strategy

maybe intelligence isn't the only thing

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Someone 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

He was not alone in that. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preventive_war#Case_for_preven....

One crucial difference is that they recommended that as the lesser of two evils, arguing it would be better to make the first strike before the USSR had a huge arsenal to strike back than to wait for an inevitable more devastating war.

So far, it seems they were wrong in thinking a nuclear war with the USSR was inevitable.

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sailfast 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can be certified genius in many areas but to assume that intelligence extends to all areas would be folly.

Game theory obvious? Maybe. Geopolitically? Human-wise? Doubtful.

I’m generally very suspicious of anything / anyone that recommended killing millions as the best option.

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Jerrrrrrrry 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Why didnt we bomb Moscow?"

The answer cannot be posted or discussed in earnest on the 'open' internet, but I think the answer is making itself more obvious every day.

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FrustratedMonky 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Who knows. At the time, maybe it would have stopped decades of cold war.

For thousands of years, the culture with the upper hand in technology has always wiped out everyone else. So when US had the bomb and USSR didn't, there was a short window to take over the world. Even more than the US did.

Maybe the US conspiracy theory people wouldn't mind a 'one world government' if that government was actually the US.

And unipolar worlds seem to be more peaceful than fragmented worlds. Fragmented worlds get WW1.

	▲	sailfast 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don’t think the US understood how far ahead the Russians were in bomb development at the time. There wasn’t really a good window where we had it and we knew they didn’t where the enmity was so bad that we would have wanted to strike first. The US also didn’t understand how much work had to be done to get their weapon onto an aircraft, etc - so the worst case scenario always turns out to be too bad to consider rationally (MAD)
	▲	DrScientist 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> Who knows Well we know he was wrong as his entire premise was based on war being inevitable - all the logic flows from that one wrong assumption. Also trying to take out supposed capabilities before they are built - doesn't mean the Russia people are suddenly freed from communism. ( cf Iran ). Also there is a premise that it's somehow a one off event. When in reality you'd have to constantly monitor and potentially constantly strike ( cf Iran ).
	▲	short_sells_poo 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Perhaps it was convenient for everyone involved to have an obvious enemy. Say the US wiped out the USSR... then what? Hegemonies are not known to work well without some bogeyman to conquer or rally against. The USSR was a very convenient enemy for the US, and vice versa.

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ReptileMan 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So did Patton. As an Eastern European - they should have listened to him. Communists were way bigger scourge on humanity than the Nazis.

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bertylicious 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Wow. When did HN become /pol?

	▲	ReptileMan 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Does it have to be /pol to be pissed off that one's country loses almost a century in its development due to communism and post communist transition period. Stalin killed more of its people than Hitler did. Mao's body count was bigger than probably all of the war casualties combined. And pol pot was the most charming communist of them all in relative terms. Oh and North Korea. Eastern Europe bore the brunt of the war's damage and was left for 50 year under the oppressive boot of the stupidest ideology the world has ever known. And poorly executed to boot.