Or maybe on first hand experience with communism.
Von Neumann's remarks also took place in an era before we allowed the Soviets to arm themselves to the degree that they posed a serious nuclear threat to the United States. The pop culture notion that a nuclear war between the US and Soviet Union would entail both sides completely eliminating each other in the first day of hostilities was arguably never completely accurate, but especially in the early 1950's it was not even close to true. Again, we know from hindsight that allowing the Soviet Union to build a massive arsenal of ICBM's and hydrogen bombs (neither of which they had in the early 1950's) didn't lead to them actually using those weapons against us, but that was arguably an extremely lucky break for us and from von Neumann's perspective, eliminating that threat before it manifested wasn't a totally unreasonable option.
Instead it turned out that the entire free world spent the next half century living in absolute terror of nuclear war, followed by the extremely happy surprise of the Soviet Union completely disintegrating between 1989 and 1991. Again, this was a really lucky break. And it was also a lucky break that the massive Soviet nuclear arsenal stayed under the control of a sane, democratic Russian government that never reverted to authoritarianism or corruption and developed strong institutions to ensure that those weapons could never fall into the wrong hands. We'd be in for a really rough future if that arsenal ended up in the hands of a corrupt dictator who consolidated power to the point of eliminating any possible succession plan, thus guaranteeing a massive crisis when he inevitably died of old age.
If you're going to be a corrupt dictator, that perceived dead man's switch of succession chaos is a good way to die of old age?
The question (that we know the answer to as well) during that period is if they would pull the trigger, and from a few parties involved, they would have. Neumann was right in my opinion, and the Communists of the world at the time were absolutely a hazard to humanity, at the very least the humanity that lived in North America.
I truly think the only reason why we are here today is MAD.
Actually, Von Neumann coined and pushed for mutually-assured destruction, so it didn't matter if it wasn't in popular culture; He himself was possibly the most familiar with the concept of anyone. So it's not correct that he made these comments without proper context. He was wrong to be violently anti-communist, but MAD ended up being a crucial doctrine.
Just because you lack the requisite imagination and intellect doesn’t mean those who aren’t similarly limited are ‘evil’.
As an example, it is within the realm of possibility that Israel or the United States use nukes on Iran, and there would be pretty strong logical/rational justifications for doing so.
It's pretty simple: If State A peddles a religion that promotes the extermination of all non-believers of said religion, and if State A itself claims that State B has no right to exist and ought to be wiped off the face of the earth (and indeed that State B will do what it can to make sure that State A is wiped off the face of the earth) out of principle, then State B has every logical and reasonable right to take action against State A before State A can destroy State B. It's really quite simple. Mankind isn't one big brotherhood, and modern global civilisation is in many respects a zero sum affair. It is absolutely rational for stronger powers to eliminate weaker powers whose stated goals are to eventually destroy those stronger powers. It's really just a form of self-defence. The notion of 'innocent people dying' is something you've made up in your head as relevant when that just isn't part of contemplating an existential threat.
Obviously people like you might find that offensive, but that doesn't affect the calculus lol.
peace.
Just don't try to paint it as some enlightened "rational" higher form of thought, as if trying to find peaceful solutions is somehow stupid. Just revel in the hate, and show everyone that you are exactly the same as those you pretend to be against.
>As an example, it is within the realm of possibility that Israel or the United States use nukes on Iran, and there would be pretty strong logical/rational justifications for doing so.
Iran has promoted hostile rhetoric against Israel since the latter's inception as a state (with a brief thawing of relations during the Shah's time in power). You could reasonably say that its anti-Israeli stance is one of the two fundamental foreign policy positions of Iran, alongside containing the expansion of Saudi influence in the region.
Despite this (and despite having nearly 10x the population), Iran's ability to project power anywhere beyond its immediate borders has been limited to funding Islamic fundamentalist proxy groups. They have no functional nuclear weapons, and no capability to target Israel with a conventional land or sea attack. A real threat to Israel's sovereignty is neither credible nor imminent enough to warrant an Israeli preemptive nuclear strike (assuming such a justification can exist, as you're suggesting).
It's undeniable that the Soviet Union perceived the US to be an existential threat to its sovereignty. For some reason though, I find it unlikely that you would describe a preemptive Soviet nuclear strike on the US as "rational and reasonable" from their perspective, despite fulfilling many of the same criteria as your example: a hostile power outside of reach of a conventional attack, whose foreign policy is molded around precipitating your failure as a state (with the added qualification that such a power could actually deliver on this goal in a tangible way).
With an "imagination" like that, we can do nothing more than hope you're far from the reins of power.
That's completely different from a case of, say, Israel preemptively nuking Iran to protect itself - permanently - from an Iran that is both actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons for itself and has on many occasions made clear that it will use them to wipe Israel off the face of the earth once it gets them.
Those are not at all similar situations, if it isn't obvious.
You guys can try to play dumb mind games with this but it turns out there aren't any true blanket statements about morality and what's evil and that ultimately the rational and realistic choices (viz., those made in self-defence) are apt to offend many of you funny people.
Peace.