[EDIT: please pretend that the poll is worded like this instead:

Do we need the nuclear deterrent?
Yes
No

! ]

I believe that nuclear weapons are horrific, and that the indiscriminate genocides of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong and unnecessary.

But I don't have enough faith in human nature to believe that if we all got rid of them, it wouldn't end up either with more World Wars, or with some nutters secretly developing them again and destroying their enemies. I see them now as a necessary evil, and now that they exist I think we may as well continue to hold the minimum warheads possible to ensure the deterrent remains.

CND and a lot of hippies disagree with me (I'm a hippy so don't take that sentence the wrong way!).

What do you think?

Why didn't you add more options to the poll? The way it is phrased makes it biased. It assumes that none of the potential voters is in favour of nuclear weapons. This is wrong. A better way to set the poll might have been:

What do you think of nuclear weapons?

1) They are useful for what they are (WMD) but can also be used in a positive way (Note: some people like to see big explosions and maybe love to destroy meteorites that may target the earth)

2) They are useful as a necessary evil (Note: scare tactics, Game Theories, the Cold War)

3) They are not useful at all but they may have some yet unidentified use in the future (Note: The technology developed on the current nuclear weapons e.g. the type of nuclear reaction of each warhead, the navigation system of the nuclear missiles etc can have purely pacifistic applications. Do not forget the impact of WWI and WWII on the development of modern airplanes and radars)

4) They are not useful and they are not likely to have any applications at all.

If it wheren't for nuclear wheapons, we would have had at least a few world wars more. History teaches us that especially military invasions in russia tend to end in great tragedy's for everybody involved. So that this has thus far has been prevented is definately a good thing. Especially if you are a men below the age of 50, because then you would inevitably have been send to the frontlines to get yourself fried and shredded for something of wich we now know, is totally useless; the fact that we didn't go to war with russia has proven to be not an economical, cultural and political disaster.

On the other hand it's not such a good thing that iran is building a bomb. The regime exists solely out of satan :evil: worshippers dressed up as muslims......They will use their nuclear device in some manner, in the most friendly scenario to extort the rest of the world.

Hopefully the young folks that aren't in fear or brainwashed will soon be putting a end to the religious nonsense. It may be tomorrow it may be 10years it may be 20. You cant put the Gennie back in the bottle. Iran, china, US well all got to open our eyes. I know communism is not a religion but it may as well be, I also know china was not what Marx had in mind.

MV

I guess I could have been less flippant. It should have read:

Do we need the nuclear deterrent?
Yes
No

You can't edit polls though, I've tried before So please just imagine that's what I wrote. I didn't want to overcomplicate things, and I didn't think anyone on here would think of them as better than a necessary evil (I admit I didn't think of their potential use for shooting meteors!). I was just interested in whether people think we should have a nuclear deterrent or not. Their other potential uses weren't interesting to me, but I can see now how someone may think we should retain nuclear weapons not as a deterrent but to shoot meteors. And I figured people could elaborate further with a comment if they wanted to.

If you would like to start a new poll with new questions, then I'll place a vote. But your categories muddy the waters too- if you want to go into it in detail, then for example I'd want to separate motives within categories, such as how in 1) you have people who just like blowing stuff up for fun voting the same as people wanting to use them to save humanity from meteors, etc.

A speech from a guy at "Ted talks".
In one part of the speech he talks about how we can use the nukes for energy.

http://www.youtube.com/w...amp;feature=channel_page

If you haven't heard of Ted talks, here's all of them=)

http://www.youtube.com/p...Director&view=videos

sorry i dont like to say this but people who voted for the first option are probably paranoids who live their life through a soviet russian attack or terrorist attacks. This is crap if you ask me what is necessary evil ? define it, stealing peoples oil ? attacking people because of their political view and killing 2 million civilians ? collapsing a country's economy and natural resources just for money, then grumbling about the worlds nature is dying 10 years after that?. to make your life better by simply ruining others lives ? yea go on you gonna win the prize.

Anyways mass destruction weapons are not necessary at all if u ask me, nowadays in our world a ICBMs can do no more than removing a 3rd world country from the world map or just polluting the planet coz everybody got laser deffences for such kinda stuff (SDI or whatever they call them). today the most fearfull weapons that we have are microwave weapons and such.

I see no need for human trying to kill each other. However if you think wars and killing people is necessary sumtimes at least show respect to the nature. we have a nice reality and we are ruining it with our hands. nobody guaranties theres another reality to be honest. once you loose your only reality there will also be no alternative realities such as we are all chasing. Nuclear tests just triggered a huge problem so called "global warming" on our planet. They were used 2 times in worlds history of wars, but there were hundereds of tests for them. remember every weapon needs to be tested but what you call nuclear deterrents (what an innocent name for such an evil) should not be tested or used at all. you are attacking to whole world and nature by this way. Why do i have to suffer coz some crazy monkies wanna fart from 5000 miles away ?

I think weapons are neither neccessary nor evil. They kill and I don't approve.

If I tried to kill you, would you defend yourself using your body as a weapon? Or just turn the other cheek and let me kill you? I'm genuinely curious.

If you attacked me, I would defend myself with proportionate force. I have a right to live, and you do not have a right to stop my life, so I do have a right to damage you in the process of defending my own body.

Corridors of my cells-
Obviously I don't want to kill anyone or wage any wars! I am a pacifist of sorts, in that I believe only in using the minimal violence necessary for self-defence. I do NOT believe in pre-emptive strikes. I'm talking about having a nuclear deterrent, not actually using it. The whole point of a deterrent is that it stops wars, not starts them. I believe that the Cold War would have been World War III if nuclear weapons had not forced the opposing two idiotic governments to moderate their actions. I am not paranoid. The bomb was dropped twice and killed millions. It was only dropped because the people it was dropped onto did not have the bombs themselves. If nuclear weapons were discarded by all countries, the we would be back in a pre-nuclear situation, and in this situation I do not think it is paranoid to be concerned that another fanatical nation would decide to use them against their enemies, knowing that the rest of the world was again relatively defenceless against them.

I started this thread because ban-the-bomb is the only traditional 'hippy' belief that I do not agree with. I actually want to be persuaded that I am wrong, but unfortunately I still haven't been.

Many people in the world are violent, egotistical, megalomaniac, paranoid, and think they should be on top. As long as there are such people weapons will always be necessary. Unfortunately some of those people have nuclear weapons.

However I do think nuclear weapons are the only reason there has not been another world war. Without them I bet the U.S. and Soviet Union would have duked it out and drawn Asia and Europe into the conflict. I really don't know for sure though.

If it the bomb was not dropped on Japan, Russia and the U.S. would have invaded. Japan would have been split the same way Germany was. This would have created even more tension between the superpowers of the time. If this would have been better or worse especially considering the massive loss of life from those bombs is something I cannot know.

The problem with nuclear weapons now is that the governments who own then are becoming less free and democratic like the U.S. which is becoming a police state. The second problem is that rouge groups could get a hold of them.

Personally I don't think nuclear weapons will ever go away. Some nations will always keep some hidden probing the ocean in submarines just in case. I don't think they need to go away either. I just think people need to get a handle on their militaristic governments and then there will be no more war.

We also may need them one day to ward off an asteroid or something.

tough question... but I think progress could be made on the subject... I forget the exact numbers, but I recall reading that if just 3 cities were on fire, that would cause nuclear holocaust so everybody loses... to me that means you shouldn't launch more than 2 nuclear weapons... also there are over 4x as many nuclear weapons in the world as there are cities. I would prefer a utopian world where we could work on the honour system, but the problem with that is that it only takes 1 party to break the rules, if everyone has weapons then there is a deterrent to use them... but I have to question just how many nuclear weapons does a country need, 2 maybe? seeing as 3 will kill you as well... personally I cant see a fair reason how humans can kill each other, it really depresses me, because wars are usually fought over humans horrible animal behaviour and not reasonably at all... I mean, it may sound silly, but I think we should be having robot wars by now, humans shouldn't be involved... but what we have at the moment is a disgusting thing, robots/bombs controlled by humans killing other humans... SWIM was in the vicintity of a violent explosion from a bomb and it's hard to imagine just how horrific it is, tv and film doesn't really portray it accurately...

extremely well said

I would protect my sentience at all cost, not quite sure how far I'd go with that, I mean maybe I would give up my own life to protect a loved one, or to save a lot of people maybe... but some people really forget this point, I think it's because they live far too privileged, sheltered lives... for example, I hate to say it, but a lot of these big terror events are done as an act of revenge and a lot of people seem to just totally disregard this... it's probably caused by ignorance, xenophobia and lack of empathy... though it still surprises me in today's day and age.

I think the united states nuking 2 Japanese cities was an atrocious demonstration of force, I mean it's obvious, even if it caused them to surrender, it was excessive.

We must have world peace before nukes can be got rid of.... I'm an idealist but I do foresee a future where humans finally resolve their issues and learn to work together... the difference between what humans can do and what they actually do is enormous. I love the American ideal of freedom, liberty and justice for all... but that should true for all humans not just some of them.

ok i agree that you have to defend urself whatever it takes. but not with nuclear stuff. Forget about how many ppl u drop that shit on, im talkin about global effects. if somebody didnt drop that bomb on Japans may be noone else would bother this much to make nukes to defend their country against this somebody who is nuking people. or may be they would, but who cares!. looking from one side of the coin or other side is easy but when u are not a part of any country having nuke and getting effected by its effects. loosing ur hope from future seing global warming and potential problems it can cause, only then u could understand that we dont need nuclear deterrents, because there are much better ways of defending a country and as i stated before a nuke is goin nowhere else than explodin in the air anymore. Because most countries who have nuclear threat are having necessary defence systems. So dont try to be persuaded you are wrong, coz u can never be persuaded my friend.

I believe nothing positive can come from something that is so harmful and negative. Nothing beautiful can come from something that induces so much suffering. *Peace*


Much Peace Always........