I dont like how smug he is about murdering 246,000 people.


246,000 people.

1. I don't think he was being smug at all. He even comments that he should have rethought his involvment after Germany was defeated.

2. He didn't murder anyone. People die in wars. If we label everyone who played a part in the death of an enemy during a war a murderer, there would be very, very few innocent people.

3. Yes, 246,000 people died, but that is a minuscule amount compared to the millions who would have died if the war didn't end when it did and the ~70 million who died in the war overall. Feynman bears no more blame for the deaths of the Second World War than anyone else.>> ^The_Ham:

I dont like how smug he is about murdering 246,000 people.

246,000 people.

@TheHam: Did you watch the entire video? I'm not sure what you saw that made you think he was being smug. He described the elation that the Los Alamos team felt upon the detonation over Hiroshima, as it was viewed at the time from a very isolated detached perspective. Upon further thought about the real implications of it's effect he grew very depressed. There's nothing smug there.

see 4:45

Any interview that features laughing, while waxing philosophic from your comfortable chair in Berkeley, CA, detailing how you made a device to murder people qualifies as smug in my book.

One could argue he thought he was making the device "just to scare the enemy" with thoughts of being murdered, but I dont buy that one of the smartest guys alive at the time had no concept of what he was doing.

Smug? I think you are not hearing things in the interview that contradict your belief.

He said that it was a stark contrast between the celebration in Los Alamos (for having succeeded in doing something that no one had done before) and people in Hiroshima suffering and dying. Later he felt that building things was a waste of time because the weapon that he had helped create would destroy civilization as it was. (Admittedly, the end part of the prior sentence is logical extension from the points at the end of his talk.)

If you listen, you will hear him say that he originally agreed to the project to defeat Germany (from him saying that he failed in reevaluating his reasoning to work on the project when the original reason was removed by defeating Germany.) ...Time 2:00 -> "But what I did immorally, I would say, was to not remember the reason that I said I was doing it. So when the reason changed, which was that Germany was defeated, not the singlest thought came into my mind at all about that. That that meant now that I have to reconsider why I'm continuing to do this. I simply didn't think."

People don't grieve or even accept responsibility in the same way. Because someone doesn't show the emotion that you expect them to have doesn't mean that they haven't had long nights and years having an internal battle about the personal responsibility for the situation.

I agree to The_Ham on this. This clip changed my opinion of Feynman from admiration to contempt.

Feynman was a motherfuckin genius.

*quality *doublepromote

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by gwiz665.

Double-Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Friday, September 9th, 2011 4:41pm PDT - doublepromote requested by gwiz665.

i'm not sure any of them really knew the implications of what they were doing. Dropping that bomb was also very much about the future war between capitalism and communism...between two schools of economic dominance. At the time, Soviet divisions in Europe outnumbered American by a staggering amount.

>> ^criticalthud:

i'm not sure any of them really knew the implications of what they were doing. Dropping that bomb was also very much about the future war between capitalism and communism...between two schools of economic dominance. At the time, Soviet divisions in Europe outnumbered American by a staggering amount.



Government: Dr. Feynman, we're going to need you to make a huge bomb.

Feynman: I wonder what the implications of making this huge bomb are? Oh well, der de derrrrr.

Wow, some very bad reads of Feynman here.

He just has a naturally smiling disposition that's about making a connection with the interviewer; but he's being gravely serious. He's even smiling when he mentions losing his wife for crying out loud. He's positively squirming about the moral implication of his involvement with the project; and even spells it out how he felt about it.

Wherever I see it, I always find the inability to empathise quite worrying.

Feynman says: 'We couldn't let the Nazis create nuclear bombs before us, but I nonetheless have enormous bad feelings about my part, and there are ways in which I behaved immorally.'

Pampered idiots reply: 'He's smug and I despise his rationalism!'

Feynman was brilliant. I don't doubt for a moment that he has had his own internal strife regarding his involvement in the project. Many of the scientists on the project were afflicted with a sort of tunnel vision as they focused on completing the job at hand, or felt that they had to get it done before the technology was used on them, only to later feel some version of guilt about their work. Feynman expresses his feelings about around 3:15 and goes on to say that he felt "that things were sort of doomed."

The only Manhattan Project scientist to leave the project was Józef Rotblat.

IN MARCH 1944 I experienced a disagreeable shock. At that time I was living with the Chadwicks in their house on the Mesa, before moving later to the "Big House;' the quarters for single scientists. General Leslie Groves, when visiting Los Alamos, frequently came to the Chadwicks for dinner and relaxed palaver. During one such conversation Groves said that, of course, the real purpose in making the bomb was to subdue the Soviets. [...] Remember, this was said at a time when thousands of Russians were dying every day on the Eastern Front, tying down the Germans and giving the Allies time to prepare for the landing on the continent of Europe. Until then I had thought that our work was to prevent a Nazi victory, and now I was told that the weapon we were preparing was intended for use against the people who were making extreme sacrifices for that very aim. [/reformation.org]

>> ^The_Ham:

>> ^criticalthud:
i'm not sure any of them really knew the implications of what they were doing. Dropping that bomb was also very much about the future war between capitalism and communism...between two schools of economic dominance. At the time, Soviet divisions in Europe outnumbered American by a staggering amount.


Government: Dr. Feynman, we're going to need you to make a huge bomb.
Feynman: I wonder what the implications of making this huge bomb are? Oh well, der de derrrrr.


Forgive me if I fail to pass judgment on this man, who has contributed so much to science.

just because he doesn't give you the emotional response you're looking for decades after the event you look down on the man? come on.....how many other soldiers, generals, etc were responsible for killing "the enemy" yet they are hero's. He mourns in his own way as he referenced. Please try and step down from your holier than thou chair.

Remember that he was only 27 years old (just) at the Trinity test, the end of the 6 year project. I find it hard to pin a whole lot of blame on a young man who was part of the team, but not the one who made the decision to deploy the devices, or how to deploy them.

truth is, we've all got blood on our hands by acting like a bunch of complacent sheep following 9/11.

I was taught that when Ive made a mistake, I need to take action to make things right, not get paid to do interviews about it.

First, if I had realized what I had done was wrong, I would have gone straight to the lab and pulled all the wires out of the thing, and destroyed the plans. He didnt.

Or...I would have been in Japan after the war ended, trying to help those who are still getting cancer from the mess I helped create. He didnt. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7917541)



Ive made plenty of "contributions to science", but you don't see anyone excusing me of war crimes

@The_Ham

Although I'm sure you would have loved life under Nazi or Soviet rule, as long as Feynman has contributed orders of magnitude more to humankind than you have, he doesn't have a lot to worry about from your throwing stones.

He would be in his nineties now if he was still with us. Richard Feynman was a great man.

>> ^The_Ham:

I dont like how smug he is about murdering 246,000 people.

246,000 people.


This one's for you The_Ham

>> ^The_Ham:

I was taught that when Ive made a mistake, I need to take action to make things right, not get paid to do interviews about it.
First, if I had realized what I had done was wrong, I would have gone straight to the lab and pulled all the wires out of the thing, and destroyed the plans. He didnt.
Or...I would have been in Japan after the war ended, trying to help those who are still getting cancer from the mess I helped create. He didnt. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7917541)

Ive made plenty of "contributions to science", but you don't see anyone excusing me of war crimes


Or... Or... I would have turned the sun into a continuous ray of joy that would shine down on everyone and stun them all into complacent happiness. And then I would call down my mighty unicorn stead and fly around throwing bagels of satisfaction to compliment the ray of joy.

Obviously that is silliness, but I feel the same way. When I read history books, I constantly find myself... well, simply ashamed of people not acting in the way I think they should have. I've heard that saying about "walking a mile in someone's shoes", but I think it is utter b.s. because the only thing that matters is what I think. I don't need to know what they were thinking at the time or the external forces involved, I want to judge based only on what I know right now and, damnit, no one is going to stop me. This is my right because no situation in the past is ever different from the situation that I am in right now. Other people don't seem to realize that and it is my burden to have to deal with those cretins. It is a solemn task to have to judge all of this past actions by everyone, but I feel it is my duty to do so because I am right.

I greatly admire Feynman, but on balance he did knowingly help to develop what was at the time the most powerful, most deadly weapon in history. All you guys who dismiss this because he made some great contributions to science need to think through the ethics some more. I'm sure there were Nazi scientists who made some great contributions as well.

Germans were great physicists; I sure there were some nobel laurettes working for Hitler. Am I supposed to dismiss a hypothetical Nazi Physicist's very efficient gas chamber design because he made some otherwise great scientific contributions? I am an admirer of german engineers, yet I can't bring myself to dismiss the way they used that talent to mechanize genocide.

Feyman is no angel, or a dark angel at best.

If I believed in hell, I would believe Feynman, despite his laudable scientific contributions, would burn in it. I'm sure there are alot of Japanese non-combatants that wouldn't mind.

Hmm. A lot of people seem to get *very* different reads on Feynman from watching this than I do.

I don't read him as "smug" at all. The smiling? Defense mechanism, I say. He felt regret for his part in developing the bomb, hopeful pleasure in the idea that perhaps dropping the two bombs on Japan represented a net savings in lives both among the Japanese and allied forces (an invasion would have been catastrophic), and the mish-mash of conflicting emotions makes even his incredibly gifted mind go into meltdown.

I personally don't think that any of the Manhattan Project scientists "deserved" to be blamed for deaths caused by the two bombs that were actually dropped "in anger", nor for the near-disasters of the Cold War, etc. etc. I don't think they should even have lost any sleep over their involvement in developing the weapons, but I expect that all of them did in spades.

I think a better (bit still rather unfair) place to start second-guessing things is either with President Truman for giving the executive orders, or the committee that suggested the targets of the bombs (which did include Oppenheimer and other Manhattan Project scientists along with military leaders). I have always wanted to think along the lines of:

What if we had dropped the first bomb in a remote forest, where there would have been hopefully little to no loss of human life but still plenty of evidence as to the destructive power and effective radius of the weapon? We could then have communicated with the Japanese, told them the area to inspect, and said "surrender or next time we drop the same thing somewhere that you're really not going to want us to."

Maybe that would have worked, but it is a dicey way to play the cards we had in our hand. The Japanese might have read it as a sign of weakness, it would have made for another delay before we could develop more bombs and hopefully end the war (although we already had to bluff that we had plenty to use if it came down to it), etc. So basically, now I am just glad that I have never had to and hopefully never will have to make a decision that has anywhere near the magnitude of those made by the people in charge of that whole situation. Second guessing them decades after the fact and with the benefit of hindsight and information that they didn't have access to seems rather crass.

@longde

So everyone who competently resists conquerors should go to hell? When Feynman joined the Manhattan Project, it was unknown whether fascist states like the Nazis, the Soviets, Mussolini, and the brutal Japanese empire would succeed in conquering the world.

What I don't understand is why, if we follow the consequences of your position, you appear to wish the Soviets developed nuclear weapons first.

The individuals criticizing Feynman are only able to live such mundane, unchallenged lives because genuine fascist states didn't succeed in conquering the world.

@chilaxe

At best Feynman is treading is a grey area. Despite any political justification of his position, he still is responsible for mass murder. For those that value life, this is an unshakable fact.

@longde

If you got your way and the Nazis, Soviets, Mussolini Fascists, and Imperial Japan had conquered the world, the death toll from WW2 would have been much higher than the already high 60 million.

@chilaxe

You're looking at this through an emotional and political lens, not an ethical one. Let's not revert to the Bush "either with me or against me" mentality.

Feynman got to play god and help to mass murder people. No matter what the justification, such brashness bothers me. Maybe these gods among men will one day decide I and my family can be justifiably murdered in order to 'save the world'.

The only "sock puppets" I see here are those who resort to name calling (instead of rational arguments) to defend this millionaire rockstar physicist.

He carried on banging hot chicks and writing best-selling books long after he murdered those people. Obviously that guilt really put a cramp in his style.



em>>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^The_Ham:
I dont like how smug he is about murdering 246,000 people.

246,000 people.

This one's for you The_Ham
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Sock Puppets on Videosift?
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written by <strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Boise_Lib
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A name for a sock puppet?

@votedem
@progressivevideo
@CaptainObvious
@Keanu_

Any other nominations?
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promote the creativity, planning abilities, and tech savvy of our resident puppets.
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I'm going to name mine choggie.
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This video was seriously horrible but I up-voted for the description. Nicely done.
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@longde

If action #1 causes 200 million deaths and action #2 causes 60 million deaths, most people prefer the action that causes fewer deaths. Your position is a fringe position.

If you regard as undesirable governments arbitrarily executing families, you'll be much safer in a modern democracy than in a nation conquered by Nazis or Soviets.

We knew the Nazis weren't pursuing Nuclear bombs because of defected scientists. Hitler thought of it as "Jew Science".

That's interesting... I wasn't aware of that. It seems Nazi policies and distaste for "Jew Science" greatly slowed their nuclear research down, but they were still making fast progress on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_energy_project

"In the late 1930s, Germany might very well have had a 5-year lead on the West in [atomic weaponry]. ... [But] Manhattan did go forward, first and foremost as a counter to the feared German development [of atomic weaponry]." Google Books: How to lose a War.

The following thread isn't a primary source, but it's enough to make me think more research would probably find similar conclusions to the commenters:

Germany was working on nuclear bombs and reactors. German scientists Hahn, Meitner and Stassmann discovered the nuclear chain reaction in uranium in 1939. One reason Albert Einstein wrote FDR lobbying for an all out effort to make an atomic bomb was he got letter from German friends saying we know how to make atomic explosions for Gods sake hurry up. Einstein got through to FDR and we know were this ended up. In Germany they put their best man in charge a theorist named Werner von Heisenberg...