TobyBartels comments on Rationality Quotes September 2013 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Vaniver 04 September 2013 05:02AM

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Comment author: TobyBartels 17 September 2013 12:03:07AM 0 points [-]

I read that, amongst other WP articles, while researching my comment. That one doesn't even attempt to explain the reasons for dropping the second bomb. (The quotation from the comedian is not meant to be an argument either.)

Comment author: Vaniver 17 September 2013 12:33:21AM *  7 points [-]

This section seems relevant:

At first, some refused to believe the United States had built an atomic bomb. The Japanese Army and Navy had their own independent atomic-bomb programs and therefore the Japanese understood enough to know how very difficult building it would be.[74] Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, argued that even if the United States had made one, they could not have many more.[75] American strategists, having anticipated a reaction like Toyoda's, planned to drop a second bomb shortly after the first, to convince the Japanese that the U.S. had a large supply.[59][76]

Emphasis mine.

Comment author: TobyBartels 17 September 2013 03:03:09AM 4 points [-]

OK, thanks, I must have missed that anticipating the immediately following section.

Looking over my posts, I see that I may have given the impression that I doubted that there was any rational argument in favour of dropping the second bomb. I only meant to say that I didn't know one, because the discussion (here and elsewhere) always seems to focus on the first one.

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