Vaniver comments on Rationality Quotes September 2013 - Less Wrong

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

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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.